Tom Paine: The greatest exile

In this contribution, I reassess the opposition between Saint-Pierre's idealism and Rousseau's realism. Rousseau accuses Saint-Pierre of having a defect in his analysis and political judgement which, if he had been consistent, would have led to a revolutionary position in the strong sense – a position of which the author of The Social Contract himself disapproved. In short, not only was Saint-Pierre far from being a convinced absolutist; Rousseau's own writings on the Abbé do not advocate a ‘republican solution’, which he regarded as impracticable for the Europe of his time.     

6. ACTES DE PRÉSENCE: PRESENCE IN FASCIST POLITICAL CULTURE1

In order to discuss the notion of presence, I explore Fascist Italy as an example of a presence‐based culture. In the first part of this paper, I focus on the doctrines of “the philosopher of fascism,” Giovanni Gentile (1875–1944), in order to show that his programme of cultural awakening revolves around the notion of the “presentification of the past.” This notion formed the basis of Gentile's dialectic of the act of thought, which is the kernel of his actual idealism, or actualism. I argue that actualism should primarily be interpreted as an ontology of a historical reality; it expresses the view that reality is history. In his 1914 inaugural “L'esperienza pura e la realtà storica” (Pure Experience and Historical Reality), Gentile drew this view to its ultimate consequence by developing a view of experience that has some striking parallels with the contemporary views of presence as expounded by Gumbrecht, Runia, and Ankermit. In the second part of my paper, I discuss how Gentile and his collaborators put presence into practice in school reforms, the Enciclopedia Italiana, and in hundreds of monuments, memorials, and exhibitions. Finally, I discuss the 1932 Mostra della rivoluzione fascista, which was not only the apex of fascist culture politics, but also of the practice of presence. In this context, I argue that this practice should not be seen as a politics of historical interpretation, as Hayden White once held, but as a politics of sublime historical experience, or presence. The presence of presence in fascist political culture raises some difficult questions for all who embrace the new paradigm, questions that can only be answered if the notion of presence is somehow balanced by the critical historical method, which is the basis for a true dialogue with the past.     

Capitalism,Christianity, America: Rethinking the Issues

Abstract

Appreciative of the points made by all four commentators, William Connolly seeks to clarify some issues and modify a few positions taken in his book Capitalism and Christianity, American Style (2008). Philip Goodchild's account of "resonance" is superb, but I hesitate over his tendency to argue that the demise of capitalism is inevitable. Catherine Keller deepens the theological issues pursued in my book, as she shows additional ways to open "theopoetic" connections between those who pursue deep, multidimensional pluralism. David Howarth makes important links between my position and that of Ernesto Laclau, and he joins me in resisting those who eschew engagement with the state as they fight off the neoliberal/evangelical machine. I use the occasion of this dialogue to explore further the relations between conceptions of immanence and those of transcendence. Kathy Ferguson admirably shows how the experience of grief by evangelical women opens a possible door to engagements of agonistic respect. In each engagement I try to follow some of the suggestions and to add a couple of my own.     

FDR, Lewis Douglas, and the, Raw Deal

"Despite my emotions, I could not refuse the responsibility which has been offered; for in times like these, even more so than in times of war, individuals cease to be significant. Only the common welfare is important," explained Lewis Douglas in 1933 as he accepted President-elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt's offer of the position of director of the budget.¹ Douglas came to his post with a strong sense of obligation—he was certain the United States was in a "critical condition," and the only solution to the devastating depression lay in balancing the budget.² Roosevelt seemingly agreed with Douglas. Newspapers reported that the young budget director would "make his mark in the Roosevelt administration" and "be at the heart of things." Journalists argued that Roosevelt's appointment was an "indication that Roosevelt means business in his promise to reduce government costs."³     

“The apple of my eye”: Carl Sauer and historical geography

Many historical geographers would claim Sauer to be one of them. Yet, with the exception of his Foreword to historical geography (1941) he made no major declaration of his interest in the sub-discipline. This paper attempts to examine Sauer's attitude to the time element in geography through a close appraisal of his published work but particularly through his hitherto unpublished correspondence. It soon becomes evident that Sauer changed his ideas during his long working life, and that it is difficult to disentangle Sauer's philosophy about the time element in geography from his philosophy about life, particularly within university circles in the United States, and within American society in general. Sauer's comment to a student in 1936 that historical geography “is of course the apple of my eye” would seem to be demonstrated amply, but that historical geography was not a conventional methodology so much as a flexible metaphor to encompass the study of man on earth through time. It was also the vehicle for some of his prime concerns; scholarship, independent thought, opposition to bureaucracy, concern for human values and environmental quality, and deep distaste for the technological and scientific “fix”, particularly the solutions offered by the social sciences. It might repay contemporary historical geographers to take a close look at Sauer's academic and intellectual values.     

