Transnationalism,Transgovernmentalism and Canada–US Relations in the Twenty-first Century

This article assesses the contemporary dynamics of transnationalism in Canada–US relations as the interaction of three key factors: market-driven or “bottom-up” economic integration, sectoral differentiation embedded in transgovernmental relations, and societal (or cultural) transnationalism. It also notes the disruptive and potentially transformative effects of transnational and transgovernmental forces beyond North America which are becoming increasingly central to the calculations of policymakers and major interest groups in both countries. It concludes that transnationalism is a multidimensional phenomenon that appears more likely to facilitate mutual accommodation between the US and its North American neighbors embedded within broader national and international policy streams than to build a broad North American consensus on policy harmonization for the foreseeable future.     

Canadian Political Economy and the Great Recession of 2008–9: The Politics of Coping with Economic Crisis

The emerging comparative political economy literature on the Great Recession of 2008–9 has devoted an increasing amount of time analyzing how domestic politics and the economic crisis were jointly determined. This article seeks to explore certain aspects of this dynamic relationship in the context of Canada, a country that has received little coverage in the comparative literature so far.     

Utilizing U–Pb CA-TIMS dating to calibrate the Middle to Late Jurassic spore-pollen zonation of the Surat Basin,Australia to the geological time-scale

Wainman, C.C., Hannaford, C., Mantle, D. & McCabe, P.J., April.2018. Utilizing U–Pb CA-TIMS dating to calibrate the Middle to Late Jurassic spore-pollen zonation of the Surat Basin, Australia to the geological time-scale. Alcheringa XX, xx-xx.

Spore-pollen palynostratigraphy is commonly used to subdivide and correlate Jurassic continental successions in eastern Australia and thus aid the construction of geological models for the petroleum and coal industries. However, the current spore-pollen framework has only been tenuously calibrated to the geological time-scale. Age determinations are reliant on indirect correlations of ammonite and dinoflagellate assemblages from New Zealand, the North West Shelf of Australia and Southeast Asia to the standard European stages. New uranium-lead chemical abrasion thermal ionization mass spectrometry (U–Pb CA-TIMS) dates from 19 tuff beds in the Middle–Upper Jurassic Injune Creek Group of the Surat Basin enables regional spore-pollen palynostratigraphic zones to be precisely dated for the first time. These results show the base of the APJ4.2 and APJ4.3 subzones are similar in age to previous estimates (Middle Jurassic, Bathonian) from indirect palynostratigraphic correlation. However, the base of the APJ5 Zone and the APJ6.1 Subzone may be somewhat younger than previously estimated, possibly by as much as 2.5 and 4.2 Myrs, respectively. The continued utilization of U–Pb CA-TIMS dates will further refine the absolute ages of these zones, improve the inter- and intra-basinal correlation of Middle–Upper Jurassic strata in eastern Australian basins and greatly enhance intercontinental correlations.

Carmine Christopher Wainman [carmine.wainman@adelaide.edu.au] and Peter James McCabe [peter.mccabe@adelaide,edu.au] Australian School of Petroleum, University of Adelaide, SA, 5005, Australia; Carey Hannaford [carey.hannaford@mgpalaeo.com.au] and Daniel Mantle [dan.mantle@mgpalaeo.com.au] MGPalaeo Pty Ltd, 5 Arvida Street, Malaga, WA, 6090, WA, Australia.     

Middle–Upper Jurassic marine gastropods from central Saudi Arabia

Ferrari, M., El-Hedeny, M., Zakhera, M., El-Sabbagh, A. & Al Farraj, S., May 2018. Middle?Upper Jurassic marine gastropods from central Saudi Arabia. Alcheringa.

A total of 68 gastropod specimens are reported from the Middle?Upper Jurassic sedimentary successions exposed at central Saudi Arabia. The studied material comes from the Tuwaiq Mountain and Hanifa formations at the Khashm al Qaddiyah, Dirab, Jabal al Abakkayn and Maáshabah sections. Thirteen species are identified, described and illustrated. Among them, a new Aporrhais species (A. sauditica sp. nov.) is introduced. In addition, two further possible new Pseudomelania species from the same strata are mentioned. Other members of the assemblage include Kosmomphalus? sp. aff. K. reticulatus Fischer, Bourguetia? sp. aff. B. saemanni (Oppel), Bourguetia? sp., Ampullospira sp., Globularia? sp. cf. G. bajociana Fischer, Purpuroidea sp. aff. P. glabra Morris and Lycett, Purpuroidea sp., Cossmannea sp. aff. C. desvoidyi (d’Orbigny), Cryptoplocus sp. aff. C. depressus (Voltz) and Actaeonina? sp. Stratigraphically, seven species of this gastropod assemblage were only reported from the Middle Jurassic, whereas the other six ones are extending from the Middle to the Upper Jurassic of the studied succession. As compared with their gastropod content, the Khashm al Qaddiyah represents the richest section (33 out of 68 specimens, 48.5%), whereas the Maáshabah section showed an impoverished gastropod assemblage (only three specimens, 4.4%). The species reported here show paleobiogeographical affinities with coeval gastropod assemblages from India, east Africa, Middle East (Israel, the Sinai of Egypt) and western Tethys. The identified species confirm three depositional settings: open shelf lagoon, shoal/fore-shoal and open marine environments. The lower degree of fragmentation, poor sorting and scarcity of abrasion indicate a parautochthonous faunal assemblage.

