Alfred Walter Campbell’s return to Australia

Alfred Walter Campbell (1868–1937) established the basic cytoarchitectonic structure of the human brain while he was working as a pathologist at the Rainhill Lunatic Asylum near Liverpool in the United Kingdom. He returned to Australia in 1905 and continued doing research while establishing a neurological practice. His research over the next 17 years focused on four topics: (a) localisation in the cerebellum, (b) the neuroses and psychoses in war, (c) localisation in the cerebral cortex of the gorilla, and (d) the causes and pathology of the mysterious Australian “X” Disease (later known as Murray Valley encephalitis). In this article, I elaborate on his research in these areas, which provided evidence (a) against Louis Bolk’s thesis that variation in the size of the cerebellar cortex reflected variation in the amount of cortex controlling various groups of muscle, (b) against the view that the neuroses and psychoses in war were different from those in civilian life, (c) for a parcelation of the cortex of the gorilla brain that supported his earlier findings in the higher apes, and (d) on the cause and pathophysiology of Australian “X” disease. Much of this research was overlooked, but it remains of considerable value and historical significance.     

Economic neutrality during the Cold War: the World Bank,the United States,and Pinochet’s Chile, 1973–1977

This paper reconstructs the unknown Chile-World Bank interactions during the formative years of Pinochet’s dictatorship (1973–1977). Prevalent understandings of the WB portray it as a loyal Washington ally. However, new evidence from the WB Archives and additional documents reveal that US efforts to make lending contingent on human rights considerations, thereby forcing the Bank to abandon its so-called economic neutrality, were only partially effective. Pinochet’s case provides a new prism to examine the cold war in Latin America and the Bank’s use of its ‘neutrality’ as a means to reach increasing autonomy from its strongest member states, mainly the United States.     

Austro–Hungarian refugee soldiers in China

ABSTRACT

This paper deals with the problem of the Austro–Hungarian prisoners of war in World War I who were captured by the Russian Army and who then escaped from Siberian detention camps and ultimately found asylum in China. The Tianjin German Relief Fund (Tientsin Hilfsaktion) was a leading nongovernmental charitable organization that provided aid for these captives and refugees. It operated successfully in China until that country’s decision to join the war on the side of the Allied Powers forced the organization to close. A local network of German and Austro–Hungarian civilian middlemen also helped the refugee soldiers passing through, and the Chinese authorities set up camps in Manchuria for these soldiers, where they were interned until their repatriation after the war. This paper also introduces some individual cases to show how certain Austro–Hungarian POWs attempted to deal with their life in China. The author argues that China had a role and agency in World War I, that the refugee soldier question was the last episode of the nineteenth-century-style Concert of Europe, and that the POWs had a role and agency in shaping their own destinies.     

HOW CAN YOU PLAY WHEN YOUR HOUSE IS ON FIRE? THE NORWEGIAN SPORTS STRIKE DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR

The article considers the story of the Norwegian sports strike during the Second World War. What kind of resistance does the story reveal? What was the effect of a boycott of leisure activities like sports? The Norwegian sports organizations, unlike other international sports organizations, came to see themselves as part of the resistance movement against the Nazi regime during the German occupation from 1940 to 1945, using non-violent, civil disobedience as their weapon. Unprecedented historically and internationally, this meant that Norwegian sportsmen and women, for four and a half years, stopped participating in any way in sport. The boycott comprised sportsmen and spectators, regardless of whether the contestants were friends or foes, Allies or Nazis, Norwegians or German. Based upon previous and recent research the article contends that the sports strike can be considered an effective act of civil disobedience. It demonstrated in a visible way that civil resistance was possible, while the German and Nazi authorities sought to promote sports as a means of creating an impression of normality. Finally, the story of the sports strike can be read as a tale of the limitations of totalitarian regimes.     

