Between Large-N and Small-N Analyses: Historical Comparison of Thirty Insurgency Case Studies

Abstract

The authors study the 30 insurgencies occurring between 1978 and 2008 using four methods crossing the qualitative/quantitative divide. The four approaches are narrative, bivariate comparison, comparative qualitative analysis, and K-medoids clustering. The quantification of qualitative data allows the authors to compare more cases than they could “hold in their heads” under a traditional small-n qualitative approach, improving the quality of the overall narrative and helping to ensure that the quantitative analyses respected the nuance of the detailed case histories. Structured data-mining reduces the dimensionality of possible explanatory factors relative to the available observations to expose patterns in the data in ways more common in large-n studies. The four analytic approaches produced similar and mutually supporting findings, leading to robust conclusions.     

German Postcolonialism in Four Dimensions: A Historical Perspective

In 1919, the German overseas empire came to an end, a direct consequence of defeat in the First World War. Germany has thus been post-colonial, in the sense of being without colonies, longer than most other European nations. This article argues that German postcolonialism can best be understood as a complex, multi-dimensional phenomenon, one that envelops memories of colonialism in white German and diasporic communities, as well as developments in the nation's more recent past. Its most salient aspects include the cultural memory of the colonial period itself, the resonances between colonialism, National Socialism and the Holocaust, the recovery of histories of Afro-Germans, and discussions of race, migration and integration which draw a very broad arc from the colonial past into the multicultural present. The multidimensional nature of German postcolonialism can be both an advantage as well as a disadvantage when it comes to meaningful engagement with Germany's colonial past. This article ultimately seeks a way of re-inserting the ‘colonial’ into German postcolonialism, without flattening the concept.     

Russia and Norway: Research Collaboration and Comparison of Asymmetrical Relations

Archaeological excavations in 1954, 1958, and 1962 directed by Dr. C.L. Vebaek of The Danish National Museum at the Norse site 0 17a in the modern Greenlandic town of Narssaq revealed a farmstead apparently occupied from the 11th century into the later phases of the Eastern Settlement. The excavations recovered a quantifiable amount of animal bone from well‐defined strata within and immediately around the main structure. These collections were analysed in 1976–77 by the authors and show both continuity and some important changes in subsistence patterns between occupational strata.     

Italians don't remember their own history: A historiographic Sonderweg

The denial of the past is a disease of the Italian character. From the relationship of Italians with their own history, from the nineteenth century to the present day, the author traces the roots of a national Sonderweg.     

历史人类学：读《走进历史田野》

几乎是没有任何疑义 ,历史学与人类学的兴趣正走向集中 ,两个学科之间合作的前景宽广而光明。早在 194 9年 ,法国著名人类学家克劳德·莱维 -斯特劳斯 (ClaudeGustaveLevi-Strauss)就宣称 :“他们 (历史学家和人类学家 )是在同一条道路上、沿着同一方向走着同一个旅程 ;唯一不同的是他们的朝向。人类学家是朝前行进的 ,寻求通过他们早已深知的有意识现象获得对无意识的越来越多的了解 ;而历史学家却可以说是朝后行进的 ,他们把眼睛死盯着具体和特殊的行为 ,只在为了一个更全面和更丰富的观点上考察这些行为时才把眼光离开他们。这是一个真…     

德国政界对第二次世界大战的历史反思

第二次世界大战结束后,德国,特别是联邦德国的政治家曾对希特勒和民族社会主义给德国和其他受害国人民带来的"灾难"进行过多种多样的反思和探讨。从总体上说,他们的认罪、道歉和赔偿的态度是比较真诚的,但不谐之音时时可闻,争论也非常激烈。政治家们对历史的认识,不仅与其个人修养、价值观和党派立场有密切联系,而且也与国内外的局势变化息息相关,并且往往表现出为现实政治服务的目的。历史反思与现实政治自始至终都是难分难解的。     

环境史中的欧洲特殊道路问题

欧洲为什么率先进行工业革命是一个永恒的问题,从东西方环境史比较的角度可能会对此得出独特的解释。当然,这种比较必须建立在坚实的实地研究的基础上。本文要分析的十个问题是：谨慎对待精神观点,环境史的制度分析,耕地与牧场的平衡与失衡,西欧的婚姻模式,延续、持续性和自给自足,森林和权力,欧洲多中心主义的优势,魏特夫“亚细亚生产方式”的绿色复兴,欧洲殖民主义的环境影响,环境史上是否存在一个“欧洲奇迹”。从这十方面的比较中会对“环境史中的欧洲特殊道路问题”有更清楚的把握,进而揭示出一个辩证的历史逻辑,即“长期的成功恰恰加剧了危机”。这或许就是东方前现代的繁荣昭示给现在西方文明的前景。     

Commuting to the Istanbul Historical Core: The Case of Industrial Employees

The aim of this paper is firstly, to determine the types of manufacturing activities which are at present active in the Istanbul Historical Core and secondly, to establish the daily commuting pattern of industrial employment. With this information to hand, it is then possible to assess the impact of the transportation pattern on the historical core and the metropolitan area as a whole. The results show that industrial employees commuting to work in the historical core face more difficulties, by way of duration-distance-change, than the average value observed in the metropolitan area. Moving manufacturing activities away from the historical core will not only decrease the difficulties faced by industrial employees in this area, but will also relieve this 2400 year old area from the burden of traffic congestion, environmental and noise pollution, and create usable building capacity .     

