Containment and territorial transnational actors: Israel,Hezbollah and Hamas

Containment has been salient in intellectual and policy debates for 60 years. It informed US foreign policy towards the USSR and, later, the so‐called rogue states. The endurance of containment beyond the Cold War suggests that it possesses the quality of transferability, the capacity of a grand strategy from the past to transcend the circumstances that gave rise to it, to suggest what should be emulated and what avoided in future policies. Drawing on the notion of transferability and on the method of structured, focused comparison, this article uses Israel's foreign policy towards Hezbollah and Hamas to argue that containment is transferable from the state level to a state/territorial transnational actor (TNA) relationship, albeit with permutations. This argument is examined in relation to four issues: the circumstances under which containment arises; its applicability to territorial TNA; the objectives sought by implementing containment; and the role of legitimacy as a component of containment. In so doing the article seeks to make a contribution to the debate on containment. While there is a rich literature on state containment, research on containing territorial TNA has been extremely limited.     

Inside Hezbollah: The al‐Mahdi Scouts,Education, and Resistance

This article analyzes the al‐Mahdi Scouts, a Lebanese scout group affiliated with Hezbollah. After introducing Hezbollah's social services in Lebanon, the al‐Mahdi Scouts' multifaceted identity and main activities are illustrated. The role in Lebanese society is investigated, along with its cooperation with other scout groups in Lebanon, which takes place mostly within the framework of the Lebanese Scout Federation. I also highlight two controversial issues that emerged in the research. First, it is shown how blurred the distinction is between education and indoctrination. Second, the accusations of terrorism are considered, with two possible approaches identified. The first one looks at Hezbollah as a homogeneous organization, while the second one distinguishes between its military, political, and social wings. While the first approach can legitimately accuse the al‐Mahdi Scouts of terrorism, I argue that the second one is more appropriate because it judges them for their own actions. We cannot just look at this group as Hezbollah's recruitment tool, because its role is more complex and significant. This group provides a portion of Lebanese youth with skills to improve their future and succeed in life, even if it does so by propagating Hezbollah's ideals and beliefs.     

Talking Back to Frida: Houses of Emotional Mestizaje

“Talking Back to Frida: Houses of Emotional Mestizaje” is, in part, a historical meditation on the silencing of three women, Frida Kahlo, María Enríquez, a Mexican woman who was sexually assaulted in 1924, and me. Written in an innovative historical fashion that joins techniques drawn from fiction, journalism, and history, the article attempts to understand specific assaults on women’s voices by drawing readers into the historical worlds of the protagonists. “Talking Back” also seeks to respond to Hans Kellner’s incisive theoretical challenge: how do historians’ personal histories affect their historical choices? The article’s organization depends on my understanding of language, color, and physicality, as the emotional architecture of the Deep Southern and Mexican places tend to both enclose and partially free the protagonists. The essay begins by leading the reader into my own past in the Deep South, a past where German Jewish and Russian Jewish relatives engaged in a cultural battle over form, personal style, and will. Confronting a German Jewish world where only things—never feelings—seemed to matter, I found solace in the friendship of a black servant. That friendship, in turn, helped prompt a particularly empathic historical voice. The southern section is followed by a journey into Frida Kahlo’s Mexican world. In that world, Kahlo’s severe physical pain and solitude construct inner and outer universes. The people who populate these worlds are friends, lovers, husband, and the Mexican poor. Kahlo’s artistic renditions of these people reflect, the article suggests, both the depth of her love for them and a tendency to use them in response to her despair. Finally, “Talking Back” reconstructs the world of María Enríquez, a Michoacán peasant woman assaulted in public by her former boyfriend. Abandoned by friend, sister, and Catholic women on the way to church, Enríquez develops a voice laced with generosity, cultural insight, and a rare self–possession.     

Fighting and Talking

Book reviewed:
Pierre Asselin. A Bitter Peace: Washington, Hanoi, and the Making of the Paris Agreement.     

