Engineering professors as entrepreneurs: the case of Franz Reuleaux (1829–1905) and Alois Riedler (1850–1936)

Abstract

Franz Reuleaux and Alois Riedler were probably the best known professors of mechanical engineering in late nineteenth century Germany. The country was becoming one of the world’s leading industrial countries, and Reuleaux and Riedler tried to contribute to this process. They obtained patents, founded their own companies, invested in both already existing and newly erected firms, and worked as consultants. In doing so, Reuleaux lost nearly all his capital while Riedler became a millionaire. In this paper, I use the story of these two academics as cases for examining the following questions on academic entrepreneurship: What kind of commercial activities did these professors perform? What were the conflicts between the professors and the state bureaucracy on the one hand and industry on the other hand? What were the reasons for their success and failure? The case studies on Reuleaux and Riedler are based on printed and archival sources.     

A Family Affair: The Dundas Family of Arniston and the Military Survey of Scotland (1747–1755)

ABSTRACT

This paper is the result of extensive investigation of the archives of the Dundas family of Arniston, Midlothian. It uncovers significant roles played in the organization of David Watson and William Roy's Military Survey of Scotland (1747–1755) by successive generations of the Dundases and suggests that the introduction of Watson, an established military engineer, to the young civilian Roy, was facilitated by that family. The Dundases' patronage of the Military Survey encourages us to understand the project as a private-public partnership and supports contentions that Enlightenment mapping resulted from complex social networks straddling military and civilian life.     

Recovering the Paradox of the Border: Identity and (Un)familiarity Across the Portuguese–Spanish Border

European internal borders have been involved in a process of reconfiguration. Political discourses have emphatically commented upon the dismantling of borders, the Single Market and free movement of products and people. This paper addresses these changes in relation to a specific European internal border—the Portuguese–Spanish border. To reflect on the changes referred to above, three different axes are explored: the relationship between borders and mobility, between borders and identity and between borders and memory. It is by stressing these relationships that concepts of familiarity and unfamiliarity will be equated and discussed. Drawing on my fieldwork experience and on documented studies on different sections of the border, I will explore how territorial and social dissimilarities affect the relationship with the border and in what ways (un)familiarity acts as a motivation for border crossing. I will argue that although there is a feeling of familiarity (constructed by past experience) and that despite the fact that Iberian states are imposing a new paradigm of relations across the border (that of cross-border cooperation) people living on the border are using concepts of differentiation to sustain their identity in a discursive manner.     

Literary quests in the Aegean (1840–1940): Identity and cosmopolitanism

Literature is produced within society and reflects social phenomena and therefore it must not be neglected in any interscientific approach to the way a certain geographical area contributes to the construction of an identity. The main purpose of this paper is to point to some directions concerning the study of the Mediterranean, by means of literary works. It is based on the example of Greece and presents a brief discussion through the history and certain themes of Greek literature (movement, traveling, experience of the refugees etc.), concentrating on the search for a national identity, towards either an introspective or a cosmopolitan point of view. The study is not exhaustive; it is indicative of the way literature, both from a contemporary and a general historical point of view, is able to express a more indepth research into the Mediterranean communities.     

Crusaders and mercenaries: the west-European soldiers of the Laskarids of Nicaea (1204–1258)

The so-called empire of Nicaea was one of the new political entities that emerged in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade in 1204. The raison d'être of Nicaea was the recovery of Constantinople and the restoration of the Byzantine Empire. Consequently, the Nicaean rulers were almost constantly involved in wars against the Latin empire of Constantinople. Nevertheless, west-European soldiers made up a large part of the Nicaean armies. This article examines the impact of these troops on the military ideology and military organization of Nicaea during the reign of the rulers of the Laskarid dynasty.     

