Early pan‐Arabism in Egypt's July revolution: the Free Officers' political formation and policy‐making, 1946–54

Between 1952 and 1970, Gamal Abdel Nasser and Egypt's Free Officers Movement established the paradigmatic pan‐Arabist revolution from above. Yet it has become something of a cliché to maintain that the Free Officers had no blueprint of action before seizing power and that they later instrumentalised pan‐Arabism in their foreign policy, thinly veiling their actual commitments to Egyptian nationalism and imperialism. By contrast, this contribution underlines the impact of the British colonial context on the Free Officers' political formation and their early identification with pan‐Arabism in turn. Drawing on pamphlets, speeches, media output and memoirs, it shows that the Free Officers developed a distinctive form of anticolonial nationalism that emphasised social justice and invoked overlapping Egyptian and Arab identities. Their aspirations for liberation thus entailed a connected foreign policy and nation building programme in which pan‐Arabism was a prime – and early – component.     

Practical Knowledge in the Viking Age: the use of mental templates in clinker shipbuilding

It has long been recognized that ships built according to the Nordic clinker tradition during the Viking Age were conceived and constructed simultaneously by eye, in a shell‐first manner, and using rules‐of‐thumb to control both the longitudinal and transversal shape of the hull. While a lot of attention has been paid to the conceptual definition of the keel and stems, far less research has explored how such rules would have worked while planking the hull. Two cargo‐ships, Skuldelev 3 and Skuldelev 1, are used to argue for pre‐design and the use of mental templates. This highlights a cognitive dimension of practical knowledge, in particular how it was accumulated, stored and transmitted.     

Seismic History of the Church of San Pietro Di Coppito in L’Aquila

After the terrible 18th-century earthquakes—in L’Aquila in 1703, Lisbon in 1755, and Reggio Calabria in 1783—specific anti-seismic precepts were introduced in the rules of the art of masonry construction. Scrupulously adhered to in the first years after the earthquake, those precepts gradually ceased to be used until they were almost completely forgotten, centuries later, by which time the earthquake had become a distant memory. The church of San Pietro di Coppito, one of the most important churches of L’Aquila, is emblematic of this singular process. Deeply transformed in accordance with new anti-seismic construction techniques after it was particularly badly damaged in the terrible 1703 earthquake, the church was subjected, in the 1970s, to drastic alterations by the Commissioner Mario Moretti, who demolished all the baroque additions and redesigned it in the “medieval Abruzzo” style, eliminating in the process the intelligent anti-seismic provisions introduced in the 18th century. In addition to documentary purposes, this work aims to underline the effectiveness of this early 18th-century example of anti-seismic engineering in the belief that the constructive solutions it employed could still form a valid architectural and structural model in view of the massive restoration task for which, unfortunately, L’Aquila is still waiting today.     

Historical Survey and Chronology of Bonajuto Chapel in Catania,Italy

Located in the historical center of Catania, Italy, in the Civita district, the Bonajuto Chapel is one of the oldest and best-conserved buildings of the city, which has survived the numerous earthquakes that struck eastern Sicily during the medieval and the modern ages, such as those particularly devastating in 1169 and 1693. However, both the date of this small monument, as well as its original use, still remain uncertain, as literary and documentary evidence are scarce and fragmentary. Most historians, analyzing prevalently the stylistic and constructive aspects, interpreted the chapel as a place of worship and assigned its construction to a rather long period of the early Middle Ages, from the 5th or 6th centuries ad to the 8th or 9th centuries ad—the phase during which the island was under the Byzantine domination. The excavations carried out in 1930 to 1939 and the last restoration works (in 2003) have not provided explicit chronological data. Its age determination is considered essential for a better knowledge of the real influence of this domination on the architecture of the Island. Therefore, a multidisciplinary and accurate analysis of the building using the existing bibliography has been carried out also in order to understand the functional and morphological transformations of the chapel during its long life. The thermoluminescence absolute dating methodology applied to some brickwork elements of the construction, has placed the monument chronology in a period of time that is notably shorter than that previously noted here. These new data, with the study of the architectural structure, have made a significant step forward in the knowledge of the chapel history.     

The history and philosophy of social science

Carlo Ginzburg is best known as the author of a popular and widely commented work of microstoria Il formaggio e i vermi, published in 1976. Rather than focusing on Ginzburg's contributions to the genre of microstoria, or on the development of his long and very productive scholarly career, my aim in this article is to reflect on a set of themes that recur, with impressive persistence, in his work, from his earliest publications in the mid-1960s, to his most recent works. Above all, I suggest that two elements recur in his work, and that these, jointly, impart upon it its defining character. They are the concern with epistemological issues of knowing, and the ethical conception of the historian's work, which Ginzburg expressess and defends with urelenting rigour.     

河南焦作出土的汉代简式陶仓楼

焦作市出土的简式陶仓楼明显地反映了焦作地区出土的陶仓楼从豪华走向简易,从繁荣走向衰退的过程。简式陶仓楼的出土,为研究东汉中晚期的社会经济、建筑结构、丧葬习俗提供了宝贵的实物资料。     

新型氟硅丙烯酸树脂镀膜技术在榆木类木构古建筑保护领域的应用研究

本工作以江西省赣州市大余县左拔镇云山村晚清时期的榆木木构民居建筑为保护研究对象,从新型氟硅丙烯酸树脂材料的分子设计、镀膜剂配方与涂布工艺的优化等方面入手,对该地区榆木类古建筑的镀膜保护技术进行了研究。研究结果表明,由甲基丙烯酸十二氟庚酯、γ-甲基丙烯酰氧基丙基三甲氧基硅烷与丙烯酸酯等单体的多元共聚制备得到的氟硅丙烯酸树脂镀膜剂,具有良好的耐化学腐蚀性、耐候性、疏水疏油性、抑菌、超薄、高透光性(无反光)和阻燃等综合特性。该镀膜剂可采用传统涂布工艺,涂布与成膜过程无有毒有害物质排放,可实现对木质材料纤维微结构表面的有效包覆,在不改变榆木类木构古建筑外观的情况下,实现对榆木类木构古建筑的有效保护。     

A CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE SEISMIC HAZARD ZONING OF PESHAWAR AND ADJOINING AREAS

Many of the structural engineers in Pakistan refer to the UBC code for the design of aseismic structures. On the seismic zones of international cities, the UBC code 1997 has placed Peshawar in the most severe earthquake Zone 4 similar to the high earthquake prone cities of California, Alaska, Japan, Chile, Taiwan or Turkey. These places have suffered some of the most destructive earthquakes of the past. The earthquake history of Peshawar, however, does not inform us about moderate devastation. Moreover work done on the seismic zoning of Pakistan by different national and international agencies and independent researchers present widely conflicting pictures of the seismic hazard of Peshawar. This paper critically reviews almost all of the published work done on seismic zoning, in the light of the locally available data, geology, tectonics and earthquake history of Peshawar.     

ESTIMATION OF GROUND MOTION ACCELERATION AND BUILDING RESPONSE TO A LONG DISTANCE EARTHQUAKE

In October 1995 an earthquake with a magnitude of 7 on the Richter scale occurred in Sumatra, 450 km from Singapore. Tremors were felt by occupants of several buildings in Singapore and were recorded as an RMS acceleration value by instruments installed in a high-rise condominium. Based on this value and considering instrumental effects, site conditions and building characteristics, this paper investigates the ground motion accelerations and the building response.