The Reformation of the Eyes: Apparitions and Optics in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Europe

Apparitions were the subject of fierce theological and philosophical debate in the period after the Reformation. But these controversies also raised issues fundamental to the nature and organization of human vision. They crossed and recrossed the boundaries between religion and the science and psychology of optics. Apparitions, after all, are things that appear, and spectres are things that are seen. Before they could mean anything to anyone they had to be correctly identified as phenomena. Their religious role, whether Protestant or Catholic, presupposed a perceptual judgement — essentially visual in character — about just what they were. During the early modern period this judgement — this visual identification — became vastly more complex and contentious than ever before, certainly much more so than in the case of medieval ghosts. The sceptics, natural magicians, and atheists turned apparitions into optical tricks played by nature or human artifice; the religious controversialists and demonologists thought that demons might also be responsible. This essay argues that the debate that ensued, irrespective of the confessional allegiances of the protagonists, was the occasion for some of the most sustained and sophisticated of the early modern arguments about truth and illusion in the visual world.     

Spaces of Belonging: Home,Culture and Identity in 20th-Century French Autobiography

ALEXANDRE, P., Les Patrons de presse. Quinze ans d'histoires secrètes de la presse écrite en France (1982–1997), Anne Carrière, 1997, 297pp., 120FF., ISBN 2 84337 010 8

ATKIN, N., Pétain, Longman, 1998 238pp., £13.99, ISBN 0 582 07037 6 pbk; £39.99, ISBN 0 582 07036 8 hbk

BALL, R., The French‐speaking World, Routledge, 1997, 228pp., £10.99, ISBN 0 415 12987 7

BATCHELOR, R. E. and CHEBLI‐SAADI, M., French for Marketing: Using French in Media and Communications, CUP, 1997, 350pp., no price indicated, ISBN 0 521 58538 X

BEZBAKH, P., Histoire de la France, vol. 1, Des origines à 1914, vol. 2 De 1914 à nos jours, Larousse, 1997, 512pp. and 570pp., no price indicated, ISBNs 2 03 507141 0 and 2 03 507142 9

B?UF J.‐L., Quinze ans de décentralisation, Problèmes politiques et sociaux, 787 Documentation française, 11 juillet 1997, 45FF., ISSN 0015 9743

BRETON, A. (translated by Mary Anne Caws and Geoffrey T. Harris with notes and introduction by Mary Ann Caws), Communicating Vessels, Bison Books, 1997, 159pp., $12.00, ISBN 0 8032 6135 7

CHARAUDEAU, P., Le discours d'information médiatique. La construction du miroir social, INA‐Nathan, 1997, 286pp., 129F., ISBN 2 978209 190

COHEN, W. B. (ed.), The Transformation of Modern France. Essays in Honor of Gordon Wright, Houghton Mifflin, 1997, 242pp., £15.95 pbk

DROUIN, I. Salauds de pauvres! Programmation d'un génocide européen, Infrarouge, 1997, 253pp., 80F., ISBN 2 9086 14 20 0

FEBVRE L. (présentées et annotées par Jacqueline Pluet et Gilles Candar), Lettres à Henri Beer, Fayard, 1997, 640pp., 250F, ISBN 2 213 59566 6

FLOWER, J. E., France Today,, 8th edn Hodder &; Stoughton, 1997, 248pp., ISBN 0 340 63093 0

FOURIER, C. (edited by G. S. Jones &; I. Patterson), The Theory of Four Movements, Cambridge University Press, 1996 328pp., £14.95, ISBN 0521 35693 8

FRIOT, B. and ROSE, J., (eds), La construction sociale de l'emploi en France, L'Harmattan, Collection Forum de l'IFRAS, 1996 248pp., 130F., ISBN 2 7384 4764 3

GARAPON, A. and SALAS, D., La République pénalisée, Hachette, 1996 144pp., 59F., ISBN 2 01 235230 8

GRUBB A., The Politics of Pessimism. Albert de Broglie and Conservative Politics in the Early Third Republic, University of Delaware Press, 1996 427pp., £42.00, ISBN 0 87413575 3

JACOB G., Une histoire du cinéma moderne, Ramsay, 1997, 255pp., ISBN 2 84114 287 6

KOFMAN, M., Edgar Morin. From Big Brother to Fraternity, 140 pp., Pluto Press, 1996 £10.99, ISBN 0 7453 0852 X

MARICOURT, T., Les Nouvelles Passerelles de l'extrême‐droite, Syllepse, 1997, 199pp., 120F., ISBN 2 907993 52 6

MILZA, P., Sources de la France du XX^e siècle (de 1918 à nos jours), Larousse, 1997, 789pp., no price indicated, ISBN 2 03 741022 0

MORI, J., William Pitt and the French Revolution 1785–1795, Keele University Press, 1997, 305pp., £17.95, ISBN 1 85331 137 5

MOURIAUX, R. (ed.), L'année sociale., Editions de l'Atelier/Editions Ouvrières, 1997, 240pp., 98FF., ISBN 2 7082 3270 3

NOIN, D. and WHITE, P., Paris, John Wiley, 1997, 286pp., £45 hbk., ISBN 0 471 94944 2