John Stuart Mill and voluntary slavery contracts

Mill's unwillingness to support the enforcement of voluntary slavery agreements is problematically related to his strong anti‐paternalism. Working on the assumption that it is too simple to charge him with inconsistency, this paper examines several interpretations of his remarks, and explores some of the deeper motivations that may have influenced his position. Several features of his argument are emphasized: the fact that his opposition is to slavery contracts and not self‐enslavement as such; the weight he allows to ‘the necessities of life’ in determining what freedom‐limiting contracts to enforce; the way in which enforceable slavery agreements would undermine the presumption in favour of liberty; the problematic character of carte blanche consent, and the possibility this raises that enforcement could make the law a party to criminable harm. Although Mill's argument is too cryptic to be persuasive, it is too suggestive to be given the off‐handed treatment often meted out by his commentators.     

2. THE PUBLIC RELEVANCE OF HISTORICAL STUDIES: A REPLY TO DIRK MOSES

I am grateful to Dirk Moses for taking the time to study my work so assiduously and to comment on it so perspicuously. His essay is eminently well‐informed and even‐handed, and I have little to add to or correct of his characterization of my many, long on‐going, and admittedly flawed attempts to deconstruct modern historical discourse. He understands me well enough and I think that I understand his objections to my position(s). We do not disagree on matters of fact, I think, but we have different notions about the nature of historical discourse and the uses to which historical knowledge can properly be put.     

FROM BREXIT TO HEGEL

British idealism has led an ambiguous existence in any overview of British historical and political thought in the twentieth century. Seen partly as an alien Continental intrusion into presumably typical British priorities of empiricism, positivism, and utilitarianism, it was badly damaged by its putative associations with the military enemy of two world wars. Admir Skodo's meticulous study of British “idealist revisionists” during the postwar period 1945–1980 repairs this damage by showing the extended influence of that idealism as funneled through the “new idealism” of the interwar period represented mainly by the philosophers R. G. Collingwood and Michael Oakeshott. Skodo demonstrates how these idealist revisionists deeply influenced postwar British historiography by underscoring qualities of humanism, pluralism, and variety not characteristically associated with idealism, reinterpreted a range of important topics in British history from the Tudors through the English civil wars to the Victorian period, and came up with political theorizing that celebrated the postwar welfare state while indicating its vulnerabilities to an increasingly technologized society. Just as Skodo's protagonists negotiated the 1970s transition in Britain's turn to Europe, so his account proves stimulating for contemporary concerns regarding a post‐Brexit Britain. The final part of the essay therefore looks at some suggested models, such as the “Anglosphere” or a “Singapore in the Atlantic” for Britain, before concluding with reflections on the importance according to a Hegelian reading of the modern “rational state” of the continued influence of Oxbridge intellectuals on the evolution of British directions and goals since the Victorian age.     

试论梁启超晚期的文化观

梁启超晚期的文化观,以《欧游心影录》的发表为主要标志,建立在极端的主观唯心主义哲学理论基础之上。他以资产阶级的哲学观点和方法去整理中国的传统文化,力图把中国的传统文化纳入资产阶级的文化体系,有一定的积极意义。但他试图以中国传统文化中的人生哲学去搭救破产的西方文明,却有抵制马克思主义新文化在中国传播的用心,其消极影响不容忽视。     

《今水经·浈水》考释

北江是珠江的三大支流之一, 对广东省有着重要的意义。黄宗羲《今水经》以“浈水”的名义, 对其加以记载, 但其中错误甚多。本文试图通过考证的方式, 对北江的源头、支流、入海情况一一辨正之, 试图把一个完整的北江水系呈现在读者面前, 为进一步进行对北江的历史地理研究做基础性的工作。     

THE ALLURE OF DARK TIMES: MAX WEBER,POLITICS, AND THE CRISIS OF HISTORICISM

This article argues that realist invocations of Weber rely on an unrealistic reading of Weber's realism. In order to escape the allure of Weber's dramatic posture of crisis, we place his seminal lecture on “Politics as a Vocation” (1919) in its historical and philosophical context of a revolutionary conjuncture of dramatic proportions, compounded by a broader crisis of historicism. Weber's rhetoric, we argue, carries with it not only the emotion of crisis but is also the expression of a deeper intellectual impasse. The fatalistic despair of his position had already been detected by some of his closest contemporaries for whom Weber did not appear as a door‐opener to a historically situated theory of political action but as a telling and intriguing impasse. Although the disastrous history of interwar Europe seems to confirm Weber's bleakest predictions, it would be perverse to elevate contingent failure to the level of retrospective vindication.     

