The politics of donating technological artifacts: techno-nationalism and the donations of the world’s first jet engines

The Smithsonian Institution’s aviation collection includes two early jet engines, both of which were given to the museum by foreign donors. The first, a prototype of Britain’s first jet engine, which flew during World War II, was donated by the British state in 1949. The second, a replica of Germany’s first jet engine, which flew in late August 1939, was donated by Germany’s leading museum, the Deutsches Museum, in 1980. The two are today presented as equivalent artifacts, yet the paths followed by the two objects to the American museum were anything but equivalent. Recovering the political and historical contexts that informed each of these two donations shows how what was apparently the same action fulfilled two very different agendas. Unlike the British donation, which was calculated to support Britain’s (at that time solitary) claim to having invented the jet engine, the German donation supported a narrative of dual invention, which had become the internationally agreed standard story between 1949 and 1980. This dual-inventor narrative allowed the German museum to forward a more subtle goal than promoting a national inventor; that of depoliticizing and normalizing Germany’s aerospace tradition internationally despite the fact that German aviation had been a locus for German nationalism and National Socialist largess. Reflecting on these two donations raises questions about how technology – particular historical claims about technology made in museums – have contributed to the construction of national identities.     

Unfinished Business from Potsdam: Britain,West Germany,and the Oder-Neisse Line, 1945–1962

Abstract

William Waldegrave Palmer, second earl of Selborne, took up his appointment as first lord of the admiralty in the marquess of Salisbury's third administration on 1 November 1900. This was Salisbury's recently acquired son-in-law's first experience of high office. Initially, as will be seen, Selborne regarded France and Russia as constituting the sole threat to British naval supremacy. Indeed, for reasons entirely to do with ‘economy’s, he was prepared to envisage the making of an alliance with Germany. He maintained this stance throughout 1901. At some point in the course of 1902, however, he displayed a dramatic change in outlook, which it is the purpose of this article to describe and, by pinning down the date with more precision than did Selborne himself in correspondence with Arthur J. Marder in 1938, to explain.1 A.J. Marder, TheAnatomy of British Sea Power: A Histo~ of B~tish Naval Policy in the Pre-Dreadnought Era, 1880–1905 (London, 1940), p. 464.      

Frustrated Great Gamesmanship: Sir Garnet Wolseley's Plans for War against Russia, 1873–1880

Abstract

In three books published in 1940, 1956, and 1961, Arthur J. Marder established what became the orthodox view of the development of the British navy in the years leading up to the First World War.1 A.J. Marder, The Anatomy of British Sea Power: A History of British Naval Policy in the Pre-Dreadnought Era, 1880–1965 (New York, 1940); idem,[Fear God and DreadNought: The] C[orrespondence of Admiral of the Fleet Lord] F[isher of Kilverstone: II: Years of Power, 1904–14] (London, 1956); idem, From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow: I: The Road to War, 1904–14 (Oxford, 1961). Building upon the work of Sir Llewellyn Woodward, who argues that, from the outset of the twentieth century, British naval policy was framed as a response to the threat posed by the rising German naval power,2 E. L. Woodward, Great Britain and the German Navy (London, 1934). Marder makes precise claims about the nature of the response. In particular, he states that, under the leadership of the first sea lord from 1904 to 1910, Admiral Sir John Fisher, the admiralty undertook two root-and-branch reforms. First, it redeployed Britain's fleets and squadrons, reducing the number of foreign stations, scrapping obsolescent vessels, and stationing the most powerful units of the fleet in European waters. Next, at Fisher's prompting, it triggered a naval revolution by ordering the building of a new type of warship, HMS Dreadnought, the world's first turbine-powered, all-big-gun battleship. In both cases, Marder is unambiguous about the motive: the redeployment adjusted Britain's force posture to ensure a preponderance of strength in the vicinity of the North Sea, the theatre in which the expected war with Germany would be fought. The new type of ship was necessary to help to modernize the navy's matériel in keeping with advances in gunnery, propulsion, and torpedoes. If not explicitly aimed at Germany, the new ship would ensure that the navy was better prepared for a war that Fisher perceived to be ‘inevitable’s.     

