十九世纪的华人私会党与马来亚锡矿业

十九世纪马来亚锡矿业的发展与华人私会党息息相关 ,华人私会党力量的消长决定了锡矿业的起落沉浮 ,二者的历史荣衰与共。本文从十九世纪华人私会党对马来亚锡矿业发展的影响这一角度出发 ,分三个时期 (一、十八世纪末至十九世纪四十年代末 :马来亚锡矿业的初步发展时期 ;二、十九世纪五十年代至八十年代末 :华人私会党垄断锡矿业时期 ;三、十九世纪九十年代至二十世纪十年代 ,华人私会党对锡矿业的影响衰落时期 )阐述了华人私会党与马来亚锡矿业之间的关系 ,探讨了私会党对锡矿业发展带来的利与弊。     

The Roles of Tea and Opium in Early Economic Globalization: A Perspective on China’s Crisis in the 19th Century

Alongside military conquest which characterized great part of globalization during the 19th century, the globalization of markets no doubt was its main manifestation. Addictive consumption goods played a leading role during this process, as observed in the case of China, tea and the opium trade had the largest impact. Owing to the importance of Britain’s growing demand for tea and its concomitant tax revenue, Anglo-Chinese trade became the dominant trade that Britain had in the East. To make up the trade deficit with China, Britain took advantage of its Indian colony and did its best in expanding its opium trade. Within this triangular trade scheme, Britain was the master, India was the instrument, and China was the ultimate victim. Confronted by the irresistible trend of globalization, China was ill prepared when facing this challenge leading to a complete failure in both military and commercial warfare and later on to an overall crisis in the 19th century.     

十八世纪服务于京城王府宦邸的人物画家

在18世纪的北京,应王府和显宦之需,出现了相当规模的人物画家群。他们以冷枚父子、莽鹄立、陈枚、崔鏏、徐玫、徐璋等为代表,最早曾受清宫画家焦秉贞的人物画风的影响,他们之中的许多人或多或少地与宫廷有过关联,受过宫廷艺术的影响,因此绘画风格形成了具有院体人物画的写实技巧并融合了西洋绘画的透视技法。他们的怍品描绘了王府和市井生活的情趣,为一方所重。其风格取向、活动地域与谋生方式均有许多相近之处,是一个既有风格联系,又各自为阵的人物画家群。     

Analytical study of Roman and Arabic wall paintings in the Patio De Banderas of Reales Alcazares’ Palace using non-destructive XRD/XRF and complementary techniques

A portable XRD/XRF system and complementary laboratory techniques were employed to improve the knowledge of the procedures used to create Roman and Arabic wall paintings. Integrated physico-chemical investigations were conducted on fragments of artworks collected from the archaeological excavation of the Patio de Banderas in the Reales Alcazares’ Palace of Seville (Spain), and a comparative study on the pigments from both historical periods was performed. As a result, pigments such as vermilion, red ochre, yellow ochre, green earth, Egyptian blue, carbon and phosphor-based black pigments were detected in Roman samples; however, in the Arabic fragments, only haematite was observed. In addition, the size and shape of the particles of the wall paintings were studied with an XRD 2-dimensional detector and SEM-EDX.     

A Content Analysis of Imago Mundi, 1935–2010

ABSTRACT

The 592 research articles in the first 62 volumes of Imago Mundi, from 1935 to 2010, are analysed to discern trends in the scholarly approaches, biases and interests of historians of cartography. Particular attention is paid to map historians’ preferred historical periods and topical subjects of study, to their nationalistic tendencies and to the shifting importance of traditional, internal and socio-cultural approaches to map history.     

Luxury and Consumption in Eighteenth-Century Italy: Intellectual History,Methodological Ideas and Interdisciplinary Research Practice

Summary

This article has two aims. In the first part I will present some methodological considerations on intellectual history, particularly in relation to other disciplines considered similar yet different, such as the history of ideas, the history of concepts and the history of discourse. I will then seek to clarify what it means, in terms of research practice, to write intellectual history, taking as a starting point the subject of my own research, namely the political implications of economic thinking on luxury and consumption in Italy during the second half of the eighteenth century. More specifically, I intend to highlight the unique characteristics of intellectual history, understood as global history, which requires the reconstruction of the different contexts in which its underlying ideas and objectives developed, concentrating on its highly interdisciplinary nature. In particular, I will focus on a specific type of interdisciplinarity that characterised the methodology of my research, namely the attempt to hold together political thought and economic analysis. Eighteenth-century Italy was in fact marked by a strong, multifaceted political evaluation of economic thinking on luxury and consumption, which led me to examine the discussion of the subject through two lenses, those of economic analysis and political thinking. This specificity shows how the reconstruction of economic thought constitutes a fertile course for the investigation of the political culture and social projects of Italian authors in the eighteenth century, at a time when economic science was taking shape as a separate discipline.     

‘Applied science’ in nineteenth-century Britain: public discourse and the creation of meaning, 1817–1876

‘Applied science’ has long been a competitor with the concept of technology for the space between theory and praxis. This paper explores how the concept emerged in mid-nineteenth-century Britain through public sphere discussions in a cycle of rhetoric that linked the press, the development of new educational institutions and the interpretation of industrial change. The recounting and reprinting of heroic narratives of achievement served to cement alliances between ‘practical men’ and ‘men of science’ by proclaiming a respectable subject of common interest to which both could be associated. Narratives of applied science were drawn on in the process of institutional change. A key role was played by editors and business proprietors in local contexts; their interest in applied science stimulated the formation of new universities aimed at providing new forms of technical education. The use of the concept of ‘applied science’ to describe the space between science and practice challenged the traditional notion of ‘rule of thumb’ as a characterisation of shop work. With its connotations relating to both past and future, the term served to structure time as well as science.     

Public debt and financial crises in the twentieth century

The costs of wars have been the main driver of public debt in the Western World during the modern era. The late twentieth century stands out as a period that saw a pronounced increase of government debt to GDP ratios in peacetime. This paper assesses the role that financial crises have played in shaping the public debt trajectory in the twentieth century. Focusing on the experiences of 14 industrial economies, I show that financial crises have long and lasting effects on public finances. I provide evidence that the costs of financial crises have increased strongly in the second half of the twentieth century and that the costs of financial crises grow with the size of the financial sector. In many countries, the rising costs incurred from stabilizing the economy after financial crises were an important cause of the peacetime surge of public debt ratios in the late twentieth century. In today's highly financialized economies, financial crises have become a key risk for public finances.