The ideals and origins of the Franco-German,sister cities movement, 1945–70

Vattel's Mélanges de littérature, de morale et de politique (Thoughts on literature, morals and politics) was published at Neuchâtel by the Editeurs du Journal Helvétique in 1760 and this is the first English translation. It was republished under the title, Amusemens de littérature, de morale et de politique in 1765. Vattel's text provides evidence of his response to the issues facing Europe's states in the 1750s, and in doing so provides another perspective on his best known work, Le droit des gens (Law of Nations) of 1757. Vattel emerges as a reformer steeped in debates about the future of the European state system, and particularly Europe's small states and republics like Switzerland.     

Branding the United Nations: The Adoption of the UN Insignia and Flag, 1941–1950

Abstract

This article contends that the symbols of the United Nations (UN) have played a vital role in establishing the organization’s identity and in protecting its personnel. The design and usage of these emblems developed in a number of steps in the 1940s and early 1950s, a process dominated mainly by Americans. Although private admirers of the UN originated a number of serviceable and aesthetically pleasing designs, products mainly of their own self-initiative, the emblems chosen by the UN were prepared by professional designers, starting with an Office of Strategic Services (OSS) team operating under the aegis of the U.S. State Department. The author compares this process to product ‘branding’, and he also sees it as reflecting a longstanding claim to predominance in the internationalist project by technical specialists. In the 1940s, this dynamic revealed itself in rivalry between an elite of liberal internationalist technocrats and ‘populist internationalists’, the former coming to determine the character and choice of UN emblems. Members of the OSS design team had backgrounds in advertising and – not surprisingly – produced a logo-like design. The ultimate product of this process, a UN flag, was adopted in 1947, but it was treated by early UN bureaucrats like a protected trademark of the UN, at least until popular pressure-driven by an outpouring of mass emotion at the time of the Korean War – forced its release for broader public use.     

The notebook and the laboratory – types of knowledge in German piano-making, 1880–1930

ABSTRACT

Between the second half of the nineteenth century and the 1930s, German piano making changed from a craft to an industry. Nevertheless, piano makers still needed specific working knowledge to produce quality instruments. This knowledge was bound to individuals and transmitted informally from one person to another. The piano makers took working knowledge as the core of their practice. But in the shift to industrial methods of production, the key question was how to translate working knowledge into formal knowledge—to articulate what such knowledge meant and how it might be applied. Using the case study of the German piano making factory Grotrian-Steinweg, I show how the piano maker Kurt Grotrian used his notebooks to grapple with the problem of formalizing his working knowledge. At this company, an acoustic laboratory was established, in whose reports formalized knowledge was stored due to the transition of piano making from a craft to an industry.     

Global War and its impact on the Gulf States of Kuwait and Bahrain, 1914–1918

This article provides the first detailed analysis of the Gulf States of Kuwait and Bahrain during the First World War. It argues that the war had a disruptive effect on these states’ politics, societies, economies and trans-regional networks. As well as writing the wartime experiences of Kuwait and Bahrain into the conflict’s global history, it aids our understanding of the effects of world-wide conflict on states which are not major belligerent powers.