Beginning to Write Separately: The Origins and Development of Concurring Judicial Opinions

While political scientists and legal academics have both evinced a “fascination with disagreement on courts,” ¹ this scholarly concentration on conflict rather than consensus has tended to focus on dissent and dissenting opinions. As far as we can tell, there is no authoritative history of concurring opinions in the U.S. Supreme Court. This article is a first effort to correct that oversight by examining developments and change in concurring behavior from the founding through the White Court (1921). This period covers the emergence of an institutionally independent national judicial branch and ends before the start of the modern, policy‐making Court era, which we argue begins with the Taft Court and the creation of a fully discretionary docket.     

Economic Geography as Dissenting Institutionalism: The Embeddedness, Evolution and Differentiation of Regions

This paper endorses recent pleas for an ‘institutional turn’ within economic geography. In particular, it reveals and connects the coherence and distinctiveness of dissenting institutional economics as a way of thinking for economic geography. Economic geographers have recognized this tradition but its continuity and compass is not fully appreciated. To provide such an appreciation, this paper argues that the paradigmatic distinctiveness of dissenting institutionalism rests especially on its recognition that real world economies are embedded, have histories or evolve, and are different. The discussion is based around these three cornerstone principles of embeddedness, evolution and difference. For the future, greater attention to the region as an institution, albeit a complex one, along with greater attention to the synthesis of multi‐dimensional processes that are normally analyzes as separate conceptual categories, is encouraged.     

Dissenting Heads and Hearts: Joseph Priestley,Anna Barbauld,and Conflicting Attitudes towards Devotion within Rational Dissent

Anna Barbauld's and Joseph Priestley's disagreement on the subject of devotion was famously characterised by James Martineau as “passion for the sublime and the beautiful” confronting “passion for the truth.” Such a characterisation, however, is potentially misleading because it suggests that Barbauld lacked “passion for the truth.” At least partly, the disagreement between Barbauld and Priestley stems from a fundamentally different assessment of the limits of human knowledge (an assessment that in both cases is closely connected to a commitment to the search for truth and the associated principle of “free inquiry”). Inadvertently, Martineau not only distorts Barbauld's position within Rational Dissenting thought but also obscures a crucial split among Rational Dissenters in their approach to the search for truth.     

Courts of World Opinion:

In January 1964, riots broke out along the so-called border between Panamanian cities and the U.S.-run Canal Zone, resulting in loss of life among Panamanians and U.S. citizens and serious economic and political damage on both sides. While historians have mainly focused on the causes of the riots and the U.S.-Panama diplomacy that followed, a close look at the lesser-known international investigations of the violence adds texture and detail to the riots themselves as it also uncovers broader cultural and political dynamics surrounding the episode. This essay, informed partly by interviews with Panamanian participants and by documents from the Panamanian government, argues that Panamanians expressed a potent anticolonial discourse during the investigations, one that allowed them to conceal their government's substantial irresponsibility during the riots and help convince the U.S. government to negotiate the devolution of the canal into Panamanian hands.     

方言与民歌刍议

同是“感于哀乐,有感而发”①的民歌,因地域的不同,往往表现出不同的风格特征。如陕北民歌《走绛州》,其粗犷豪放,恰似西北汉子;而江苏民歌《茉莉花》,清醇委婉,犹如浣纱女子;两相比较,地方特色甚是鲜明。并且这种情况由来已久,试比较下面两首古代民歌：     

志书的本性、个性及其生命之我见--兼谈续修《湖州市志》的几点思考

一部好的书志,其先决条件是详尽、真实、准确。志书的本性是详尽,体现于志书中的地方特色是志书的个性。只有体现了志书的本性和个性,才能经世致用,才能赋予志书强大的生命力。     

历史社会地理研究刍议

本文对历史社会地理的研究内涵作了初步的勾勒,认为历史社会地理是研究历史时期各地人群的形成、分布及其变迁,研究地理因素对社会文化现象的影响,具体研究内容应包括历史时期社区及社会现象的地理研究,后者包括人群研究、风俗地理和社会变迁等。     

民俗文物刍议

何谓“民俗文物”,在大多数人的观念中,恐怕是似是而非的,就是专业人员或许也很难从学科的角度进行解释。因为长期以来,在传统的物质文化研究中,民俗文物研究是有其名而无其实。然而,若是仅从字面上来理解,民俗文物与民俗学和文物学应该是有点关系的。     

外交斡旋、非官方出访和舆论策应——国民政府抗战外交的特殊运作

抗日战争时期,国民政府为了争取国际援助和支持,争取同盟抗战而进行了广泛的外交活动。在这些活动中,除了正常的以政府的名义与其它国家进行直接的交往之外,还采取了几种特殊的外交活动形式。这就是外交斡旋和信息交流来促成国际互动;利用社会团体和私人出访的方式争取外援;通过广泛的国际宣传赢得国际上的同情和支持。这些方式是正规外交活动的补充,从而使当时中国的抗战外交搞得有声有色,不断取得新的进展。     

戊戌政变后的社会舆论

戊戌政变后,虽有统治者严酷的言禁,但社会各界仍对相继发生的事件相当关注,以各种方式和途径表达自己的见解和态度。当时参与较多的报纸,如《中外日报》、《国闻报》、《申报》、《知新报》和《清议报》等都刊登了相关报道和文章,从不同立场对政变作出各种反应和思考。与此同时,包括各级官员、各类知识分子和各界民众在内的社会各阶层人士,或公开或私下表达自己的意见和态度。这些出自各方面的舆论,说明政变后的社会舆论比较复杂,反映了社会各阶层对时局的不同主张以及先进与落后势力的复杂斗争。