THE DAILIES IN REVOLTS

The article addresses the following questions: How newsworthy were the global unrests as phenomena and which areas did the Norwegian press focus on? Did the global protest become a part of the Norwegian media agenda in 1968? Did the party commitments of the selected newspapers influence their reporting of protests and revolts as phenomena? Which of the Norwegian newspapers had the most extensive coverage of the protests and revolts? Furthermore, with respect to the Nordic countries: Did geographical and cultural proximity to events in Scandinavia lead to a more comprehensive coverage of these events? Based on a quantitative analysis of the total coverage of demonstrations, strikes and riots in selected Norwegian dailies in 1968, this article disputes Galtung and Ruge's Galtung, Johan and Ruge, Mari Holmboe. 1965. ‘The Structure of Foreign News’.. Journal of Peace Research, 2(1): 64–90. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar] classical hypothesis about geographical and cultural proximity as one of the most important news criteria.     

A Case of Exemplarity: C. F. Rottböll's history of smallpox inoculation in Denmark–Norway, 1766

Smallpox inoculation was one of the great discoveries of the 18th century and has been written into the grand narrative of medical progress, describing the taming of epidemic disease. Setting the perspective of progress aside, the article explores how this medical innovation was situated in 18th-century society and culture. The aim is to investigate how medical practice was intertwined with social structure and cultural patterns. The article takes its case from a book published in Copenhagen in 1766 by Professor C. F. Rottböll, former Head Physician of the Royal Inoculation House in Copenhagen. Being the first medical treatise on inoculation in Denmark–Norway, the book also has a historical section followed by a collection of reports and letters written by a number of other authors from various parts of the kingdom. Through close reading, the article explores how the introduction of the new technique was described in the texts. The reports were written to present practice and discuss cases. In doing so, they also presented a variety of other concerns so that a diversity of aims and intentions are added to the medical ones. The social and rhetorical strategies employed illuminate social ambition and systems of patronage, as well as understandings of history and of truth.     

A New Diplomatic History and the Networks of Spanish Diplomacy in the Baroque Era

Diplomatic history has undergone profound alterations during the last century. According to the old model built by Mattingly in 1955, diplomatic history was the analysis of international and political relations within a national context. Subsequent studies analysed how diplomacy evolved towards a more institutionalised and professional scheme (established in eighteenth-century European diplomacy). However, was this conclusion an inevitable one for Early Modern and Baroque diplomacy? This essay intends to retrace the steps that have been taken towards a new history of diplomacy, by early-modern historians in general, and by Spanish historiography in particular, as well as to assess the idea that what made a difference for Spanish Baroque diplomacy was the extent of networks that allowed cultural transference, the capacity to influence others, rather than the institutional extent of connections and practices. Which people or processes promoted the circulation of ideas, information, and culture, within and outside the Spanish monarchy, during the seventeenth century? This question will form the focus of the second part of this essay, in which the author analyses several specific cases of Spanish ambassadors in Europe: their networks of communication, their building of stereotypes, their informal diplomatic practices, and their use of ceremonial practices.     

Reviews

EVELINE CRUICKSHANKS, ed. Ideology and Conspiracy: Aspects of Jacobitism, 1689–1759. Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers, 1982. Pp. xi, 231. $31.50 (US). Reviewed by Roger L. Emerson

JAMES PINCKNEY HARRISON. The Endless War: Fifty Years of Struggle in Vietnam. New York: The Free Press, 1981. Pp. xii, 372. $17.95 (US). Reviewed by P.J. Honey

J. ROBERT WRIGHT. The Church and the English Crown, 1305–1334: A Study based on the Register of Archbishop Walter Reynolds. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies 1980. Pp. xix, 472, $27.00 paper. Reviewed by Robert Brentano

TORGIL, MAGNUSON. Rome in the Age of Bernini. Vol. I : From the election of Sixtus V to the death of Urban VIII, translated by Nancy Adler. Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell International, and N.J.: Humanities Press, 1982. Pp. ix, 388, $45 (US). Reviewed by Paul F. Grendler

