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Focuses on the institutional history of economics. Contents of Reinhart Koselleck's 'Begriffsgeschichte'; Systematic ambiguity of economic concepts; Transaction cost concept as an institution.

As a Marxist philosopher, Louis Althusser consistently argues that scientific knowledge is objective and real and that practical knowledge of objective political and cultural realities is knowable as well. If it is the case that these claims are defensible, then Althusser may have not only developed an epistemology supportive of Marxist philosophy and practice, but also may have suggested a tenable philosophy of science, one that resists the Scylla of positivism and the Charybdis of extreme cultural and historical relativism. This article discusses the limitations of Althusser's method for marking the distinction between science and ideology as well as the promise that this method holds for political practice when such critique is understood as a new method of Marxist philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than any other object of historical and anthropological study, Islamicate occult science cuts to the quick of what it means to be modern, to be Western, to be scientific. Yet nowhere else are nineteenth-century colonialist metaphysics and materialist cosmology more firmly entrenched. The piecemeal, truncated study of "Magic in Islam" to date has thus often been pursued in service of either scientistic or religionist agendas, whereby magic can only ever be failed science or apolitical religion, and Islam can never be the West; Islamic Magic as simply Western and often imperial Science-and-Religion is thereby utterly disappeared from historiographical purview. This manifesto therefore proposes a way out of this dire epistemological and ethical bind. To restore Islamic Magic to its rightful place in Western intellectual and cultural history, especially history of science, we must take far more seriously the panpsychist cosmology on which it is predicated, and realize that our own reflexive materialism commits us willynilly to a colonialist agenda that is, ironically, both antireligious and antiscientific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese administration continues to be influenced by Confucian "rule of morality," which stresses personal virtue, moral education, and the endeavor to be a moral model. This article examines traditional values and the image of the "good official" as prescribed in the rarely studied historical Confucian admonitions (官箴). These were composed as instructions for daily administrative practice. In order to understand which values were regarded as important, the article focuses on the "internal sage" concerning inward moral self-cultivation and the "external king" concerning exterior actions of officials. Finally, the article discusses some implications of Confucian values in contemporary Chinese public administration, the debate on the rule of law, as well as the study of public administration and public values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the near 40-year publishing history of Literature in Performance: A Journal of Literary and Performing Art (1980–1988) and Text and Performance Quarterly (1989-present) for evidence of shifting trends in performance scholarship. The history of this journal is inextricable from the development of performance studies in communication, as its changing content and structure reveal pivotal developments and "turns" in the field. We map these trends – toward literature, feminist thought, queer performance, multi/cultural performance, media, and the personal turn – before speculating about the current and future trajectories of performance studies in communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article enquires into the origins of the historiographical notion of double truth, a prominent and controversial category in the modern study of medieval philosophy. I believe that these origins are to be found in a short text by Jacob Thomasius from 1663, entitled De duplici & contradictoria veritate, which stands as a very early and highly original example of a history of double truth. I propose a detailed analysis of this document in order to shed light on the mechanisms that transformed duplex veritas from a keyword in Thomasius's Protestant milieu into a historiographical category. As I show, the De duplici & contradictoria veritate provides a historical legitimation of Thomasius's own brand of Lutheran Aristotelianism. It does so in a highly ambiguous fashion, namely by bringing together the Lutheran theologian and proponent of double truth Daniel Hofmann with anonymous medieval "Averroists". I venture an explanation for Thomasius's line of action by uncovering two of his implicit sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The release of the Old World Drought Atlas (OWDA) in November 2015 provides historians with an unprecedented glimpse into the climate of the medieval world. Through the careful examination of tree-ring data provided by the OWDA, historians can better gauge how the environment affected the course of medieval Mediterranean history, particularly in times and places where textual data is sparse, such as North Africa. The case studies of the Norman conquest of the coast of Ifrīqiyya in the 1140s and the invasion by the Banū Hilāl in the mid-eleventh century show the utility of the OWDA for gaining a better understanding the medieval Mediterranean. In particular, OWDA data shows that the arrival of the Banū Hilāl into Ifrīqiyya coincided with a period of extended drought that is not documented in the written sources and suggests that increased competition for scarce resources was instrumental to their entrance into the region. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article, the author examines one of the most important issues in the spiritual maturation of Russian culture. Peter the Great brought Russia back to Europe as a military and political power. Yet, the great country needed to assimilate European culture. In this context, we could rightly call Karamzin a Russian European who laid the groundwork for the development of genuinely Russian culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how the Choctaw Nation aligned with the Confederacy while remaining a united, autonomous nation during the American Civil War. Rather than being hapless or coerced, Choctaw leaders demonstrated clear comprehension, agency, and pragmatism in their wartime efforts. In particular, Choctaw political leaders like Robert M. Jones reveal the Choctaws’ larger efforts to protect their national sovereignty and defend their homelands. Moreover, the actions of Jones and other Choctaws during the war highlight the critical role that sovereign tribal nations played in the American Civil War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article documents the stark differences in the legal regulation of corporations in the United States compared to Britain and other Western European countries in the nineteenth century. The lack of alternative ways of obtaining ‘corporate’ advantages in common-law countries made the corporate form much more politically fraught than in civil-law countries. In the United States, general incorporation laws came after the attainment of universal white manhood suffrage and were part of a broader egalitarian movement to ensure that elites did not have advantages over everyone else. As a result, they were highly prescriptive, limiting corporations’ size and duration and also mandating specific governance rules. In Great Britain, by contrast, general incorporation laws were passed in a context where only a small fraction of the population could vote. Because the interests at stake in the legislation were those of the business and financial elite, British company law (like the less politically controversial statutes enacted on the European continent) left the rules governing corporations largely to the contracting parties themselves. This paper also argues that understanding the patterns in general incorporation laws requires scholars to move beyond cross-country regressions to study the political economic processes that unfolded in these different settings. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The aim of this paper is to give the Frisian jurist Ulrik Huber (1636–94) his place in the European history of the notion of fundamental laws and to enhance our understanding of the history of the rule of law, particularly of the role of fundamental laws therein. In order to do so Huber's notion of fundamental laws will be read against the background of a European sketch of this notion. Huber's ideas on fundamental laws are taken here for a door through which some age-old ideas entered a new stage – and with these age-old ideas a core conception of rule of law thinking had knocked on that door. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article examines the history of the Cliffords and Beamsley Hospital in North Yorkshire, England. The hospital was established by Countess of Cumberland, Margaret Clifford, in 1593 to house widows, however it was only completed after her death by her daughter, Anne Clifford in the 1630s. Also discussed are the hospital's architectural design that is similar to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and the hospital as a Puritan statement against traditional pilgrimage practice.

