18世纪末至19世纪中期英国在印度的“文明使命”

在"文明使命"价值观的指引下,英国人在印度扮演的角色,既是征服者和殖民者,又是统治者和开化者.他们在治理与掠夺印度的过程中,摧毁了印度原有的社会与经济结构,推进了印度社会的近代化,用强力手段将古老的印度拉进了以英国为中心的世界资本主义体系.     

从生命体验结构涌出的诗歌创作——《人傍山斋残稿》序

《人傍山斋残稿》所收之诗,皆能吐属心声,抒发性灵,触景感发,多为佳句,不期而至之中,似有神助,实则仍来源于诗人之生命体验结构,离不开对生活物态之细腻微妙观察。足证真诗者,皆精神之所为;而诗歌之语言,实即生命体验之艺术升华。     

‘A Bed of Procrustes’: The Aden Protectorate and the Forward Policy 1934–44

This article explores attempts by British colonial officials based in Aden to extend systems of political administration to the colony's tribal hinterland during the late interwar and early wartime period. Commencing initially with delicate attempts to recast faltering relations between tribal chiefs and their subjects, the policy would culminate a decade later with the despatch of British military units throughout the furthest extents of the protectorate in support of a range of direct political agreements with local rulers that would eventually set the conditions for federation. The intervening years featured a series of little-known debates among various officials on how precisely to cement British influence in the tribal areas, and the philosophy of administration to be pursued to that end. These would expose an element of confusion as to which techniques would best satisfy British policy, and reveal a preference on the part of some for the application of methods atypical of those used elsewhere under Colonial Office jurisdiction, and which drew their inspiration instead from systems of control used on India's volatile frontiers.     

Some Political Processes of Ranked Societies

This article explores the emergence of inequality in two regions of Mesoamerica: the Soconusco and Valley of Oaxaca. Dichotomous models that propose a continuum of political strategy (i.e., Leach 1954; Renfrew 1974; Spencer 1993; Blanton et al. 1996) are used to examine the different processes evident in the comparison of settlement, mortuary, and architectural data between these two regions. The elite in Early and Middle Formative Soconusco appear to integrate society with a comparatively external oriented and exclusionary strategy whereas in the Valley of Oaxaca Early and Middle Formative elites employed a more group-oriented, internally focused, and corporate strategy. Environment richness and proximity of competing communities may account for the primary, and perhaps unintentional, emergence of inequality in the Soconusco around 1400 B.C.E. In the Valley of Oaxaca inequality emerged as many as 250 years later in a less circumscribed area. Such environmental, political, and chronological factors may be responsible for some of the differences in integrative strategies evident in the two regions.