Lamentations 3,1-6: An anti-psalm 23

This essay addresses two different Biblical bulks of text. On the one hand, the essay approaches Psalm 23. On the other hand, however, does the essay equally approach Genesis 4 that documents the chronicles of Cain, Abel, Lemech and the descendents of Adam and Eve after the slay of Abel by Cain. The rationale for addressing simultaneously these two bodies of Biblical text that seem to be divorced from each other, is the following. In the case of both texts, the first encounter with them appears to surrender the impression that two textual components had been glued to each other while lacking any common denominator whatsoever. Nevertheless, in both cases an analytical scrutiny does unveil a cluster of links between the two texts that are seemingly devoid of any reciprocal bond. In the case of Psalm 23, the common denominator between the Psalm's two seemingly detached parts does consist on a tight, detailed analogy between the metaphors utilized to portray the Lord and His pious believer. In the case of Genesis 4, however, the unearthed link between the text's ensemble of components is found to be among the characters that perform along two leading parameters, death and life. Hence in both cases what was initially considered a text that is devoid of a plausible connection between its parts, is found out as a text that its parts are united in the most cogent and equally tight fashion.     

Plain lives in a golden age. Popular culture,religion and society in 17th-century Holland

Though it has rarely been the subject of academic criticism, there is a philosophy of truth that animates Jean-Jacques Rousseau's broader philosophical system. This philosophy of truth was unique for its time—in the same way as the whole of Rousseau's thought—in its emphasis on feeling over reason, the heart over the mind, the simple over the sophisticated, the useful over the demonstrable, the personal over the systematic. Rousseau's philosophy of truth might be more accurately called a ‘philosophy of truthseeking’ or an ‘ethics of truthseeking’, because its focus is on the pursuit and acquisition of truth rather than on the nature of truth itself. What was needed, Rousseau believed, was a guide back to the simple truths of human happiness—truths that were immediately apparent to us in our natural state but have become opaque in society. This article describes Rousseau's normative philosophy of truthseeking, of what human beings must do if they hope to (re)discover the truths of human happiness. This philosophy can be summarised as utility, autonomy, immediacy and simplicity in pursuit of what Rousseau called the ‘truths that pertain to the happiness of mankind’.     

Subject Disobedience: The Colonial Narrative and Native Counterworks in Northwestern Namibia,c.1920–1975

This article concentrates on the ambiguities and contradictions in the colonial archive on North West Namibia (a region also known as Kaokoland), and on the way these were exploited by the “stubborn traditionalists” inhabiting it. Its aim is to place the emergence of postcolonial identities and subjectivities in the region in an historical perspective. To do so, it takes a look at the depoliticized discourse on livestock and development in which South West African rule framed its politics of identity. This case study investigates how precisely this discourse fuelled political resistance in the region. However, the efforts by elders and so‐called commoners to counter indirect rule and apartheid hardly ever took the form of overt rebellion or explicit political protest. It concerned instead a more subtle and defiant form of counterworks, a very specific local modernity rooted in local subjectivity and experience that happened to be quite efficient.     

The Value of Culture: Congolese Art and the Promotion of Belgian Colonialism (1945–1959)

Based on the scholarship of Frans M. Olbrechts and the changes implemented in the Museum of the Belgian Congo during his directorship (from 1947 until 1958), this article argues that the institutionalization of African artefacts as art served the late Belgian colonial regime in promoting its renewed postwar commitment to the Congolese colony. In their reinvention as art and subsequent re-installation in modernist displays, the objects acquired not only a cultural, but also an economic and political value as resources, which led to their co-option in the mise-en-valeur, or valorization, of the colony and fuelled a colonial rhetoric that replaced an earlier emphasis on the civilizing mission with a construction of cultural guardianship based on the universal value of the objects as art.     

