Monumental urban space and national identity: the early twentieth century new plan of Thessaloniki

This paper is a contribution to the study of the ideological production of urban space through the analysis of the meaningful structure of the early-20th-century new plan of the city of Thessaloniki, Greece, and an examination of the ideological function of the plan for its producers as well as for the Greek public. The plan was prepared by a team led by the French architect Ernest Hébrard working in close connection with Greek government officials. It was partially implemented, and has been considered the first major urban intervention in Europe after World War I. The paper combines a historical geographical perspective with insights from the theory and methodology of semiotics. Through a holistic and meticulous analysis of the plan, its urban, aesthetic, nationalist and orientalist aspects are retraced and compared to the identity notions of the Greek politicians and the public.     

Sports, ‘race’ and the Finnish national identity in Helsingin Sanomat in the early twentieth century

The main goals of this article are first to examine through Olympic sports journalism what hierarchies and categorisations of the global space and the people populating it were considered important to the national imagery in Finland at the beginning of the twentieth century and, secondly, to assess how the notion of race was intertwined with these categorisations. Sports journalism played an important role in Finland by constructing and legitimising a national imagery and by providing accounts of other races, cultures and nationalities that were considered ‘different’ from ‘us’. The article concludes that sports journalism at that time employed three major discursive practices that were aimed at constructing an image of a white, Western and Finnish nation living in the north. The ‘others’ were placed in a hierarchy, in which their position was determined by their racial background and assumed similarities/differences in appearance and behaviour as compared with Finnish males.     

Social eugenics and nationalist race hygiene in early twentieth century Spain

In the twentieth century, the UN Declaration of 1948 is considered to be the international standard for universal human rights. In 1791, Olympe de Gouges critically analysed the French Declaration of Human Rights of 1789, and found that women were excluded from it.¹ This paper is a critical examination of the 1948 UN Declaration, with equally troubling findings.     

Race,state and nation in early twentieth century Ecuador*

ABSTRACT. This article aims to explore the ways in which the tensions involved in nation‐building and state consolidation during the half‐century following the Liberal Revolution of 1895 in Ecuador were refracted through the locus of race and the manipulation of racial ideologies. It centres the state as the primary motor of nation‐building and racialisation, arguing that nation‐building and state formation in Ecuador operated in close conjunction, and that race was central to each. Through case studies of citizenship, education and the integration of territory and resources, it explores how state discourse and policy shaped the racial boundaries of national inclusion, and how these were negotiated and contested by subalterns at the level of the state.     

Economic fears of mass migration from southern Italy in early twentieth century America

ABSTRACT

Economic fears in the early twentieth century America about Italian immigration united trade unions and white collar workers and were motivated by reasons that ranged from the belief that migrants were disrupting the labour market and were temporary opportunist earners, unwilling to integrate and living in isolated communities, to the idea that southern Italians did not offer sufficient human capital: they were mainly illiterate, and had high dropout rates in schools, and were widely believed to have children with mental disabilities. These American fears were wildly overstated, however. First, Southern Italian migrants had to undergo a two-stage positive selection for literacy, while, secondly only 28.4 per cent of the massive incoming flow of Italians decided to stay; most Italian immigrants chose to return to their country of origin and the minority who remained did not delay long to join in the American melting pot.     

Skeletal biology in the twentieth century: From Piltdown to the present

Spencer, Frank. The Piltdown Papers 1908–1955. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. xii + 282 pp. including references and name and subject indices. $65.00 cloth

Spencer, Frank. Piltdown: A Scientific Forgery. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. xxvi + 272 pp. including references and name and subject indices. $24.95 cloth

I?can, Mehmet ?a?ar, and Kenneth A.R. Kennedy, eds. Reconstruction of Life from the Skeleton. New York: Alan R. Liss, 1989. xv + 315 pp. including chapter references and index. $49.50 cloth.