Front and Back Covers,Volume 36, Number 2. April 2020

Front and back cover caption, volume 36 issue 2 Front cover CRISIS IN VENEZUELA Shop owner Alejandro Malek shows hundreds of banknotes that he has accepted from customers who buy their daily groceries in his small supermarket near the border between Venezuela and Brazil. He also accepts Brazilian reals, US dollars and gold. Malek is a migrant himself and arrived almost 30 years ago in the country. He poses for the picture with packs of bolivares soberanos to express his love for Venezuela. Big packs of banknotes to purchase basic goods have become normal for many Venezuelans since hyperinflation reached mind-boggling levels. Basic goods, such as toilet paper and cornflour, are unavailable or simply unaffordable for more than 90 per cent of the population. Since 2015, the economy has been in free fall and Venezuelans look for countless means to survive. In times of crisis, people seek to make ends meet by joining the informal economy outside the official structures. The thriving local emergency economy of banknotes, gold, food, petrol and medicine in Venezuela ties into illegal transnational networks which commercialize natural resources, people, drugs and weapons that stretch far beyond the Latin American region. In this issue, Eva van Roekel and Marjo de Theije suggest an anthropology of abundance to study the illicit manifestations and everyday ideals of wealth that accompany social and environmental crises in resource-rich countries like Venezuela. Back cover THE SHAMAN VS PUTIN In spring 2019, Aleksandr Gabyshev, a Sakha (Yakut) shaman, embarked on an 8,000 km trek from Yakutsk to Moscow. His stated goal was to ‘expel demon-Putin’ (izgnat' Putina-demona) from the Kremlin and thus liberate the people of Russia. Drawing a cart with supplies and necessities, he slowly progressed along Siberian highways, camping on roadsides along the way. While initially his journey attracted little attention beyond local cybernauts, by the end of the summer, word of Gabyshev's campaign had spread far and wide. Around a dozen people (his ‘squad’) joined his trek, while many more stopped him along the way to chat, take a picture, express support and offer supplies. On 19 September, Gabyshev's trek came to a halt almost 3,000 km in. He was arrested by the authorities in the Republic of Buryatia, as he and his ‘squad’ were approaching Irkutskaya Oblast. The shaman was flown back to Yakutsk where he underwent a psychiatric examination. He is facing charges on account of ‘calls to extremism’ and was put under travel restrictions for several months. He attempted another short-lived, unsuccessful trek in December 2019, again stopped by the authorities. Recently, Gabyshev announced that he would continue the trek in spring 2020 and reach Moscow in 2021, expressing confidence in the impending success of his undertaking. In this issue, Kristina Jonutyte shows how this shaman's campaign has attracted a lot of attention within Russia, especially on the Internet and social media. Many have expressed their interest in and support for the campaign, while at the same time ‘distancing’ the shaman in time and space, as well as along the lines of ‘rationality’.     

Kirkham Abbey

Abstract

Tom French died on 18 February 2001 after a short illness. He will be remembered as a distinguished scholar and historian of English stained glass and particularly for his contribution to the study of York Minster and its windows. In 1947, after distinguished service in the Royal Artillery, he joined the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments as an architectural investigator. He contributed to the Dorset county inventories and then moved to York, working on the five city inventory volumes published between 1962 and 1981. In the early 1970s he contributed to the Royal Commission's investigation of the Minster and became especially interested in its stained glass. He was active in the academic life of York, serving as a council member of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society, a member of the York DAC and Minster FAC and a Trustee of York Glaziers Trust. After retirement in 1980, Tom continued to research and publish on the architectural history of York Minster and became a member of the Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi. In 1987 he published, jointly with David O'Connor, the first CVMA volume devoted to the Minster, The West Windows of the Nave. This was followed by his solo volumes on The Great East Window (1985) and The St William Window (2000). At the time of his death he was working on a volume devoted to the glazing of the western choir clerestory and it is from this research that the following paper was derived.     