Reviews of Book

E. BADIAN. From Plataea to Potidaea: Studies in the History and Historiography of the Pentecontaetia. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993. Pp. xii, 264. $32.50 (US). Reviewed by Paul Cartledge

MARK H. MUNN. The Defense of Attica: The Dema Wall and the Boiotian War of 378-375 BC. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Pp. xx, 258. $48.00 (US). Reviewed by W. J. Mccoy

FERGUS MILLAR. The Roman Near East: 31 BC-AD 337. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1993. Pp. xxix, 587. $45.00 (US). Reviewed by Irving M. Zeitlin

JONATHAN SHEPARD and SIMON FRANKLIN, eds. Byzantine Diplomacy. Aldershot, UK: Variorum, Ashgate Publishing, 1992. Pp. xi, 333. £42.50. Reviewed by Warren Treadgold

JOHN A. LYNN, ed. Feeding Mars: Logistics in Western Warfare from the Middle Ages to the Present. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993. Pp. xii, 326. $44.50 (US). Reviewed by Dennis E. Showalter

BERNARD S. BACHRACH. Fulk Nerra, the Neo-Roman Consul, 987–1040: A Political Biography of the Angevin Count. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Pp. xvi, 392. $55.00 (US). Reviewed by Elisabeth M. C. Van Houts

GERD TELLENBACH. The Church in Western Europe from the Tenth to the Early Twelfth Century, trans. Timothy Reuter. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. xix, 403. $79.95 (US), cloth; $22.95 (US), paper. Reviewed by Norman F. Cantor

DAVID J. WASSERSTEIN. The Caliphate in the West: An Islamic Political Institution in the Iberian Peninsula. New York: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 1993. Pp. xiv, 280. $78.95 (CDN). Reviewed by J. D. Latham

PAUL MAGDALINO. The Empire of Manuel I Komnenos, 1143–1180. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. xix, 557. $89.95 (US). Reviewed by Jonathan Shepard

MAYA SHATZMILLER, ed. Crusaders and Muslims in Twelfth-Century Syria. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1993. Pp. xii, 235. $80.00 (US). Reviewed by Peter Jackson

RICHARD M. EATON. The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204–1760. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Pp. xxvii, 359. $60.00 (US). Reviewed by André Wink

ANNE CURRY. The Hundred Years War. London: Macmillan, 1993. Pp. xiv, 192. £30.00;Reviewed by Brendan Smith

ANTHONY GOODMAN and ANTHONY TUCK, eds. War and Border Societies in the Middle Ages. London and New York: Routledge, 1993. Pp. xi, 198. $59.95 (US). Reviewed by Brendan Smith

ROGER C. SMITH. Vanguard of Empire: Ships of Exploration in the Age of Columbus. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Pp. xii, 316. $35.00 (US). Reviewed by Ian Friel

JAMES C. BOYAJIAN. Portuguese Trade in Asia under the Habsburgs, 1580–1640. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993. Pp. xvii, 356. $48.95 (US). Reviewed by Om Prakash

GRÀINNE HENRY. The Irish Military Community in Spanish Flanders, 1586–1621. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1992; dist. Portland, OR: ISBS. Pp. 208. £29.50. Reviewed by David Parrott

JOHN BREWER and ROY PORTER, eds. Consumption and the World of Goods. London and New York: Routledge, 1993. Pp. xix, 564. $59.95 (US). Reviewed by Linda Colley

SUDIPTA DAS. Myths and Realities of French Imperialism in India, 1763–1783. New york: Peter Lang, 1993. Pp. xxiii, 459. $64.95 (US). Reviewed by Bruce P. Lenman

BARRY GOUGH. The Falkland Islands/Malvinas: The Contest for Empire in the South Atlantic. London and Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Athlone Press, 1992. Pp. vi, 212. $65.00 (US). Reviewed by Glyndwr William

RICHARD ROBERTS. Schroders: Merchants and Bankers. London: Macmillan. 1993. Pp. xxiii, 616. £25.00. Reviewed by Michael Collins

PETER PARET. Understanding War: Essays on Clausewitz and the History of Military Power. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992. Pp. x, 229. $24.95 (US). Reviewed by Christopher Bassford

ELIZABETH A. ELDREDGE. A South African Kingdom: The Pursuit of Security in Nineteenth-Century Lesotho. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. xv, 250. $59.95 (US). Reviewed by Norman Etherington

