History as Sacrifice: The Polynesian Iconoclasm

ABSTRACT The Polynesian iconoclasm comprised a series of destructive episodes in which god‐images were rendered powerless and temples and associated structures were successively burned or torn down in Eastern Polynesia. Beginning in Tahiti and neighbouring Mo'orea in 1815, it spread rapidly to other Society Islands, the Austral Islands and the Southern Cook Islands. In this article I suggest that the willingness of Polynesian leaders to follow Tahitian precedence in destroying or unwrapping their god images can be partially explained by the fact that they saw themselves as participants in a large‐scale sacrifice, the common objective of which was the acquisition of greater mana and the consequent revitalisation of their societies. In making this argument I engage with anthropological theories that address relationships between sacrifice and historical transformation. I conclude by proposing that the Polynesian iconoclasm was a form of rituopraxis comprising regionally specific improvisations upon a general ritual schema.     

Digitally Mediated Iconoclasm: the Islamic State and the war on cultural heritage

This paper puts forward the new analytical framework of ‘Digitally Mediated Iconoclasm’ (DMI) to analyse and interpret iconoclastic acts that are experienced through the propaganda (videos, social media, photographs, and other media) that the actor perpetrating the destruction makes available in global information networks for its consumption, duplication, and distribution. DMI captures three stages of the destruction (before, during and after the event) as both evidence of that destruction and as a perdurable digital archive. To demonstrate the relevance of DMI, we focus on an analysis of the videos and photographs depicting heritage destruction at pre-monotheistic sites targeted by the Islamic State (IS), such as Palmyra in Syria, the Mosul Cultural Museum, Nineveh and Nimrud in Iraq. The analysis focuses on the three stages that DMI comprises, showing the different photographic and audio-visual production techniques that the IS uses to enhance the tension that is built up leading to the destruction of cultural heritage while allocating material and human resources to produce digital propaganda. This analysis demonstrates how the analytical framework of DMI can be used to advance important work in heritage and media studies.     

Thorium-230 coral chronology of a late prehistoric Hawaiian chiefdom

Documenting the history of settlement in Hawaii during the last few centuries before European contact, is crucial to charting the evolution of the most complex chiefdom in Polynesia. It is precisely this period that Hawaii, and many Polynesian societies, underwent their most rapid changes in political, economic and social organisation. The last ∼500 to 300 years in the ¹⁴C calibration curve is problematic with wide fluctuations often rendering large age spans that do not precisely date single events, especially troubling with a culture-historical record of ∼1000 years duration. Here we present an extremely high precision ²³⁰Th chronology for archaeologically constrained coral samples from a range of occupancy sites. Our high precision dates allow the time of site use to be clearly demonstrated. They also provide the first dates for habitation sites in Hawaii that clearly show contemporaneous occupation—the major problem in settlement pattern archaeology. We demonstrate that two sites were occupied within the same year. Our refined chronology, provides new and exciting opportunities for tracking sociopolitical and economic developments during the last few centuries—the crucial period in the evolution and transformation of Polynesian societies.     

Reversed,defaced, replaced: late medieval London and the heraldic communication of discontent and protest

ABSTRACT

Cultural history is currently rediscovering heraldry as a versatile means of communication that was widely employed throughout all parts of medieval society, not least the city. Scholars, however, primarily analyse the urban space as a stage for noble self-representation by means of heraldic communication. This paper argues for a different perspective, that townspeople and other commoners were far from primarily passive observers of heraldry displayed in the city. Four case studies from late medieval London demonstrate public expressions of discontent and protest through forms of heraldic communication which did not rely on display, but instead on the manipulation and destruction of the heraldic signs of kings, princes and other noblemen. Indeed, such heraldic practices of ‘non-nobles’ suggest that heraldry, in the later Middle Ages, was accessible to all parts of society, and constituted a ubiquitous and powerful aspect of urban visual culture.     

Territory and the governmentalisation of social reproduction: parliamentary enclosure and spatial rationalities in the transition from feudalism to capitalism

Recent applications of Foucauldian categories in geography, spatial history and the history of town planning have opened up interesting new perspectives, with respect to both the evolution of spatial knowledge and the genealogy of territorial techniques and their relation to larger socio-political projects, that would be enriched if combined with other discursive traditions. This article proposes to conceptualise English parliamentary enclosure–a favourite episode for Marxist historiography, frequently read in a strictly materialist fashion–as a precedent of a new form of sociospatial governmentality, a political technology that inaugurates a strategic manipulation of territory for social change on the threshold between feudal and capitalist spatial rationalities. I analyse the sociospatial dimensions of parliamentary enclosure’s technical and legal innovations and compare them to the forms of communal self-regulation of land use customs and everyday regionalisations that preceded it. Through a systematic, replicable mechanism of reterritorialisation, enclosure acts normalised spatial regulations, blurred regional differences in the social organisation of agriculture and erased the modes of autonomous social reproduction linked to common land. Their exercise of dispossession of material resources, social capital and community representations is interpreted therefore as an inaugural logic that would pervade the emergent spatial rationality later known as planning.     

Layers of religious and political iconoclasm under the Islamic State: symbolic sectarianism and pre-monotheistic iconoclasm

This article examines the heritage destruction undertaken by the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria. To date, their iconoclasm has been mostly characterised either as acts of wanton barbarism devoid of religious or political justification, or as a cynical performance designed as a mass media spectacle. Drawing on a systematic analysis of two key IS propaganda outlets – their on-line magazine, Dabiq, and the various slick films released by Al-Hayat – this article argues that the heritage destruction perpetrated by the IS are not only situated within a carefully articulated theological framework and key to the creation of a new and ideologically pure ‘Islamic State’, but that they are also constituted by several complex layers of religious and political iconoclasm. To demonstrate, this article documents the iconoclasm undertaken by the IS along two key axes: Symbolic Sectarianism (Shia and Sufi mosques and shrines); and Pre-Monotheistic Iconoclasm (ancient polytheistic sites). Attacks on key sites within these categories, such as the Sayyida Zaynab shrine in Damascus or the Mosul Museum, not only adhere to their religious and political framework but also serve broader geo-political agendas and are attacked as proxy targets for their physical and ideological opponents.     