Anglo-American Rivalry in the Middle East: The Struggle for the Buraimi Oasis, 1952–1957

Some French writers, most notably Jean-Baptiste Duroselle and André Tardieu, have argued that French strategic interests during the early decades of the twentieth century had been seriously harmed because, alone among the Great Powers of Europe, France lacked a ‘diaspora’ in the United States. As a result of this, they have claimed, France had no advocacy group prepared to defend the interests of the European ‘kin state’ at a time when France’s great rival, Germany, was amply endowed with a sizeable demographic presence in the United States, willing to speak out in defence of Germany and its foreign policy. Moreover, a second large European diaspora had become established in the United States, whose numbers would swell after the mid nineteenth century: the Irish. Not necessarily committed to promoting German interests, the Irish-Americans did militate strongly and consistently against British interests, such that by the time France and Britain had become close security partners preceding and during the First World War, what worked against British interests would also work against French ones. This article constitutes a critical examination of the Duroselle-Tardieu thesis regarding France's allegedly ‘missing’ diaspora, and cautions against attributing too much geo-strategic influence to either the German-American or Irish-American ‘lobby’.     

Measure of Despair: the Syndicate for Commerce and Industry,the London Tribune,and German Foreign Policy, 1906–8

Based on fresh archival sources in Germany and Britain, this article offers new insight into the mindest of the German Foreign Ministry in the aftermath of the First Morocco Crisis of 1905/06. Eager to arrest the deterioration in the Anglo-German relationship and concerned about its fallout for US-German relations, the German Foreign Ministry, in league with twenty of the country's top financiers, took a radical initiative which resulted in Germany's largest expenditure, before the First World War, on influencing the press. The article closes with a transnational comparison, detailing a similar influence-buying scheme masterminded by a high-level British political wire-puller.     

Covering up spying in the ‘Buster’ Crabb Affair: A note

Abstract

F EWER COLD WAR myths are more enduring in the United Kingdom than that of ‘Buster’ Crabb. In April 1956, Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) coaxed Commander Lionel ‘Buster’ Crabb, a naval frogman from the Second World War, out of retirement to dive under the Soviet cruiser Ordzhonikidze, while it was docked in Portsmouth. It had brought the Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin and the First Secretary of the Communist Party, Nikita S. Khrushchev, to the United Kingdom on a state visit. The operation, routine by all accounts, ended in both personal and diplomatic failure. Fourteen months later, the decomposed body of a frogman washed up in Chichester harbour. Despite the British government’s hope that the discovery might be the end of the affair, it fired up the conspiracy theorists, who alleged that the body could not be Crabb’s; that, in fact, he had been kidnapped, taken to the Soviet Union, and renamed Korablev.¹ The government did little to dispel such myths. A few days after Crabb’s disappearance, The Times succinctly summed up the situation: ‘official reticence about the activities which led to the death of Commander Crabb has caused much speculation.’² Curiosity was further piqued a few days later when the prime minister, Sir Anthony Eden, stated m the house of commons on 9 May that ‘it would not be in the public interest to disclose the circumstances in which Commander Crabb is presumed to have met his death.’³     

Events,Social Memories,and Community in a Final Bronze Age Building’s Biography at Sant’Aniceto,Calabria, Italy

Archaeologists investigating Middle Bronze to Early Iron Age periods (1600–900 b.c.) in southern Italy often explore linkages between emerging inequality and foreign trade connections, establishing a coupled trope of “change emerges from external forces” and “waiting for civilization to arrive”. Based on excavations at the Recent/Final Bronze and Early Iron Ages (RFBA/IA, 1200–900 b.c.) site of Sant’Aniceto in Calabria, we offer an alternative narrative in which hierarchy and institutionalized inequality held little sway in this community. By employing a building biography approach, we examine the variety of ways people sustain their communities through the creation and value of difference (e.g., age, knowledge, or skill) that characterize daily life, even when political hierarchy is absent. Our research at Sant’Aniceto centers on understanding the locally-grounded experiences and lives of people by approaching social difference through the lens of the materialities of everyday life.     

