Recognising values of China’s scenic and historic interest areas as world heritage cultural landscapes: Lushan case study

ABSTRACT

China’s Scenic and Historic Interest Areas are a major contributor to the State’s World Heritage lexicon. However, understanding of their values has led to confusion internationally and in China, not least with controversy over China’s latest promotion of the Natural Protected Areas System. This paper discusses values of China’s Scenic and Historic Interest Areas from the cultural landscape perspective through an in-depth case study of Lushan. A theoretical framework for recognising values of China’s Scenic and Historic Interest Areas has been set up and tested at Lushan, including exploring stakeholders’ understanding of its values as a world heritage site by using semi-structured interviews and questionnaires. The findings reveal that Lushan clearly represents cultural values inextricably associated with Scenic and Historic Interest Areas, and also need for supplementary advice on its Outstanding Universal Value (OUV). It suggests that the ideology driving management of China’s Scenic and Historic Interest Areas as national parks or natural parks focusing mainly on objective nature-related conservation without regard to the traditional Chinese philosophy of the culture-nature binary will adversely affect China’s Scenic and Historic Interest Areas as cultural landscapes and their community values.     

The good and the bad of the same: On the political value of historical repetition in Angola

ABSTRACT

In this article I discuss processes of investment in historicity as an ideological, political and moral problem. Focusing on the study of religious and political movements in Angola, I address the problem of historical repetition as a form of ‘acting upon time’ which, in similar terms to Walter Benjamin’s citation a l’ordre du jour, contests the idea of temporal irreversibility. I propose that this contestation is multiplex and can produce ‘good’ as well as ‘bad’ historical repetitions.     

BUSINESS AND THE NORDIC WELFARE STATES, 1890-1970

Social scientists have, since the 1990s, shown an increasing interest in the role of business actors in welfare state development, and these debates provide many opportunities for historians of the Nordic countries to contribute with their insights and findings. This special issue brings together six historical studies on the role of business in the development of the welfare states in the Nordic countries, including the role of firms as providers of company welfare as well as the activities of firms and of business interest groups to influence policies and public opinion. Two observations stand out. First, the contributions draw a picture of a gradual shift in this period from that of fundamental opposition, which often dominated up to the mid-20th century, to a more pragmatic approach of cooperation. Cooperation in policy-making co-existed with confrontation in public debate, in which business interest groups promoted alternatives to ‘big government’. Second, these studies underline the value of paying attention to what Reinhart Koselleck called ‘horizons of expectations’. These historical studies show how the vocabulary of the actors changed in this period, and how business interest groups not only influenced political decisions but also adapted their expectations to changes in the political context.     

《全宋文》有关宋代福建学校出版史料述略

宋代福建学校刻书,有史可考者,主要集中在福州学宫、莆田郡庠、泉州郡庠和临汀郡庠。福州学宫刊刻真德秀著作《读书记》,由汤汉主持雕印;莆田郡庠刊刻书籍《论语通释》,由军学教授苏思龚主持雕印;泉州郡庠刊刻书籍《禹贡山川地理图》《潜虚》《发微》,由州学教授陈应行主持雕印;临汀郡庠刊刻韦骧的《钱塘韦先生集》,该书为其孙子韦能定所刻。这些刻书,为后世留下了一批珍贵的史料。     

Between history and hagiography: Eadmer of Canterbury's vision of the Historia novorum in Anglia

Written between c.1093 and the end of the 1120s, Eadmer of Canterbury's Historia novorum in Anglia is one of the best-known sources for the study of Anglo-Norman political, ecclesiastical and cultural history. This article explores the identity of the text as it developed in Eadmer's own mind. While modern scholars have placed the Historia novorum within the development of English national historiography, Eadmer showed no desire for his work to be received in this way. Instead, Eadmer's Historia was profoundly influenced by his extensive experience in writing the lives and miracles of saints. The Historia novorum occupies a space between history and hagiography, which successfully redeployed Eadmer's experiences of writing the past through hagiography, in order to produce an innovative and unique example of the genre of medieval historiography.     

Retracing Rivers and drawing swamps: Using a drawing tablet to reconstruct an historical hydroscape from army corps survey maps

Abstract

This article presents a novel geospatial approach to reconstructing and analyzing environmental change over extensive spatial and temporal scales, even in systems such as rivers and streams that are comparatively difficult to digitize. We used a drawing tablet and stylus to digitize features found on historical Army Corps maps across the spatially extensive landscape of the Lower Wabash River’s riparian zone, in Indiana and Illinois, USA. The methodology allows for an efficient reconstruction of sinuous and irregular environmental features, such as sloughs, and demonstrates the utility of digitizing historical maps to understand the evolution of surface water quantity and location across a landscape. We then compared these historical data to contemporary environmental datasets for the same study area to understand what changes have occurred over a 100?year period. This reveals that the hydroscape of the Lower Wabash River has been significantly altered by past human activity, notably through the reduction of swamps, wetlands, and sandbars, and the increase in drainage ditches and overall stream area. Notably, many of these historical alterations are not captured within current environmental datasets.     

论袁宏史学思想的玄学倾向

魏晋玄学对于史学家袁宏的史学思想有着重要的影响 ,他的“道明其本 ,儒言其用”、为政“贵在安静”和智者“顺势而为”等观点的提出 ,表明其史学思想具有明显的玄学倾向。     

Beached swords from Marano Lagoon (northern Adriatic) reveal ancient land–sea connections and recent coastal evolution

Depositional and erosional processes, subsidence and sea-level changes have strongly modified the coastal landscape of northern Adriatic lagoons. Such rapid transformations have induced significant consequences on human settlements and, thus, on the archaeological visibility of the area, still largely unexplored. We present here six metal swords fortuitously retrieved by fishermen over the last decades in front of the barrier islands of Marano Lagoon (north-eastern Italy). Multi-analytical analyses carried out on the artefacts (X-ray radiography and computed micro-tomography, radiocarbon dating and typo-chronology) combined with the study of the coastal paleo-environment (mainly based on historical cartography and remote sensing) allowed the items’ main features to be defined, and highlighted both the historical importance of the area and the significant morphological changes that have occurred there over the last millennium. Data presented indicate that Marano Lagoon was a major hub in the northern Adriatic in the Late Middle Ages, during the crucial period of the Crusades, and in Early Modern times, connecting inland Europe with the Mediterranean Sea. Moreover, the research highlights the onset of coastal erosion that occurred in the last century after a phase of relatively geomorphic stability, possibly deriving from the intensification of human impact and climate change.     

章学诚的史学变革思想

章学诚的史学变革思想,涉及史意、历史编纂学、历史文学三个方面。章学诚的"史意"不仅具有著述宗旨、别识心裁之意,还包含撰述者关于历史和史学的体会、情感和价值取向,比"史义"内容更加丰富。其"圆而神"的撰述思想既有辩证法的思想因素,又有美学的意境。在历史文学上,章氏一方面强调史文应忠实地反映历史实际,另一方面又主张语言表达的神明变化。     

贝琪及其《吴学甄微》考述

上海图书馆所藏贝琪稿本《吴学甄微》承袭章太炎、梁启超、刘师培诸家论说,以人为纲,以学为纬,注重学者的授受源流、学术特质以及与吴派的相关度,考察吴派经学的源流变迁与盛衰之迹,是吴学系谱的专论之作。书末有章太炎、金天羽、陈衍诸家跋语,具有重要的史学价值。