State,Parliament and Empire in the Mid 18th Century: Hudson's Bay and the Parliamentary Enquiry of 1749

In 1749, the house of commons appointed a committee of enquiry into the lands and trade of Hudson's Bay. This was the climax to nearly 20 years' work by the Ulsterman, Arthur Dobbs, which focused first on renewed search for a northwest passage and later widened to attempt to expand trade and settlement by challenging the monopoly of the Hudson's Bay Company. Dobbs's Irish patriotism, linked by support for union with Britain with his remarkably expansive vision of British empire, became concentrated on this campaign with a zeal and tenacity which overrode contrary evidence based on experience. Propaganda pamphlets, mobilisation of compatriots, merchant and political contacts, briefs for MPs, marshalling of evidence and witnesses for parliamentary committees, 30 petitions from a variety of places, organised by Liverpool and Bristol merchants who took the lead in the final campaign: all were used to attempt to influence parliament. This was an impressive mid-century effort to promote British commerce and manufactures, actively supported by the parliamentary opposition which was reviving under Leicester House leadership. Yet, while this campaign could shape the report of the committee of enquiry, the House itself was not so easily moved, especially when public expenditure was likely to be involved. A motion arising from the report was decisively defeated. The impressive campaign came to nought. While it indeed reveals powerful visions of commercial and imperial expansion in the mid 18th century, the outcome suggests that realism and scepticism prevailed at the heart of the state.     

The Unhelpful Notion of ‘Renaissance man’

The current journalistic use of the term ‘Renaissance man’ to describe someone whose work straddles boundaries between today's specialisms is a hindrance to understanding almost any aspect of the culture of the Renaissance — a culture within which both ‘art’ and ‘science’ had meanings different from those they have now, the most significant intellectual division being between the learned and the practical traditions. We look first at the learned tradition of the universities (where teaching was in Latin). The people considered include William Harvey, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Nicolaus Copernicus, Regiomontanus and (very briefly) Isaac Newton. Within the practical tradition, centred on workshops, we consider the state shipyards in Venice (where Galileo claimed to have learned much), workshop practices in general and the emergence of the notion of ‘Fine Arts’. The individuals considered include Piero della Francesca, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti and Raphael, as well as the famous clockmaker Jost Bürgi (who taught Kepler about algebra). We conclude by considering the transfer of skills between these two traditions. There are several areas of overlap, but here we concentrate attention on the story of algebra. Algebra was invented by al-Khwarizmi (whose name gives us the term ‘algorithm’) in the ninth century, within learned mathematics, in Baghdad. In the West, elementary algebra, derived from al-Khwarizmi's work but in the simplified form of problems, became part of ‘practical mathematics’. Slowly, from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, developed forms of algebra crossed over into the learned tradition. This is as much a matter of crossing social barriers as of crossing intellectual ones. Eventually, the practical tradition as a whole became absorbed as an elementary part of the learned one.     

RECONCEIVING THE PRACTICE OF HISTORY: FROM REPRESENTATION TO TRANSLATION

Arguing that history is not the application of a rigorous method to sources bequeathed to us from the past but rather a practice of coding that constructs “the past” in particular ways, this article seeks to delineate the key elements of this coding. Modern history treats past objects and texts as the objectified remains of humans who endowed their world with meaning and purpose while constrained by the social circumstances characterizing their times. This time of theirs is dead, and it can only be represented, not resurrected; the past is only ever the human past, and it does not include ghosts, gods, spirits, or nature. If, as argued here, “the past” does not exist independently of the means by which it is known and represented, then the many different modes of historicity that human beings developed and deployed before the modern form of history became dominant cannot be measured against “the” past in an effort to compare their accuracy or adequacy in representing it. The concluding section of this article asks what we are doing when we write the history of those who did not share the presumptions of the modern discipline but who had their own mode(s) of historicity. What, it asks, is the character and status of the knowledge produced when we write histories of premodern and non-Western pasts?     

