林肯是废奴主义者

对林肯的评价和他在反奴隶制战争中的态度,国内外史学界有不少争论。一种意见认为林肯是废奴主义者,一种意见认为他不是废奴主义者。我认为他是废奴主义者,但他的思想有一个演变过程。     

小勒鲁尼·班内特对林肯历史形象的塑造

正如果一位为人类文明进步做出丰功伟绩的历史人物,遭到一位以揭穿历史谎言、揭示历史真相相标榜的所谓学者的肆意贬损,那么不仅对于这位历史人物有失公正,而且对于历史学界也是一种悲哀。在当代美国史学中,小勒鲁尼·班内特对亚伯拉罕·林肯的评判就是这种令人可悲之事。在美国历史上,林肯以其在奴隶制废除过程中做出的重大贡献而成为民众心目中的"伟大的解放者",职业历史学者普遍认定林肯持反奴隶制立场。可是班内特却标新立     

美国总统第一健笔

有人考证,美国总统,只有杰斐逊、麦迪逊、林肯、老罗斯福及威尔逊,演讲稿不用假手于人,其中又以林肯文采最好,堪称第一健笔。     

华盛顿、杰斐逊缉捕逃奴的两则广告

华盛顿、杰斐逊在国外史学界一直被尊为人类自由、平等的象征。尤其是《独立宣言》的主要起草人杰斐逊,更被看成是反对奴隶制的。直至本世纪六十年代,一些研究黑人问题的史学家,如林德、     

论林肯的政治蛰伏期

亚伯拉罕·林肯是与华盛顿、杰斐逊齐名的美国三大伟人之一。我国学术界对林肯人生轨迹的研究 ,虽然较为广泛和深入 ,但忽略了其中的一个非常重要的阶段——政治蛰伏期 ,即1849至 185 4年林肯从国会卸任返乡居住的五年。许多历史伟人都经历过或长或短的蛰伏期 ,这在他们的人生旅途中既关键又微妙。国外对此问题的研究比较重视 ,美国学术界通过对林肯政治蛰伏期的探讨就认为 ,蛰居乡间的五年是林肯认真反思自己人生经历 ,全面充实自我 ,以崭新的面貌投入伟大政治风暴的准备阶段。研究林肯的这一阶段 ,对于更深刻地理解他的思想和伟业是大有裨…     

刘文涛著《伟大的解放者——林肯》

亚伯拉罕·林肯是美国第16任总统,《解放黑奴宣言》的起草人和签署人,与华盛顿、杰斐逊齐名的美国三大伟人之一,同时代的马克思、恩格斯曾给予他高度评价,他的业绩举世瞩目,受到了包括中国在内的各国人民的尊敬。我国对林肯的研究较薄弱,除个别译(编)著外,迄今没有出版过中国人撰写的研究林肯的专著。刘文涛著《伟大的解放者——林肯》一书填补了这一空白。笔者认为,该书在汲取国内外研究成果的基础上,对许多问题的探讨有新颖独到之处。一、对林肯早年生涯和成长经历的叙述既深刻又生动精彩。众所周知,林肯出身卑微,早年经历曲折坎坷。他跟…     

历史人物研究的新路径——解读埃里克·方纳《烈火中的考验——亚伯拉罕·林肯与美国奴隶制》

囿于其各自的立场,不管是在美国史学界还是在中国史学界,学者们都对林肯究竟是"伟大的解放者"还是"中间派"进行过激烈的争议。在新社会史主导下的史学潮流中,从普罗大众的视角出发的研究改变了以往林肯研究的刻板和枯燥,而其立足点却往往付诸"今日多数人的道德法庭"。在适当借鉴新社会史研究方法的同时,埃里克·方纳的《烈火中的考验——亚伯拉罕·林肯与美国奴隶制》一书指出了一个基本事实,即林肯是一个杰出的政治家。作者从林肯的政治使命进行分析,肯定了林肯在废除奴隶制过程中不可替代的历史贡献;并且认为,站在今人的立场上对林肯作静态的解读是不可取的,因为这种做法忽略了政治的基本属性和政治史研究的基本任务。     

试析杰斐逊的治国思想

杰斐逊是美国第三任总统(任期1801—1809年)。他的治国思想是在总结美国革命道路的基础上,借鉴前任总统的经验而形成和发展起来的。他执政后,这些思想被付诸实践。它们不但在他的任期内产生了良好效果,而且对后继者麦迪逊、门罗时期的方针政策有直接影     

