The Genesis of the 1906 Trades Disputes Act: Liberalism, Trade Unions, and the Law

The Trades Disputes Act of 1906 occupies an important positionin the history of trade unionism, industrial relations, andlabour politics. Far less attention has been devoted to itsplace in the development of Liberal politics. Historians ofliberalism tend to portray the act as an uninteresting reversionto the pre-Taff Vale position and symptomatic merely of theparty's desire to placate labour. This article suggests thatexisting accounts of the Act's genesis place insufficient emphasison its Liberal origins and that arguments about trade unionlaw provide important insights into the character of the partyand its creed. The argument is in three parts. The first considersthe constraints on liberal legislators. The second investigatesthe meaning of the debates surrounding the Act's passage. Itrestores the Act to its proper intellectual context by recoveringthe variety of views about trade union law present in Edwardianliberalism. The last section uses these arguments to demonstrateboth the resilience of radicalism within the party and the emergenceof a novel social democratic progressivism. Only thus, it isclaimed, is it possible to understand the passage and meaningof the Act. * A number of people have helped in the preparation of thisarticle. I would like to thank David Armutage, Eugeruo Biagiru,Elizabeth Emens, Jon Lawrence, Nomi Levy, Alastair Reid, EmmaRothschild, Lisa Tiersen and Philip Waller I benefited greatlyfrom the comments of the anonymous referees and the assistanceof the editors of Twentieth Century British History. I owe aspecial debt of gratitude to David Cannadine, Peter Clarke andVictoria de Grazia.     

Gustaf Dalman, Anti-Semitism, and the Language of Jesus Debate

The theory that Jesus of Nazareth spoke and taught exclusively in Aramaic rather than Hebrew achieved its present dominant position just over a century ago due largely to the labour of Gustaf Dalman. His primary motivation was not the recovery of the historical Jesus, however, but to support his deep commitment to the Protestant movement to convert Jews. This movement did not escape the impact of escalating anti-Semitism in society, intensified by rapid progress towards German national unification. One Christian response to anti-Semitism was to "extract" Jesus from Judaism by contrasting him with "Jewish" attitudes and values held by Jewish spiritual authorities. Dalman's contribution was to extract Jesus from the ethnically exclusive Hebrew language by insisting that he spoke only the more widely used lingua franca of the region, Aramaic. By overstating his case and going beyond the evidence, Dalman revealed his indebtedness to the anti-Semitic spirit of his age.     

The Evangelical Alliance, Religious Liberty, and the Evangelical Conscience in Nineteenth-Century Britain

This article explores the difficulties nineteenth-century British evangelical ecumenists faced as they attempted to develop distinctive practical initiatives that could commend widespread support across the denominational spectrum. In particular, it focuses on the nascent Evangelical Alliance's growing concern to promote religious liberty overseas. By following the debates within the Alliance about the need to pursue religious liberty and attending to the obstacles preventing such a course of action this article suggests the need to distinguish between a qualified agenda committed to securing religious rights (religious liberty) and a broader agenda committed to securing political rights (religious equality). By favouring the former, the Evangelical Alliance succeeded in developing a distinctively pan-evangelical initiative that commended relatively widespread support. Thus evangelical concern for religious liberty must be distinguished from the distinctively Nonconformist promotion of religious equality.     

PALAEOMAGNETIC STUDY OF HOXNIAN LACUSTRINE SEDIMENTS

The remanent magnetization of samples spanning Zones I to III of the Hoxnian Interglacial at Hoxne has declination values that lie within 30° of the present-day declination, and inclination values that are not more than 10° steeper or 20° shallower than the present-day inclination.     

Wilsonianism: the dynamics of a conflicted concept

Americans have generally seen the principles and objectives proclaimed by President Woodrow Wilson during the First World War as having continued relevance for United States foreign policy. However, they have often differed over their application to specific situations, particularly because there is likely to be a tension between a drive to establish democratic values across the globe and commitment to a universal system of collective security. Rather than seeking a pure, abstract definition of 'Wilsonianism', it is more illuminating to examine its origins and evolution in relation to the development of American foreign policy over the years. Tracing this historical process reveals that Wilson committed himself to a postwar league of nations during the period of American neutrality, but it was only as the United States became a belligerent that the spread of democratic government became a policy objective, and then only in a partial and qualified way. A similar pattern has been discernible in subsequent decades. It has been during conflicts, or the run-up to them, that the more ideological and revisionist aspects of Wilsonian principles have come to the fore, whereas it has been in the aftermath of conflicts that there has been the greatest interest in the potentialities of a universal collective security organization. There has also been a broad shift of emphasis over time. As confidence in America's power position has grown, the core of Wilson's legacy has more often come to be seen as the promotion of democracy rather than the strengthening of international institutions. The persistence of both themes may be seen as reflecting basic and enduring elements of the policy-making context—on the one hand, the interests of the United States as a status quo power, and on the other, the demands of domestic American opinion.     

HISTORICITY AND TRANSCENDENTALITY: FOUCAULT,CAVAILLÈS,AND THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE CONCEPT

This paper is concerned with Foucault's historical methodology. It argues that the coherence of his project lies in its development of a set of tools for unearthing the historical principles that govern thought and practice in the epochs that have shaped the present age. Foucault claimed that these principles are, at once, transcendental and historical. Accordingly, the philosophical soundness of Foucault's project depends on his having developed a satisfactory way of passage between the absolutist purism of the transcendental and the mundane contingency of the historical. The paper shows that the key to seeing how Foucault achieved this desideratum lies in a surprising and largely unexplored methodological tradition that he himself explicitly acknowledged: Husserlian phenomenology as it was taken up, modifed, and practiced in the thought of the philosopher of logic and mathematics, Jean Cavaillès—what I call the phenomenology of the concept. The essay has four parts. The first sketches the two most prominent lines of interpretation of Foucault's methodology and argues that both are inadequate, not least because they both dismiss Foucault's phenomenological heritage. The second part lays out the rudiments of the neglected strand of the phenomenological tradition inaugurated by Cavaillès's important critique and appropriation of Husserlian method. This serves, in turn, to set the stage for the third part that examines, first, Canguilhem's and then Foucault's distinct projects for grasping the transcendental within the historical, and the historical within the transcendental—their respective continuations of Cavaillès's phenomenology of the concept. The essay concludes with a brief consideration of the pathways that this way of reading Foucault opens up for understanding the nexus of power, knowledge, and subjectivation that came to define his work.     

SEALED SILVER IN IRON AGE CISJORDAN AND THE 'INVENTION' OF COINAGE

Summary. Recent finds of hoarded silver in Cisjordan present new material for the consideration of the conceptual history of coined metals. When the fundamental concepts associated with coinage are abstracted from the various objects that express them, it is possible to see that a kind of coined metal existed in Cisjordan and other parts of the Near East prior to the traditional 'invention' of coinage by the Lydians and Greeks c. 600 BC. ¹ Both hoards and written sources indicate that seals affixed to precious metals at times qualified them in a numismatic sense by guaranteeing weights set to standards as well as controlled composition. What has been characterized as the 'invention' of coinage was rather an adaptation of these same principal concepts. The frequency and size of silver hoards from Cisjordan point to a proliferation in the 'monetary' use of silver in that region during the Iron Age and suggest a relationship to the overwhelming preference for silver coinages among the Greeks.