Chinese Refugee Children and Empires: The Politics of International Adoptions in Cold War Hong Kong

With the support of new sources from British and Hong Kong archives, this study casts new light on the post-war international adoptions of Chinese refugee children in the British colony of Hong Kong. It argues that while children were ‘saved’ and found families overseas, they were also used as pawns in a bigger political game. A way to delegate welfare for the Hong Kong government, a symbolic humanitarian concession vis-à-vis a strict anti-immigration policy for Britain, and an anti-communist propaganda tool for the United States, these adoptions also convey the competing power and population politics played over subject children by two multiracial empires: one in decline (the rapidly decolonising Britain), the other on the rise (the new cold war superpower).     

The Politics of Provisioning: Feeding South Asian Prisoners During the First World War

During the First World War, the German and British Governments supplied culturally appropriate rations and secured special facilities for food preparation and consumption for South Asian prisoners of war whose loyalty both governments sought. The food provided in POW camps to South Asians serves as an index of the political status of colonial subjects at a moment when the future of European empires was far from certain. The British Government’s approach to feeding its South Asian servicemen held by the enemy thus reveals this population’s place within Britain’s wartime national and imperial imaginary and in its post-war planning.     

Historical shifts in remembering China’s “Nanjing Massacre”

ABSTRACT

Immediately after the occurrence of the Nanjing Massacre, it was reported by both official and nonofficial media, and followed by witness accounts and victim recollections. All this formed the basic memory of the atrocity in Chinese society. After Japan’s surrender in 1945, the National Government conducted preliminary investigations and organized memorial services. However, the investigation was interrupted by the outbreak of the Civil War (1947–49). After the Communist victory in 1949, relationships between the Communists and Nationalists, China and United States and China and Japan all played a role in suppressing and even forgetting the memory of the Nanjing Massacre. It was not until the 1980s, after the normalization of Sino-Japanese relations, that the memory finally entered a process of reconstruction.     

The Chinese developmental state during the Cold War: the making of the 1956 twelve-year science and technology plan

Abstract

In 1956, the government of the People’s Republic of China made a 12-year plan for scientific and technological developments (‘The Long-term Plan for the Development of Science and Technology for 1956–1967’), often credited as a visionary blueprint for its nuclear weapons programs and industrialization. Yet, this study suggests that the plan was not the logical manifestation of a unified national leadership, but rather the result of political contestations and compromises among the Communist party-state leaders, especially between Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, and between the state and the scientific–technological elite. It further indicates that the making of Chinese science and technology policy was shaped by the cold war geopolitics, national developmental aspirations and transnational influences, especially from the Soviet Union and the USA.     

汪精卫对日求和的政治环境及其思想脉络

汪精卫对于抗战从悲观失望发展为公开主和,有其思想演变的脉络,也有促成其思想演变的国际、国内环境。汪精卫反对国民党采取"远交近攻"的外交战略,不信任英美对中国抗战的援助,并在日本与苏联之间,选择了亲日、反苏。汪不相信国民党能在既反日、又不依附苏联、也得不到英美支持的情况下,建立起一个独立自主的国家。并坚信他的求和主张能在政军两界激起普遍"回响"。这是他不惜离渝而对日求和的根本原因。     

A New Model of Executive Power: A Montesquieuan Explanation of the Obama Presidency

Abstract

The perennial concern over executive overreach continues well into Obama's presidency, leading many to wonder if the “unitary executive” is here to stay. Discussions of executive war powers focus on three models. The Hamiltonian perspective gives presidents the lead position in foreign affairs; the second model, following Madison, presents Congress as the leader when initiating hostilities. Finally, Jeffersonians present emergency powers as extra-legal, giving presidents a sphere of actions that cannot be contained within constitutional discussions. Problematically, current scholarship implicitly or explicitly grounds these explanations in Locke's political philosophy. This occurs despite a dearth of references to Locke during the Constitutional Convention and infrequent references to his thought during early debates over executive-congressional divisions of war powers. Comparatively, all of these seminal American figures frequently mention Montesquieu, often fighting over the specifics of his theory. While scholars widely acknowledge this influence, they rarely mention him during discussions of war powers or the nature of executive power in general. This article examines the Montesquieuan understanding of executive power and shows how this model represents a viable alternative to the Lockean one. Most importantly, examining the executive from a Montesquieuan perspective provides solutions to current problems that the Lockean perspective does not.