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The printing press helped to spread literacy, civic discourse, and even political dissent in colonial America. Without paper, however, the invention of the moveable type printing press would have been insignificant. This crucial communication medium was hobbled by a critical shortage of the raw material needed for printed matter. Paper was in short supply in the colonies and in the new nation as it could only be made from rags, and there was constant difficulty in obtaining enough rags to keep the presses rolling. Pleas for this essential ingredient were constantly seen in the newspapers in early America and there were severe shortages of both paper and the rags from which it was made during the American Revolution. This article examines how desperate were the early Americans for the paper which was necessary both for firing the muskets and for spreading the rhetoric of Revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper discusses three large, almost identical oval breverls from the eighteenth century burial contexts in present-day Republic of Croatia. Two of them were discovered during archaeological excavations in Žuberak and Prozorje, while the third one from Ližnjan had not been defined as breverl until now. Breverls are the rarest and most enigmatic devotional objects but the three analysed in this paper have a common link other than their appearance. They all contained religious medals from pilgrim sites and papers with the prayer against all evils and demonic attacks on one side and the blessings of saints, the prayer for the identification of those tortured by evil spirits, and the Prologue to John's Gospel on the other. This article compares the papers discovered in them, studies the motifs from the mentioned breverls and analyses other finds from them to provide answers to the questions of their place of production, the identity of the people who wore them and why. Tentative correlation of different bioarchaeological factors, such as age, sex, and health condition of the deceased can give us much information on who breverl bearers were. Apparently, they were the vulnerable members of society, such as pregnant women, people suffering from poor health, or, as prayers from the breverls suggest, individuals believed to be tortured by demons or evil spirits. Taking that into account, breverls were devotional objects believed to provide universal protection, a sort of medicine case for both physical and spiritual problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the author considers the letters of Émilie Du Châtelet, an eighteenth-century woman mathematician, philosopher and scientist. The central argument of the paper is that Du Châtelet's letters leave traces of the process of becoming a femme philosophe, while also throwing light in her involvement in the scientific, philosophical and cultural formations of the early modern period. In this context Du Châtelet's personal letters carry inscriptions of love as a creative force of life and are tightly intertwined with her 'laboratory letters', her correspondence with important mathematicians and scientists of her times. In thus making connections between 'the personal' and the 'scientific' in Du Châtelet's correspondence, the paper sketches a feminist critical perspective on a plane of thinking around love as an existential force in its interrelation with mathematics, science and philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1789 and 1803 the National Debt Office issued unbacked interest bearing notes whereas the Bank of Sweden issued silver backed notes. The massive note issuance by the National Debt Office led to different exchange rates and two units of account. The situation gave rise to an early paper standard theory formulated by Anders Wappengren, a well-read merchant who was strongly influenced by Adam Smith and the French physiocrats. Wappengren had a firm understanding of monetary systems and the adjustment mechanism under floating exchange rates, including such concepts as purchasing power parity and price stickiness. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The status of single women in the eighteenth century was precarious; homelessness and economic dependence plagued the lives of those who chose not to marry. This was the case, at least, for Mary and Charlotte Winn, the unmarried sisters of the 5th Baronet of Nostell Priory. Like many single women, the Winn sisters’ archive is sparse. But such a sparseness can be utilised and, in this instance, provides the opportunity for creative methods of recovering women’s voices. By exploring the materiality of Mary’s and Charlotte’s letters, this article demonstrates how these sisters negotiated their distance from the family home through the space they occupied on the page. Paradoxically, moreover, it is this distance that has ensured the survival of their papers. As such, the article concludes by considering the epistolary afterlives of the Winn sisters’ letters and addresses how their manuscript legacy has posthumously afforded them a place in the family’s history. In effect, paper ties to landed estates, though fragile, remain exactly that – ties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses the ethnic 'stereotypes' or 'national characters' in early modern Europe by highlighting the several sorts of sources that spread such stereotypes. The starting point is the (in)famous eighteenth-century's Styrian Völkertafel or Table of Nations, which is translated into English in its entirety. Source by source, textual and visual, the paper traces these stereotypes back to Johann Boemus in the early sixteenth century. The author confirms that the line between a hypothetical objective flawless description, distortion and stereotype is very thin. It depends on the observer and perspective to ascertain whether certain representation was stereotypical. Among the many studied ethnic stereotypes, even clothing was perceived as people- or nation-specific. The stereotypes about Russian and Ottoman national costumes are comparatively examined. The author argues that the Eastern and Southeastern European peoples were lumped together with the supra-national or imperial identities, that is, the Russian and Ottoman Empires. In the early modern era, as in later periods, ethnic identities were formed along the state and imperial lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although many towns had race meetings in the past, most survived only a short time. It has been rare that the reasons why so many failed have been explored. Most simply stopped without any local newspaper explanation. This microstudy of a small local northern race meeting is very suggestive about just how complex and precarious the survival of any meeting could be, and aims to encourage further research. Kendal, the largest