To Avenge the Burnt Statues and Temples of the Gods: The Religious Background of the Greek Wars with the “Barbarians”

Abstract

In The Clash of Civilizations (1996) Samuel Huntington placed the Persian Wars at the beginning of the long line of clashes between civilizations. To the modern reader the emphasis Huntington puts on the role played by religion in defining Athenian civilization and its conflict with the “barbarians” appears to be consistent with Herodotus’ position on these wars. However, this position overlooks the fact that the ancient polytheistic beliefs and cults implied a particular attitude to religion, unlike that of monotheistic religions. In the ancient Mediterranean world the temples and sacred places were to be universally respected and any violation of this rule was regarded as sacrilege that justified persecution of the wrongdoers, whose ethnicity was of no, or only of secondary, importance. The purpose of this article is to survey the main passages in Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon that treat the wars between the Greeks and Persians and between Greek city-states, and to demonstrate that the line dividing defenders (or avengers) of divine cults from offenders of the gods was not drawn between Greeks and barbarians, but between defenders and offenders.     

A proxy geopolitics of poppies,peasants, and national sovereignty: Turkey’s rhetorical resistance to America’s war on drugs

Nixon's self-declared war on drugs has been underway for over five decades. Not all aspects are well known, and many voices of those touched by the campaign were and remain unheard. In the early 1970s, the Turkish republic faced a political crisis. The military installed a post-coup leadership that acquiesced to longstanding American demands to halt all cultivation of the opium poppy. This was the first sustained battle in Nixon's war, and it had socio-economically devastating consequences for Anatolian peasants who had for generations farmed the crop for licit and illicit markets. To many Turkish citizens, the ban was the result of a new stage in Western imperialism and a direct consequence of their own leaders' failure to protect the country's rural poor majority, on the one hand, and their surrender of national sovereignty, on the other hand. Farmers' voices were rarely heard on this issue, apart from brief quotes in newspapers and in domestic and foreign governmental studies, but their plight attracted sustained popular attention due in part to the proxy geopolitics articulated on their behalf. Before the recently disenfranchised parliament that did not permit sustained discussion or debate of the poppy question, MPs nonetheless rendered impromptu testimonies protesting the ban, its impacts on farmers, the suppression of democracy, and nation's loss of sovereignty. Through an analysis of Turkey's parliamentary record and other contemporary sources, I approach this crucial episode in the histories of intoxicants and the war on drugs. In so doing, I demonstrate the potential and seeming success of proxy geopolitics echoed on behalf of a marginalized people and why engagement with such sources is essential in the wider practice of critical geopolitics.     

Maps,Painting and Lies Portraying Napoleon's Battlefields in Northern Italy

A comparison of Giuseppe Bagetti's landscape sketches, watercolours, oil paintings and engravings with contemporary maps and the existing landscape reveals that in the creation of Bagetti's landscapes, narrative played a role that differed in cartographic and artistic representations. The comparison also demonstrates that his images were powerful constructions that were more successful in reflecting a narrative of glorious conquest than was possible through cartography. This paper offers a critical examination of Bagetti's representations of Napoleon's northern Italian campaign, which he sketched and painted between 1802 and 1809. Bagetti's paintings were neither pacifist nor an expression of Piedmontese patriotism but instead were inspired by, and constructed according to, a narrative about the conquest that reflected the views of the French authorities. The narrative found expression in formal written instructions from the central cartographical office in the Dépôt de la guerre, Paris, in verbal and written instructions from Bagetti's immediate superior, Jean François Martinel, and in letters personally addressed to Bagetti from the officer commanding the Dépôt. It is clear from a careful reading of the correspondence and from a comparison of Bagetti's paintings with both the present landscape and maps made at the time that Bagetti's disputes with his supervisors revolved around protecting his artistic integrity and reputation rather than resisting the authority of a foreign regime.     

Conflicting viewpoints on opium prohibition: Radical changes to opium policy in the late Qing dynasty

The ban on opium at the end of the Qing dynasty was larger and more influential than ever before. Opinions differed on opium prohibition between the court and society. The intelligentsia and government believed in a set of policies, while opium farmers and traders resisted them. Subsequent conflicts became more and more intense, especially when opium farmers began protesting the ban on planting opium. The reactions of officials and commoners towards this backlash against the opium ban were very complex. The rehabilitation plans and measures following the backlash proved ineffective, leaving a confused situation out of control. __________ Translated from Wen-shi-zhe (Journal of Literature, History & Philosophy), 2004:2     

Changing Conceptions of the Opium War as History and Experience

Academic and popular accounts of the Opium War have gone through nearly two centuries of change in focus, view, and scope. My study probes this extensive historiography by tracing the evolvement of our understanding of the war through various phases among which we saw the rise of the “China-centered approach” and the beginning of a new trend towards combining government archives with personal records such as memoirs, personal correspondence, and private journals in research. Based on the observation, I will indicate, despite their undeniable achievements, most of the existing scholarships have paid little attention to the ordinary people in China whose lives were deeply affected by the war. It is high time that we pay more attention to human experience of the Chinese people in order to understand not only the war itself but also the history it helped shape.     

