Early contributions to the reflex chain hypothesis

The reflex chain hypothesis was developed to explain the observation that successive movements could be linked together into a contiguous sequence. From the established principles of reflex physiology and association psychology, scientists in the last half of the 19th century began to develop the notion that each of a series of movements may be linked through the sensory results of prior movements. In addition, the same basic principles were applied to mental actions, thus providing a credible explanation for all behavior. The wide applicability of this hpothesis made it an important influence on the scientific thought in the early 20th century.     

Nationalism and revolution: friends or foes?

Nationalism and revolution have generally been held to go together. Many nation‐states have had their origins in revolution, from the Americans in the 18th century to a host of Third World nation‐states in the 20th century. Generally, both modern revolutions and modern nationalism have the same origins, in 18th century Enlightenment thought. But this paper argues that, despite this common origin, the principles of revolution and nationalism are divergent, and can set one against the other. Revolutions emphasise freedom and equality; nationalism emphasises integration and unification. These principles can clash, though not inevitably and not always. The paper examines the 1789 French Revolution, the 1848 revolutions and the 1917 Russian revolution. It shows that in the first two cases, revolutionary aspirations came up against and were eventually displaced by nationalist aims. In the case of 1917, revolution paradoxically, and unintentionally, institutionalised nationalism. These examples show that, though linked at some high level of modern thought, revolution and nationalism express different and at times divergent strands of modernity.     

Lessons from Praxis: Autonomy and Spatiality in Contemporary Latin American Social Movements

In the course of the 20th century, left‐libertarian thought and praxis never ceased to be present in Latin America, even during the most difficult years of competition with Marxism‐Leninism and of military repression. But it was above all from the 1990s onwards that particularly original kinds of libertarian thought and praxis began to flourish there. Alongside more or less renewed versions of classical anarchism, new forms of praxis and analysis emerged at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century; from Mexican neo‐Zapatism to a part of Argentina's piqueteros to some expressions of Brazil's sem‐teto movement, many new movements and ideas have developed in the last two decades. These new movements are at the same time remarkably libertarian and by no means reducible to the very honourable but somewhat too restrictive label “anarchism”. In fact, many of them are clearly “hybrid”, in the sense that they are products of both left‐libertarian and Marxist influences. Typically, these Latin American movements share a commitment to principles such as horizontality, self‐management and decentralism (which have never been part of Marxism's typical repertoire of practices and principles); moreover, autonomy is a key notion for most of them. Furthermore, spatial practices, territorialisation among them, are proving decisive for many movements and protest actions. The concept of territory is one of those “geographical” concepts that have been intensely subjected, in recent decades, to strong attempts of redefinition and debugging. In this paper, the territory is fundamentally seen (as a first approximation) as a space defined and delimited by and through power relations, and it is important to see that power (both heteronomous and autonomous power) is exerted only with reference to a territory and, very often, by means of a territory. The kind of power exerted by emancipatory social movements does not constitute an exception to this rule.     

British Postal Packet Hanover, 1757: a legal history

The wrecking of the Falmouth Postal Packet Hanover in 1763 led to three legal disputes and two court cases—in 1766 and 1997. This article recounts the origins and course of these disputes. It examines what the resolution of the 18th‐century case and the second dispute has revealed of the law and practice of marine insurance in the mid 18th century. It further examines what the 20th‐century case has revealed concerning the tension between ancient principles of commercial salvage and modern principles of heritage protection. Somewhat fortuitously, the examination of the case provides an opportunity to advance a simple solution to this conflict.     

Historical Use of Metal Tie-Rods in the Italian Territory: Treatises,Essays, and Manuals through Four Centuries of History

The use of metal tie-rods in buildings is documented and visible in many Italian areas since the 15th century. This article refers to the study of treatises, manuals and essays from the 15th to the early 20th century, mainly in the Italian context with some exceptions of certain foreign texts that, due to their diffusion and importance, have greatly influenced the technical literature on the subject. Technology is an expression of the social, economic, cultural, political and juridical events of a country and, as such, is deeply linked to the times and territories in which it develops. However, it is also closely linked to the laws of nature and to forms of communication, therefore it is useful to compare, underlining the analogies and differences, the knowledge and the ways of the productive and technical process in a long-term analysis.     