The long goodbye: Hugo Grotius’ justification of Dutch expansion overseas, 1615–1645

This article examines Grotius’ lifelong support for Dutch expansion overseas. As noted in other publications of mine, Grotius cooperated closely with the directors of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in the years 1604–1615. Right up to his arrest for high treason in August 1618, he contributed towards Dutch government discussions about the establishment of a West India Company (WIC). Three years of imprisonment at Loevestein Castle and, following his escape, long years of exile could not weaken his dedication to the cause. His relatives in Holland, in particular his brother Willem de Groot and his brother-in-law Nicolaas van Reigersberch, kept him up-to-date on the fortunes of the VOC and WIC. His expertise on maritime affairs was in high demand. For example, Cardinal Richelieu invited him in November 1626 to become actively involved in the establishment of a French East India Company. As itinerant ideologue of empire, Grotius sought to further his own career and those of his nearest family members, without damaging the interests of the United Provinces. Through Willem de Groot and Nicolaas van Reigersberch, he provided informal advice on Dutch imperial policy to the VOC directors and government officials in The Hague. He was rewarded with the appointment of his brother and his second son, Pieter de Groot, as VOC lawyers (ordinaris advocaten) in 1639 and 1644, respectively. They served as his proxies in diplomatic disputes involving the VOC, the States General and the Portuguese ambassador in autumn 1644, when Pieter and Willem de Groot wrote a defense of VOC claims to the cinnamon-producing areas of Ceylon (modern-day Sri Lanka), liberally citing De Jure Belli ac Pacis. Grotius’ vision of empire hardly changed in the course of 40 years. In his view, the Dutch had gone to the Indies as merchants, not conquerors, and should regulate themselves according to natural law and the law of nations. Thus he contributed to the creation of two political orders, one for Europe and one for the Indies. European diplomatic relations counted for little beyond the Line. VOC and WIC officials could act as judges and executioners in their own cause, without reference to indigenous rulers, other colonial powers, or even the political authorities back home.     

遵义乡贤宦泽民述略

宦泽民第遵义名门、沙滩文化重要的学者宦懋庸之孙。从晚清留学日本,投身辛亥革命,参加护国运动,桑梓从教十余年。一生勇于奉献,尽职尽责,算得上是贵州一位有作为的乡贤,值得后世效法。     

The long goodbye: Hugo Grotius’ justification of Dutch expansion overseas, 1615–1645

This article examines Grotius’ lifelong support for Dutch expansion overseas. As noted in other publications of mine, Grotius cooperated closely with the directors of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in the years 1604–1615. Right up to his arrest for high treason in August 1618, he contributed towards Dutch government discussions about the establishment of a West India Company (WIC). Three years of imprisonment at Loevestein Castle and, following his escape, long years of exile could not weaken his dedication to the cause. His relatives in Holland, in particular his brother Willem de Groot and his brother-in-law Nicolaas van Reigersberch, kept him up-to-date on the fortunes of the VOC and WIC. His expertise on maritime affairs was in high demand. For example, Cardinal Richelieu invited him in November 1626 to become actively involved in the establishment of a French East India Company. As itinerant ideologue of empire, Grotius sought to further his own career and those of his nearest family members, without damaging the interests of the United Provinces. Through Willem de Groot and Nicolaas van Reigersberch, he provided informal advice on Dutch imperial policy to the VOC directors and government officials in The Hague. He was rewarded with the appointment of his brother and his second son, Pieter de Groot, as VOC lawyers (ordinaris advocaten) in 1639 and 1644, respectively. They served as his proxies in diplomatic disputes involving the VOC, the States General and the Portuguese ambassador in autumn 1644, when Pieter and Willem de Groot wrote a defense of VOC claims to the cinnamon-producing areas of Ceylon (modern-day Sri Lanka), liberally citing De Jure Belli ac Pacis. Grotius’ vision of empire hardly changed in the course of 40 years. In his view, the Dutch had gone to the Indies as merchants, not conquerors, and should regulate themselves according to natural law and the law of nations. Thus he contributed to the creation of two political orders, one for Europe and one for the Indies. European diplomatic relations counted for little beyond the Line. VOC and WIC officials could act as judges and executioners in their own cause, without reference to indigenous rulers, other colonial powers, or even the political authorities back home.     

