Review Article: The Burden of European Imperialisms, 1500–1800

ANTHONY PAGDEN. Lords of All the World: Ideologies of Empire in Spain, Britain, and France, c. 1500–c. 1800. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995. Pp. ix, 244. $30.00 (us).     

‘The Bay and the Ocean’: A History of the ANC in Swaziland, 1960–1979

Abstract

South African political refugees first began arriving in Swaziland in significant numbers in the late 1950s. In the mid-1960s the ANC tried to recruit these refugees to engage in operational activities but with little success. After Swazi independence in 1968 the kingdom's rulers were too scared of South African retaliation to provide active support for the ANC's armed struggle. Meanwhile ANC members in Swaziland were cut off from ANC structures in central Africa because the kingdom was landlocked between white-ruled South Africa and Mozambique. This changed following the army coup in Lisbon in 1974 which led to Mozambican independence. Mozambique's provisional government allowed the ANC access to Swaziland. The ANC sent Thabo Mbeki to try and establish links with activists in South Africa, but whilst he made some progress, this was reversed by police countermeasures early in 1976. A rump of activists left behind after Mbeki's expulsion led ANC efforts to handle the exodus of youths into Swaziland after the June 1976 Soweto uprising. In the late 1970s Swaziland formed part of what the ANC referred to as the ‘Eastern Front’ of its liberation struggle. In trying to stop ANC infiltrations South Africa made use of an extensive network of highly-placed agents in the Swazi establishment. However this collaboration proved ineffective in stopping the ANC because, even if it wished to, Swaziland lacked the resources to prevent its territory being used, whilst there were also many prominent Swazis, including King Sobhuza II, whose sympathies lay with the ANC. By the end of the 1970s ANC activity in Swaziland had grown to such a scale that it began to unnerve the Swazi authorities. This set the stage for the closing of the ‘Eastern Front’ in the early 1980s.     

The Making and Breaking of the Slovak Clerical Council, 1918–19

Abstract

This article examines the Slovak Clerical Council, one of a number of clerical councils which were founded in Central Europe in the immediate aftermath of the First World War. On the basis of primary sources and extensive familiarity with the relevant secondary literature, it challenges the existing historical consensus that this clerical council was merely one manifestation of Slovakia’s desire to break away from Hungarian rule and was, therefore, of limited scope and import. Instead, it argues that the clerical council’s nationalist agenda manifested itself not only in its eagerness to support and in?uence the establishment of the Czechoslovak state but also in its determination to reconstruct and reinvigorate the Catholic Church in Slovakia. It also explains why the ambitions of the council, and the threat it posed to the unity of the Church in Slovakia, were stymied. This account of the Slovak clerical council serves, therefore, as a case study of both the radicalizing impact of nationalism in the aftermath of the First World War and the limits of that radicalization. No account of any of the post-war clerical councils has, hitherto, been published in English, and thus this article will contribute to a clearer understanding not only of developments in Slovakia in 1918–19, but also of the broader challenges affecting the Catholic faith in Central Europe in the aftermath of the First World War.