The A-Bomb Controversy at the National Air and Space Museum

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1947, Linenthal earned his bachelor's degree in religious studies at Western Michigan University, his master's degree in divinity at the Pacific School of Religion, and his Ph.D. in religious studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is Professor of Religion and American Culture at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh. His books include: Symbolic Defense: The Cultural Significance of the Strategic Defense Initiative (1989); Sacred Ground: Americans and their Battlefields (2nd edition, 1993); Preserving Memory: The Struggle to Create America's Holocaust Museum (1995); American Sacred Space (co-editor, 1995). He is writing a history of the A-Bomb controversy that will appear in a book to be published in 1996. Linenthal has often lectured about controversial historic sites for National Park Service staff. At the USS Arizona Memorial, Linenthal delivered a commemorative address on 7 December 1994, on the 53rd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Linenthal and his wife, with their two sons, reside in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Linenthal was the only historian to testify before the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration about the National Air and Space Museum's ill-fated exhibit, “The Last Act: The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II.” What follows is Linenthal's Senate statement and comments he has written for The Historian.     

海牙 这些地方比国际法庭有趣一百倍

提到荷兰海牙,大多数人的脑海中除了国际法庭之外就是一片空白,真正来到这里小住几日,才发现这里有更多地方比国际法庭更值得看也更有趣,比如莫里茨皇家美术馆,比如席凡宁根海滩。当然,绑住我和海牙之间记忆的,还有新鲜实惠的海鲜,以及正宗到让人连吃了3顿的酸汤肥牛。国际法庭？我才没时间去。     

Getting Climate Policy on Track after The Hague

In November 2000, the Sixth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP-6) ended in disarray and recrimination. The objective of the meeting was to agree on the details of the definitions and rules underlying the Kyoto Protocol negotiated in 1997. Unfortunately, the issues at stake were not small ones but points of principle and substance on which agreement had previously proved impossible, not only in Kyoto but in the negotiating sessions that followed. COP-6 is to be reconvened in July 2001 in the hope of resolving the differences, but the outlook is not favourable because positions appear to remain far apart. As a result, it is not clear what directions the international negotiations might take next. This article explores various paths, and draws the conclusion that several years may be required before a necessary revision of the Kyoto rules and targets can be undertaken. In the interim, progress on climate issues should not stop, and the authors suggest a set of efforts to be pursued, even while the search for a common global response continues. These efforts include pursuing domestic action to reduce emissions, maintaining activities already begun under the Framework Convention, and, in as much as possible, seeking agreement on consistent accounting rules.     

Callaghan,the British Government and the N-Bomb Controversy

The essay focuses on the ERW controversy in the context of NATO modernisation of tactical nuclear weapons and Soviet deployment of SS-20s. The rationale of a low-yield warhead supposedly tailor-made for the European theatre enabled the Americans to ask their allies for a prior commitment on deployment, while the Europeans retorted that the process of decision making should be triggered by a US previous determination of whether to produce the neutron bomb. Consultations were essentially a FRG-US-UK affair. Against this background British inability to properly assess the genuine German position was a very important factor, resulting in a persistent climate of uncertainty. Bonn's decision not to inform the British that on 20 January 1978 they agreed to give the Americans a qualified green light to deploy ERWs on German soil represents a blunder in this sense. It kept the UK government wary, instead of possibly precipitating a solution of the controversy by hammering out the terms of an arms control offer to the Soviets according to a ‘dual track’ approach.     

The Political Importance of Provincial Newspapers, 1903-1945: The Rowntrees and the Liberal Press

This article argues that the political importance of provincialnewspapers run by the Rowntree family in the Liberal cause declinedbetween 1903 and 1945. This decline is identified in changingattitudes to the funding of newspapers, and in the reasons forthose changes. Before the Second World War the Rowntrees consideredsubsidies to provincial newspapers vital, to keep the pressat the forefront of partisan campaigning, until at last it beganto pay its way. Yet such newspapers' eventually strong financescontrasted with their political weakness, as they appeared helplessto prevent the Liberal Party's electoral decline. After 1945the Rowntrees, in contrast to their earlier strategy, no longerconsidered the funding of newspapers a priority. Instead, theytargeted money directly at the strengthening of the LiberalParty, both in Parliament and in the party organization, insteadof at the press. This switch of strategy was the earliest exampleof a wider Liberal emphasis, from the 1940s, on improving parliamentaryrecruitment and party organization. The fading political importanceof the Rowntrees' newspapers and of the wider Liberal presswould lead to loss-making Liberal papers closing, while survivingones ceased to support the Liberal Party. Instead, the Liberalscame to depend on television and community politics.     