Democracy and International Society

In this edited version of the seventh John Vincent Memorial Lecture given at the University of Keele on 7 May 1999, James Mayall discusses the contested nature of international relations, the question of the democratization of international society, and the reasons for democracy's prominence in contemporary international relations. He asks how the impact of democracy and democratization on international society over the past ten years could be measured and whether the establishment of democratic values in national and international politics rests on particular cultural preconditions. He concludes that in the pursuit of international order useful modifications to the international system have been introduced; it is the components of that system that remain the problem.     

Mathematics and painting

Abstract

Mathematics and painting are interrelated in many ways. At a technical level mathematics can be used to enhance our appreciation of paintings. This was recently demonstrated beautifully by Taylor, Micolich, and Jones in their analysis of Jackson Pollock's drip paintings, which led them to the conclusion that Pollock's paintings are in a way figurative pictures. Relations also exist at a more basic level. Painting and mathematics can share subject matter, as is illustrated here by a discussion of the mathematical concepts 'open' and 'closed', which are related to paintings by Pollock, Kandinsky, Turner, and van Gogh. It is suggested in conclusion that mathematics and painting are so closely related and have so many similarities that it is reasonable to consider them simply as two different but complementary ways of visualising aspects of the concrete or abstract reality in which we are embedded.     

Prudence and principle in international society: reflections on Vincent's approach to human rights

John Vincent's Human rights and International Relations argued for embedding the right to be free from starvation in the international society of states. Principle and prudence were combined in a distinctive English School analysis of the universal human rights culture. Vincent argued that the entitlement to be free from the tyranny of starvation and malnutrition was one principle on which most societies could agree despite their profound ideological differences. Other conceptions of human rights, including western liberal doctrines of individual freedom, had the potential to create major divisions within international society, particularly when linked with a doctrine of humanitarian intervention. More recent approaches to world poverty raise large questions about whether Vincent succeeded in attempting to marry prudence in preserving an international order that remains anchored in state sovereignty with a principled commitment to ending starvation. Important issues also arise about how to build on his reflections on the prospects for a global ‘civilizing process’ that bridges cultural and political differences in the first universal society of states.     

‘The land and its people’: reflections on artistic identification in an age of nations and nationalism

From the late eighteenth century onwards, increasing numbers of visual artists came to identify with their nations and with the homeland and its people. This development was strongly influenced by growing national cultural support and regulation of the arts by academies, art schools, museums and art markets in Western Europe. On a subjective level, the Rousseauan movement of a ‘return to Nature’, Herder's espousal of vernacular cultural self‐expression and, above all, the widespread Romantic cult of authenticity, were potent influences on the inner self‐identification of visual artists after 1800, and were manifested in the novel importance accorded to landscape and rural genre painting in Western Europe. Here I consider the role of national sentiment, the ‘return to Nature’ and the cult of authenticity, first in landscape paintings by Paul Sandby, J. M. W. Turner and John Constable in early nineteenth‐century Britain, and then in the rural genre paintings of Jean‐Francois Millet and Jules Breton in nineteenth‐century France and Josef Israels, Anton Mauve and Vincent Van Gogh in the later nineteenth‐century Netherlands. Their work reveals how nineteenth‐century visual artists became inwardly identified with the ‘land and its people’, and how they in turn contributed, especially through prints and engravings, to the dissemination of national imagery and a cultural nationalism.     