杰斐逊的外交思想与其对美国根本利益的界定

杰斐逊的外交思想是建立在他对美国根本利益界定的基础上的。这种界定包括两个方面:美国应该采取什么样的发展道路以及什么样的国际结构对美国最为有利。关于前者,杰斐逊认为美国应该成为由独立的农场主占主导地位的共和国,为此需要在美洲大陆上不断扩张,并且拥有海上贸易自由。关于后者,杰斐逊认为美洲和欧洲是两个不同的世界,美国不能卷入欧洲事务,并且需要依靠欧洲大国之间相互牵制的力量均势来保证自己的安全。在美洲大陆的扩张、海上贸易自由、在欧洲的冲突中保持中立和对欧洲均势的重视就是杰斐逊外交思想的四根支柱,它们构成了日后美国外交政策发展的基本框架。     

杰斐逊的联邦制思想与“国内改进”政策的延滞

对杰斐逊而言,联邦制意味着联邦政府和各州政府共同分享国家主权,其中,联邦政府享有管理对外事务(包括国际和州际事务)的权力,而各州政府则享有管理对内事务的权力。他主张对宪法进行严格解释,强调联邦政府的权力严格地限于宪法中所列举的范围。在杰斐逊执政时期,他赞同联邦政府进行国内改进(即交通建设),但是,由于宪法并没有明确授予联邦政府进行国内改进的权力,他强调必须通过一项宪法修正案,明确授予联邦政府有关权力,其目的在于维护他关于联邦制的一贯主张,维护联邦政府和各州政府之间的权力划分。主要由于杰斐逊的联邦制思想的阻碍,联邦政府的国内改进政策始终延滞不前。     

Telling small stories: spaces of knowledge and the practice of geography

This article examines how the practice of learning geography, and the arenas in which knowledge-making takes place, can be usefully positioned within changing histories of the discipline. It contends that networks of action – understood through the intersection of social sites, subjects and sources – present a conceptual framework and narrative focus for the re-consideration of specific episodes from geography's past. The interventions made here are informed and illustrated by a 'small story' about the doing of geography. Based on different personal accounts, the story revives a series of events, encounters, dialogues and images dating back to the winter of 1951 at Glenmore Lodge, Scotland. This educational institution in the Cairngorm mountains offered children from urban areas the opportunity to learn field studies and the skills of 'outdoor citizenship'. Initially, the focus falls on Margaret Jack, a 14-year-old field-course participant. Her learning experiences are traced through personal letters, a diary and a field journal dating from that time, and her recent recollections of this event. Margaret's account dovetails with the story of her field studies instructor, Robin Murray. Robin's role is traced through his learning experiences as a geography undergraduate at Aberdeen University, and the recent recollections of Catriona Murray, his wife.     

Das Wissen der Schulden. Recht,Kulturtechnik und Alltagserfahrung im liberalen Kapitalismus

The Knowledge of Debt: Law, Media Technique, and Everyday Experience in Liberal Capitalism. Performing an object such as ‘the economy’ hinges on practices of formatting knowledge. The article proposes to look at such instituting moments in connection with social conflicts over the legitimate rules of exchange. This is exemplified by way of recounting the story of the codification of Swiss bankruptcy law in 1889. In order to homogenize the legal procedures of debt collection and bankruptcy, two subject categories were instituted: ‘merchants’ and ‘non-merchants’. These different categories were thought to account for the diverging temporalities and spaces of credit exchange in everyday economic life. The introduction of the commercial register, a media-technical apparatus, enabled a formal distinction between ‘merchants’ and ‘non-merchants’. However, this boundary was contested and proved to be porose.     

Two radiocarbon dates for freshwater shells from hierakonpolis: Archaeological and geological interpretations

Shells of two species of freshwater bivalve (Unio willcocksi Bullen Newton and Etheria elliptica Lamarck) from the predynastic Gerzean (Nagada II) Decorated Tomb at Hierakonpolis, Egypt have given dates of 5000±90 bp for the tomb, and 12,900±120 bp for an episode of Nile terrace accumulation (correlated here with the Sahaba-Darau aggradation event). The archaeological and geological significance of these results is discussed, together with an outline of problems associated with radiocarbon dating of shell. Comparisons are made with the few other radiocarbon dates available for the Predynastic period in Egypt and possible reasons for the presence of shells in the tomb are considered.     