金丝楠浅说

在我国传统家具中,楠木家具占有着极为重要的地位。楠木为常绿乔木,高十余丈,产于我国中纬度地带的四川、云南、湖北、湖南等地,这里气侯温暖湿润,既无高纬度地区的狂风暴雪肆虐,又无热带雨林地区的烈日炎炎的烤晒,     

傩文化杂说

在浩翰的中华民族民间化遗产中,“傩”作为中华化极其重要的一种化现象,它与中华民族的历史关系实在太深太远了,它就是中华民族精神史的见证。     

谈谈如何加强和改进地方经济报道工作

随着我国经济社会的不断发展,经济报道El益成为新闻宣传报道的重点。结合青海实际做好新闻宣传工作,必须进一步加大地方经济新闻宣传报道的力度。在新形势下,只有切实坚持把握导向、突出特色和提高质量的要求,才能不断提高地方经济新闻宣传报道的水平。     

谈化学实验教学

化学实验具有丰富的感观性,把握学生需要,优化化学实验,才能促进化学实验教学。     

烟气氤氲 人神共享——漫话瓷香炉

香炉,即焚香之器皿。焚香起源很早,最初是热带地区的居民为驱臭除秽而焚烧香料,可能并没有用一种特别的器物来焚烧,因为最早的香料是些草本或藤本的植物。专门用于焚香的器皿,据文献记载始于汉代,如著名的博山炉。《收藏家》2007年第5期上刊登了浙江萧山博物馆收藏的战国原始瓷熏,瓷熏的造型类似与明清时期的天球瓶,     

简说世界当代史

编完《世界史．当代卷》,有感于当代人类文明交往的特殊复杂性,有感于它对当代青年理解世界的重大意义,于是有本文之作,以飨读者。     

说龟与赑屃

近读清人沈起凤的《谐铎》一书,其中有一《石贔（尸贝）》篇,深知时人对“龟”的忌讳颇深。其篇幅不大,引文如下：     

论卫诗三分的时间

<诗经>中的<邶>、<鄘>、<卫>三国风都作于卫并邶、鄘之后,实际上都是卫国的诗篇,但传世经本没有独标为<卫>,却分标为三个国风.这样的分类起于何时,传统的看法是始于<诗>三百篇编辑之初.到了清代,顾炎武提出了不同的观点,如<日知录>卷三云:     

Making History, Talking about History

Making history—in the sense of writing it—is often set against talking about it, with most historians considering writing history to be better than talking about it. My aim in this article is to analyze the topic of making history versus talking about history in order to understand most historians' evident decision to ignore talking about history. Ultimately my goal is to determine whether it is possible to talk about history with any sense.
To this end, I will establish a typology of the different forms of talking practiced by historians, using a chronological approach, from the Greek andRoman emphasis on the visual witness to present-day narrativism and textual analysis. Having recognized the peculiar textual character of the historiographical work, I will then discuss whether one can speak of a method for analyzing historiographical works. After considering two possible approaches—the philosophy of science and literary criticism—I offer my own proposal. This involves breaking the dichotomy between making and talking about history, adopting a fuzzy method that overcomes the isolation of self-named scientific communities, and that destroys the barriers among disciplines that work with the same texts but often from mutually excluding perspectives. Talking about history is only possible if one knows about history and about its sources and methods, but also about the foundations of the other social sciences and about the continuing importance of traditional philosophical problems of Western thought in the fields of history and the human sciences.     

论公共行政体制建设

本文依据党的十六大提出的要进一步转变政府职能、深化行政管理体制改革的要求,阐述了建立和完善与社会主义市场经济体制相适应、与民主政治建设相配套、符合国际规则、兼顾我国实际的公共行政体制的一些初步认识。     

高校图书馆读者服务工作浅谈

高校图书馆读者服务工作是高校图书馆工作的重要组成部分。本文对高校图书馆读者服务工作的内容、高校图书馆读者服务工作现状以及如何做好高校图书馆读者服务工作提出了建议。     

汉八刀琐谈

古代中国玉器的发展流变,到了两汉时期,可以说在种类、造型及工艺诸多方面都达到相当高度,特别在风格的典雅、观念的认识同殓葬的奢糜应用方面,均已登峰造极。汉人入坟,重厚葬,有着品级的达官贵人甚至死后全身上下要裹一层用金线银线或铜线丝线连缀玉片的衣裳,并且在人体的九处孔窍里也塞进玉。自然,死人的两手里有玉,叫玉握。双目遮盖了玉,叫玉瞑