Does the History of Medicine Begin where the History of Philosophy Ends? An Example of Interdisciplinarity in the Early Modern Era

Abstract

A popular saying attributed to Aristotle states that ‘medicine begins where philosophy ends’—but this principle does not seem entirely valid for the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, when medicine and philosophy were considered to be integral parts of the same branch of knowledge. For this reason, although today medicine and philosophy are clearly distinct disciplines, historians of ideas cannot study them entirely separately. Indeed, since the early modern era was a period of profound revision of knowledge, probably only a truly interdisciplinary investigation can identify the conceptual shifts and transfers capable of reinstating medicine in its fundamental role in the development of civilisation and modern thought, in particular as a model of a rational knowledge aimed at improving the social good through a fitting interpretation of experience. This article intends to offer arguments in support of such a historiographical approach, and to illustrate certain interesting methodological ideas that emerge from a study in which the history of philosophy and history of medicine cross-pollinate.     

THE CONTINUING MODESTY OF HISTORY

The critique of conventional historical writing has been emergent for a century—it is not the work of a few—and it has immense practical implications for Western society, perhaps especially in English‐speaking countries. Involved are such issues as the decline of representation, the nature of causality, the definitions of identity or time or system, to name only a few. Conventional historians are quite right to consider this a challenge to everything they assume in order to do their work. The challenge is, why do that particular work at all? Understandably, historians have consolidated, especially in North America where empiricism and the English language prevail. But even there, and certainly elsewhere, and given the changes in knowledge and social order during the past century at least, the critique of conventional historical method is unavoidable. Too bad historians aren't doing more to help this effort, and by historians I don't mean the most of us who think constantly in terms of historical causality as we learned it from the nineteenth century and our teachers; by “historians” I mean the experts who continue to teach the young. A major roadblock to creative discussion is the fact that problems such as those just mentioned all exceed disciplinary boundaries, so investigation that does not follow suit cannot grasp the problem, much less respond to it creatively. Of course everyone is “for” interdisciplinary work, but most professional organizations, publications, and institutions do not encourage it, despite lip service to the contrary. Interdisciplinary work involves more than the splicing activity that is all too familiar in academic curricula. Crossing out of one's realm of “expertise” requires a kind of humility that does not always sort well with the kind of expertise fostered by professional organizations, publications, and institutions. And even the willing have trouble with the heady atmosphere outside the professional bubble. In such conditions key terms (“language,”“discourse,”“relativism,”“modernity,”“postmodernity,”“time,”“difference”) are pushed here and pushed there without gaining the focus that would lead to currency until finally the ostensible field of play resembles a gigantic traffic jam like the one that opens the film Fellini Roma. Discussion of these issues leads in the end to Borges and his story, ‘The Modesty of History,” from which the title of this essay is borrowed.     

从英国史研究到世界现代化进程研究--访钱乘旦教授

钱乘旦教授在蒋孟引先生的引导下从事英国史研究,首先探讨了改革在英国历史发展中的作用。以英国史研究为切入点,进一步比较了英国、法国、德国等国家近代历史发展的异同,从而深入到发达国家现代化的研究领域。他又从英国现代化的研究扩展到整个英联邦国家的现代化研究,进而探讨了世界上不同国家的现代化的历史进程,并且反思了这一进程中出现的诸多问题。     

A Forgotten Legacy: The Romanov Patronage of Finland’s Early Art Collections

The earliest art collections of Finland’s National Gallery came into being when, as the Grand Duchy of Finland, it was an autonomous part of imperial Russia (1809–1917). The prevailing view of Finnish museum studies, however, sees the Finnish Art Society, the precursor of the Finnish National Gallery, as being modelled on exclusively European cultural institutions. The history of the Society and its collections have thus been seen as resistant to any alien eastern influences, and as an attempt to differentiate Finnish culture from Russian art collecting practices. Drawing on the theoretical shift in cultural studies from the conception of stable, clearly demarcated cultural identities of nation states toward less rigidly defined identities, the aim of this essay is to reconstruct the hidden Russian presence in Finnish museum historiography. Based on original unpublished sources, my study shows that the earliest support of Finland’s cultural infrastructure was given by the Romanov patrons Nicholas I, Alexander II, and Alexander III. By exposing the absence and physical erasure of “imperial identity” in the official Finnish museum narrative, I reveal how museums can at once elevate particular discourses and practices while marginalizing other historical processes in a nation’s cultural past.     

