A “Crisis” in the Making: The Correspondence of Hans Baron and Paul Oskar Kristeller

This article summarizes and contextualizes the vast unpublished correspondence between Hans Baron (1900–1988) and Paul Oskar Kristeller (1905–1999), two of the most prominent twentieth-century scholars of Renaissance Humanism. It details how Baron and Kristeller came to take their first steps in Renaissance scholarship in Germany before political circumstances forced them into exile; it recounts the story of their emigration and their strategies for survival in Italy, Britain, and the United States; it reveals the impact of the American academy on their intellectual journeys and the extent to which they self-consciously stood for a methodology on the verge of extinction. Most important, the correspondence provides us with a personal etiology of the rebirth of Renaissance studies in the postwar period and of the concrete genesis of some of the books that brought it about.     

Love: A Common Word between Evangelicals and Muslims?

Abstract

This paper analyses the responses of Evangelical Christians to "A Common Word between Us and You." While many Evangelical leaders warmly welcomed the initiative and have subsequently been involved in various dialogues and conferences, others were more sceptical and refused to take part. This latter reaction refects a general lack of trust in some parts of the Evangelical movement engendered by concerns over Muslim approaches to law, freedom of religion and conscience, the treatment of apostates under shari'a and restrictions on Christian mission in Muslim countries. The debate between these two groups has been sharp and at times acrimonious, refecting deeper tensions within the Evangelical community. Drawing on recent books, articles, blogs and the author's own observations at an international dialogue conference, this paper highlights the tensions and examines some of the underlying causes.     

Redrawing the Boundary between India and Britain: The Succession Crisis at Zanzibar, 1870–1873

Abstract

WIDE-RANGING, STIMULATING, AND debatable interpretations of the enforced black diaspora from Africa to the New World are the hallmarks of all of these books, even though they differ in focus and are written by historians at various stages of their careers. Two books contain reflections on slavery and abolitionism by renowned historians of slavery, Gary B. Nash and David Brion Davis. Nash, in an elegant, slim volume (originally the Nathan I. Huggins lectures at Harvard University in 2oo4), returns to a theme he has addressed before, namely the reasons why the founding fathers did not eradicate the blot of slavery from the United States. He argues that action could, and should, have been taken. Davis offers a set of essays - some previously published, some appearing for the first time - that examine the inhumanity of slavery in North America, primarily in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but with a broader contextual and chronological canvas. Tlle three other books are revisions of doctoral dissertations. Eric Robert Taylor and Stephanie E. Smallwood are both concerned primarily with the Middle Passage as a crucial phase of the Adantic slave trade. In Taylor's case, the emphasis falls upon shipboard revolts by slaves during the crossing from Africa to America. Smallwood focuses on the process by which people from the Gold Coast were captured, transported, and fashioned into slaves in the English slave trade of the late seventeenth century. Robert Pierce Forbes's book brings the focus back to the United States and the significance of the Missouri Compromise (a set of congressional acts passed in 182o and 1821) for the political history of American slavery.     

Theocracy,Eschatology, and the Ephemeral Church: Graham Ward and the “Crisis of Democracy”

This article offers a critical assessment of Graham Ward’s political theology and critique of modern democracy. Ward argues that modern democracy expresses a nihilistic metaphysics and lacks an adequate account of the embodiment of sovereignty within the social, with the result that it tacitly harbors totalitarianism. As an alternative, Ward advances a theocratic model of the social, with the aim of providing an account of the social embodiment of sovereignty lacking in democracy. The article argues that Ward is ultimately unsuccessful in this attempt. His eschatological focus separates the church from the world, undermining his account of the embodiment of sovereignty and reinforcing the very emptiness at the heart of the social his theology is intended to counter.     

A ‘Half-hearted Response’?: Canada and the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962

Whereas previous studies of Canada's actions during the Cuban Missile Crisis have argued that Ottawa was a half-hearted ally of the United States, recently released documents provide far different conclusions. Seeking to complement previous works, which are focused largely on military events, this study shows how Canadian diplomats responded to the crisis and sought to support their vital ally in the events of October and November 1962.     

“A new science”: Yeats's A Vision and relativistic cosmology

In this essay I will place Yeats's enigmatic text A Vision in the context of contemporary science, challenging constructions of Yeats's career as committedly anti-scientific. As I will show, Yeats's philosophy is in fact merely anti-Newtonian and anti-positivist, as relativistic science was not incompatible with his occult interests. I will offer an alternative reading of this text, explaining key aspects of its construction in relation to the post-Einsteinian revolution in cosmology, which, I will argue, was ultimately creatively enabling for him.     

“This Is History”: Nation and Experience in Times of Crisis—Argentina 2001

In December 2001, as Argentina faced a major economic and political crisis, widespread demonstrations converged on key political sites. The protests brought down the government and a state of “routine contention” was sustained for much of 2002. Focusing on the accounts of middle‐class witnesses and participants in the demonstrations, this article explores the meaning of the event, considering in particular the claims that these were spontaneous and “historical”. The article suggests that the entanglement of individual and social experiences of the crisis and participation in contentious acts in response to it cannot be reduced to economic or class interests. Instead, the dislocated horizon of a desired and imagined national community played a crucial role in shaping responses to the crisis, prompting widespread participation and support for contentious actions.     

The semiotics of play: A bridge between nature and culture?

Thomas A. Sebeok. The Play of Musement. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981. 312 pp. Illustrations and 3 Appendices. $35.00     

Relations between Tel Aviv and Jaffa 1921–1936: A reassessment

From the founding of Tel Aviv adjacent to the Arab city of Jaffa, a new and unique reality arose in Palestine in the form of neighborly relations between a Hebrew city and an Arab city. A deep rift in these relations resulted from the riots of 1921 and 1929, and in Zionist historiography it is argued that from the 1921 riots onward, the ties between them weakened and deteriorated constantly. This article aims to shed new light on the question, and to show that there was, in fact, a clear tendency of continuous improvement in the relationship from the first half of the 1920s until the outbreak of the 1936 riots.