Cultures of Incomprehension?: The Legacy of the Two Cultures Debate at the End of the Twentieth Century

This paper considers the impact of Snow's Two Culture's thesis on debates about the place of science and scientists in society in the latter part of the twentieth century. Debates concerned with the public understanding of science and the ‘science wars’, both of which relied to some extent on the dividing of society into ‘two cultures’, are contextualised within longer efforts by scientists to popularise definitions of science and society and their relationship with other epistemic communities. This paper argues that we should think about all these episodes as part of ongoing rhetorical boundary work, reflective of strains and stressors on science as an institution. The two cultures debate has provided one powerful rhetorical device, amongst many, for ongoing boundary work to establish or question science as the dominant form of knowledge in society and delineate who is allowed to speak for it, and wield its power.     

Revisionism in the Twentieth Century: A Bankrupt Concept or Permanent Practice?

Written in the wake of a critical incident which the author considers worrying and yet characteristic of the times we live in, this article contends that the conflation heretofore evident between critical historical thinking (revisionism) and negationism is ultimately harmful to the historical discipline since it can serve the interests of the deniers and indirectly grant an argument to radical postmodernists who demote history to a loosely constructed form of personal fiction. On the other hand, it also eschews the belief in historical scholarship as an immiscible category demarcated by impenetrable boundaries, which is habitually associated with empirical positivism. Furthermore, it argues strongly for the introduction of a diachronic perspective in the study of revisionism not only to show the steady process of professionalization of the discipline but to disclose an often neglected or denied aspect: its contribution to the evolution of philosophical thought.     

Wars as Dividing Lines? Rethinking the Significance of the Sino-Japanese War in Twentieth Century China

Historical periodization frequently takes wars as turning points—as ruptures that signify the end or beginning of an era. At the same time, front lines have often been taken as boundaries that contain the activities of one side or the other. Thus, discontinuity and disjuncture rather than continuity and fluidity have often been the points of emphasis among historians who have taken war events as turning points, or who have seen lines of combat as impermeable. A new focus on the Sino-Japanese War period has begun to reveal ways in which that moment served not as an interruption but as a part of longer term processes of change and development that characterized China’s mid-twentieth century. It also permits us to gain a deeper understanding of the fluidity of human movement and socio-economic interaction that frequently crossed both political and military boundaries and to think about similarities, linkages, and differences between various Chinese spaces. The aim of this paper is to consider ways in which the new generation of scholarship on the Sino-Japanese War period offers new ways of thinking about continuity, change, similarity and difference across both temporal and physical boundaries that have served as the parameters for much of the earlier scholarship on the period. To this end, the paper examines recent literature on the Sino-Japanese War period, as well as literature that crosses that period, to examine ways in which this historiography has challenged conventional periodizations and political and geographical delineations.     

Writing Veterans’ History: A Conversation on the Twentieth Century

This article is a conversation between five specialists of veterans’ history on the current direction of the field and its importance to the study of war and society. The discussants offer an an overview of current methodologies, definitions and historiographical approaches. Concentrating on the experiences of twentieth-century veterans (particularly after 1945) and using a diverse range of case studies from across the world, this article also asks what connections bound veteran communities together, and how we as historians might conceptualise veterans: as a class, as a collective, or as a far looser grouping of individuals? Finally, this article explores what distinguishes veteranhood after 1945 and the evolving relationship between veterans and the memory of conflict.     

Civilizing the “Uncivilized”: The Fight against Tuberculosis in Northern Norway at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century

Abstract

The anti-tuberculosis campaign conducted in Finnmark, north Norway, between 1914 and the Second World War was informed by shifting scientific, social and ethnic notions pertaining to the disease itself, the region of Finnmark, and its population. This article focuses on how the Sámi were represented by the medical establishment, how that image of the Sámi influenced the form and the content of the fight against the disease, and how the anti-tuberculosis campaign was connected to the state minority policy of the period. The understanding of tuberculosis and the ways of combating it underwent several changes during the period, particularly during the economic crisis of the 1920s and 1930s. The initial emphasis on the role of culture, more specifically ethnicity and language, was gradually replaced by a more medicalized focus in the fight against the disease. As the notion of tuberculosis as a disease of civilization was replaced by an understanding of the disease as an infectious one, on a par with other infectious diseases, the earlier strategy of civilizing the “uncivilized” Sámi in order to protect them from tuberculosis was replaced by a more epidemiological approach in tuberculosis prevention.     

‘A Stronger Man and a More Virile Character’: Australian Prime Ministers,Embodied Manhood and Political Authority in the Early Twentieth Century

In 1907 Andrew Fisher was evaluated as a ‘stronger man … and more virile character’ and therefore a better Australian Labor Party leader than Chris Watson. A key aspect of this assessment was his embodiment of respectable working-class manliness. One particularly overlooked aspect in the process of making men visible as men in Australian political history has been the male bodies of political leaders. This article offers the first systematic examination of the bodily practices and strategies of Alfred Deakin, George Reid and Andrew Fisher, three key players in the early formation of a two-party system in the decade following Federation. I seek to alter our understanding of political authority in the early federal period by examining how political contests played out using manhood – specifically, embodied manhood – as a key marker of political legitimacy.     