To the barracks: the President,the military and democratic consolidation in Portugal (1976–1980)

After two turbulent years in which different pathways for the future of the political and institutional framework of Portugal clashed, the country began a process of consolidation of the democratic institutions delineated between 1975/6. However, the role played by the military in the fall of the previous dictatorial regime and the fragility of the new democratic institutions did not allow their immediate withdrawal from political life. The President of the Republic was a military man and the political parties had agreed to maintain an unelected sovereign body, the Council of the Revolution, which only dissolved in 1982. Based on primary sources that only recently became available, this article presents some elements that help to understand the success of democratic consolidation in Portugal. This long process should not be interpreted as a confrontation between civilians, desirous to put an end to military tutelage, and the military, who at all costs sought to keep their privileges. The dividing line should be placed between those who defended the maintenance of the status quo, and the supporters of military subordination to the civil power.     

Fighting the Risorgimento: foreign volunteers in southern Italy (1860–63)

Abstract

Between 1860 and 1863 hundreds of men from all over Europe volunteered for service in the wars of southern ‘brigands’ on behalf of the exiled King Francis II of Naples. In an attempt to correct the often biased interpretation of this involvement (that was attributed simply to a thirst for adventure, romanticism or even psychological disorder) that coloured the accounts by Italian patriots, this essay suggests the need for fresh consideration. It develops three lines of inquiry that focus respectively on the strong impact of Italian Unification on conservative and Catholic opinion and the ways in which these sources portrayed the struggles of the southern insurgents, the clumsy efforts made by the Neapolitan government-in-exile to recruit volunteers and organize armed expeditions against the former kingdom, and the so-called ‘white international’ in which the warriors of the counter-revolution were depicted as combatants in conflicts that were both civil wars and at the same time episodes in a much longer international ideological struggle. In this context, the significance of foreign involvement in defence of the Neapolitan Bourbons takes on a significance that goes far beyond its poor military outcome.     

Thomas Graham Brown (1882–1965): Behind the Scenes at the Cardiff Institute of Physiology

Thomas Graham Brown undertook seminal experiments on the neural control of locomotion between 1910 and 1915. Although elected to the Royal Society in 1927, his locomotion research was largely ignored until the 1960s when it was championed and extended by the distinguished neuroscientist, Anders Lundberg. Puzzlingly, Graham Brown's published research stopped in the 1920s and he became renowned as a mountaineer. In this article, we review his life and multifaceted career, including his active neurological service in WWI. We outline events behind the scenes during his tenure at Cardiff's Institute of Physiology in Wales, UK, including an interview with his technician, Terrence J. Surman, who worked in this institute for over half a century.     

The exiles of the Risorgimento: Italian volunteers in the Portuguese Civil War (1832–34)

Abstract

Between 1832 and 1834 during the civil war against the partisans of absolutism in Portugal about a hundred Italians fought as volunteers in the Portuguese liberal army. These Italians were motivated to participate by a Romantic culture of war that was strongly rooted in the liberal nationalism of the Italian Risorgimento, but above all, the decision to fight as a volunteer abroad was the result of an international movement of political solidarity with Portuguese liberalism in the early 1830s with which the Italian liberals came into contact during their political exile in France and in Belgium. For the Italian, fighting as volunteers in Portugal proved to be a decisive political experience which deeply shaped their own political ideas of the nation that the volunteers would subsequently draw on in their different political and professional roles in Italy where they became ministers, diplomats and generals of the Kingdom of Italy.     

Spain and the Partition Treaties (1697–1700)

This study takes an analytical approach to the diplomatic strategy adopted by the Spanish monarchy in confronting the challenge it faced associated with the Partition Treaties that were signed by Louis XIV, William III and the United Provinces in 1698 and 1700. By consulting Spanish sources to complete the understanding of the diplomatic process, this study analyses the political action that Spain mobilized in its defence around 1700 and describes the evolution of Spain's foreign policy as the product of the mistrust that had developed between the main powers of Europe. This mistrust was politically answered by Madrid with Carlos II's last will and other planned measures to ensure the viability of the project that contained a turning point in the policy underlying the alliances of the monarchy. Although, like that of the other powers, Spain's manoeuvrability was restricted, this study concludes that Spain was able to create policy action plans and rationally implement them; moreover, the dynamics resulting from the negotiation and signing of the Partition Treaties led the monarchy to oppose them at all costs and naturally led to the choice of a French heir as its only solution.