town in Westmorland, had very occasional low status race meetings in the eighteenth century on its Fell Side. But in 1820 annual races were revived on a new course to the east of the town, and the following year a new improved course was constructed to the west. The new races, the only ones in Westmorland at that time, lasted only fifteen years, from 1820 to 1834. This paper explores their nature, and the complex reasons lying behind the rise and fall of Kendal's so-called 'race week'. It starts by exploring its beginnings and describing the varied attractions that the 'race week' offered: wagering, heavy drinking, gaming and trickster activities, entertainments, a band, balloon ascent, dramas, social meals, dancing, assemblies, Wombwell's menagerie, wrestling and cockfighting. It assesses the numbers and nature of the crowds attending. It then examines the complex reasons lying behind its brief growth and rapid decline. A perfect storm of problems came together: political divisions between the powerful landowning Tory Lowthers who held Westmorland and growing Whig and Reform opposition, which affected finances, patronage and elite attendance; middle-class Kendal attitudes, and dissenter religious opposition; funding problems; decline of gentry interest; inferior racehorse entries; low status jockeys; and bad weather. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although by the 1830s–40s it is unlikely that any of the 150 fields named 'Hempland' or similar in the tithe surveys for the counties of Lancashire, Westmorland and Cumberland, were actually then growing hemp, nevertheless these field-names are a useful source for a study of its cultivation in the region. This paper shows that although such cultivation is found back to the early medieval period, it expanded in the early modern period, moving in some places beyond cultivation for consumption on the farm where it was grown, to commercial growth for the rope-making and sail-cloth industries, before losing out in the eighteenth century to imports from the Baltic. The distribution of 'Hemp...' field-names, and information from other sources, reveals that cultivation was restricted to the lowlands of the region, notably in proximity to the mosslands, and almost entirely avoiding the Lake District and hilly regions to the east. Where grown for household use, the fields were generally small, often half an acre or less, and were often directly attached to the homestead: while documentary evidence shows it was mainly female household members who were responsible for the cultivation and processing of the hemp, and for turning it into cloth and cord. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The second half of the eighteenth and the nineteenth century saw the beginnings of Tibetan Studies in Europe through first translations, grammars, and dictionaries. Vital for this development was the Moravian autodidact Isaak Jakob Schmidt (1779–1847), also considered founder of Mongolian Studies, and his successor at the St Petersburg Academy of Science, Anton Schiefner (1817–1879). These scholars saw themselves as researchers of "Oriental languages" and published mostly in German. A notable piece within the works of Schmidt is his 1843 founding text and translation of Der Weise und der Thor ("The Wise and the Foolish," Tib. mDzangs blun), a collection of Buddhist narratives illustrating the workings of karma. Schiefner later (1852) added corrections to Schmidt's voluminous work. This paper aims at analysing Schmidt's contributions to understanding East Asia and Tibet via this pioneering rendition of the stories contained in The Wise and the Foolish. Focus is on the textual sources employed, namely the Tibetan Buddhist canon (Kanjur), and the reception of the translation. Schiefner's corrections are also considered. This article further reflects on the historical contexts of Schmidt's life and wishes to add to our comprehension of Buddhist translations in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the development of paper based information technology in the 18th century, focusing on the system of paper slips used by botanist Carl Linnaeus in his research. Other topics include systems of information storage, the format and content of slips of paper used in Linnaeus's botanical research, and the adoption of Linnaeus's system by his son and other future scientists.

In his book A Great and Noble Scheme (2005), historian John Mack Faragher explains that the 1755–63 Acadian deportation can be termed “ethnic cleansing,” following contemporary United Nations and scholarly usage of the expression. In this paper, instead of addressing the terms of contemporary UN or scholarship, as Faragher does, to see which terms can be used for the Acadian tragedy, I provide a terminological history of the Acadian tragedy. This terminological history studies the terms used for the Acadian tragedy since the eighteenth century until the early twentieth century and shows how they recur in the mid-twentieth century discussions on genocide. First, I investigate Edmund Burke’s treatment of the Acadian tragedy seen as resulting from acts of destroying, rooting out, and extirpating, and the Abbot Raynal using terms for the tragedy such as embarking, transporting, driving away (later deporting), destroying, perishing, depopulating, and, indirectly, crime against humanity. I also focus on the nineteenth-century account of the Acadian tragedy by Catherine Reed Williams, who expanded Raynal with notions of barbarity, banishment, expulsion, extermination, and moral shock, and on others after her who brought terms for Acadians such as annihilation, atrocity, evacuation, and clearing. Second, I highlight Acadian memory in the 1950s genocide debate in Washington (DC) and how the terminological history of the Acadian tragedy appears in a document Raphael Lemkin had on Acadians. I also explain how Lemkin, unknowingly or not, rearticulated in publications and texts and found in his research the terms already used for Acadians as he addressed his genocide concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a corpusbased study of a group of lexical verbs in eighteenth and nineteenth century scientific texts. The study has a twofold aim. Firstly, it aims to select four types of verb classes (verbs of communication, desire, aspectuals and perception) identified by Levin and Noonan and explore their use in the Corpus of English Life Sciences Texts, a subcorpus of the Coruña Corpus of English Scientific Writing. Secondly, it aims to determine if the frequency of these verbs varies based on the gender of the authors. Further, the study seeks to ascertain if a shifting pattern could be attested in the use of these verbs throughout the two centuries examined in the corpus, at a time when the scientific register was already becoming established. The findings of the study