The Problematic Nature of Nature: The Post-constructivist Challenge to Environmental History

This article discusses the program of environmental history within the larger discipline of history and contrasts it with more recent contributions from post‐constructivist science. It explores the ways in which post‐constructivism has the potential to productively address many of the shortcomings of environmental history's theories and models that environmental historians themselves have begun to view with a critical eye. The post‐constructivist authors discussed in this article, Donna Haraway and Bruno Latour, both represent challenges to the ways in which nature and the natural sciences tend to be conceptualized as non‐problematized entities within environmental history. They also challenge the ways in which dichotomies of nature and culture tend to be reproduced within the program of environmental history. It is argued that these post‐constructivist contributions represent a radical and arguably more truly historical way of introducing non‐human actors into the historical narrative, and thus represent a potential reinvigoration of environmental history that would embrace a more radical historicity, greater diversity, and openness to difference.     

Diplomacy in a Global Early Modernity: The Ambiguity of Sovereignty

Abstract

This is a concluding comment on the chapters of this special issue. After a discussion of the articles, we will take a closer look at the new view of European diplomacy and foreign relations. The historiographical change regarding early modern foreign relations has fundamentally altered the way we interpret the roles, the agencies and the loyalties of early modern envoys. Taking the conclusions of this research into account, we ask if diplomatic actors of the ancient regime differed distinctly from their Asian counterparts at all. Then, as a final point, we examine how fundamental changes in the Sattelzeit–particularly in Europe, but also in the context of global power relations–affected intercultural diplomacy.     

日本：语言与文化的暧昧

语言是人们表达思想和传递信息的工具。几乎每个民族都有自已的语言,据说世界上的语言有5000种之多。虽然语言的功能和用途大抵是相同的,但它的构造和风格却是不尽相同的,且每个民族又往往有其独特的表达方式。从这个意义上讲,语言不仅仅是组词造句,同时又是一个民族文化心理的具体体现。打～个比方,语言现象好比人的面部表情,而语言符号就是人的脸。面部表情虽然是通过脸的变化表现出来的,但它反映的是人的心理而不是脸本身;语言现象虽然也是通过不同的语言符号组合而成的,但它反映的是人的心理而不是语言本身。由此可见,语言是表象,心理才是本质的东西,才是我们应研究的主要对象。所不同的是,语言符号的组合即语言结构比较复杂,而脸的变化一看便知,无需研究而已。所以分析语言现象不能只盯着语言结构,还必须注重文化内涵,否则就很难理解其确切的含义。     

Honoring Ambiguity/Problematizing Certitude

In this paper I argue that the practice of archaeology over-emphasizes and over-rewards unambiguous certainty in our interpretations, even though our conclusions are usually drawn from necessarily partial, underdetermined and complex evidence. I argue that full or partial erasure of ambiguity from our data and from our interpretive assertions does not serve the long-term interests of the discipline; that a feminist practice aimed at more nuanced understandings of the past and open to more subtle, multivalenced notions of reality, must accept ambiguity as a central feature of archaeological interpretation. After I review familiar strategies that are used to obscure troubling areas of uncertainty in archaeology, I urge feminist practice to resist employing these “mechanisms of closure” in our work. It is only by openly recognizing and preserving the ambiguity that resides in messy data arrangements today that we stand any hope of fuller and richer understandings in the future.

Coherence and Ambiguity in History

This article is about the logic of the concept of "coherence" as used by historians to justify an argument. Despite its effectiveness in historical arguments, coherence is problematic for epistemologists and some theorists of history. The main purpose of this article is to present some insights that bear upon the logical status of coherence. As will be demonstrated, this will also shed some light on the allegedly dubious epistemological position of coherence. In general I will argue that, logically seen, coherence is a property of a set of related beliefs that makes it possible to justify a choice out of different factually justifiable interpretations. Coherence disambiguates vague or ambiguous observations. As words lose their vagueness or ambiguity in contexts, so do contexts disambiguate historical facts. My argument will be based on some relatively recent findings about the cognitive processes underlying vision and reading. Research in the field of text linguistics is used to show what kinds of relationships exist between historical representations that might be considered to cohere.     