Clarendon,Cavour, and the Intervention of Sardinia in the Crimean War, 1853–1855

The notorious arms trader Sir Basil Zaharoff is remembered as the archetypal ‘merchant of death’. During the First World War, he is alleged to have exercised a malign influence over statesmen in London and Paris. Recently released Foreign Office files now allow us to document Zaharoff's wartime activities on behalf of the British government as an agent of influence in the Levant. The new sources reveal that Sir Vincent H.P. Caillard, the financial director of the arms-maker Vickers, played a key role in making Zaharoff's services available to prime ministers Asquith and Lloyd George. While Zaharoff has often been portrayed as a sinister force, manipulating statesmen into pursuing his financial and political interests, the reality was the reverse. Zaharoff was a convenient tool of two prime ministers rather than a powerful political manipulator in his own right.     

为共产主义事业奋斗到底的一生--我所了解的晚年陈云(上)

陈云同志的一生是坚贞不渝的共产主义者的一生。他在晚年作为党的第二代中央领导集体的重要成员,为共产主义事业奋斗到底的精神,突出表现在他对改革开放的社会主义方向的把握上,对党的重大原则的坚持上,对党和国家战略的深谋远虑上,对人民群众切身利益的关心上以及对个人的严格要求上。在党的建设方面,他思考最多的,除了搞好党风外,主要是如何端正思想路线、保证党内民主和选拔优秀中青年干部的问题。在经济建设方面,他总是从国家的全局和长远利益出发,关注那些影响我们长期发展的制约因素;并且对计划与市场的关系进行了深入思考,为在微观搞活的同时加强宏观控制提供了理论依据。他时刻挂念人民群众的疾苦,关心群众的切身利益,并力求在制订具体政策中加以体现。他在晚年依然保持谦虚谨慎、顾全大局、艰苦朴素、克己奉公的作风,为我们树立了永葆共产党人政治本色的光辉榜样。     

Leo Fouché and history at Wits University, 1934–1942

Leo Fouché, the first Professor of History at Pretoria University, was the surprise choice to replace W.M. Macmillan, the first Professor of History at Wits University, following his resignation in 1933. Fouché served at Wits from 1934 to 1942, departing to take up the post of chairman of the South African Broadcasting Corporation. His tenure at both Pretoria and Wits was assessed negatively in the official histories of the two universities. In Ad Destinatum: Gedenkboek van die Universiteit van Pretoria 1910–1960, A.N. Pelzer ignored Fouché’s major contribution in building up history at Pretoria and focussed instead on his failure to serve the Afrikaans movement. In Wits: The Early Years, B.K. Murray represented the conservative Fouché as a major disappointment, both as a researcher and as a teacher, following his productive and progressive-minded predecessor. In this article, an attempt is made to present a more detailed and rounded assessment of his tenure at Wits. While he published little, and his syllabus changes, with their narrow focus on white South African history, did not outlast him, his tenure was generally a positive one for the Department of History. Student numbers grew substantially, an additional staff post was secured, and postgraduate research was actively promoted. Three of his postgraduate students went on to distinguished academic careers in history.     

方国瑜与中国西南对外关系史研究

中国西南对外关系史是方国瑜先生史学研究的起点,并贯穿其整个史学研究生涯。方先生不但从文献资料的整理与研究、人才培养方面奠定了中国西南对外关系史研究的坚实基础,还广泛深入地研究了中缅、中越界务问题,中国西南与东南亚的民族联系与政治关系,中国西南与东南亚及南亚的交通、经济和文化关系,是中国西南对外关系史研究的开拓者和奠基人。     

Sir Edward Appleton and Joseph Priestley: two giants of electrical science

The life of Sir Edward Appleton is reviewed, in commemoration of the recent centenary of his birth. Appleton discovered the ionosphere and devoted much of his life to investigations of its properties, receiving the Nobel Prize for physics as a result. He became a senior government scientist in World War II and afterwards was appointed Vice-Chancellor of Edinburgh University. The influence of his roots in the city of Bradford is emphasized and compared with the case of Joseph Priestley, also born near Bradford some 160 yr earlier. Priestley was a major early investigator of electrical phenomena and compiled a comprehensive treatise on the electrical knowledge of his day. He was the first person to present an experimental proof of the inverse-square law of electrostatic force, although he is usually better remembered as the discoverer of oxygen.     

