Banal and everyday (inter)nationalism: French and Italian anarchist exiles in London, 1870s–1914

This article explores the anarchists' multilayered theoretical and practical engagement with the concepts and performance of nations, nationalism and national belonging, by applying the frameworks of banal nationalism (understood as an ideology) and everyday nationhood (the daily practices in which nation and nationhood are enacted) as analytical categories, to investigate the Italian and French anarchist exile groups in London between 1870 and 1914. Adopting these theoretical categories proves fruitful in probing the anarchists' perception and enactment of the idea of nation and national belonging, contributing to the literature on the relationship between pre-1914 socialist movements and (inter)nationalism and highlighting the specificity of anarchism therein. Using Fox and Miller-Idriss's four categories of everyday nationhood, we show that while the anarchists explicitly subverted the everyday performance of nationhood, redeploying it along internationalist lines, some forms of attachment to the national did endure and were in fact not always contradictory with anarchist internationalism. Looking at the exilic rituals of this intensely diasporic group thus complicates the simplistic but still pervasive view of a monolithic ideological internationalism and rejection of the national on the part of anarchists.     

THE ACTUAL AND PERCEIVED EFFECTS OF FLOODPLAIN LAND-USE REGULATIONS ON RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY VALUES IN LONDON, ONTARIO

The impacts associated with floodplain management adjustments should be understood. This paper addresses this need by describing the perceived and actual impacts floodplain regulations have had on residential land values in a portion of London, Ontario. The institutional arrangements for floodplain regulation and the actual practice of regulation in the City of London for the period 1978–1989 are described. Actual impacts on land values were determined through use of a geographical matching technique based on data obtained from mls sources and permit data available at the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority office. Perceptual data were acquired from a questionnaire survey of floodplain landowners. Findings indicate that most residents perceived that no impact on land values was associated with floodplain regulations. This view was supported by the analysis of actual home transactions     

Between science and empire: the diplomatic struggle over Mesopotamian antiquities in Lisbon (1914–1926)

A powerful curiosity to discover the ancient world – reaching its peak in the nineteenth century – led to British, French, and German museums to enhance their collections with a great number of Mesopotamian antiquities. Most of these were the product of excavation work, which took years, followed by a shipping process fraught with hurdles and delays – much as when Babylonian and Assyrian antiquities were stranded in Portugal over the period 1914–26. In that case Portuguese officials seized the hoard of Babylonian and Assyrian items due to be sent to Germany at the beginning of the First World War by the German Oriental Society, which had carried out excavation works in Ottoman territories in the name of Kaiser II Wilhelm. The extensive British efforts and diplomatic exchanges aimed at bringing the pieces to London after the war, presents us with important clues regarding ownership disputes over antiquities, and the imperial struggle to acquire the cultural heritage of the near east. This study reveals that, under the existing legal framework, the items eventually taken to Berlin actually belonged to the Imperial Museum in Istanbul, and analyzes the discourse of ‘scientific concern’ constructed by British diplomacy.     

Co-Producing Mobilities: negotiating geographical knowledge in a conference session on the move

In an experimental session entitled Co-Producing Mobilities held at the 2014 Royal Geographical Society-Institute of British Geographers Annual Conference, 20 mobility scholars travelled around London on foot, by bus and by Tube to investigate how mobilities could be considered co-produced. In this paper, 18 participants reflect on this collaborative experiment and on how it influenced their thinking about mobilities, geographical knowledge and pedagogy. Contributions cast light on the function of conferences and the multiple forms of pedagogy they enable, and provide guiding resources for those now wanting to continue such experiments.     

The Partisan Nature of Race and Imperialism: Dadabhai Naoroji,M. M. Bhownaggree and the Late Nineteenth-Century British Politics of Indian Nationalism

This article examines Dadabhai Naoroji's and Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhownaggree's contribution to politically partisan ideologies on Indian empire as London MPs and reform advocates late in the nineteenth century. Exploring politically nuanced, cultural definitions of racial difference, this article reveals how their participation in British parliamentary and press debate on Indian nationalism adhered to distinct liberal and conservative imperial political conceptions of race and governance during this period. Beyond an analysis of Naoroji and the Indian National Congress's relationship with British liberalism, this essay explores Bhownaggree's contribution to a sustained conservative imperial tradition. This article postulates that Edmund Burke's separation from a liberal imperial rationality and a British Tory critique of liberalism informed a nineteenth-century conservative governing justification in India predicated on conciliating organic national racial difference. As Naoroji's devotion, as a Liberal MP for Central Finsbury (1892–95), to a liberal civilising mission informed an advocacy of political self-governance in Britain and India, Bhownaggree's pursuit of female and technical education reform while Conservative MP for Bethnal Green N.E. (1895–1905) represented a conservative espousal of racial difference.     