Herbert Morrison's London Labour Party in the Interwar Years and the SPD: Problems of Transferring German Socialist Practices to Britain

Herbert Morrison's rebuilding of the London Labour Party (LLP) in the interwar years was consciously modelled on the organizational success of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), which Morrison knew and admired from several visits before and after the First World War. The article discusses what aspects of the SPD's organization Morrison tried to transfer to the British capital and why his considerable success in transforming the LLP German-style had its limits. Morrison not only aimed to build an efficient electoral machine, but he also wanted to copy the SPD's vast cultural and educational associations, which catered for Social Democrats ‘from cradle to grave’. However, as the article suggests, differences in political culture between Britain and Germany impacted significantly on Morrison's efforts. A more developed and more vibrant mass culture as well as the greater gulf between labour movement culture and working-class culture in Britain undermined the successful transfer of German party-political models. Other factors, such as the different organization of party funding, the different organization of civil society in Britain and Germany and the lack of a federal tradition in Britain also help to explain the limited success of this instance of political transfer.

Re´sume´:?La reconstruction par Herbert Morrison du London Labour Party (LLP) durant l'entre-deux-guerres se modela sur le succès du parti social démocrate allemand (SPD), que Morrison connaissait et admirait depuis ses visites avant et après la première guerre mondiale. Cet article se penche sur ce que Morrison voulut transférer du SPD et sur les limites de ce transfert pourtant plutôt réussi dans la transformation du LLP à l'allemande. Morrison souhaitait créer une machine électorale puissante mais il voulait aussi copier les organisations culturelles du SPD qui entouraient les démocrates sociaux du berceau à la tombe. Cependant, comme l'article le suggère les différences dans la culture politique impactèrent sur les efforts de Morrison. Une culture populaire plus développée ainsi qu'un plus grand écart entre la culture populaire et le parti travailliste en Grande Bretagne s'opposaient au transfert des modèles allemands. De plus une organisation différente du financement du parti ainsi que l'organisation différente de la culture civique et l'absence de culture fédérale jouèrent pour limiter cet exemple de transfert politique.     

Peripheral Players? German Colonial Interests,The Press,and the Spirit of Locarno

The Locarno Conference, held on 5–16 October 1925, represented the culmination of nearly two years of diplomatic communication between the foreign offices of Germany, Britain, and France. The conference was an attempt to normalize relations between the former Allied powers and Germany's new Weimar Republic and more tightly bind Germany's politics and economy to Western Europe. Colonial German lobbies hoped that the Locarno talks heralded the return of empire and an end to Germany's banishment from the work of the ‘civilizing mission’ and the humiliating experience of being a ‘postcolonial state in a still colonial world’. Public scrutiny from false press reports about the restoration of the German colonies emanating from Germany, France, Britain and its colonies and dominions, and even the United States complicated matters for Locarno delegates by forcing discussion of off-agenda topics. This article interrogates how the Colonial German lobby influenced the Locarno Conference through activity in the international public sphere, how they managed a partial victory in the wake of Locarno, and more importantly, the Colonial German lobby learned new and better strategies for playing properly to public opinion and international bureaucracies.     

The future of Poland, 1914–1917: France and Great Britain in the Triple Entente

Abstract

THE POLISH QUESTION — whether, and if so how and in what form, to recreate an independent Polish state — was one of the most vexing problems that faced European diplomats during the First World War. Believing that aroused Polish patriotism could be a powerful weapon against the Central Powers, yet fearing that support for Polish national aspirations would alienate their Russian ally and fracture the Triple Entente, British and French statesmen had to decide whether they could include the recreation of Poland among their war aims without jeopardizing the Entente, and hence the chances of victory. Given their different strategic priorities, the French and the British gave different answers.     

