The Medieval Village at Garrow Tor,Bodmin Moor,Cornwall

SUMMARY

The site chosen for excavation in the medieval village at Garrow proved to be a platform-house, a variant of the long-house, a widespread form of peasant dwelling. Both types provided for the shelter of man and his beasts under one roof; in its early form, as here, it consisted of a living-room and byre separated by a passage connecting with an entrance in each long side. The platform-house was suited to meet the hard conditions of life in a hilly country of heavy rainfall. It was built on an oblong platform constructed with its long axis at right angles to the contours of the hillside. Thus the house gained considerable protection from wind and rain.

Two outstanding features were the hearth with fireback centrally placed on the floor in the upper room and the manger which was in situ in the byre. Near the house was a small barn. The two buildings stood in a small enclosure. Pottery found in the house and barn and in the fields connected with the settlement showed that there was occupation from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. Inhabited farmhouses of this type can still be seen in Cornwall.¹     

Against the current. Essays in the history of ideas

In An Essay upon Civil Government (1722), Andrew Michael Ramsay mounted a sustained attack upon the development throughout English history of popular government. According to Ramsay, popular involvement in sovereignty had led to the decline of society and the revolutions of the seventeenth century. In his own time, Parliament had become a despotic instrument of government, riven with faction and driven by a multiplicity of laws that manifested a widespread corruption in the state. Ramsay's solution to this degeneracy was the extirpation of Parliament, and its substitution with a monarchy moderated by an aristocratic senate. Ramsay's adoption of certain “Country” elements, including a return to the first principles of the constitution, claimed to reflect the principles of contemporary French aristocratic theory which called for the reform of government through the nobility. In his desire to exclude popular government, and reverse the decline of the state, however, Ramsay utilised the theory with which Bossuet had defended Louis XIV's absolute France. Intriguingly, traces of the natural law system which fortified Ramsay's theory can be found in Viscount Bolingbroke's subsequent attack on Walpole's Whig ministry and the corruption of the state.     

Illusions of revolution: François Furet's critique of Marx

In this article it will be argued that François Furet's attempt in Interpreting the French Revolution to provide a conceptual history of the French Revolution through a synthesis of Tocqueville and Cochin's historical and sociological accounts fails methodologically. It does so in two ways: Firstly, in its aim to distinguish between conceptual, explanatory history and empirical, narrative history, and secondly, in its distinction between revolution as process and revolution as act. Drawing on Claude Lefort and Paul Ricoeur's interventions in the historiographical debate, I demonstrate that these seemingly methodological concerns, conceal a deeper historical and political question concerning the nature of the ‘event’ of revolution. In response to Furet's oblique turn to Hegel in his later work, this article traces the nature of the ‘conceptual inversion’ Furet claims to find in Hegel and Marx's accounts of the French Revolution. In relation to Marx, it is argued that Furet's critique fails to capture the allegorical nature of the political in Marx's thought, and underplays the significance of revolution as the basis for both the separation of the social and the political and their attempted unity. The article ends with some remarks on the importance of language and culture in rethinking the relationship between Hegel and Marx.     

Re-inventing Malta's neolithic temples: Contemporary interpretations and agendas

This article suggests that in spite of numerous excellent contributions and promising new developments, the work of European and American students of politics on the southern and eastern areas of the Mediterranean (in particular, the Arab World) continues to exhibit various worrying weaknesses. The shortcomings in question do not necessarily represent a distinctive characteristic of existing scholarship on this part of the world. The aim of this contribution is not to claim or demonstrate that research and writings on the Middle East and North Africa are more inadequate than work done on other parts of the world, but simply to illustrate where and in what respect such work is inadequate. I will attempt to highlight the shortcomings by emphasizing possible improvements, referring to positive rather than to negative examples. Several dimensions of the literature concerned appear particularly relevant to this exercise: perpetual essentialist temptations; the subdivision of the world into “regions” or “areas”, frequently defined in cultural terms, and their reification; the lack of balance between empirical and theoretical ambitions; the degree of methodological and conceptual rigour; and theoretical, empirical and methodological selectivity.     

The Roots of Terrorist Motivation: Shame,Rage, and Violence in The Brothers Karamazov

Abstract

Dostoevsky's most famous novel dealing with terrorism is his work The Demons. In this first-ever novel about terrorism, he carefully analyzed the various factors that contributed to the rise of modern terrorism. This article argues that Dostoevsky's subsequent novel, The Brothers Karamazov, is equally important in understanding the motivations of individual terrorists. The author argues that The Brothers Karamazov is fundamentally a novel about the rage and violence that are the byproducts of shame and humiliation. If modern counterterrorism policymakers, analysts, and operatives are serious about understanding the fundamental motivations of modern terrorists, it may benefit them to read (or reread) The Brothers Karazamov in this light.     

The Environmental History of Tigray (Northern Ethiopia) in the Middle and Late Holocene: A Preliminary Outline

This paper outlines the environmental history of the Tigrean Plateau (northern Ethiopia) during the Holocene, based on the available geomorphological, palynological, archaeological, and historical evidence. At present, it seems that (1) the plateau experienced a more humid climate with a denser vegetation cover during the Early Holocene; (2) Soil erosion due to clearing vegetation began in the Middle Holocene; (3) agricultural activity was intensified in the Late Holocene, as a consequence of the rise of a state; (4) demographic pressure increased from the early first millennium BC to the mid–first millennium AD, causing soil erosion; (5) environmental degradation and demographic decline occurred in the late first millennium AD; (6) the vegetation cover was regenerated in the early second millennium AD; and (7) progressive vegetation clearance started again in the second half of the second millennium AD.Cet article trace l'histoire ambiante du Plateau Tigréen dans l'Holocène en utilisant les données géomorphologiques, palynologiques, archéologiques et historiques. Il semble que (1) dans l'Holocène ancien le plateau était caractérisé par une phase humide avec une dense végétation; (2) l'érosion causée par l'abbattage de la végétation commen¸a dans l'Holocène moyen; (3) l'activité agricole s'inténsifia à la fin de l'Holocène, par conséquence de l'essor d'un état; (4) la pression démographique augmenta de plus en plus du début du premier millénaire av. J.-Ch. à la moitié du premier millénaire ap. J.-Ch.; (5) la dégradation ambiante et la diminution démographique se vérifièrent à la fin du premier millénaire ap. J.-Ch.; (6) une régéneration de la vegetation se vérifia au début du seconde millénaire ap. J.-Ch.; et (7) l'abbatage de la végétation recommen¸a dans la seconde moitié du seconde millénaire ap. J.-Ch.     

Thermoluminescence dates for the Middle Palaeolithic site of Chez-Pinaud Jonzac (France)

Thermoluminescence dating of heated flint artefacts from the Middle Palaeolithic sequence of Chez-Pinaud Jonzac (France) places an assemblage of Quina type Mousterian into MIS 4, while the overlying assemblage of Denticulate Mousterian which is followed by two layers with Mousterian of Acheulean Tradition are all assigned to MIS 3. TL dating is used to verify the mixed nature of deposits from which diagnostic Middle as well as Upper Palaeolithic tools were recovered. The TL ages are significantly different for samples from this layer and broadly agree with the archaeological attributions. While the study is generally limited by the low number of heated samples available, a correlation with a generalized chronostratigraphic sequence is possible by including proxy data from the faunal remains associated with the lithic assemblages in question. The Quina Mousterian in southwestern France, therefore, can be placed by chronometric dating methods in MIS 4 to MIS 3.