CECILLIE SWAISLAND. Servants and Gentlewomen to the Golden Land: The Emigration of Single Women from Britain to Southern Africa, 1820–1939. Oxford and Providence, RI: Berg Publishers Limited, 1993. Pp. xii, 186. $17.75 (US), paper. Reviewed by Donald Harman Akenson

DIRK HOERDER and HORST RÖSSLER, eds. Distant Magnets: Expectations and Realities in the Immigrant Experience, 1840–1930. New York and London: Holmes & Meier, 1993. Pp. 312. $45.00 (US). Reviewed by Ida Altman

MICHAEL BALFOUR. Germany: The Tides of Power. London and New York: Routledge, 1992. Pp. vii, 271. $69.95 (US), cloth; $16.95 (US), paper. Reviewed by Robert H. Keyserlingk

W. DIRK RAAT. Mexico and the United States: Ambivalent Vistas. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992. Pp. xv, 277. $45.00 (US) cloth; $18.50 (US), paper. Reviewed by Jim Handy

ROBERT M. UTLEY. The Lance and the Shield: The Life and Times of Sitting Bull. New York: Henry Holt, 1993. Pp. xvii, 413. $40.00 (US). Reviewed by Richmond L. Clow

ASAFA JALATA. Oromia and Ethiopia: State Formation and Ethnonational Conflict, 1868–1992. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1993. Pp. xiii, 233. $45.00 (US). Reviewed by Harold Marcus

WILLIAM L. SACHS. The Transformation of Anglicanism: From State Church to Global Communion. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. xii, 386. $49.95 (US). Reviewed by Andrew Chandler

MARK WYMAN. Round-Trip to America: The Immigrants Return to Europe, 1880–1930. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1993. Pp. x, 267. $34.50 (US). Reviewed by Dirk Hoerder

JAMES C. BRADFORD, ed. Crucible of Empire: The Spanish-American War and Its Aftermath. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1993; dist. St Catharines, Ont.: Vanwell Publishing Limited. Pp. xxii, 269. $31.95 (US). Reviewed by David Healy

GARY S. MESSINGER. British Propaganda and the State in the First World War. Manchester: Manchester University Press; dist. New York: St Martin's Press, 1993. Pp. x, 292. $59.95 (US). Reviewed by Nicholas Reeves

DAVID W. WOODWARD. Trial by Friendship: Anglo-American Relations, 1917–1918. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1993. Pp. x, 276. $34.00 (US). Reviewed by Kathleen Burk

BARBARA J. SMITH. The Roots of Separatism in Palestine: British Economic Policy, 1920–1929. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1993. Pp. xiv, 258. $39.95 (US). Reviewed by Ilan Pappe

MAURICE VAÏSSE, ed. Le Pacifisme en Europe: des années 1920 aux années 1950. Brussels: Bruylant, 1993. Pp. 455. BFr. 2,400. Reviewed by Michael Jabara Carley

GEORGE O. LIBER. Soviet Nationality Policy, Urban Growth, and Identity Change in the Ukrainian SSR, 1923–1934. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pp. xvii, 289. $54.95 (US). Reviewed by David R. Marples

RENZO DE FELICE, ed. Bibliografia Orientativa del Fascisme Rome: Bonacci Editore, 1991. Pp. x, 584. L.i 10.000. Reviewed by Richard Bosworth

YU-MING SHAW. An American Missionary in China: John Leighton Stuart and Chinese-American Relations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993. Pp. xv, 381. $30.00 (US). Reviewed by A. Hamish Ion

ROMUALD J. MisiUNAS and REIN TAAGEPERA. The Baltic States: Years of Dependence, 1940–1990. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Pp. xvi, 400. $45.00 (US), cloth; $17.00 (US), paper. Reviewed by Marvin Rintala

GYÖRGY LENGYEL, ed. Hungarian Economy and Society during World War II, trans. Judit Pokoly. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs; dist. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993. Pp. xvii, 284. $34.00 (US). Reviewed by Joseph Held

HORST BOOG, ed. The Conduct of the Air War in the Second World War: An International Comparison. New York and Oxford: Berg Publishers; dist. New York: St Martin's Press, 1992. Pp. xii, 763. $79.50 (US). Reviewed by David I. Hall

