Dark Nightmare: The Shooting of William Alexander as Canon Scott Saw it

Frederick G. Scott's World War I war memoir, The Great War As I Saw It, contains the sole unofficial eyewitness recording of a court martial execution that we possess. The case of William Alexander 20726 Alexander, William. 20726. Service records. Library Archives Canada, RG24, vol. 2538 HQS 1822, RG 150/acc 1992-93/166/Box 83-992 and RG24-C-1, 1946 Central Army Registry R112-553-X-E, Reel C-5053 90,  [Google Scholar], executed in October 1917, for desertion in the face of the enemy compelled Scott to devote more printed space to it than to the death of his own son, Henry. A discussion based upon a close reading of Scott's memoir and an exposition from archival sources of Alexander's case demonstrates the ways in which Scott evades the case's disturbing implications echoes wider aspects of Canada's early memorialization of the Great War.     

Women and Pakistan International Airlines in Ayub Khan's Pakistan

ABSTRACT

This article weaves together several unique circumstances that inadvertently created spaces for women to emerge away from the traditional roles of womanhood ascribed to them in Pakistan. It begins by tracing the emergence of the Pakistan International Airlines as a national carrier that provided an essential glue to the two wings of Pakistan. Operating in the backdrop of nascent nationhood, the airline opens an opportunity for the new working women in Pakistan. Based on first-hand accounts provided by former female employees,¹1. Seven interviews were conducted with former female employees of PIA. This was part of a larger project funded by GHF. and supplementing it with official documents, newspaper reports and the advertising used for marketing at the time, it seeks to provide an illuminating insight into the early history of women in Pakistan. While the use of women as markers of modernity and propaganda is not new,²2. David Willmer, ‘Women as participants in the Pakistan movement: Modernization and the promise of a moral state’, Modern Asian Studies, xxx (1996), 573–90. here within the context of Cold War and American cultural diplomacy, the ‘modernist’ vision of the Ayub-era in Pakistan (1958–1969), and its accompanying jet-age provide a unique lens through which to explore the changing role of women. The article showcases a different approach to understanding the so-called ‘golden age’ of Pakistani history: a neglected area of the international history on Pakistan, which is far too often one-dimensional.³3. An exception being Khawar Mumtaz and Farida Shaheed, Women of Pakistan: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back? (London, 1987).     

Great Britain and die International Economy: Changing Historical Perspectives

E.H. HUNT. British Labour History 1815–7014. Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1981. Pp. 428; M.W. KIRBY. The Decline of British Economic Power Since 1870. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1981. Pp. 205; DONALD N. MCCLOSKEY. Enterprise & Trade in Victorian Britain. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1981. Pp. 211; SIDNEY POLLARD. The Integration of the Europe Economy Since 1815. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1981. Pp. 109.     

The Origins of American Expansion in Hawaii and Samoa, 1865–1900

From Nixon to Reagan, official US perceptions of West German trade with the Soviet Union (Osthandel) underwent a remarkable evolution. Despite initial skepticism, the Nixon and Ford administrations placed no major obstacles to West German–Soviet economic relations. Carter, however, changed the situation. His stance on human rights and economic sanctions against the Soviets for various developments - along with his belief that West Germany should follow the United States' lead - led Carter to ask Schmidt to curtail Osthandel, an action that contributed to Schmidt's notoriously poor relationship with the US President. Despite coming from a different political party, Reagan initially continued Carter's outlook on Osthandel. Yet rather than emphasize human rights, he publicly stressed Poland's self-determination as the reason to implement his aggressive policy to curb trade with the USSR, even though his advisers feared the strategic implications of greater German dependence on Soviet energy. Carter's and Reagan's early approaches were ineffective. Their actions, especially the latter's, strained US relations with Germany, the United States' most important ally in central Europe. Equally important, both Carter's and Reagan's policies undermined détente with Moscow. Because Nixon and Ford's approach to Osthandel harmed neither US–German relations nor US–Soviet relations, these presidents' responses had conspicuous advantages over succeeding administrations.     

From Imperialism to Internationalism: British Idealism and Human Rights

ABSTRACT

The article provides a historical account of the younger generation of British Idealists’ (1880–1930) approach to international relations and human rights. By focusing on pre-Great War and post-Great War periods, it reveals the shift that occurred in their approbation of T. H. Green's theory of rights. It shows that the Great War put an end to perceptions of the Empire as a plausible and sustainable international order for the younger generation of British Idealists, as it did for the significant majority of liberal British intellectuals. Their work, especially in the post-Great War period, reveals an attempt at translating Green's theory of rights into an internationalist human rights theory, which they saw as being indispensable to maintain a stable international order. As an alternative to contemporary attempts to locate Green's rights theory within the cosmopolitan–communitarian divide in human rights theories, this study draws attention to the younger generation of British Idealists’ long neglected internationalist approach to human rights as a middle way position.     