Das Werden des Kosmos Von der Erfahrung der zeitlichen Dimension astronomischer Objekte im 18. Jahrhundert

The Permanent ‘Becoming’ of the Cosmos: On Experiencing the Time Dimension of Astronomical Entities in the 18th Century. - This paper deals with two of the initial stages through which the dimension of time, in the sense of an irreversible development, found its way into astronomical-cosmological thinking. The one resulted from the first consequental application of Newtonian principles and laws to cosmic entities outside of our solar system found in the General Natural History or Theory of the Heavens of Immanuel Kant (1755): Endeavoring to explain through natural causes first the peculiarities of the solar system, no longer naturally explainable through the celestial mechanics of Isaac Newton (such as the common orbital plane and rotational direction of all the members of the solar system and the distribution of the masses) - which, however, had been deducible in Johannes Keplers Weltharmonik -, and endeavoring secondly to explain above all the beginning of the inertial movement of all discrete heavenly bodies - which, however, could have been derived from René Descartes's vortex theory - without using arbitrary acts of God as Newton had done, Kant had to introduce an initial state in which matter in the form of atoms was equally and almost homogeneously distributed over the whole space (similar to the permanent state in Descartes's theory). Thereupon, according to Kant, the initial movements of the slowly growing masses resulted from the effect of gravitational forces. The parameters within the solar system which had to be explained, could then be easily deduced from the process of mass concentration at different points and from the resulting vortex movements. - The other initial stage is found in the classification of ‘nebulae’ by William Herschel who introduced the historical time factor, in the above-mentioned sense, as a principle of order in addition to the outward shape, which had become common for all the different elements in natural history during the second half of the 18th century. Thereupon the different shapes of the nebulae could be interpreted as stages of development from the primordial nebular state to multiple or single stars. (Herschel had not yet considered them to be accumulations of stars for lack of a suitable telescope.) Both initial stages, which arose out of the thinking of the second half of the 18th century, were still premature for astronomy and cosmology; they have only been taken up again since the end of the 19th century as a result of the emergence of astrophysics, which provided the empirical data for the earlier speculations and conclusions from analogy.     

The Misuse of Area in Mapping Census-Type Numbers

Abstract

Polish lands in 19th century are usually located in the economic peripheries of Europe. However there are no usable datasets of Polish GDP for this period to verify this hypothesis. The main problem is lack of reliable and comparable macroeconomic data from country divided between Russia, Austria and Prussia. The main goal of this research was to propose the method based on the urbanization data set to estimate the GDP of Polish territories and to verify the hypothesis on the peripheral development of Polish lands. In result the new estimates on GDP per capita were established, that allowed to confirm the hypothesis of semi-peripheral development of Polish territories in 19th century and slow process of catching-up with the core economies.     

‘Forgotten Europeans’: transnational minority activism in the age of European integration

This article examines transnational activism by coalitions of national minorities in Europe from the early 20th century to the present, setting this within the broader ‘security versus democracy dilemma’ that continues to surround international discussions on minority rights. Specifically, we analyse two organisations – the European Nationalities Congress (1925–1938) and the Federal Union of European Nationalities (1949–) – which, while linked, have never been subject to a detailed comparison based on primary sources. In so far as comparisons do exist, they present these bodies in highly negative terms, as mere fronts for inherently particularistic nationalisms that threaten political stability, state integrity and peace. Our more in‐depth analysis provides a fresh and more nuanced perspective: it shows that, in both cases, concepts of European integration and ‘unity in diversity’ have provided the motivating goals and frameworks for transnational movements advocating common rights for all minorities and seeking positive interaction with the interstate world.     

Palaeopathological and palaeogenetic study of 13 cases of developmental dysplasia of the hip with dislocation in a historical population from southern France

Dislocation of the hip can be consecutive to developmental dysplasia of the hip that is linked to a complex set of genetic and mechanical factors. The purpose of this report is to describe 13 cases of complete dysplastic hip dislocation observed in the skeletal remains of nine women exhumed from an historical gravesite dating from the 5th to 17th centuries in southern France. Despite the size of this palaeopathological series, which is the largest study published to date, findings indicate that the prevalence of hip dislocation in this historical sample was still lower than in some French areas at the beginning of the 20th century. Mitochondrial DNA sequencing demonstrated possible kinship only between two women, i.e. one who died in the period from the 11th to 13th centuries and another who died in the period from the 16th to 17th centuries. It is suggested that the tight swaddling of young infants in France up to the end of the 19th century could have been a predisposing factor for this highly debilitating disorder. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

