Amarna and Uluburun: Reconsidering Patterns of Exchange in the Late Bronze Age

This paper sets out to combine the textual evidence from the Amarna letters with the archaeological evidence from the Uluburun shipwreck. The latter was most probably a Levantine vessel carrying an extraordinary quantity of commodities and prestige objects from Egypt and the Near East to a major palatial centre in the Aegean. Most of the scholarship has therefore taken the view that it represents an exchange of the same type as those described in the Amarna letters, and that the Aegean world should be inserted in the same system of diplomacy and gift exchange as the Near Eastern polities. What this scholarship has failed to acknowledge, however, is the fact that the Amarna letters do not contain a single mention of the Aegean. This paper, therefore, addresses this significant discrepancy between the textual and the archaeological evidence and argues that the texts and the shipwreck may be part of two different phenomena.     

论阿玛尔纳时代埃及与米坦尼的关系

阿玛尔纳时代早期,埃及和米坦尼都积极发展两国关系,将两国友好关系推到顶峰.阿玛尔纳时代后期,埃及面对中东错综复杂的局势,做出了疏远米坦尼的外交决策,而米坦尼面对赫梯的威胁,力图保持与埃及的友好关系,为此进行了不懈的努力.埃及与米坦尼关系的恶化对中东政治格局产生了深远影响.     

A PROVENANCE STUDY OF THE GILGAMESH FRAGMENT FROM MEGIDDO

A Late Bronze Age fragment of a clay cuneiform tablet with the Gilgamesh Epic was found in the 1950s on the surface at Megiddo. The presence of scribes in Megiddo is evident from the el‐Amarna letters. This is the only first‐class literary Mesopotamian text ever to be found in Canaan. The aim of the present study was to examine the origin of this tablet, by mineralogical and elemental methods. The petrographic and NAA results indicate that the tablet was not Mesopotamian, but was written in southern Israel. The implications of this result in view of the small corpus of scholarly cuneiform texts discovered in Egypt and the southern Levant in the second millennium bce are discussed.     

Constructing Sovereignty in Nineteenth-Century China: the Negotiation of Reciprocity in the Sino-Spanish Treaty of 1864

Since the Republican era, the unequal treaties that China was forced to sign became the basis for the articulation of a narrative of humiliation that has continued to the present day. These treaties, which represented a threat to Chinese sovereignty and were a display of the might of Western powers, have several features in common: they imposed extraterritoriality; included the most-favoured-nation clause; and fixed indemnities or disproportionate concessions. However, the Sino-Spanish Treaty of 1864 was to a certain extent unusual, as it not only guaranteed privileges to Chinese merchants and citizens visiting the Spanish colony of the Philippines, but even went as far as to grant China a most-favoured-nation clause. Through a comparative analysis of the 1864 Sino-Spanish Treaty and the circumstances under which it was negotiated, this article will argue that far from simply being an exception that proves the rule, this treaty offers a glimpse into the need for a more flexible and wider narrative surrounding mid-nineteenth-century China international relations. In an attempt to contribute to the dereification of the West and a better understanding of Chinese agency in the mid-nineteenth century, this narrative needs to be more inclusive of the peripheral powers.     

LETTER WRITING AND ELITE IDENTITY IN THE NETHERLANDS, 1770–1850

This essay argues that correspondence was an important means for the Dutch elite in the period 1770–1850 to develop, consolidate and express an elite identity. Children were taught a “natural” epistolary style, which often meant “decent” or “as fits an elite child”. In line with Bourdieu's thesis that elites are so confident of their leading position that they feel free to deviate from language norms, adolescents diverged from decent language, whereas lower‐class correspondents composed humble letters to their superiors. Daily correspondence and ceremonial letters served to keep upper‐class values in mind and to hold the elite together.     

A Victorian Embarrassment: Consular Jurisdiction and the Evils of Extraterritoriality

In 1856, the Treaty of Paris nominally welcomed the Ottoman Empire into the Concert of Europe, but this exposed a deep fault line in international relations. Although the gesture implied full sovereign rights, it seemed incompatible with the extraterritorial privileges held by Europeans in Ottoman lands under the age-old capitulations. New commercial treaties complicated the issue by extending similar privileges to British subjects as far afield as China, Siam and Japan. Consular jurisdiction soon became the focus of controversy in Westminster as extraterritoriality featured prominently in local disputes following British commercial expansion across Asia, among them the Arrow incident that led to the Second Opium War. In Japan and other states, it would also become a key grievance in popular campaigns against ‘unequal treaties’ and the injustices of informal empire. This analysis shows how, even before such narratives of resistance emerged, there was already a seam of ambivalence in Victorian political discourse on the question of extraterritoriality. In the Foreign Office, it came as no surprise to be told of defects in these treaties, but it was the context of the existing debate, notably fresh initiatives to set up mixed courts, that framed the British response.     

