Count Karl von Zinzendorf 's ‘New Accountancy’: The Structure of Austrian Government Finance in Peace and War, 1781–1791

This article examines various British proposals for co-operation with other European imperial powers to counter the rebellion of the American colonies or curb the pretentions of the new United States. Historians have paid little attention to these projects, mainly because none of them eventuated in the co-operation their authors envisaged. But their lack of success is not a reason to dismiss them as unimportant; their failure reveals much about British attitudes at the time.     

The production of penicillin in wartime China and Sino-American definitions of “normal” microbiology

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the history of domestic penicillin production in China during the Second Sino-Japanese War, focusing on the work of the National Epidemic Prevention Bureau (NEPB) to identify, isolate, cultivate, and extract the drug. This work took place just as the American Bureau for Medical Aid to China discussed plans to establish an American pilot plant for Chinese penicillin manufacture, which would directly transfer technologies and personnel from the US to China. While American advisers saw the basic conditions of wartime China as actively obstructing the highly technical project of penicillin production, researchers at the NEPB relied crucially upon that same local environment to identify useful molds and find substitutions for key materials in successfully manufacturing penicillin in Kunming, capital of Yunnan Province in southwest China.     

“Melismas medievales” en Concierto Barroco: enumeración y artificiosidad de Alejo Carpentier

The distinction between condensation, proliferation, and substitution defines, according to Severo Sarduy, the tenets of the Latin American neobarroque movement. This article, though sympathetic to the ideas of Sarduy, aims at clarifying the terms in which Alejo Carpentier conducts a recreation and evocation of the baroque movement in Europe and America. Taking Leo Spitzer's definition of chaotic enumeration as a focal point, it aims to clarify the mechanisms of literary composition in Carpentier. It argues that Carpentier's vision relies on an absolute yet universal and inclusive role of America in the shaping of the modern world.     

‘What’s left of the flag’: the Confederate and Jacobite ‘lost cause’ myths,and the construction of mythic identities through conflict commemoration

The use of battlefields and associated conflict sites provide tantalising hooks upon which to hang tapestries of grand narratives relating to regional and national identities, often defined by what the identities are not. This paper examines the unlikely connection between Jacobite and Confederate romanticism, and how battlefields, conflict related sites, and symbolic material culture are mobilised through active commemoration by some heritage groups in support of a created, mythic identity of a ‘Southern Celt’. Furthermore, it examines the production of a mythic history that whitewashes and recasts the Confederacy, the reality of the Civil War, and the Confederate Flag, while at the same time minimising, hiding, or ignoring competing narratives.