The Middle Ground, “Middle Ground Moments,” and Accommodation in the Study of Later Qing Borderland History

This article examines Richard White’s concept of the “middle ground” and its prospective application to the study of China’s Qing (1644–1911) borderlands from the late eighteenth century. It argues that although White’s model, in its specific formulation, is problematic to apply due to the dissimilarity of Qing conditions, it yet has value and can be adapted. One possibility is advanced in the notion of “middle ground moments,” briefly explored in the cases of Shaanxi’s Dabashan highlands in a “population boom,” Hunan’s Miao Frontier in the “fog of war,” and Xinjiang’s Kashgar crossroads during the “fall of empires.” Focusing on group exchange, adaptation, and hybridization offers insight into regional cultural creation, as well as a means to question received narratives of breakdown, pacification, resistance, or Great Game struggle. Such modeling, and shared attention to accommodation perspectives generally, also presents a space for dialogue across the New Qing History and Chinese nationalist divide in Qing frontier studies.     

从组织创新角度论饭店客房产品竞争力的提升

客房产品日益成为当今饭店业竞争的焦点.笔者认为,我国饭店企业若想从根本上增强客房产品的竞争实力,提高经营效率,必须从组织设计和制度创新着手.首先,应将客房业务区分为核心业务和非核心业务,并运用差异化策略、低成本策略或聚焦策略来确立客房产品的核心优势;其次,为充分发挥核心竞争力,可以将客房非核心业务外包,本文阐述了非核心业务外包的理由和应处理好的关键环节,并重点探讨了客房清扫业务的外包管理制度;业务外包战略势必引起组织结构的变革,文章尝试对客房组织结构进行了再设计,同时认为必须做好服务授权和信息共享;最后,强调了建立高效的工作团队的必要性,对团队组建的模式提出若干种建议.     

Parliament and the Committee for Accommodation, 1644–6*

With the emerging conflict between the presbyterian and independent ministers in 1643–4, the independent MPs recognized a need for parliamentary action to secure religious liberty in post‐war establishment of a uniform state church. The lead in this was given by such prominent figures as Oliver St John and Oliver Cromwell, who set up a committee for accommodation in autumn 1644 to establish legal safeguards for godly separatists. This article seeks to demonstrate that the lay members from the Houses participated in the proceedings of the committee with as much fervour and awareness of the issue under consideration as the clerical members, employing procedure as a tool of policy making. Their often extended debates offer the historian a rare opportunity to explore in detail a committee at work during this period. The debates show that the scope of religious liberty as envisioned by the majority of MPs was decidedly limited. Furthermore, the article asserts that the committee became an arena for both genuine efforts at compromise and expressions of factional interest and that its proceedings were inextricably bound up with the wider Westminster politics and the vicissitudes of war. Thus, the committee proceedings shed light on the emergence of divisions in parliament and how these metamorphosed over the course of the revolutionary decade. Ultimately, the failure of the committee's enterprise contributed to polarisation within the godly community and to its disintegration.