Hobbes's Contribution to International Thought,and the Contribution of International Thought to Hobbes

Summary

The aim of this article is to explore in what respects Thomas Hobbes may be regarded as foundational in international thought. It is evident that in contemporary international relations theory he has become emblematic of a realist tradition, but as David Armitage suggests this was not always the case. I want to suggest that it is only in a very limited sense that he may be regarded as a foundational thinker in international relations, and for reasons very different from those for which he has become infamous. In the early histories of international thought Hobbes is a cameo figure completely eclipsed by Grotius. In early histories of political literature, the classic jurists were often acknowledged for their remarkable contributions to international relations, but Hobbes is referred to exclusively as a philosopher of a positvist ethics and absolute sovereignty. It is among the jurists themselves that Hobbes is believed to have made important conceptual moves which set the problems for international thought for the next three centuries. He conflates natural law and the law of nations, arguing that they differ only in their subjects—the former individuals, the latter nations or states. This entailed transforming the sovereign into an artificial man, not in the Roman Law sense of an entity capable of suing and being sued; rather, as a subject not party to a contract, but created by a contract among individuals who confer upon it authority. This subject is not constrained by the contractors, but is, as individuals were in the state of nature, constrained by the equivalent of natural law, the law of nations in the international context. Throughout, the methodological implications are drawn for modern historians of political thought and political philosophers who venture to theorise about international relations.     

Europe and the new balance of global order

The European Union has become an important shaping factor in international relations, but how and under what conditions it can exercise influence and contribute constructively to global order are still not well analysed. In fact, the EU's contribution may resemble more that of a force in physics than of a great power in the traditional sense of international relations (which the EU is not, and will not become in the near future), and its influence depends probably more on what the EU represents and how well it manages its own realm, rather than on what it can do externally. In this sense, European influence in international relations presently benefits from past achievements, and may therefore have peaked if the twin challenges of enlargement and national structural deficiencies are not addressed effectively. But even if the European Union does master those challenges successfully, and thus manages to sustain and perhaps even enhance its influence as a force in international relations, it will still have to proceed cautiously and clearly focus its attempts on shaping its external environment and contributing to a ‘concrete’ or ‘civilized’ global order. In a global setting that, despite appearances to the contrary, seems characterized by a diffusion rather than a concentration of power and by strong tendencies towards entropy rather than order, the EU can and will probably not remain America's principal ally in sustaining Pax Americana. Nor does it seem likely to become an equal partner in a constructive, balanced transatlantic relationship, let alone a great power capable of challenging, perhaps together with others, America's apparent pre‐eminence. The most plausible assumption for the EU's future role in the new balance of global order is that of a ‘civilian force’ with a regional focus. It may best be able to contribute to global order by managing its own realm well, promoting the normative and institutional infrastructure for civilized international relations, not least in the sense of functioning statehood, and working towards effective multilateralism.     

The US–Australia free trade agreement: The interface between partisan politics and national objectives

The literature on the drivers behind bilateral treaties implies an assumption that international treaties are entered into primarily to achieve national objectives, not partisan political goals. This paper investigates whether this assumption is valid, using as a case study the recently enacted US–Australia Free Trade Agreement. A stated original purpose for the agreement—increasing access to the US market for Australian agricultural products—would yield significant economic benefits for Australia. However, when it became clear that this goal would not be achieved, the objective of the Australian government shifted. The most plausible explanation for the shift is that domestic political objectives had moved to the fore and prompted the government to pursue and adopt the treaty despite some evidence that it might not be in the national interest to do so.     

