Voice of Civilisation: advertising and its critics in austerity Britain

The advertising industry was on the defensive during World War Two, with advertising regarded by many British people as deeply unpatriotic, potentially undermining the national interest and the fight against fascism. This article analyses the debate on the role of advertising in Britain in the immediate aftermath of war, when the advertising industry regrouped to meet the challenge of working within an economic environment shaped by the imperatives of a Labour government committed to wide scale state intervention. Critics of advertising within the labour movement were emboldened by this context, and the industry was threatened with punitive taxation in 1947. Focusing particularly on this flashpoint and its aftermath, the article sheds new light on the increasingly open struggle between private enterprise and state planning during this volatile period.     

Ending sexual violence in conflict: the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative and its critics

During the past year, the UK Government has become the lead advocate for a perhaps surprising foreign policy goal: ending sexual violence in conflict. The participation of government representatives from more than 120 countries in a London Summit in June 2014 was the clearest manifestation of this project. This article offers an early assessment of the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative (PSVI) and situates it within the history of global action against sexual and gender‐based violence from UN Security Council Resolution 1325 onwards, with a particular focus on three key developments. First, the PSVI has embraced the already common understanding of rape as a ‘weapon of war’, and has stressed the importance of military training and accountability. This has exposed the tensions within global policy between a focus on all forms of sexual violence (including intimate partner violence in and out of conflict situations) on the one hand, and war zone activities on the other. Second, the Initiative has placed great emphasis on ending impunity, which implicates it in ongoing debates about the role of international and local justice as an effective response to atrocity. Third, men and boys have been foregrounded as ignored victims of sexual and gender‐based violence. The PSVI has been crucial to that recognition, but faces significant challenges in operationalizing its commitment and in avoiding damage to existing programmes to end violence against women and girls. The success of the Initiative will depend on its ability to navigate these challenges in multiple arenas of global politics.     

Defending the rise of western culture against its multicultural critics

It is only in Western Europe that the whole pattern of culture is to be found in a continuous succession and alternation of free spiritual movements; so that every century of Western history shows a change in the balance of cultural elements, and the appearance of some new spiritual force which creates new ideas and institutions and produces a further movement of social change (Christopher Dawson).     

Defence and Diplomacy: The British Foreign Office and Singapore, 1939-1940

Examinations of the defence of Singapore normally focus on therole the Royal Navy and antipodean cries of betrayal. In suchstudies, great attention is paid to such matters as how longit would take the Royal Navy to relieve Singapore and the degreeto which the British government misled Australia, New Zealand,and Singapore itself with regard to London's determination todefend the fortress. This study concentrates instead on Britishdiplomacy in the Far East, and contends that Britain intendedto defend its position in the region by means of creating theimpression in Tokyo that Japan faced a loose Anglo-Americancoalition opposed to any Japanese expansionist efforts. In asimilar fashion, the British attempted also to utilize Soviet–Japanesehostility to protect their interests in the Far East. By lookingat these matters, a greater understanding of the wider aspectsof British strategic defence policy can be found.     

The cultural geographies of Abstract Expressionism: painters,critics, dealers and the production of an Atlantic art

In this article I propose that the artistic genre of Abstract Expressionism which emerge d from New York in the late 1940s provides an illustrative example of the way a productive, trans-national geographical framework can be provided by exploring the cultural geographies of the Atlantic world. By drawing on the ways Abstract Expressionism was constructed and promoted within the rigid national perspective of 1950s' US cultural policy and reacted against in Britain and Europe on similarly nationalistic terms, I show how the circulatory exchange of cultural flows reveals a more co-produced understanding of these histories. The notion of a network of painters, dealers and critics is used to emphasize the way Abstract Expressionism was produced through a spatial framework which plays a constitutive, rather than purely connective, role. In doing so I draw particular attention to the period from the early 1950s to the 1960s and the artistic activity and critical writing associated with New York City and the Cornish coastal town of St Ives.

Les géographies culturelles de l'Expressionnisme Abstrait: les peintres, les critiques, les marchands et la production d'un art de l'Atlantique

Je propose dans cet article que le style artistique de l'Expressionnisme Abstrait, né à New York à la fin des années 1940, fournit un exemple permettant d'illustrer la façon dont un cadre géographique productif et transnational peut être élaboré à partir d'une exploration des géographies culturelles de l'univers Atlantique. En prenant comme base les moyens par lesquels l'Expressionnisme Abstrait a été construit et s'est développé dans le cadre rigide et national de la politique culturelle américaine des années 1950 et s'est confronté à une Angleterre et une Europe tout autant nationalistes, je démontre comment l'échange circulaire des courants culturels permet de voir et de comprendre que ces histoires ont en partie été coproduites. La notion de réseau de peintres, de marchands et de critiques sert à souligner par quel moyen l'Expressionnisme Abstrait a été produit au travers d'un cadre spatial dont la fonction est constitutive plutôt que simplement de permettre de former des liens. Ce faisant, j'attire l'attention sur l'époque allant du début des années 1950 jusque dans les années 1960 et sur l'activité artistique et les écrits critiques qui sont liés de près à la Ville de New York et à Saint-Ives, village côtier de Cornouailles.

Las geografías culturales del Expresionismo Abstracto: pintores, críticos, marchantes y la producción de un arte atlántico

En este papel sugiero que el género artístico de Expresionismo Abstracto que surgió en Nueva York en los años 40 es un ejemplo ilustrativo de la manera en que se puede facilitar un productivo marco geográfico transnacional por una exploración de las geografías culturales del mundo atlántico. Las maneras en que se construía y promovía el Expresionismo Abstracto dentro de la perspectiva nacional rígida de la política cultural de los Estados Unidos de los años 50 y las maneras en que se reaccionaba contra ello en Gran Bretaña y Europa en términos igualmente nacionalistas sirven como ejemplo de cómo el intercambio circulatorio de flujos culturales revela una interpretación co-producida de estas historias. La idea de una red de pintores, marchantes y críticos sirve para destacar el modo en que el Expresionismo Abstracto fue producido por un marco espacial que juega un papel tanto constitutivo como conectivo. En particular destaco el período de los años 50 a los años 60 y también la actividad artística y la literatura crítica asociada con la ciudad de Nueva York y la ciudad córnica costera de St Ives.