Prelude to the Popular Front: The Communist Party in California, 1931-35

The opening of some Russian archives to research by Western historians has permitted new understandings of local Communist parties during the 1920s and 1930s. At the same time, these new sources have intensified historiographical debates over the degree of autonomy within the Communist party of the United States (CPUSA). Historians have long pointed to California in the early 1930s as an example of local autonomy, but the new information permits a more detailed understanding both of the extent of that local autonomy and of relations among local CPUSA leaders, the national party office in New York City, and the Comintern in Moscow. This paper explores the CP's participation in events in California-primarily the coastwise maritime strike, the San Francisco general strike, and the state elections of 1934-along with the internal decision-making processes of the CP at various levels through the lens provided by the newly available Comintern archives as well as other collections.     

From the Preface to the French edition of Une exigence infinie

Abstract

In 2008, Rowan Williams sparked a huge controversy in Britain by pleading for more recognition of shari'a law. The present paper aims to explore Mike Higton's suggestion that this plea actually results from Williams's defence of the Enlightenment. The paper will first show that Williams's plea for increased recognition of shari'a is in line with the Enlightenment ideal of sociability. It will subsequently show that this does not mean that Williams gives up on the importance of the secular law. Special attention will be given to the two fundamental principles behind Williams's views on shari'a and these principles will be developed with the help of Edward Schillebeeckx's view of ‘the humanum’. Finally, the paper will also indicate that Williams's two fundamental principles offer a way to better understand the biblical commandment to love one's neighbour—a view that will be developed with reference to the work of Slavoj Zizek.     

Soviet–Japanese relations and the strategic interests of the Guomindang and the CCP – Chiang Kai‐shek's planning of sanctions against the CCP in 1943

When in 1943 the Guomindang launched its third wave of anti‐communist campaigns, Mao Zedong considered that Chiang Kai‐shek had acted in the belief that Japan would soon invade the Soviet Union. Hitherto, Chinese historians have either ignored Mao's judgment or failed to provide convincing explanations for it. There are two reasons for this attitude: first, historians have failed to appreciate the strategic implications of the relationship between the Soviet Union and Japan for relations between the Guomindang and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP); and second, relevant evidence regarding the events has not been available in document on Chiang. This essay answers questions raised by both points. Most commentators have claimed that this third anti‐Communist push ended by the middle or late July of 1943. However, Chiang in fact continued to make plans to mop up Shaanbei (the Communist‐controlled northern Shaanxi area) and impose sanctions on the Communists. The formulation, revision and eventual abandonment of Chiang's plans are also addressed in this essay.     

Cropsey on Plato and the Unity of Philosophy

Abstract

Cropsey's book, Plato's World, contains his longest and most sustained reflections on a set of Platonic dialogues, but it is not the first work he published on Plato or the last he intended to write. His last collection of essays, On Humanity's Intensive Introspection, shows that in his writings on Plato Cropsey was attempting to answer a broader question: What is philosophy?     

Strauss on Maimonides’ Secretive Political Science

Abstract

In this article, the authors review Joseph Cropsey's last collection of essays, Humanity's Intensive Introspection. They argue that Cropsey's essays draw on resources in the Western tradition, both from within liberal thought and from ancient sources, to elevate human life and to fortify modern society, especially against contemporary critiques of liberalism. Philosophy's discovery of the inscrutability of the whole opens it to revelation and also provides a basis for philosophy's active contribution to an open or liberal society.     

War and Foreign Affairs in China

EDWARD L. DREYER. China at War, 1901–1949. London and New York: Longman, 1995. Pp. x, 422. $114.95 (CDN);

ARTHUR WALDRON. From War to Nationalism: China's Turning Point, 1924–1925. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Pp. xix, 366. $39.95 (us);

MICHAEL H. HUNT. The Genesis of Chinese Communist Foreign Policy. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. Pp. xiv, 343. $34.50 (us);

XIAOYUAN LIU. A Partnership for Disorder: China, the United States, and Their Policies for the Postwar Disposition of the Japanese Empire, 1941–1945. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Pp. xiii, 343. $59.95 (us).     

