REVIEW ESSAY Beyond Social Construction: Toward New Histories of Psychiatry

Focusing on symptom classification and on the outcome of somatic interventions, Berrios and Shorter challenge the social constructionist and anti-psychiatry tendencies that have framed the writing of the history of psychiatry for the past quarter-century. Contextualizing clinical interventions, these studies point out the value of examining the proposition that practitioners were motivated as much about curing distress as they were about eliminating nonconformity. Such examinations require an understanding of the strengths and limits of medical science that often have been trivialized or ignored by some social constructionists. Together the studies under review open the possibility that recent biological interventions may have transformed psychiatry in such fundamental ways that they call into question the assumptions that have underlay in an almost two-century-old classification system. Ironically, adherence to the scientific method (falsification) reveals that the biological revolution in psychiatry fits post-modern claims about the tentative nature of knowledge claims, while it simultaneously undercuts the particular historical interpretations of post-modern scholarship.     

Postmodernist Histories

ABSTRACT

Since 1829, it has been the received and accepted scholarly opinion that Jonathan Edwards did not read the writings of George Berkeley and thus was not influenced thereby in the development of his own Idealism. This essay contends otherwise. With new evidence available, it is shown to be highly probable that Edwards has a historical as well as conceptual connection to the Idealism of Berkeley. A historical connection is argued for by utilizing Edwards’s “Catalogue” to establish a timeline that illustrates when he penned his own Idealist writings in connection to when he read Berkeley. A conceptual connection is argued for by focusing upon both several idiosyncratic Berkeleyisms of style and two Berkeleyan theses also found in Edwards’s writings. Finally, the conceptual connection between the two are strengthened, after demonstrating how Berkeleyan Idealism singularly differs from other prominent Early Modern Idealisms. By examining what Edwards read, how he wrote, and how he thought, a reasonable case is set forth for affirming a historical and conceptual connection between Edwards and Berkeley. Thus, after two centuries of dispute, there is finally justified merit for labeling Edwards as a Berkeleyan Idealist.     

Histories of anthropology

Timothy H. H. Thoresen, ed. Toward A Science of Man: Essays in the History of Anthropology. The Hague and Paris: Mouton Publishers, 1975. Distributed in North America by Aldine Publishing Company, vii + 232 pp. Biographical notes and indices. $14.95.     

论新启蒙运动

新启蒙运动是中国共产党为配合抗日民族统一战线的建立而在思想文化领域里发起的一场运动.它吸引了一些具有自由主义倾向的知识界人士参加.但是从一开始,这一运动内部就充满分歧,共产党人和自由主义者对"思想自由"、"新哲学"、"理性"等概念的解释完全不同.共产党人还为新启蒙运动设定了长远的政治目标和现实的政治斗争对象.抗战进入相持阶段后,新启蒙运动的口号已不适应变化了的形势,共产党人从此不再热心于新启蒙运动,取而代之的是学术中国化运动.     

The Italian American Experience In New Haven: Images and Oral Histories

Anthony V. Riccio's lavish new coffee table book, The ItalianAmerican Experience in New Haven: Images and Oral Histories,provides a fascinating look at the experiences of Italian immigrantsand their children in one east coast community. The field ofimmigration history has certainly benefited from the wealthof oral histories collected from immigrants and their descendants.Ranging from Al Santoli's New Americans, an Oral History: Immigrantsand Refugees in the U. S. Today (1988) to works such as La Merica:Images of Italian Greenhorn Experience (1985)     

Restoring Broken Histories

Between 1936 and 1938, a regeneration project was established in the remote city of Broken Hill, New South Wales. It is now considered one of the earliest examples of ecological restoration. Triggered by dust storms and sand drift, local people, industry and council collaborated to restore a vegetated green belt around their city. This article considers ‘The Regen’ within a history of settler transformations of the Australian environment. Four histories told through plants speak to the emergence of an ecological consciousness and contribute to ethical considerations in ecological restoration amidst shifting contingencies of climate, politics and the global economy.     

日内瓦会议:新中国多边外交的初步尝试

日内瓦会议作为新中国以大国身份参加的第一次国际会议 ,也是新中国开展多边外交实践的初步尝试 ,其成就主要体现为推动印度支那和平的恢复、搭建中美沟通的桥梁和改进中英关系。尽管由于冷战格局和“一边倒”外交战略的制约和影响 ,日内瓦会议作为多边外交实践的作用和功能无法和今天意义上的多边外交相提并论 ,但对于当时的中国来说 ,仍然不失为一次比较成功的多边外交实践