Strategizing Britain's role in the world

In recent commentaries on British foreign policy, the New Labour and coalition governments have been criticized for lacking strategic thinking. Academics describe a ‘strategy gap’ and note that old ideas about Britain's role in the world, such as Churchill's 1948 reference to ‘three circles’, continue to be recycled. Parliamentarians bemoan the ‘uncritical acceptance of these assumptions’ that has led to ‘a waning of our interests in, and ability to make, National Strategy’. This article argues that a primary problem has been the lack of consideration of how identity, strategy and action interrelate in foreign policy. Using the insights of role theory, the article seeks to address this by outlining six ideal‐type role orientations that the UK might fulfil in world politics, namely: isolate, influential (rule of law state), regional partner, thought leader, opportunist–interventionist power and Great Power. By considering how variations in a state's disposition towards the external environment translate into different policy directions, the article aims both to highlight the range of roles available to policy‐makers and to emphasize that policy often involves making a choice between them. Failure to recognize this has resulted in role conflicts and policy confusion. In setting out a variety of different role orientations, the author offers a route to introducing a genuine strategic sensibility to policy‐making, one that links identity with policy goals and outcomes.     

Churchill and Britain's 'Financial Dunkirk'

At the end of World War II, the UK, on the verge of bankruptcy,was threatened with ‘a financial Dunkirk’. WinstonChurchill was eager to help the new Labour government tacklethis crisis. However, his ability to give such help, in hisposition as Leader of the Opposition, was constrained by importantdivisions within his own party. These caused him considerablepolitical difficulties as 1945 came to a close, prompting amajor Conservative rebellion against his leadership on the questionof the proposed US loan to Britain. Yet, in spite of his discomfitureon this issue in the domestic sphere, he went on, during his1946 trip to the USA, to play a key role in overcoming congressionalopposition to the loan. Moreover, he did so in close collaborationwith Clement Attlee’s government. In reciprocating thespirit of unity that Labour had showed in 1940, Churchill revived,during Britain’s ‘financial Dunkirk’, thespirit and the ethos of the original. Using previously unpublishedevidence, this article tells the story in full for the firsttime.     

埃及漫游 探访文明古国(下)

<正>诱人的红海从开罗出发,沿东部沙漠乘车向东南方向行驶,将近7小时,终于在晚上8点半来到了迷人的红海。由于一路旅行劳顿,晚间早早休息,没有外出。我们落脚的地方叫Hurghada,当地人发这个音很像中国人说“红疙瘩”。入住的酒店坐落在沙漠与大海交会点上,三面临海,是令人惬意的旅游胜地。第二天早上醒来,打开阳台的门,迈出房间一看,顿时让我惊呆了。一排排鳞次栉比的楼房,林立岸边;一顶顶阳伞,一张张躺椅,整齐有序地排列在沙滩上;楼房下在太阳的照射下,色彩斑斓,楼房前面蓝色的海浴场,     

埃及漫游探访文明古国(上)

带着儿时对金字塔的遐想、地中海的憧憬、木乃伊的好奇、尼罗河的向往,201 6年的初冬,我们随团展开一段快乐而难忘的旅程.埃及7000年的厚重历史,终于被我掀开了一角! 探秘金字塔 埃及,作为四大文明古国之首,有着太多的历史遗存.来到这里,最想看的,首选就是吉萨的“金字塔”.因为它集中了埃及文明中所有的重要元素,是埃及的象征.从它建成的那天起,它俯视埃及大地已有4700多年,目睹了人世间和大自然无数的变化.在阿拉伯谚语中有这样一句名言:“万物终有消逝,金字塔永存.”     

Hecate in Egypt

THE ORIGINS OF EUROPEAN THOUGHT ABOUT THE BODY, THE MIND, THE SOUL, THE WORLD, TIME, AND FATE, by R. B. ONIANS. Pp. xvii, 547. C. U. Press, 1951. 45s. Reviewed by J. H. Hutton.

NOTES AND QUERIES ON ANTHROPOLOGY. Sixth Edition, 1951. pp. 403. 28s. net. Reviewed by E. O. James.

LUÍS DE HOYOS SÁINZ Y NIEVES DE HOYOS SANCHO. Manual de Folklore da vida popular tradicional. Manuales de la Revista de Occidente, Madrid, 1949. pp. 601, pl. xxii, figs. 16. Reviewed by Barbara Aitken.

POPUL VUH. The Sacred Book of the Ancient Quiché Maya. English version by DELIA GOETZ and SILVANUS G. MORLEY, from the Spanish translation by ADRIAN RECINOS. Reviewed by Raglan.

FROM TOWN AND TRIBE ; translated and set down by C. G. Campbell. Pp. 217. London, Ernest Benn Limited. 1952. Price 10s. 6d. net Reviewed by R. M. Dawkins.     

The Selby Project Britain's Greatest Coal Mine

Abstract

In the 260 square kilometres between York and Selby, under the rich agricultural land of the Plain of York, the British National Coal Board is creating one of tbe world's greatest single deep mining undertakings. Designed to produce 10 million tonnes of coal a year at very high efficiency, the scheme is well advanced to reach full production in 1987. In addition to utilizing all the latest mining technology, the design, which handles all the output at one disposal point, has involved the development of much greater capacity coal-handling techniques and equipment than that previously used in the deep coal mining industry.     