Mariel Ferrari [mferrari@cenpat-conicet.gob.ar] Instituto Patagónico de Geología y Paleontología (IPGP-CCT CONICET-CENPAT), Bvd. Brown 2915, U9120CD, Puerto Madryn?Chubut, Argentina; Magdy El-Hedeny* [mmelhedeny@gmail.com] Department of Geology, Faculty of Science, Alexandria University, Alexandria 21568, Egypt; Mohamed Zakhera? [zakhera40@yahoo.com] Department of Geology, Faculty of Science, Aswan University, Aswan 81528, Egypt; Ahmed El-Sabbagh [ah.elsabbagh@gmail.com] Department of Geology, Faculty of Science, Alexandria University, Alexandria 21568, Egypt; Saleh Al Farraj [salfarraj@hotmail.com] College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh 12371, Saudi Arabia. *Also affiliated with Deanship of Scientific Research, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia. ?Also affiliated with Vice Rectorate for Development and Quality, Najran University, Najran 11001, Saudi Arabia.     

Crisis,challenge and choice: recent theoretical trends of anti-modernism and Western studies in Chinese history

During the last three decades, so-called “postism” (a Chinese non-professional, invented referent to postcolonialism, postmodernism and poststructuralism) has powerfully criticized and challenged the hegemonic ideology of the long-standing Euro–American centralism and the authoritative discourse of modernism in Western intellectual and academic circles, albeit it with various different resonances in Chinese and other non-Western societies. By tracing the trajectory of Western conceptual ideas from classical “rational” interpretations of history, this article tries to construct the inner connections and evolution between these conceptions and ways of thinking, and to summarize their impacts on and reactions from the field of Chinese historical studies. This article suggests that these new trends have definitely cast light on macro ideological and perspective concerns but have been less fruitful in concrete historical studies.     

The return of Xinjiang to Chinese central control during the late period of the Sino–Japanese War: a reappraisal based on Chiang Kai-shek's Diary

After the outbreak of the Pacific War, while considering taking back the Japanese-occupied areas, the Nationalist government also started to think of recovering the frontier regions, which had been somewhat out of China's control under the influence of a major ally of China, the USSR. For a long time, Xinjiang had a very close relationship with the Soviet Union under the rule of Sheng Shicai, and the central government of China had little direct control. In April of 1942, Sheng Shicai, suspicious of a Soviet conspiracy to overthrow his rule, conducted mass arrests in Xinjiang, causing a sudden deterioration in the relationship between Xinjiang and the Soviets. At first, the Soviet Union attempted to intimidate Sheng in order to prevent him from turning to the central government, but failed. Paying no heed to the alienation policy of the Soviets, the Nationalist government soon decided to buttress Sheng in an effort to place Xinjiang under centralized control. The Nationalist government first set out to take back the diplomacy of Xinjiang, followed by expropriation of formerly Soviet-controlled enterprises and forced removal of Soviet military advisors, experts, technicians and army personnel from Xinjiang. In the meantime, a large number of party, government, economic, cultural and educational personnel were dispatched by the central government to Xinjiang to infiltrate various sectors. With the weakening of his own power and increasing conflicts with the central government, Sheng Shicai planned another turn of events. By executing a new round-up, this time to cleanse Xinjiang of the central government's forces, Sheng re-oriented his regime towards the Soviet Union. Yet his gesture was turned down by the USSR because of his loss of credibility. Well prepared militarily, the Nationalist government eventually forced Sheng Shicai to leave Xinjiang, which then was almost fully restored to the authority of the central government.     