A European political-economic space that embraced Japan: the international context of the conventional-tariff network,ca.1892–1914

This article sheds new light on the economic globalization in Europe and Asia from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries, with a special focus on the role of bilateral commercial treaties and import tariffs. Countries concluded a number of treaties in those days, and they came to form an extensive ‘conventional-tariff network’. This mechanism contributed to the stabilization of international economic-political space by facilitating reciprocal tariff concessions. The extent of this conventional-tariff network was both temporally and geographically larger than has been assumed. First, as the recent scholarship has shown, the network, which emerged in the 1860s, survived the political turbulence of the 1890s and spanned Central European countries such as Germany and Italy by the early 1910s. Second, the network spread outside Europe and reached East Asia by the 1910s, when Japan renegotiated its commercial treaties and became a new member of the network. The network embodied so strong a mechanism of self-maintenance based on the coordination of economic interests that it was resilient to a major political shock such as the First World War. While the tariff systems in Europe and in East Asia around 1900 have been separately discussed in the literature, this paper focuses on the treaty partnership between these two areas to show how the mechanism of the conventional-tariff network enabled the countries to cooperate for mutual concessions on international trade.     

Reinterpreting Bretton Woods: International Development and the Neglected Origins of Embedded Liberalism

This article offers a reinterpretation of the origins of the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreements, one that is of particular significance to scholars of international development. Conventional wisdom holds that the Agreements were primarily a product of US–British negotiations between 1942 and 1944, in which little attention was paid to international development issues and the concerns of poorer countries. This article demonstrates that the innovative ‘embedded liberal’ vision of Bretton Woods was in fact first put forward in the context of US–Latin American financial relations in the 1938–42 period, and that this experience influenced the subsequent Bretton Woods negotiations. The analysis highlights that the architects of Bretton Woods did not ignore development issues but rather attempted to pioneer a new model for both North–North and North–South economic relations. If this has been subsequently overlooked by historians, it may be because this latter feature of Bretton Woods was quickly buried by US policy makers in the immediate post‐war years. This historical reinterpretation helps both to explain some important puzzles about the origins of the Bretton Woods Agreements and to shed new light on the place of international development issues in the evolution of the post‐war international economic order.     

Foucault,realism and the power discourse in international relations

The work of Michel Foucault highlights the need to rethink the assumptions of disciplines such as international relations which have tended to remain narrow, universalist and positivist. In particular, the key concept of power has largely escaped critical inquiry. This article seeks to open up the power discourse in international relations by exploring the limits of traditional approaches such as realism and even critical theory, arguing for a ‘post‐positivist’ approach which incorporates Foucault's insights into the nature of power. Indeed, it goes beyond much of the ‘Third Debate’ in directly focusing on power and rearticulating its form and content as a category of analysis in international relations.     

阿马尔那泥板书信中所见的古代近东大国外交方式

阿马尔那时代是近东历史上的和平外交时代，五大国支配着外交的走向和国际关系的格局。在大国外交中，存在3种外交方式，礼物交换、王室联姻和信息沟通，这3种外交方式构成了当时外交的主要形式，促进了和平外交的持续发展。     

RECENTLY IDENTIFIED EGYPTIAN PIGMENTS

On several bowls from Nubia (1600 b.c. ) and on one canopic jar (New Kingdom) huntite, a calciummagnesium-carbonate CaCO₃. 3MgCO₃ was identified by means of X-ray diffraction and infra-red absorption techniques. Vases from the Amarna period (1370 b.c. ) are decorated with a blue paint, which proved to be cobalt-blue. Copper chloride atacamite was used on limestone reliefs from Thebes-West but the green frit chrysocolla occurs more frequently on Egyptian objects as is mentioned in literature.     

Unrest in the Arab world: why the 2011 uprisings still matter

This article reviews the current state of analysis of the 2011 Arab uprisings. It argues that valuable literature on the uprisings is emerging just at a time when the international policy agenda has moved away from 2011's flirtation with visions of a democratic Middle East. This literature presents a timely reminder that the uprisings were part of long‐term processes of political change, rather than isolated phenomena. Understanding the very different post‐uprising trajectories of different Arab countries requires comparative analysis of the political economy, state institutions, the role of the security sector and strategies of opposition movements, among other factors. Moreover, comparative experiences from transitions in other regions indicate that the conflicts, economic problems and social polarization that have ensued in most of the transition countries are not evidence of an Arab exception, but, rather, have parallels with political transitions elsewhere, which have rarely been peaceful or simple. Compared to 2011, the perceived costs of political change are higher today, while the gains remain uncertain. But the drivers of unrest remain unresolved; and a small minority will seek change through brutal and violent means. Western policy‐makers need to understand what is driving these movements. Yet they also, crucially, need to understand what is motivating and preoccupying the larger publics in the Arab world, in order to build broad‐based relations with these countries, and avoid inadvertently empower violent groups by allowing them to set the political agenda.     

