Smoking and health in London's East End in the first half of the 19th century

Abstract

The harmful effects of smoking are now proven, but to what extent can tobacco use be identified in 19th-century skeletal remains? The full osteological analysis of 705 individuals from the cemetery of St Mary and St Michael (open 1843–54) in Whitechapel, London, revealed a high prevalence of pipe smoking amongst the male population. In addition to a lower life expectancy, the smokers were found to have increased levels of skeletal evidence for lung disease when compared to the remainder of the sample. This has implications for the health, social structure and cohesion of this Irish migrant population.     

Beyond Cultural Imperialism: Cultural Theory, Christian Missions, and Global Modernity

"Cultural imperialism" has been an influential concept in the representation of the modern Christian missionary movement. This essay calls its usefulness into question and draws on recent work on the cultural dynamics of globalization to propose alternative ways of looking at the role of missions in modern history. The first section of the essay surveys the ways in which the term "cultural imperialism" has been employed in different disciplines, and some of the criticisms made of the term within those disciplines. The second section discusses the application of the cultural imperialism framework to the missionary enterprise, and the related term "colonization of consciousness" used by Jean and John Comaroff in their influential work on British missionaries and the Tswana of southern Africa. The third section looks at the historiography of missions in modern China, showing how deeply the teleological narratives of nationalism and development have marked that historiography. The concluding section argues that the missionary movement must be seen as one element in a globalizing modernity that has altered Western societies as well as non–Western ones in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and that a comparative global approach to the missionary movement can help to illuminate the process of modern cultural globalization.     

Bridging the Unbridgeable in the History of the Middle East: The Arab and the Raj; Paul Rich

Rosemarie Said Zahlan , The Making of the Modern Gulf States: Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. Efraim Karsh and Inari Karsh , Empires of the Sand: The Struggle for Mastery in the Middle East, 1789–1923.     

长安光宅寺七宝台浮雕石佛群像的风格、图像及复原探讨

关于长安光宅寺七宝台浮雕石佛群像,前人研究已经很丰富.但是在风格、图像及复原等三个问题上还存在很多争议. 1.数量、年代、风格 关于七宝台浮雕石佛群像的造像年代,一种意见认为属于不同时期.如福山敏男1950年在<宝庆寺派石佛的分类>①一文中辨别出29件七宝台造像的年代分别属于贞观前期、武周长安年间和开元年间三个不同的时期.另一种意见,如1981年本山路美认为开元年间的铭文为追刻、这批群像都是长安年间作为七宝台内部庄严物品在德感的指导下完成的②.     

John Paul Vann and the End of "Informal Empire"

Review in this Article
Neil Sheehan. A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam . New York Random House, 1988. 861 pp.     

A Collision of Masculinities: Men,Modernity and Urban Transportation in American-Colonial Manila

Abstract:

Early twentieth-century Manila saw the motorisation of its urban transport system. This was a significant transformation not only because of the technological changes it brought about but more importantly because of its role in shaping the highly gendered discourse of colonial modernity. Motorised vehicles, like the streetcar and the automobile, were trumpeted as masculine and modern machines by America’s civilising mission. This colonial discourse was continuously shaped and subverted by a collision of masculinities coming from different directions. This essay will focus on four different male groups in an effort to understand how transport motorisation influenced their sense of masculinity. White American colonisers imagined themselves as modern men destined to bring civilisation to the colony through technology. The native elites used the coloniser as their model by appropriating the symbols of masculine modernity. While the male workers of the modern transport sector gained knowledge of and access to the domains of those in power, those in the traditional sector became targets of vilification by the native and colonial elites. Instead of a duel between two sets of masculinity (coloniser vs. colonised) what emerged was a complex set of relationships influenced by the socioeconomic differences that separated these four groups.     

21世纪的东亚:文化建设与文化交流国际学术研讨会综述

“21世纪的东亚:文化建设与文化交流”是由北京大学与澳门理工学院共同举办的国际学术研讨会,探讨东亚地区在全球化大潮之下,如何理性地审视自己的传统文化,有效应对外来挑战,把握文化建设的主动权,促进东亚国家的文化交往与文化繁荣。会议讨论的热点问题包括传统文化的现代价值、国际关系与东亚文化、全球化背景下的文化、文化保护与文化传播、东亚文化建设、“东亚意识”与华人社会文化倾向等方面。     

Creativity,Culture and Urban Strategies: A Fallacy in Cultural Urban Strategies

Two fields of knowledge have been of special importance for the emergence of culture-led urban planning in Norwegian cities: one concerns the understanding of the potential of culture as an economic driving force in urban regeneration, while the other focuses on the emergence of the concept of the “creative class” and has drawn attention to the importance of competence and creativity in urban development. Despite clear connections between the two fields, it may appear that false connections have been made in regeneration strategies in a number of cities. Based on analyses of the culture-led urban strategy of Kristiansand, a small Norwegian city, these knowledge fields are discussed and it is claimed that there seems to be a fallacy in how they are treated in the culture-led urban strategy. The fallacy concerns the way that creativity is equated with culture and further how theories about the emergence of the creative class are equated with a culture industry approach to urban planning. Questions are raised about the potential of culture industry strategies and it is argued that the potential for growth in small cities may not be as great as the public debate and research conducted in large metropolises might suggest.     

文化遗产 文化自觉 文化建设——追寻中国文化遗产事业的发展历程

文物古迹是过去文化的载体,文化既是不同人们共同体在特定时空中适应环境与社会的结晶,也是人类曾经的生存可能性的记录,因此,文化遗产是发展的智慧资源而非包袱。改革开放以来我们对文物与文化遗产及其价值的认识有一个不断拓展和提高的过程,经历了由古玩、文物到全民性的文化遗产自觉的演变。正确认识和处理不同文化及历史文化遗产,既是作为文明古国的中国发展过程中无法避开的选择,也是全球化、信息化时代古今中外文化大会面时代人类和谐共处、共同繁荣的前提性要求。