Cattle Slaughter Industry in Qing China: State Ban,Muslim Dominance,and the Western Diet

Cattle slaughter and beef consumption are barely mentioned in the literature on Chinese economic, food, or animal history. This is possibly due to the widely held popular and scholarly assumption that beef was avoided and even considered taboo in the daily diet of Chinese people in premodern times. This article investigates the tangible regulation and practice of cattle slaughter in Qing China—the period when the beef taboo was argued to be formally subsumed into Chinese morality. I ask the following questions: To what extent did the Qing state ban cattle slaughter? How was the ban enforced in the localities? Did Chinese people slaughter cattle for consumption? Were there lawful beef markets in Qing China proper? How did increasing beef-eating Western sojourners since the mid-19th century impact this sector? Accordingly, I demonstrate that with the leeway provided by the state, the cattle slaughter industry developed in many regions of China proper, especially large cities. In this sector, Chinese Muslim merchants played a dominant role, even though the Han merchants could outnumber them. Their efforts have prepared the state and Chinese merchants to better cope with new circumstances since the mid-19th century. Broadly, this paper sheds light on how different religious, ethnic, and national groups affected the economy and the practice of law in the Qing dynasty.     

《明实录》建文朝科举书写及其意涵

科举是建文历史的重要内容,也是其"文治"的具体表现。然而,《明实录》书写的建文朝科举,既缺乏三级科举考试的正面记载,又大体上掩盖了附传传主建文年间科举中式的信息。本不属于政治敏感性问题的科举史事,因其体现了建文帝泽被天下士子的恩典、妨碍了朱棣"文治"的弘扬,遭到了《明实录》的排斥。这表明实录对建文历史的讳饰,不只限于政治敏感性问题,而是一切有利于建文帝形象的史事。值得注意的是,史官在实录编修中采用春秋笔法披露了建文朝科举的蛛丝马迹,使得相关史事并没有在"国史"话语体系中完全被湮没。这反映出史官与君主在建文历史的认识、评价方面,存在一定的差异,此种现象并非晚明才出现,而是明初已露端倪。     

Southwest Arabia During the Holocene: Recent Archaeological Developments

Recent fieldwork has considerably increased our knowledge of early Holocene settlement in Southwest Arabia. Neolithic settlement occurred within an environmental context of increased monsoonal moisture that continued during the mid-Holocene. A now well-attested Bronze Age exemplified by village- and town-scale settlements occupied by sedentary farmers developed toward the end of the mid-Holocene moist interval. The high plateau of Yemen was an early focus for the development of Bronze Age complex society, the economy of which relied upon terraced rain-fed and runoff agriculture. On the fringes of the Arabian desert, the precursors of the Sabaean literate civilization have been traced back to between 3600 and 2800 B.P., and even earlier, so that a virtually continuous archaeological record can now be described for parts of Yemen. In contrast to the highlands these societies relied upon food production from large-scale irrigation systems dependent upon capricious wadi floods. Bronze Age settlement, while showing some links with the southern Levant, now shows equal or stronger linkages with the Horn of Africa across the Red Sea. Although some regions of Yemen show breaks in occupation, others show continuity into the Sabaean period when a series of major towns grew up in response to the incense trade with the north. It is now clear that these civilizations grew up on the foundations of earlier Bronze Age complex societies.     

Bringing the study of warfare into theories of nationalism

This article argues that warfare has been marginalised in theories of nationalism but that in conjunction with nationalism is vital for understanding the rise of nation‐states, the formation of nations and the nature of the international system. It offers a critique of statist approaches, suggests mechanisms through which warfare may sacralise nations and explores different patterns of nation‐state formation as they affect the interstate system. In particular, it emphasises tensions between state and nation‐formation as activated by the fortunes of war and the destabilising effects of waves of imperial dissolution, which are accompanied by patterns of re‐imperialization. It suggests that it is simplistic both to claim that war has led to a transition from empires to nation‐states and that contemporary practices of war‐making have led to a postnational era.     