“三大政策”与独立自主的新中国外交

中国革命胜利前夕,中共中央制定了"另起炉灶"、"打扫干净屋子再请客"和"一边倒"的三大外交政策."三大政策"的基本内容是:废除一切不平等条约,彻底清除帝国主义的残余势力,拒绝承认国民党政府与外国的外交关系;新中国是一个充分享有独立、自由的主权国家,作为国际社会中的平等一员,它与任何国家的关系必须以平等互利和尊重领土主权为基础;中国的独立离不开社会主义国家和国际无产阶级的援助,为确保未来的国家安全和经济建设的顺利开展,新中国将加入以苏联为首的和平民主阵营."三大政策"反映了新民主主义革命的必然要求,表明了即将站立起来的中国人民掌握自己命运的坚强意志.独立自主是"三大政策"的本质和核心."三大政策"有着有机的内在联系,共同构成了新中国外交的坚实基础.     

Rethinking Soft Power in the Post‐Blockade Times: The Case of Qatar

This study seeks to advance the understanding of the utility of “soft power” by exploring the case of Qatar. The country's approach is conceptualized as “nested power” through the examination of its political strategies before and after the regional blockade in 2017. The role of soft and nested power in Qatar has already been examined through various vantage points, such as small state diplomacy, mediation, and sports. Since the blockade has been for Qatar a great strategic dilemma, examination of how it affected power dynamics reveals the salience as well as the resilience of Qatar's soft and nested power. The article will discuss the concepts of “soft” and “nested” powers and their relevance to the state of Qatar in general and it will focus in the final section on the post‐blockade period. In doing so, we also seek useful approaches, which can be compatible with, and even advance “global international relations” (IR). The movement to make IR more global and inclusive is a welcome feature of the current century, reflective of the burgeoning role of the “Global South.”     

RAW MATERIALS OF GLASS FROM AMARNA AND IMPLICATIONS FOR THE ORIGINS OF EGYPTIAN GLASS*

Analysis has been conducted on 19 blue glasses from Amarna in Middle Egypt dated to around 1350 BC. The results suggest that these glasses fall into two distinct types: cobalt coloured glasses with a natron based alkali made from local Egyptian materials, and copper coloured glasses with a plant ash alkali, which follow a Mesopotamian tradition of glass making. It is suggested that at least some of this copper/plant ash glass is imported into Egypt during the Amarna period despite extensive local production of cobalt/natron glass. Existing analyses (Lilyquist and Brill 1995) of the earliest glass from the reign of Tuthmosis III (c. 1450 BC) suggest that during this period the same two types of glass are present. Local Egyptian cobalt and natron in these early glasses implies that, despite the lack of archaeological evidence for production sites, glass was produced from its raw materials in Egypt as early as the reign of Tuthmosis III.     

Gift-giving and books in the letters of St Boniface and Lul

The Anglo-Saxon missionary and archbishop St Boniface (d.754) and Lul, his protégé and successor in the see of Mainz (d.768), left behind a rich collection of letters that has become an invaluable source in our understanding of Boniface's mission. This article examines the letters in order to elucidate the customs of gift-giving that existed between those who were involved in the mission, whether directly or as external supporters. It begins with a brief overview of anthropological models of gift-giving, followed by a discussion of the portrayal of gift-giving in Anglo-Saxon literature. Two features of the letters of Boniface and Lul are then examined — the giving of gifts and the giving of books — and a crucial distinction between them revealed. Although particular customs of gift-giving between the missionaries and their supporters were well established, and indeed bore some resemblance to ‘secular’ gift-giving customs depicted in Anglo-Saxon poetry, books, while exchanged frequently, were consistently excluded from the ritualised structures of gift-giving. A dual explanation for this phenomenon is proposed: first, that books were of greater practical importance to the mission than other forms of gifts; second, that their status as sacred texts rendered them unsuitable for inclusion within rituals that depended upon the giver emphatically belittling the material worth of their own gift.