The Rise and Fall of Radical Reconstruction in 1940s Britain

German air-raids during the early days of the Second World Wardestroyed a number of cities in Britain. At the same time, somecontemporaries regarded such destruction as an opportunity notonly for the reconstruction of the built environment but alsofor the creation of a fairer society. The replanning of theblitzed areas became a symbol of the aspiration to build a NewJerusalem. This article examines the fate of radical town planning ideasin the 1940s and the early 1950s with particular reference tothe rebuilding of heavily bombed cities. It analyses the visionswhich inspired reconstruction plans, examines their conceptionand studies the visionaries, both ordinary citizens and thepolitical elite. The process of postwar reconstruction in general has becomea much-debated subject in political, economic and social historyin recent years, but there has been a serious lack of detailedexamination of postwar urban replanning and redevelopment. Thisarticle, therefore, also considers how the rebuilding of war-damagedcities should be evaluated in the light of the contemporarypolitical, economic, and social realities and issues duringthe period of postwar reconstruction. ^* I am most grateful to Dr. Nick Tiratsoo and Ms Hannah Pandianfor their comments and encouragements during the preparationof this article. I am also thankful to the editors and the refereefor their comments and suggestions. References starting CABand HLG relate to files in the Public Record Office, London.     

Freedom and Progress: The Dilemma of Southern Republican Thought during Radical Reconstruction

The failure of the Republican Party in the South to appeal to the white yeomanry has been a recurring puzzle in the historiography of Reconstruction. Acknowledging the important role of white resistance, racism, and economic depression, this essay instead locates the roots of its failure in its ideology. It argues that the southern Republican appeal to the yeomanry was inherently weakened by yoking together Whiggish appeals of economic development with the class appeals of Jacksonian Democracy. The coupling of these clashing tendencies brought to the surface the latent conflicts of Jacksonian politics in the South, driving still another wedge into the southern Republican coalition.     

纽约新唐人

屋子的墙上歪七扭八地挂着几张一个老男人的画像.马文翰斜睨了几眼画像上的男人,就把墙上的画挨张撕下来,扯碎了.他心里无比地厌恶画上的老男人,那是一个来美国已经二十多年的福建人,如今,福建人已经拥有一家餐馆.马文翰在他那里打工.但是就在昨天,福建人当着那么多客人的面,冲着马文翰吼道:"你真的以为美国的盘子比国内好刷?"然后甩过几十块钱来.鱿鱼就是在这短短的几分钟内炒就的,可马文翰现在也不明白到底是什么原因.画都撕完了,但他重新陷入焦虑之中:明天怎么办呢?     

“进步主义”背后的另一个面相:美国纽约市政改革中的坦慕尼协会

作为城市政治机器的代表,美国纽约市的坦慕尼协会一度被视为城市“毒瘤”,尤其在进步主义时代,改革者将其视为阻遏市政改革的罪魁祸首。这一脸谱化的负面形象在某种程度上是历史的选择性“记忆”,而坦慕尼协会对纽约城市发展的贡献却被选择性地“遗忘”。同时,坦慕尼协会的衰落并非缘于与城市进步主义运动互斥,相反,正是因为其拥抱改革,才瓦解了原有坦慕尼组织的权力网络。如果将坦慕尼协会置于更加宏观的历史视域下考察,还会发现美国政府与社会之间权力的消长,直接影响了坦慕尼协会的命运,而在其兴衰演变的过程中,美国政党政治从中获得了更大的发展空间。     

谈晚会导演的策划能力

导演在艺术上有独到的审美视角,善于艺术想象,同时导演也是一个好的组织者,导演需发挥创造性思维,做好“导演阐述”工作,导演是晚会的总设计师、总指挥。晚会的策划操作力是衡量晚会导演成熟度的尺码,策划操作力的强弱会直接反应在作品中。一台晚会就是导演的一部作品,从策划到呈现,处处都体现着导演的智慧。     

Bipolar Reduction and Behavioral Variability During the Mid-Late Holocene at Eagle's Nest,Mount Sinai Harbor,New York