British Conservative Opinion and the Problem of Germany after the First World War

This work examines British conservative attitudes towards the Weimar Republic through the lens of several specific issues from the armistice up to the Ruhr Crisis of 1923. The author argues that a curious feature of British conservative opinion following the First World War was the consistent hostility British conservatives demonstrated towards the new German democratic state. To be sure, Great Britain had just fought a long and costly war against Germany, and there had been little time for the passions generated by the war to cool. Still, from the early days of the political changes in October and November of 1918, the German government was firmly committed to democratic principles. This was a development that the British nation claimed to favour, but the war left many British conservatives ill disposed to consider that the ‘inner change’ in Germany might be genuine or that a stable German democracy was possible. During its formative years, the Weimar Republic faced enormous challenges that would have tested any nation. Yet, even as political and economic conditions within Germany undermined prospects for democracy to succeed in that country, many British conservatives declined to take these developments seriously. Indeed, the attitudes of British conservatives substantially added to the difficulties the German government faced in dealing with the problems of the post-war world.     

Two new stem-stoneflies discovered in the Pennsylvanian Avion locality,Pas-de-Calais,France (Insecta: ‘Exopterygota’)

Schubnel, T., Perdu, L., Roques, P., Garrouste, R. & Nel, A.,26 February 2019. Two new stem-stoneflies discovered in the Pennsylvanian Avion locality, Pas-de-Calais, France (Insecta: ‘Exopterygota’). Alcheringa 43, 430–435.

Avionptera communeaui gen. et sp. nov. and Gulou oudardi sp. nov., the second and third Carboniferous representatives of the stem group Plecoptera (after G. carpenteri) are described and illustrated. A. communeaui is attributed to the Paleozoic family Fatjanopteridae, of which the only previous member was Fatjanoptera mnemonica. Based on a re-examination of the families Gulouidae and Emphylopteridae, the former family is restored to the Plecoptera stem group and the latter is transferred to the Archaeorthoptera.

Thomas Schubnel [thomas.schubnel@wanadoo.fr], Romain Garrouste [garroust@mnhn.fr] and André Nel* [anel@mnhn.fr], Institut Systématique Evolution Biodiversité (ISYEB), Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, EPHE, 57 rue Cuvier, CP 50, 75005 Paris, France; Lubin Perdu [lubi.perdu@gmail.com], 11 rue du Caire, F-75002, Paris, France; Patrick Roques [patrick.roques93@wanadoo.fr], 2 Chemin des Processions, Neuilly-Plaisance, F-93049, France     

Khaki Girls,VADs, and Tommy's Sisters: Gender and Class in First World War Britain

Abstract

Since the end of the cold war, and with particular urgency since the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, historians and pundits have searched for parallel cases that make sense of the United States' military and economic predominance in the current international order. Many have chosen the British empire in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as the most telling. As Dane Kennedy argues in an article recently published in The International History Review: ‘The United States' immediate predecessor was the British empire, and it should be the first case to which we turn for meaningful historical comparisons.’¹ For Kennedy, the United States, despite coming into existence by breaking away from the British empire, retained many of its institutions and doctrinal traditions. Having marshalled them to new purposes while expanding across the continent, the United States turned its attention abroad. Kennedy shows that, despite the different worlds of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, both Britain and the United States built their global power in comparable fashion through the techniques of indirect rule, military strategies geared towards protecting imperial and commercial networks, and ideological claims to universally applicable civilizing missions.     

The Dnieper Trade Route in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries: A Note

Abstract

The reconsideration of Arthur J. Marder's evaluation of the date at which the admiralty recognized the threat to Britain from the Germany navy has implications for others of Marder's arguments that have been the subject of extensive revisionist critique. This article reexamines the revisionists's most important conclusion, namely that Marder misunderstood the origins of Admiral Sir John Fisher's revolutionary new warships, HMS Dreadnought and HMS Invincible. Despite the revisionists's criticism, not only do many of Marder's claims withstand close scrutiny but also some that have been largely ignored need to be given greater prominence.     