BRUCE CUMINGS. The Origins of the Korean War: Liberation and the Emergence of Separate Regimes 1945–1947. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981. Pp. 606. $40.00 (US); $14.50 (US) paper. Reviewed by Tae Jin Kahng

STEFANOS SARAFIS. ELAS: Greek Resistance Army. Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1981. Pp. civ, 566. $26.25 (US); LAWRENCE S. WTTTNER. American Intervention in Greece, 1943–1949. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982. Pp. xiv, 445. $19.95 (US). Reviewed by Dimitri Kitsikis

ANDREW ROSSOS. Russia and the Balkans: Inter-Balkan Rivalries and Russian Foreign Policy 1908–1919. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981. Pp. xiii. 313. $35.00. Reviewed by Hugh Seton-Watson

JOHN MEYENDORFF. Byzantium and the Rise of Russia: A Study of Byzantino-Russian relations in the fourteenth century. Cambridge, London, New York, New Rochelle, Melbourne, Sydney: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Pp. xxi, 326. $69.50 (US). Reviewed by N. Oikonomides

THOMAS C. OWEN. Capitalism and Politics in Russia. A Social History of the Moscow Merchants, 1855–1905. London and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Pp. xi, 295. $35.00 (US). Reviewed by John F. Hutchinson

G. DANIELS (ed.). A Guide to the Reports of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks 12. London, 1981. Pp. xxvi, 115. £12.00. Reviewed by R.J. Overy

LOUIS L. SNYDER. Global Mini-Nationalisms: Autonomy or Independence. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982. Pp. xvii, 326. $29.95 (US). Reviewed by Allan C. Smith

PAUL HAGGIE. Britannia at Bay: The Defence of the British Empire Against Japan 1931–41. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981. Pp. xii, 264. $59.95. Reviewed by Raymond Callahan

DAVID REYNOLDS. The Creation of the Anglo-American Alliance 1937–41: A Study in Competitive Co-operation. London: Europa Publications Limited, 1981. Pp. xiv, 397. £20.00. Reviewed by Ernest Gilman

DONALD S. BIRN. The League of Nations Union: 1918–1945. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981. Pp. vi, 269. £69.50. Reviewed by George Egerton     

Conflicts Over the Repatriation of Sami Cultural Heritage in Sweden

Abstract

More than 400 years of colonization and assimilation policy by the Nordic states has created a new situation for Sami culture. Over this long period the Sami heritage has become thoroughly marginalized, but today the more overt conflicts that we find elsewhere in the world between colonizing states and indigenous peoples have diminished. Such conflicts are, perhaps, more characteristic of an earlier stage of the colonial frontier, and they have been replaced by post-colonial forms of consensus. Despite the shared experiences of the Sami in their recent history, some important differences have emerged between Nordic states in how the Sami heritage is perceived and how it is managed. Much more than in Norway, the dominant attitudes of the Swedish state continue to echo the discriminatory attitudes of the past, but in a more restrained way. This continuity of attitudes is demonstrated here using examples of current policies and practices. Particularly in Sweden, there are continuing conflicts between nationalism and the Sami world view, but I argue that these old conflicts are no longer the main problem in Scandinavia. Instead, scholars, Sami leaders, and others concerned with heritage in the north are finding common cause in opposing what we might call the ‘wilderness assumptions’ of policy makers in the south, especially within the neo-liberal Swedish state. These assumptions have been reinforced by the restructuring of state finances, and they are now leading towards neglect of northern cultural heritage and its associated institutions, particularly museums. These assertions are supported using examples from various museums and through case studies of the repatriation of Sami cultural objects such as drums and siejdde-stones, and the continuing problems with Sami skeletal remains.     

