‘What has Ghana Got That We Haven't?’ Party Politics and Anti-Colonialism in Botswana, 1960–66

This article offers a re-examination of the period leading up to independence in Botswana, formerly known as the Bechuanaland Protectorate, between 1960 and 1966. With the use of original archival material from Botswana and the United Kingdom, it aims to explain why the Bechuanaland Democratic Party overwhelmingly defeated the Bechuanaland People's Party in the March 1965 elections for self-government. Botswana's post-colonial transition was unusual for being without a mass, social movement for national self-determination. The Democratic Party, led by Seretse Khama, favoured close cooperation with the British colonial authority and a gradualist transition to independence, while the People's Party closely adhered to the ideology of anti-colonialism and demanded immediate independence. This article will argue that the Democratic Party won independence due to its sacrifice of anti-colonial credentials, in the short term, in favour of a political platform that addressed the long-term challenges of Bechuanaland's quest for viable statehood. The research helps to explain why Botswana was slow to develop closer relations with fellow independent African states. As a provincialised history of decolonisation, this article shows the potential for variance within the wider anti-colonial movement, which incorporated diverse actors, agendas and geopolitical conditions.     

从“北方谈话”到“‘三中全会’主题报告”——邓小平与中国改革开放决策的酝酿

从1978年9月访朝归来到12月举行党的十一届三中全会,从"北方谈话"到"‘三中全会’主题报告",邓小平不仅明确提出了改革开放的时代课题,而且多方面地阐明了为什么要实行改革开放、要在哪些方面改革开放和如何实行改革开放等重大问题,实际完成了中国改革开放决策的酝酿,为"三中全会"最终作出实行改革开放的伟大决策,做好了充分的思想理论准备。回顾我国改革开放决策的酝酿过程,重温邓小平当时关于改革开放的论述,对在新的历史起点上全面深化改革开放具有多方面的意义。     

Between diplomacy and solidarity: Western European support networks for Sandinista Nicaragua

Between the 1960s and 1980s, political crises in the Third World became a source of inspiration and action in Western European societies. The Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua was one of the most famous instigators of transnational activism. All over Western Europe, locally organised committees staged public actions, collected funds and educated their societies about the plight of this Central American nation, whose Marxist government faced strong international opposition from the Reagan administration as well as domestic social, political and economic turbulence. This article looks at Third World solidarity activism from a new perspective, assessing the active role of the Sandinista Liberation Front (FSLN) in the emergence and development of activism in Western Europe. It argues that FSLN diplomacy – initially by exiles and later by official diplomats – initiated the creation of transnational networks, driven by the quest for international support. They fuelled activism by providing activists with fresh information, contacts and avenues for action, but also cemented cross-border co-operation between activists and stimulated a ‘Europeanisation’ of local activism.     

The limits of solidarity: Europeanism,anti-colonialism and socialism at the Congress of the Peoples of Europe,Asia and Africa in Puteaux, 1948

This article examines the claims to international solidarity and plans for a new world order of the Congress of the Peoples in Puteaux in 1948. In analysing the transnational networks at play, the article argues for the connection of historiographies of European co-operation, socialism and anti-colonialism. The congress organisers united these three strands through the idea of a socialist Third Force between the United States and the Soviet Union. However, this idea also marked the limit to the integration of these ideals, since the anti-nationalism, and particularly the anti-Stalinism that it implied, was unsustainable for many colonial delegates. Puteaux then shows how transnational solidarity in the late 1940s was checked by the uneven effects of the early Cold War and marked by lingering hierarchies. The networks at play and the limits to solidarity faced suggest continuity with the conferences in Brussels (1927) and Bandung (1955).     

The Colombo Powers: crafting diplomacy in the Third World and launching Afro-Asia at Bandung

Using documentary evidence from China, France, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom, and the United States, this paper develops a history of the Third World through historical inquiry into the origins and activities of the Colombo Powers. As the five host nations of the 1955 Asian-African Conference in Bandung, the Colombo Powers worked to realise a new vision of Asia that integrated the outer reaches of the mainland on the basis of ancient geographical ties and a cosmopolitan international order. Most importantly, they sought to reclaim Asian agency in the international negotiations on the Korean and Indochina conflict and spread resistance to collective security pacts in Asia.     

From charting to mapping: Russian military mapping of Corfu in the early nineteenth century

Abstract

This paper concludes the overview of the Russian Navy's chart making published in Imago Mundi, Volume 52 (2000). In the present paper attention is drawn to the way the emphasis shifted in the early years of the nineteenth century from charting by naval surveyors to land mapping by the Army. The need for specialized military topographical education had led to the founding of the Map Depot in 1797 in St Petersburg. The first major survey undertaken by the Depot was of the island of Corfu (1804–1806), in anticipation of further Russo‐Turkish hostilities (the Third Russo‐Turkish war, 1806–1812).     

The Saga of the ‘Second industrial divide’ and the history of the ‘third Italy’: Evidence from export data

The idea of the Third Italy has achieved an iconic status in geography. It has come to represent one of the main geographical manifestations of the so‐called second industrial divide between Fordist mass production and flexible specialisation. Yet the idea has received limited critical attention since acquiring its elevated status. It deserves to do so, because it involves confusing a localised model of economic development with the economic character of a larger geographic region. Examining province level export data for the years 1985, 1991, 1995 and 1999 for both total exports and two key sectors using exploratory spatial data analysis, provincial rankings and LISAs (local indicators of spatial association) suggests that the export‐based homogeneity and dynamism of the Third Italy can be exaggerated. Italy's urban hierarchy, particularly the centrality of Milan, continues to play a significant role in the Italian economy. Common use of the term ‘Third Italy’ confuses an economic process with a specific geographical configuration.