Paradigmatic versus Historical Thinking: The Case of Rabbinic Judaism

The idea of history, with its rigid distinction between past and present and its careful sifting of connections from the one to the other, came quite late onto the scene of intellectual life. Both Judaism and Christianity for most of their histories have read the Hebrew Scriptures from within an other-than-historical framework. They found in Scripture's words paradigms of an enduring present, by which all things must take their measure; they possessed no conception whatsoever of the pastness of the past. Rabbinic Judaism invented an entirely new way to think about times past and to keep all time—past, present, and future—within a single framework. For that purpose, a model was constructed, consisting of selected events held to form a pattern that imposes order and meaning on the chaos of what happens, whether past or present or future. Time measured in the paradigmatic manner is time formulated by a free-standing, (incidentally) atemporal model, not appealing to the course of sun and moon, nor concerned with the metaphor of human life and its cyclicality. Not only so, but the paradigm obliterates distinctions between past, present, and future, between here and now and then and there. The past participates in the present, the present recapitulates the past, and the future finds itself determined, predetermined really, within the same free-standing structure comprised by God's way of telling time.     

二战前后德国历史研究中的民族主义

第二次世界大战结束以后,西方史学研究的理论和方法发生了根本性的转变。自50年代起,美国史学界率先开始的新史学运动倡导结构一功能主义的历史研究方法,主张用系列数据研究人类社会中的各种传统的——不仅政治、军事和宗教的,而且经济、社会及普通民众日常生活的——功能作用,以达到在“总体”上理解和叙述人类过去的全部经历的目的。由此,改变过去的以政治事件和伟大人物串连起历史的方法,     

Gender Ideology in Historical Reconstruction: A Case Study from the 1930s

You are probably aware of the fact that homes are being wrecked daily due to the fact that married women are permitted to work in factories and offices in this land of ours. You and we all know that the place for a wife and mother is at home, her palace. The excuse is often brought up that the husband cannot find employment. It is the writers’ belief that if the women were expelled from places of business,…these very men would find employment. These same womens’ husbands would naturally be paid a higher salary, inasmuch as male employees demand a higher salary than females.¹     

历史文化名城如何修志——以《敦煌志》为例

《敦煌志》创造发展了坊志的一种新的类型——历史文化名城志。学者修志是中国的优秀传统。新版《敦煌志》继承并发扬了这一传统,聘请李正宇等著名敦煌学家担任顾问,指导修志工作。李正宇先生大大增加古代敦煌记述内容,凸现敦煌历史文化名城特色,具体对待“详今略古”原则等修志思想在编纂实践中得到了贯彻落实。陈国灿、郑炳林和李并成等先生也指导了该志的编修工作,对其中的古代部分纠谬补阙,从而增加了志稿的学术份量,提高了志稿内容的科学性,使该志成为继1994年版《敦煌市志》之后新编方志中的又“一株奇葩”。     

Assessment of the Permeability of Historical Defensive Systems: the Case of the Lines of Torres Vedras

As the largest part of military usage of the territory depends on a thorough analysis of its morphology, spatial analysis with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software reveals a great potential as a way for studying battlefields and/or other military buildings and scenarios from the past, while supporting interpretations of territorial occupation and related organization of military forces through event simulation. This paper presents a GIS-based method to model and assess the permeability of historical defensive systems from the period that preceded the mechanization of warfare of the late nineteenth century, i.e., based on artillery installed in fortifications. The method was applied to analyze the permeability of the Lines of Torres Vedras (LTV) defensive system, a multi-line fortification complex which was operational during the Peninsular War in the beginning of the nineteenth century and located north of Lisbon, Portugal. The structures of the LTV and local terrain were modelled in GIS using a set of proposed parameters that support territorial analysis, combined with the capability of contemporary weaponry. A methodical quantification and combination of these parameters enabled a better understanding of the systemic design of the defensive lines in terms of its permeability, contributing to a discussion of the LTV particular military setting based on the interpretation of these indicators. Global and sectorial analyses of the permeability of the LTV defensive system were conducted.     

试论布罗代尔的历史比较思想——以初版《菲利普二世时代的地中海与地中海世界》为讨论中心

<菲利普二世时代的地中海与地中海世界>是布罗代尔的代表作之一.为了契合布罗代尔的地中海模式,作者几次修改这部著作,改动最大的当属1966年第2版,其中删除了1949年初版时带有地理决定论的内容.对比法文1949年与1966年版,特别是从删除的"结论:地理史与决定论"中,我们可以看出,布罗代尔不仅表达了历史学是一项科学的事业的理念,而且从四个方面即不同时间和空间、不同时间相同空间、相同时间不同空间以及唤起回忆等阐释了一种历史比较思想.这种历史比较思想为其后来的整个史学思想搭建了一种带有社会决定论的框架.     

A Multidisciplinary Strategy for the Inspection of Historical Metallic Tie-Rods: The Milan Cathedral Case Study

A reliable assessment of historical metallic tie-rods requires both the estimation of actual tensile load and the identification of dominant defects. Despite high defectiveness resulting from traditional metalworking techniques, so far the latter aspect has not been duly addressed in the literature. In this article, several methodologies are discussed aimed at integrating the usual inspection practice. All studies were performed on the tie-rods of Milan Cathedral. Metallurgical analyses allowed to recognize the main features of the material. Mechanical characterization in the perspective of Elasto-Plastic Fracture Mechanics (EPFM) indicated the conditions for crack propagation. Several Non-Destructive Techniques (NDTs) commonly used in Mechanical Engineering (i.e., guided waves, eddy currents, pulsed active thermography) were examined and adapted to this unconventional application. Based on the combination of all the mentioned methods, a multidisciplinary procedure was defined, which allows the evaluation of the crack significance with reference to the estimated working stress.