The evolution of sociopolitical complexity in prehistoric Hawaii: An assessment of the archaeological evidence

The sociopolitical system of late prehistoric Hawaii was among the most complex of any Oceanic chiefdom, as indexed by such characteristics as scale, rate of energy extraction, degree of functional specialization, and political hierarchy. Various anthropologists and archaeologists have advanced models of how this complex sociopolitical system developed out of an earlier Ancestral Polynesian society. Recent advances in Hawaiian archaeology have now begun to provide a wealth of data on the course of prehistoric change in the archipelago over some 1500 years and, thus, provide evidence which can be used to test alternative models of the evolution of sociopolitical complexity. This paper reviews the major alternative models that have been put forward and provides a synopsis of the archaeological evidence relevant to their testing.     

Balance of Power and Political Equilibrium: A Response

This article analyses the international thought of the US sinologist and political advisor Owen Lattimore (1900–89). A well-known expert on China and the Far East, Lattimore was a ‘public intellectual’ and advisor to Chiang Kai-shek and Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1950, after Senator Joseph McCarthy accused him of Soviet espionage, Lattimore's reputation was irrevocably damaged and his political thought forgotten. By assessing his visions of global democracy and geopolitics, this article claims Lattimore made insightful contributions to international thought. On the eve of the cold war, Lattimore's ideas of pluralistic democracy and tripolar world order offered an alternative vision of the post-war era, focusing on political participation and diversity. This article focuses on Lattimore's published writings in the 1940s, when, as political advisor and director of the Johns Hopkins’ Page School of International Relations, he sought to shift international attention from Europe to the Far East as the potential birthplace of a new version of post-colonial democracy. A fervent anti-imperialist, Lattimore crafted new political space for global democracy in a post-imperial age. His thoughtful discussion of participation, co-operation, democracy, knowledge, and pluralism make his vision of world order an interesting contribution to international thought in the twentieth century.     

迈克尔·曼的社会权力史及权力史观述评

迈克尔·曼是第三代历史社会学家中的杰出代表。他的社会权力史别出心裁、匠心独具 ,理论上讲是马克思·韦伯“社会理想型”研究方法的延续。曼的社会权力史涵括整个人类史 ,其解释力强、角度新颖、理论性强。但是 ,其权力史仍是欧洲中心主义的 ,并且在其中 ,作为历史组成部分的个人消失了。     

The Aftermath of the Fifteen in the North of England

Abstract

The Jacobite rebellion of 1715 in England came to an end with the Jacobite surrender at Preston on 14 November 1715. Activity in the North of England pertaining to the rebellion, especially in Lancashire, continued for the next two years. Of major concern was the disposal of over a thousand prisoners, mainly through transportation, though there were some executions. The remaining prisoners were released in 1717. This was not, though, another 'Bloody Assize'. Whigs rejoiced, and some were rewarded, but not all. Jacobite activity continued, albeit at a verbal level, even gaining some recruits. Catholics suffered by being harassed by the soldiery and some fled the North.     

李闻惨案之善后

1946年7月发生在昆明的李闻惨案,是战后中国政治史上一个影响十分广泛的事件。这一惨案出现在全面内战一触即发的前夕,遭到暗杀的李公朴、闻一多均为推动国共和谈的中国第三大政党中国民主同盟的中央委员,加之他们惨死于同城,相隔仅仅三天,因而立即引起国内外的强烈反应。多年来,无论大陆还是台湾,在回顾国民党丧失大陆政权的原因时,都不约而同地认为这一事件是国民党失去人心的一个重要标志。李闻惨案已过去65年,但围绕这一事件的性质、责任、处置等方面表现的矛盾与展开的角逐,还有不少有待深入探讨的空间。如惨案初期关于事件性质的论争,即反映了不同政治势力立足于各自立场对这一事件的基本判断;惨案制造者的抵赖与歪曲,则凸现了不同力量在责任追究问题上的博弈;而国内外的强烈舆论以及美国政府的介入,也一定程度上影响美国援华政策的实施;至于蒋介石处置该事件方针的形成和执行,同样表现了战后中国政治受不同因素制约的复杂与交错。对于这些目前研究相对薄弱的问题进行梳理和考察,显然有助于进一步理解李闻惨案为什么会给国民党统治造成难以弥补的创伤,也有助于了解和把握各种矛盾在战后中国政治转型中的作用与演变。     

Sheffield Castle and The Aftermath of The English Civil War

The demolition of castles following the English Civil War is often seen as an inevitable consequence of the conflict, with their slighting often being ascribed to a need to prevent further bloodshed and punish the ruling elite. However, recent studies have demonstrated that the destruction of elite buildings during this period was far from straightforward, and this complexity is reflected in the methodology employed to damage them. At Sheffield, so extensive was this damage that, less than a century later, not a trace remained of what had once been one of the largest castles in South Yorkshire. Whilst little remains of the building itself, the rare survival of a set of demolition accounts, alongside a large number of other sources including personal correspondence, estate rentals and town records, means it is possible to explore in great detail the circumstances of the castle’s slighting. Through these a far more nuanced picture of civil conflict emerges with the castle’s destruction taking place within a complicated dialogue between the Lord of the Manor, Parliament’s officials and the inhabitants of Sheffield themselves.