Successful cervical disc surgery by Professor Angelo Chiasserini Sr of Rome in 1937: a historical case report

Although resection of cervical "chondromas" had been reported since the late twenties, the true nature of this condition was not recognized at that time. This paper reports a case of "inferior cervical radiculitis by herniation of nucleus pulposus" operated by Prof. Angelo Chiasserini Sr, one of the founders of Italian neurosurgery, in January 1937. To our knowledge this represents one of the first examples of correct etiopathogenetic interpretation of cervical disc disease. Surgery was followed by excellent recovery, a quite remarkable result in those times. The case history is reported in detail, and a short historical sketch of cervical disc disease is depicted.     

Post Scriptum to the Biography of Monsieur Leborgne

In 1861, Paul Broca presented a case of a patient who had almost completely lost the ability of speech production. This patient is known as “Monsieur Leborgne” alias “Tan.” In describing the history of his disease, Broca reported that Leborgne had spent a total of 21 years in hospitals. The article features new information on the history of Leborgne's hospitalization.     

Laundering Leo Strauss

Robert Howse's book on Leo Strauss tries to defend Strauss by emphasizing how different he was from today's “Straussians.” In Howse's telling, Strauss's best-known followers favor war and oppression, though Strauss himself did not. To make this case, Howse relies not only on absurd caricatures of Strauss's students but on highly distorted (or highly selective) accounts of what Strauss himself wrote. Howse tries to make a positive case for Strauss as a “man of peace” by showing that Strauss supported “international law.” He makes that case by depicting “international law” as one continuous tradition since Grotius, oblivious to the many varieties of outlooks and doctrines that have invoked some version of international law. On Howse's account, those who have qualms about the United Nations or the European Union must be regarded as nihilists—hence at odds with “Leo Strauss, Man of Peace.”     

The Mediation of the Distinction of “Religion” and “Politics” by the UK Press on the Occasion of Pope Benedict XVI’s State Visit to the UK

Abstract

One feature of modern political liberalism is its acceptance of the superiority of secular political reasoning over faith-based reasoning where matters of practical politics are concerned. The distinction religion/politics has become a defining feature of modern political liberalism. We examined how this distinction was mediated by the UK national press through a case study of its reporting of Pope Benedict XVI’s state visit to the UK in 2010. The case study evaluates the following four propositions: (1) “religion” is benign and relevant to “politics”; (2) “religion” is malign and relevant to “politics”; (3) “religion” is assumed to be irrelevant to “politics” but is dismissed positively; and (4) “religion” is regarded as irrelevant to “politics” but is dismissed negatively. We conclude there is a dominant shared assumption in the UK press supporting propositions two and three: that religion is a good thing when it conforms to a pre-existing narrative of political liberalism and a bad thing when it does not and that religion was judged in terms of its “political” values rather than in terms of its “religious” values.     

Teaching and learning global urban geography: an international learning-centred approach

The recent drive for the internationalization of curricula, together with calls for the internationalization of the sub-discipline of urban geography beyond the “west”, and the growing shift towards learning-centred paradigms in higher education, provided impetus for the design and delivery of an upper level undergraduate urban geography module – “Global Urbanism” – that is reported here. Using this module as a case study, the paper demonstrates the ways in which student learning and engagement with internationalized global urban geography can be facilitated by a learning-centred approach that is enhanced through the design of, and engagement with, assessment items, particularly research-led learning journals.     

REVISIONISM IN SOVIET HISTORY

This essay is an account of the “revisionism” movement of the 1970s and 1980s in Soviet history, analyzing its challenge to the totalitarian model in terms of Kuhnian paradigm shift. The focus is on revisionism of the Stalin period, an area that was particularly highly charged by the passions of the Cold War. These passions tended to obscure the fact that one of the main issues at stake was not ideological but purely disciplinary, namely a challenge by social historians to the dominance of political history. A similar challenge, this time against the dominance of social history on behalf of cultural history, was issued in the 1990s by “post‐revisionists.” Although I was a participant in the battles of the 1970s, the essay is less a personal account than a case‐based analysis of the way disciplinary orthodoxies in the social sciences and humanities are established and challenged, and why this happens when it does. In the case of Soviet history, I argue that new data and external events played a surprisingly small role, and generational change a large one.     