The Interaction of Nature and Society

The author reviews the material of his article on the Stalinist definition of the geographical environment [Soviet Geography, December 1963, pp. 3–19] in the light of L. F. Il'yichev's pronouncement on the unity of the natural and social sciences [Soviet Geography, April 1964, pp. 32–34]. Like V. A. Anuchin, Saushkin interprets the ll'yichev statement as encouraging more work on geographic synthesis that would integrate the findings of the specialized physical and economic geographic disciplines.     

关于南京临时政府的性质问题

南京临时政府中的“立宪派”、“旧官僚”都是他们未参加革命以前的身份。武昌起义以后,他们分别放弃了君主立宪主张,投入革命行列;宣布独立光复,脱离清朝政府,加入民国军政府。他们与革命党人和其他革命志士一起组成了革命统一阵线。南京临时政府就是这革命统一阵线的革命政府,并且是按照同盟会《军政府宣言》和《临时政府组织大纲》的规定建立起来的行政、立法二权分立的民主共和政体,并奠定了向行政、立法、司法三权分立政体过渡的法律基础。其职能也发生了根本的转化,从封建专制统治转化为现代国家公共事务管理的文明政府。     

The Nature of Value and the Value of Nature: a Philosophical Overview

In an article exploring the philosophical issues raised by environmentalism, Ben Rogers argues for an alternative both to the narrowly economic and to an extravagantly mystical concept of Nature. Species and ecosystems, mountain ranges and mineral reserves have an intrinsic value in the sense that Nature moves and disturbs us independently of our concern for our own welfare or happiness. This analysis enables us to see the inadequacy of cost-benefit analysis, which treats natural goods as commodities. At the same time, recognizing that the natural environment has an intrinsic value does not in itself release us from the necessity of making difficult choices or from hard decisions as to what is and what is not 'natural'. One way of clarifying the place that Nature occupies in our scheme of values is by way of analogies with heirlooms, works of art and historic towns and cities. These analogies shed light on what it means to insist that natural goods are not commodities, but are something we hold in trust.     

扬子鳄自然保护区

扬子鳄是目前世界上仅存的两种淡水鳄鱼之一,数量极其稀少。皖南扬子鳄自然保护区位于皖南山区与长江下游平原的结合部,属野生动物类型的自然保护区,1986年经国务院批准建立国家级自然保护区。     

神奇的“绿岛”大黑山自然保护区

<正>大黑山自然保护区位于辽宁省西部北票市,核心区面积29.4平方公里,森林覆盖率达93%以上,是辽西地区面积最大的原始次生林地,有"辽西绿岛"的美称。大黑山景区以"清幽、野趣"为特点,集雄、奇、险、秀、幽、旷等自然形象于一体,     

论罗德州多尔起义的性质——兼议美国早期工匠的政治性格

罗德州直到19世纪初仍然遵照1663年殖民地特许状的规定,只赋予大土地所有者投票权,而工匠和中产阶级则一直要求扩大选举权。1842年,争取普选权的运动在多尔律师领导下演变为武装起义,迫使州政府做出让步。迄今为止,学者大都从政治史或法律史的角度研究这次事件,认为它是中产阶级的改革运动。本文对多尔起义的性质重新进行探讨,发现工匠不但首先发动了普选权运动,而且在关键时刻把运动推上激进主义的道路;所以,多尔起义应该被定义为工人阶级和中产阶级的联合行动。本文还讨论了美国早期工匠的双重政治性格。     

麦克马洪线的由来及其实质

麦克马洪线是英帝国在与中国、印度民族解放运动的矛盾斗争中,为封锁、镇压印度的民族解放运动而实施“战略边界”计划的产物。它的产生历时近30年,经过了“战略边界”计划的提出、西姆拉会议期间的麦、夏换文和伪书《艾奇逊条约集》1 4卷三个阶段。英印政府始而批准,继而视为非法而抛弃,最后又将它复活,几经波折起落。英国对藏政策说到底是为了封锁镇压印度民族解放运动,维护英国对印度的殖民统治,麦克马洪线的实质即在于此。