obtained from the greater or lesser occurrence of the verbs in question over the two centuries indicate which ones were more frequent in Life Sciences texts, whether they were more commonly used either by men or women and whether there was a pattern of continued usage of these verbs in Late Modern English scientific language rather than a shift towards nominalisation in this type of discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The invisible object, in the eighteenth century, is not an evidence. It is the result of textual and semantic learning. Which concrete strategies are used to construct and depict objects out of sight? How do we make them a cognitive reality acceptable to a scientific community? This paper first highlights the conditions for the emergence of a field of microscopic knowledge and its epistemological consequences. Then we consider the microscopic gaze in terms of learning, situated between the act of observation as such and discursive practices. We conclude by studying a concrete case of "negotiation of the invisible" in a correspondence between Carl Linnaeus and John Ellis concerning corpuscles observed in mushroom infusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the recent progressive reappraisals of the enlightenment by Jonathan Israel and Rainer Forst, Voltaire figures as almost a reactionary thinker, opposing the radical dimensions of the enlightenment pushing forwards secularisation, democratisation, and toleration. Part 1 examines Israel's and Forst's accounts of Voltaire, showing their striking proximity. Part 2 is divided into the three subheadings of (i) Voltaire's deism, (ii) the pivotal subject of toleration, and (iii) the decisive question of what philosophical radicalism, in the direction of democratising reform, involves. At issue in Israel's and Forst's claims that Voltaire's deism represents a step backwards from Bayle's and Spinoza's more radical conceptions of reason and toleration, we will claim, is a shared, anachronistic failure to duly credit Voltaire's deism's distance from the revealed religions, and the radicalism of Voltaire's anti-clericism. In the key claim of the paper, however, we will argue that the larger issue in Israel's and Forst's positioning of Voltaire as almost reactionary are a deeper set of assumptions about how we should assess philosophical texts which aim to act in the world, and (evoking Feuerbach) to change it (2, iii). Both Israel and Forst, despite the former's extensive labours in contextualisation, read the texts of eighteenth century philosophers for their arguments alone, rather than as rhetorical and political acts and interventions which aimed to reach, entertain, and reform an expanding reading public through esprit, art, satire, and rhetoric, as well as by making argumentative contributions to the controversies of the day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Tobias Smollett's scathing assessment in the Critical Review of Elizabeth Nihell's midwifery treatise, Treatise on the Art of Midwifery (1760), a polemic against the use of instruments in childbirth and the increasing popularity of man-midwifery. This continues with Nihell publishing a response to Smollett's review, and then Smollett responding to Nihell's response. The Nihell-Smollett exchange brings discourses surrounding two concomitant medical controversies – the use of instruments in childbirth and the presence of men in the birthing chamber – to the fore, and it is particularly remarkable due to the satirical tone adopted in this exchange, particularly by Smollett. Using Simpson's model of satirical discourse, this paper explores the textual-linguistic practices adopted by both Smollett and Nihell and elucidates how satire both construes and is construed by rival medical ideologies in mid-eighteenth-century England. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lonicera caerulea is a honeysuckle plant with a long development history. It is defined as a "homology of medicine and food" fruit because it is rich in bioactive substances. By-products (such as pomace, leaves, stems, and flowers), which also have beneficial values, will be produced during processing. Nevertheless, the reuse of derivatives and the further development of new products of Lonicera caerulea are still a challenge. Firstly, this paper traced the development history of Lonicera caerulea and summarized its primary nutrients and bioactive substances, subsequently discussed the research progress and underlying molecular mechanisms of its functional properties, and introduced the application and potential of Lonicera caerulea in the fields of food, health products, cosmetics, medicine, and materials. Finally, this paper put forward the future research direction to promote the development of the Lonicera caerulea industry. To sum up, Lonicera caerulea, as a potential raw material, can be used to produce more functional products. Besides, more in-depth clinical trials are needed to clarify the specific molecular mechanism of the practical components of Lonicera caerulea and improve the rate of development and utilization. The original species of Lonicera caerulea subgroup had appeared on the earth as early as the end of the third century. Lonicera caerulea has been introduced into North America since the 18th century, but the introduction process has not ended until now. Lonicera caerulea widely exists in Eurasia and North America and it has excellent cold tolerance, early maturity and ornamental. The fruits, stems, leaves and flowers of Lonicera caerulea all have bioactive value, but the specific molecular mechanism and utilization need to be improved. Lonicera caerulea has been widely used in food, medicine, health products, cosmetics and materials, but there are still great challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper seeks to uncover a long-submerged tradition that saw knowledge accumulation as the main driver of development. This vision was ubiquitous until the late 18th century when, with the advent of the machine age, the focus shifted from knowledge accumulation to capital accumulation. Emphasis on knowledge did not disappear completely. Some argued that the knowledge embedded in human agents and not capital was the source of productivity gains while others emphasised the role of technological and scientific knowledge alongside capital accumulation. By the early decades of the 20th century, the economic role of science had become more salient and by the end of that century, the idea that knowledge accumulation has a central role in progress was again taken for granted. The paper suggests that by focusing the kinds of knowledge we have; and how that knowledge is stored, transmitted, made use of, and extended; we can learn much about how specific social relations of production facilitate or retard development, about who gets the rewards, and how relations of production may need to change to allow knowledge itself to develop. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the birth of the exploitative sockenlappssystemet (the 'Parish Lapp' system) in central Sweden during the early eighteenth century. Based on a foundation of control and eviction instituted in earlier laws, the 1720s saw a forceful rise in royal concern over the existence of nomadic Sámi in central Sweden. His Majesty King Fredrik I specifically expressed fear of damage to the resources of the forests through Sámi hunting, especially bird hunting. The period between 1720 and 1730 saw King Fredrik corresponding with the Royal Council, the county governors, and some groups of Sámi agents. The council sought to evict the Sámi and move them or have them move to the lappmarker. The Sámi agents claimed birth right and asserted that Sámi in central Sweden had no relationship to either the land or the Sámi in the northern part of the realm. This paper uses a historical anthropological perspective, based on a wide set of sources, including historical archaeology, history, and ethnography, in order to paint a bigger picture of the conflicted situation that led to the founding of the unique system of forced indenture: the so-called Parish Lapp system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ballistics is an area of flight, and fewer subjects were of greater importance to nation states in the eighteenth century. William Mountaine who published on the topic in 1747 and 1781, wrote: 'It is not possible in the nature of things for any one kingdom to continue long in a state of peace and tranquility', and 'the art of gunnery has from time to time engaged the attention of the most eminent mathematicians'. This paper describes the slow up-take of ideas, first put forward explicitly by Benjamin Robins in 1742, which challenged the belief that air resistance could be neglected in the flight of cannon balls, and asks why it could be, that for a topic so pressing, a clearly wrong mathematical theory was upheld for so long. While considering a number of factors, it argues the attraction of beautiful and simple geometry can be beguiling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A place named Sonora appears in seventeenth and eighteenth century documents and on later maps. Two sources place this site north of the present-day town of Huépac. Other sources place the site south of Huèpac. All of these sources place it on the east side of the Río Sonora, but use various designations. This paper analyzes documentary, cartographic, and geographic evidence and concludes that there were actually two places named Sonora. One was a relatively late Spanish mining settlement south of Huépac, but on the west side of the river, and known today as San Felipe de Jesús. The other place named Sonora was an ancient Ópata settlement called Sonota located at a spring on the east side of the Río Sonora north of Huépac. Correcting misunderstandings, mispronunciations, misspellings, and differences in Spaniards' native language fluency over a century point to the river, valley, and state being named after this early site. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In eighteenth-century fiction and drama, race appears as a mutable characteristic, with skin color conditioned by culture and environment. Increasingly, and especially in the Romantic period, race came to be regarded as an inherent facet of a person's identity in certain contexts. Racialized color-charts emerged for the express purpose of generating a taxonomy of mixed-race peoples; a symptom of the vogue for classification in the natural sciences. These charts encoded a vocabulary of gradation, hybridity, and racial inheritance. Such vocabulary was mapped on charts such as those that appear in Edward Long's The History of Jamaica (1774), where racial inheritances are depicted as neatly linear. Other historians of the Caribbean islands, such as J. B. Moreton in his West India Customs and Manners (1793), betray an underlying instability. The instability of such categories only increases within late eighteenth-century literary sources and especially in the lexicon imported back into England and appropriated by novelists, many of whom held abolitionist sympathies. This paper investigates the influence of West Indian color-chart vocabulary on the representation and construction of race in John Thelwall's The Daughter of Adoption; A Tale of Modern Times (1801) and the anonymously published Woman of Colour; A Tale (1808). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines debates over the nature, purpose, and reform of geographical education in schools in the eighteenth-century German-speaking territories. Attention is paid to contemporaries' concerns over the cognitive content of geography – what geography was – and, in greater detail, to their views concerning how the subject might be taught, its teaching improved, and the end in view of teaching it, namely to produce informed citizens. The paper shows that while there was widespread agreement over the utility of geography, opinions differed over how best to teach it, and to whom. These differences centred less on religion, between the largely Catholic southern German territories and the chiefly Protestant northern German territories, and more upon the age, social status, gender, and intended future of the pupil. Proposals for the reform of geographical education argued that geography be taught first with reference to the pupil's locality and to notions of "homeland" from which local setting attention would be paid to other states, countries, and continents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Precision was not a quality expected from ordinary watches in the eighteenth century, which required specific maintenance to function correctly. The precautions to be taken to ensure the accuracy of pocket chronometers, whose going would influence navigation or the results of scientific activities, were even more vital. However, the remarkable attention that horological studies have devoted to the origins of chronometry has neglected these aspects. It has erroneously assumed that the success of chronometers was guaranteed by their innovative impact and technological advancement. To illustrate the importance to examine the birth of chronometry from the point of view of manipulating technology and the user experience, my paper will discuss the case of the small series of pocket chronometers manufactured between 1782 and 1794 by the London workshop of the Swiss watchmaker Josiah Emery. The article shows that not all the users possessed the necessary technical knowledge nor training to handle and employ chronometers appropriately and that the instructions given by the artisan to his clients played a fundamental role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores discussions centred on the activities of the British Board of Longitude to consider the ways in which some men of science, instrument makers and others thought about questions of precision and accuracy, both in principle and in terms of what was possible in practice when making observations at sea. It considers firstly the terminology used in some eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century texts, highlighting the concept of exactness, which was more commonly used to describe one of the desirable qualities of instruments and methods. It then looks at some of the discussions and debates in which the Board of Longitude was involved from the 1760s to think about different actors' expectations of what levels of exactness might be either desirable or possible for day-to-day navigation. The focus is on the ability to make accurate shipboard observations and on the question of what degree of exactness might have been accepted as good enough for routine navigational purposes when at sea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the hitherto unknown scientific collaboration between the siblings Elli Heesch (1904–1993) and Heinrich Heesch (1906–1995). Heinrich Heesch, a well-known mathematician, was spearheading the early development of the computer-aided proof of the four-colour theorem. Much less is known about his sister Elli Heesch, a philosopher and logician. Together with her brother she investigated tiling problems and worked out a solution of Hilbert's 18th problem. In 1944, Elli and Heinrich Heesch wrote a joint treatise on the industrial application of the tessellation method, which was of great interest to the German war and armaments industry. The collaboration of the Heesch siblings illustrates individual, disciplinary, cultural, and political aspects of knowledge production. The common interplay of close family relations and socio-political conditions that we find here underlines the fact that women's contributions to solving mathematical problems often remained invisible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the challenges we faced when translating and editing the autograph letters of Anna Maria Van Schurman that span four decades from 1631 to 1669. Van Schurman was regarded as the most learned woman in Europe throughout the seventeenth and well into the eighteenth century. Most of the letters, primarily in Latin, are addressed to André Rivet (1572–1651) and Constantijn Huygens (1596–1687), towering figures in the Dutch Republic and the Republic of Letters. Our greatest challenge in translating and editing the letters was rhetorical: to discern and identify the gender dynamics at work when Van Schurman self-consciously entered the lettered world of male power and authority. Presenting the distinctive epistolary relations Van Schurman shared with Rivet and Huygens necessitated the identification of particularities in content, tone and material culture. Similarly, exploring these relations meant highlighting subtle and complex material markers in Van Schurman's letters, such as handwriting, visual presentation, and closing subscriptions and signatures, as well as postscripts, deferential spacing and quantity of paper used. We present Van Schurman's manuscript exchanges with Rivet and Huygens as a window into how a learned woman negotiated the challenges of epistolary networking in the Republic of Letters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In important accounts of Mary Davys's short epistolary work Familiar Letters Betwixt a Gentleman and a Lady (1725), Riley (1995) and Wakely (2005) suggest Davys subverts the amatory mode through its Whig, and feminist, inversion of the Tory seduction narrative. This paper's identification of an early edition of the text, printed for J. Roberts, and attributed to the pseudonym "Dick Fisher" in 1718 complicates these accounts while providing a new vantage point from which to read the text. Importantly, new prefatory and paratextual material associated with the publication demonstrate both Davys's commercial acumen and the porous character of the book trade in the early eighteenth century. Using this publication as a case study, this paper examines authorial agency and the complex nature of book production in the early British book trade, arguing that understanding such multiplicities is necessary for the reading of early women writers and their work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper advocates using museum collections for archaeological research by offering a new approach to generate questions on the sociocultural lives of ancient people. I define "diaspora" collections as historical and archaeological artifacts excavated in a homeland site but currently stored in museums that are outside the homeland country. Of particular importance in this approach is the identification of artifacts' diagnostic traits, including material composition, morphology, and symbolic decoration, that are to be linked to the "original" data in their homeland. Diaspora collections-based research necessitates provenience studies, as well as direct observation of both the diaspora collection and its original data. It also takes advantage of the recent development of various digital and remote technologies. A case study to show this methodology comes from dedicatory lanterns currently stored outside Japan that were part of the shogun (Tokugawa) family's graveyards in modern Tokyo during the 18th and 19th centuries a.d. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An eighteenth-century transcription of the Qur'anic text, originating from Istanbul but now housed at the Mesudija Library in Bosnia and Herzegovina, underwent a series of analyses prior to conservation. The artefact characterization included preliminary analyses accompanied by microscopy such as determination of the fiber composition, paper typology, and microchemical tests. The acidity status of the paper was established by measuring the pH, and proteins of the sizing material were confirmed by employing thin layer chromatography. Foxing stains were examined by UV fluorescence and optical microscopy. Selected pigments of the illumination, the black ink, and the gilded book cover were examined using X-ray fluorescence. The identity of pigments was confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The obtained results indicate that this lavishly illuminated manuscript was created by choosing the finest and least deteriorating materials of its time including carbon-based ink, gold for illumination, lignin-free paper, and protective layers consisting of egg white, alum, and starch. Collectively, these findings provided valuable guidelines for the conservation processes of this manuscript. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The eighteenth century debate between moral rationalists and moral sentimentalists has seen a striking renaissance in the past decades, not least because of research into the nature of moral judgement conducted by empirical scientists such as social and developmental psychologists and neuroscientists. A claim that is often made in the current discussion is that the evidence made available by such empirical investigations refutes rationalist conceptions of moral judgement and vindicates the views of Hume or other moral sentimentalists. For example, Jesse Prinz and Hanno Sauer have recently argued that the available data demonstrates that emotions are both necessary and sufficient for moral judgement and that the best or the only way to make sense of these findings is to conclude that moral judgements are constituted by emotions. The aim of this paper is to thoroughly examine this argument and the underlying empirical evidence and to show that there is currently no compelling evidence for the truth of either the necessity or the sufficiency thesis and that, even if both theses were true, they would fail to provide a sound basis for a plausible sentimentalist constitution claim. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While economic growth is still at the centre of politics around the world, driven by economic crises and ecological breakdown critiques of growth as well as calls for post-growth or degrowth are on the rise. This paper advances a systematization of various currents of growth critiques in historical perspective. Going beyond standard accounts, it demonstrates that next to a narrow and mainly ecological critique of growth, which emerged starting in the 1950s and criticized GDP accounting and growth as a policy goal, there were also broader critiques of the phenomenon of growth itself, which emerged already since at least the eighteenth century and criticize the phenomenon of economic growth itself. To substantiate this argument, eight currents of growth critiques are analysed by focusing on their core arguments and historical trajectories: ecological, socio-economic, feminist, South–North, cultural, anti-capitalist, critique of industrialization, as well as reactionary growth criticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY: A discussion of trade in the North Atlantic during the 17th and 18th centuries is explored through the movement of commodities from mainland Europe to Iceland, specifically pottery vessels. The paper reconstructs the journeys of three cooking pots from different places in northern Germany and Denmark and along the way, attempts to situate these journeys within the social and cultural contexts through which they pass. In tracking these object itineraries, it is argued that the pots are caught up in fragmented spaces, where the varied material properties of the objects change in significance. In this way, our paper attempts to both revive and reinvent an economic dimension to historical archaeology, to conjoin terrestrial and maritime archaeology, and finally to stimulate more work on the early modern period for this region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ancient geographical maps are our window into the past for understanding the spatial dynamics of last centuries. This paper proposes a novel approach to address this problem using deep learning. Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are today the state-of-the-art methods in handling a variety of problems in the fields of image processing. The Cassini map, created in the eighteenth century, is used to illustrate our methodology. This approach enables us to extract the surfaces of classes of lands in the Cassini map: forests, heaths, arboricultural, and hydrological. The evolution of land use between the end of the eighteenth century andtoday was quantified by comparison with Corine Land Cover (CLC) database. For the Rhone watershed, the results show that forests, arboriculture, and heaths are more extensive on the CLC map, in contrast to the hydrological network. These unprecedented results are new findings that reveal the major anthropo-climatic changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper summarises the results of an inventory of abandoned underground mines within the Nízký Jeseník Upland (Czechia, Central Europe). The area has a long and complex history of mining. During the period between the 11th and 13th centuries, the upland was the centre of ore mining, and later, during the 18th and 19th centuries, it transitioned into slate mining for roofing. From 2016 through 2018, we collected detailed data from 137 mines to better understand their parameters and functioning within the contemporary landscape. The data were mainly focused on the geomorphic character of underground mines, as the existing inventories focus on various other aspects. The results were processed into an interactive web map using ArcGIS Online’s online mapping software. Relations between parameters were assessed using three methods: the χ2 test for a contingency table, ANOVA and linear regression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of skills and human capital during England's Industrial Revolution is the subject of an old but still ongoing debate. This paper contributes to the debate by assessing the artisanal skills of watchmakers and watch tool makers in southwest Lancashire in the eighteenth century and their links to apprenticeship. The flexibility of the training regime and its evolution are discussed, as is the decline of the industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the politicisation process that took place in the Hispanic monarchy towards the end of the Ancien Régime, with a special focus on analysing the actors involved in the Bourbon reformism. Our approach enables us to overcome the "upward politicisation/downward politicisation" dichotomy which is commonplace in current historiography. Based on this approach, we propose to reconstruct the connections between these actors and the circles in which modern forms of politics arose. Said connections transformed these actors culturally, and distanced them from the non-politicised culture of traditional communities. In that sense, throughout the 18th century the reformist endeavours of the crown were a major driver of politicisation but affected only a minority, coming as they did before the age of massive politicisation in the 19th and 20th centuries. We take a detailed look at the case of the traditional societies of the Basque Country and Navarre to demonstrate the scope of this first politicisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyze how Arturo Pérez-Reverte claims the legacy of the Enlightenment in his historical novel Hombres buenos (2015). The history of two members of the Real Academia Espartóla, in charge of travelling to Paris in the hopes of obtaining all the volumes of the Encyclopedia and bringing them to Spain, allows