Le postmoderne expliqué aux enfants. Correspondance 1982–85

In the early modern period, the European concept of “nobility” was rarely used to describe the upper classes of the societies born in the British or in the French Americas. The presence of French nobles in New France or in the French West Indies and the emergence of the native gentry in parts of the British Empire have been much studied. But the social impact of elites has not been fully recognized by Atlantic historians—due, perhaps, to a bias towards “authentically” New World systems of social recognition based upon wealth, emphasizing supposedly greater possibilities of social mobility. This paper takes a comparative perspective to the social meanings of being a noble or being a gentleman in both empires. It concludes that there were few substantive differences between French nobles living in the metropolis and in the colonies because legal definitions of the French noblesse were strictly determined by the Crown. The essence of the French nobility was, in theory, the same in Versailles, in a remote rural parish of France or in Quebec. The story was very different for British colonial gentlemen who encountered countless difficulties to be socially accepted by their metropolitan counterparts. The paper explores the consequences of the chasm between British metropolitan and colonial upper classes and assesses solutions taken by colonial gentlemen to be fully integrated in the gentry of Great Britain.     

The missing revolution: The totalitarian democracy in light of 1776

During much of his prolific career, the late historian Jacob Talmon was preoccupied with revolutionary movements, and was especially unsettled by, and attracted to, the force displayed by the French and Russian Revolutions. The young United States’ long and bloody war against the British Empire, followed by the creation of a republican novus ordo seclorum, supposedly fitted Talmon's revolutionary model and narrative. Hence, it is hard to account for the complete absence of the American Revolution from Talmon's extensive and celebrated trilogy.

This paper examines how Talmon understood revolutions and how the major historiographical schools interpreting the American Revolution could not accommodate, for different reasons, Talmon's paradigm of the nature and essence of revolutions. The paper further demonstrates how not only the failings of different historical interpretive schemes convinced Talmon to ignore the American Revolution. Rather, since the American Revolution could be conceived either as Lockean or Machiavellian, but in any event not as Rousseauian, Talmon overlooked its Atlantic nature; he chose to focus solely on messianic Europe. The paper will thus analyze the meaning and consequence of the fact that Talmon left the examination of the pursuit of happiness to Americanists, and chose to leave 1776 out of his corpus. Indeed, a missing revolution.     

A Once and Future Greatness: Raymond Aron,Charles de Gaulle andthe Politics of Grandeur

Charles de Gaulle devoted his life to cultivating French grandeur, a politics that attempted to carve out an equal and independent role for France among the great powers of the world. One who frequently criticized de Gaulle's ideas of grandeur was the eminent social theorist, Raymond Aron. Although Aron was generally supportive of de Gaulle and supported him ‘every time there was a crisis’, he never hesitated to criticize de Gaulle, sometimes quite sharply. Aron's lifelong friendship with de Gaulle was thus marked by alternating bouts of mutual irritation and respect: Aron worried that de Gaulle's theatrics were sometimes detrimental to French national interests while de Gaulle fretted that Aron's commitment to French greatness was less enthusiastic than it should havebeen.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate Aron's reaction to de Gaulle's politics of grandeur. Despite his reputation for ‘lucidity’, Aron was often ambivalent about de Gaulle's ambitions for France. We argue that Aron's ambivalence stemmed from his political creed, or from his commitment to a political philosophy that - as de Gaulle sensed - allowed for few settled convictions. This paper reviews Aron's assessment of two issues at the heart of de Gaulle's politics of grandeur, namely, the effort to promote a sense of national unity and the effort to create a nuclear force. In both areas, we witness a remarkably ambivalent Aron, one who struggled to soften the harsher edges of the excesses of what he considered to be the excesses of grandeur and find his way to a more moderate and coherent position.     

Corpus cartographique pour l'histoire de Damas,Syrie, à la fin de la période ottomane (1760–1924)

Abstract

De manière générale, la cartographie des villes de l'empire ottoman est peu abondante. Au dix‐neuvième siècle, malgré plusieurs réformes administratives, l'autorité publique ne recourait pas à des documents cartographiques pour organiser les travaux d'édilité tandis que les étrangers rencontraient les plus grandes difficultés pour établir des représentations de ces villes. Damas constitue une exception à ce tableau. On dispose de plusieurs cartes antérieures à l'établissement du mandat français (1920) qui sont de qualité inégale. Les auteurs étrangers sont les plus nombreux et les plus fiables; le plus souvent archéologues ou historiens, ils ont dressé des documents partiels par toujours faciles à évaluer. Cependant, et malgré la faiblesse de son volume (sept documents), le corpus des premières cartes de Damas constitue une source essentielle pour l'histoire du développement spatial de la ville entre le milieu du dix‐neuvième siècle et l'établissement du pouvoir mandataire.     

