S. Weir Mitchell’s Prose and Poetry on the American Civil War

The prose and poetry of S. Weir Mitchell (1829–1914) – related to the American Civil War – encompass a very significant portion of his non-medical writings. The Civil War, more than any other single event, shaped his future career as one of the founders of American neurology. Indeed, it should not be surprising how the war was also such a driving force in his non-medical writings. His novels, once widely read, now are scarcely noted. His accounts of the social, political and economic events of the Civil War are of historical interest to students of the period. Neuroscientists as a group, like others, are apt to be unfamiliar with these writings, with the possible exception of “The Case of George Dedlow.” A major purpose of this essay is to introduce readers, especially neuroscientists, to Weir Mitchell’s fictional works in which neurological cases so often appear. One appreciates more the medical aspects of his novels, written as they were by a first-hand observer. His non-medical writings, poetry and prose, are to a large extent timeless and can be appreciated by today’s readers.     

‘God'll Send the Bill to You’: The Costs of War and the God Who Counts in W. T. Stead's Pro-Boer Peace Campaign

W. T. Stead's 1899–1900 weekly newspaper, War against War in South Africa, sets out to persuade its readers of the financial, spiritual, and moral costs of war and in doing so urges them to participate in an oppositional ‘peace war’. It conflates the economic and the spiritual in presenting to its readers accounts of the South African war that emphasize the price to be paid for unjust bloodshed. This article examines the ways in which Stead uses the idea of counting in both its senses – of mattering and enumerating – alongside the idea of moral accountability, to make his case against war and for peace as part of a larger narrative of brotherhood and bloodguilt. I argue that his campaign failed to achieve its ends at least in part because, despite the sensationalist power of each item in his account, the final bill, addressed ambiguously to the individual, the government, and the nation, is unimaginably vast and morally unpayable. His newspaper and other anti-war publications offer a graphic account of the wrongs of war, yet their gothically inflected religious imagery of judgement and guilt work in unresolvable tension with their message of rational individual action against the national project of the war.     

The Dwarf,the Goetzen and C. S. Forester’s African Queen: A Reassessment of Naval Operations in First World War Africa

Public awareness of the African theatre in the Great War stems largely from C. S. Forester’s 1935 novel The African Queen, and its subsequent 1951 film adaptation. Long thought to have been inspired by British activities on Lake Tanganyika, Forester’s novel more closely resembles events in Cameroon where German missionary Alphons Hermann attempted to sink HMS Dwarf using homemade torpedoes.     

The British Archaeological Association and the Genesis of J. C. Bruce’s The Roman Wall

On 31 July 1849, John Collingwood Bruce gave a lecture on Hadrian’s Wall at the British Archaeological Association’s annual Congress in Chester. This was his first lecture outside his native North-East on the subject on which he was soon to become the leading authority. Two primary accounts of the occasion survive, but are contradictory in several details. These contradictions are explored, the accuracy of the account in the JBAA upheld and the importance of the occasion emphasised.     

“We Have Mingled Politeness with the Use of the Sword”: Nature and Civilisation in Adam Ferguson’s Philosophy of War

Adam Ferguson’s twin reputations as the most republican of the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment and as one of the founding fathers of sociology make him one of the most interesting figures in eighteenth-century political thought. I argue that in his Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767) and elsewhere, Ferguson develops a novel understanding of the place of warfare in human social experience. By deploying a proto-sociological account of the naturalness of warfare between nations he proposes a normative criterion for the assessment of civilisation. This argument sets Ferguson apart from contemporaries like Kant who argued for perpetual peace as a criterion of civilisation.     

The colour of the facades in Siena’s historical centre: I. Glazings (calcium oxalate films s.s.) and other finishes on the stone materials of the Cathedral’s main facade

This paper focuses on the long-debated topic of the so-called calcium oxalate films: their origin and meaning but also their age and original appearance. The restoration of the main facade of the Siena Cathedral provided a unique opportunity to this end, thanks to the possibility of an extensive and detailed sampling and (as rarely happens) a sufficiently accurate historical knowledge of the construction vicissitudes. This work, mainly based on a polarising microscopy study (coupled with X-ray diffraction and SEM-EDS analyses) of over a thousand thin and ultra-thin sections of 400 microsamples, demonstrates that the current relicts of films are the result of alteration and decay of ancient treatments. In most cases, these were linseed oil-based glazings (the use of this substance is confirmed by historical documents) and pigments. Their role was essentially aesthetic; their use dates the beginning of the fourteenth century and continued at least until the eighteenth century.

