The Wire: Progress,Paradox, and Disaster in the Strategic Networking of China, 1881–1901

This study of the introduction of telegraphy to China in the late-nineteenth century tells three interrelated stories: China’s pursuit of telegraphic sovereignty with its strategic networking of the empire in the period 1881–99; the functioning of China’s hybrid express courier-telegraphic communications infrastructure; and the international communications crisis during the Boxer Uprising and the “Siege of the Legations” in 1900. The material reality of two inter-connected networks—the privately owned Imperial Telegraph Administration network and the government-run telegraph network—allowed Qing-era Beijing and its provincial governors to communicate with much greater speed. The materiality of these networks—how this new communications technology affected the practical realities of government communications, including the ease of lateral communications between provincial governors—is explored in the context of the communications crisis of 1900. In May and June of 1900 all telegraph lines to Beijing, and throughout much of North China, were cut or otherwise destroyed. While these blinded Western governments are no longer able to exchange telegrams with their Beijing-based envoys, the Qing express courier system continued to operate. Moreover, both the court and provincial officials quickly improvised ad hoc telegraphic communication protocols through the use of “transfer telegrams” (zhuandian) that relied on mounted express couriers between Beijing and those North China telegraph stations with working network connections. This assessment of real-time secret imperial communications between the Qing court and the provinces is based on the documentary register Suishou dengji (Records of [documents] at hand) maintained by communications managers in the Grand Council. China lost its telegraphic sovereignty in the capital region when Allied troops occupied the Beijing-Tianjin line of communications in the summer and fall of 1900. Moreover, Western dreams of laying, landing, and controlling submarine cables on the China coast were finally realized in North China by the end of 1900. The British, therefore, were able to add a critical section to their planned global network of secure telegraphic communications. China’s recognition of the Western and Japanese right of protecting the Beijing-Tianjin line of communications was codified in Article 9 of the Boxer Protocol of September 1901. These losses of China’s telegraphic sovereignty would not be completely reversed until after 1949.     

宫廷文化背景下清代御用瓷器的装饰效果

受清代宫廷文化的影响,清宫御用瓷具有比较突出的装饰特点。主要表现在:突出皇家的至尊地位;追求精美绝伦的装饰效果;仿古创新,内涵丰富。本文结合清代宫廷文化的发展脉络及特征,对清代御用瓷装饰效果进行分析探讨。     

西汉帝陵选址研究

西汉帝陵的位置排列有必然和偶然因素。必然是因为西汉帝陵选址继承于传统墓地选择习俗,受制于风水思想的影响和政权稳固的需要;偶然是指皇帝本人的情感因素所起的的作用。西汉帝陵的分布是把历史传统、思想意识、地理形势、政治需要和帝王个人好恶结合的典范。     

明代御器厂设立时间的讨论

明代御器厂设立于何时？这一直是学界讨论的热点问题之一。本文通过梳理相关文献．并结合考古出土相关资料,认为其乃明成祖朱棣于洪武三十五年（1402）七月至十二月之间设立,洪武二年（1369）建立的陶厂与后来的御器厂在性质上有很大的不同。且在此基础上考证了明代御器厂名称的变化。     

唐代科举与历史教育

唐代统治者十分重视总结、借鉴历史经验,并自觉地将其运用到治理国家的政治实践中,确立了以经史为主要内容的科举考试制度。唐代科举考试中历史内容十分丰富,极大地促进了历史教育的传播,推动了历史教育的发展,对当前历史教育的开展具有一定的借鉴意义。     

John Bull’s Other Vineyard: Selling Australian Wine in Nineteenth-Century Britain

Nineteenth-century Australian wine makers saw Britain as the natural market for their wines and envisioned themselves as participants in a greater imperial economy, so Australian wine should be considered in discussions of imperial commodities and the reception of popular imperialism in advertising. The Australians’ concentrated efforts to sell their wines to British consumers were stymied, though, by high tariffs and negative impressions of the quality of Australian wines, and Australia would remain a marginal player in the British wine market until the second half of the twentieth century. This article uses four case studies to argue that Australian wines were promoted in Britain in the nineteenth century and that the marketing strategies hinged on associating Australian wines with imperial unity and the civilisation of Australian settler society.