Editorial

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to show how national interests and western ideas about the polar wilderness influenced initiatives taken in the early decades of the twentieth century to protect the natural environment of the Arctic islands of Spitsbergen, today called Svalbard. After a brief outline of the environmental history of the islands, the explanatory significance of a game theory-based assumption about the predicament of nature conservation on common land is discussed by applying it to this historical case. It is the environmental dilemma known as the “tragedy of the commons”. Some elements of the western and Scandinavian ideological interpretations of the Arctic nature are introduced as a background to the following discussion of the most significant early initiative of nature conservation in the Arctic: Hugo Conwentz's proposal for the protection of the nature of Spitsbergen of 1914. The conception and outcome of Conwentz's initiative is explained by references to the political, social and ideological contexts of early twentieth-century science and colonialism. In the final section, the post-war development of the environmental administration of the islands is correlated to the political situation following World War I with its many historical contingencies and the breakdown of internationalism in science and nature conservation.     

Hunting in Currier and Ives's America

Currier and Ives were the most prolific producers of inexpensive lithographs in nineteenth‐century America, their prints designed to be mirrors of national tastes and attitudes. They never intended to create fine art, but rather to produce images that would be attractive to their largely middle‐class clientele. As people gathered in cities in increasingly large numbers and had their work hours regulated, they had the time, interest, and disposable income to engage in various sporting activities. Well‐off city dwellers took to hunting, both for enjoyment and as a symbolic, ritualistic expression of their place in society. Hunting came to reflect urban males’ preoccupation with pursuits that might liberate them from the growing regimentation of city life and gave visible form to the definition of masculinity in their newly adopted urban environment. Currier and Ives mirrored the development of that image in more than 100 lithographs on hunting.     

From the Archives: Pacific Research Archives

The Pacific Research Archives (PRA) is one of three national collections held in the archives at the Australian National University (ANU). This paper describes the origins of and relationships among the three core archival collections: the Noel Butlin Archives Centre, the ANU University Archives and the Pacific Research Archives. The entire ANU Archives boasts over 20 kilometres of records, largely held in the ‘Acton Tunnel’, an underground car park redeveloped as a repository. Established in 2007, the Pacific Research Archives includes over 150 collections created by scholars, missionaries, colonial administrators, organisations and individuals who were working, or had interests, in the Pacific Islands in the politico-cultural regions of Melanesia, Polynesia and Micronesia. This paper traces the origins of the university’s role as a leader in Pacific studies, the context in which the Pacific Research Archives was created in 2007 and its current method of operation in a collaborative and digital world.     

Europe's Christian Democratic Parties and American Possibilities

In this paper, I survey the histories of Europe's Christian Democratic parties and suggest that inasmuch as they show that religiously framed party politics can have significant and positive effects on both institutions and supporters, it is difficult to see how those lessons translate straightforwardly to the American social and political order. Even if they did, making a success, both electorally and substantively, of a Christian Democratic movement in the United States would require a degree of statesmanship that certainly seems in short supply these days.