ROBERT PARSONS' CLIMATE OF RESISTANCE AND THE GUNPOWDER PLOT

Abstract

This synoptic essay explores trends in historical research and literary criticism on the theme of toleration. It surveys the current state of this lively field of enquiry and demonstrates how far the subject remains coloured by assumptions and narratives of change forged in the early modern era itself. It explores how tolerance and intolerance have been approached by intellectual and social historians and the implications of the recent growth of interest in religious tolerance and intolerance in the post-Reformation period among scholars of early modern literature. It highlights the conceptual problems and interpretative challenges that surround the subject and points towards the need for heightened sensitivity to the role and agency of language and texts, rhetorics and representations, in our analysis of the cultures of coexistence that emerged in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.     

Kennedy's Alliance for Progress: countering revolution in Latin America Part II: the historiographical record

Within weeks of his inauguration in January 1961, President John F. Kennedy proposed an Alliance for Progress: a $100 billion programme of economic, political and social development for Latin America. Its purpose was to tackle the causes presumed to have sparked the Cuban revolution, chiefly poverty and bad governance, and within half a year every Latin American state except Cuba committed to the goals of the Alliance. But within a few years even proponents of the Alliance doubted its efficacy, a pessimism which increased during the presidency of Lyndon Johnson, and more so under Richard Nixon. This review of the contemporary and historical literature on the Alliance sets that scholarship within the broader area of US–Latin American relations, with particular emphasis on US–Cuban relations from the 1960s until the twenty‐first century. An important sub‐theme is the peculiarity, the ‘exceptionalness’ of American political rhetoric, derived from and in turn shaping Americans’ sense of the history and the foreign relations of the US: the ‘American mission’ to the world.     

Seeking labour's aristocracy? The ‘Westphalian incident’ and Polish nationality policy in the immediate aftermath of war*

ABSTRACT. In the immediate aftermath of World War II the Polish state placed a high value on national homogeneity. The Polish Committee of National Liberation signed population exchange agreements with its socialist neighbours in September 1944 and expelled the German population who remained within the new Polish borders. Far less frequently discussed are the Polish state's efforts to persuade ‘Poles’ in Western Europe to move to Poland. This paper analyses how Polish policy towards ‘Westphalian Poles’ and the British reaction to Polish claims offer insight into both Polish and British nationality and citizenship policy in the immediate post‐war period. I argue that the quality of potential labour played an important role in both British and Polish thinking. The paper also contends that the ‘Westphalian incident’ gives useful insights into the emergence of the Cold War.     

Curious Paradoxes: James Anthony Froude's View of the Bible

James Anthony Froude disapproved of the apologetic methods used by English Protestants in defending Christianity because he felt they did not answer the real questions. Nevertheless, he was disquieted by the rise of religious infidelity during the nineteenth century. Froude believed that heterodox clergymen deserved a hearing, but he also believed they had to be answered. He feared that simply using legal means to silence the doubters would strengthen infidel opinion, and drive young inquirers toward Rome or atheism. At a minimum, Froude himself wanted to believe the gospel history. While he could not believe much that was said in its defence, he was unhappy with much that was said against it. Froude suggested that the synoptic gospels might have been based on an early, authentic biography of Christ. He preferred this solution to assuming that the early church had been motivated by “passion or fraud or cowardice” in creating a fiction.     

Application of Landsat satellite imagery to monitor land‐cover changes at the Athabasca Oil Sands,Alberta, Canada

A major advantage of satellite remote sensing is that the imagery acquired provides a synoptic view of the landscape. Thus, repeat coverage by the satellite on a regular basis permits the detection of changes in land‐cover over time. This study demonstrates the application of remote sensing technology to the monitoring of mining activities at the Athabasca Oil Sands region of Alberta, Canada. First, we describe the techniques used to match a time sequence of Landsat imagery, both spatially and spectrally, to ensure that the spectral changes through time are due to land‐cover variations. A series of spectral trajectories were then extracted to assess changes in land‐cover through time. Secondly, a land‐cover classification was produced from the baseline 1984 imagery and, using historic and future mine extents, the classification was analyzed to determine the proportion of each land‐cover type affected through development. Results of the analysis indicate that since 1984 there has been a larger reduction in mixedwood dense and broadleaf vegetation classes than mixedwood sparse or dense conifer stands in the area. Based on the delineations of mine‐site activity, the area of woodland and wetland habitat subject to development has increased from approximately 2,520 hectare (ha) in 1984 to 32,930 ha in 2005.     

NATO expansion: ‘a policy error of historic importance’

European security depends on the effective collaboration of the five major powers; it will be undermined by the extension of NATO, a policy driven by US domestic politics. The main threats to security are: the breakdown of political and economic stability; unintended nuclear proliferation and/or failure of the START process; Russia's evolving political and territorial aspirations. All three will remain marginal as long as Russia is constructively engaged with the West. NATO expansion threatens that engagement. It is seen by all strands of Russian opinion as violating the bargain struck in 1990 and will likely lead to the withdrawal of cooperation. Invitations to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic cannot be rescinded, but the consequences can be mitigated by refraining from integrating them into NATO's military structure, by ceasing to insist that NATO membership is open to all, and by perpetuating the de facto nuclear‐weapons‐free zone that presently exists in Central and Eastern Europe. Britain's stance could be pivotal.