Some chronological implications of a fossil molluscan assemblage from a neolithic site at Brook,Kent, England

The later post-glacial history of a valley in the chalk escarpment near Brook, Kent, is described, based on molluscan stratigraphy, archaeological evidence and radio-carbon dating. Differences in size and colour banding, respectively, of fossil and living representatives of two species of land snails, Pomatias elegans (Müller) and Cepaea nemoralis (L.), are correlated with climatic change during the post-glacial period. The problems of the use of fossil shells of these species as samples for radiocarbon dating are discussed.     

China's Dynamic Industrial Sector: The Internet Industry

A Singapore-based economic geographer explores and analyzes the spatially uneven evolution of the Internet industry in China, arguing that the country's immense regional disparity in the provision of Internet services is best explained by the interplay of place- and path-dependence. The author demonstrates how the highly uneven regional endowments in relevant industrial and entrepreneurial resources have led to the substantial and persistent regional imbalance within China's emerging "new economy." His initial survey of the country's 100 leading Internet content providers (firms), identified from a listing of ca. 11,700 commercial websites, is selectively augmented to reflect an increase of over 70 million Internet users in 2007, reaching a total of 253 million in June 2008, and thus overtaking the United States as the world's largest Internet market. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: L10, L86, O30. 6 figures, 1 table, 53 references.     

The 1911 International Exposition in Rome: architecture, archaeology, and national identity

This paper discusses the 1911 International Exposition in Rome and illustrates how this patriotic celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Italian Sate utilized symbolic landscapes of architecture and archaeology to promote nationalist sentiments of italianità and romanità centered on the young capital of Rome. Through modern art exhibitions at the Valle Giulia, scientific conferences at the Castel Sant’Angelo, archaeological exhibits on the Roman Empire in the Baths of Diocletian, and regional Italian pavilions in the Piazza d’Armi, exposition officials offered a complex representation of Italian national identity that was modern yet ancient, cosmopolitan yet bucolic, European yet regional, and imperial yet developing.     

The Rise and Fall of Alexander the Great – The Need for Medical Analysis: Reply to Commentaries

Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. from an unknown cause. By elucidating the nature of his death, we can better interpret various aspects of Alexandrian history. Alexander’s death may have ensued from the sequelae of a congenital scoliotic syndrome. It would therefore be of significance to note that one of the greatest leaders in history who conquered much of the then known world may have been suffering from a physical disability.     

Hospital Drama: Visual Theatres of the Medical Rendezvous from Asylum to Hospital with Reference to Specific Works by Anna Furse

Abstract

This paper is informed by Furse’s practice as a theatre maker in two fields of output that are connected by two factors: first, the presence of the woman patient — hysteric/subfertile respectively — within the clinical gaze; second, the significance of the womb to each pathology. In the treatment of each (explored in Furse’s theatre), lens based technologies play their part, whilst the cultural and medical can be seen to have overlapped to produce specific meaning with regard to Her body and its spectacularity. The article presents an overview of some of the key issues in precisely how the woman’s body becomes spectacular within this prosthetic medical gaze and how the medical — and theatrically designed spaces to represent these — become meaningful and potent proxemics that in turn inform medical/ theatrical spectatorship. Overarching nineteenth-century protocols at the Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris (where Furse’s Augustine (Big Hysteria) is set) to contemporary imaging technologies used in the treatment of subfertility with Assisted Reproduction Technologies (the topic of her Art of A.R.T. projects), it examines the way in which photography develops through cinema to X-Ray, ultrasound and then 3D/4D ultrasound to ‘capture’ the woman’s body in ways by which she becomes muted and exposed. These occular technologies that extend the gaze, first to an exterior subject and then, eventually, traversing the flesh without knife, lend specific performativity to the ‘patient’ women, within the context of hysterias and reproductive impairments respectively. Finally, issues of suspension of disbelief are addressed. The spectator’s faith in the screen-based image of Her spectacular body is interrupted in Furse’s work, which is also keenly interested in the effect of such imagery on the woman’s sense of Self. The historical and cultural leaps in this article argue that there is indeed a trajectory through the history of medical imaging since the first application of photography to anatomy to the more advanced scoping technologies of medical imaging today, and that in each era, the production of these images remain fraught with cultural implications.     

The Death of Alexander the Great – A Spinal Twist of Fate

Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. from an unknown cause. Physical depictions of this historical figure reveal the likelihood of a cervical scoliotic deformity. This is substantiated with the medical history and is correlated with his untimely death. For the first time, it is concluded that Alexander’s death may have ensued from the sequelae of a congenital scoliotic syndrome.