Preserving the Status Quo: Britain,the United States,and Bolivian Tin, 1946–56

This article analyses the relationship between Britain, the United States, and Bolivia in the context of the tin nexus after the Second World War. While the connection between Britain and Bolivia was long-standing - Bolivian tin had been shipped to Britain since the nineteenth century - it extended far beyond simple bilateralism. Such was the intricate web of connections in the global tin industry that any rupture in the Anglo-Bolivian relationship would have fundamental ramifications on the equilibrium of the industry, and, in turn, Britain's predominant position within it. The United States had overtly challenged Britain's dominance during the Second World War by constructing a smelter to be supplied by Bolivian ores. Despite the financial exigencies of the post-war period, the profound upheavals in the domestic Bolivian tin industry, and the contentious, destabilising tin-procurement policy pursued by the United States, Britain was determined to confront this threat. By actively seeking to preserve its long-term contract for Bolivian tin, Britain was able to maintain its predominance in the post-war global tin industry. At the same time, Bolivia deftly utilised Anglo-American rivalry to ensure more than one outlet for its most critical export commodity.     

The ‘superman’ solution: ‘Super soldiers’ and ‘superheroes’ in the United States military

Current US military research focused on the development of pharmacological ‘super soldiers’ – soldiers enhanced through a variety of pharmaceuticals and biomedical technologies to perform far beyond what unenhanced soldiers can do – draws from and often mimics popular or pop-cultural conceptions of the superhero. These biomedical and pharmacological interventions pose profound ethical problems and possibilities that are solved – in part – by imagining the new US super soldier as a superhero. Drugging soldiers to enhance their ability to fight and survive is a frightening proposition, and one that makes people uncomfortable; the solution is to imagine them as superheroes – as positive representations of the enhanced soldier on the side of good, somehow contained and controllable and fundamentally safe and unfrightening.     

‘Nuclear Sword of the Moslem World’?: the United States,Britain, Pakistan,and the ‘Islamic Bomb’, 1977–80

There exists today considerable fear of nuclear proliferation across the ‘Islamic world.’ Despite this, an issue that - in part - set the tone for contemporary debates has largely gone under-examined in the scholarly literature. The emergence of the ‘Islamic bomb’ idea in the late 1970s created a meme that remains with us today. Analysing the roots of this meme allows us to examine its creation and the attitudes of governments towards this alleged emergent nuclear-proliferation threat. This analysis demonstrates that while the media portrayed the ‘Islamic world’ as violent, undifferentiated, and determined to gain nuclear capability, the US and British governments assessed matters evidentially and came to the conclusion that the ‘Islamic bomb’ represented a propaganda problem rather than an imminent nuclear-proliferation concern. Attitudes towards the ‘Islamic bomb’ highlight media and governmental attitudes towards the changing power balances in the Middle East and South Asia during a turbulent and troubled period.     

Leaving the War Popular Violence and Judicial Repression of ‘unpatriotic’ behaviour in Belgium (1918–1921)

After four years of occupation, Belgium emerged ruined at the end of the Great War. The King returned from Yser, leading the army and acclaimed by the population. In contrast, the government and the exiles came back discreetly and the absence of the dead was felt strongly. Part of the population felt itself to be the victim of the occupation and sought revenge: shop windows were broken and houses sacked, men were molested and women's heads shaven. Manufacturers who had closed their businesses sought the severe repression of those who had pursued their activities. Journalists who had stopped writing called for harsh treatment of the newspapers that submitted to German censorship. A fraction of the population stigmatised those who profited from the occupation and demanded justice. In 1918, Belgium was already confronted with problems that most European countries only discovered at the end of the Second World War. How does one move on from a war of occupation? How does one reconstruct a state weakened by occupation? How does one handle collective vengeance and respond to calls for justice? This article will study successively the wave of ‘popular’ violence accompanying the country's liberation in November and December 1918 and the state's answer through the judiciary repression of collaboration with the enemy conducted between 1919 and 1921, mainly by military and civil tribunals.     

‘Broad but not deep’: regional food hubs and rural development in the United States

Abstract

As organizations that aggregate, market, and distribute locally and regionally sourced food within wholesale, retail, and institutional markets, regional food hubs (RFHs) are increasingly promoted in the United States as rural development tools. Connections between RFHs and rural development, however, remain mostly untested and unclear. Motivated by prolonged declines in rural, agricultural communities and limited investigation to date, this paper adopts the capability approach to comprehensively test for the first time the rural development rhetoric surrounding RFHs. In-depth interviews in a rural, poor setting contribute empirical, noneconomic evidence to assess if, how, how much, and for whom RFHs advance rural opportunities and improve upon highly localized food systems. Though not to the purported degree, RFHs facilitate rural development, and do so in previously unexplored though substantial ways. Contrary to what proponents might anticipate, the study simultaneously highlights negative outcomes and areas that – albeit key to rural development narratives – remain unchanged. Grounding assumptions, highlighting alternative spaces of impact, and uncovering barriers with a novel evaluative approach, this paper draws on community voices to fill gaps between theory and reality and offer insights for those hoping to harness the transformative capacities of food.     

The ‘Contest for Dominion’: Political Conflict and the Decline of the Lowther ‘Interest’ in Whitehaven, 1820–1900

Abstract

Wartime memories remain a strong undercurrent in British society but many of these myth/memories have been skewed by a strong southern-based perspective. One of the key requirements for the wartime population of Britain was that they carried on despite hardships and that morale was maintained. It has since entered the national consciousness that the people of Britain remained stoical throughout the war and that the community was strengthened by its shared wartime experiences. Recent historiography, however, has cast doubt on this belief, citing examples of putatively poor behaviour during the war. This article seeks to explore this myth/memory and, in a small way, to redress the North–South balance by using the experiences of wartime Tyneside as a case study.     

The ‘Little Palaces’ of St James's: Ladies,Lords, and Political Association under the later Stuarts

Clubs, coffee houses, and taverns, the most widely studied sites of political gathering in later Stuart London, largely excluded women. This essay argues that places of ‘intermixed conversation’ which existed alongside them should also be taken into account, and considers several examples of regular, semi-private assemblies, chiefly hosted by elite women (including duchesse de Mazarin, Lady Pulteney, and Barbara Villiers, Lady Fitzhardinge) and frequented by both sexes for the overt purpose of card playing, which were also significant places of political association at this period.