The search for historical experience

In the first part of my paper I will try to reconstruct a series of attempts at dialogue between history and the social sciences made by historians connected with the “Annales” (Marc Bloch, Ernest Labrousse, Giovanni Levi, Bernard Lepetit). What these attempts have in common is the idea that in history, as in the natural sciences, it is to some extent possible to carry out forms of experimentation on the sources, and that the inclusion of history among the human sciences, and even the scientific future of the discipline itself, ultimately depend on the adoption of this method. In the second part I will discuss the relationship that links historical experimentation with lived experience, and I will conclude by discussing the possible meaning of the idea of experimenting with the sources of history.     

Anthropology and alcohol: In search of a new paradigm

Jerrold E. Levy and Stephen J. Kunitz. Indian Drinking: Navajo Practices and Anglo‐American Theories. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1974. xii + 257 pp. Tables, notes, appendices, bibliography, and index. $12.50.

William Madsen. The American Alcoholic: The Nature‐Nurture Controversy in Alcoholic Research and Therapy. Springfield: Charles C. Thomas, 1974. xvii + 248 pp. References, author and subject indices. $11.50.     

In search of negativism: Phenomenology and historical geography

The paper aims to investigate the nature and origin of the “phenomenological movement” in historical geography, by comparing and contrasting the fundamental principles of phenomenology as philosophy on the one hand, and the character of the so-called behavioural and perceptual approaches to historical reconstruction on the other. Questions are raised as to the methodological purity of the particular strand of non-positivist ideology which has entered into the annals of geographical literature; and, finally, the adoption of behavioural explanatory modes in historical geography is seen as a pragmatic response to substantive problems rather than a conscious or even strategic change in underlying philosophy.     

Anthropology and the Iraq war: An uncomfortable engagement

The Iraq war has preoccupied anthropologists. However, this has not materialized in panels dedicated to independent study of Iraq at annual conferences at our major professional associations. In the US, we have been predominantly preoccupied with the implications of intelligence gathering for our profession. The author considers some of the differences between our dealing with the Iraq war presently, and the successful campaigns against the Vietnam war of the 60s. He concludes that there is scope for anthropologists to learn from the past and to make a renewed concerted effort to, independent from government demands on their skills, inform and change public opinion and ultimately government policy.     

An historical geography of liberty: Lancashire and the Inebriates Acts

This paper examines the Inebriates Acts of 1879 and 1898 which facilitated the formal provision of institutional care for inebriates. The Acts' permissive character produced an uneven geography of provision of institutions that meant that inebriate treatment varied markedly across the counties and county boroughs of England and Wales. The vast majority of those committed under the Acts were women. Using two exemplary case studies from Lancashire, a private retreat created under the 1879 Act and a council run reformatory created under the 1898 Act, the paper considers how debates about liberty and control shaped the regulation of problem drunkards. It shows that geography was as important as class, religion, and gender in determining who was subjected to regulation. The paper argues that the failure to reform inebriates helped the recoding of inebriety within a broader discourse of mental deficiency that encouraged the permanent segregation of problem populations.     

An exile's hopes: the search for a liberator in Michael Marullus

Abstract

Michael Marullus, fifteenth-century Greek, soldier and Latin poet, lived almost all his life in exile. In his earliest poetry revanchist thoughts directed at his country's Ottoman conquerors are hardly present, and superhuman powers are held responsible for the catastrophe. Later, Byzantine reliance on foreign forces is blamed. With time however and political developments in central and western Europe, a crusade or Türkenzug seemed to become more likely, and Marullus turned to the Habsburg Maximilian I and Charles VIII of France as possible liberators. This paper attempts to describe the poet's developing treatment of the themes of defeat and exile and his response in the last decade of the fifteenth century to the possibility of military action against the Ottomans.     

Digital harm and addiction: An anthropological view

A broad trend of anti-tech rhetoric has raised fears about the dangers of digital overuse and reliance and suggests that technology is addictive, unnatural or harmful. Some people have limited their hours of ‘screen time’ or resorted to the practice of ‘digital detoxing’ – a catch-all term to describe temporarily ‘leaving’ the digital world. Using her ethnographic work in a North American digital detox retreat, the author considers an anthropological approach to digital harm and addiction that emphasizes their socially constructed nature. Following Horst and Miller (2012) and the view that digital harms are socially constructed, she argues that digital technology will be removed in different places for different reasons, and that geographically bound cultural values are vital to understanding how digital harms come to be imagined and counteracted. Whether or not digital use will ever be proven to be clinically harmful, digital harm is best viewed as a ‘social fact’.     