IAN MCGIBBON, ed. Undiplomatic Dialogue: Letters between Carl Berendsen and Alister McIntosh, 1943–52. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1993. Pp. xx, 305. $29.95 (NZ). Reviewed by Ann Trotter

FEDERICO ROMERO. The United States and the European Trade Union Movement, 1944–1951, trans. Harvey Fergusson II. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1993. Pp. xvi, 292. $39.95 (US). Reviewed by Alan S. Milward

GEOFFREY SWAIN and NIGEL SWAIN. Eastern Europe since 1945. London: Macmillan, 1993. Pp. xiv, 255. £35.00. Reviewed by Stephen Fischer-Galati

RONALD HYAM, ed. British Documents on the End of Empire: Series A: Volume II: The Labour Government and the End of Empire, 1945–51: Part I: High Policy and Administration. Pp. lxxiv, 372; Part II: Economics and International Relations. Pp. xxi, 498; Part III: Strategy, Politics, and Constitutional Change. Pp. xxi, 419; Part IV: Race Relations and the Commonwealth. Pp. xviii, 399. London: HMSO, 1992; dist. Lanham, MD: UNIPUB. $140.00 (us), each. Reviewed by B. R. Tomlinson

RAANAN REIN. The Franco-Perón Alliance: Relations between Spain and Argentina, 1946–1955, trans. Martha Grenzeback. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1993. Pp. x, 329. $4.9.95 (US). Reviewed by Ronald C. Newton

NORMAN HILMER and DONALD PAGE, eds. Canada: Documents on Canadian External Relations: Volume XIII: 1947. Ottawa: External Affairs and International Trade Canada, 1993. Pp. xxxvii, 1,654. $99.00 (CDN). Reviewed by Lawrence Aronsen

DAVID W. LESCH. Syria and the United States: Eisenhower's Cold War in the Middle East. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992. Pp. xvii, 242. $49.50 (US). Reviewed by Diane B. Kunz

PETER T. HAYDON. The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis: Canadian Involvement Reconsidered. Toronto: Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies, 1993. Pp. xii, 297. $20.00 (CDN). Reviewed by J. L. Granatstein

LENARD J. COHEN. Broken Bonds: The Disintegration of Yugoslavia. Boulder: Westview Press, 1993. Pp. xvi, 299. $49.95 (US), cloth; $16.95 (US), paper. Reviewed by Philip J. Adler

CLEMENT H. DODD, ed. Turkish Foreign Policy: New Prospects. Huntingdon, UK: Eothen Press, 1992. Pp. xi, 117. £12.50, paper. Reviewed by Michael B. Bishku

GREGORY F. TREVERTON. America, Germany, and the Future of Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992. Pp. xii, 240. $24.95 (US). Reviewed by Walter B. Mead

CHIH-YU SHIH. China's Just World: The Morality of Chinese Foreign Relations. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1993. Pp. ix, 244. $37.00 (US). Reviewed by Lucian W. Pye

MICHAEL E. BROWN, ed. Ethnic Conflict and International Security. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. Pp. ix, 276. $14.95 (US). paper. Reviewed by Milton J. Esman

KEITH KRAUSE. Arms and the State: Patterns of Military Production and Trade. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pp. xviii, 299. $4.9.95 (US). Reviewed by William H. Mcneill

T. G. FRASER and KEITH JEPFERY, eds. Men, Women, and War. Dublin: Lilliput Press, 1993. Pp. xii, 242. £25.00. Reviewed by Brian Holden Reid

ROBERT W. MCELROY. Morality and American Foreign Policy: The Role of Ethics in International Affairs. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992. Pp. xii, 194. $14.95 (US). Reviewed by John A. Vasquez

MARTIN VAN CREVELD. Nuclear Proliferation and the Future of Conflict. New York: Free Press (Macmillan), 1993. Pp. viii, 180. $22.95 (US). Reviewed by Lawrence Freedman

ROGER CAREY and TREVOR C. SALMON, eds. International Security in the Modern World. London: Macmillan, 1992. Pp. ix, 241.£40.00. Reviewed by Tom Walker