'Nostrorum socordiam temporum': the reforming impulse of Bede's later exegesis

This paper attempts to provide a synoptic view of the thematic development of Bede's exergesis. It examines a selection of his commentaries written at different periods in his career and, by placing them against the social and political background of early eighth–century Northumbria, tries to indicate some important differences amongst them. The core of my argument is that, in contrast to his early commentaries, Bede's mature exegesis is decisively infused by the aims and concerns of his later non–exegetical works such as the Ecclesiastical History and the Letter to Ecgberht. It will be shown, for example, that earlier commentaries such as On the Apocalypse and On Acts devote less attention to pastoral concerns than do such later works as On Ezra and Nehemiah , On the Tabernacle and On the Temple . Further, the earlier commentaries contain fewer topical comments on the social and religious demise of contemporary Northumbria than the later exegesis (especially On Ezra and Nehemiah ), comments whose substance and tone align this later work with the reform program of the Ecgberht letter. By considering these and other related issues, my analysis has a twofold aim: to provide a better sense of the overall shape and development of Bede's commentaries, and to highlight the social investedness and intertextuality of his later writings as a whole.     

Toward a Received History of the Holocaust

In this article, I examine both the problem of so-called postmodern history as it relates to the Holocaust and suggest the ways that Saul Friedlander's recent work successfully mediates between the somewhat overly polemicized positions of “relativist” and “positivist” history. In this context, I find that in his search for an adequately self-reflexive historical narrative for the Holocaust, Hayden White's proposed notion of “middle-voicedness” may recommend itself more as a process for eyewitness writers than as a style for historians after the fact. From here, I look at the ways Saul Friedlander's reflections on the historian's voice not only mediate between White's notions of the ironic mode and middle-voicedness, but also suggest the basis for an uncanny history in its own right: an anti-redemptory narrative that works through, yet never actually bridges, the gap between a survivor's “deep memory” and historical narrative. For finally, it may be the very idea of “deep memory” and its incompatibility to narrative that constitutes one of the central challenges to Holocaust historiography. What can be done with what Friedlander has termed “deep memory” of the survivor, that which remains essentially unrepresentable? Is it possible to write a history that includes some oblique reference to such deep memory, but which leaves it essentially intact, untouched and thereby deep? In this section, I suggest, after Patrick Hutton, that “What is at issue here is not how history can recover memory, but, rather, what memory will bequeath to history.” That is, what shall we do with the living memory of survivors? How will it enter (or not enter) the historical record? Or to paraphrase Hutton again, “How will the past be remembered as it passes from living memory to history?” Will it always be regarded as so overly laden with pathos as to make it unreliable as documentary evidence? Or is there a place for the understanding of the witness, as subjective and skewed as it may be, for our larger historical understanding of events? In partial answer to these questions, I attempt to extend Friedlander's insights toward a narrow kind of history-telling I call “received history”—a double-stranded narrative that tells a survivor-historian's story and my own relationship to it. Such a narrative would chart not just the life of the survivor-historian itself but also the measurable effect of the tellings—both his telling and mine—on my own life's story. Together, they would compose a received history of the Holocaust and its afterlife in the author's mind—my “vicarious past.”     

MODERNITY IN RELIGION: A RESPONSE TO CONSTANTIN FASOLT'S “HISTORY AND RELIGION IN THE MODERN AGE”

Contrary to Constantin Fasolt, I argue that it is no longer useful to think of religion as an anomaly in the modern age. Here is Fasolt's main argument: humankind suffers from a radical rift between the self and the world. The chief function of religion is to mitigate or cope with this fracture by means of dogmas and rituals that reconcile the self to the world. In the past, religion successfully fulfilled this job. But in modernity, it fails to, and it fails because religion is no longer plausible. Historical, confessional religions, then, are no longer doing what they are supposed to do; yet the need for religion is still very much with us. Fasolt's account would be a tragic tale, if not for his claim that there is a new religion for the modern age, a religion that fulfills the true reconciling function of religion. That new religion is the reading and writing of history. Indeed, for Fasolt, reading history is religiously redemptive, and writing history is a sacred act. The historian, it turns out, is the priest in modernity. In my response, I challenge both Fasolt's remedy (history as religiously redemptive) and its justification (the fall of historical religions). Indeed, I reject both his romantic view of past religion as the peaceful reconciler, as well as his pessimistic view of present religion as the maker of “enemies” among modern people. In the end, I argue that the way Fasolt employs his categories—“alienation,”“salvation,”“religion,”“history”— is too vague to do much useful work. They are significant categories and they deserve our attention. But in my view, the story Fasolt tells is both too grim (on human alienation) and too cheerful (on historian as modern savior).     