鸦片战争后中国海防建设迟滞原因探析

鸦片战争时期,前线将帅在与英军接仗以前,都对以众击寡,以逸待劳,以主待客等古老战略战术原则和战争形势充满胜利信心,只是在经过战场较量之后他们对于英军“船坚炮利”才有了真实体验,大多改变了看法,主张仿造西方船炮,“师夷长技以制夷”。而后方官绅缺乏战场体验,在战后多数仍然停留在战前的认识水平上,他们把清军的失败完全归咎于前线将帅指挥无能和军队缺乏训练,未能正确估价武器装备优劣对于战争结局的影响,不愿坦然承认落后挨打的事实。由于“师夷制夷”主张未能得到朝野确认,军事工业近代化因此迟迟不能启动。     

鸦片战争时期的战俘问题

战俘问题一直是人类文明史上一个值得关注的问题:不同文明冲突过程中,如何对待和处理战俘,体现着冲突双方的观念、相互认知和交往方式.鸦片战争史研究中,战俘问题一直是被忽略的战争组成部分.鸦片战争时期战俘的获取、处置、交涉,以及其中反映出的观念,是我们了解这场战争的一个侧面,也是由此观察清王朝的一个视角.     

辛亥革命与禁烟运动

清末禁烟新政虽然卓有成效,但却无法挽救清王朝的覆亡命运,反而加速了辛亥革命的爆发。辛亥革命使中国社会天翻地覆,自然也影响到了正在进行的禁烟运动。辛亥革命初期．由于政局动荡,禁烟运动受到了阻碍;而革命政权一旦稳固,中央及各地革命政府便立即将禁烟提上日程,雷厉风行。采取各种有效措施,进一步推动了禁烟运动的发展。袁世凯窃国后,因辛亥革命的成果尚留余波,故禁烟运动仍能继续发展。而辛亥革命的成果一旦被破坏殆尽,陷入军阀混战,则禁烟运动便沦没于无形之中。革命固然不可避免地给社会带来阵痛,但却能使整个社会得以新生,而否定革命成果,则必然为社会近代化进程带来莫大危害。民主革命与社会近代化建设之辩证关系。由此可见一斑。     

意大利战争与欧洲国家体系的初步形成

1494—1559年的意大利战争是欧洲由中世纪向近代转型时期发生的最重大的历史事件,它直接导致意大利城邦国家体系的覆灭并融入正在形成中的欧洲国家体系。意大利战争的起源、过程和结果表明,战争为正在兴起的欧洲主要大国西班牙、法国、英国、奥地利等提供了竞技场,进而促成了欧洲国际关系中心由地中海向大西洋的转移,为1648年建立的欧洲国家体系——威斯特伐利亚体系——奠定了必要的基础。     

Pastoralism and politics: reinterpreting contests for territory in Auckland Province, New Zealand, 1853–1864

As colonial frontiers expanded in the nineteenth century, contests over access to land suitable for farming between pastoralists, small farmers and indigenous populations were the inevitable result. In colonial Auckland, this contest was particularly vigorous, firstly because the young settlement's economic survival was at stake, since environmental constraints largely prevented its participation in the lucrative New Zealand wool industry, and secondly, because the economic and military prowess of indigenous Maori meant that settlers had little room to move in. Auckland's wealthy pastoralists pinned their hopes on the occupation of Maori land to the south of Auckland, since this was more suitable for sheep than the settlement's immediate environs, but this required dispossessing the Maori population by force. Initially, this obstacle gave small farmers a political advantage over the pastoralists, but as firstly arable markets, and then plans for small farmers and Maori to rear sheep themselves, all faltered, the pastoralist cause became increasingly difficult for colonial authorities to resist. When these authorities finally turned against the Maori communities south of Auckland, and launched an imperial war against them, the pastoralists successfully lobbied for the lands they most coveted to be confiscated from Maori, an event that radically altered New Zealand's future economic geography.