The First World War and European Integration

The importance of the First World War in European integration history has been understated. Before 1914, intensifying economic integration had not brought corresponding political integration. But once hostilities broke out, Germany pursued indirect economic and military domination over its neighbours and a Central European economic association based on agreements with Austria-Hungary. The drive for the latter had little success, because of Germany's own uncertainties as well as Austria-Hungary's resistance. From 1916 the French government also pursued the goal of border buffer states, together with a permanent inter-Allied economic bloc, but was likewise unsuccessful. Nonetheless, the wartime experience helped to shape later integration initiatives during the inter-war years and even beyond.     

W. W. deLacy's 1865 map of the territory of Montana

Abstract

The Topographical Survey of the Orange Free State, executed by the British War Office between 1905 and 1911, was not only one of the first but also one of the finest topographical surveys to be undertaken in British colonial Africa. The motivation for this undertaking stemmed from three sources: the personal interest of Sir David Gill (H.M. Astronomer at the Cape) in the measurement of the arc of the 30th meridian; Britain's imperialistic intervention in South Africa which resulted in the South African War (1899–1902) against the Boer Republics and which stressed the need for reliable military maps for warfare as well as for the general defence of the new colonies; and the need for accurate maps for purposes of colonial administration and land tenure. The survey took five and a half years to complete, and the 1: 125,000 series (G.S.G.S. 2230) that was compiled represented the only accurate maps of this part of the continent for almost seven decades.     

THE GOVERNMENT’S BUSINESS?

The engagement of Swedish industry in the Liberian American–Swedish Minerals Company (LAMCO), which mined iron in Liberia between 1963 and 1989, was the largest Swedish commercial investment in Africa during the Cold War. In this paper I investigate how political and administrative actors of the Swedish government conceptualized the link between private and public interests in the context of LAMCO’s operations, and how this shaped Swedish government policy towards the company and Liberia. I identify two phases: a phase of almost unanimous political support for LAMCO and close Swedish–Liberian relations from ca. 1955 to 1965, and a more fragmented phase following 1965, during which LAMCO was increasingly understood as a political liability. My findings show how business interests could figure into Swedish foreign policy during the Cold War, highlighting the coherence with which Swedish industry and government acted in relation to the commercial interests in Liberia before ca. 1965, but also the lack of coherence – between government and industry as well as within the state apparatus – that followed the turn to a more activist policy after the mid-1960s.     

From World War to Cold War: Scandinavian media attitudes to the Soviet Union 1945–1948

At the end of the war in Europe in 1945, an alliance-loyalty attitude was predominant among the Scandinavian public voices on the Soviet Union. This attitude incorporated a favourable image of the Soviet war effort and implied that the Soviet system had undergone changes during the war. Another significant group supported the Soviet system more unequivocally. These attitudes were dominant in the Scandinavian media and public debate until late 1945 or early 1946, when opposition to and fear of the Soviet Union began to be openly expressed in conservative and social-democratic newspapers. A bipartisan attitude to the Soviet Union had not developed at this stage, as the alliance-loyalty attitude was transformed into a clearer third-voice attitude that saw the Soviet Union on the one hand as a power which was not worthy of imitation, but which on the other hand accepted that the Soviet Union was seeking international peace and cooperation. Third-voice supporters in the Scandinavian media sought investigative reports on conditions in the Soviet Union, as they claimed that the growing anti-Soviet attitudes were based on a lack of accurate knowledge. Considering that Denmark, Norway and Sweden had experienced different conditions during the war, the differences in public attitudes to the Soviet Union were comparatively small. The public third voice on the Soviet Union was clearly weakened in 1948 by the reception of more critical information on the Soviet system and the perception of news on international developments.     

Between Defeat and Victory: Finnish memory culture of the Second World War

The article focuses on five essential phenomena in the Finnish memory culture relating to the three Finnish wars fought in 1939–1945, namely, (1) the memory of the fallen; (2) the influential work by author Väinö Linna; (3) the contested memory politics and veteran cultures in the 1960s and 1970s; (4) Germany and the Holocaust in the Finnish memory culture; and (5) the ‘neo-patriotic’ turn in the commemoration of the wars from the end of the 1980s onwards. The Finnish memory culture of 1939–1945 presents an interesting case of how the de facto lost wars against the Soviet Union have been shaped into cornerstones of national history and identity that continue to play a significant role even today. Using the growing research literature on the various aspects of the Finnish war memories and memory politics, the article aims, first, at outlining a synthesis of the memory culture's central features and, second, at challenging the common contemporary conception, according to which the Finnish war veterans would have been forgotten, neglected and even disgraced during the post-war decades, to be ‘rehabilitated’ only from the end of the 1980s onwards.