Adam Ferguson on the Perils of Popular Factions and Demagogues in a Roman Mirror

For the Scottish Enlightenment thinker Adam Ferguson (1723–1816) and many of his time, the history of the Roman Republic furnished the best case study for discussions of internal threats to a mixed system of government. These included factionalism, popular discontent, and the rise of demagogues seeking to concentrate power in their own hands. Ferguson has sometimes been interpreted as a ‘Machiavellian’ who celebrated the legacy of Rome and in particular the value of civic discord. By contrast, this article argues that he is better understood as a disciple of Montesquieu, who viewed Rome as an anachronistic and dangerous ideal in the eighteenth century, the era of the civilized and commercial monarchy. The greatest fear of Ferguson was military despotism, which he believed was the likely outcome of democratic chaos produced by the levelling instincts of the ‘common’ people and demagogues prepared to harness their discontent. In such a scenario, a legitimate order in a mixed government would be turned into a faction putting the constitutional balance at risk, undermining intermediary powers, and ending liberty for all.     

On Dittmer's Popular Culture,Geopolitics, and Identity as a classroom resource

In this intervention, four geographers, all of whom have used Jason Dittmer's book, Popular Culture, Geopolitics, and Identity, in their classes, assess its status as a teaching resource. All have had considerable success using Dittmer's book, alongside other resources, to cultivate critical thinking and critical knowledge production in a wide range of classes.     

Blogging the Victorians for the Journal of Victorian Culture Online

The contributors to this forum each reflect on a particular aspect of the future of academic publishing. James Mussell outlines how the form of the online academic journal, and in particular ongoing use of pdf, remains resistant to the potential that the digital environment can offer. Lucinda Matthews-Jones continues the conversation by explaining how journal blogs, such as JVC Online, act as digital spaces that facilitate more creative engagement with multimedia and which allow authors to foster and to interact with new and often broader networks of readers. Finally, Helen Rogers surveys the current landscape of academic publishing and urges us, as scholars, to move beyond the traditional schema and embrace the potential that Web 2.0 can offer. As more and more of our scholarly lives are lived online, the investment of the scholarly journal in print culture becomes apparent. These essays recognize the value of longevity, of scholarship’s commitment to both the past and the future, but they also suggest that scholarly publication needs to attend more closely to the times in which it is published.