Commentary: Philip Hirsch's “The shifting regional geopolitics of Mekong dams”

Understanding the complex shifting geopolitics of the Mekong at a time when many networked arrangements and economic flows are disrupting earlier forms of regulation must involve a multidimensional view of geopolitical practices across time and engagement with their representations. This commentary on Hirsch (2016) underscores the importance of the local struggles and people whose voice is often silenced. For a multidimensional view, it is particularly important to include voices that too easily become omissions.     

‘Meddling with Politics’: The Political Role of Foreign Missions in the Early Nineteenth Century

The proper character of the relationship between missionaries and politics shaped one of the most contentious debates within the first century of the modern missionary movement. While the leadership of the missionary societies repeatedly insisted upon the separation between the work of the gospel and politics, missionaries in the field frequently found it difficult to remove themselves from political controversies. John Philip and James Read served with the London Missionary Society in the Cape Colony for most of the first half of the 19th century. Their persistent defence of the interests of the colonial Khoi made them controversial figures in the debates over the social, political and economic structures of the Cape Colony. Missionaries like Read and Philip, rarely described their activities as ‘political’, and certainly did not conceive of their work as in any way related to the patronage‐ridden political system of the early 19th century. Nonetheless, in their promotion of the ideas of religious and civil equality, and in their effective use of public opinion to shape government and public perception of colonial policy, their actions reflected many of the important changes taking place in contemporary British politics. Dissenting political activity focused on the issues of the defence of religious liberty, the struggle to secure their own civil equality, and the debate over the proper relationship between church and state. These issues also played a crucial role in colonial politics throughout the period. This essay will illustrate the important role of the foreign missionary movement in this process. Examining the work of Philip and Read enables us to identify the ways that issues of domestic politics helped to shape the political debates emerging in Britain's expanding empire.     

黄宗智“过密化”理论中的事实判定、逻辑分析与模式建构问题——以《长江三角洲小农家庭与乡村发展》为中心

黄宗智的“过密化”理论自其《长江三角洲小农家庭与乡村发展》于20世纪90年代初出版之后一直在国内外史学界影响广泛,它认为明清以来的人口增长导致了长江三角洲植棉等经济行业的单位工作日劳动报酬的递减。鉴于史学界至今未有人从该书内部详细分析这一理论的实际论证过程,本文以此为切入点,指出它存在：一,植棉经济发韧于明代等诸多事实判定疏误或不当之处;二,抽样数据的数量严重不足等统计数据问题;三,植棉等经济行业的单位工作日劳动报酬因其单位产出价格的巨幅变动而无法简单比较等逻辑分析方面的问题。据此,本文认为该书没能有效证明过密化理论符合明清时期长江三角洲的历史发展事实。     

Saddam Hussein,Islam, and Just War Theory: The Case for a Pre-emptive Strike

Abstract

America and its allies face a world that has become more and more dangerous with its weapons of mass destruction and a shadowy world of terrorists more than willing to use them. The wisdom of the past does not have the prescience or universal insight to deal with this new threat. America and its allies must change direction if they wish to respond to the challenge in an effective manner, even if it means employing policies that seemed dubious in the past. The state is called to protect its citizens in a Machiavellian world, filled with depravity and compromise. The church is called to submit to the superior wisdom of those who have the special intelligence, experience and expertise to handle the current crisis.     

Patagonian Cinnamon and Pepper: Blending Geography in Alonso de Ovalle’s Tabula Geographica Regni Chile (1646)

ABSTRACT

The context and conditions under which early modern Europeans created images and maps that blended Asian and American geographies have recently received the attention of scholars. In this article I explore an example of this practice in the Chilean Jesuit Alonso de Ovalle’s mapping of Asian spices as it affected the southern region of his Tabula geographica regni Chile (Rome, 1646). I examine Ovalle’s inclusion of cinnamon and pepper in the Patagonian landscape as a persuasive allusion to the crucial role of the Strait of Magellan in his proposed revision of the trade route of the Spanish galleons.     

New Finds from the Cremains in Tomb II at Aegae Point to Philip II and a Scythian Princess

Earlier osteoarchaeological studies on cremains of the two individuals from Tomb II at Aegae led to endless debates on the identity of the dead. After re‐examining the bones with Computerized Tomography (or CAT scan) (CT) and X‐Ray Fluorescent scanning (XRF) support, our research team has found new evidence identifying the dead man in the main chamber as Philip II and the woman in the antechamber as the daughter of King Atheas killed in a battle against Philip II in 339BC. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Chinon chart

The trial of the Templars between 1307 and 1312 was marked by a battle of political wills between King Philip IV on the one hand and Pope Clement V on the other. After the French Templars had been taken into royal custody in October 1307, Clement quickly realised that he could have no influence on the outcome until he could gain access to the Templars themselves, especially the leaders. In June 1308, at Poitiers, after a long struggle, he finally achieved his goal, hearing the confessions of 72 selected Templars, whom he then absolved. However, the king still retained the leaders, holding them at Chinon castle rather than allowing them to appear before the papal Curia. Eventually, in late August 1308, a papal commission did hear the leaders, although until now the evidence for this was indirect, contained in a letter preserved in the French Chancery. The recent discovery of the papal documents containing the record of these hearings, which culminated in the absolution of the leaders, places them in a completely new light and suggests that the views of Clement V and other principals in the trial need to be radically reappraised.     

Mapping Spain in the Sixteenth Century: The Escorial Atlas and Pedro de Esquivel’s Notebook

ABSTRACT

The twenty-one maps of Spain that comprise the Escorial atlas (El atlas de El Escorial) and the later notebook compiled by Pedro de Esquivel for another map of Spain have long been confused. Recently identified documents in the Royal Library, Stockholm, have allowed us to recognize the two works as completely separate and to shed new light on each. In this article we describe their respective histories, starting with the Escorial atlas, now known to have been commissioned by Emperor Charles V from the Sevillian cosmographer Alonso de Santa Cruz, who between c.1538 and 1545 produced an index map and 20 regional sheets drawn to the scale of 1:400 000. We then go on to show how, later in the century (between c.1552 and 1565), Pedro de Esquivel was using a version of the topographical methods described in Peter Apian’s Cosmographia to assemble data for the map of Spain commissioned by Philip II before and just after he became king in 1556. Esquivel died in 1565 before all the data had been collected, his map was never drawn, and his notebooks, with all his astronomical measurements and calculations of angles and distances, took a curious journey that ended in Stockholm in the archives of the Royal Library of Sweden.