Fossil wood of the Mimosoideae from the early Paleocene of Patagonia,Argentina

Brea, M., Zamuner, A.B., Matheos, S.D., Iglesias, A. & Zucol, A.F., December, 2008. Fossil wood of the Mimosoideae from the early Paleocene of Patagonia, Argentina. Alcheringa 32, 427–441. ISSN 0311-5518.

An anatomically preserved mature stem from the Salamanca Formation (early Paleocene) at Palacio de Los Loros, central Patagonia, Argentina, is described and assigned to Paracacioxylon frenguellii sp. nov. The material was preserved by siliceous permineralization and shows features of the secondary xylem typical of subfamily Mimosoideae. This species represents the oldest record of the genus and of the Leguminosae along the western border of Gondwana, and is the world's second oldest record of Leguminosae wood. The species is characterized by ring-porous to semi-ring-porous vessels that are solitary, in multiples of 2–4 and clustered, simple perforation plates, alternate and vestured inter-vessel pitting, homocellular 1–6 seriate rays, tyloses, crystals and diffuse apotracheal, vasicentric paratracheal and confluent axial parenchyma. Paracacioxylon frenguellii has anatomical similarities to Acacia Miller. The presence of Paracacioxylon frenguellii associated with pulvinate leaves suggests that the legumes might have been a component of mesothermal forests developed along the western margin of the Golfo San Jorge Basin during the early Paleocene.     

The United Nations as the ‘Parliament of Man’

Abstract

Paul Kennedy. The Parliament of Man: The Past, Present, and Future of the United Nations. Toronto, ON: HarperCollins, 2006. Pp. xvii, 361. $36.95 (CDN); Ronald St John Macdonald and Douglas M. Johnston, eds. Towards World Constitutionalism: Issues in the Legal Ordering of the World Community. Leiden: Brill, 2005. Pp. xviii, 968. €235.00; $317.00 (US); S. Neil MacFarlane and Yuen Foong Khong. Human Security and the UN: A Critical History. Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 2006. Pp. xix, 346. $35.00 (US), paper; David M. Malone. The International Struggle over Iraq: Politics in the UN Security Council, 1980–2005. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2006. Pp. xiv, 398. $59.95 (CDN); Michael J. Matheson. Council Unbound: The Growth of UN Decision Making on Conflict and Postconflict Issues after the Gold War. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2006. Pp. xvi, 422. $19.95 (US), paper; Ramesh Thakur. The United Nations, Peace, and Security: From Collective Security to the Responsibility to Protect. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. xvi, 388. $32.99 (US), paper.     

A benign bone-forming tumour (osteoma) on the skull of a fossil balaenopterid whale from the Pliocene of Chile

Hampe, O., Witzmann, F. & Asbach, P., 2014. A benign bone-forming tumour (osteoma) on the skull of a fossil balaenopterid whale from the Pliocene of Chile. Alcheringa 38, xxx–xxx. ISSN 0311–5518.

A pathology of the fossil baleen whale ‘Megaptera’ hubachi from the early Pliocene of Chile is described. It is a bony outgrowth on the left side of the supraoccipital, which is interpreted as a benign bone-forming tumour (osteoma). This diagnosis is based on X-ray imaging and CT scans of the abnormal bone, revealing a homogeneously dense internal structure with no evidence for lytic areas. The osteoma described here in ‘Megaptera’ hubachi is the first unequivocal evidence of a bone tumour in a cetacean, fossil or extant.

Oliver Hampe [oliver.hampe@mfn-berlin.de] and Florian Witzmann [florian.witzmann@mfn-berlin.de], Museum für Naturkunde, Leibniz-Institut für Evolutions- und Biodiversitätsforschung, Invalidenstraße 43, D-10115 Berlin, Germany; Patrick Asbach [patrick.asbach@charite.de], Institut für Radiologie, Charité—Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Charitéplatz 1, D-10117 Berlin, Germany. Received 28.8.2013, revised 7.11.2013, accepted 12.11.2013.     

