Ottoman Maps of the Empire’s Arab Provinces, 1850s to the First World War

In recent years the central Ottoman archive in Istanbul has been gradually releasing and computerizing thousands of maps stored in its collections. Our study introduces 137 maps already available to researchers that focus either directly or indirectly as part of broader presentations of imperial domains on the Ottoman Empire’s Arab provinces. These maps, which all date to between the middle of the nineteenth century and the First World War, differ widely in character, content and function. The maps are briefly described according to their content and set in their historical context.     

Commerce before crusade? France, the Ottoman Empire and the Barbary pirates (1661-1669)

French and Islamic forces clashed with an unprecedented frequencyduring the first decade of Louis XIV's personal rule. This articleexamines France's troubled relations with the Ottoman Empireand the Barbary States in the 1660s, with the aim of sheddinglight on the real motives of Louis XIV in sending his forcesagainst those of the ‘Infidel’. It finds that farfrom having a single policy towards their Muslim neighboursin the Mediterranean, the French government's behaviour wasin fact characterized by chronic inconsistency. In essence,French strategy was driven by the Bourbon government's long-termobjective of developing commerce in the eastern and southernMediterranean, but this programme of commercial expansion wasfrustrated—and repeatedly jeopardized—by issuesof power politics, in particular the king's avid pursuit ofprestige and personal gloire.     

‘Continuous abuse’ or ‘a unanimous blessing’? Reassessing the Conservative Party’s stance on the 1951 Festival of Britain

The 1951 Festival of Britain has long been seen as both a key turning point in the country’s post-war history and an event which was delivered, by Clement Attlee’s Labour Government, in the face of formidable political (and media) opposition. This article considers the Festival’s status as a pivotal moment in modern British history but focuses primarily on the Conservative Party’s approach to the project. In doing so, its draws on previously neglected evidence to suggest that successive works on the subject have greatly exaggerated the extent to which the festivities were the subject of partisan campaigning and political contention.     

Australia’s relationship with the European Union: from conflict to cooperation

ABSTRACT

After decades of tension, Australia and the European Union (EU) now have a substantive relationship, interacting and cooperating with each other within a wide range of areas. The relationship is currently at a critical turning point. The Framework Agreement has, for the first time, elevated the relationship to a treaty level. It strengthens Australia–EU actions and interests on bilateral, regional and multilateral issues. There is considerable potential for closer cooperation and more extensive pooling of the resources and capacities of both interlocutors on a range of policies and within the multilateral context. This article provides an assessment of the relationship, the current state of play and key challenges facing the relationship as the EU and Australia forge stronger ties through the conclusion of a Framework Agreement and the commencement of discussions on a Free Trade Agreement at the same time as the UK’s exit negotiations from the EU. It demonstrates that, although there are challenges facing the relationship, there are also significant opportunities to further develop and strengthen ties.     

Competition or cooperation? Jewish day schools,synagogues and the (re)construction of young people’s Jewish identities in England

Diasporic synagogues have historically provided a number of educational and social functions. However, the growing popularity of state-funded Jewish schools in England necessitates analysis of these institutions’ changing roles and their implications for performances of Jewishness. Drawing upon interviews with rabbis, and interviews and focus groups with parents and students at a Jewish school, this article demonstrates three challenges for synagogues associated with the recent growth in Jewish day schooling: the instigation of instrumental attendance at services in order to secure a school place; and the co-option of synagogues’ traditional functions as both education and social centres. In the process, it illustrates how conceptualisations of Jewish identity are contested, resulting in discrepant attitudes towards Jewish education. Consequently, the article contributes to understandings of the spaces in which young people practise their Jewishness, and highlights the challenges for community leaders in ensuring that Jewish schools and synagogues cooperate rather than compete.     

Mau Mau in the High Court and the ‘Lost’ British Empire Archives: Colonial Conspiracy or Bureaucratic Bungle?

In April 2011, a landmark hearing before the High Court in London found that the British government had a case to answer concerning abuse and torture allegedly carried out by British officials in Kenya during the Mau Mau counter-insurgency. Prior to the hearing, it was revealed that the British government had removed some 1,500 ‘sensitive’ government files from Kenya at independence, many of these relating to alleged abuses carried our during the Emergency of the 1950s. This discovery then led directly to the revelation of a further tranche of 8,800 historical files relating to the decolonisation of 36 other former British colonies. This article explains the nature of the claims of torture and abuse made in the Kenya case in the High Court, and then describes the new evidence in the recently disclosed documents. The concluding section then discusses the Kenya case and the implications of the larger discovery of the ‘lost’ British Empire archive.     