19世纪晚期法国反犹主义政治化原因初探

19世纪70年代以后,几乎所有西欧和中欧国家都出现了现代反犹主义思潮,其中法国尤为典型。当时,法国反犹主义的突出表现是反犹主义政治化,即反犹立法的确定、大规模的群众反犹运动以及民众对反犹观念狂热的、盲目的信仰。法国反犹主义政治化是个复杂的社会历史现象,是宗教、思想、历史、社会、经济、现实的政治状况等因素交互作用的结果,其中最为重要的是经济和现实的政治因素。     

Lithuanian Linguistic Nationalism and the Cult of Antiquity

Abstract. To a large extent, the Lithuanian nationalist movement of the late nineteenth century was founded on language. Although this is typical of many nationalist movements, the Lithuanian case was special because of the amount and type of attention that was focused on the Lithuanian language, and the qualities that were ascribed to that language. This article discusses the influence that scholarly research into the Indo-European language family, in combination with the romantic nationalism typical of the nineteenth century, exerted on Lithuanian nationalists, and considers the symbolic importance of the Lithuanian language for this movement as a whole.     

Stahl, Leibniz, Hoffmann et la respiration

At the beginning of the XVIII th century, Wilhelm Gottfried Leibniz and Friedrich Hoffmann criticize Georg Ernst Stahl's medical theory. They differenciate between unsound and true reasonings. Namely, they validate Stahl's definition of breath but extracting it from its animist basis and placing it in an epistemology obeying to the principle of sufficient reason and to the mechanical model. The stahlian discovery consists in understanding breath as a calorific ventilation against the ancient conception; the iatromechanists recognize its accuracy, but they try then to transpose it to a mechanical model of ventilation. Using it in a different epistemological context implies that they analyze the idea of discovery "true" in its contents, but "wrong" in its hypothesis. It impels to examine the epistemology of medical knowledge, as science and therapeutics, and in its links with the other scientific theories. Thus, if Leibniz as philosopher and Hoffmann as doctor consider Stahl's animism so important, it is because its discoveries question the fundamental principles of medicine.     

Environmental changes in the Maryut lagoon (northwestern Nile delta) during the last ∼2000 years

Here, we interpret the evolution of Maryut lagoon (Egypt) during the past ∼2000 years. Chronostratigraphy and laboratory analyses have enabled us to identify four main phases since the 3rd century AD: (1) a fluvial-dominated lagoon between the 2nd–3rd and the 8–9th centuries cal. AD; (2) a gradual desiccation of the lagoon toward a sebkha-like environment from the 9–10th to the 13th centuries cal. AD; (3) a fluvial-dominated lagoon from the 13th century cal. AD; and (4) a second gradual desiccation between the 17th and the 18th centuries cal. AD. The general aridification trend described throughout the study period may be linked to the gradual decline of the Canopic branch, which supplied the Maryut lagoon with freshwater. Nonetheless, at shorter timescales, the different phases of lagoon aridification and flooding coincide with land abandonment and irrigation works in the region. It is suggested that the history of the Alexandria countryside has been a key driver in shaping the environmental history of the Maryut during the past ∼2000 years.     

THE CRISIS OF THE MOVEMENTS: THE ENABLING STATE AS QUISLING

The basic argument of this paper is that the anti-systemic movements political successes over the last century have turned out to be medium-term cul de sacs at the expense of the real longue duree purposes of the movements. The discovery of the enabling state by radicals towards the end of the nineteenth century has resulted in a Quisling in the anti-systemic ranks. This argument brings to the fore the anarchist critique which never accepted the enabling state as a legitimate part of the radical political repertoire. Nevertheless this essay is not a plea for a return to anarchist roots but rather attempts to reinsert anarchism, and feminism, into a single framework of anti-systemic movements alongside socialism and nationalism. As the state is being shown to be disenabling rather than enabling across the various zones of the world-economy it is argued that anarchist ideas deserve some priority as we revise radical political strategies.     

Toward Abstraction Ranking European Painters of the Early Twentieth Century

Abstract. Paris was the unrivaled capital of modern art in the nineteenth century, but during the early twentieth century major innovations began to be made elsewhere in Europe. The author examined the careers of the artists who led such movements as Italian Futurism, German Expressionism, Holland's De Stijl, and Russia's Suprematism. Quantitative analysis revealed the implications of the conceptual basis of the art of Umberto Boccioni, Giorgio de Chirico, Kazimir Malevich, and Edvard Munch, and of the experimental origin of the innovations of Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Piet Mondrian. The finding that the invention of abstract art was made nearly simultaneously by the conceptual Malevich and the experimental Kandinsky and Mondrian particularly indicates the importance of both deductive and inductive approaches in the history of modern art.     

