INTELLECTUAL HISTORY CONFRONTS THE LONGUE DURÉE

This review of John Potts's Ideas in Time: The Longue Durée in Intellectual History discusses the advantages and disadvantages of writing intellectual histories that embrace the longue durée. It applauds Potts's concise account of historiographical discussions of continuity and discontinuity in the history of ideas in the last seventy-five years but laments his failure to discuss the contributions of historians of science and scholarship to the practices of knowledge-making and to the transmission of ideas. It suggests that the study of discontinuities can also be rich and revealing, and it proposes one approach to understanding the ways in which ideas go out of fashion. It concludes by noting, first, that the models that contemporary historians of ideas adopt also have to do with book-market opportunities and pressures and, second, that we have work to do to engage our contemporaries and students in whatever form of intellectual history we choose to write.     

On Pins and Needles: Tracing the Evolution of Copper-base Alloying at Tepe Yahya, Iran, via ICP-MS Analysis of Common-place Items

From 1967 to 1975 a team of archaeologists excavated the site of Tepe Yahya in southeastern Iran under the direction of C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky. Although there are two forthcoming “final reports” (Hiebert (in progress), and Magee (in press); see also Lamberg-Karlovsky & Potts, 2001), analysis of the materials continues as opportunities allow. Metal artefacts, most especially those made of copper and its alloys, are found at this site from the late Neolithic through the Iron Age. Archaeometallurgical analysis, radiocarbon chronologies, and archaeological interpretation allow one to state when and how a type of metal or a style of object was invented, its use as a trade item, and its function and value to an ancient community. In the hopes of establishing a framework for future archaeometallurgical studies, most of the metal artefacts from Tepe Yahya, Iran, stored in the Peabody Museum of Harvard University, were analysed for elemental composition to complement stylistic and metallographic data.     

Migration and market wage risk

The author presents an approach to the analysis of labor migration that incorporates the role of market wage variability as a source of information in individual migration decisions. "The focus...is on quantifying the effects of the origin market acting through amenities and the share of market-specific wage variability as it affects forecasts of alternative wages and forecast precision. A subsample of employed males...from the [U.S.] National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLS) age 16 to 22 years is used for estimation. The empirical results are consistent with the theoretically predicted relationship between migration propensities and regional differences in the information content of wages. In addition, the results provide evidence that risk aversion deters migration given uncertainty, measured by forecast precision, about alternative market wage levels."     

Blurred images: Indro Montanelli’s anti-politics

Through a close reading of Indro Montanelli’s 1944/1945 novel Here They Do Not Rest, this article argues that the famous and popular Italian journalist Montanelli contributed significantly to a particular Italian form of ‘anti-politics’ after the fall of fascism. It argues that anti-politics in Italy provides the foundation for the county’s right-wing populism and that it makes a significant contribution to political and historiographical revisionism of the fascist past. Indro Montanelli is read as an important architect of this revisionism and as such read against his popular image.     

服务于创意生活的博物馆设计

博物馆设计包括建筑设计和展览设计两方面。20世纪,欧洲和美国的博物馆原先丰富的实物展示逐渐被叙事展览取代,后者集空间、媒体、藏品和故事于一身,形成复杂的高感官体验。博物馆应该是一个拥有多样化复杂资源的集合体,为民众的创意生活服务。在服务于商业开发的社会下,博物馆的公共服务观念在渐渐消失。所以我们要重新思考博物馆的作用、责任和社会(或空间)形态。博物馆设计是一项社会艺术,建筑形态是对社会关系和多元经历的积极回应。以研究为导向的博物馆设计能推进博物馆的建设和发展,使之为我们共同的社会增添意义。     

Recording and Analysis of Ship Graffiti in St Thomas’ Church and Blackfriars Barn Undercroft in Winchelsea,East Sussex,UK

Two assemblages of ship graffiti were recorded using Reflectance Transformation Imaging in the ancient port town of Winchelsea. The engravings show characteristics common to most medieval ship graffiti in England, while displaying different levels of detail, which encouraged a nuanced interpretation. It is suggested that the ship graffiti demonstrate a multifaceted relationship with the sea. The St Thomas’ church graffiti could have been a means of spiritual protection and a devotional practice that cuts across different communities of practice and social groups. The seascape in Blackfriars Barn undercroft can be interpreted as an occasion of informal remembrance of the mustering of a large naval fleet before setting out.