‘A Repository,a Switchboard,a Dynamo’: H.L. Beales,a Historian in a Mass Media Age

The historian H.L. Beales (1889–1988) managed to propagate a wider interpretation of nineteenth century social history through non-academic means. Whilst Beales failed to write much in the way of history, his parallel career as an adult education tutor, radio broadcaster and editor of Pelican books meant that he acted as an important propagator of the subject. This, combined with wide influence over a considerable proportion of the younger generation, means that he should be considered as a singularly important historian of the period, who realised and adapted to the potential of new mass media to reach new audiences.     

An Empire, Then a Republic?

Book reviewed in this article:
Patrick J. Buchanan,. A Republic, Not an Empire: Reclaiming America's Destiny     

Chaos,Complexity, and a Revitalization of Four-Field Anthropology?

Four-field anthropology has always struggled with the problem of how to holistically study human cultural systems that are the products of environment, process, and history. Complexity science offers a set of tools calibrated to the analysis of complex systems like those of human societies, and has the potential to allow us to scientifically understand how history and process affect the physical, cultural, and linguistic components that are entangled in the whole of human societies. Application of complexity science to anthropological problems thus far has favored engagement on a conceptual level rather than one that harnesses the full power of the approach.     

Schiavone Camacho,Julia María,Chinese Mexicans: Transpacific Migration and the Search for a Homeland, 1910-1960

In this refreshing study of the "search for a homeland" by Chinese-Mexicans,Julia Schiavone Camacho sets Chinese diaspora studies on its head by centering her work on "a Chinese-Mexican identity rooted in an imagined Mexican homeland," and the history of their exile from Mexico (p.1).Based on archival research at multiple sites (Sonora,Mexico City,Macau,Arizona,and Washington DC),and spliced with oral history interviews with her subjects,Camacho deftly reconstructs the diasporic trajectories of these Chinese Mexican families,as they responded to twentieth century transregional and global events and circumstances in their multiple crossings of the Pacific lake.     

Jaka Tarub,a Javanese culture hero?

The origin of the Jaka Tarub story in oral tradition shows how Javanese culture deals with encounters and fissues in its civilisation. Drawing on a north Javanese kentrungan performance recorded in the 1980s the article shows how these Islamic storytellers have skilfully blended ancient myths and folktales with local history and non-Javanese Islamic legends. As a rich source of information on local language, manners and customs, these oral tales may also help to answer questions on the relationship between Javanese and other cultures. Investigation of this genre is urgent since the art of storytelling is rapidly fading under the pressure of modernisation.     

What is a Burin? Typology,Technology, and Interregional Comparison

Classification of artifacts has long marked a significant edge between theory and practice in archaeology. While considering classification to be a necessary methodological device, most practitioners also recognize that it carries with it built-in assumptions. This essay approaches the issue by way of a specific stone tool type from Old World sites: the burin. By asking “what is a burin?” the study shows the need to reconsider typologies to reflect changes in research questions and progress in dating methods, especially when working with museum collections and secondary data between regions and across national traditions, and the need to study whole collections from the perspective of technological choices.     

Is Man a “Sabbatical Animal”? Agamben,Rosenzweig, Heschel,Arendt

Giorgio Agamben lists the Jewish Sabbath as an example of “inoperatvity.” This essay explores both how Sabbath fits into and puts pressure on Agamben’s account, by working through readings of the Sabbath given by Agamben, A.J. Heschel, and Rosenzweig, who associate Sabbath, respectively, with Inoperativity, Eternity, and Creation. To these, I add another, called the Sabbath of Equality, building on connections among the weekly Sabbath, the septannual land Sabbatical and the Sabbath of Sabbaths, the Jubilee. The reading of Rosenzweig, in particular, opens the way to a queering of Sabbath, also explored here. The essay concludes with the suggestion that Hannah Arendt’s political thought is “sabbatarian” and asks whether this is an effective way to respond to earlier critiques of her work for promoting an “aestheticized” politics not adequately oriented to use. Is Agamben vulnerable to the same critique now?     

Building Monks Mound,Cahokia, Illinois,a.d. 800–1400

Abstract

Cahokia (a.d. 800–1400), located near the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, was the largest settlement in ancient North America. Monks Mound occupies the center of Cahokia and provides both a modern and ancient focal point for the site. Past investigations of Monks Mound explored issues of mound chronology and use. Recent soil coring around the perimeter clarifies the geological context and degree of preparation necessary before the mound was built. The results suggest that the mound is not optimally positioned for stability and its location may ultimately accelerate deterioration. Moreover, evaluation of the mound features and fill indicates that maximization of the geotechnical potential of sediments was not a primary concern for the Cahokians. Although poorly engineered relative to modern standards, the suitability of the mound as a platform may have been secondary to other design choices made while building the largest single mound in ancient North America.     

Edmonton,Amiskwaciy Wâskahikan,and a Papaschase suburb for settlers

The Papaschase Indian Reservation outside Edmonton, Alberta was established as part of Treaty 6 in 1877, but annulled in 1888. A significant portion of the land was later assembled in Canada's first land bank and sold at below-market prices to create “Mill Woods,” an idealistic vision for a planned mixed-use suburb. Settler Colonial Theory is introduced to explore the history of the Papaschase Cree and the Reservation. This testifies to the process of dispossession, settler colonial occupation, and respatialization of the Canadian landscape. Canadian suburbia is not placeless. Methods for examining such “erased spaces” and layers of previous occupation are discussed. Canadian urban historical geography and suburban research have not sufficiently examined settler colonial dispossession. This is an opportunity for geographers to contribute to Canadian reconciliation between Settler and Indigenous cultures.     

