Networking Health Research in Britain: The Post-War Childhood Leukaemia Trials

The treatment of childhood leukaemia is seen as a successfulhistorical example of the operation of the randomized controlledtrial and continues to inform contemporary policy making onsuch trials within health research. This article analyses thescientists’ ‘story of success’ through historicalresearch. It tells us about the organizational and professionalstructures of such research post-war in the United Kingdom,and examines the history of the cancer clinical trial throughthis particular example. The story reveals a more complex picturethan the ‘heroic’ one, with key developments inthe operation of post-war science, both in terms of its infrastructureand of its scientific networks, not least the rise of co-operativeworking among clinicians and the growing importance of statisticiansin medical research and practice. It also underlines differencesbetween the British and US approaches in which the role of onehealth system, the National Health Service, helped structuredifferent, initially less intensive, patterns of response.     

Gender and the Human: An Introduction

This forum offers critical perspectives on the intersection between gender and the politics of the human. The three articles that comprise it showcase dilemmas that have produced an impasse in feminist politics, as well as the possibilities that feminist analysis offers for rethinking the politics of humanity. The introduction traces the historical intertwining of gender and the human, beginning with the paradox of Enlightenment universalism and female exclusion that launched modern western feminism. It considers both the resilience of this dominant framework of feminist analysis and the limitations it has produced. By examining both the implications of the juridical focus on women's inclusion and rights, and the significance of gender and the body for new forms of modern state power particularly in colonial and post‐colonial contexts, it seeks to sustain new feminist interrogations of the modern politics of the human.     

The Qadi,the Wazir and the Da‘i: Religious and Ethnic Relations in Buyid Shiraz in the Eleventh Century

Shiraz's importance as a Buyid political capitol during the late Buyid period has been mentioned but not thoroughly analyzed. This article attempts to understand Shirazi politics under the late Buyid Abu Kalijar (r. 415/1024 to 440AH/1048CE) by tracing the careers of three prominent figures in his court: the Ismaili propagandist Al-Mu'ayyad fi al-Din al-Shirazi, the Sunni Qadi Abdallah al-Fazari, and Abu Kalijar's Wazir Bahram ibn Mafanna al-‘Adil. Using material from a variety of different narrative sources, it becomes clear that all three individuals used their understanding of court politics and their connections to one or more factions, preferably military factions, to gain sufficient intimacy with King Abu Kalijar to present their own point of view and to exclude other individuals from doing the same. Abu Kalijar was able to maintain sufficient contact with a variety of different factions to prevent the kind of factional warfare that was evident in Baghdad in the same period. By tracing the political strategies of these three men, the article sketches the structure of Shirazi politics and highlights the inclusiveness of Abu Kalijar's court and its relative stability compared to the Baghdad court of the same period.     

Gateways to Power: The Castles of Ranulf III of Chester and Llywelyn the Great of Gwynedd

As an expression of his immense power and standing, Earl Ranulf de Blundeville, sixth Earl of Chester (1181–1232) granted his own Magna Carta in Cheshire. Ranulfs subsequent building programme can be regarded as comparable architectural expression. This article aims to provide a fresh interpretation combining a variety of approaches as to how Ranulfs personal power is manifested in the medieval landscape of north-west England and North Wales. It is argued that Ranulfs relatively overlooked and yet close relationship with Llywelyn Fawr, or Llywelyn ap Iorwerth, Prince of Gwynedd (C. AD 1173–1240), sheds further light as to the purpose of the position of Beeston and Cricieth castles in their landscapes. This study has wider implications as to how archaeologists can discern manifestations of lordly power in the designs and landscape settings of medieval castles. While this topic has been widely discussed over the last three decades, it has been hitherto under-investigated in the north-west of England and North Wales where the dynamic allegiances between lords were key components in how power was expressed.     

Concepts of citizenship in France during the long eighteenth century

François Furet famously described the French Revolution as ’the first experiment with democracy’, and modern French citizenship is often seen as having emerged during this period. Universal male suffrage was practised for the first time in 1792 and the Revolution also witnessed debate over such issues as: the rights of citizens; the extension of the franchise to poorer inhabitants and black slaves; and even whether women should be given political rights. Yet, the modern idea of citizenship did not emerge from nowhere in 1789. Rather it was the product of more than a century of debate. This article examines the different understandings of citizenship that were competing for dominance in France during the long eighteenth century: the ancient conception; the Bodinian understanding and the rights-based approach. Not only does it demonstrate the contribution of these approaches (and in particular the last) to revolutionary understandings of citizenship, but it also highlights how the tensions of the eighteenth-century debates, and the ambiguities inherent in the rights-based conception, sparked some of the key controversies of the Revolution.     

Constructing community at civic-ceremonial centers: pottery-making practices at Crystal River and Roberts Island

ABSTRACT

Crystal River (8CI1) and Roberts Island (8CI36, 8CI40, 8CI41) are neighboring mound complexes on Florida’s west-central Gulf Coast, with mainly sequential occupations during the Middle and Late Woodland periods, respectively. Previous work at Crystal River produced assemblages marked by a diversity of pastes and surface treatments, suggestive of distinct communities of practice. However, these excavations were unsystematic and poorly controlled, thus confounding understanding of temporal and spatial variation in practice. Recent excavations in domestic areas, combined with the analysis of older collections from mounds, support a finer-grained understanding of variation in ceramic production. Our analysis suggests that communities of practice persisted through time, although there is variation that corresponds well with changes in settlement.