War,Gender and National Mourning: The Significance of the Death and Commemoration of Edith Cavell in Britain

This article takes as a case study Edith Cavell, arguably the most prominent British female war casualty of the First World War. It builds on the existing work on Cavell by situating her commemoration within the context of the commemoration of British war casualties, both male and female, with particular reference to the commemoration of Captain Charles Fryatt, the British merchant seaman executed by the Germans in Belgium in 1916 whose death initially caused an outcry in Britain similar to that caused by the execution of Cavell.

résumé ?Cet article se penche sur le cas d'Edith Cavell, la victime britannique la plus célèbre de la première guerre mondiale, pour contextualiser son historiographie dans le contexte de la commémoration des victimes de guerre et en la comparant au cas du capitaine Charles Fryatt, de la marine marchande, exécuté en Belgique en 1916.     

Africa's earliest bananas?

The recent discovery of banana phytoliths dating to the first millennium BC in Cameroon has ignited debate about the timing of the introduction of this important food crop to Africa. This paper presents new phytolith evidence obtained from one of three sediment cores from a swamp at Munsa, Uganda, that appears to indicate the presence of bananas (Musa) at this site during the fourth millennium BC. This discovery is evaluated in the light of existing knowledge of phytolith taphonomy, the history of Musa, ancient Indian Ocean trade and African prehistory.     

County versus region? Migrational connections in the East Midlands, 1700–1830

Much literature on the industrial revolution has argued for the emergence of distinct, economically specialised regions during the eighteenth century. Large towns are thought to have played a vital part in drawing these industrial regions together, economically, socially and culturally. However, using the example of the East Midlands, this paper highlights the fact that neither industrialisation nor regional development was a uniform process. The East Midlands was significantly affected by industrialisation, but unlike ‘classic industrial regions’ such as the North-west or West Midlands, it did not experience a concomitant growth in regional integration and identity. Data on migration to Leicester, Nottingham and Derby in the period 1700–1830 are used to examine the nature and extent of social and economic linkages between these towns and their hinterlands and thus to explore the nature of urban-centred spatial integration in the East Midlands. It is argued that the apparent lack of region-wide integration can be explained, firstly, by the unusual dominance of the three county towns at the head of weak county urban networks, and secondly, by the persistence of a proto-industrial structure in the East Midlands' staple hosiery industry.     

Shepherds and plants in the Alps: multi-proxy archaeobotanical analysis of neolithic dung from “La Grande Rivoire” (Isère,France)

The analysis of phytoliths, pollen, charcoal and other macroremains was carried out in the neolithic shelter of “La Grande Rivoire”, Vercors massif (French Alps). The results show the predominance of tree species, in the form of phytoliths, clustered pollen, stomata, small branches charcoal, needles, bark, buds… The practice of leaf fodder is already known in the alpine and circum-alpine area from archaeological and historical sources. The analyses of the neolithic dung levels of “La Grande Rivoire” illustrate the use of leafy and flowering tree branches as fodder. The results also suggest that some species were used for special purpose in relation with the tending of livestock (litter, dietary supplement, veterinary practices).     

Anachronisms or failures? Family strategies in the sixteenth century, as drawn from collective biographies of solicitors in Aix-en-Provence

This article highlights the patterns that can be observed in the matrimonial alliances of solicitors in sixteenth-century Aix-en-Provence and family strategies understood as a corpus of rational decisions bearing on the long term. Defined this way, family strategies applied to sixteenth-century solicitors are an anachronism. The new and unstable context in which the sixteenth-century solicitor found himself prevented families from having a clear view of the objectives to achieve and from devising a rational strategy. The article presents the model that most of the solicitors' alliances followed and suggests the obstacles that appeared before the main actor in family planning, the one who wielded paternal authority, in the creation of these alliances. The example of the Maria family shows women who decided, against the will of their family, whom they would marry. This article highlights the historian's reconstruction of typical family behavior and the limited possibilities that families had to plan over the long term.     

The Discourse of Maendeleo and the Politics of Women’s Participation on Mount Kilimanjaro

Studies of participatory development and empowerment often fail to place people’s actions and motivations within their wider cultural, social, political and economic context. Drawing on fieldwork which looked at village‐based women’s groups on Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, this article deconstructs the dominant discourse of development on the mountain (maendeleo) to show how women’s participation in their local organizations is used as a strategy to boost their social status and financial gains. Local, national and global discourses on development, modernity and gender are reappropriated by Chagga men and women to produce a normative Chagga developmental subjectivity which women can demonstrate by participating in women’s groups. The over‐representation of better‐off and higher‐status women in these groups suggests that, in excluding the poorest women, participation in women’s groups is serving to legitimate, and perpetuate, existing inequalities within Chagga society.     

The limits of engagement: British foreign policy and the crisis in Zimbabwe

This article examines how the British government has responded to Zimbabwe’s ongoing crisis. This case raises several wider issues for British foreign policy, most notably the question of how much leverage London can exercise on the international scene in general, and over relatively small and weak states like Zimbabwe in particular. Zimbabwe’s crisis also raises profound questions about the appropriate balance between bilateral and multilateral policies, and between engaging in public criticism and conducting so–called ‘quiet diplomacy’. While bilateralism clearly has not worked, multilateralism has revealed its own frustrations, especially given the reluctance of many African elites within a number of organizations to criticize President Mugabe’s policies. This reluctance threatens to unravel the British Labour government’s stated objectives in Africa while at the same time raising important doubts over the credibility of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), and whether an ‘Africa moment’ can be discerned in the manner articulated by prime minister Tony Blair.     

Inga Clendinnen,Historian (1934–2016)

Inga Clendinnen has been described as an anthropologist, a public intellectual, a writer, a poet in prose, a Mesoamericanist, and a student of the Holocaust and Australia. She was all this, but she insisted that she was always and mainly a historian. A cultural historian without portfolio, I would say. This essay aims to introduce her written work as a whole, its main purposes, themes, and approach.