The Iranian Community of the Late Ottoman Empire and the Egyptian “Crisis” through the Persian Looking Glass: The Documentation of the ʿUrabi Revolt in Istanbul’s Akhtar

This article focuses on the coverage of the ?Urabi rebellion of 1881–82 in the Istanbul-based Persian-language newspaper Akhtar. Akhtar was the first periodical to be published in Persian outside the auspices of the Qajar state, and first appeared on 13 January 1876, from the press owned by Mohammad Tāher Tabrizi in the Valide Han in the Ottoman capital. The objective of the present article is twofold. First, it aims to interweave the history of the Persian-language publication Akhtar with broader questions of how the Hamidian state strove to situate itself within a changing international order in a bid to affirm its legitimacy and sovereignty. It then proceeds to examine the ideological leanings of Akhtar set against the complex background of censorship laws implemented by the Hamidian state (1876–1908). To this end, by scrutinizing the reportage of this one specific event—the Egyptian crisis of 1881–82—it attempts to shed light on how the editors of Akhtar successfully maintained the delicate equilibrium of appeasing both its patrons: namely, the Hamidian state and its readership across the region where Persian was spoken. Thus, the article seeks also to highlight the ways in which inter-imperial dynamics lie at the heart of the history of this “Persian” publication.     

Australia’s submarine technology cooperation with Japan as burden-sharing with the USA in the Asia-Pacific

Australia, Japan and the USA are all facing dual pressures that require them to do more with less. Internationally, they deal with the challenge of managing China’s rapid rise. However, domestically, they must cut government spending and reduce government debt. With internal balancing effectively ruled out as a long-term solution, the three states are seeking ways to optimise external balancing, or cooperation with like-minded states. This article focuses on Australian motivations regarding the recent proposal for submarine cooperation with Japan, and places it in the context of longer trends that poise the USA, Australia and Japan for even greater trilateralism in the future. Australia’s proposal to buy submarines from Japan, should it go through, would cement Australia and Japan’s fledgling security relationship in steel and coin. For Australia, it would help it to overcome its undersea capability gap, and Japan could set a precedent to re-enter the global weapons market if all goes well. Furthermore, Australia can use defence-technology cooperation with Japan to signal to the USA the seriousness of its commitment to burden-share in pursuit of regional security and determination to politically support the USA’s ‘Pivot’ to the Asia-Pacific. However, domestic politics have begun to play an important role in Australia, with a ‘spill’ motion against Prime Minister Tony Abbott barely overcome by a backroom deal with the opposition to build the submarines domestically, and this is an important development to keep an eye on.     

Machiavélisme et Staats-Raison au XVIIIe siècle d’après L’Universal-Lexikon de Zedler

This article examines the manner in which the Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexikon published by Johann Heinrich Zedler from 1732 to 1750 and considered as the most important german language encyclopedia of its time, welcomes and restructures the classical doctrine of the reason of State. Contrary to the interpretation in which the concept of the State developed by the Lexikon would fit into a pure jusnaturalistic logic, it shows the permanence, parallel to wolffian natural law, of a prudential tradition of political thought. The Lexikon, a contemporary of the Anti-Machiavel of Frederic II, thus appears to be the faithful mirror of the heterogeneous tendencies which then illustrate the field of the problems in the reason of State.     

Empire,Colonial Enterprise,and Speculation: Cape Breton’s Coal Boom of the 1860s

ABSTRACT

During the 1860s Cape Breton Island’s Sydney coalfield, at the northeastern tip of Nova Scotia, experienced dramatic economic expansion. Historical interpretation of this understudied coal boom has emphasised the transition towards a liberal era of competition and growing dependence upon American capital and markets. This article presents a revised interpretation, and reflects a renewed engagement with empire in the writing of the history of Canadian capitalism. Drawing upon the work of James Belich and John Darwin, it locates this coal boom in an evolving and expanding ‘Angloworld’ and ‘British world-system,’ and demonstrates how the Sydney coalfield was shaped by the social and economic configurations that developed in the region under the British Empire. During this period, established colonial elites captured coal property and sought to integrate Cape Breton coal into the Atlantic economy in which their region had historically operated. They treated coal as a new commodity to trade and profit from, but coal mining required the mobilisation of credit and infrastructure expenditures that exceeded what was typically required to participate in the region’s traditional staples trades. Large fixed investments engendered economic and political commitments that spurred growth even under highly volatile circumstances, as promotion and speculation drove growth from the supply side and attracted London capital. Overcapacity, ruinous competition, and social crisis eventually resulted, as the Atlantic economy that gave rise to the boom fell apart. This episode reveals the operation of colonial networks and an ‘empire effect’ that produced a distinctive pattern of development on the Sydney coalfield whose legacy would be lasting.     

Johannes Janssonius’s Map of Dalmatia and the Ottoman–Venetian Borderland (1650)

The paper presents a comparative analysis of the map of Dalmatia by Johannes Janssonius and maps by his contemporaries. Janssonius’s cartographical models and the sources of the printed text accompanying his map are identified. The roles of Croatian cartographers and Venetian and Ottoman reports dealing with the border are uncovered. The importance of Janssonius’s map in disseminating knowledge about the little-known geography and history of Dalmatia, and the ways in which the map influenced perception of that country in the Ottoman Empire borderlands in general, are assessed.