Anti-corruption campaigns in thirteenth-century Europe

The thirteenth century in France saw the initiation of a series of reforms intended to define, identify and root out corruption in government. The principal architect of the campaign was King Louis IX (1226–70), ably supported by a coterie of special officials. Inspired in part by his desire to purify his kingdom in the long preparation for the crusade of 1270, he also drew on longstanding precedents in French administrative history. The campaign on the whole was quite successful. What is also remarkable is that, generated partly from the unique circumstances of individual polities and partly from circumstances, like crusading fervour, which were widely shared, other anti-corruption campaigns were mounted, also with some success. The slogans and practices of anti-corruption campaigns came to be identified intimately with good government, indeed, with the very right to exercise political authority and power. The thirteenth century thus appears to be a foundational moment in the constitution of the ideology and practices of the state.     

The Dilmun temple on Failaka,Kuwait

The Kuwaiti‐Danish 2009 excavations on Failaka produced new evidence for the dating of the Dilmun temple in Tell F6. The affinities of this temple to the Barbar temples in Bahrain are emphasised, whereas the hypothesis of a Syrian‐inspired temple tower is questioned.     

U.S. Financial Aid for Iraq Under the Engagement Policy, 1988–1990

Abstract

This article reframes our understanding of the pre-Gulf War U.S. policy toward Iraq away from the issue of why the Bush administration ignored evidence that Saddam Hussein was not reciprocating U.S. efforts to moderate his behavior. Rather, it asks why the Bush administration did not consider Saddam’s abuse of U.S. export credit programs as relevant for evaluating Iraqi intentions and the efficacy of the engagement policy. It traces debates among federal agencies about two export credit programs to show that strategic considerations drove decisions to preserve or suspend these programs even though Iraq’s financial behavior offered insights earlier in time about its strategic intentions. While the Bush administration intended for engagement to reward or punish Saddam depending on his behavior, my examination of export credit controversies shows that it did not establish a rationale for deciding when and how to punish Iraq for threatening or abusive behavior.     

The Grammar of Imperial History

FREDERICK MADDEN and DAVID FIELDHOUSE, eds. ‘The Empire of the Bretaignes’, 1175–1688: The Foundation of a Colonial System of Government: Select Documents on the Constitutional History of the British Empire and Commonwealth, Volume I. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1985. Pp. xxix, 669; $55.00 (us); The Classical Period of the First British Empire, 1680–1783, Volume II. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1985. Pp. xxxiii, 628. –65.00 (US).     

‘The Most Churlish of Celebrities’: George Eliot,John Cross and the Question of High Status

Published in 1885, John Cross's biography of his late wife, George Eliot's Life as Related in Her Letters and Journals, was written with the intention to ‘make known the woman as well as the author’ (John Cross, ed., George Eliot's Life as Related in Her Letters and Journals, cabinet edn, 3 vols (Edinburgh: William Blackwood & Sons, 1887), I, v). Yet, ironically, the biography is renowned precisely for the lack of insight it affords readers into the private life of George Eliot. Why did Cross make a promise that he could not keep? My essay attempts to answer this question by examining George Eliot's Life in the context of the fame culture of the late nineteenth century. I suggest that it is possible to read Cross's unwillingness in the Life to make Eliot more ‘available’ to her public as a reaction against the sorts of publicity which, throughout the 1870s, had pushed Eliot's persona into a celebrity arena. George Eliot's Life represents Cross's effort to preserve Eliot's high professional reputation by emphasizing her distance from celebrity culture and her status as a female sage. Through close examination of the reviews of the biography, I identify the contemporary attitudes that made stressing Eliot's greatness appear urgent to her biographer and, paradoxically, so unpopular with the general public. I call attention, in particular, to changing expectations about the relationship between public figures and their audiences as well as the purpose and content of famous Lives. ?1.?Leon Edel, ed., The Diary of Alice James (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1982), pp. 40–41.      

The Early History of the Neuroscience of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

Research on the neurobiology and pharmacotherapy of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has grown exponentially since 1980. A reasonable question is whether this research has improved our understanding and treatment of ADHD. This article describes relevant developments that took place roughly between 1900 and 1970. During this time, the efficacy of stimulant therapy for the disorder was established and the symptoms of ADHD were linked to many possible nervous system disorders including in the brain-stem, reticular formation, diencephalon, basal ganglia, frontal lobes, and cortex. In 1970, the catecholamine hypothesis of ADHD was proposed. It is concluded that early theories about the neurobiologic basis of ADHD anticipated core ideas of modern theory.     

“A Twist in the Tale” of a Surgeon and his Patient: An Australian First in Seizure Localization

In 1894 at St. Vincent's Hospital Melbourne, George Adlington Syme removed a meningioma from a patient with symptomatic focal epilepsy. The operation stands as the first surgery based on seizure localization in Australia. It is also the country's first documented successful resection of an intracranial meningioma. It followed William Macewen's landmark cerebral localization case on the boy John McKinley by 18 years and Victor Horsley's first epilepsy case on Hughlings Jackson's patient James B. by a mere 8 years. Syme's patient, Constable John G., survived the operation by some 23 years, dying from a gunshot wound to the head in 1917. Newly discovered inquest papers reveal that the coroner's judgment that the death was accidental completely fails to address the more credible scenario of suicide. The story makes for a fascinating epilogue to an important landmark in Australia's neurosurgical history.     

George Egerton,James Joyce and the Irish Künstlerroman

George Egerton (Mary Chavelita Dunne, 1859–1945), from Co. Laois, was the New Woman author most closely associated with the Decadent movement. As such, she was also the New Woman writer most profoundly affected by the downfall of Oscar Wilde. After the Wilde trials of 1895, Egerton's connection to Decadence and New Womanhood would make her work anathema to much of the British public. This essay will argue that ongoing tendencies to situate her texts solely within the New Woman categorisation and an English cultural location have had the detrimental effect of obscuring their importance to a specifically Irish literary tradition. By examining Egerton's 1898 novel The Wheel of God, focusing on its status as an Irish Künstlerroman written from a position of exile, and drawing comparisons between it and the works of James Joyce, this essay will seek to redress this imbalance.     

Readers and responses to George Sandys' A Relation of a Iourney begun An: Dom: 1610 (1615): Early English Books Online (EEBO) and the history of reading

This paper will discuss Early English Books Online (EEBO) as a tool for locating and researching contemporary references and responses to historical texts and authors, specifically George Sandys' A Relation of a Iourney begun An: Dom: 1610 (1615). It will focus upon two main themes. The first is methodological and will discuss the nature of EEBO and the possibilities and limitations it presents for this kind of historical research. The second turns to a case study of seventeenth-century responses to, and readings of, the Relation and shows how references found through EEBO can both broaden the context within which we view this work and alter our interpretation and understanding of it.     

TOWARD A DEFINITION OF POPULAR CULTURE

The most common definitions of popular culture suffer from a presentist bias and cannot be applied to pre‐industrial and pre‐capitalist societies. A survey reveals serious conceptual difficulties as well. We may, however, gain insight in two ways. 1) By moving from a Marxist model (economic/class/production) to a more Weberian approach (societal/status/consumption). 2) By looking to Bourdieu's “cultural capital” and Danto's and Dickie's “Institutional Theory of Art,” and defining popular culture as “unauthorized culture.”