The Structure of the Timber Kitchen at Weoley Castle,Birmingham

A CEMETERY uncovered during roadworks at High Wycombe in ig86 confirmed the location of the medieval hospital of St Margaret. Examination of the skeletal remains suggests that several of the individuals excavated had suffered from leprosy.     

Le postmoderne expliqué aux enfants. Correspondance 1982–85

In the early modern period, the European concept of “nobility” was rarely used to describe the upper classes of the societies born in the British or in the French Americas. The presence of French nobles in New France or in the French West Indies and the emergence of the native gentry in parts of the British Empire have been much studied. But the social impact of elites has not been fully recognized by Atlantic historians—due, perhaps, to a bias towards “authentically” New World systems of social recognition based upon wealth, emphasizing supposedly greater possibilities of social mobility. This paper takes a comparative perspective to the social meanings of being a noble or being a gentleman in both empires. It concludes that there were few substantive differences between French nobles living in the metropolis and in the colonies because legal definitions of the French noblesse were strictly determined by the Crown. The essence of the French nobility was, in theory, the same in Versailles, in a remote rural parish of France or in Quebec. The story was very different for British colonial gentlemen who encountered countless difficulties to be socially accepted by their metropolitan counterparts. The paper explores the consequences of the chasm between British metropolitan and colonial upper classes and assesses solutions taken by colonial gentlemen to be fully integrated in the gentry of Great Britain.     

‘Moving a little with the tide’: Malay monarchy and the development of modern malay nationalism

From the early twentieth century, the ideological hegemony of Malay monarchy has been challenged by emerging Malay nationalism. Despite the more radical manifestations, however, nationalism has rarely sought to overturn monarchy. Indeed, monarchy and nationalism have co-existed, sometimes uneasily, until the present. This co-existence has been facilitated by a number of factors, not least the linkages between the two: during the colonial period and beyond many prominent nationalists came from aristocratic, even royal backgrounds, while the Malay Rulers themselves were prepared to give their patronage to conservative forms of nationalism. Mutual interest in maintaining political and religious conservatism, nevertheless, has not prevented periodic disputes between princes and politicians as the two have competed for the loyalty of the Malay community. Despite such controversies, the continuing hold exercised by monarchy over Malays has placed a limit on the extent to which the Rulers have been supplanted by alternative representations of loyalty and identity. The ability of Malay monarchy to ‘move a little with the tide’, moreover, has assisted its weathering of the nationalist challenge during Malaya's transition from colonialism to independence.     

Patriotism,Self-Interest and the ‘Empire Effect’: Britishness and British Decisions to Invest in Canada, 1867–1914

This paper builds on the growing body of literature on the British World, which has shown that people in the dominions had a strong British identity and their claims to Britishness were recognised by people in the British Isles. It attempts to gauge the extent to which this British World identity influenced the global allocation of British capital. Much of the existing literature on British investment in the dominions dismisses the possibility that the pattern in Britain's capital exports was significantly affected by imperial patriotism. This article will suggest that imperial sentiment did indeed influence the destination of British capital exports. Imperialist sentiment influenced the legal and political institutions of the dominions in ways that encouraged British investment. Moreover, imperial ideology may have influenced investors' decisions in ways that the existing historiography does not adequately explore: at least some British investors may have been willing to accept a lower anticipated rate of return because they valued the psychological satisfaction of investing in territories that happened to be part of the British Empire. This article compares the experience of British investment in the United States, which has an ambiguous relationship with the British World, with that of investment in Canada with a view to understanding the impact of the British World identity on investment patterns.     

Early Cretaceous chelids from Lightning Ridge,New South Wales

Fragments of plastron and vertebrae from the Griman Creek Formation (middle Albian) at Lightning Ridge, New South Wales, extend the Australian record for chelid pleurodires back in time by over 50 my. Contemporaneous with the oldest known occurrences of chelids in Patagonia, this record indicates that during globally warm intervals, pleurodire distribution included high palaeolatitude locations. Although referred to Chelidae, the material shows no characters to enable more detailed taxonomic assessment and it is unclear whether known genera are represented. The diverse and prolonged history of chelids in South America and Australia indicates that the basal eupleurodiran divergence occurred deep in the Jurassic.     

Dracula's castle in Transylvania: Conflicting heritage marketing strategies

Abstract

Transylvania, situated beneath the Carpathian mountains, is one of the travel frontiers of Europe and the most romantic province of Romania. To most of its visitors, Transylvania is associated with haunted castles and vampires, thanks to the literary character Dracula. Even though Bran Castle appears to form the perfect home for a vampire count, this heritage destination is surrounded by debate because of the conflicting marketing strategies adopted by various organisations for the specific purpose of increasing the profits made from tourism. This paper explores issues of marketing, policies for interpretation and the understanding of heritage sites within a formerly socialist society in transition to a market economy. It analyses potential promotional, advertising and interpretive strategies which could be applied to Bran Castle, and offers solutions to produce a better understanding of the role of heritage tourism in a transitional economy.