Archaeology,Ethno‐history and Oral Traditions: Approaches to the Indigenous Past

Indigenous groups across the world are actively looking to maintain or rediscover their past. Many historians and archaeologists are sympathetic to their quest. As a result different ways of narrating the past are in action: oral tradition, ethno‐history and archaeology.

In the following the potential of each approach is discussed. In particular the possibility for collaboration between indigenous approaches and academic disciplines is evaluated. The focus is on the interpretative narrative, rather than on cultural heritage management. It is argued that we need multivocality as well as collaboration and integration of narratives.     

Learning from history? From Soviet collapse to the ‘new’ Cold War

Many moments in what we now rather lamely call the ‘end of the Cold War’ have been examined in detail. However, within the extraordinarily rich literature that has arisen over the past 25 years, little attention has been paid thus far to one very important problem: the part played by ‘history’ in shaping the way different actors tried to make sense of what was going on around them in a time of rapid transition.     

Biography without history?

Kevin Perkins: Menzies: Last of the Queen's Men, Rigby, Adelaide, 1968, pp. 264, $5.50.     

Does a turbulent history lead to turbulent life expectancy trends? Evidence from the Baltic States

After the time of the Great Duchy of Lithuania and that of their inclusion to Russian Empire, the three Baltic countries got their first independence after WWI, but WWII forced them to enter the Soviet Union for almost five decades before getting their second independence and resuming with market economy, to finally join the European Union. Such strong historical changes caused major impacts (either positive or negative) on the implementation of the health transition in the region, quite interesting to document, but they also produced dramatic changes in the quality and the accuracy of information required to compute mortality indicators. The aim of this article is to briefly summarize existing knowledge on mortality in the Baltic region for the past two centuries, but focusing more precisely on the consequences of getting in and then getting out of the Soviet system in terms of health and survival.     

The “new” social history and the anthropological history of modern Mexico

Tutino, John. From Insurrection to Revolution in Mexico: Social Bases of Agrarian Violence 1750–1940. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986. xvii + 425 pp. including appendices, bibliography, and index. $42.50 cloth.

Beezley, William H. Judas at the Jockey Club and Other Episodes of Porfirian Mexico. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987. ix + 181 pp. including notes, bibliography, and index. $19.95 cloth.     

From industrial change to historical inevitability: Annie Besant’s socialism and the philosophies of history

ABSTRACT

A leading figure of the British and Indian intellectual stage from the 1880s, Annie Besant (1847–1933) is chiefly remembered for her numerous and somewhat diverging commitments. This article seeks to account for her shift from socialism to theosophy by focusing on the latter as a system of thought and on the philosophical basis of her critique of capitalism. It is argued that the case for the common ownership of means of production that she makes throughout her socialist writings both results from her secularism and explains her eventual drift away from it. In an attempt to promote equality through democratic and pragmatic methods, Besant claimed to predicate her enterprise on the laws of evolution rather than on utopian schemes or revolutionary action. It is shown how this approach drew on philosophies of history: collectivism was deemed the necessary outcome of economic changes and the next stage of industrialization. It is also shown how Besant’s brand of socialism rested on a faith in progress, rather than on scientific reasoning. A secularized theology – her plea for socialism, it appears – was at odds with the philosophical foundations of democracy that she advocated throughout her life.     

From universal history to globalism: What are and for what purposes do we study European ideas?

Globalism is probably the most frequently used term describing our current age. Found in many contexts, it is often a vague concept referring to a host of different figurations of post-industrial society. European expansion, the growth of the global economy, mass immigration and the planetary expansion of international relations are merely some of the phenomena associated with globalism. Yet globalism taken in its most neutral form of global history is not merely a trendy catch-all phrase for the challenges of our age but has its origins in the efforts of the enlightenment—to rewrite the theological universal histories of the Middle Ages. There is a close relationship between the historiography of universal history and the current ideology of globalism. By juxtaposing the two main strands of universal history (the universal history of mankind vs. the cyclical history of individual peoples) to the problem of European identity, I show that the theoretical problems which caused the demise of universal history continue to plague globalism. Such an analysis of the ideological foundations of globalism is central not only to the current debate on the (re-) construction of European history, but also in the discussion on what constitutes European ideas.     

How much did a Swedish Schoolhouse Cost to Build? Rewriting the history of 19th-century rural schoolhouses

How much did the 19^th-century rural schoolhouse cost to build? On the basis of a study of schoolhouse building in the Sundsvall region in the period 1842–1900, this article shows how the cost of school buildings increased over time, both overall and by schoolhouse, largely because of the marginalization of cheaper and simpler redevelopment projects, as well as the construction of a number of more expensive schoolhouses. Through the use of extensive source material, preserved from the building of 66 schoolhouses, a more detailed analysis of these developments has demonstrated differences in price levels between purchased schoolhouses, redevelopments of existing buildings and new building projects, and buildings intended for different types of schools. Insights are also given into labour and material costs. In addition to establishing basic facts about a main feature of the expanding system of mass education, this study thus makes a reinterpretation of the 19^th-century rural schoolhouse which emphasizes new patterns of development and fundamental distinctions, presenting schoolhouses as a social and economic issue, rather than an architectural or pedagogical concern. Instead of being described as rather simple buildings, in comparison with the major buildings in the cities, schoolhouses thus appear as a major item of expenditure for local government.     

Construction of Yan Fu’s view on social history and the turning of modern history

The construction of Yan Fu’s view on social history has combined the indigenization of Western historiography and the modernization of traditional Chinese historiography, which reflects the characteristic of a change towards modern historiography. The academic sources of Yan’s view on social history include some Western thoughts such as Herbert Spencer’s social Darwinist theory, Edward Jenks’ patriarchal clan system theory, John Seeley’s political historiography, etc.; and also many indigenous sources such as Yang Zhu’s self benefit, Mozi’s selfless love, Buddhist views on mood, etc.     

War-like history or diplomatic history? Contentions over the past and regional orders in Northeast Asia

Northeast Asian countries have been engaged in disputes over history. While their historical contentions have caused suspicion and friction among them, I argue that they have also served as a medium of dialogue that helps establish a common understanding about the individual countries’ contemporary reality and future direction. Historical contentions contribute to such a dialogue if and only if two conditions are met: regional actors recognise each other as legitimate participants in a dialogue about the salient past; and they contend over the past within a common framework of meaning. Northeast Asia, through historical contentions in the 1980s and 1990s, produced an embryonic form of a regional public sphere that made possible transnational communications about the region's future and each nation's desires, but it now stands at a fork between strengthening the regional public sphere and fracturing it into a contentious regional sphere.? ?. Earlier drafts of the article were presented at The Emergence of East Asian Community: Material and Ideational Foundation, Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University, June 2006, and Re-envisioning Asia–Pacific Security: A Regional–Global Nexus, Australian National University, Canberra, August 2006, organised respectively by Yong-Wook Lee and Bill Tow. My research for the article was facilitated by a fellowship from East Asia Institute and a research grant from Smith Richardson Foundation. Yae-Ji Park provided invaluable research assistance. Many, including Hayward Alker, Jia Qingguo, Kim Byung-Kook, Kim Ha-Jeong, Kim Tae-Hyun, Nobori Amiko, Soeya Yoshihide, and Zhang Haibin, offered helpful comments and/or helped make arrangements for my research in the region. I gratefully acknowledge their assistance. View all notes