Missed Opportunities: Winston Churchill,the Air Ministry,and Africa, 1919–1921

Relying on a thorough examination of relevant archival documents housed in several European archives, this paper analyses Austrian Chancellor Metternich's Near Eastern policy from 1829 to 1833 with special attention paid to Austria's relations with Russia. Its primary goal is to refute some already deep-rooted claims relating to Metternich's attitudes towards Russia and the Ottoman Empire from 1829 to 1833 and to offer a different assessment of his role in the diplomatic concert to the one generally held by proving firstly that Metternich did not fear Russia's policy towards the Ottoman Empire during this period, secondly that his policy was consistent and the meeting in Münchengrätz in 1833 was not such an important turning point in the Austrian—Russian relations but simply the climax of the already existing good relationship between the two conservative Powers, and, finally, that no Austro-Russian quid pro quo was agreed upon in this North Bohemian town, which means that Metternich did not have to give up Austrian interests in the Near East for the Russian support in the West because both countries' interests in the two areas were identical. Finally, the paper attempts to point out the fact that though Metternich's policy definitely was conservative, it cannot be sufficiently explained by such a superficial single-word labelling because much of his rationality based upon an in-depth analysis of the affairs lay beyond it, at least of those issues concerning the Eastern Question in the early 1830s.     

W. B. Yeats,the Abbey Theatre,and the Cinema, 1909–1939

ABSTRACT

Given the significance of new technologies to the literary and visual cultures of the early-twentieth century, it is surprising how little has been written about W. B. Yeats and cinema. Viewed by some scholars as emphatically resistant to what he termed “the leprosy of the modern,” Yeats has long been a difficult writer to situate in relation the progressive impulses of modernity. Building on Kevin Rockett’s identification of the parallels between the work of Abbey Theatre and a nascent Irish cinema culture, this article argues that Yeats played a prominent role in early attempts to develop an indigenous film industry, and to cultivate representations of Ireland on screen abroad. During the period I consider, the Abbey Theatre and the film industry were similarly affected by state censorship programmes and various forms of cultural nationalism. Exploring the Abbey Theatre Minute Books and archival materials discovered in Trinity College Dublin, I suggest that Yeats’s Abbey was a shaping force in Irish cinema history, despite the fact that most attempts to create a national cinema met with limited success.     

Airports and air-mindedness: spacing,timing and using the Liverpool Airport, 1929–1939

Some popular texts have associated airports with a lack of identity. It is supposed that people are alienated from these ahistorical and interstitial spaces (Augé 1995 Augé, M. 1995. Non-places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, London: Verso.  [Google Scholar]; Castells 1996 Castells, M. 1996. The Rise of the Network Society, Volume 1: The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Oxford: Blackwell.  [Google Scholar]). Other approaches have tended to ignore their sociality, exploring their role within transport networks rather than what goes on within. Through a discussion of the early beginnings of British airport development and the construction of Liverpool Airport at Speke, I attempt to show how there are other contextual geographies to airports. By using the concept of air-mindedness—a moral geographical concept that promoted the belief in the possibilities of aircraft mobility, this paper discusses how social identities became bound to flight, forming the context to the development of the airport and both local and national belonging. This examination will reveal the embeddedness of airports within the times, spaces and uses from which they are produced and consumed. Archival research provides the material for this discussion.

Les aéroports et le sens des choses de l'air: l'espace, le temps et l'utilisation de l'aéroport de Liverpool, 1929–1939

Un nombre d'écrits populaires ont dressé un parallèle entre les aéroports et un déficit d'identité. Les gens, suppose t'on, se sentent aliénés par ces espaces ahistoriques et interstitiels (Augé 1995 Augé, M. 1995. Non-places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, London: Verso.  [Google Scholar]; Castells 1996 Castells, M. 1996. The Rise of the Network Society, Volume 1: The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Oxford: Blackwell.  [Google Scholar]). Dans d'autres cas, on a fait fi de leur socialité, explorant alors leur rôle au sein de réseaux des transports plutôt que de s'intéresser à ce qui se passe dedans. Une discussion sur les tout débuts de l'expansion des aéroports britanniques et de la construction de l'aéroport de Liverpool à Steke tente de montrer comment les aéroports sont situés dans des contextes géographiques différents. Grâce au concept du sens des choses de l'air—un concept moral en géographie qui renforçait la croyance dans les possibilités de mobilité qu'offre l'avion, cet article traite de la façon dont les identités sociales se rattachent au vol créant ainsi le contexte dans lequel se situe le développement de l'aéroport et de l'appartenance locale et nationale. Dans cette étude, il est question de l'enchâssement des aéroports dans les époques, espaces et usages à partir desquels ils sont produits et consommés. La discussion fait état des résultats d'une recherche en archivistique.

Mots-clefs: aéroports, géographie, contexte, mobilité, identité, sens des choses de l'air.

Aeropuertos y air-mindedness: espacio, tiempo y el uso del aeropuerto de Liverpool 1929–1939

Algunos textos populares asocian los aeropuertos con una falta de identidad. Se supone que la gente se siente distanciada de estos espacios ahistóricos e intersticiales (Augé 1995 Augé, M. 1995. Non-places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, London: Verso.  [Google Scholar]; Castells 1996 Castells, M. 1996. The Rise of the Network Society, Volume 1: The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Oxford: Blackwell.  [Google Scholar]). Los enfoques de otros no tienen en cuenta el aspecto social y exploran el papel del aeropuerto en las redes de transporte en vez de explorar lo que pasa dentro del mismo aeropuerto. Por un estudio de los inicios del desarrollo del Aeropuerto Británico y la construcción del aeropuerto de Liverpool en Speke, pretendo mostrar que, con respecto a los aeropuertos, hay otras geografías contextuales para explorar. Haciendo uso de la idea de ‘air-mindedness’—un concepto geográfico moral que fomentaba confianza en las posibilidades de movilidad aeronáutica—este papel habla de cómo las identidades sociales llegaron a ser vinculadas a la aviación, así formando el contexto para el desarrollo del aeropuerto y un sentido de pertenencia, tanto local como nacional. Este estudio revela hasta qué punto los aeropuertos se han arraigado en los tiempos, espacios y usos de los cuales son producidos y consumidos. Hago uso de investigaciones de archivos para este debate.