Looking into the ‘black box’ of heritage protection: analysis of conservation area disputes in London through the eyes of planning inspectors

The paper analyses conflicts associated with policies to protect the built heritage. Such conflicts relate to a host of tensions between private and public concerns and specifically between pro-development and pro-conservation approaches. To examine these cleavages, the paper operationalises private and public concerns over heritage by asking if there is a recognisable set of justifications that policy-makers use for supporting a pro-conservation or alternatively a pro-development approach? To do this, the paper looks at appeals decided by Her Majesty’s Planning Inspectors in London. The findings show that although they are not dichotomous, public and private interests in heritage development can be factually recognised in the setting of appeals. Moreover, the paper finds that Planning Inspectors often channel conflicts through the prism of certain public interests, namely, protecting architectural and physical attributes of the building and its surroundings. Although inspectors are instructed to actively weigh in other (potentially overriding) considerations in heritage appeals, such as socio-economic and proprietary issues, these considerations do not appear to have the same standing within the decision-making process.     

Peripheral Players? German Colonial Interests,The Press,and the Spirit of Locarno

The Locarno Conference, held on 5–16 October 1925, represented the culmination of nearly two years of diplomatic communication between the foreign offices of Germany, Britain, and France. The conference was an attempt to normalize relations between the former Allied powers and Germany's new Weimar Republic and more tightly bind Germany's politics and economy to Western Europe. Colonial German lobbies hoped that the Locarno talks heralded the return of empire and an end to Germany's banishment from the work of the ‘civilizing mission’ and the humiliating experience of being a ‘postcolonial state in a still colonial world’. Public scrutiny from false press reports about the restoration of the German colonies emanating from Germany, France, Britain and its colonies and dominions, and even the United States complicated matters for Locarno delegates by forcing discussion of off-agenda topics. This article interrogates how the Colonial German lobby influenced the Locarno Conference through activity in the international public sphere, how they managed a partial victory in the wake of Locarno, and more importantly, the Colonial German lobby learned new and better strategies for playing properly to public opinion and international bureaucracies.     

The correspondence between Élisée Reclus and Pëtr Kropotkin as a source for the history of geography

The State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF) contains a corpus of around one hundred letters sent by Élisée Reclus to Pëtr Kropotkin between 1882 and 1905. The correspondence is mainly concerned with their geographical works, notably the collaboration of Kropotkin with the Nouvelle Géographie Universelle (1876-1894) and the Brussels edition of Kropotkin’s Orographie de la Sibérie (1904), edited by Reclus. In this paper, we deal first with the importance of this source: it is an example of the material work of a network of geographers who were at the same time the founders of the international anarchist movement. We suggest the correspondence falls into two parts: the first period (1882-1886) when Reclus was in exile in Switzerland after the Paris Commune of 1871, and Kropotkin was in prison in France; and the second period (1888-1905) when the two anarchist geographers discuss the role of geographical education, historical geography in Europe and its part in the globalisation of their era. The archive also contains significant evidence of their relationships with British geography: Kropotkin lived in London and joined the Royal Geographical Society and was on familiar terms with leading Fellows, such as John Scott Keltie and Halford Mackinder. The paper addresses the significance of the correspondence for understanding the relationships between geography, politics and public education, and the role of these heterodox geographers in the construction of geographical knowledge. The paper is accompanied by the publication, for the first time, of an edited selection of the letters.     

中和堂的兴起、发展及其与兴中会、同盟会的关系

论文根据已获得的相关文献、档案,对兼具革命团体性质的秘密会党中和堂的兴起、发展及其与兴中会、同盟会的关系,进行了探讨和阐述。认为中和堂是革命推进的直接产物,随着革命形势的不断发展,它与兴中会、同盟会的关系或疏或密,其在革命中所发挥的作用也有所不同。香港中和堂（1897—1899）致力于联络秘密会党,重组革命力量;横滨中和堂（1898--1901）在特定时期内实际成为当地革命派活动的重要力量;新马中和堂的早期（1901--1906）努力,为当地革命运动和革命势力奠定了必要的基础。新马中和堂最终与同盟会分道扬镳,主要原因在于其散漫组织不适应革命斗争的需要。革命派联络中和堂的方式与致公堂有着明显不同,对此笔者也略作比较。     

New books

Climatic deterioration in the later middle ages was associated with an increasing frequency of marine storm surges affecting the coasts of the southern North Sea. This paper investigates the impact of storm surges upon the lands bordering the Thames estuary and tidal river between the mid-thirteenth and mid-fifteenth centuries. Land use in the coastal and riverine marshes is reviewed, and the means and costs of defence against marine flooding explored. The impact of flooding upon human use of the marshlands, upon the suburbs of medieval London and upon the Thames fisheries are all investigated. Stress is placed upon the complex interaction of economic and environmental factors in determining the response to the threat of marine flooding.