Revised conodont and fusuline biostratigraphy of the Bamchi Formation (Pyongan Supergroup) at the Bamchi section,Yeongwol and the Carboniferous–Permian boundary in South Korea

Wang, Q., Wang, Y., Qi, Y., Wang, X., Choh, S.J., Lee, D.C. & Lee, D.J., November 2017. Yeongwol and the Carboniferous–Permian boundary in South Korea. Alcheringa 42, 245–258. ISSN 0311-5518

Six conodont and one fusuline zones are recognized on basis of a total of 25 conodont and 13 fusuline species (including seven unidentified species or species given with cf. or aff. in total) from the Bamchi Formation, Yeongwol, Korea. The conodont zones include the Streptognathodus bellus, S. isolatus, S. cristellaris, S. sigmoidalis, S. fusus and S. barskovi zones in ascending order, which can be correlated with the conodont zones spanning the uppermost Gzhelian to Asselian Age of the Permian globally. The fusuline zone is named the Rugosofusulina complicata–Pseudoschwagerina paraborealis zone. The co-occurrence of the conodont Streptognathodus isolatus (the Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point index for the base of Permian) and Pseudoschwagerina (a Permian inflated fusuline) indicates that the Carboniferous–Permian boundary can be placed in the lower part of the Bamchi Formation in South Korea.

Qiulai Wang* [qlwang@nigpas.ac.cn] CAS Key Laboratory of Economic Stratigraphy and Palaeogeography, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, East Beijing Road 39, Nanjing 210008, PR China; Yue Wang* [yuewang@nigpas.ac.cn] LPS, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, East Beijing Road 39, Nanjing 210008, PR China; Yuping Qi* [ypqi@nigpas.ac.cn] Xiangdong Wang* [xdwang@nigpas.ac.cn] CAS Key Laboratory of Economic Stratigraphy and Palaeogeography, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, East Beijing Road 39, Nanjing 210008, PR China; Suk-Joo Choh [sjchoh@korea.ac.kr] Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Korea University, Seoul 02841, Republic of Korea; Dong-Chan Lee [dclee@chungbuk.ac.kr] Department of Earth Sciences Education, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju 28644, Republic of Korea; Dong-Jin Lee [djlee@andong.ac.kr] Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Andong National University, Andong 36729, Republic of Korea. *Also affiliated with: University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19A Yuquan Road, Shijingshan District, Beijing 100049, PR China.     

The Emergence of a Story Space

For centuries, the Club War, a popular uprising on Finnish territory in the 1590s, constituted a minor side story in Swedish royal historiography. After the Napoleonic Wars, it was quickly appropriated as one of the most canonical historical events in the emerging Finnish national history. This article argues that, in order to understand the role of the Club War in early 19th-century Finnish historical culture, it is necessary to trace its interpretive tradition backwards in time, across established borders of national historiographies, in a thematic, transtemporal, and comparative framework. The paper will discuss eight pieces of Swedish and Finnish history writing from 1620 to 1860, focusing on the storylines, attributes attached to the protagonists, and historical agency allocated to different social groups against a backdrop of sources available within each context of writing, in order to pinpoint and analyse moments when the story space of the event altered. The article will demonstrate that textual traditions of regions that formerly belonged to multi-ethnic or conglomerate states provide particularly interesting material for transtemporal historiography. Through this case study, the article also argues that Swedish and Finnish historiography of the early 19th century should be studied as one, entangled, textual culture.     

清代东北八旗界官研究

清代东北地区基层社会的官制,长期具有"旗民分治"的特点。在各处八旗驻防地,尽管八旗制度长期存在,但在八旗制度内部,为应对旗人越旗居住、耕种,以及同一村屯内旗民杂处等若干新问题,各地方旗署将驻防地的村屯按照地域划分成若干界,拣选在旗当差的佐领、防御及世职云骑尉等,委为一界之界官,专办管界内的各项差务。清代东北各八旗驻防地的界官名称不同,设置时间不一,所司职责呈现一定的时空差异,但其旗界内基层承管官的角色不曾改变。界官所承办差务繁杂,主要是维护管界内的社会治安,承办界内旗民人等的涉农事务,督倡本界旗民的风俗教化等。东北地区的八旗界官,在咸丰至同治年间发展到鼎盛时期,自同治朝以降的同光宣三朝,因民治地方官的增设,练、防军及乡团练勇的募练,尤其是光绪末年至宣统年间四乡巡警的创办,八旗界官的职权被分割,因而迅速走向衰亡,但其作为清代东北八旗驻防地区基层行政官制演进中重要一环的地位无可替代。     

北部湾与中国近代海界问题

本根据历史事实对北部湾问题及中国近代海界问题进行了分析,提出了一些值得进一步探讨的观点。认为在历史上海界的概念至少包括以下方面,由自然洋流不同流向划分出的不同海域,自然洋流不具有主权意义;由岛屿、沙洲群划分出的海域,作为界限的岛屿、沙洲群也不具有主权意义;由军事防区划分出的不同海域,其界限都以岛屿群、沙洲群为识别标志。