‘I am Tower of Hamlets’: enchanted encounters and the limit to art’s connectivity

‘I am Tower of Hamlets, as I am in Tower of Hamlets, just like a lot of other people are’ (2011–2012) was an artwork by Argentinian artist Amalia Pica, and involved a pink-granite sculpture touring around different homes in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets for one year. This paper offers a geographical investigation into the type of encounters and relations created by this artwork. Rather than assume the progressive role of such art encounters, the paper casts a critical eye on to the actual forms of association that they foster and the normative social logics they may perpetuate. In doing so, it suggests that while enchanted, ‘meaningful’ encounters did occur between participants and the sculpture, these occurred within a pre-existing art community, something which compounded problematic class boundaries. Thus, the paper utilises this artwork to identify how encounters can be meaningful whilst maintaining embedded social and cultural divisions. It concludes with a discussion on the relationship between art and the geographies of encounter.     

‘A great list of potential mistakes’: NATO,Africa, and British efforts to limit the Global Cold War

The scholarly consensus on why NATO adopted a ‘non-policy’ towards the non-North Atlantic world rests on the logic of the Cold War. But British diplomats and officials did not see NATO’s policy towards Africa through a Cold War lens. NATO’s ‘non-policy’ towards the world beyond the North Atlantic was not the product of an allied Cold War consensus among the allies. Instead, it was the result of a determined British effort to channel growing pressure for NATO action into a bureaucratic dead-end in an effort to keep the Cold War out of Africa.     

The Alliance for Progress and President João Goulart’s Three-Year Plan: the deterioration of U.S.-Brazilian Relations in Cold War Brazil (1962)

This paper analyses U.S.-Brazilian relations during the elaboration of João Goulart’s Three-Year Plan in late 1962, which sought to tackle Brazil’s severe economic imbalances without compromising growth and through the implementation of distributive reforms. Although the plan followed the principles of John F. Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress, Washington did not offer adequate assistance because of Goulart’s threats to increase links with the Soviet bloc. The United States hardened its position, seeking to change the orientation of the Brazilian government. This led to the abandonment of the Three-Year Plan, and contributed to social and political destabilisation that resulted in Brazil’s March 1964 military coup.     

From imperial revenants to Cold War victims: ‘red repatriates’ from the Soviet Union and the making of the new Japan, 1949–1952

When over half a million former Imperial Japanese Army soldiers returned home from long captivity in Soviet labour camps in the late 1940s, they brought back more than their memories of hardship and humiliation. In post-war society, the Siberian returnees were the uncomfortable remnants of the failed Japanese Empire; yet it was their brush with the communist enemy that caused suspicion and dragged them into the domestic political struggles. In this article, I use the experiences of Siberian internees as a lens to reconsider Japan’s formative post-war decade, when the onset of the Cold War eclipsed the inconvenient legacies of empire.     

The Elephant In and Out of the Room: Remigio dei Girolami’s Responses to Charles de Valois

In November 1301, Charles de Valois, brother of French King Philip IV, entered Florence at the request of Pope Boniface VIII and his Florentine allies. While Charles’ mission was ostensibly peacemaking between Florence’s Black and White factions, in reality his visit led to violence and exile of leading Whites, including Dante. Much of what we know about these events was written in retrospect, from the chronicles of Compagni and Villani to Dante’s Commedia. The Florentine Dominican Remigio dei Girolami, however, preached two sermons that week that provide a more immediate impression. One was given at the official communal welcome ceremony for Charles. The other, one of his sermons De pace, was probably given at a semi-secret peace procession mentioned by Compagni. Rhetorical analysis of these two sermons shows that Remigio tailored his message to his audience. When Charles was present, Remigio diplomatically avoided the subject of factional division, instead advising Charles on his upcoming mission to Sicily (perhaps subtly encouraging him to get on with it and leave Florentine politics alone). In Charles’ absence, however, Remigio obliquely criticized Charles and stressed to his fellow-citizens that, as the sermon’s thema stated, peace was in their power.