Pórez-Reverte to create an original account of eighteenth-century Spain. Pórez-Reverte belongs to an intellectual tradition that depicts the Hispanic Enlightenment as inexistent, incomplete, insufficient, or unoriginal. At the same time, however, he keeps his distance from such tradition, by questioning the consensual image of a civilized and enlightened France, and by showing that Spaniards also participated in the creation and dissemination of the Enlightenment. This paper also analyzes how the fictitious account of the eighteenth century is nor only a defense of enlightened Spaniards, but also a way to express desires for the twenty-first century, especially regarding the political and linguistic unity of Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that while fusion music in Shoaib Mansoor's film Khuda Kay Liye (KKL) (2007) serves to reclaim Pakistan's South Asian heritage, there are moments in KKL when non-Muslim South Asians are othered. I examine these contradictory elements in the film with respect to two songs. I first look at 'Bulleh Nu', an anti-casteist 'kafi' attributed to the seventeenth/eighteenth century Sufi poet Baba Bulleh Shah, born in present-day Pakistani Punjab. I then contrast 'Bulleh Nu' with the film's problematic representation of the Sikh as a 'villainous' other. Subsequently I analyze 'Neer Bharan', a 'bandis ki thumri' associated with the cosmopolitan ethos of the nineteenth century kingdom of Awadh, now located in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Alongside my analysis of 'Neer Bharan', I write about how KKL only partially distances itself from the conflation of religious and national identities in Pakistan. The minoritization of non-Muslims from the subcontinent in the film is consistent with how they are represented in certain Pakistani educational and cultural texts. Therefore the desire to embrace Pakistan's pluralistic traditions in Khuda Kay Liye is juxtaposed with a relatively uncritical stance towards non-inclusive notions of citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

History of education reveals that the perimeter of a school subject as well as the manner of teaching it may vary according to the time period, the country, its political situation and its economic needs. Furthermore, if it clearly depends on the level of the learners and on the school itself, sometimes the teacher's preoccupations can adapt it. This paper addresses the teaching of 'physics' in secondary schools in eighteenth-century France. It examines how 'physics' emerged from Natural Philosophy, as a scientific subject and then as a school subject. Before the French Revolution (1789), 'experimental physics' was taught in some royal schools. The revolution presented the opportunity to reorganise the whole education system and to follow Enlightenment ideas. How did that impact on the status of 'physics' in the newly created schools? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the implications for modern economic thought of the debate on Theodicy, i.e., the coexistence of a good, almighty God and worldly evils. In the 17th century, this problem was raised by Pierre Bayle. The analysis focuses on the 18th century Italian school of Civil economy represented by Antonio Genovesi. Our argument is that Genovesi, and Giambattista Vico before him, reacted to Bayle's Manichaean and Atheistic view on theodicy, and that Genovesi's reaction influenced his view of the market as a place of mutual assistance where the invisible hand holds a secondary and subsidiary role compared to virtues in promoting the common good. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of inheritance law and Chancery cases, my paper specifically takes up fictional plots of birthright and entitlement involving female characters. I wish to argue that for women, proving legitimacy and regaining inheritance implicitly indict the legal system (and its patrilineal foundation). My essay intersects British inheritance law, Chancery court cases that disinherited orphaned women, and cases that reinstated entitlement to female legal wards (or disenfranchized daughters), with fictional examples of female birthright (Smith's Emmeline, Radcliffe's Adeline, Burney's Evelina and others), illustrating how eighteenth-century authors critiqued legal interpretations of birthright, demonstrating the unstable and often provisional basis for female entitlement and birthright. My paper thereby discusses the role gender and documentation plays in the confirmation of entitlement and claims to name and fortune. I argue that both actual and fictional cases of female entitlement often create varied and diverse spaces for legal interpretation, and that successful cases of birthright are often hinged upon emotion and forms of coercion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The eighteenth century saw a flourishing of scientific and philosophical thought throughout Scotland, known as the Scottish Enlightenment. The accomplishments of prominent male figures of this period have been well documented in all disciplines. However, studies of women's experiences are relatively sparse. This paper partially corrects this oversight by drawing together evidence for women's participation in mathematics in Scotland between 1730 and 1850. In considering women across all social classes, it argues for a broad definition of 'mathematics' that includes arithmetic and astronomy, and assesses women's opportunities for engagement under three headings: education, family, and sociability. It concludes that certain elements of Scottish Enlightenment culture promoted wider participation by women in mathematical activities than has previously been recognized, but that such participation continued to be circumscribed by societal views of the role of women within family formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The name John Cookson is associated with Lorenzoni-type magazine repeating flintlocks of high quality, assumed to have been made in London during the last decade or so of the 17th century. Nothing is known of this gunmaker. A John Cookson is known to have been a gunsmith in Boston during the first half of the 18th century and, while he is given credit in the US for inventing the magazine repeater, there is no evidence that he ever made such a gun in America. Over the years, there has been much speculation about a connection between these John Cooksons but none has ever been established. A recently discovered flintlock fowler signed Cookson appears to be late 17th century and shares a number of features which suggest manufacture by the same John Cookson who made the magazine repeaters. The paper examines the details of this fowler, comparing them to those of the known magazine repeaters and argues that they were all made by the same maker. An extensive archival search was also made of the John Cooksons of the UK and of Boston, the results of which are summarized here. While no direct connection could be established, the evidence strongly suggests that they were the same person. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the analysis of a small assemblage of fragmentary human remains discovered during renovations in a residential property in Aberdeen City, Scotland. Two sets of cranial remains display clear evidence for dissection/autopsy activities; a craniotomy and a trephination. Radiocarbon dating places them in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, arguably contemporary with the passing of the Anatomy Act of 1832. Drawing together evidence from osteological analysis, radiocarbon dating, historical sources and the context of discovery, it is argued that the assemblage may have been generated by 'resurrectionist' activities associated with the clandestine acquisition of cadavers for anatomical dissection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the maps of East Asia and Central America drawn by Europeans between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, and illustrates the distinctions in the roles of Europeans in these two civilizations through the investigation of cartographic differences. In the initial stage of Europeans' entry into East Asia and Central America, the local maps have both the characteristics and techniques of the outsiders and the insiders, reflecting the distinct scene of the encounter of civilizations. In the process of localization, the map system of East Asia deconstructed European cartography, the original purpose of early Europeans entering China was digested by Chinese society, and their role changed from missionary to royal courtier. European cartography deconstructed and colonized the traditional cartography of Central America, which corresponds to the history that Europeans gradually became the rulers of indigenous people in real life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of Bildung comes to prominence in the second half of the eighteenth century. It was originally conceived to capture the cultural conditions by which an individual becomes a moral agent. In Hegel's thought, it develops a much more expansive role; it is at the heart of his socio-historical project. Bildung is Hegel's theory of culture, but for Hegel, is not just the way in which individuals are cultivated, the process by which individuals internalise the norms of their society, or develop their autonomy. This paper argues that Bildung is key to understanding normative change and has a critical and underappreciated role in the development of world history. It is also at the heart of Hegel's challenge to the dualism of nature and culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Horace Walpole's account of the genesis of The Castle of Otranto is well known. One night, he dreamt of "a gigantic hand in armour" and next "sat down ... to write, without knowing in the least what I intended to say." To take Walpole at his word, critics have had to overlook the novel's historiographic tenor. That is problematic, for at stake here is our ability both to probe the intersecting connections between Walpole's novel and eighteenth-century historiography and to read The Castle of Otranto against contemporaneous bids for power. This paper first reviews some of the historical sources that call into question Walpole's dream narrative and outlines what these sources tell us about Walpole's historiographic practice. Next, this paper points to another plausible historical source for the novel, an early thirteenth-century biography, and explores its overlap with both Walpole's political identity and the political landscape of the novel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historical narratives on Oceania have over the last two centuries mainly focused on the second half of the eighteenth century as the significant period of first encounters between Pacific Islanders and Western explorers. However, the first crossing of the region by Fernando de Magallanes (Ferdinand Magellan) was in 1521. More importantly, it has been widely neglected that during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Spanish, Dutch, and Portuguese explorers navigated through parts of Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia, making regular landfalls and contact with many islands and archipelagos. The potentially devastating consequences of these early encounters (i.e., with interpersonal violence between natives and newcomers as well as the potential introduction of new deadly diseases) are well known for islands like Guam. They possibly also influenced the cultures and traditions of other archipelagos of Oceania before the better known voyages of Cook, La Perouse, and others more than 150 years later. Drawing on historical data and the scarcely available archaeological evidence, this paper aims to show that there is an urgent need to reconsider the early phase of Pacific-Western contacts as a key period in the shaping of the "traditional" indigenous cultural behaviors in parts of Oceania. This assessment has the potential to profoundly change our understanding of the ethnographical observations of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries that have been produced and used in the last two centuries to define a baseline of the beginning of Western impacts on Indigenous societies in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between the late eighteenth and mid-nineteenth century, the West Yorkshire woollen industry was one of the heartbeats of the Industrial Revolution and British prosperity on the international stage. At least until the 1830 s, much of this woollen cloth production was undertaken in a domestic or small workshop context and with a significant use of family labour. The communities that were at the heart of this industry thickened and grew. At the same time they retained a remarkable contemporary reputation for insularity and a distrust of strangers. This reputation sits at odds with the certainty that migration into, out of and around these manufacturing districts was significant. My article seeks to reconcile these two observations. Employing a large scale family reconstitution based upon parish registers, nonconformist registers, and census data (in turn linked to poor law accounts, landholding data, apprenticeship registers, manor court documents, family papers and antiquarian publications), the article argues that migrant women are the key to resolving the two different perspectives. For themselves, husbands, daughters, sons, grandchildren, brothers and sisters, the work, connections and cultural and economic networking of migrant women facilitated the integration of 'strangers' in these dynamic areas of proto-industrial production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]