West of Center: Art and the Counterculture Experiment in America, 1965-1977

In 1944 we received, hidden in a tube of toothpaste, a circular from the Central Committee of the French Communist Party addressed to party members in prisons, prisoner of war and concentration camps. It gave guidance on the tasks of the party in such places, stressing particularly the need for national and international solidarity, clandestine propaganda and preparation for escape. We had already acted on similar lines, nevertheless the letter was fully discussed by our committee, accepted and distributed, with appropriate caution to other camps. I delivered a copy to the women comrades in Rajsko, one of the subsidiary Auschwitz camps.Account by Jonny Huttner, a Jewish and Polish-German prisoner in Auschwitz-Monowitz 1 ¹Len Crome, Unbroken: Resistance and Survival in the Concentration Camps (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1988), 102. ?Peter Meyer Filardo is the archivist at the Tamiment Library, New York University responsible for US radicalism collections. See the Library's website for additional information: http://www.nyu.edu/library/bobst/research/tam/index.html      

A testimony of Carolingian rule? The Codex epistolaris carolinus,its historical context,and the meaning of imperium

In the preface to the Carolingian collection of papal letters, known as the Codex epistolaris carolinus, the word imperium is used in the context of describing what is in the collection. In this article, I shall argue that a reinterpretation of the preface's statement about what imperium refers to will shed a different light on the CC as a collection in its entirety. What imperium refers to exactly can be debated, yet studying the Codex carolinus as a Carolingian product of its time, in combination with a reappraisal of its preface, may help to understand the source's historical context and its value to the Carolingian court. As I hope to demonstrate, the CC was an essentially purposeful collection, which underlined the shared history of the Carolingian family and the papacy in Rome.     

Re-examining a modern classic: does Putnam's Making Democracy Work suffer from spuriousness?

What makes democratic institutions work efficiently? Robert Putnam argued in Making Democracy Work that a mixture of political participation and immersion in associative and social networks in the community, conceptualised as ‘civic community’ or ‘social capital’, is the explanation. Ever since its publication, many questions have arisen about the validity of Putnam's theory. Among the most relevant concerns stands the influence of the Italian Communist Party on Putnam's empirical tests. This paper aims to fill the gap left in the literature by testing Putnam's hypothesis against the political party in the regional government and the PCI's electoral support. Supporting Putnam, this paper finds that variations in the quality of democratic governments in Italy's regions are a function of civic community even after adjusting for the presence of the Italian Communist Party.     

On Martinus Crusius's collection of Greek vernacular and religious books

Abstract

The importance of Martinus Crusius's collection of Greek chapbooks for our knowledge of 16th century vernacular Greek literature can hardly be over-emphasised. Most copies of his collection are either extremely rare or even unique. Valuable and often unique is also the information about the texts and their authors, which Crusius collected and published in his Turcograecia (Basel 1584) or elsewhere.     

Educational

EUROPE

Cannes and its Surroundings. By Amy M. Benecke. London : George Allen and Sons, 1908. Pp. 94. 40 Illustrations. Price 10s. 6d. net.

Highways and Byways in Surrey. By Eric Parkeb. With Illustrations by Hugh Thomson. London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1908. Price 6s.

My Life among the Wild Birds in Spain. By Colonel Willoughby Verner. London : John Bale, Sons, and Danielssohn, Ltd., 1909. Many Illustrations. Price 21s. net.

ASIA

La Perse d'aujourd'hui. Par M. Eugène Aubin. Paris : Librairie Armand Colin, 1908. Price 5 fr.

Thirty‐five Years in the Punjab: 1858–1893. By G. K. Elsmie, C.S.I., LL.D. Edinburgh : David Douglas, 1908. Price 9s. net.

AFRICA

The Guide to South Africa, for the Use of Tourists, Sportsmen, Invalids, and Settlers. Edited by A. Samler Brows and G. Gordon Brown. 1908–1909 edition. London : Sampson, Low, Marston and Co. Price 2s. 6d.

