The Carving Technology of the Handle‐Shaped Artefacts from Yinxu (c.1300–1046 bc) in China

The handle‐shaped artefact is a special jade object of the Three Dynasties (c.2000–200 bc ) period. The manufacturing technology and function of the handle‐shaped artefacts are widely questioned. In this paper, two handle‐shaped artefacts from Yinxu (c.1300–1046 bc ) are tested by digital microscope, Raman spectrometer and scanning electron microscope. The results indicate that the handle‐shaped artefacts might be made in four steps, namely rough shape cutting, edge reforming, handle making and single‐side polishing. It also suggests that the handle‐shaped artefacts might be used as sacrificial offerings, but not as hairpins or handles.     

“Religious Violence as Modern Myth”

Abstract

In this essay the author summarizes the argument of his book entitled The Myth of Religious Violence, whose main contention is that there is no reason to suppose that people are more likely to kill for a god than for a whole other host of “secular” ideologies and practices that behave in the way that “religions” do. The author then goes on to respond to various critiques that have been made of the book since its appearance in 2009.     

麦礼谦教授与美国华侨华人研究

要论美国的华侨华人历史研究 ,就不能不提麦礼谦教授。麦先生虽然是自学成才 ,并且大器晚成 ,但却是美国华侨华人历史研究的开拓者和奠基人之一。麦先生不仅自己积极进取 ,勇于开拓美国华侨华人研究的新领域 ,而且充满一个历史学家经世致用的人文情怀 ,乐于用自己所学服务社会     

The Genealogical Society Library of Salt Lake City: A Source of Data for Economic and Social Historians

Abstract. Some important novelists have written a great novel early in their careers and have produced lesser works thereafter, whereas others have improved their work gradually over long periods and have made their major contributions late in their lives. Which of these patterns a novelist follows appears to be systematically related to the nature of his work. Conceptual writers typically have specific goals for their books, and they produce novels that emphasize plot; experimental writers' intentions are often uncertain, and their novels more often stress characterization. By examining the careers of 12 important modern novelists, the author demonstrates that conceptual novelists—including Herman Melville, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway—are generally those who have declined after writing landmark early novels, while, in contrast, experimental novelists—including Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, and Virginia Woolf—have typically arrived at their most important work later in their careers. As is the case for modern painting and poetry, the ranks of great modern novelists have included both conceptual young geniuses and experimental old masters.     

Elite Analysis of Democracies' International Policy Introduction

This essay offers a critical appreciation of Mark Lilla's Stillborn God. To his credit, Lilla understands the primacy and enduring appeal of political theology, as well as the danger of intellectual complacency about the underlying principles of modern politics. Lilla maintains that modern politics is a relatively recent and radically novel experiment that aims at nothing less than displacing a primordial and perennial way of constituting politics with reference to the divine. My essay compares Lilla's analysis of the fundamental antagonism between political theology and modern liberal politics to Strauss's analysis of the theological-political problem. In doing so, I bring to light both the strengths and limits of Lilla's attempt to clarify the relationship between politics, biblical religion, and philosophic rationalism.     

Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes on phrenology: Debunking a fad

ABSTRACT

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894) was a Boston physician, a professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School, and a writer of prose and poetry for general audiences. He was also one of the most famous American wits of the nineteenth century and a celebrity not bashful about exposing costly, absurd, and potentially harmful medical fads. One of his targets was phrenology, and the current article examines how he learned about phrenology during the 1830s as a medical student in Boston and Paris, and his head-reading with Lorenzo Fowler in 1858. It then turns to what he told readers of the Atlantic Monthly (in 1859) and Harvard medical students (in 1861) about phrenology being a pseudoscience and how phrenologists were duping clients. By looking at what Holmes was stating about cranioscopy and practitioners of phrenology in both humorous and more serious ways, historians can more fully appreciate the “bumpy” trajectory of one of the most significant medical and scientific fads of the nineteenth century.     

Celtic vitrified forts: Implications of a chemical-petrological study of glasses and source rocks

The term “vitrified forts” refers to remnants of stony fortifications of early Iron Age in which constituent rock fragments and boulders have been melted and/or welded together by heat, apparently in situ. The methods used are a matter of controversy, and even the question whether the firing was constructive or destructive is disputed. In this study we present bulk analyses of some twenty source rocks and of fifty glasses (in petrographic thin sections) from eleven sites and attempt to relate these data to the processes (and purposes) producing the observed sintering, welding and melting. The results are consistent with progressive partial, sometimes total, melting of the rocks used. In agreement with most previous investigators we conclude that no exotic rocks (although limited amounts of clays or organic debris cannot be excluded) were used as flux nor were easily fusible materials selected. On the other hand, simply burning an ordinary (of the later murus gallicus type) timber-laced wall cannot account for the evidence of strongly reducing conditions and sustained high temperatures, probably for days and in some cases well above 1000 °C. Rather, the fires seem to have been contained, perhaps by filling the space between the rocks in the timber framework with soil, clay and combustible materials, e.g. peat, brushwood and domestic debris. We cannot conclude whether the firing was accidental, or set by enemies or by the builders. In any case, the builders appear to have used more sophisticated techniques than previously believed to ensure the durability of their constructions.