The human condition in Latin America: Problems and prospects

Eric R. Wolf and Edward C. Hansen. The Human Condition in Latin America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972. x + 369 pp. Illustrations, maps, tables, bibliography, and index. $12.50.     

Review Article: Brigands,Emperors, and Anarchy

PHILIP DE SOUZA. Piracy in the Graeco-Roman World. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pp. x, 276. $59.95 (US); KURT RAAFLAUB and NATHAN ROSENSTEIN, eds. War and Society in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds: Asia, the Mediterranean, Europe, and Mesoamerica. Washington: Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard University, 1999; dist. Cambridge, Mass, and London: Harvard University Press. Pp. viii, 484. $50.00 (US); B. D. HOYOS. Unplanned Wars: The Origins of the First and Second Punic Wars. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1998. Pp. xviii, 326. $80.00 (US). Reviewed by Arthur M. Eckstein     

Thomas Hobbes as a Theorist of Anarchy: A Theological Interpretation

Summary

Scholars of international relations generally invoke Hobbes as the quintessential theorist of international anarchy. David Armitage challenges this characterisation, arguing that Hobbes is regarded as a foundational figure in international relations theory in spite of as much as because of what he wrote on the subject. Thus, for Armitage, Hobbes is not the theorist of anarchy that he is made out to be. This article agrees with the general thrust of Armitage's critique while maintaining that it is still possible to imagine Hobbes as a theorist of anarchy. Hobbes is a theorist of anarchy, not in a political sense, but in a metaphysical sense. This conception of anarchy is a reflection of a comprehensive theological account of reality that is grounded in an omnipotent God. Any historical inquiry into the foundations of modern international thought must take account of theology, because theology defines the ultimate coordinates of reality in terms of which the concepts of international thought are intelligible.     

The Supreme Court and the Interstate Slave Trade: A Study in Evasion, Anarchy, and Extremism

Opponents of slavery often argued that the federal government possessed the constitutional authority to outlaw the interstate slave trade. At its founding in 1833, the American Anti‐Slavery Society declared that Congress “has a right, and is solemnly bound, to suppress the domestic slave trade between the several States.” The idea had been endorsed earlier, during the Missouri controversy of 1819–1820, by both John Jay and Daniel Webster. Later on, in the 1840s and 1850s, it was supported by such prominent politicians as John Quincy Adams, Salmon P. Chase, and Charles Sumner. Defenders of slavery were, of course, horrified by the suggestion that the South's peculiar institution might be attacked in this way, and they vehemently denied that the Constitution permitted any such action. The prolonged debate over the issue focused on two key provisions of the Constitution. One was the Commerce Clause (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3), which says that Congress has the power to “regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.” The other was the 1808 Clause (Article I, Section 9, Clause 1), which says that the “Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight.” Abolitionists held that the Constitution sanctioned congressional interference in the domestic slave trade both generally, by virtue of the Commerce Clause, and specifically, by virtue of the 1808 Clause. They argued that since slaves were routinely bought and sold, they obviously were articles of commerce, and therefore Congress had unlimited authority over interstate slave trafficking. Furthermore, they said, the words “migration or importation” in the 1808 Clause meant that as of January 1, 1808 Congress had acquired the right not only to ban the importation of slaves, but also to prohibit their migration from one state to another. Defenders of slavery replied that Congress could not interfere in property rights and that the power to regulate commerce did not include the power to destroy it. They also said that the word “migration” in the 1808 Clause referred, not to the domestic movement of slaves, but to the entry into the United States of white immigrants from abroad. ¹     

The postprocessual condition

Previous evaluations of postprocessual archaeology have regarded it more as a critique of processual archaeology than as a viable research program. Today this statement needs to be modified to account for the diversity of frameworks that have grown up within and adjacent to the early postprocessual formulations. These new approaches include various admixtures of structural Marxism, poststructuralism, critical theory, and feminism. Significant philosophical differences separate some of these positions, but rather than being debilitating, the active exploration of these areas holds out new possibilities and prospects both for linking archaeology more securely to the other social sciences and for making unique contributions to the nature of social theory.     

Initiative resistance: The welfare state

So long as the main forces holding together the postwar welfare state remained in place, the range of significant social policy options was only marginal or incremental. In that context the history of Australian political culture was plausibly construed as a utilitarian, pragmatic affair lacking significant contests of ideas, dogmas or principles. This paper examines the origins of this historiography in the birth of political science in the 1950s and suggests that the end of the cold war and the destabilising of the welfare state has exposed the limits of its serviceability. A larger appreciation of the history of Australian political thought—once associated with the theme of ‘initiative and resistance'—needs to be recovered, especially if political scientists are to make a more creative contribution to the now fundamental social policy debates over the role of the state in the economy.     

世界是我们的院子

篮子俊和陈思予是两个年岁相仿的年轻人,一年前的秋天他们驾驶着房车从北京出发,开启了漫游全国的模式。一年后的秋天,他们行至西藏。一年来的房车之旅,让他们的生活和工作空间浓缩到了5平方米之间。当一个个地理坐标变成了星星,闪烁在每一段他们曾驻足的地点,当每日的餐食随地域而丰富多变,他们终于达成了当初的愿望:跟着自己的心前行,不判断是否远大,只判断是否温暖。