Thinking Past Henri Lefebvre: Introducing “The Theory of Ground Rent and Rural Sociology”

This introduction to the translation of Henri Lefebvre's 1956 essay “The theory of ground rent and rural Sociology” moves through three stages. First, it suggests that Anglophone appropriations of Lefebvre have tended to focus too much on his urban writings, at the expense of understanding his early work on rural sociology, and failing to recognise how his urban focus emerged as a result of his interest in rural–urban transformation. Second, it provides a summary of his wider work on rural questions, including his unfinished work on a major treatise of rural sociology; and outlines the key themes of the present essay in relation to these other projects. Third, it connects Lefebvre's issues to wider debates in political economy and geography about aspects of the rural, land and ground rent, not least including the work of Antonio Gramsci and José Carlos Mariátegui.     

The Jacob Story: Between Oral and Written Modes

In this article I examine the relations between Jacob’s putative oral story and the pre-Priestly narrative. I argue that Hosea’s prophecy presents the version of Jacob's oral story related in his time and antedated by many years the composition of the story-cycle in its written form. Comparison of Hosea’s prophecy and Jacob’s narrative indicates the thorough way in which the exilic author worked the oral story he received in order to fit it to his ideological messages and religious concepts. To further examine the relations between the oral and written modes, I discuss the episode of the treaty between Laban and Jacob (Gen 31,45–54) in light of a Mari letter (A.3592). Comparison of the two episodes indicates that part of the biblical narrative rests on the oral story and other part was written by the late author. Evidently, the long process of oral transmission, the growth of the narratives in its course, and the creative reworking of the author make it impossible to either isolate the early oral layer within the present story-cycle or to date the stages of its growth in the oral process of transmission.     

Secularism Meets Coloniality: Mariategui's Andean Political Theology

This article seeks to clarify the link between Mariategui's political theology and his critique of modern-secular-coloniality. I argue that understanding the place and the significance of Mariategui's critique of secularism/colonialism helps us grasp the fuller extent of Mariategui's thought, a pioneering critic of modernity in the early twentieth century who keenly understood the limits of modern-liberal framework for analyzing the political problems of Latin America. Mariategui's reading of Marx and revolution raises important challenges to various forms of twenty-first-century political theologies that tackle modernity from within Western liberal modernity (postmodern theories and philosophies). Mariategui offers important insights not only for critics of the secular and modernity who fail to attest to the important question of coloniality from which secularism/modernity must be disentangled, but also for critics of colonialism/coloniality who fail to view religion as the key fabric of coloniality.     

How the mosquito (man) liberated Cuba

Disease is a more efficient killer of armies than man, but military historians tend not to dwell on this fact, for fear of relegating human volition to a secondary role in the outcome of wars. Thus, studies of the Cuban War of Independence from 1895 to 1898 tell of thrilling machete charges and awe-inspiring battleships, but pay insufficient attention to the insects and microbes that really killed the Spanish army and prepared the ground for the liberation of Cuba. This essay argues that the mosquito and yellow fever did most of the work of freeing Cuba from Spanish military occupation. It also tells how the theory of a Cuban physician, Carlos Finlay, helped to liberate the island from yellow fever following the American occupation in 1898. In this way the essay unites two sundered histories that belong together, and then goes on to explain why the medical community ignored Finlay for almost 20 years, just time enough to allow Cubans to found a new nation.     

家族、图像与南巡故事——《万笏朝天图》考析

《万笏朝天图》是首幅以乾隆南巡为主题的清代绘画长卷,组织绘制者范瑶系范仲淹二十世孙。根据范瑶著《纪恩日录》所记,该图卷描绘的是乾隆帝首访天平山范氏园邸的情景。雍乾之际,范氏宗族发展每况愈下,危机重重。作为宗族领导者,范瑶力行改革,多措并举重振家风,并试图通过接驾、献图等重建家族与皇权的密切关系。《万笏朝天图》即为江南士人家族与皇权互动关系的见证。     

