"Polyhybrid heterogeneous bastards": promoting medical genetics in America in the 1930s and 1940s

I examine three American researchers in the 1930s and 1940s who populate the no-man's-land of medical genetics, between the heyday of "mainline" eugenics and the medical turn in human genetics in the 1950s. In scientists' narratives, William Allan, Madge Macklin, and Laurence Snyder appear as pioneers of medical genetics and genetic education. Allan was a country doctor with an interest in heredity. Snyder, a Harvard-trained geneticist, entered medical genetics through population-genetic studies of human blood groups. Macklin came from a background in academic medicine. Allan, Snyder, and Macklin believed in a genetic approach to medicine well before genetics offered clinical benefits. Although hereditary diseases had begun to overtake infectious diseases as causes of death and illness, formal genetics offered medicine little more than a few explanatory principles. These researchers made their case by a) listing mostly hopeful potential applications of genetics to disease; b) blurring the distinction between genetics and heredity; and c) engaging in preventive genetic medicine, that is, eugenics. Examining their careers reveals some of the texture of eugenic thought in American medicine as well as the continuities between the early eugenic phase of human genetics and the professional medical genetics that today's practitioners take as the origin of their field.     

Conceptual Debts: Modern Architecture and Neo-Thomism in Postwar America

This article analyzes the formative role of medieval theology and aesthetics in the development of postwar American architecture by focusing on the architectural theory and practice of Mies van der Rohe and Jean Labatut, both of whom became actively interested in Neo-Thomism from the late 1940s. More specifically, a closer look at their reliance on the work of Jacques Maritain, the preeminent promotor of Neo-Thomism, sheds light on the transmission and circulation of old and new concepts within twentieth-century architectural theory. By revealing how Maritain’s ideas helped to codify the latter and thus exposed the premodern ideas at the heart of modern architecture, I argue that modernist aesthetics should be re-evaluated with regards to its definition of “the new” and its emphasis on the breakdown or mutation of premodern frames of reference.     

Security in Latin America

This article provides an overview of recent trends in Latin American security and examines three common assumptions that underpin both academic analysis and policy debate—assumptions about the links between political democracy, economic integration and regional stability, and about the need to broaden the agenda of regional security. In contrast to the liberal orthodoxy, there is little reason to believe that the promotion of political democracy and economic liberalization and integration will automatically tend towards regional stability, especially given the weakness of regional institutions, the fragility of many states, the inequality of power among states, and the lack of consensus over the meaning and implications of the 'new security agenda'.     

20世纪50年代美国对拉美的经济援助外交

第二次世界大战后,美国为同苏联争夺第三世界国家实施了第四点计划。通过对20世纪50年代美国在拉美开展经济援助外交进行历史的纵深考察后可以看出,美国从自身国家安全、繁荣等国家利益出发,将拉美视为其"战略资源库"和"传统盟友",加以严密掌控。但是,这一时期美国对拉美经济援助的重视程度与美苏两国对抗和争夺的激烈程度相关联,服从于美苏争霸的总体战略需要。而援助双方基于国家利益的深刻矛盾,是导致此期美国对拉美经济援助外交失败的根本原因。     

拉丁美洲与加勒比地区的国际移民——兼论中国移民的生存发展空间

通过对拉美历史上四次国际移民历史和趋向的发展变化、非法移民及其原因、移民侨汇对国民经济的重大影响、移民跨国中小企业的形成与发展等方面的分析,探讨了拉丁美洲与加勒比地区国际移民的历史、现状以及中国移民在这一地区的生存与发展空间。     

Behind the Cold War: rethinking the left,the state and civil society in Italy (1940s-1970s)

This article stresses the longue durée features of the Italian political system. It examines the role of two historical factors: (1) the existence of some peculiar (and quite 'sophisticated') state financial institutions; (2) the influence of certain long-enduring social traits (regional differences, family values, the Catholic Church, political religion) on the relationship between state and citizens. It discusses the specificities of the Italian political system (with its historical Fascist heritage and the biggest Communist Party in Europe) and the reaction of the political elite (especially on the left) to international developments in the 1940s and the 1970s, since these years (of the economic 'miracle' and the origins of Italy's political 'landslide') offer the best comparison of Italy with other European countries. These two periods also enable us to examine the Communist Party's (PCI) crucial contribution in the two worst times of national crisis: the post-war years and the years of terrorism. The first part of the article examines the heritage of Fascism and how Italy's new political elite exploited it to strengthen the country's political and economic position after the war. The second explores how behind the Cold War the mass parties helped the country to expand in the international market by controlling social conflict. The third draws some conclusions about the 'success' of the 1940s and the heavy legacies that contemporary Italy has inherited from the 1970s.     

Fighting Inflation in Latin America

Inflation has been a chronic problem for Latin American economies since the Second World War. In the 1980s, inflation ran out of control in many countries. This article analyses the causes of these high inflation rates and discusses the experiences of Latin American countries in fighting (hyper-) inflation in the 1980s and 1990s. Particular attention is given to the relative merits of orthodox versus heterodox approaches, and to the use of the exchange rate as an inflation stabilizer. The article concludes, among other things, that achieving fiscal balance is crucial, whatever method is used, and that a fixed exchange rate can help to stabilize inflation but contains many risks, in particular with open capital accounts.