Palabras claves: aeropuertos, geografía, contexto, movilidad, identidad, air-mindedness.     

Venezuelan peasants,capitalism, and the modern world‐system

Roseberry, William. Coffee and Capitalism in the Venezuelan Andes. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983. xv + 256 pp. including bibliography and index. $22.50 cloth.     

The law,the citizen,and the state in nineteenth‐century Australia

The Invisible State: The Formation of the Australian State 1788–1901 by Alastair Davidson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. xviii + 329. £40.00 (hardback). ISBN 0–521–36658–5.

The Rule of Law in a Penal Colony: Law and Power in Early New South Wales by David Neal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pp. xiv + 266. £30.00 (hardback). ISBN 0–521–37264‐X.

Criminal Law and Colonial Subject: New South Wales, 1810–1830 by Paula J. Byrne. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. xiv + 301. £37.50 (hardback). ISBN 0–521–40379–0.     

The twenty‐second Katharine Briggs memorial lecture,November 2003

The elite theories of witchcraft in early modern Europe rested on the elaborate imaginary constructs of scholastic theologians, with their implications about a cosmic struggle between good and evil. These were reinforced by a range of popular beliefs and practices, and by the iconography of such artists as Bosch, Grien and Cranach. The imaginary world of witchcraft always tended towards a Manichean dualism that commanded widespread popular support, but aroused doubts among the elites. The fears on which it played, of sterility and dearth, bad mothers, and death, gave it an extraordinary imaginative appeal, which also helps to explain its reappearance in modern literature.     

British Diplomacy,Propaganda, and War Strategy and the Hungarian-Romanian Dispute over Transylvania in 1939–40

Abstract

Between 1914 and 1935, the cities of Vienna and Pressburg/Bratislava were linked by an electric railway known as the Pressburgerbahn. More than just a line of transportation, the railway became intertwined with the complex politics of identity in Pressburg. The Pressburgerbahn presented nationalists in the Habsburg Empire with a dilemma: it had the potential to contribute to the unification of the nation, but at the same time was transnational by definition. This paradox generated a heated controversy about the Pressburgerbahn between Magyar nationalists and the predominantly German-speaking Pressburg bourgeoisie. Using biologized rhetoric, Hungarian politicians and journalists portrayed their nation as a body politic that was disfigured by having a railway ‘vein’ cross the border into Austria, in particular from such a peripheral location as Pressburg. By contrast, the discourse of the German-speaking bourgeoisie was firmly anchored in an imperial, supra-ethnic landscape. This controversy was replayed following the incorporation of the renamed city of Bratislava into Czechoslovakia in 1919: the Prague-based Ministry of Railways employed the rhetoric of the railway as an integrating structure within the body politic, while the eventual closure of the Pressburgerbahn in 1935 was closely connected to the belated nationalization of Bratislava. The railway to Vienna thus became a symbol of the liminal status of the town as a whole, in terms of nation, geography, politics and culture.     

‘Phrases Make History Here’: Churchill,Ireland and the Rhetoric of Empire

In the history of the Tokyo War Crimes Trial 1946–48, it is generally held that the United States was the dominating presence: General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, not only convened the court, but also openly insisted on an exoneration of the Japanese emperor; and American lawyers headed the prosecution team and assumed much of the workload for the defence. However, government documents, including correspondence from and to the participants, show that the Commonwealth governments exerted significant influence in many crucial matters, such as the drafting of the indictment and the judgment of the court. This article questions the standard emphasis on America's role and takes a fresh look at the relationship between the United States and the British Commonwealth of Nations.     

Parliament and the Press: Forging the United Nations in Wartime Britain, 1939–45

During the Second World War, not only the United States but also Great Britain played a leading role in planning and establishing the United Nations (UN) as a new international organisation to replace the League of Nations. While scholarship on post-war planning is extensive, relatively little exists on how the planning process was discussed and depicted publicly in Britain. The purpose of this article is to fill such lacunae by examining the two most important domains for public discussion at the time, the press and parliament. It will argue, first, that the League of Nations’ experience – its inability to use collective force and its optimistically democratic structure – overwhelmingly shaped public discourse in reference to the UN. By referring to the past, the press and politicians alike in Britain were content to relinquish interwar ideas such as equal rights and equal representation for all nations. Second, apart from the lessons of history, the less democratic structure of the new world organisation was justified from the perspective of great power politics. The desire to make the grand alliance between Britain, the United States of America, and the USSR functional despite all mutual suspicions, directed the view of the UN, and typically overrode all other concerns relating to post-war planning. Finally, throughout the wartime planning of the UN, public opinion, in so far as press and parliament were concerned, held fast to the idea that the British empire was not to be touched by the UN. In public, the establishment of the UN was hardly considered as a starting point for decolonisation. Instead, the UN was designed to become the post-war embodiment of the grand alliance, a vehicle through which the victory over the Axis powers would be managed at the global level: such management did not envision the need to let empire go. Viewed this way, it also becomes clear that nationalism and internationalism were not mutually exclusive or binary visions, but coexisted and shifted in importance throughout the period examined.