Books Received

This article is an analysis of Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges's short text “Kafka and His Precursors.” Although appearing to be an example of literary criticism, Borges's essay is in fact the exploration of a certain logical paradox. It is a paradox that is to be found throughout Borges's work, with the result that “Kafka and His Precursors” can be read as a disguised literary manifesto on the part of Borges. I also explore the consequences of Borges's essay for thinking about questions of cultural transmission. I argue that Borges’ work lives on—like those literary, religious and philosophical traditions he admires—because its most profound subject is the relationship it has with the person who reads it.     

Sami Fisheries in the Pre-modern Era: Household Sustenance and Market Relations

Abstract

This article tries to assess the importance of fisheries within the traditional Sami household economy, where market orientation and participation in commercial fishing activities directed at selling stockfish to external partners formed an integral, strategic factor. After an introductory overview of the traditional fishing methods of the Sami, their most common types of fishing gear and the most preferred species, the article focuses on the sources that might highlight Sami fisheries from the Middle Ages and on through Early Modern times. Accounts and tax registers from the late sixteenth century show that the groups of coastal and inland Sami displayed highly different trading profiles. The coastal Sami were heavily dependent on institutionalized forms of trade, not only connected to the Hanseatic trade network with its regional centre in Bergen, but also to other merchant groups, in a way that made them able to take advantage of competition among the merchants. However, in comparison with their Norwegian cohabitants, the Sami showed a greater adaptability and capability of switching between various resource niches, and were not so fundamentally dependent on provisions from outside as the Norwegians.     

Geolinguistics,culture, and politics in the development and maintenance of Tajiki

The importance the Soviet government placed on language and language planning in the creation of identity and space with a view to the ultimate creation of a Soviet culture is here explored through the lens of geolinguistics. Linguists, poets, and politicians were organized to educate each ethnic group and to socialize them within communism. Using the country of Tajikistan as an example, a new language, Tajiki, was created and implemented throughout all education curricula. That this language was never fully embraced by the population shows the difficulty in political language planning as well as the resilience of language as a measure of cultural identity in the face of a government's effort to ultimately supplant it with the more acceptable “international” language of Russian. Given that the current government of Tajikistan is still made up of former Soviet officials, it comes as no surprise that it has continued to use literary Tajiki as one of the primary bases for Tajik culture as expressed in the Republic of Tajikistan. The effort expended on this creation, the continued allegiance to it, and the overall value of using language and geography as a lens for understanding culture will be explored in this paper.     

(Re)creating places and spaces in two countries: Brazilian transnational migration processes

Brazilian immigration to the United States is a relatively recent phenomenon that gained momentum in the 1980s in unprecedented numbers. Today an estimated 1.2 million Brazilians live in the United States. Brazilians (re)create transnational places and spaces through social, cultural, and economic practices, within the immigrant receiving communities of Marietta, Georgia, and Framingham, Massachusetts, in the United States. They also incorporate and add new elements to their livelihoods in the respective sending communities of Piracanjuba, in the state of Goiás, and Governador Valadares, in the state of Minas Gerais, in Brazil. How are these Portuguese-speaking Brazilian immigrants shaping and (re)creating new places and spaces? In what ways and spheres do transnational exchanges affect two places of destination in the United States and two places of origin in Brazil after migration occurs? Using multiple methods, which include in-depth interviews and participant observation, this paper addresses these questions by evaluating the changes incurred by migration. I use a framework perspective that is largely from outside the Latino/Hispanic context. Migration processes are just as much about those who leave Brazil for the United States as it is about those who return to Brazil (i.e. returnees) and what happens to those respective receiving and sending communities in both countries.     

Posted: the campaign sign landscape,race, and political participation in Mississippi

Cultural landscapes offer potential insights into cultural processes. As a cultural/political landscape element, the domestic campaign sign is linked to a variety of socio-cultural and political processes. Examination of the geographical distribution of 2004 presidential election campaign signs posted throughout the town of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, illustrates that race is a factor in understanding who chooses to post signs. Historically, limitations on political participation in the South would have included use of landscape for communication, imposing a sort of metacommunicative landscape hegemony. Further, patterns of sign postings and voter turnout indicate that both activities are forms of political participation that are embraced differently by different social groups.