英国政治现代化的历程及特点--读阎照祥关于英国政治制度史的几本论著

阎照祥的《英国政党政治史》、《英国政治制度史》和《英国贵族史》构成诠释英国政治现代化的合力体系与传导体系,体现了作者独特的文本解释技术和知识话语生产体系,即基于大史学的治史观念,寻找历史学、心理学与社会学的最佳结合点,并在发挥学科整合群集优势的基础上运用心理一行为流派、结构一功能流派和比较一综合流派的操作范式,对英国政治现代化多元结构的状态、各政治单元的功能及其彼此的关系进行纵向历时维与横向共时维的交叉解读。不仅突破了学术界长期存在的“重社会革命而轻社会改革”、“重政治精英而轻特殊群体”、“重阶级斗争而轻政党政治和政治制度”等思维定式,弱化了史学功能的人为化与工具主义倾向,而且在史学的宏观泛化和微观碎化之间寻找到一种相对的平衡,为回归史学的多样性、复杂性和客观性提供了可以遵循的范例。     

英国对待袁世凯称帝的态度

帝制运动开始后,英国认为现阶段不能实行帝制,英国不会支持,帝制问题可推迟到欧战结束后进行。帝制运动进入快速发展阶段后,英国实施两面政策:一方面响应日本号召,联合对袁世凯政府进行劝告,另一方面准备从速承认帝制。袁世凯宣布帝制后,英国经历了从要求立即承认帝制到观望到赞成取消帝制的态度变化过程。英国在袁世凯和护国军之间保持中立。袁世凯取消帝制后,英国对帝制取消后的乱象持不干涉态度。     

The Matabeleland Massacres: Britain's wilful blindness

This article explores an episode of post-colonial state violence in the newly independent Zimbabwe, namely state-sanctioned atrocities by the army unit known as Fifth Brigade, perpetrated against the Ndebele of Matabeleland and Midlands region. This episode of political and ethnic violence that occurred between 1983 and 1987 is referred to as both the Matabeleland Massacres and Gukurahundi. Members of the British government in Zimbabwe, which included a British Military Advisory Training Team (BMATT) on the ground, were intimately aware of the violence that resulted in the death of between 10,000 and 20,000 people. This article analyses official British and US government communications between the British High Commission, Harare, and the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Cabinet Office, the Prime Minister's Office and the Ministry of Defence, London, as well as between the US Department of State and the US Embassy in Harare. Analysis of the documents dated between January and March 1983 sheds a critical new lens on Gukurahundi, establishing what knowledge was available to the British and US governments about the persistent and relentless atrocities taking place; the diplomatic approaches pursued by both governments in response; and their rationale for same. The hitherto unavailable material presented here was obtained by Freedom of Information requests to various British Government offices and to the US Department of State. Analysis establishes that the British High Commission, Harare, had detailed knowledge of events unfolding in Matabeleland from an early stage of Gukurahundi, yet senior members of BMATT and the British diplomatic team in Harare, in contrast to their US counterparts, were consistent in their efforts to minimise the magnitude of Fifth Brigade atrocities. That the British government chose to adopt a policy of wilful blindness towards the atrocities undoubtedly constituted naked realpolitik.     

Engendering Egypt

Watterson, Barbara Women in Ancient Egypt Tyldesley, Joyce Daughters of Isis: Women of Ancient Egypt Robins, Gay Women in Ancient Egypt Montserrat, Dominic Sex and Society in Graeco-Roman Egypt     

马来亚的独立与英国殖民撤退的策略

英国从其广大的殖民地撤退是一个漫长的历史进程。这一进程既是殖民地民族民主运动的本质性结果,也带有宗主国适时“非殖民化”的色彩,但二者所处地位不同。前者作为主导因素,决定了事件的性质,其强烈程度决定了后者的进程;而后者只是一种策略,是不得已而为之的隐蔽的殖民统治手腕。这一点在一些殖民地都有所表现,而在马来亚则表现得较为典型。在马来亚民族解放运动日益高涨之时,伦敦方面先是拖延、推迟马来亚的独立,后是培育倾向于英国的当地政府和领导人,以便有效地储蓄其自身的巨大利益。     

Celebrating British multiculturalism,lamenting England/Britain's past

Drawing upon Littler and Naidoo's ‘white past, multicultural present’ alignment, this article examines English newspaper coverage of two ‘British’ events held in 2012 (the Diamond Jubilee and the London Olympic Games). In light of recent work on English nationalism, national identity and multiculturalism, this article argues that representations of Britain oscillated between lamentations for an English/British past – marred by decline – and a present that, while being portrayed as both confident and progressive, was beset by latent anxieties. In doing so, ‘past’ reflections of England/Britain were presented as a ‘safe’ and legitimate source of belonging that had subsequently been lost and undermined amidst the diversity of the ‘present’. As a result, feelings of discontent, anxiety and nostalgia were dialectically constructed alongside ‘traditional’ understandings of England/Britain. Indeed, this draws attention to the ways in which particular ‘versions’ of the past are engaged with and the impact that this can have on discussions related to multiculturalism and the multiethnic history of England/Britain.