Tracking democracies: Italy and Japan in historical perspective

Abstract

The Italian and Japanese roads toward democracy have been paved by external forces, by the timing of economic development, by ‘great’ leaders and by such factors as institutions, class structure, geography and even by accident. In finding a pair of countries where so much is similar, and yet where fundamental differences penist, comparativists have fertile ground in which to look for key factors in political (and democratic) change. This article, in short, takes aim at illuminating these factors by distinguishing between the structural and cultural conditions within which democratic tracks were laid in Japanese and Italian history. It concludes that a closer examination of leadership and agency is necessary to explain more fully democratic development in Italy and Japan.     

Racisms compared: Fascist Italy and ultra-nationalist Japan

This article tries to compare the racisms of Fascist Italy and ultra-nationalist Japan as evidenced by foreign policy, attempting to categorize them into three dimensions: the inner logic of the nation state; the justification of expansionist foreign policies; and as an accelerator of cruelty in war. It also surveys Italo-Japanese relations by choosing some points of contact to scrutinize how different racisms reacted to each other.     

中世纪意大利天主教教士与他们的家庭

11世纪格里高利改革之后的数百年时间里,天主教会要求所有教士保持独身。但是,在整个欧洲范围内,教士继续公开与家庭伴侣生活在一起、养育子女、操持家业。特别是在农村堂区中,教士普遍有固定的女性伴侣,不过,从法律上他们是被禁止结婚的。尽管此种行为违反了教会法,但是,主教们普遍容忍了这种现象,而且堂区居民似乎更喜欢有家业的教士,而非独身教士。本文追溯了教士独身制度的形成过程,并根据来自科托纳的托斯卡纳主教区丰富的档案资料展示出中世纪堂区教士的生活、他们与家庭及邻里的关系,以及受到承认和鼓励的、但与教会法律的传统规范有所冲突的文化模式。     

Children constructing Japan: material practices and relational learning

Children's understandings of place have been researched from the differing perspectives of ‘new social studies of childhood’, developmental psychology and geography education. However, the processes by which children construct their understandings of distant places have received relatively little attention. This paper summarises insights from the existing literature and outlines the findings from empirical research which employed a range of interpretive methods within a class of 14-year-olds studying Japan. Representations of Japan and the richly diverse material and relational contexts of their construction are summarised and illustrated by an in depth case study.     

Introduction: The Materiality of Traces and Legacies

This Special Issue presents issues in contemporary archaeological theory and practice as influenced by the work of H. Martin Wobst. Wobst came to study in the U.S. nearly 50 years ago and has contributed to many changes in the theory and practice of archaeology since then. Though the papers cover a wide range of topics they share common interests in seeing materiality as constitutive of culture, archaeologists as participants in the present as well as observers of the past, and an interest in transcending traditional definitions of archaeological research.     

Rickets in a High Social Class of Renaissance Italy: The Medici Children

Exploration of the Medici Chapels in the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Florence revealed the burials of nine juvenile members of the Medici family (16th–17th centuries). The estimated children's skeletal ages ranged from newborns to 5‐year‐olds, showing a series of bone abnormalities, in particular diffuse periosteal new bone and bowing of long bones. The comparable pathological lesions, including porosity evident on the skull, orbital roofs, costocondral ribs and growth plates between metaphyses and epiphyses, enlargement of metaphyses and sternal rib ends, and long bone bending, are interpreted as the skeletal manifestation of rickets. The diagnosis of a metabolic disease linked to vitamin D deficiency would appear to be unexpected for children brought up at the court of a Renaissance elite class family like the Medici of Florence. Analysis of the historical and social background is particularly helpful to understand the causes of the onset of the disease in this aristocratic group. Documentary sources, supported by ¹³C and ¹⁵N bone collagen analysis, attest that weaning of these children took place when they were around 2 years old. With a prolonged breast‐feeding and a delay in introducing solid food in the diet, vitamin D deficiency is expected to rise considerably, in particular if the other main risk factor, namely inadequate sunlight exposition, is associated with this human milk‐based diet. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Machiavelli's scientific method: a common understanding of his novelty in the sixteenth century

This paper argues that Machiavelli's method, his inductive and comparative use of history and experience for political analysis, and his fashioning of historical-political analysis as ‘science’, played an important and still unrecognised role in his reception in the sixteenth century. It makes the case that Machiavelli's inductive reasoning and stress on historia and experientia offered a model for scientific method that open-minded sixteenth-century scholars, eager to understand, organise and augment human knowledge (scientia), could fit to their own epistemology. By focusing on the question of method—a crucial issue for sixteenth-century contemporaries—the paper offers more than a key to the understanding of Machiavelli's positive reception. It also helps in apprehending the crucial importance of Lucretius to Machiavelli's scholarship; the role of the late Renaissance fascination with historia in his reception; and the breadth of appropriation of his method exactly in the decades when anti-Machiavellianism became official politics all over Europe. These claims are sustained through the cases of Machiavelli's early translators and promulgators; the French legal humanists and historiographers; the Swiss, Italian and French scholars engaging with medicine, Paracelsism and astronomy; the authors of political maxims from all over Europe; and finally Francis Bacon.     

The Australian Assistance Plan and the Canadian Connection: Origins and Legacies

Within the context of the war on poverty and an acknowledgement of the wider global phenomenon of a ‘post-industrial society’, the Australian Labor Party under Gough Whitlam sought out a range of reforming and innovative social policy programs. This article explores the origins of one such program, the Australian Assistance Plan (AAP), and its connections, similarities and differences to the Canada Assistance Plan. Drawing on extensive archival and oral history sources, it offers a comparative analysis of both national programs, then outlines how international social planning and community development ideas, especially from Canada, infused the AAP and its predecessor, the Geelong Experiment.     

Facing the Future: The Legacies of Post-Neoliberalism in Latin America

This virtual issue reviews the post-neoliberalism literature published in Development and Change between 2012 and 2018. It reflects on recent and ongoing, multiple experiences of resistance to speculative, extractive, inequitable and unsustainable development and the demands for alternatives that emerged in Latin America. The argument is developed through an analysis of the 18 most relevant articles published in this journal, that make a major contribution to three key interrelated debates, namely: the meaning and policies associated with post-neoliberalism; challenges of citizenship and democracy; and the sustainability agenda. Collectively, the selected articles provide a detailed and much-needed discussion about the key achievements, limitations and legacies of post-neoliberalism.     

日本促进博物馆旅游发展新举措及其启示

博物馆与旅游业融合发展是文旅融合的重要途径,也是博物馆实现高质量发展的必然要求.近年来,在"观光立国"战略的引领下,日本采取革新博物馆管理体制,提升博物馆旅游服务能力,建设以博物馆为核心的文化集聚地,促进文化遗产活用等系列措施,以促进博物馆旅游的发展.日本这些新动向在一定程度上反映了全球博物馆旅游发展的趋势,也为我国相...