Defending the Individual: the Personal Rights Association and the Ligue des droits de l'homme, 1871–1916

This article investigates the conceptual and organisational connections between late nineteenth-century civil-liberties activism and the emerging human-rights paradigm of the twentieth century. The comparison of the two largest and most influential civil-liberties organisations to emerge in Britain and France before the First World War (the British Personal Rights Association and the French Ligue des droits de l'homme) has three objectives: to place the two groups in a wider context of civil-liberty organisations of the pre-First World War era and to identify personal connections and inspirations. Secondly, by analysing functional definitions of ‘rights’ and who these rights should apply to, the article argues that although one group conceptualised their activism on the basis of ‘civil liberties’ and the other on ‘human rights’ there were significant similarities between the approaches of the two groups. Moreover, differences stemmed from internal politics within each group rather than the dissimilar conceptual framework. Finally the article seeks to understand why the Ligue des droits de l'homme was much more successful than the British Personal Rights Association both in its ability to mobilise supporters, and in inspiring sister organisations in other European countries.     

A case of local rejection of a heritage tourism policy: tourism and dynamics of change in Abondance,French Alps

Despite the opportunities offered by developing and enhancing cultural heritage in the tourism sector, this article, based on a case study of a little town in the French Alps, shows that public policy of this type may also be subject to criticism and dispute. In the town of Abondance, a small ski resort being converted to cultural tourism site built around heritage, the demonstration observed involved both a desire to keep the skiing and a questioning of the political process, but also a rejection of the alternative solution involving the development of the cultural heritage of the Gothic Court of Savoy. During the qualitative survey of the social reactions, three types of arguments have been raised. (1) As summarised by one of the local leaders ‘the people do not believe in it’. Indeed, local shopkeepers are sceptical that cultural tourism will draw numerous visitors, and fear that is not economically viable. (2) In contrast to the ski resort, heritage tourism is only attached to the imagination of old age, immobility and even death, as if seniority of places necessarily corresponds to seniority of public and images. (3) For residents of the town, setting up a localised visit site has disadvantages because of the turnover of touristic traffic to which this type of tourism is exposed.     

试析冷战后美俄地缘政治空间竞争

冷战结束以来,美俄间以主权国家利益为核心的地缘政治竞争一直在进行着。美俄间的地缘政治空间之争主要表现在美国主导下的北约东扩和在独联体地区的渗透。而俄罗斯为了防止其在欧亚大陆战略生存空间被挤压和近邻地区被分化,采取了一系列的反对、抵制措施,以防地缘政治空间被进一步削弱并力图为俄罗斯未来重新崛起保留一定的地缘政治空间。作为战略博弈优势方的美国的地缘政治政策主导着美俄关系演进的进程和张力。     

辛亥年间同盟会员在伦敦活动补录

李晓生所遗手稿以补录形式记载了辛亥年间同盟会员在伦敦活动的数事：孙中山亲绘青天白日国徽且坚持采用青天白日旗、会员杨笃生投海自杀善后、吴稚晖说服孙中山撰文通电推袁、孙中山与吴稚晖因拟调解电而起争执以及李晓生本人在伦敦的活动等。手稿所录数事补充、丰富了现有文献对同盟会过英会员在这段非常时期的活动记载。     

50年来中国大陆对辛亥革命的纪念与评价

新中国建立 5 0年以来 ,每逢十年一次党和国家以最高规格举行纪念辛亥革命的活动 ,成为全国的重要活动 ,是全国政治生活中的大事。像这样 5 0年一贯进行的政治生活中的大事 ,只有中华人民共和国国庆、中国共产党生日可以与之相比拟。肯定辛亥革命的历史意义是纪念辛亥革命的一个理由 ,但不是惟一的理由。把纪念辛亥革命和祖国统一的现实任务紧密结合起来 ,和建立中华民族最广泛的统一战线联系起来 ,这是现实的政治需要 ,这就是现实的政治。辛亥革命不仅仅是 2 0世纪初期的一次革命运动 ,一次重大的政治事件 ,辛亥革命以其本身的魅力影响了整个 2 0世纪中国的历史进程 ,积淀了近代以来中华民族的革命传统和文化传统 ,成为团结和凝聚中华民族力量的一个重要源泉。由辛亥革命所凝固起来的这样的民族精神是永远需要发扬的