兰克在新中国史学界的境遇

马克思受德国左翼知识分子的影响,曾对兰克作了否定性的评价,后经苏联学者的进一步发挥,兰克被定格为反动派。马克思的兰克评语早在1945年即已通过苏联学者的论文译介到中国,但最初似无影响,至1960年代初借助各种译著的传布,始被中国史家所熟知,深刻影响了他们对兰克的认知。1958年开始中国史学界推行"兴无灭资"的史学革命,开展两条路线斗争。为了更好批判中外资产阶级史学,1960年代初大陆史学界密集译介兰克的资料,有些史家积极批判兰克,但所凭借的文献多为二手著作,很少有人直接阅读兰克作品。进入"文革"时代,兰克话题已然进入禁区。     

Analogien in Physik und Technik im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert

In this paper the use of analogies in physics and in technology is analysed. First the important role philosophically deep rooted analogies played in romantic physics is discussed. The work of Schelling and Ritter is treated in particular. Second the mechanical analogue models in the kinetic theory of gases and in electrodynamics are examined, as well as the severe philosophical criticism which they received. A sketch of the theory of the electron gas is presented as an example for the success and the shortcomings of analogue models. Finally mechanical and electric analogue models in technology are considered; moreover biological analogies in engineering research, and the principle of similitude as applied to model experiments in shipbuilding are discussed. The analysis of the historical examples shows that in the 19th and 20th century the word “analogy” is no longer a vague notion. It represents a scientific method, which, however, inevitably leads to both an extension of the original theoretical models and to special theories of mapping.     

Correcting Europe's political economy: The virtuous eclecticism of Georg Ludwig Schmid

The article provides an analysis of Georg Ludwig Schmid's ‘Reflexions sur l’Agriculture’, which was published as the first essay in the first issue of the publications of the Oeconomical Society of Berne, founded in 1759. Schmid connected the agricultural improvement movement of the time to the logic of international power competition that caused the 7 Years’ War and wished to preserve political economy as agronomy for the cause of peace and virtuous economic progress. In his essay on commerce and luxury, he devised a patriotic political economy based on the notion of a marche naturelle, or a natural progress of opulence, which enabled statesmen and political economists to separate the productive from the pathological features of economic development, healthy and necessary growth from luxury. Adam Smith deployed a similar model in the Wealth of Nations but argued that Europe's retrograde development was so fundamental and comprehensive that it made it impossible to use this kind of natural progress model on its own as a meaningful guide for comprehensive economic and political reform.     

Showing and telling science – the integrated use of literature and images in the works of Erasmus Darwin and Alexander von Humboldt

ABSTRACT

In recent years, both the fields of literature and science and visual culture of science have addressed the importance of different visual and literary elements and their roles in establishing meaning and communication in science. In this article, I explore how visual and textual elements work to establish a narrative of plants in Erasmus Darwin’s The Botanic Garden (1791) and in Alexander von Humboldt’s Essai sur la géographie des plantes (1804). These two scientists employed literary and visual elements in order to construct their visions of the nature of plants in a time when the ideals of Enlightenment science gave way to a more holistic view of integrating the sciences and the arts. I, therefore, also discuss the analytical approach of integrated readings between the literary and visual elements of science.     

Das Reisen ist des Chemikers Lust - auf den Spuren Robert Bunsens. Zu Robert Wilhelm Bunsens 100. Todestag

The article deals with an aspect of the famous German chemist Robert Bunsen which has not been of much notice so far: his journeys. During his stay in Heidelberg (from 1852 on) Bunsen journeyed up to four months a year. Up to the age of seventy-eight, he travelled twice almost every year either in spring or autumn when there were no lectures at the university. He made his journeys for reasons of pleasure and in need of rest from teaching and research. In the 19th century such frequency of travelling was quite unusual even for a bachelor like Bunsen. Beeing an enthusiastic wayfarer Bunsen also travelled far away often, so for example to Italy twelve times (even to Sicily), four times to Scotland and England, and twice to Mallorca. - Bunsen's first nine week journey to Italy in 1843 disappointed him as to its scientific outcome. This journey was a turning-point since he had travelled before for scientific purposes only, beginning with the postdoctoral trip which Bunsen took 1831/32 (sponsored by his sovereign, the king of Hannover) to Berlin, Paris and Vienna for education and information matters. The article sets this journey as well as subsequent travels focusing on science (information, professional communication, experimental team-work) in the framework of continuing academic training. In the end of the 18th and in the 19th century such journeys for further academic education were mainly done at public expense by chemists and geologists as well as by mining and steel scientists to prepare and qualify themselves as either university professors or administrators for mining metallurgical industry. All these various forms of travelling (postdoctoral educational travels at public expense, scientific journeys, meetings for experimental team-work, expeditions, and recreational trips) served the communication within the scientific community. No one who wanted to belong to this community was able to escape such form of communication.     

Imperial Geography and the Medieval Peutinger Map

The Peutinger map is an extraordinary world map drawn c.1200 and long considered a copy of a Roman road map made for late antique travellers. This paper presents arguments against these assumptions and concludes that the lost original was more likely to be a Carolingian display map. Ninth‐century scribes had the expertise and resources necessary for creating an antiquarian work based on Roman itinerary lists, while Carolingian rulers had ample motivation for commissioning a map to display their Roman imperial ambitions.