Joys and Frustrations of FOIA

The author gives a brief account of his experience in utilizingthe United States Freedom of Information Act to obtain copiesof hitherto closed government documents dealing with Alliedintelligence operations in Shanghai and North China during theSecond World War. While describing some of the practical difficultiesinvolved for both researchers and government departments inworking with the Act, the author argues that similar legislationin the UK could benefit contemporary historians of Britain andof other countries whose records are often in large measureheld in Britain.     

A Door of Hope Re‐opened: The Fifth Monarchy,King Charles and King Jesus

A Door of Hope was the manifesto of the Fifth Monarchists’ desperate uprising in London in January 1661, a few months after the Restoration of Charles II. While the rising itself is well known, its manifesto has never been examined in detail. Probably based on a sermon to Venner's congregation, it displays a defiant conviction that the Restoration could be understood as part of God's providential plan, the next step towards the imminent kingdom of Christ on earth. But it also reaches out to a much wider constituency, all the supporters of the “Good Old Cause,” offering a programme that might appeal to many radicals. And the author draws on secular, republican discourse to buttress his apocalyptic claims, revealing close links between even the most extreme Fifth Monarchists and wider currents of interregnum radicalism.     

LE POSSIBILISME DE HAROLD INNIS

Cet article vise à préciser la position possibiliste de Harold Innis, a G en explorer les fondements et à en dégager la portée dans son oeuvre. On montre que les orientations de base de son possibilisme sont très convergentes avec celles des vidaliens. Ses points d'appui néo-kantiens sont soulignés à ce sujet. Sa portée est manifeste dans trois thèmes: la problématique de la formation territoriale du Canada, I'importance de la technologie et la part accordée à la liberté humaine .
This article aims at outlining the possibilist position of Harold Innis, at exploring its foundations, and at showing its bearing on his written work. It is shown that the basic orientations of his possibilism converge with those of the Vidalians. In this respect, its neo-Kantian supports are underlined. Its significance in his thought is made apparent in three themes: the problem of, and approach to, the territorial formation of Canada, the importance given to technology, and the leeway given to human free will .     

L'église d'al-Qousour Failaka, État de Koweit

In 1989 a French team conducted excavations at the site of al-Qousour on the island of Failaka, State of Kuwait. The excavations resulted in the discovery of a Christian church complete with two crosses made out of stucco. The building and its contents are described, and a preliminary attempt is made at determining the period of Failaka's evangelisation and of the flourishing of Christianity there.     

PENSÉE AMÉNAGISTE ET DISCOURS DE LA COLONISATION AU QUÉBEC

By conceptualizing and encouraging colonization, geographic discourse has greatly contributed to the structuring of essential themes of spatial planning thought in Quebec. A territorial horizon specific to French Canadians was defined in terms of limits and land for expansion, and in terms of northern destiny. Spatial planning thought has also dealt with the issue of how to give structure to the whole. In order to do so, an overall regional structure was devised at the time of colonization. The lived space of the parish was also viewed as an operational spatial unit, through which social and economic modernization could occur. The stability of the then-introduced representations testifies to the efficacy of this spatial planning, though it is related to the geographic discourse on colonization in structuring Que'be'cois territoriality.
En concevant et en encourageant la colonisation, le discours géographique a beaucoup contribuéà structurer des grands thèmes de la pensée aménagiste au Québec. Celle-ci définit un horizon territorial propre aux Canadiens français tant en termes de limite; que d'espaces à investir ou encore en terrnes de vocation nordique. Elle s'est aussi orientée vers la structuration de l'ensemble. Ainsi, les articulations régionales ont été projetées lors de la colonisation. La paroisse, espace vécu, a aussi été vue comrne un espace opérationnel qui devait structurer la modernisation sociale et économique du pays. L'aspect durable des représentations ainsi introduites témoigne de l'efficacité de cette pensée arnénagiste, forgée par le discours de la colonisation, à structurer la territorialité québecoise.