On the Values of Biblical Law and their Contemporary Application

Abstract

In God, Justice, and Society: Aspects of Law and Legality in the Bible (Oxford University Press, 2011), Jonathan Burnside sets himself a dual task: on the one hand (and primarily), to examine historically many biblical texts whose subject-matter has counterparts in modern law, and to identify their values; on the other to argue for the relevance of these texts to public debate on such issues in modern law. His semiotic methodology has much in common with my own (as he has graciously acknowledged). In this paper, stimulated by his work, I seek to sketch the academic context from which it arises, and pose some further questions prompted by reflection on his work.     

Arnold J. Toynbee’s Quest for a New World Order: A Survey

This article surveys the work of the controversial historian and internationalist Arnold J. Toynbee (1889–1975). In particular, it examines Toynbee’s understanding of foreign politics and his constant search for a stable world order. From the idealism of his youth, through his temporary disenchantment with his youthful expectations, to the religiously inspired utopianism of his final years, this essay discusses the development of Toynbee’s work and understanding of international affairs throughout the twentieth century.     

Some recollections of my early days in research

Sir Granville Beynon's lecture course entitled “The Ionosphere” first introduced me, in the late 1940s, to topics which have interested me ever since and have had a major influence on the subsequent development of my own career. Electromagnetic theory, radioscience, electronics (especially radars), plasma waves, space physics and satellites are typical key words which spring to mind. Here I recount some of my early interactions and experiences while working in his research group and in the period which followed. Although our interests later diverged, the knowledge gained during my time with Sir Granville re-surfaces from time to time and serves as a reminder of the basic grounding which he gave his students.     

Karl Polanyi and the Modernity-versus-Postmodernity Debate

The originality of Karl Polanyi's work in the interwar period has gained increasing recognition in recent years, during which time the major debate on modernity has erupted. In order to link Polanyi's work with this debate, I will first discuss his legacy on the controversial concept of progress, and then relate his position to this debate. It is my contention that Polanyi's position combines the better aspects of the two rival approaches to modernity. I will then re-link Polanyi's thought to the intellectual figures, movements and climate of his time and thereby disclose a curious affinity between his thought and the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School. This affinity can best be understood within the parameters of the historical context that they once shared.     

A tribune named Niccolò: Petrarchan revolutionaries and humanist failures in Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories

Given Machiavelli’s fascination with ancient Rome’s plebeian tribunate, it is not surprising that he would take an interest in Cola di Rienzo, the Roman who declared himself Tribune of the Plebs in 1347. However, Cola appears just once in Machiavelli’s corpus, in a single short and enigmatic chapter in the Florentine Histories. This paper argues that Machiavelli nevertheless quietly elaborates on Cola’s legacy later in his Histories, when he introduces Stefano Porcari, another ‘Roman citizen’ whose reform efforts fail catastrophically. Though Machiavelli never explicitly criticizes Cola, he does blame Porcari for exercising poor judgement. This blame, importantly, is entwined with Machiavelli’s allusions to the humanist writings of Francesco Petrarch. By placing these accounts of Cola and Porcari side by side, this paper aims to reveal the Florentine Histories’ complicated relationship with Petrarch, Italy’s most famous humanist. The web of cross-references among Cola, Porcari and Machiavelli himself indicates the latter’s vexation with the sort of rhetorical idealism that Petrarch’s famous endorsement of Cola’s revolution came to represent.     

Hayden White (and the Content and the Form and Everyone Else) at the AHA

The special session at the January 1997 annual meeting of the American Historical Association honoring the achievement of Hayden White and examining the impact and influence of his work on the historical discipline was an enlightening experience, at least to this participant, in many more ways than had been planned or promised. The session itself, albeit fairly routine by the standard of such occasions, seemed to take on a meta-narrative of its own as each of the speakers (not excluding the honoree who was present and participating) confidently spoke at length, proceeding from deep premises which bore no relation to any of the others. My own initial anticipation that this event would produce limited variations on a coherent theme—the impact of the linguistic turn and of narrative theory in particular on the practice and self-definition of academic history—turned gradually to rather disconcerted bemusement, especially when my turn came to listen to myself.
My previous engagement to report on the AHA session in a paper for the Center for the Humanities at Wesleyan University became an opportunity to confide some of my freshest reactions to the event in a fairly small and very select audience. Narrating the ephemeral metanarrative I perceived as spinning itself out over the blunter facts of the AHA occasion, turned out to be the inner topic of my Wesleyan paper (this present essay), not excluding the mysterious impulses of the audience and the existential atmosphere of the never to be forgotten Princess Ballroom.