A CAPTIVE'S STORY: PURITANS,PIRATES, AND THE DRAMA OF RECONCILIATION

Abstract

This essay examines the use of Hebrew sources in debates on church and state in civil war England. It fits within a developing historiography that seeks to uncover the deeper texture of early modern political discourse, and also poses questions about the prevalence of statist and secular understandings of public power in the context of the English civil war. Its specific focus is on debates on church government in the 1640s, studies of the Hebrew commonwealth in the 1650s, and the use of Hebraism by Hobbes and Harrington as an antidote to clericalism.     

The Peerage and the Revolution of 1688

Four points support the thesis that the English nobility played a critical role in the revolution. First, the later 17th‐century aristocracy was energetic, wealthy, and connected in ways facilitating political action within, and subsequently outside, the parliamentary arena. Second, it was a class conscious of status and privilege which many policies of James II bumped up against inadvertently, but often with negative consequence. Third, most peers were observant protestants in an age when religious belief, or at least the externals of practice, still mattered greatly. Fourth, habits of deference and traditional spheres of influence at the local level remained surprisingly intact despite intensive royal effort to reshape the lieutenancies, commissions of the peace, and municipal and other corporate bodies. Resistance to repeal of the Test Acts was the issue around which a leadership group emerged in the aristocracy. Initially it focused on a parliamentary solution in which an absolute majority in the house of lords could be counted on to stand firm no matter how the Commons might vote. In the absence of that opportunity and in the face of other events regarded as inimical to class, nation and the protestant interest, many peers turned away from natural alliance with the crown and – in the case of a forward group – conspired with the prince of Orange. Ultimately, more than a third of the nobility aligned itself with those peers intent on constraining the king's freedom of political action, an important factor contributing to his decision to flee.     

A Biographical Note on James Maxwell,Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod

This note seeks to clarify the course of the career of James Maxwell, gentleman usher of the black rod in several earlier Stuart parliaments. Maxwell was a Scot who followed James I south in 1603, serving in his household and that of Charles I, first as a gentleman usher daily waiter, and from 1619 as a groom of the bedchamber. In 1620 he secured the office of black rod. In 1642 he failed to follow the king to Oxford but remained with the parliament at Westminster, although largely delegating his duties as black rod to his associate, Alexander Thayne. In 1647, he was allowed by parliament to attend the king at Holdenby House. He died in 1650 as earl of Dirletoun in Scotland, although the circumstances in which he acquired this title are obscure.     

‘Becoming Beautiful in the Dance’: On the Formation of Ethical Modalities of Being in Yap,Federated States of Micronesia1

ABSTRACT This article examines how the ideals of self‐monitoring, self‐reflexivity, self‐restraint, and self‐governance, as well as assumptions pertaining to the mastery of the body, its movements, and forms of expressivity, lie at the heart of one of Yap's (Federated States of Micronesia) most important aesthetic institutions ‐ the dance. In so doing, it suggests that Yapese dancing and the forms of self‐vigilance that are associated with it can be understood as implicated in the formation of a distinctly Yapese moral modality of being. That is, Yapese dancing ‐ including its performance and appreciation ‐ plays a role in helping individuals craft particular forms of feeling, thinking, appreciating, judging, imagining, and behaving that are consonant with local understandings of the good person, the good life, and right action. A polite and agreeable exterior was maintained at all times to reveal nothing of internal mental states. Yapese frequently played games testing each other's abilities to keep their concentration and sense of restraint. Spectators at a Yapese dance who had forgotten themselves and had become enthralled by a particular dancer were singled out and reminded to chew their wad of betel (mu ko bu'), much to the delight of all present.     

Persian Monshi,Persian Jones: English Translations of Saʿdi’s Golestān from the Late Eighteenth to the Mid-Nineteenth Centuries

From the seventeenth century, Mosleh al-Din Sa?di Shirazi (d. 1291), a key figure in Persian classical literature, became the center of Europeans’ attention: his name appeared in travelogues and periodicals, and selections of his tales were published in miscellaneous Latin, German, French, and English works. To follow Sa?di’s impact on English literature, one needs to search for the beginning of the “Sa?di trend” and the reasons that led to the acceleration of the translation process of his works into the English language in the nineteenth century. This article examines the role of the British educational institutions in colonial India in the introduction of Sa?di and his Golestān to the English readership, and, in parallel, it uncovers the role of the Indo-Persian native scholars (monshis) who were involved in the preparation of translations. The article discusses how the perception of the British towards Sa?di’s literature developed in the first half of the nineteenth century and how their approach towards the translation of the “text” and its “style” evolved in the complete renderings of the Golestān.     