Defining the Aesthetics of the Nyonyas’ Batik Sarongs in the Straits Settlements,Late Nineteenth to Early Twentieth Century

The Javanese way of decorating textiles using batik techniques was popular among the Peranakan in the Malay Archipelago, largely because the range of batiks produced by the Javanese Peranakan incorporated Chinese aesthetics. A whole new range of batik, known as Batik Peranakan or Batik Cina (Chinese Batik) was produced for a largely Peranakan Chinese market, including the Straits Chinese in the former British Straits Settlements. This paper examines the Peranakan Chinese aesthetic values that are revealed in these batiks, focusing on three different aspects – motifs, colour schemes and applications. Examination of the batik sarongs worn by the Straits Chinese women, or Nyonyas, however, shows different criteria in relation to these three aspects. The differences in aesthetic values made the batik sarongs used by the Nyonyas in the former Straits unique, and showcased their distinct identity.     

Folk Narrative Research in Wales at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century: The Influence of John Rhŷs (1840–1916)

Although published at the beginning of the twentieth century, John Rh?s's work on folklore remains an important source for the study of Welsh folk narrative. There exists, however, no overall assessment of his contribution, his concept of folk narrative, his sources, or his interpretation of his material either in terms of Welsh culture or in the wider context of folklore theory, then and now. This paper is intended as a platform from which some of those concerns can be addressed by bringing together primary material relating to Rh?s's folklore interests. Some of his letters at The National Library of Wales, plus material in the Archives of The Folklore Society and in the collection of the Bodleian and Taylorian Libraries at Oxford, can help to clarify Rh?s's interest in folk studies. These sources also indicate how his interest in language, archaeology, and folklore overlapped, and how these interests affected his attitudes to folklore and its uses.     

Demographic Disequilibrium in Early Twentieth Century Thailand: Falling Mortality, Rising Fertility, or Both?

Estimates of Thai crude birth and death rates date from 1920 when the former was around 20 per thousand higher than the latter, implying natural increase of 2 percent per annum. Such disequilibrium cannot have been the norm over the long term historical past, when population growth must have been comparatively slow. This paper explores the bases for likely past relative equilibrium between Siamese birth and death rates, then seeks to explain the disequilibrium apparent by 1920. Classic demographic transition theory postulates initially high birth and death rates, this equilibrium eventually being broken by falling mortality. In Thailand, however, there is likely to have been both significant mortality decline and appreciable fertility increase after 1850, as the virtual elimination of indigenous warfare, rapid growth of the export rice economy and the demise of slavery and corvée labour created a new domestic environment. Characterized by more dispersed, often frontier, settlement, this environment was unprecedentedly sedate and settled, afforded ordinary households a previously unknown level of control over their resources of labour, and generated optimism about prospects for the next generation.     

What He Thought…What He Did: An Archaeological Study of the Persian Gulf Coasts Colonial Sites of Sheikh Khazal Khan in the Early Twentieth Century

Iranian colonial sites on Persian Gulf coasts include eighteenth-century Portuguese fortresses and graveyards on the islands of Hormoz and Qeshm and twentieth-century British colonial missions in southern Iran and Kuwait. Sheikh Khazal Khan, an Iranian Arab, who lived in the early twentieth century, ruled Khuzestan and counseled the governors of Kuwait. He also apparently worked as Great Britain’s political dependent in the region at least from 1890s. He constructed five palaces on the shores of southwestern Iran and two in Kuwait. The author excavated these sites in 2008. Khazal’s identity is a problematic subject in contemporary Iranian history. He is judged variously as a spy (for most Iranians) and as a hero (for Pan-Arabs). Introducing Khazal Khan’s Persian Gulf coastal architectural data, this essay explains the context in which these colonial architectural units were constructed. The patterns of this colonial process are used to interpret Khazal’s identity, based on the material culture of the era.     

Cordiform Maps since the Sixteenth Century: The Legacy of Nineteenth‐Century Classificatory Systems

The heart‐shaped, or cordiform, maps of the sixteenth century, including those by Oronce Fine, Peter Apian and Gerard Mercator, have long intrigued historians. Most writers have considered the heart shape a product only of mathematics, but some have recently offered other interpretations for the use of the heart. A classificatory system devised by d'Avezac in 1863, however, has impeded our understanding of the cordiform map, particularly in the matter of what is considered to be such a map. The nature of his classification and its reception by other writers since the late nineteenth century are examined in order to elucidate new directions for the study of the use of the heart shape in sixteenth‐century cartography.     

Ano te mahara e reka,how sweet the memory: The changing remembrance of Bishop Jean-Baptiste François Pompallier in the Twentieth Century*

In 2001, Catholic pilgrims, led by Māori priest Henare Tate, travelled to France to exhume the remains of Jean-Baptiste François Pompallier (1821–1872), the first Catholic Bishop of Aotearoa New Zealand. Placed in a lead-lined coffin, the remains were taken back to New Zealand and laid to rest in Motuti, Hokianga. The interment — 131 years after Pompallier's death — marked the end of an extraordinary renovation of the Bishop as a historical figure, shaped by the tides of Māori and non-Māori Catholic life, and fulfilling, it seemed, a sentiment expressed in this memorial song which Pompallier himself had composed as a parting gift to his Katorika (Catholic) faithful: “Ano te mahara e reka/a ki nga motu o Nuitireni i/sweet is the memory I hold/for the islands of New Zealand.” This article explores the shifting remembrance of Pompallier that underpinned the repatriation and its legacy for New Zealand Catholic communities, especially Hokianga Māori. Three interrelated themes emerge: locally, Hokianga as a foundational place of Māori Catholicism, and the institutional remembrance of Pompallier as the apostolic Bishop of Auckland; and, globally, the reshaping of collective memories in the theological and social changes of the Catholic Church.