THE PRICE OF METAPHOR

In his critical response to our skeptical inquiry, “Does Culture Evolve?” (History and Theory, Theme Issue 38 [December 1999], 52–78), W. G. Runciman affirms that “Culture Does Evolve.” However, we find nothing in his essay that convinces us to alter our initial position. And we must confess that in composing an answer to Runciman, our first temptation was simply to urge those interested to read our original article–both as a basis for evaluating Runciman's attempted refutation of it and as a framework for reading this essay, which addresses in greater detail issues we have already raised. Runciman views the “selectionist paradigm” as a “scientific”“puzzle‐solving device” now validated by an “expanding literature” that has successfully modeled social and cultural change as “evolutionary.” All paradigms, however, including scientific ones, give rise to self‐validating “normal science.” The real issue, accordingly, is not whether explanations can be successfully manufactured on the basis of paradigmatic assumptions, but whether the paradigmatic assumptions are appropriate to the object of analysis. The selectionist paradigm requires the reduction of society and culture to inheritance systems that consist of randomly varying, individual units, some of which are selected, and some not; and with society and culture thus reduced to inheritance systems, history can be reduced to “evolution.” But these reductions, which are required by the selectionist paradigm, exclude much that is essential to a satisfactory historical explanation–particularly the systemic properties of society and culture and the combination of systemic logic and contingency. Now as before, therefore, we conclude that while historical phenomena can always be modeled selectionistically, selectionist explanations do no work, nor do they contribute anything new except a misleading vocabulary that anesthetizes history.     

RUSSIA ON THE PACIFIC: THE ROLE OF THE AMUR

The key to the expansion of Russia to the Far East and to America is to be found in the loss of the valley of the Amur to China by the Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689 and its reacquisition in the period from 1854 to 1860. R. J. Kerner, "Russian Expansion to America, Its Bibliographical Foundations, Papers of the Bibliographicul Society of America.     

THE CRISIS OF THE MOVEMENTS: THE ENABLING STATE AS QUISLING

The basic argument of this paper is that the anti-systemic movements political successes over the last century have turned out to be medium-term cul de sacs at the expense of the real longue duree purposes of the movements. The discovery of the enabling state by radicals towards the end of the nineteenth century has resulted in a Quisling in the anti-systemic ranks. This argument brings to the fore the anarchist critique which never accepted the enabling state as a legitimate part of the radical political repertoire. Nevertheless this essay is not a plea for a return to anarchist roots but rather attempts to reinsert anarchism, and feminism, into a single framework of anti-systemic movements alongside socialism and nationalism. As the state is being shown to be disenabling rather than enabling across the various zones of the world-economy it is argued that anarchist ideas deserve some priority as we revise radical political strategies.     

SNOW LEOPARD:THE BIG CAT ROAMING THE ROOF OF THE WORLD

<正>Crouching on the grassy slope,I almost forgot to breath.I could hear my own frantic heartbeat.Everyone was looking in the same direction through his binoculars.On the tip of a hill some 800meters away,there was a cat-shaped head.The head turned a little,and we saw a perfectly round profile.The beast got up,and jumped off the