How not to build a world wireless network: German–British rivalry and visions of global communications in the early twentieth century

Abstract

Edward Snowden’s revelations laid bare an unprecedented scale of state influence on communications technology. But government elites have frequently shaped technological development through their beliefs about potentially nefarious uses of communications. This article argues that beliefs about how other states or groups might use a technology can shape innovation. In particular, German visions about the British use of cables spurred German investment in developing wireless telegraphy. Germans imagined that the British were using cable technology to damage Germany’s reputation, spy on Germany and ‘poison’ neutral countries against the Central Powers. The German government and military at first created a colonial wireless network to bypass British cables. In World War I, however, they sought to establish a world wireless network. In the end, innovation was significantly shaped by how Germans imagined their enemies’ uses of communications technology.     

First fossil record of amiid fishes (Halecomorphi,Amiiformes, Amiidae) from the Late Cretaceous of Uberaba,Minas Gerais State,Brazil

Martinelli, A.G., Bogan, S., Agnolin, F.L., Ribeiro, L.C.B., Cavellani, C.L., Ferraz, M.L.F. & Teixeira, V.P.A., iFirst article. First fossil record of amiid fishes (Halecomorphi, Amiiformes, Amiidae) from the Late Cretaceous of Uberaba, Minas Gerais State, Brazil. Alcheringa, 1–9. ISSN 0311-5518.

The first fossil amiid fishes (Halecomorphi, Amiiformes) from the Late Cretaceous Marília Formation (Bauru Group) at Uberaba County, Triângulo Mineiro region (Minas Gerais State, Brazil), are described. The material includes some partial maxillae, a dermopterotic, a cleithrum, several vertebral centra and teeth. Features such as the absence of a supramaxillary notch on the dorsal edge of the maxilla, a wide and deep pit on the maxilla for the articulation of the premaxilla, anterior portion of the maxilla with a sub-circular cross-section, teeth with acrodine cup with strong mesial and distal keels, among others, permit confident referral of the material to the Subfamily Vidalamiine (Amiidae), previously recognized in Lower Cretaceous strata of northeasthern Brazil. These specimens constitute the first Late Cretaceous record of this group in Brazil and one of the few in South America.

Agustín G. Martinelli [agustín_martinelli@yahoo.com.ar], Centro de Pesquisas Paleontológicas Llewellyn Ivor Price, Complexo Cultural e Científico Peirópolis (CCCP/UFTM), BR-262, Km 784, Bairro Peirópolis, Uberaba, Minas Gerais, Brazil; Sergio Bogan [sergiobogan@yahoo.com.ar], Fundación de Historia Natural ‘Félix de Azara’, Departamento de Ciencias Naturales y Antropología, CEBBAD—Universidad Maimónides, Hidalgo 775 piso 7 (1405BDB), Buenos Aires, Argentina. Federico Agnolín* [fedeagnolin@yahoo.com.ar], Sección Paleontología de Vertebrados, Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales ‘Bernardino Rivadavia’, Av. Ángel Gallardo 470 (C1405BDB), Buenos Aires, Argentina. Luiz Carlos Borges Ribeiro [lcbrmg@terra.com.br], Camila Lourencini Cavellani [camila@patge.uftm.edu.br], Mara Lúcia da Fonseca Ferraz [mara@patge.uftm.edu.br] and Vicente de Paula Antunes Teixeira [vicente@patge.uftm.edu.br], Centro de Pesquisas Paleontológicas Llewellyn Ivor Price, Complexo Cultural e Científico Peirópolis (CCCP/UFTM), BR-262, Km 784, Bairro Peirópolis, Uberaba, Minas Gerais, Brazil. *Also affiliated with: Fundación de Historia Natural ‘Félix de Azara’, Departamento de Ciencias Naturales y Antropología, CEBBAD—Universidad Maimónides, Valentín Virasoro 732 (C1405BDB), Buenos Aires, Argentina. Received 15.4.2012; revised 11.6.2012; accepted 20.6.2012.