Pedestrian perils on the road to Irish identity in Joyce and Bowen

This article identifies and explores some major facets of an important theme in the works of James Joyce and Elizabeth Bowen that adds to our understanding of the complex ways in which both writers construed Irishness. Striving to acknowledge what they saw as the value of walking without embracing its English nationalist or Romantic associations, these modernists depict walking in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Ireland as a beneficial means of expressing and experimenting with different permutations of Irish identity, largely because of the opportunity it presented to negotiate a variety of dangers. By emphasising walking’s taxing and often perilous material realities, Joyce in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses and Bowen in Seven Winters and The Last September recast the idealised English Romantic view of walking as a darker and more menacing activity that nevertheless offers a useful strategy for articulating fluctuating conceptions of Irishness during the tumultuous period lasting roughly from the death of Parnell through to the Irish War of Independence.     

Metropolitan Scurvy in the Shadow of the Cook Voyages

Recent scholarship on scurvy in 18th-century Britain has focused on the disease in the context of voyages of exploration, especially those bound for the Pacific Ocean. Using materials from quack physicians, print culture and popular song, this essay contends that the problem of scurvy was just as acute in metropolitan London and elsewhere in Britain. By studying representations of the disease and its markets at home in Britain, it aims to shed new light on the treatment and perception of the disease at sea, particularly during the voyages of James Cook (1768?79).     

‘How can the people be restricted?’: the Mont Pèlerin Society and the problem of democracy, 1947–1998

Drawing upon archival material, this article offers an overview and discussion of the manner in which the topic of representative democracy was addressed during conferences of the Mont Pèlerin Society in the period between 1947 and 1998. I contend that the most common critique of democracy amongst MPS members was that democratic politics has the tendency to lead to interventions in the economy, thus distorting or even destroying the market mechanism. Yet most members were simultaneously convinced that democracy is a necessary condition of individual liberty, which meant that democracy, rather than being either a mere nuisance or an irredeemable obstacle that must be rejected wholesale, posed a genuine problem for them. Whilst at MPS conferences a myriad of solutions to the problem of democracy was explored, one such solution was suggested most often and theorized most thoroughly, namely the imposition of constitutional limits on popular power; a proposal that often amounted to an attempt radically to circumscribe citizens’ influence on the legislature. I conclude by reflecting upon the implications of these findings for the scholarly study of neoliberal thought on democracy.     

Chancellors,Presidents and Speakers: Presiding Officers in the Scottish Parliament before the Restoration*

As a unicameral assembly for most of its history, the Scottish parliament was presided over by the chief officer of state, the chancellor. Before 1603, he presided in the presence of the monarch, who was an active participant in parliaments, in contrast to the custom in England. After the union of the crowns, the chancellor presided in the presence of the monarch's representative, the king's commissioner. As with the Speaker and the lord chancellor in the English parliament, it was customary for him to operate as an agent of the crown. He also presided over the drafting committee, the lords of the articles. During parliamentary sessions, there were also semi-formal deliberative meetings of the individual estates (prelates, nobles, burgesses and, from 1592, ‘barons’, that is, lairds sitting as commissioners of the shires), each presided over by one of their own number. The Covenanting revolution of 1638 led to radical procedural reform. This included replacing the chancellor with an elected ‘president’ (Latin preses), chosen by the membership at the beginning of each session. With separate meetings of the estates becoming a formal part of parliament's procedures, there was an elected president for each estate, sometimes referred to as ‘Speakers’ for they would speak for their estates in plenary sessions of parliament.     

英国革命时期共和主义者对“自由”的理解

目前,共和主义已成为学术界的重要研究内容,文章将对英国革命时期的共和主义,特别是共和主义者对"自由"概念的理解进行初步的探讨,以期深化对共和主义思想的研究。回顾英国革命时期这些共和主义者对自由的表述,以及对思想家霍布斯理论的批评,可以看到霍布斯的那种"不受阻碍"的"消极自由"和共和派"避免依从"的"第三种自由"这样两种不同自由观的对立,而不同的自由观又导致了对不同政治体制的设计。因此,对于实现和保障我们的自由而言,回顾发生在英国革命时期的这场辩论就显得特别有意义。它激发起我们重新思考建立什么样的国家或者政治体制才能使人们避免受到强制和奴役,才能切实保障其自由和权利。