巴马盘阳河流域季节性移民社区类型与形成机理

季节性移民聚居现象受到西方学术界的极大关注,而我国鲜有研究。采用观察法和访谈法,对巴马盘阳河流域"一地多类"的季节性移民社区的形成过程、类型特征与作用机理进行归纳与揭示。研究表明：①季节性移民社区演变历经萌芽、快速参与和转型发展三个阶段,社区人口结构、聚居空间、经济业态、景观设施及人文氛围在不同时期呈现出不同的特征;②季节性移民社区形态存在差异,可以归类为交融性社区、优势性社区,共享性社区,纯粹性社区。③季节性移民社区是差异化的"美好生活"需求、独特的长寿资源及乡村生活环境、外来商业资本、地方政府调控和利益共生等"五力驱动"的结果,不同发展阶段其主导动力和作用方式存在差异。     

Social Careers Across Imperial Spaces: An Empire Family in the Dutch-British World, 1811-1933

Here the object biography of a scale model of an old Dutch colonial sugar factory directs us to the history of an extended family, and demonstrates the connectedness of people and identities across and within European imperial spaces in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This case study shows how people in colonial Indonesia became ‘Dutch’ through their social networks and cultural capital (for instance a European education). They even came to belong to the colonial and national Dutch elites while, because of their descent, also belonging to the British colonial and national elites. These intertwined Dutch and British imperial spaces formed people’s identities and status: the family discussed here became an important trans-imperial patrician family with a broad imperial ‘spatial imagination’, diverse identities and social circles. It was mostly women who played important roles in these transnational processes— roles indeed that they played well into the early twentieth century when colonial empires ceased to exist and the nation-state became the ‘natural’ social and political form of the modern world, obscuring these transnational processes.     

Proximity and the trust formation process

Trust is a key mechanism for explaining the ease and frequency of knowledge spillovers within regions. While the importance of trust is virtually uncontested, there have been few attempts to rigorously disentangle the way in which trust formation is related to space and proximity. The aim of this paper is to advance the understanding of trust formation in terms of its main antecedents within the context of regional studies. This is done by reviewing the rich literature on trust formation from psychology, sociology, and organization studies and connecting it conceptually to different types of proximity. In doing so, the paper maps out a number of avenues for future research on trust and geography.     

清代帝陵的哑巴院和月牙城

本文论述清代帝陵中的哑巴院和月牙城的建置与功用,进而探讨其规制的起源问题。指出关外的福陵与昭陵系参照北京明代后期的帝陵及清孝陵兴建,而南京明孝陵的规制已见哑巴院的雏形,其发展演变脉络清晰,故而哑巴院和月牙城并非明清两代帝陵规制最显著的差别。     

"天高皇帝近":一个重要的中国思想史命题——雷戈《秦汉之际的政治思想与皇权主义》评介

雷戈所著《秦汉之际的政治思想与皇权主义》一书,认为从秦朝到汉初的思想史发展阶段是中国思想史上皇权主义意识形态的生成和确立时期,并将其概括为"后战国时代";采用独特的"历史-思想"研究法,从政治制度、官场规则和官吏的政治生活中,挖掘特定时期的政治思想共识,为政治思想史研究开辟了新的路径,并扩大了思想史的资料范围;认为秦汉时期生成的皇权主义秩序,把"天高皇帝远"的制度现实变为"天高皇帝近"的观念实存,实现了对人们思想的可控性,从此,思想成为皇权可以控制和规范的领域,达到了有效的思想专制。这是秦汉以降中国思想史发展的基本特征。该书在研究方法的创新和思想深度的开掘上,都做出了独到的贡献。     

周公"天下之中"建都理论研究

西周初年,围绕营建洛邑,周公提出并阐发了"天下之中"的概念,建构了我国古代第一个建都理论。"天下之中"建都理论,具有丰富的地理、政治、经济和文化内涵,对中国古代都城选址乃至空间规划布局都产生了巨大的影响。"天下之中"建都理论所表现的空间意识和文化观念,还影响了中国数千年间的政治伦理观念。