鸦片战争以前中文出版物对英国的介绍——介绍《大英国统志》

本文首先概述了鸦片战争以前中文出版物对英国介绍的概况,然后集中介绍罕为人知的<大英国统志>.<大英国统志>出版于1834年,全面地介绍了英国的情况,举凡自然环境、历史沿革、政治制度、军事制度、贸易、物产、文化设施、宗教、民情、风俗、殖民地情况,无不述及,堪称一部简明的英国历史,是鸦片战争以前介绍英国最为详细、最为准确的一部书.此书出版以后,不知何故,至今罕有人提及,其叙述方式也有特点,实有必要介绍给学术界.     

Encountering soviet geography: oral histories of British geographical studies of the USSR and Eastern Europe 1945–1991

This paper considers the history of British geographical studies of the USSR and Eastern Europe 1945–1991, presenting material from a research project which has included thirty-two oral history interviews. Oral history is an especially fruitful research methodology in this context due to the distinct issues of formality and informality involved in researching the Soviet bloc. After discussing the nature of the subdiscipline and the Cold War context, including the role of the British state in shaping the field, the paper considers the role of formal academic meetings and exchanges, and the place of unofficial spaces of encounter in the formation of an intellectual culture. The paper concludes by reflecting on the merits of oral history in studies of the production of geographical knowledge.     

The coming of age of the history of archaeology

Publications and organizational developments relating to the history of archaeology from 1989 until June 1993 are critically examined. Attention is paid to the changing motivations for producing such publications, their shifting intellectual orientation, controversies, especially as they relate to internal vs external approaches and the epistemological status of explanations, problems of verification, and the status of these studies as a subfield within archaeology.     

History of Psychology in China: Contributions,Challenges, and Future

The history of psychology makes three major contributions:(1) promoting the development of psychology in China;(2) establishing the history of Chinese psychology as an academic discipline;(3) playing an important role in training the next generation of Chinese psychologists.This effort faces numerous challenges,including the reduction in undergraduate teaching hours,declining enrolments at the postgraduate level,limited innovation in research,and a lack of financial support.These challenges stem largely from changes in the Chinese academic assessing system,the greater weight placed on experimental psychology,and a fewer opportunities for researchers.To address these concerns the history of psychology in China should make the history of Chinese psychology its research priority,while also presenting its findings to the public,and developing innovative teaching and research approaches.     

WHAT OBJECT IS FEAR?

This article reviews two edited volumes on fear, important contributions to the newly developing field of the history of emotions. The question at the center of Jan Plamper and Benjamin Lazier's volume is how fear is constituted as an object; this question is investigated in an interdisciplinary dialogue. Focusing on the twentieth century, the editors bring together psychologists, historians of science and of emotions, and specialists in literature studies, politics, and film. Taking the dialogue beyond the social sciences is certainly an exciting and necessary exercise, but it also raises the question whether both sides are really talking about the same object. Michael Laffan and Max Weiss place fear in a global history perspective. They cover a wide scope, from early modernity to the present, and geographically including the Americas and Indonesia. Taken together, both volumes not only give an impressive overview of the field of fear studies, and add to it through a number of case studies, but also raise the question “what object is fear?” in a new way. If this object is as fluid as appears from the two volumes—not only with respect to the different events that trigger fear, the different uses it was put to, and the politics it allowed, but as a felt emotion—this calls for further investigation notably into the words and concepts used to make sense of the experience.