A life of the cell: forms and space

The , elaborated during the 19th century by researchers such as Lorenz Oken, Matthias Schleiden, Theodor Schwann and Rudolf Virchow, greatly modified the conception of life that Man had had up to then, since it asserted that the cell is the basic organic unit of all living beings and that every living being stems from a cell. Indeed, the study of the unicellular paramecium shows that a cell must be considered as a complete living form insofar as it illustrates by feeding, growing, defending and reproducing the general fate of all living creatures. Its living space, generated by its movements, is relative to its needs and therefore to its behaviour.     

Christianity and Cultural Reconfigurations in South West Pentecost.

ABSTRACT This paper examines the cultural impact of the introduction and evolution of Christianity in south west Pentecost, Vanuatu from the late 19th century to the 21st century. In particular it offers an explanation for the success and sustainability of Christianity due to the willingness of local individuals and communities to seize the new world view; and their welcome of Christianity's capacity to provide principles for appropriate social behaviour, opportunities for individual spiritual salvation, and the potential for temporal achievement. It acknowledges novel conduits to power and prestige emerging from socio‐cultural reconfigurations consequential to the tensions between Christianity and kastom in the 20th century, and scrutinizes the manner in which Christians in the 21st century have capitalised on kastom in their response to the pressures and demands of globalisation.     

Recently Discovered Remains of a Roman Bridge in the River Trent

Abstract

The early Donjon at Langeais is among the best-known early medieval buildings in Europe, but has not been systematically studied; this paper is based on a stone-by-stone record and archaeological analysis of the standing building, and presents an interpretation of its structural and functional history. Three major structural phases have been identified. Most of what remains is original (Phase I); the ruin can be reconstructed as a main block of two floors with two tower-like attachments to the east side, probably linked by a gallery. A date of c. 1000 is proposed, but does not allow definite attribution to Fulk Nerra. Considerations of comfort and convenience were more important to the original design than security, although the building had some defensive capacity, and could have been incorporated in a walled circuit; it may have been an entire residence of a type ancestral to the mature multi-storeyed residential donjon, or have been included in an assemblage of low-level buildings, representing an alternative form of domestic planning. In the later 11th or early 12th century (Phase II), the annexes were reduced and the building deprived of any defensive character by the insertion of ground-floor doorways. The 15th century saw the demolition of the west wall, followed by consolidation of the remains, and other modifications (Phases IIIa, IIIb and IIIc). A combination of archaeological observation, recording, remote sensing and historical research shows that the fortified area extended at least to c.200 m west of the donjon in the 11th century, and contained a collegiate chapel.     

The neighbor as mirror: Representations of the Korean March First Movement in modern Chinese discourses of nationalism

Abstract

The outbreak of the Korean March First Movement in 1919 was followed by intensive reporting and commentary in Chinese media, presenting striking images of the brutality of the Japanese colonizers, the resolve for independence among the Korean people, and the concept of national self-determination. The March First Movement provided the Chinese people with a vivid example of the transformation of the abstract concept of “universal principles” into the practice of “national self-determination,” and strengthened consciousness of “national independence” among the Chinese people. Over the ensuing two or three decades, the “March First Movement” gradually seeped into the Chinese nationalist movement and discourses on national liberation, playing the role of “the neighbor as mirror,” and continuing to provide both positive inspiration and negative reference points for the Chinese people following the path of national independence. This linkage and interaction between “weak nations” aids in understanding the modern Chinese nationalist movement, as well as the mechanisms for development of the national independence movements among colonized peoples which swept across the globe in the early 20th century.     

Liberalism and Revivalism. A Comparative Case Study of Liberal Ideology,Individualism, and Revivalism in Schleswig-Holstein and Värmland,ca. 1860–1920

Only rarely have the non-secular roots of modern political individualism been subject to study. In this article I forward the hypothesis that modern political individualism, as expressed by 19th-century liberalism, was a result of individualistic, low Church and nonconformist revivals to the same extent that it was a product of secular rationalism. The hypothesis is probed in a comparative case study of rural liberalism in two north European regions, Schleswig-Holstein (Germany) and Värmland (Sweden). I address three key requirements of the hypothesis: that the nonconformist revival movements in 18th and 19th-century northern Europe promoted an individualistic outlook among their followers; that individuality rooted in religious awakenings was congenial to liberal ideology; and that traits of non-secular individualism were incorporated with everyday liberal political discourse and practice.