论20世纪初英国现代社会保障制度的初步确立

20世纪初英国逐步建立了现代社会保障制度.贫困和失业等社会问题的严重化和济贫法制度的失效是这一制度建立的根本原因;来自工人阶级的政治压力是其建立的一个重要原因;费边社会主义、集体主义和新自由主义为这一制度的建立提供了理论基础;德国保险型社会保障制度的建立起了先导作用.英国政府通过一系列的社会立法逐步形成了涉及到养老、失业、医疗、儿童等方面比较完善的福利体系,标志着英国现代社会保障制度的初步确立.它是英国社会保障制度史上一次根本性的转折.     

Historiography: An Introduction

This introduction precedes the four papers given in October 2000 in Copenhagen on analysing problems in the history of the neurosciences. The term historiography can be defined in different ways but means the study, and not simply the writing, of history. Although it goes back two millenia, it is a rapidly developing field as illustrated by the subsequent contributions.     

The Great Game in Antarctica: Britain and the 1959 Antarctic Treaty

This article is concerned with Britain's political and territorial interests in the Antarctic in the first half of the twentieth century, culminating in the signing of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty. Using in part the diaries of a Foreign Office advisor, Dr Brian Roberts, attention is given as to how successive British governments and their officials sustained a presence in the remote polar continent. Rival claimants in the form of Argentina and Chile made the task all the more difficult. Mapping and surveying were essential in maintaining British sovereignty even if the end results were at times disappointing. The article concludes by suggesting that the Antarctic Treaty, while important in promoting international scientific collaboration, did not manage to resolve the political and territorial disputes surrounding the Antarctic. Arguably, the 1982 Falklands War and its aftermath provided a vivid reminder that Britain's most southerly possessions still remain deeply contested.     

The Matabeleland Massacres: Britain's wilful blindness

This article explores an episode of post-colonial state violence in the newly independent Zimbabwe, namely state-sanctioned atrocities by the army unit known as Fifth Brigade, perpetrated against the Ndebele of Matabeleland and Midlands region. This episode of political and ethnic violence that occurred between 1983 and 1987 is referred to as both the Matabeleland Massacres and Gukurahundi. Members of the British government in Zimbabwe, which included a British Military Advisory Training Team (BMATT) on the ground, were intimately aware of the violence that resulted in the death of between 10,000 and 20,000 people. This article analyses official British and US government communications between the British High Commission, Harare, and the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Cabinet Office, the Prime Minister's Office and the Ministry of Defence, London, as well as between the US Department of State and the US Embassy in Harare. Analysis of the documents dated between January and March 1983 sheds a critical new lens on Gukurahundi, establishing what knowledge was available to the British and US governments about the persistent and relentless atrocities taking place; the diplomatic approaches pursued by both governments in response; and their rationale for same. The hitherto unavailable material presented here was obtained by Freedom of Information requests to various British Government offices and to the US Department of State. Analysis establishes that the British High Commission, Harare, had detailed knowledge of events unfolding in Matabeleland from an early stage of Gukurahundi, yet senior members of BMATT and the British diplomatic team in Harare, in contrast to their US counterparts, were consistent in their efforts to minimise the magnitude of Fifth Brigade atrocities. That the British government chose to adopt a policy of wilful blindness towards the atrocities undoubtedly constituted naked realpolitik.     

Visions of Community: An Introduction

The co-editors' introduction to this special issue of History and Anthropology outlines the rationale for featuring this collection of essays by social anthropologists and historians on medieval and early modern communities in Europe and Asia. After discussing basic terms and concepts in this endeavour, the introduction proceeds to address the comparative challenges implied in such transcontinental and cross-cultural forms of methodological practices. From here, the argument introduces this special issue's main division into three subsections, that is, (A) “Interdisciplinary Inspirations”, (B) “Cross-cultural Comparisons” and (C) “Transdisciplinary Intersections”. The text concludes with brief introductions to the contributing articles, and by a summary of the innovative conceptual and methodological results emanating from these forms of cooperation.