“The Balkans’ Other within”: Imaginings of the West in the Republic of Macedonia

Using the case study of the Republic of Macedonia, I explore how people who live in a realm conventionally cast as insufficient of “the European Self” imagine “the West”. Such imaginings are important because they are intertwined with negotiations of nationhood and citizenship. I argue that in local constructions of the global social order, Macedonia emerges in an interstitial position between “the Balkans” and “the West” as “the Balkans’ Other Within”. Social actors craft this position out of Western hegemonic constructions of the Balkans as a socio‐political anomaly and portray “the Other within” (Macedonia) as the engulfed land of promise. The case study of Macedonia allows us to refine the concepts of “Balkanism” by underlining local perspectives on the promise that “the West” carries for the Balkans and “Orientalism” by emphasizing the possibilities that the construction of the Orient charts for the future advancement or demise of the Self.     

Shifting Narratives: Modern Chinese History since the Economic Reform and a Critique of Popular Opinion

When discussing the trans-formative shifts having occurred in the field of Chinese modern history following the economic reforms, one cannot avoid mention of the “revolutionary history paradigm,” the “paradigm of modernization” as well as the “postmodern paradigm.” According to popular belief, the course of development taken by the academic world during the past forty years was marked by a series of transformations: First was the progressive replacement of the “revolutionary history paradigm” by that of the “paradigm of modernization”; following that was the rise of the “postmodern paradigm” and the challenging of its predecessor. This set of divisions, though logically clear and succinct, cannot possibly conform to the realities of history in all of its complexness. While academic circles in the 1980’s were largely concerned with the issues of “what exactly is the historical driving force of Marxism” and “who are the revolutionary class,” the notion of the “paradigm of modernization” was rather a product of the conservative historical viewpoint and its rise during the late 1990’s. In this sense, then, the latter cannot possibly embody the former. On the surface of things, though the “postmodern paradigm” appears to refuse the narrative of revolutionary history, it in fact shares deeper connections with Chinese revolutionary thought at its roots. In short, then, these trans-formative shifts in modern Chinese history are not a simple “exchange” whereby one paradigm transfers into the next, but are rather a process of incessant and interconnected change.     

The archaeology of place

It is suggested that if archaeologists are to be successful in understanding the organization of past cultural systems they must understand the organizational relationships among places which were differentially used during the operation of past systems. This point is illustrated by observations made among the Nunamiut Eskimo. Against this background it is demonstrated that the two most common forms of archaeological systematics, “assemblage”- versus “type”-based systematics, are not appropriate for the study of places. In the latter case, it is not possible to analyze places as such, while one cannot see places with different “content” as part of a single system in the former. It is concluded that current archaeological systematics are totally inappropriate for studying past systems of adaptation and their evolutionary modification.     

The Role of Herman Hoppe of Cincinnati in the Initial Clinical Recognition of Myasthenia Gravis

One of the earliest papers describing a case of what came to be known as myasthenia gravis was written in 1892 in the German language by an American, Herman Hoppe, who at the time was an assistant in the Berlin polyclinic of the prominent German neurologist, Hermann Oppenheim. At Oppenheim’s instigation, Hoppe published the pathology of a case that Oppenheim had diagnosed during life; he collected all the reported similar cases and tried to establish a symptom-complex, for which he was given credit in Oppenheim’s great neurology textbook of 1894. Upon his return to Cincinnati, Ohio, Hoppe’s European experience qualified him as a specialist in nervous and mental diseases. His private practice of “neuropsychiatry” was his main occupation, but he also volunteered to teach as Professor of Nervous and Mental Diseases at the University of Cincinnati. In 1901 Oppenheim published the first monograph about what he called “ Die Myasthenische Paralyse (Bulbarparalyse ohne anatomischen Befund) ”, summarizing 60 cases described in the medical literature up to that time. Hoppe, on the other hand, wrote on myasthenia gravis only once again, a review article in 1914 in a Cincinnati weekly, giving Oppenheim credit for the establishment of the disease as a clinical entity.     

