Of peasants and settlers: ideals of Portugueseness,imperial nationalism and European settlement in Africa,c.1930–c.1945

This article examines policies and ideas of European settlement in Africa through the lens of imperial rhetoric and nationalist imaginations in Portugal during the first decades of Salazar’s dictatorship. Even though European settlement in Africa was under discussion since Brazil’s independence, the debate was invigorated in the 1930s. This article will place the renewed interest within the wider context of transnational migration, world economic crisis and inter-European competition for colonial dominance before the Second World War. Although European settlement was perceived as necessary both in terms of domestic social regulation and international competition at the time, state-sponsored settlements in Portuguese Africa were not a reality until the worldwide process of decolonization had started. On the contrary, not only did Portuguese political elites not invest in settlement schemes, but they actually adopted measures to curb migration to the colonies up until 1945, contradicting their imperialist rhetoric at home. The author argues that the contradiction between rhetoric and practice needs to be analysed in light of the growing desire to intensify control over space and people in European settlements in Africa. Barriers to block undesirable migrants from the metropole were only one part of the process of forcing an idealized vision of Portugal and Portugueseness into reality in both the colonies and the metropole. This article concludes that policies and ideas of European Settlement cannot be dissociated from the anti-urban rhetoric and anti-modernizing agenda of Estado Novo.     

Transportation corridors and political evolution in highland Mesoamerica: Settlement analyses incorporating GIS for northern Tlaxcala, Mexico

Investigations of the functional utility and social elaboration of natural transportation corridors contribute to generating more comprehensive understandings of complex macroregional phenomena such as political evolution. In this article, highland central Mexican transportation corridors are analyzed through GIS applications and a reconsideration of settlement data from an important corridor in northern Tlaxcala. The location of the study region, within the corridor connected to the northeastern Basin of Mexico, makes it particularly relevant for examining interregional exchanges and the transformation of a more rural landscape adjacent to core areas of urbanization and state political expansion. Conclusions drawn from the study are largely complementary to the interpretations made by the surveyors [Merino Carrión, B.L., 1989. La Cultura Tlaxco. Serie Arqueológica, Colección Científica 174, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City], but provide an updated assessment of prehispanic political evolution ca. 900 BC–AD 1519. Specifically, the study tracks the evolution of early ceremonial centers, Teotihuacan’s territorial expansion through the region, political balkanization following the collapse of Teotihuacan, and the establishment of small, independent polities encountered by the Spanish. New contributions include quantitative measures relevant to assessing the systemic integration of the region and the social value of the corridor during different chronological phases, elucidating the differing expansionary trajectories of Teotihuacan and the Aztec Empire.     

清代贵州锦屏林木交易习惯的法律经济学分析

清代锦屏林木交易习惯,以契约、碑文等为主要载体,在南方山地少数民族习惯法中属于初阶成文[1]形式的习惯法。它们不仅反映了当地历史上民族经济发展的客观情况,而且也是老百姓自觉地创造民间法和政府正确运用法律和经济手段治理边疆的真实写照。本文兼采描述与分析相结合的方法,对田野调查的情况作一定层面的小结。     

Deducing rationales and political tactics in the partitioning of Ireland, 1912–1925

Partition is an intrinsically abstract and simplistic blunt instrument applied on a complex mosaic of peculiarities that constitute reality. There are very few modern states that are ethnically or culturally homogenous. In this context, partition is a subjective territorial tactic that can treat or exacerbate symptoms of historical, political, and geographical difficulties. While exhibiting comparative scope, especially to the role of the British State and the dynamics of national majorities and minorities, the circumstances concerning the partitioning of Ireland deviate from patterns gleaned from other examples as the evolving bases of its partition between 1912 and 1925 mutated at various stages with regard to geography, political status, and function. However, Ireland served as an important historical precedent in illustrating the disparity between the original intent and eventual result of its partition. Indeed, one can extrapolate from the Irish example that partition is better understood as a catalytic tactical process that radically reconfigures the political and geographical dimensions of conflict rather than as a decisive political instrument solving it.     