NORTHCUTT, W., The Regions of France: a Reference Guide to History and Culture, Greenwood, 1996 310pp., no price indicated, ISBN 0 313 29223 X

O'BRIEN C., Women's Fictional Responses to the First World War, Peter Lang, 1997, 204pp., £28., ISBN 0 8204 3141 9

PÉAN, P. and NICK, C., TF1, un pouvoir, Fayard, 1997, 695pp., 160FF., ISBN 2 213 59819 3

RHODES, M., HEYWOOD, P., and WRIGHT V. (eds), Developments in West European Politics Macmillan, 1997, 363pp., no price indicated, ISBN 0 333 65128 6

RUFFIN, A., Normandie 1939–1944: le Temps des Épreuves, Presses de la Cité, 1997, 335pp., 130FF., ISBN 2 258 04417 0

SCHMIDT, V. A., From State to Market? The Transformation of French Business and Government, Cambridge University Press, 1996 447pp., £55.00 hbk, ISBN 0 521 49742 6

SCOTT, J., W., Only Paradoxes to Offer: French Feminists and the Rights of Man, Harvard University Press, 1996 229pp., £10.95, ISBN 0 674 63931 6

SHEPPARD, D., SPARKS, S. and THOMAS C. (eds), On Jean‐Luc Nancy. The Sense of Philosophy, Routledge, 1997, 219pp., £14.99, ISBN 0 415 14794 8

TULARD, J., Napoleon, le pouvoir, la nation, la légende, Le Livre de Poche, 1997, 153pp., 30 F., ISBN 2 2539 0534 9

WILLIAMS, J., S., The Erotics of Passage. Pleasure, Politics, and Form in the Later Work of Marguerite Duras, Liverpool University Press, 1997, 243pp., £14.95, ISBN 0 85323 501 5

WISE, H., The Vocabulary of Modern French. Origins, Structure and Function, Routledge, 1997, 256pp., £45 hbk, ISBN 0 415 11738 0; £14.99 pbk, ISBN 0 415 11739 9

WISEMAN B., and GROVES, J., Lévi‐Strauss for Beginners, Icon Books, 1997, 175pp., £8.99, ISBN 1 874166 625     

The Imaging of Samoa in Illustrated Magazines and Serial Encyclopaedias in the Early 20th-Century

Drawing on English language sources and material relating to the colonial administrations of Western Samoa (now Samoa) and American Samoa, this examination of photographically illustrated serial encyclopaedias and magazines proposes an alternative historical analysis of the colonial imaging of Samoa, the most extensively covered field in Oceanic photographic studies. Though photographs published between 1890s and World War II were often ‘recycled’, without acknowledging the fact that they were taken much earlier, and despite claims in the text of illustrated publications of an unchanged, enduring, archaic tradition in Samoa, the amazing variety of photographic content often offered contradictory evidence, depicting a modern, adaptive and progressive Samoa. Contrary to orthodox historical analysis, the images of Samoa in illustrated magazines and encyclopaedias were not limited to a small repetitive gallery of partially clothed women and costumed chiefs; and the ways in which readers understood Samoa from photographs and text raises questions still to be explored.     

一战后东欧民族关系与国际联盟

一战给东欧地区的民族关系以巨大的冲击,而凡尔赛体系作出的战后安排使该地区的民族关系进一步复杂化.在这一背景下,从稳定战后欧洲秩序的角度出发,主要的战胜国建立了一个在国际联盟保证之下的少数民族保护体系,它是人类历史上第一次以国际组织监督与调节的形式处理和解决民族冲突的尝试.     

Engineering Europe: big technologies and military systems in the making of 20th century Europe

Big technological projects have long been an object of study within the history of technology. This paper looks at large transnational projects in Europe during the 20th century, a class of projects not dealt with so far in any comprehensive way. It is argued that such transnational projects have characteristics distinct from national ones and that they have, in different ways, contributed to the creation of Europe in the 20th century. After a thematic outline, the paper deals with projects in Europe in a chronological order, indicating that the number of transnational projects increased dramatically during the Cold War period. Some perspectives for further research are then discussed, including areas such as military projects and the role of European institutions.     

The Mystery of Capital: Eurasian Entrepreneurs' Socio-Cultural Strategies for Commercial Success in Early 20th-Century Hong Kong

Unlike economic capital, which is visible and easy to calculate, social capital is intangible and difficult to assess. Although both types of capital are crucial in determining social relations and social behaviour, little solid research has been done on the latter. This paper attempts to use the rags-to-riches story of Sir Robert Ho Tung, a first-generation Hong Kong Eurasian entrepreneur who commenced life without traditional social/cultural capital as the illegitimate son of a Chinese woman and a Dutchman, to illustrate the processes involved in cultivating and accumulating social capital. With special reference to economic development in early colonial Hong Kong and major social transformations in the Chinese mainland, this paper also demonstrates how a group of so-called social/racial “half-caste bastards” (Eurasians) were able to form their own social networks of mutual help and protection. It also considers how they worked to consolidate, mobilise, aggrandise and transmit their social capital. In conclusion, it is argued that Eurasians in early twentieth-century Hong Kong constructed their personal networks like a web, with different interconnecting layers that functioned at different socio-economic-political levels to serve different purposes.