The anxious host: Czechoslovakia and Carlos the Jackal 1978–1986

The nature of engagement by communist states with international terrorism remains contested. Furthermore, it represents one of the most enigmatic aspects of the Cold War. This article challenges the notion that the Soviet Bloc provided uniform active support to late Cold War terrorists and suggests new categories of host. To demonstrate the complexities and paradoxes of state-terrorist relations we examine Communist Czechoslovakia's relations with Carlos the Jackal – the most notorious terrorist of the period. The historical consensus remains that Carlos was supported by the Eastern Bloc. However, as newly-released Eastern European secret service documents show, attitudes of Moscow's allies varied considerably. Czechoslovakia was, at best, a temporary and ‘anxious host’. The arrival of major terrorists in such ‘anxious’ states were in fact often unannounced, uninvited and undesired – yet the hosts fell short of arresting the terrorists either due to ideological affinity or fear of retribution. From his first visit to Prague, Carlos the Jackal was considered to be a threat and a reputational hazard by the Czechoslovak State Security (StB). Gradually, the StB adopted subtle measures aimed at deterring the return of Carlos and his Group. Finally, in the mid-1980s, they artfully ejected the Jackal and his accomplices from its territory, but without risking formal expulsion.     

Carlos Enriques Clerque as crypto-Jewish confidence man in Francisco de Seyxas y Lovera's Piratas y contrabandistas (1693)

This article considers the story of Carlos Enriques Clerque, the enigmatic instigator of the 1669–1671 John Narborough expedition to Chile, as presented in Francisco de Seyxas y Lovera's Piratas y contrabandistas, a history of piracy from 1693, first published in 2011. Locating Seyxas's account in the context of related print and archival sources, this study demonstrates how the author develops a new and singularly complete picture of Enriques Clerque's South American adventure. At the same time, this article examines how Seyxas's version of the Enriques Clerque story exemplifies a uniquely Spanish vision of piracy specific to the final years of the seventeenth century. Setting aside the violent predators featured in Northern European texts on piracy from the period, Seyxas focuses on a category of sophisticated confidence men who deploy linguistic ability and cultural knowledge to undermine Spain's commercial system overseas.     

Comic Incongruity in Medieval French Enfances

This article compares the use of nudity in the Carolingian romances Enrique Fi de Oliva and Carlos Maynes, which are both structured around the tale of a falsely accused woman. In Carlos Maynes, the protagonist Empress Sevilla is disrobed several times in her adventures and, at the end, strips of her own accord, along with her son Loui and their supporters, to reconcile with her husband Carlos Maynes. Enrique Fi de Oliva contains more scenes of nudity than Carlos Maynes does. In it, Pepino is reconciled with his sister Oliva, her son Enrique, and their supporters after they have disrobed multiple times. Both romances are about old, ineffective rulers who have perverse advisers. Only the innocence of the heroes and heroines, expressed through their nudity, can overcome the power of the aging leaders' evil allies. If, at the symbolic level, these scenes are about the political rebirth of the monarchy through generational change and new alliances, at the visual level they are quite risqué and often comic episodes that must have had great popular appeal. It is not surprising that Enrique Fi de Oliva, the more explicit of the two works in terms of nudity and humor, was praised by Miguel de Cervantes who, in Don Quixote de la Mancha, expressed admiration for the "exactness" with which it describes everything.     

The Sandinista revolution and the limits of the Cold War in Latin America: the dilemma of non-intervention during the Nicaraguan crisis, 1977–78

This paper seeks to understand the construction of a broad alliance between the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), a socialist inspired guerrilla group, and various Latin American liberal and authoritarian governments, mainly Venezuela, Costa Rica, Panama and Cuba, between 1977 and 1979. I will seek to understand the construction of this unusual partnership, as well as the deep conflicts and mistrust that existed between the parties during the revolutionary upheaval in Nicaragua. This process will be examined by analysing the way Cold War politics and Latin American regional tensions shaped the events leading to the Sandinista revolution.     

马里时代西亚战争惯例初探

在马里时代,西亚诸国逐步发展出制约战争的惯例。在发动战争之前,要为战争找到合法的理由,同时需要获得神明的赞同和友邦的支持,更为重要的是,要进行公开宣战。在战后对战败国的处理上,虽然存在野蛮的毁城杀人的向例,但是较为人道的战争惯例逐步发展起来:有限摧毁敌方城市,善待敌方战俘与百姓以及掩埋敌方阵亡者尸体等。马里时代的战争惯例,继承了公元前3千纪的某些战争惯例,同时又对古代西亚战争的惯例做出了新发展。马里时代战争惯例的形成,与此时大国争霸、同盟化战争以及战争的频繁有着密切关系。战争的巨大破坏力,也促使较为人道的战争惯例出现,它们代表了古代西亚战争惯例的发展方向,具有进步意义。