Traditions in transition: Sanskritization and Yakkhafication in East Nepal

Based on fieldwork conducted amongst the Yakkha of East Nepal from 1989–90, this article looks at the similarities and differences in how “tradition” is approached by anthropologists and historians. It focuses on reflexivity, performance and process as key intellectual traditions within both anthropology and history, but takes issue with Hobsbawm’s suggestion that “tradition” is the stuff of “modern” societies while “custom” is a feature of “traditional” ones. It also argues for the “construction” rather than “invention” of traditions, by anthropologists as well as by people they study. In the case of the Yakkha, this construction can be seen in the changes in agricultural techniques over the past 150 years, the use of pellet bows by Yakkha men, and the celebrations of the ostensibly Hindu festival of Dasain. Only with hindsight can the ‘invented’ nature of the Dasain tradition be appreciated; even so, during the research period covered by this article, the rituals that epitomized ‘Sanskritization’ were simultaneously the subject of ‘Yakkhafication’, a process reflecting the negotiation, manipulation and subversion of Yakkha identity.     

The prevalence of,and the relationship between some spinal diseases in a human skeletal population from London

The prevalence of osteoarthritis, osteophytosis, intervertebral disc disease and diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH) was determined in a group of skeletons excavated from the crypt of Christ Church, Spitalfields. Age-specific prevalence rates were calculated from the group of skeletons for which age at death was known from intact coffin plates. Osteoarthritis of the facet joints occurred most frequently in the cervical and upper thoracic regions and was also common in the lower lumbar spine. The disease was more frequently bilateral in the lumbar spine than in upper regions. Osteophytes were common in the thoracic and lumbar spines, whereas intervertebral disc disease was confined almost completely to the cervical region. Diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis seemed to be underrepresented in this group, but was more common in males than in females. Age correlated significantly with all the conditions except DISH. Multiple regression analysis was carried out using each of the conditions as the dependent variable in turn. Age accounted for more of the variance than any of the other conditions added as independent variables.     

Global Public Policy,Transnational Policy Communities,and Their Networks

Public policy has been a prisoner of the word “state.” Yet, the state is reconfigured by globalization. Through “global public–private partnerships” and “transnational executive networks,” new forms of authority are emerging through global and regional policy processes that coexist alongside nation‐state policy processes. Accordingly, this article asks what is “global public policy”? The first part of the article identifies new public spaces where global policies occur. These spaces are multiple in character and variety and will be collectively referred to as the “global agora.” The second section adapts the conventional policy cycle heuristic by conceptually stretching it to the global and regional levels to reveal the higher degree of pluralization of actors and multiple‐authority structures than is the case at national levels. The third section asks: who is involved in the delivery of global public policy? The focus is on transnational policy communities. The global agora is a public space of policymaking and administration, although it is one where authority is more diffuse, decision making is dispersed and sovereignty muddled. Trapped by methodological nationalism and an intellectual agoraphobia of globalization, public policy scholars have yet to examine fully global policy processes and new managerial modes of transnational public administration.     

Defining “Talent”: Insights from Management and Migration Literatures for Policy Design

Taking the case of defining “talent,” a term that has been widely used but its definitions differ by discipline, organization, policy sector, as well as over time, we demonstrate how the basic definition of a policy subject may affect policy design and the assessment of policy outcomes. We review how “talent” is defined in two sets of literature, talent management and migration studies, and find that definitions fall under one of two categories: binary (“talent” as qualities) or composite (“talent” as a relational concept). The implications of our findings are epistemological and ontological; the findings point to diverse epistemological effects of definitions through developments of indicators, as expected, and they also reveal the policy designers’ ontological starting points. Ontological perspectives are significant because they ultimately determine whether the policy assessments carried out differ in degrees or in kind. In the case of defining “talent,” this means determining which objectives the designers would set (e.g., recruiting vs. cultivating vs. introducing competition), the policy instrumentation for achieving the goals (migration measures vs. education vs. lifelong learning vs. human resource policy), and the type of assessment for measuring policy outcomes (single vs. multiple indicators, qualitative vs. quantitative).     