AMERICA

Through Southern Mexico. By Hans Gadow, M.A., Ph.D., F.R.S. London : Witherby and Co., 1908. Price 18s. net.

Notes of a Botanist on the Amazon and Andes. By Richard Spruce, Ph.D. Edited and condensed by Alfred Russel Wallace, O.M., F.R.S. With a Portrait, Illustrations, and seven Maps. Two volumes. London : Macmillan and Co., 1908. Price 21s. net.

Peru: Its Story, People, and Religion. By Geraldine Guinness. London : Morgan and Scott, Ltd. Price, 7s. 6d. .

Canadian Life as I Found It. By Homesteader. London : Elliot Stock, 1908. Price 1s. 6d. net.

Heaton's Annual: The Commercial Handbook of Canada and Boards of Trade Register. Toronto : Heaton's Agency. Pp. 334. Price $1.

Opportunities in Canada, 1909. Extracts from Heaton's Annual. Toronto : Heaton's Agency. 1909.

The Canada Year‐Booh, 1900. Second Series. Ottawa, 1907.

AUSTRALASIA

New Zealand. By Reginald Horsley. (Romance of Empire Series.) London : T. C. and E. C. Jack, 1908. Price 6s. net.

POLAR

National Antarctic Expedition, 1901–1904. Meteorology. Part I. Published by the Royal Society, London. 1908.

National Antarctic Expedition, 1901–1904. Album of Photographs and Sketches, with a Portfolio of Panoramic Views. London : Royal Society, 1908. Price 31s. 6d.

GENERAL

Handbook of Commercial Geography. By Geo. G. Chisholm, M.A., B.Sc. Seventh Edition. London : Longmans, Green and Co., 1908. Price 15s. net.

Whitaker's Almanack for 1909. By Joseph Whitaker; London, 1908. Price 2s. 6d. net.

Hazell's Annual, 1909. Edited by W. Palmer, B.A. London : Hazel, Watson, and Viney, 1908. Price 3s. 6d. net.

“Daily Mail” Year‐Book for 1909. Edited by Percy L. Parker. London: Associated Newspapers, Ltd. Price 6d. net.

The Englishwoman's Year‐Bool; and Directory, 1909. Edited by G. E. Mitton. London : A. and. C. Black, 1909. Price 2s. 6d. net.

Whititaker's Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage, and Companionage for the Year 1909. London, 1908.

Mathematical Geography. By Willis E. Jonsson, Ph.B. New York : American Book Company. London : George Philip and Sons, Ltd., 1908. Price 5s. net.

Martin Bchain: His Life and His Globe. By E. G. Ravenstein, F.E.G.S. London : George Philip and Son, 1908. Price £3, 3s.     

Identity,place and culture: Patrick McCarthy's columns in the Bologna pages of La Repubblica

Abstract

For six years between 1994 and 2000, Patrick McCarthy contributed occasional articles to the Bologna section of La Repubblica. These writings were intensely personal interventions on various themes that reflected their author's lifelong interest in literature, culture, politics and sport. Many of them addressed issues of civic life in a city that had once enjoyed a reputation as a showcase of Communist local administration in Italy, but which in 1999 elected a right-wing mayor. In contrast to an impersonal urban modernization that he saw as destructive, McCarthy championed a humane ideal of community that was not ‘traditional’, but rather open and flexible.     

Papadiamandis and Homer: A Note

Abstract

Meaningful allusion to the classics in Papadiamandis's work is not a matter of the text's being stuffed with overt classical references. In his early novels we find a large number of, as it were, classical one-liners: essentially undigested – or at best opportunistic – allusions. The technique is a less focused form of Roidis's in Pope Joan; perhaps a closer comparison is Kalligas's Thanos Vlekas, which is replete with Homeric allusions and puns, none of them integral to the narrative. Similarly, we find in early Papadiamandis a disorderly collection of allusions: Byron, Milton, Aesop, Sophocles, Juvenal, Homer et al.; and sometimes we see his allusiveness to be a mere tic of style rather than fully purposive. In other words, .it is as true here as elsewhere in Greek literary tradition that we need to sift meaningful from more or less chance allusion.     

