Fighting for the Unknown Soldier: The Contested Territory of the French Nation in 1934–1938

The left's triumphant appropriation of the nation in discourse and commemoration has become an important focus for studies of the Popular Front period. Yet the response of the leagues and parties of the right to this rhetorical and symbolic challenge has received very little attention, and a significant facet of the political rivalry of these years has thus remained unexplored. This article proposes a comparative study of the concepts of the nation developed by left and right in the period 1934–1938. After analysing the conflicting images of the nation that they espoused, rooted in fundamentally incompatible visions of the First World War, the article then illuminates areas of tension and ambiguity emerging from 1935 onwards, as both the Popular Front and their opponents identified the nation as a territory to be defended and as a community offering reconciliation above geographical and social divisions. In so doing, the article suggests that the concept of the nation became one of the most important centres of contention between left and right in this tumultuous period.     

Women,Fascism and Work in Francoist Spain: The Law for Political,Professional and Labour Rights

The Sección Femenina (or SF, 1934–77), the female branch of the Spanish fascistic party, the Falange, created and successfully lobbied for the Law for Political, Professional and Labour Rights for Women (Ley de Derechos Políticos, Profesionales, y de Trabajo de la Mujer) in 1961. The law responded to and recognised the shifting world of women's work during the final years of the Franco regime (1939–75) and established the SF as an advocate for their labour rights. The new legislation simultaneously promoted employment opportunities for Spanish women and reinforced their traditional restrictions. This article explores this significant legal achievement for women's rights during the 1960s, discussing its meaning for the Franco dictatorship and for the female organisation that ushered in the new legislation. Ultimately, I argue that the law was a significant step for the advancement of women's rights and continued the piecemeal process of reform led by the SF. But it reinforced the group's paradoxical image as an organisation with fascist roots pushing (albeit in the workplace only) for reform.     

More than a photo: Germans from Russia remember their familial relationships

Most narrators of the Dakota Memories Oral History Project (DMOHP), the children and grandchildren of ethnic German immigrants from Russia, reminisce a great deal about their family relationships -- grandparent-grandchild relationships, parent-child relationships, and sibling-sibling relationships. They share memories of their grandmothers baking them delicious dough dishes, of their fathers making them labor endlessly in the fields, and of their siblings coaxing them into mischief. Through these relationships, Germans from Russia not only learned about their ethnic group's identity, but they also reshaped it into a new identity, blending their past with their present. Within the context of family relationships, these German Russian descendants forged a new identity rooted in their ethnic heritage and history, but serviceable to new, American-born generations.     

Marital violence in a martial town: husbands and wives in early modern Portsmouth, 1653-1781

Sessions papers from early modern Portsmouth survive from 1653 on and are nearly continuous for eighty-five years, that is, from 1696 to 1781. They include 356 cases of wife beating in addition to 7,658 other assaults; as such, the town's records allow for a comparison of the violent behavior of individual wife beaters both inside and outside of their marriages. These comparisons suggest that assaults on wives were more severe than assaults on strangers and acquaintances: not only were many wives assaulted on several occasions before lodging a complaint, the attacks themselves often resulted in greater injury, reflecting (1) a greater tendency to use potentially lethal weapons and (2) a differential in strength between most husbands and wives. The motives of individual wife beaters are less clear; what can be said with certainty is that wife beatings, like assaults in general, tended to rise whenever soldiers were demobilized and men were either unemployed or underemployed.     

Seeking Horses: Allies,Clients and Exchanges in the Zhou Period (1045–221 BC)

Journal of World Prehistory - Horses and chariots—and the associated technology and expertise—derived from the steppe contributed to the success of the Zhou conquest of the Shang in c....