张之洞与1903年江阴陆海军联合演习

1903年,署理两江总督张之洞调集湖北、江苏陆军及南、北洋海军在江阴炮台举行了一次跨区域、跨军种的军事演习,这既是其军事改革理念使然,也是为了树立湖北新军威望、推广湖北练兵模式。在筹划阶段,张之洞选定江阴炮台为演习地点,致电各方商定参演部队、演习方案,并聘请在华的德国军官和日本军官提供协助。日本为刺探中国军事情报,积极派遣海军军官担任演习审判官。2月14日至15日,在江阴集结的陆海军按照预定方案分编为东、西两军,开展了为期两天的水陆攻防演习。江阴陆海军联合演习对张之洞本人、江鄂两省军事局面及地方督抚的练兵决策均有直接影响,推动了清末新政初期的军事改革进程。     

Animal Electricity at the End of the Eighteenth Century: The Many Facets of a Great Scientific Controversy

In the 1790s, Luigi Galvani and Alessandro Volta were the main protagonists of a lively debate on the role of electricity in animal organisms. Significant developments originated from this debate, leading to the foundation of two new disciplines, electrodynamics and electrophysiology, that were to play a crucial role in the scientific and technological progress of the last two centuries. The Galvani-Volta controversy has been repeatedly reconstructed, sometimes in an attempt to identify the merits and the errors of one or the other of the two protagonists, sometimes with the aim of demonstrating that the theories elaborated by the two Italian scholars were irreconcilable, reflecting completely different ways of looking at phenomena and conceiving of scientific research. In this article a different interpretation is offered, based on a discussion of the scientific issues that were central to Galvani's and Volta's research, and with reference to the context of science and society of the eighteenth century.     

资源保护和自然保护的首度交锋--20世纪初美国赫奇赫奇争论及其影响

赫奇赫奇是加州约瑟米蒂国家公园内的一个美丽小山谷。20世纪初,关于是否在此建立大坝,美国人展开了一场激烈争论。这场争论也是两种不同自然保护哲学之间的首度交锋。以平肖为首的资源保护主义者和以缪尔为首的自然保护主义者针锋相对,前者支持大坝的建立,后者捍卫山谷的完整和自然状态。争论最终以前者的胜利而结束。这场争论对自然保护哲学的发展,对此后的荒野保护以及环保运动的发展有着深远的影响。     

第一次世界大战初期的美英伦敦宣言之争

第一次世界大战爆发后,美国宣布中立。为了把美国的贸易建立在有利的法律基础上,美国提议各交战国接受在国际法史上具有特殊地位的伦敦海战法宣言。同盟国乐意接受,协约国内部听从于英国的海上政策。因此围绕美国的提议主要在美英之间展开了争论。由于伦敦宣言有利于中立贸易和同盟国,限制了英国在海上展开经济战的能力,英国最终在实质上没有作出让步;而美国由于经济、政治、外交和观念诸方面的原因,最终于1914年10月22日撤消提议。这场争论既决定了美国此后的“中立”特征,也不利于中立国运用中立权利的法律武器反对交战的大海军国的海上霸权。     

孟德斯鸠对“礼仪之争”的解读

礼仪之争传入欧洲后,引起法国知识菁英的广泛关注。孟德斯鸠至迟自1713年起就关注礼仪之争,但他并不介入其中,而是冷眼旁观。他阅读了当时有关中国的绝大多数主要著作,还曾与来自中国的黄嘉略和自中国返回欧洲的傅圣泽进行长谈,从阅读和谈话中汲取了大量的信息,作出了对礼仪之争的解读。他认为,礼仪之争是一场无谓的争论,基督教在中国受挫是必然的结果,他独具特色的中国观在此基础上形成。他对中国持冷峻的态度,褒贬兼具,既肯定中国的某些优点,更严厉斥责中国的种种弊端,并断然将中国定性为专制主义。