The Rise and Fall of Hicky's Bengal Gazette (1780–2): A Study in Transoceanic Political Culture

The rise and fall of Hicky's Bengal Gazette (1780–82), India's first printed newspaper, is a narrative of prime importance to the history of Indian newspapers, and such is the context within which it has invariably been written. Previous works have approached Hicky's Gazette in a somewhat teleological and insular manner. These accounts have ignored the significance of foreign news among its content and fail to acknowledge Hicky's appropriation of political rhetoric from other parts of the British Empire. Through the contents of Hicky's Gazette we find Calcutta residents engaged in a transoceanic political discourse, criticising ‘nabobs’ with all the ferocity of the metropolitan British press; claiming the freedoms of Englishmen in common cause with the discontented, not only in Britain, but also in Ireland and America; and participating in discussions to regulate the governance of the East India Company through petitions of grievances. In the circulation of Hicky's paper throughout the presidencies and in the contributions of pseudonymous writers we find a platform for the politically discontented among the European community of Bengal whose voice is otherwise muted amidst the Francis-Hastings disputes and the steady stream of ‘official’ information between Calcutta and London.     

The politics of neutrality: the American Friends Service Committee and the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939

Abstract

From the early months of the Spanish civil war (1936–9) the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), the American Quakers’ central service organization, was engaged in a large-scale relief operation on both sides of the front line. While Quaker aid workers on the ground were running hospitals, orphanages and child feeding stations on the Republican and Nationalist side, the operation triggered a sometimes heated debate at home. Quakers had to bridge the tension between the universalist ethos of a transnationally connected and internationally active religious group whose individual parts, in turn, closely integrated into, and were largely dependent on a national framework of action consisting of governments, the media and national-based groups of donors and supporters. Against this backdrop the article will reflect on the complex and shifting meaning of humanitarian neutrality. In the article the author will show how the claim to neutrality, always contested and precarious, could work as a gate opener for humanitarian aid vis-à-vis state and non-state actors alike, as a platform for co-operation with international institutions as well as a deliberately used capital on an increasingly competitive ‘humanitarian market place’.     

The Emergence of Political Parties and Political Dynamics in Afghanistan, 1964–73

The 1960s in Afghanistan's history were marked by the emergence of a number of political parties, from monarchist to radical left and right. They played an important role in the social, cultural and political dynamics of the time and even the future of the country. This paper explores how political parties emerged in a country which was characterized as a tribal-peasant society with only a very small number of educated people. It also discusses why the monarch would not sign the Political Parties' Bill and how this influenced Afghanistan's political culture and led to the radicalization of the political parties. In addition, it examines how the anti-government and radical political parties managed to mobilize people and dominate the political scene while the pro-government and nationalist parties had little influence.     

The Emergence of Multiple Sclerosis as a Nosological Category in France, 1838–1868

Neurologists have retold a story about the discovery of multiple sclerosis (MS) in essentially the same form from the 1870s to the present. Upon close analysis this narrative was found to be problematic. Once the nosological category of MS came into existence in 1868, physicians reread the scientific past through this new category and created a linear story. Following generations received this story uncritically, rereading the past through the conceptual lens of their own times. Writers selected the earlier cases, illustrations, and medical writings in the literature for inclusion in the discovery narrative and did not analyze them in their original historical contexts. The author offers an alternative account of the discovery of MS. The creation of the disease category of MS by Charcot in France was the result of several converging factors including a new histopathological technology, a unique relationship between patient and physicians in the clinic, a unique relationship between the clinic and the autopsy room, and a neurological culture emphasizing disease specificity.