Nineteenth-Century London in William Godwin's Diary

The Leverhulme-funded editing of William Godwin's diary aims to ‘to construct a picture of London's literary and extra-parliamentary political life’, following the diary's ‘remarkably detailed map of radical intellectual and political life in the turbulent period of the 1790s’ <http://www.politics.ox.ac.uk/research/projects/godwin_diary/>. However, this map also extends far beyond the 1790s, with the diary's total span reaching from 1788 until Godwin's death in 1836. Critics and biographers have long assumed that Godwin's radical phase was over by 1800, and London to him was only ever a meeting point for free-floating, alienated intellectuals. By contrast, this paper presents new evidence showing his immersion in the material conditions and popular politics of nineteenth-century London. Following Godwin's movements in 1810 from his home and shop in Skinner Street, his perambulations around the city, and visits to dine with fellow radicals and publishers the article examines his immersion in the material conditions and popular politics of nineteenth-century London. It sees him campaigning against the abominable conditions in nearby Smithfield market; joining street protests to demand the release of Burdett from the Tower; and meeting Cobbett in Newgate. Godwin's circulations, recorded in his diary, bring to our attention the cross-fertilization between philosophic and popular radicalism and compel us to re-think the relationship between the conversations at private dinners and the protests in the streets in order to locate and better understand the nineteenth-century metropolitan critical public sphere.     

Question 16: Answer

Sir William Osler (1849–1919) is associated with a long list of contributions and eponymous entities including filaria, maneuvers, nodules, syndromes, and triads. Among the less known ones is the Oslerian pulling of the tongue for termination of obstinate hiccup (singultus). Janet Travell (1901–1977) Travell, JG. 1977. A trigger point for hiccup. Journal of the American Osteopathic Association, 77: 308–312. [PubMed] , [Google Scholar], physician to two United States presidents, attributed the tongue-pulling maneuver to Osler. Dr. Travell cites Osler's Principles and Practice of Medicine from 1912, where mention of the remedy can be found. The therapy, however, is much older and (perhaps not surprisingly) of French origin. It can be viewed as a spin-off of attempts by Jean Laborde (1830–1903) to resuscitate the “presque morts” (almost dead) via rhythmic traction of the tongue. Lesser known physicians involved in the treatment of singultus by traction of the tongue are Jean Viaud (1862–1946) and Raphaël Lépine (1840–1919).     

Orleanist Diplomacy and the French Colony in Uruguay

Traditional and historic relations between France and Ireland have been the object of numerous fine studies at historic, cultural, and literary levels. They have also been much celebrated. However, the darker side of Franco-Irish relations has received far less attention. The present article aims to act as a corrective and shows that between 1870 and 1970, relations between the two countries were rather distant, strained on occasion even, and that much depended on the political and strategic evolution in Europe and as well on the Catholic question. The scope of the article ranges from the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 until Ireland's negotiations to enter the European Communities (EC) in 1970.     

The Roman Marble Sculptures from the Sanctuary of Pan at Caesarea Philippi/ Panias (Israel)

In 2016 Yosef Garfinkel suggested that J.L. Starkey, Director of the Lachish excavations, was murdered in 1938 by men sent by landowners of the mound due to an extended dispute between them and Starkey on payments for permission to dig on the summit of the mound. The present paper presents additional data which support the view that Starkey was murdered by bandits who came from the Hebron area.     

Reseau urbain et diffusion de l'innovation dans la France pre-industrielle: La creation des caisses d'epargne (1818–1848)

This paper discusses the paradigms of European history and of European civilisation defined in the main histories of Europe written from the Enlightenment to Guizot.

Voltaire, Robertson, Gibbon, and Guizot consolidated a model of the history of Europe which has its origins in the fall of the western Roman Empire and the invasions of the Barbarians. The other main steps of this history were the Christianisation, the creation of a vital economic centre in western and northern Europe, the development of the cities, the rediscovery of Roman law, the creation of a complex system of states, the colonial expansion and again the birth of a society of “good manners”.

A common civilisation which did not ignore the differences which existed between one country and another – the “national characters”, discussed by David Hume in 1748. Instead the different national characters – the variety of Europe as Guizot wrote – represented an important element of the European civilisation.     

The First Circle and the Last Man: Solzhenitsyn's Political Science

The author examines David Hume's History of England to elucidate his thoughts on the subject of education. He argues that education's ability to improve moral judgments drives Hume's interest. With this in mind, the idiosyncratic review of English literature scattered throughout Hume's History can be seen in its proper light. Finally, the author suggests History represents Hume's best effort to develop a literary style capable of improving morals.     

Marginalia of a revolution: naming popular ethnography through William W. Bunge's Fitzgerald

Having recently been writing about the geographies of survival, here in this brief essay I extrapolate a methodological and ethico-political sensibility from the scattered fragments of my personal interactions with foundational radical geographer William W. Bunge. This essay is intended to reconcile the marginalization that Bunge experienced, and experiences today, within geography, with the methodological approach he pioneered, even as he is often not recognized for doing so. An exploration through a pile of notes, electronic voice files, and faxes helped me to think through lived forms of intellectual marginalia via the life and methods of William Bunge and possibilities that exist for recovering his method of ‘popular ethnography’.     

Military geography: A review

Through sixty years of chequered fortune the Magazine showed the impact of current history, notably during the 1914‐18 war when a few authors, notably Newbigin, Chisholm and Mackinder, wrote fine articles on current international problems. From 1919 many studies of geography as a whole and of its various branches appeared, a number of them given as presidential addresses to Section E of the British Association. The tradition of publishing local research studies was maintained and developed from the 1930's, both for Scotland and for areas elsewhere.     

Of poles,pressmen, and the newspaper public: Reporting the Scottish national Antarctic expedition, 1902–1904

Between 1902 and 1904, the Scots naturalist William Speirs Bruce (1867–1921) led the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition on a voyage of oceanographical discovery. Unlike other British expeditions undertaken during the ‘Heroic Age’ of polar exploration, Bruce's Expedition placed undivided attention upon scientific accumulation, and dismissed the value of territorial acquisition. As a consequence, Bruce and his Expedition were subject to a distinct interpretation by the press. With reference to contemporary newspaper reports, this paper traces the unique mediation of Bruce, and reveals how geographies of reporting served to communicate locally particular representations of him, and of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition.     

Supporting trust: credit assessment and debt recovery through Trade Protection Societies in Britain and Ireland, 1776–1992

From an initial foundation in London in 1776, Trade Protection Societies grew in numbers to reach a peak of about 120 in 1910. They provided inter-business and some consumer credit assessment, debt management and recovery. From the 1850s they coordinated activities through a national association that covered Britain and Ireland. The societies were processing millions of credit assessments for thousands of members in the 1960s, reaching over 100,000 assessments per day in the 1980s. They provided a voluntary institutional base drawing on networks of mutuality, supplying information between members and societies that was judged privileged by the Courts. This offered transaction costs advantages for the high frequency, short duration activity provided, and hedged against the risks of complex Court actions. They became a large-scale mechanism to encourage honouring of commitments, thus underpinning the trust necessary across an increasingly geographically integrated economy. Their evolution demonstrates the importance of city size and regional centres, with diffusion down the city rank-size distribution. However, some smaller centres, mainly in resorts, also developed TPSs. The spatial process linked individual traders and the smallest places into a national system of credit management. By the 1920s smaller TPSs became difficult to sustain and were taken over or became branches of the larger societies; but overall membership continued to increase. True consolidation occurred after 1971 when demand exploded after the removal of credit controls, with unit costs pressed down, leading to de-mutualisation.