《归潜志》史论的内涵与意旨

刘祁《归潜志》作于金亡之后,这是一部记述金代人物事迹的著作,其史论着眼于文治的视角,反思了金代兴亡的原因.探讨了士风与国祚之间的关系.另一方面,《归潜志》史论也反映了作者对新皇朝文治的希翼,具有明显的政治意义.     

苏丹1884-1898年粮食战争及其影响探析

1884-1898年,苏丹萨瓦金和埃及边疆省的英埃当局利用自身优势持续地引发粮食短缺,试图"饿死马赫迪叛乱"并重新征服苏丹。马赫迪国家采取各种手段积极因应,对外通过走私、袭扰、战争等手段突破封锁,对内通过控制土地和粮食资源分配统驭民众和军队,但整体上处于劣势。从实际效果看,英埃当局在北方尼罗河流域被动的粮食战争有效地遏制了马赫迪军队的进攻,在东部红海山区积极发动的粮食战争却因为当地盟友和英国海军的不配合半途而废。马赫迪国家的覆灭和英埃当局(1898-1956)的建立一定程度上都是粮食危机的发展结果,萨纳特西塔饥荒是19世纪80年代粮食战争的高潮,双方为此展开的冲突和斗争深刻影响了现代苏丹社会。     

河南荥阳鲁庄墓地晋墓发掘简报

鲁庄墓地位于河南荥阳市贾峪镇鲁庄村,为配合郑州豫能热电有限公司的建设,河南省文物考古研究院对其进行考古发掘,发现西晋时期墓葬27座。墓葬排列有序,出土遗物较为丰富,为研究中原地区西晋时期的葬制、葬俗提供了实物资料。     

楼兰简纸文书西晋纪年中断始末

自曹魏以来,楼兰文书一直行用中原纪年,却于晋武帝泰始六年(270)中断。根据楼兰简纸文书、元康三年(293)苻信简等出土资料,结合传世文献,作者认为学界已有树机能叛乱使纪年中断的观点恐不能成立,苻信简透露出西部鲜卑南下滋扰,西晋为此采取了收缩政策。张轨刺凉后,彻底肃清了河西寇乱,重建了楼兰的屯戍,楼兰文书得以再现西晋正朔。     

‘Gathered on the Point of a Bayonet’: the Negara Pasundan and the Colonial Defence of Indonesia, 1946–50

ABSTRACT

This article examines the rise of the Negara Pasundan, or Pasundan State: a distinct polity in West Java that was run by the Sundanese - with Dutch consent - during the Indonesian War for Independence (1945–9). The argument engages with several debates connected to decolonisation, examining colonial violence and its perpetrators, loyalty, and the often neglected role of indigenous agency. In contrast with cases where colonial coercion brought local elites and militias to the defence of the European authorities, Sundanese leaders themselves chose to support the Dutch. This support, however, should never be mistaken for loyalty to the Dutch or their empire. Rather, the Sundanese leadership unilaterally renegotiated the Dutch-Sundanese alliance as soon as the fortunes of war shifted. To safeguard the political future of their negara, the Sundanese proved willing to side with the party that initially set out to destroy them and the Dutch: the Republik Indonesia.     

Reflections on the Transformation in Mexico

This article offers panoramic portrait of Mexican politics since the election victory of Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s Morena movement in July 2018. Along its path to overwhelming success, Morena presented a vision of a historic transformation of a thoroughly corrupted Mexican state. Morena’s opponents viewed its emergence with anxiety, as a radical, populist, leftist force. But the new regime has been extremely cautious, affirming existing geopolitical and security commitments and pursuing conservative macroeconomic policies. Working within these constraints, the López Obrador government has largely focused on a moral transformation of the state. The context of Morena’s victory was the ongoing collapse in the Mexican state’s monopoly of force and its historic complicity with criminal and paramilitary violence. The government’s post-election approach has included a public reckoning with state crimes, from 1968 to Ayotzinapa. But its primary strategy has been one of ostentatious political asceticism. Rhetorically, this encompasses ideas of ‘political love’ and ‘republican austerity’; in practical terms, it includes campaigns of public frugality and the performative vulnerability of the president himself. In closing, we analyse the proposed National Guard, arguably the centrepiece of Morena’s putative state transformation, a policy condemned by some as renewed militarisation in the name of utopian republicanism.