Tannery and Duhem on the Concept of a System in the History of Philosophy and History of Science

ABSTRACT

This article examines John Toland’s Reasons for Naturalizing the Jews (1714) by placing it alongside other elements of his engagement with Jewish history, Mosaic principles and wider “Hebraica” – specifically, an appendix to his Nazarenus (1718) and his Origines Judaicae (1709). Although Toland’s case for Jewish naturalization shows the strong influence of Locke’s case for political and religious toleration, and also of a general “mercantilism”, it is argued that one of its main characteristics is a philosophical naturalism, shown in its treatment of the human species as a whole. Furthermore, it is also argued that this same naturalism is evident throughout Toland’s engagement with Jewish history and Mosaic thought. Accordingly, when we “fold” these works into each other, we find each enhancing our understanding of the others – not just as examples of Toland’s treatment of “Jewish affairs”, but also as illustrations of a consistent conceptual materialism. To emphasize this, the article concludes by suggesting that the figure of Rabbi Simone Luzzatto, author of a 1638 plea for tolerance, provides an important clue in understanding the links between Toland’s political injunctions and the philosophical foundation on which they are built.     

WHO SUFFERED FROM THE CRISIS OF HISTORICISM? A DUTCH EXAMPLE

Was the crisis of historicism an exclusively German affair? Or was it a “narrowly academic crisis,” as is sometimes assumed? Answering both questions in the negative, this paper argues that crises of historicism affected not merely intellectual elites, but even working‐class people, not only in Germany, but also in the Netherlands. With an elaborated case study, the article shows that Dutch “neo‐Calvinist” Protestants from the 1930s onward experienced their own crisis of historicism. For a variety of reasons, this religious subgroup came to experience a collapse of its “historicist” worldview. Following recent German scholarship, the paper argues that this historicism was not a matter of Rankean historical methods, but of “historical identifications,” or modes of identity formation in which historical narratives played crucial roles. Based on this Dutch case study, then, the article develops two arguments. In a quantitative mode, it argues that more and different people suffered from the crisis of historicism than is usually assumed. In addition, it offers a qualitative argument: that the crisis was located especially among groups that derived their identity from “historical identifications.” Those who suffered most from the crisis of historicism were those who understood themselves as embedded in narratives that connected past, present, and future in such a way as to offer identity in historical terms.     

DIAGNOSING FROUDE'S DISEASE: BOUNDARY WORK AND THE DISCIPLINE OF HISTORY IN LATE‐VICTORIAN BRITAIN

Historians looking to make history a professional discipline of study in Victorian Britain believed they had to establish firm boundaries demarcating history from other literary disciplines. James Anthony Froude ignored such boundaries. The popularity of his historical narratives was a constant reminder of the continued existence of a supposedly overturned phase of historiography in which the historian was also a man of letters, transcending the boundary separating fact from fiction and literature from history. Just as professionalizing historians were constructing a methodology that called on historians to be inductive empirical workers, Froude refused to accept the new science of history, and suggested instead that history was an individual enterprise, one more concerned with drama and art than with science. E. A. Freeman warned the historical community that they “cannot welcome [Froude] as a partner in their labors, as a fellow‐worker in the cause of historic truth.” This article examines the boundary work of a professionalizing history by considering the attempt to exclude Froude from the historian's discourse, an attempt that involved a communal campaign that sought to represent Froude as “constitutionally inaccurate.” Froude suffered from “an inborn and incurable twist,” argued Freeman, thereby diagnosing “Froude's disease” as the inability to “make an accurate statement about any matter.” By unpacking the construction of “Froude's disease,” the article exposes the disciplinary techniques at work in the professionalization of history, techniques that sought to exclude non‐scientific modes of thought such as that offered by Froude.     

ENERGY: GOVERNMENT POLICY OR MARKET RESULT?

From the Truman presidency through that of Carter, the United States worked fitfully toward the development of an energy policy. Now, consistent with the “free market — get government off the backs of the people” philosophy of the Reagan Administration, the 1981 National Energy Policy Plan proposes that “individual choices” and “reliance on market decisions” replace regulations and subsidies in the nation's strategy for energy. This paper starts from the assumption that the Spring, 1982 oil “glut” may turn out to be a rather temporary thing. If one therefore wants to pursue a policy strategy that will protect us in the case of sudden short-term supply disruptions and also work toward long-term energy supply diversification, how far will market reliance carry us? What is a range of policies and programs that might usefully supplement the market? What are the externalities for which compensatory actions may still be needed if one would like to employ the market strategy as a basic thrust? The scope of the paper includes contingency planning, synthetic fuel development, renewables (especially solar energy), conservation, equity issues, environmental externalities, and the conceptualization of policies differentiated as “energy,”“environmental,” or “economic.”