The Savage Science: Sigmund Freud,Psychoanalysis, and the History of Religion

This article analyzes how Freud takes issue with the prioritization of the present over and above the historical past. Significantly, Freud's understanding of history is closely related to his interest in Christianity's historical dependence on Jewish antiquity. He emphasizes the common sources of both religions: both are shaped by the experience of guilt. Christianity, however, relegates the historical past to the realm of the “old Adam.” According to Freud, Jewish culture, by contrast, revolves around the commemoration of a “savage” (i.e. pre‐modern) past. This article thus focuses on how Freud combines his analysis of onto‐genesis (in his psychoanalytical case studies) with a discussion of phylogeny. The manifestation of psychic illness gives body to the unconscious remembrance of phylogenetic history. Thanks to religious and literary documents an irrational past has been put down in writing. According to Freud, this characterizes their historical truth value.     

Restoration Leeds and the Aldermen of the Corporation, 1661–1700

Abstract

In the 1945 General Election, the Conservative Party under the leadership of Winston Churchill was defeated in a largely unexpected Labour landslide. The former Prime Minister's son, Randolph Churchill, MP for Preston since 1940, also lost his seat, but by a swing much lower than the national average. This was hardly due to his performance as a constituency MP. He was largely absent on military service. His ability to antagonise his own constituency workers was no help to his cause. He did have the advantage of name recognition and a heroic war record, but these were hardly decisive factors. It is argued here that his comparatively strong electoral performance was due to his adoption of the cause of social reform combined with his ability to campaign in a flamboyant manner that appealed to electors, which suggests that a very different result might have been possible if his approach had been taken up nationally by the Conservative Party.     

刘知几史学批评的特点

刘知几的《史通》是一部以史学批评为特色的史学理论著作,涉及史家和史著之多,在中国史学史上可谓是空前绝后。他发扬王充的批判精神,“直书”前代史家之得失,即使是圣贤孔子和当朝皇家修史也在其批评之列,表现了无畏的求实精神;他具体评价史书的优劣,褒扬不讳其短,批评不抑其长,主张史学评论要探赜史家的著述旨意。他以理、势论述史学问题,增强了史学批评的理性色彩,在中国史学的发展上具有承先启后的意义。他史学批评的核心是史义。实录直书和“激扬名教”在他的史义体系内实现了既相互制约又相辅相成的统一。     

毕竟高歌能拔剑——论祁寯藻诗的师法渊源和诗歌意象

祁寯藻是清代道、成、同三朝帝师,位居首辅,影响整个咸丰初期的政局走向。他在政事之余作诗,出之以性情,寯平生哀乐于诗中,展示出晚清特定的时代风貌与文人士大夫的心态。他是宋诗派领袖,诗歌除宗法杜甫、韩愈、苏轼外,尤其推崇白居易,在师法渊源上独具特色。在表情达意方面,则常借助“剑”“春晖“‘萱草”等意象,形成个性鲜明的抒情体系。     

指下云山意无穷 信手写来入化境--刘知白指画山水的艺术特色

刘知白先生是现代山水画系中的一位隐士型画家,其泼墨山水取得的杰出成就,不仅在于笔墨语言和审美观念方面的突破,还在于图式构成中亦自成面目,深受美术界关注。刘知白具有极深的传统功力,他的艺术路子广阔,山水、花鸟俱佳,而且在诗与书法方面皆有造诣。值得一提的是,刘知白先生的指画在方法上延续了传统模式,但是却能融入画家个人情怀和时代精神,他擅长以极为简淡物象,抒写心志,表达如诗的山水意境,有着较高的研究价值。