Procedures and complications in late-nineteenth-century experimental neuroanatomical research exemplified by articles of Henry Herbert Donaldson (1857–1938)

Henry Herbert Donaldson (1857–1938) was a leader in neurological research in the United States for several decades, beginning about 1890. A detailed account of three of his earliest publications shows the neuroanatomical procedures involved in the study of the relation of brain and intelligence during the late-nineteenth-century in America. Two of the articles, published in September 1890 and December 1891, were titled, “Anatomical Observations on the Brain and Several Sense-Organs of the Blind Deaf-Mute, Laura Dewy Bridgman (1829–1889)”; the third, published in August 1892, used the information from the first two to delimit the extent of the visual processing area of the human cortex. Donaldson’s procedures included brain cuttings and measures of macroscopic brain structures, histology of cellular structures, attempts to relate macroscopic brain structures with brain functions, data corrections, estimations, comparisons, and statistics. These procedures provide a view of the relative thoroughness, accuracy, and comparability of the various neuroanatomical techniques in use at that time and of Donaldson’s implementation of the techniques. Donaldson’s brain cutting techniques were much more comparable than his measurement techniques. The latter could be quite precise, but they were fraught with lack of standardized procedures that made corrections and estimations necessary when making data comparisons across studies. Donaldson emphasized these incompatibilities, implying a need for standardization. Statistical procedures were the least thorough and effective. His, and the field’s, total complement of statistical techniques consisted of mean and range, which severely limited his ability to make complicated assessments. This limitation was not necessarily supplemented by stringent control group comparisons.     

Combined dating methods applied to building archaeology: The contribution of thermoluminescence to the case of the bell tower of St Martin’s church,Angers (France)

St Martin’s church, Angers, is emblematic of the problems raised in pre-12^th century history of architecture.     

From the supply system to the duty-graded salarysystem: Evolution of income distribution system of government officialsaround the founding of the People’s Republic of China

Around the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the income distribution system of party and government officials has experienced a great reform from the supply system featured by equalitarianism to the duty-graded salary system with strict ranks and wide gaps. This change runs against the convention of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and proposition of Marx Karl. Chairman Mao Zedong was never satisfied with this distribution system marked by strict ranks and tried to amend it. It amounted to the same at the end as his failure to prevent the generation of this system, even though it experienced “the Cultural Revolution.”     

Who are the yakut khorolors? (a contribution to the issue of ethnic identification)

The origins of the Khoro ethnic group which represents a major component in the ethnic structure of the Yakut people is an ongoing issue in the context of Yakut ethnography. Buryat scholars believe that prior to the 13th century, the ancestors of the Khorolors (pl. of “the Khoro”) lived on the western side of Lake Baikal. Here they are said to have formed a single community with the Khori people whose descendants now make up part of the Buryat people and inhabit the Trans-Baikal region. The basis for the identifi cation of both groups was limited only to the similarity between the selfidentifying names “Khoro” and “Khori,” which is hardly suffi cient. In the meantime, the analysis of specifi c folklore and ethnographic materials, in particular, the themes of “Raven” and “Eagle” leave no doubt of the Paleo-Asiatic origins of the Yakut Khorolors.     

William Falconer’s Remarks on the Influence of Climate (1781) and the study of religion in Enlightenment England

This study argues that the English-born, Edinburgh-educated and Bath-based physician William Falconer (1744–1824) authored the only stadial history published during the British Enlightenment that analysed the influence of socio-economic context upon religious belief. A survey of the conjectural histories of religion written by the leading literati demonstrates that discussion of religion by the Scottish literati was undertaken separate from the “Scottish narrative” of stadial economic and political progress. We have to turn to Falconer’s Remarks on the Influence of Climate (1781) to see a four-stage history of religion that related belief and practice to wider social and economic developments. While heavily derivative of Montesquieu’s De l’Esprit des Lois (1748), Falconer’s Remarks has some claim to theoretical innovation and used his conjectural history to tell a story of English (not British) religious exceptionalism. Moreover, the work was received as a serious contribution to the late Enlightenment’s science of human nature and society.     

Johannes Janssonius’s Map of Dalmatia and the Ottoman–Venetian Borderland (1650)

The paper presents a comparative analysis of the map of Dalmatia by Johannes Janssonius and maps by his contemporaries. Janssonius’s cartographical models and the sources of the printed text accompanying his map are identified. The roles of Croatian cartographers and Venetian and Ottoman reports dealing with the border are uncovered. The importance of Janssonius’s map in disseminating knowledge about the little-known geography and history of Dalmatia, and the ways in which the map influenced perception of that country in the Ottoman Empire borderlands in general, are assessed.     