Recent syntheses for the Long Island Sound region argue for long-term cultural continuity amongst Holocene coastal hunter-gatherers. These notions derive primarily from studies of quartz lithic assemblages, which archaeologists argue show structural stasis over time. The remaining variability is explained with a ‘distance to source' model in which near-coastal sites tend to show a lack of quartz conservation while interior sites show quartz recycling. Under this model, technological strategies traditionally associated with raw material conservation (e.g., bipolar reduction) should not occur at near-coastal sites. We test the ‘distance to source’ model by reexamining a quartz lithic assemblage from Eagle's Nest-Long Island's richest Holocene coastal hunter-gatherer site. We find conclusive evidence for bipolar reduction in the site's “block/shatter” materials. Toolmakers used bipolar reduction to conserve raw material. Toolmakers also used anvils and bipolar reduction to open quartz cobbles, to stabilize freehand cores, to efficiently access cutting edges, and possibly to create crushed coarse quartz temper for pottery production. Our results point to previously unrecognized aspects of behavioral variability in the Eagle's Nest lithic assemblage and to possible revision of the ‘distance to source’ model. Similar variability may be present at other North American sites with quartz “block/shatter” material.     

Landscape and Gentrification: The Picturesque and Pastoral in 1980s New York Cinema

In this article I discuss 1980s New York cinema through the conceptual lens of landscape, drawing in particular on the interconnected but separate traditions of the pastoral and the picturesque. While the former mode of representing landscape is idealizing (the shepherd/nymph‐motif), the latter with its origins in the period of the enclosures of the English countryside tends to aestheticize poverty and dispossession. This distinction can productively be deployed in relation to tensions between glamorization and exploitation in 1980s New York cinema, which often dealt with the themes of rent, eviction, and unemployment in postindustrial settings. Focusing in particular on Downtown 81 (Edo Bertoglio, 1981/2000) and Desperately Seeking Susan (Susan Seidelman, 1985), I argue that the current nostalgia for a pre‐gentrified and less regulated New York in popular culture is dependent on these idealizing and aestheticizing tendencies insofar that they conceal or prettify some of the darker aspects of the period.     

Julius Drachsler's Intermarriage in New York City

Abstract

Julius Drachsler's 1921 book, Intermarriage in New York City, examined 171,356 individual marriage license applications from New York City in the years 1908–12. The author found little intermarriage across social lines among immigrants but a considerable amount among their U.S.-born children. This study replicates Drachsler's by taking a 1% sample (N = 1,714 cases) of the same set of marriage license applications for the same years. The replication results show that Drachsler correctly found an increasing trend to intermarriage between the first and second generations, and with close to the same proportions as Drachsler's work. The replication study of New York City marriage licenses is also consistent with the results from a 1910 sample of married couples living in New York City, taken from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Sample. The replication study differs from Drachsler's reported findings on the extent of intermarriages across social lines of nationality and race, mainly due to the idiosyncratic way that Drachsler defined those two constructs. The New York City marriage license files offer the researcher further opportunities to pose and answer questions about intermarriage.     

Remembering and forgetting sites of reform in New York

This article examines how sites of reform in New York are remembered and forgotten over successive generations during the twentieth century. These sites are locations where industrial accidents or public disasters resulting in injury or loss of life have initiated changes to politics, infrastructure and public welfare provisions in the metropolis. However, these events are not always maintained in the city’s commemorative schemes. Indeed, incidents that have caused substantial fatalities, whilst immediately remembered within the city, can appear to be disregarded by society with the passing of time. This process can be examined in the context of the debates within heritage studies, a discipline which has traditionally been concerned with preservation and conservation and which has neglected a study of ‘social forgetting’. In this manner, the absence of memory regarding sites of reform in New York can demonstrate the significance of remembering and forgetting for a ‘critical heritage studies’. Forgetting illustrates processes of authority, control and resistance, but it also demonstrates an active, engaged agenda that reflects the needs, values and desires of individuals, groups and societies. This assessment of New York’s sites of reform highlights how a new area of analysis can be formed through examining how societies forget.