An alternative hypothesis for a historical exodus event

The biblical tale is a product of nearly random telling, retelling, revision and redaction over a period of centuries, which resulted in a narrative framework that is not intended to be reliable in the modern sense. Nevertheless, four details in the evidence suggest that the Bible may preserve the memory of a historical exodus from Egypt. From these data, it might be suggested that the biblical Exodus tale is a combination of traditions from three distinct ethnic groups, whose stories were merged at Jerusalem during the Iron II period. These three groups were: (a) ethnic Israelites residing in Judah, (b) descendants of the LB-IA 1 Shasu living in Judah, and (c) the Jerusalemites.     

Hebrews and phoenicians: An ancient historical image and its usage

The modern nation-state is the most common, and so far the most stable, vehicle for modern democracy. The case of Zionism offers a unique opportunity for inquiring into this connection since mainstream Zionism consciously founded its institutions on the premise that democracy and the national state are mutually dependent. Moreover, ever since the early days of Zionism, opposing plans to separate the two—a non-democratic national state and a non-national democratic state—have been, and still are, hotly debated. This article surveys the origins of these ideas and argues that, both politically and theoretically, neither the party of non-democratic nationalism nor the party of non-national democracy offers a viable or even coherent plan. It would seem that non-national democracy will subvert democracy as well as nationalism, and non-democratic nationalism will undermine the national as well as the democratic character of the state.     

Luminescence and radiocarbon dating as tools for the recognition of extraterrestrial impacts

Extraterrestrial events and the extraterrestrial origin of both material and impact forms were recognized in the Morasko, Kaali and Przełazy shallow geological profiles by means of luminescence and radiocarbon dating as well as the frequency of magnetic spherules. The obtained results provide a promising tool for proving theat extraterrestrial events affected characteristic lithological and morphological environmental features.     

The east African Neolithic: An alternative view

The East African Neolithic has been attributed to the migration of food- producing populations from the Sudan and Ethiopia. The migrants are thought to have entered the region via northern Kenya. Attempts have been made not only to reconstruct the routes taken by those migrants, but also to establish their linguistic and/or ethnic identity. These attempts have treated Neolithic pottery wares as discrete cultural entities and correlated them with specific linguistic and/or ethnic groups. The main problem with this approach is that it minimizes the contribution that contact and exchange or trade may have made to culture change. It also denies the groups concerned the dynamism that appears to have characterized their relationships with each other and with their environment. The present paper offers an alternative interpretation of the Neolithic phenomenon. The similarities and differences in material culture, like the ones that have been used to define the pottery wares in question, are reflections of the dynamic relationships that existed between the people responsible for its production and consumption. Production and consumption of the wares could have taken place among individuals living in a given area or among different villages or communities living as far apart as the Central Rift and the Lake Victoria basin.

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Résumé Le néolithique de l'Est de l'Afrique a été attribué à des migrations de populations productrices de nourriture en provenance du Soudan et d'Ethiopie. On pense que ces migrations ont pénétré dans la région via le Nord du Kenya. Des tentatives ont été faites, non seulement pour reconstruire les routes empruntées par ces migrants, mais aussi pour établier leur identité linguistique et/ou ethnique. Ces tentatives ont utilisé les différents groupes de poterie néolithiques comme autant d'entités culturelles discrètes et les ont mises en relation avec des groupes linguistiques ou ethniques spécifiques. Le problème principal avec cette approche est qu'elle minimise la contribution que les contacts, les échanges ou le commerce ont pu avoid sur le changement culturel. Elle ne prend pas non plus en compte le dynamisme qui semble avoir caractérisé leurs relations entre elles et avec leur environnement. Le présent article tente d'offrir une interprétation alternative au phénomène néolithique. Ceci est réalisé en utilisant un modèle interprétatif que reconnaît que les humains ont des capacitiés intellectuelles et technologiques multiples et que les décisions et actions individuelles sont reflétées par les restes matériels des sociétés auxquels appartiennent les individus. Par conséquent, les similarités et les différences dans la culture matérielle comme celles qui ont été utilisées pour définir les groupes de poterie dont il est question sont le reflect de relations dynamiques qui existaient entre les peuples responsables de sa production et de sa consommation. La production et la consommation de ces groupes peuvent s'êtres produites parmi des individus vivant dans une région donnée ou parmi différents villages ou communautés vivant aussi éloignées l'une de l'autre que le Rift Central et le bassin du Lac Victoria.