Securing the Sinews of Sea Power: British Intervention in the Baltic 1780–1815

This article argues that Britain's standing as a maritime nation must be considered if we are to fully understand the objectives behind British foreign policy in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It focuses on one of the most important challenges successive British governments faced during this period; the need to secure shipbuilding resources. Both British economic prosperity and national security depended upon the continued supply of naval stores. These resources could only be procured from the Baltic region, which meant the region took on a crucial strategic importance for policy-makers. This article will focus on Britain's relationship with the Baltic between 1780 and 1815 tracing Britain's sensitivity to the changing political environment in Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, and particularly Russia, and outlining how this came to dictate foreign policy. Britain hoped to rely on diplomacy and economic interdependence to maintain the movement of naval stores from the Baltic; however intransigence from the Baltic powers forced Britain to resort to military measures on three occasions between 1800 and 1815, such was the importance of these shipbuilding resources.     

British National Dailies and the Outbreak of War in 1914

The intention of this article is to cover a clear gap in the present literature with regards to the First World War, exploring the British National Press and their portrayal of how Britain entered the conflict. Themes explored include: the reaction of the press to the Archduke's assassination; the impact of foreign embassies on press reporting; predictions of the Austrian Ultimatum; reporting in the final days of peace; and finally the continuous and at times controversial link between politicians and the press, a particularly topical issue at present.     

Making waves: The Royal Navy's management of invention and innovation in steam shipping, 1815–1832 1

Abstract

This paper explores the sources of invention and innovation in steam shipping, the distribution of funding and risk between the state and the private sector, and the Royal Navy's management of innovation, during the experimental period of steam power's adoption at sea. It identifies two intersecting channels through which steam‐related innovations reached the Royal Navy. First, “packages” of innovations were embedded in the marine engines that were commissioned by the Navy from private engine‐making firms. Secondly, the Navy was spontaneously offered a gamut of ideas and inventions, which varied enormously both in potential importance and in degree of development. Although the mechanisms for dealing with these two channels were different, the end result was much the same ‐ in minimizing both the expense and the risk borne by the public sector. It was principally the private sector that was funding scientific and technological development in this sphere. Recognizing its own lack of expertise and consequent hazard, the Navy Board was developing a systematic yet flexible method of assessing steam‐related inventions ‐ which appears to have served it well.     

THE VIETNAM WAR

This article investigates the role of the Vietnam War in Danish and Norwegian politics. We argue that Danish and Norwegian membership in NATO and an unstable parliamentary situation may explain why these countries, unlike Sweden, did not take on the lead in the international protest against the war. Non‐socialistic coalitions came to power in Norway and Denmark in the latter half of the 1960s which to an extent explains why the social democratic parties in both countries became more critical of the US. By the end of the 1960s, foreign policy as well as public attitudes towards the war converged in Denmark, Sweden and Norway, and in all three countries powerful protest movements emerged that were remarkably similar. The Vietnam War strengthened the left in general and promoted a leftist politics of solidarity that influenced Swedish, Danish and Norwegian foreign policy‐making of the 1970s.     

Weak seams: Controversy over welding theory and practice in american shipyards, 1938-1946

At the height of World War II, America's record-setting shipyards were stunned when several merchant ships literally cracked in half. Worried that endemic manufacturing defects might endanger the entire wartime merchant marine, engineers argued that poor workmanship by shipyard welders had contributed to the accidents, that their own technical expertise should be more highly valued, and that they should be granted greater authority over the shipyard workforces. However, administrators in US Maritime Commission rejected these arguments. Instead, federal officials and shipyard managers assumed that many factors had contributed to the fractures and chose to implement a few modest, practical measures which soon stopped the fracture epidemic: improved worker training, the elimination through redesign of certain structural flaws in the endangered ships' hulls, and especially the installation of reinforcing devices at weak points in the ships. This episode not only draws attention to the way warfare heightens the stakes of technical controversies, but demonstrates the utility and resilience, even and especially at highly-charged moments, of practical knowledge and straightforward craftsmanship.     

Acting on the Hill: Congressional Assertiveness in U.S. Foreign Policy

A controversy has developed in recent years pitting those who see a resurgent Congress in U.S. foreign policy against those who argue that Congress remains largely acquiescent and uninvolved. This article addresses the disagreement, using a database of congressional foreign policy activity from 1946 to 1997 to weigh the competing claims. Our results show that congressional foreign policy activity has declined over the post-World War II era while congressional foreign policy assertiveness, relative to the administration's requests, has increased during this same period. Congress is thus less active but more assertive. Based on these results, we offer a two-dimensional model of congressional foreign policy behavior that better reflects the variety of congressional roles in U.S. foreign policy.     

Book Reviews

Anita K. Stoll and Dawn L. Smith, eds. Gender, Identity, and Representation in Spain's Golden Age. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press and London: Associated University Presses, 2000. 208 pp.

W. Michael Mudrovic. Breaking New Ground: The Transgressive Poetics of Claudio Rodríguez. Bucknell University Press, 1999. 584 pp. $69.50.

Katherine Conley and Marie-Claire Dumas, eds. Robert Desnos pour l'an 2000 – Actes du colloque de Cerisy suivis de Lettres inédites de Robert Desnos à Georges Gautré (1919-1928) et à Youki (1939-1940). Paris: Gallimard, 2000. 540 pp.

Sarah Wright. The Trickster-Function in the Theatre of García Lorca. London: Tamesis, 2000. 149 pp.

Patrick Boyde. Human Vices and Human Worth in Dante's Comedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. 272 pp. $64.95.

James Valender and Gabriel Rojo. Las Españas. Historia de una revista del exilio (1946-1963). Col. Literature del Exilio Español, 5. México: El Colegio de México/Fondo Eulalio Ferrer, 1999. 794 pp.

Marcia L. Welles. Persephone's Girdle. Narratives of Rape in Seventeenth-Century Spanish Literature. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2000. 272 pp.     

The Problem of Evil in Sand's La Mare au diable and Carl Jung,The Ideology of Sentiment

My thesis insists on the theme of evil implicit in Sand's title to her pastoral novel, La Mare au diable (1846). The question of evil as death (le mal métaphysique) stands out in her preface, opens her novel, and defines the challenge faced by the hero in social prejudice (le mal social) and in the heroic journey to overcome internalized obstacles such as fear (le mal psychologique) in order to transform his values. The interplay between good and evil culminating in “the devil's pond” intuits Jung's theory of the convergence of good and evil and the necessity of the latter in the maturation process. The victory of the hero, Germain, is also that of Sand who rises above the ideological partisanship of her opening chapters to bring to life inspirational values open to all.