Between Apartheid,the Holocaust and the Nakba: Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s Pilgrimage to Israel-Palestine (1989) and the Emergence of an Analogical Lexicon

ABSTRACT

On 22 December 1989, the anti-apartheid activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu conducted a Christmas pilgrimage to Israel and the Occupied Territories. Tutu used his visit to relay political messages in support of the Palestinian liberation struggle and to criticize Israeli-South African ties, and his statements evoked sever criticism on the part of Zionist Jewish constituencies. Through a tighter focus on Tutu’s various public statements and their reception in the years leading up to the visit, this article traces the history of different sets of interlocking analogies in Tutu’s thought, positioning his 1989 visit to Israel-Palestine—neglected thus far in the critical literature —as a landmark in his thinking. In so doing, it offers a critical analysis of another instance of the Israel-apartheid analogy in the political struggle against the Israeli occupation. At the same time, it points to the genesis of the analogy in Tutu’s ongoing engagements with the suffering of Jews during the Holocaust.     

From laissez-faire to supranational planning: the economic debate within Federal Union (1938–1945)

This article focuses on the early years of Federal Union (FU), the leading British federalist association created in 1938. It sets out to demonstrate that FU members heavily disagreed about the economic powers of the future Federation and that these divisions weakened the appeal of the federalist cause. Archival evidence suggests the organisation shifted from economic neutrality, favoured by allegiance to nineteenth-century liberalism, which emphasized the benefits of free trade while keeping a minimum of centralized force in order to prevent interstate rivalries from boiling over into war, to a radical advocacy of supranational planning, aimed at enforcing social rights and welfare entitlements granted to all the citizens of the member-states. This swing to the Left had several implications, including abandoning the prospect of an Anglo-American union, developing a more sympathetic attitude towards the Soviet system, and breaking ties with influential members of the British establishment who had initially lent support to FU, such as Lionel Curtis and William Beveridge. By pointing at the tension between the models of ‘Federation Pure and Simple’ and ‘Federation Plus’, this article also highlights the supple and muddled nature of federalism as an ideology.     

An East–West confrontation in the North-China Herald during the Nationalist Revolution: a case study of Shao Futang’s letters to the editor

ABSTRACT

In the Republican period, Shao Futang, secretary to the general manager of the International Dispensary of Shanghai (Wuzhou yaofang), wrote numerous letters to the editor that were published under the initials F. D. Z. in the English-language newspapers of Shanghai, such as the North-China Herald and the China Press. He wrote frequently to these newspapers out of dissatisfaction with the total indifference shown by Chinese residents of the Shanghai International Settlement to what foreigners said about China in these newspapers. The North-China Herald and other newspapers also had Chinese readers and thus needed to hear from those like Shao who could represent the voice of the Chinese people. When anti-imperialism and abrogation of unequal treaties were first proposed in 1924, Shao for the first time voiced his opinion in these newspapers. He defended Chinese patriotism by pointing out that it was not “anti-foreignism.” When the Nationalist Revolution broke out in 1926, an increasingly strong sense of nationalism emerged in the published letters he wrote. He denounced Western readers’ disparagement of the Nationalist Revolution, expressed the desire of the Chinese people for the abrogation of the unequal treaties, and appealed to the Municipal Council of the Shanghai International Settlement to make necessary changes and give political rights to the Chinese people.     

Emmanuel de Martonne and the ethnographical cartography of central Europe (1917–1920)

Abstract

Emmanuel de Martonne is well known among geographers as the founding father of geomorphology and as one of Paul Vidal de la Blache's main disciples. He also played a central role as a geographical expert on the Comité d'études, a body set up by Deputy Charles Benoist during the First World War to prepare guidelines for the organization of peace and, in particular, the demarcation of boundaries. De Martonne's special expertise was the construction and comparison of ethnographical maps. He applied his theories on ethnic mapping and improved methods of representation of mixed minorities to his map of the Romanian nation published in 1919 by the Service Géographique de l'Armée. In his reports on Central Europe, de Martonne claimed neutrality, but the graphical options employed on his map offered a biased view of the Romanian nation, inspired mainly by the views of the French school of regional geography.