A Greek Lexicon of the middle Byzantine period

Abstract

Greek lexicography of the Byzantine period is a thorny subject, indeed an almost thankless task, if efforts end merely in a collection of inaccessible and unpublished handwritten' material. I would like to call to mind the case of Emmanuel Miller in the last century, who showed a continuous interest in lexicography, pouring out new Greek words in the notes to his editions on every occasion. However, those notes are nothing but feeble shadows of his vast collection left to the Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris about ninety years ago. When I inspected this mass of more than 40,000 small slips, I was considerably taken aback, in view of the fact that this collection as well as every other similar to it (for instance the 10,000 Athesaurista gathered by Pezopoulos) are practically of no use for Byzantine studies, since they have never been published.     

On the Primeval Antiquities of the Channel Islands

Bishop's Waltham Palace, one of the most important residences of the bishopric of Winchester, was transformed by two of the most powerful of its later medieval bishops, Wykeham and Beaufort (1367–1447). The exceptional quality of the bishopric records enables us to trace the chronology of the progress of work with considerable accuracy and requires revision of the conventional dating of the buildings. The records also provide a great deal of information about the craftsmen and architects involved and about the building materials and their sources. Beaufort's new lodgings range still possesses much of the original timber framing of its eastern chambers, and this together with its accurate dating has warranted separate treatment.

Note on dating The accounting year ran from Michaelmas to Michaelmas (29 September), and I have dated work by the year in which this closed. Most of the building season would therefore be recorded in the account for the same calendar year, but any late autumn work would be found in the following year's account.     

The Diocese of Carlisle, 1814–1855. Chancellor Walter Fletcher’s ‘Diocesan Book’, with additional material from Bishop Percy’s parish notebooks

Abstract

Newspaper children's columns first appeared in the 1870s. However, they have been largely overlooked by academic studies of education, children's literature and the newspaper Press. This latter resource has provided rich veins of material for scholars looking for affirmation of contemporary events. The 'miscellaneous' contents of this source, and particularly that of the provincial weeklies, have been largely ignored. This study analyses the development of children's columns in two weekly newspapers, the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle and the Northern Weekly Leader. Both of these newspapers launched societies attached to their children's columns, the 'Dicky Bird Society', which ran until 1940 and the 'Golden Circle', which ceased in 1919. During their existence, these two societies enrolled nearly half a million members, who were then engaged in activities ranging from charitable collections to nature conservation work. Such numbers support the argument that children's columns were a vital element of the popular Press and were more than simply miscellaneous features. These features played a vital commercial role for their respective titles in their adversarial circulation battles by creating a community of readers at an early age.     

Jāmī's Salāmān va Absāl: Political Statements and Mystical Advice Addressed to the Āq Qoyūnlū Court of Sultān Ya‘qūb (d. 896/1490)

This article explores Salāmān va Absāl, one of seven poems which comprise Jāmī's collection of long masnavīs, known collectively as the Haft aurang. The work, which gained some renown outside Iran due to the English version of Edward FitzGerald, has nevertheless received little attention in modern scholarship. The few investigations of Salāmān va Absāl, moreover, have dwelled on its narrative, which tells the story of the carnal attraction of a prince for his wet-nurse, and never situated the work in its historical context or examined its political content. In addition, the allegorical symbolism of the tale, especially its depiction of key stages of the Sufi path, such as the act of repentance, has not been discussed in terms of representing a work of mystical advice. With these concerns in mind, the present article discusses the possibility that the political elements in Salāmān va Absāl complement the advice it gives on becoming a Sufi. Seen from this perspective, it would appear that Salāmān va Absāl correlates the notion of the just ruler to the Sufi concept of the “Perfect Man” to the extent that Jāmī presents the Sufi-king as the ideal medieval Islamic ruler. By implication, the work advises its royal patron, Sultān Ya‘qūb, to repent and embark upon the Sufi path, doing so, Jāmī intimates, would lead Ya‘qūb to realize his rank as God's “true” vicegerent.