Gernika,Guernica, Guernica?: Contested meanings of a Basque place

The town of Gernika/Guernica is the center for meaning and territorial continuity of Basque nationalist identity. The town and its symbolism represent the history of national conflict with the Spanish state. It is also the focal point of local disagreements; within Basque nationalism itself and between regional urban centers. The town's significance in the Spanish Civil War, representation in Picasso's painting Guernica, and commemoration in the Americas by Basque emigrants has made it a globally significant place. The contest of meanings related to Gernika/Guernica underscores the significance of naming, monuments, ritual, resistance, oppression, and conflict in the creation and maintenance of national identities. In its examination of the politics of a Basque place, the joining of the forces of geography and history proves to be useful in the analysis of meaning in place- and time-specific political processes. From this perspective, the recent development from conflict toward harmony in Basque politics is reviewed.     

Towards a Language of ‘Europe’: History,Rhetoric, Community

From Herder to Benedict Anderson, language and nation have been at the centre of ideas about (imagined) community. This hypothesis, however, poses a problem for analysing ideas about Europe. How can we understand “Europe” as a concept or form of identity when language and nationality are considered the foundation of imagined communities and loyalties? This article addresses this difficulty. It uses J. G. A. Pocock’s definition of “sub-languages” to suggest that one can investigate the rhetorical strategies, images and vocabularies with which texts articulate ideas about Europe. These sub-languages evoke imagined communities, most obviously when texts name and identify particular groups of people as “Europeans.” But by using images and rhetorics about Europe, these texts also appeal to a readership that comprehends—even if it does not fully accept—certain assumptions about the continent. In this way, texts evoke an imagined community of readers who purportedly share a similar way of understanding Europe, or who can perhaps be persuaded to think about it in similar terms. These processes are historically particular, and so the article concludes with concrete examples. It focuses on how early-nineteenth-century philhellenes evoked a European imagined community to solicit support for the Greek Revolution (1821–32).     

Greek nationalism,architectural narratives,and a gymnasium that wasn’t

Abstract

This paper seeks to further the discussion that positions archaeological interpretation as a practice entangled between professional ethics and political circumstances. Perhaps the most obvious route for the mobilisation of extant architecture is to recruit it into nationalist discourses. An example of this is the case of the Roman Bath-Gymnasium Complex at Salamis (Cyprus), which can be used to illustrate how nationalism can call forth convenient narratives about material culture. Excavations (1952–1974) revealed the remains of a massive structure, and Vassos Karageorghis, the principal excavator, identified it as a ‘Gymnasium’. This paper demonstrates that Karageorghis’ hitherto well-accepted interpretation remains largely conjectural due to the absence of hard archaeological evidence. By examining the architectural characteristics of the remains and analysing the published excavation data, the paper explains how the present structure belongs to a bath-gymnasium complex, erected during the Roman period, and is an amalgamation of Roman and Greek culture. The paper revolves around the argument that the Romans’ role in negotiating the socio-cultural differences, which ultimately enriched the existing structures, has been systematically downplayed in the architectural narratives for the sake of presenting a homogeneous ethnic-cultural continuity from the Homeric Greek world down to the contemporary Cypriote Greek society.     

Towards a history of emotion, 1562–1660

Abstract

This article examines uses of the word emotion during the seventeenth century, arguing that the term's meaning at this time was in flux. OED gives three principle definitions of emotion, the first as meaning ‘political turmoil or agitation’, the second as meaning literally ‘movement or motion’, and the third as meaning ‘strong feelings or passing’. I argue that a great many uses of emotion during the seventeenth century apply the word in the second sense to the physiological movements of humours. This being so, I suggest that in emotion's seventeenth-century uses it is possible to read a transition in the word's meaning. Through its frequent use with references to humours in motion, the word begins to take on the characteristics which would allow it to develop into meaning ‘feelings or passions’.     

Yeats,Samhain, and the aesthetics of cultural nationalism: ‘a supreme moment in the life of a nation’

Together, in the plays and essays published in the 1903 issue of Samhain, William Butler Yeats assembled writings that endorse his vision of cultural nationalism in that they stress the possibilities of an artistic regeneration that that has the power to reconcile perceived exclusive strata within Irish society and also to herald a new age not only for Irish culture but for the Irish nation. Yeats, in his cultural nationalism, ultimately vested faith in an Ascendancy tradition, defined not by birth as much as by a willingness to surrender not just political ambitions but all ambition to that of the artist.     

The Engineers of a Minor Port—Peterhead,Scotland, 1772-1872

Abstract

In the period when Britain's ports and harbours underwent major developments as the Industrial Revolution got underway, our leading civil engineers were much in demand, not just at the major centres of mercantile activity such as London or Glasgow, but also at numerous less important locations. In Scotland, improvements were encouraged by government grants through agencies such as the British Fisheries Society, and at Peterhead, the Town Council and the Harbour Trustees transformed its haven into a harbour of more than a purely local significance. Their success was partly due to their employment of some of the leading harbour engineers of the day.