This article summarises the state of comparative historical research in the field of religious education. After describing a range of purposes to be fulfilled by comparative studies, it categorises a number of studies written in either English, French or German according to their methodological approach and subject focus. As a result, a three-dimensional map of comparative research is drawn. The survey shows that comparative research is of increasing importance within the context of globalisation and the Europeanisation of education policy and pluralism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Portugal is arguably the European nation with the longest experience with “colonialism” in a variety of configurations, historical moments, and geographical contexts. Yet, given its perennially peripheral status from a geopolitical and economic standpoint, the Portuguese (post-)colonial experience has not been an object of attention outside of the field of Lusophone Studies. This essay provides a brief historical overview to understand the breadth and depth of the Portuguese (post)colonial experience; offers a conceptual map of Portuguese postcoloniality where ideologies of affect and exceptionalism such as Lusotropicalism play a key role; highlights the centrality of immigration for an understanding of Portuguese society — particularly African immigration and its nexus with the history of colonialism and racism that reverberates in national debates around race, ethnicity, and interculturality; provides a brief account of the rise of an Afro-Portuguese culture; and presents short readings of Portuguese cinematic texts that exemplify ethical and aesthetic praxes bringing marginalized black subjects to the center of representation in the quest for social and cultural citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this essay, I respond to the reviewers of my book, Racism, Class and the Racialized Outsider, including Bhattacharrya, Frost, Jefferys, Meer, Roediger and van der Linden. In particular, I elaborate further on the epistemological foundations of the book, including my aim to stretch the concept of working class to accommodate both ethnic diversity, and the significance of racism and anti-racism within it. Then, I state the case for how the concept of the racialized outsider can help transform our understanding of the key signposts of English working-class history. The significance of the anti-racist accomplishments of the 1970s and 1980s are also given further consideration alongside the relevance of the book and its arguments to the present environment – a period where those accomplishments have started to be reversed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sale of The New York World in 1931 to the Scripps-Howard chain marked the end of what many viewed as a "newspaperman's newspaper," one that, particularly after the arrival of Walter Lippmann in 1921, had become a literate defender of liberal values for many New Yorkers. But while the death of The World is often attributed to poor business practices, an equally significant contributor to its decline was the changing demands of a readership that had in the interwar period lost its taste for liberal homilies. Lippmann responded to these new reader demands by seeking to inculcate at The World a scientific approach to advocacy that would, by probing what Lippmann called the "twilight zone of news" where important causal forces and normative considerations resided, bridge the news-opinion dichotomy in a way that would allow the paper to honor its crusading past while satisfying the demands of its readership for a more fact-based journalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) was created in 1972 as a nonprofit research organization, funded primarily by the US electric power industry. Managing a broad public-private collaborative research program, EPRI was to prepare the industry for change by addressing major issues related to electric power production. Among other things, EPRI initiated an ambitious environmental research program in relation to acid rain and, later, climate change. Partly in consequence of the lessons learned in acid rain research, EPRI’s Environment Division around 1990 developed grand plans to show industry leadership on how to address climate change. However, as this article shows, EPRI gradually realized that natural science research alone was not an adequate response to environmental and social changes. Two vocabularies for change resulted: one in which change would be addressed by means of assessments in which future developments in the nature-society-technology system could be delineated, predicted, and ameliorated, and one in which change was essentially unpredictable and potentially dangerous. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article contributes to the historiography of détente from an original viewpoint, namely the relationship between the United States and Greece. It substantiates the argument that the supposed spirit of détente did not help lessen American realpolitik considerations concerning Greece and its surrounding geostrategic region; in fact, the more Cold War antagonisms intensified in the region, the more Greece was locked in the morass of superpower rivalries. This tendency was also, ironically, re-invigorated following Greece's adoption of its own Ostpolitik largely thanks to the spirit of détente. This paradigm was reflected in the policy of the four successive American administrations between 1967 and 1979 during which détente had become the most popular notion in the Cold War lexicon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sylla and Wright's statistics of new US special incorporations in 1790–1860 show that they exceeded those in France, Prussia and the UK, but the aggregate paid-up share capitals of extant companies were not so far apart in 1860. The UK continued to lead corporatisation, as measured by the ratio of corporate share capital to GDP. The distinctive features of US corporations were that they were small, diverse and numerous, while UK corporations were larger, more capital-intensive, less prone to disappear and had more dispersed ownership. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper starts from the assumption that geostrategic and security interests alone are not sufficient to explain China’s foreign policy choices. It argues that ideas about what China’s role as an actor in the increasingly globalised international system should be, and about world order in general, have a deep influence on China’s foreign policy decision-making process. Taking the North Korean issue as a case study, the paper postulates that China is currently engaged in a search for a ‘new’ identity as a global player. China’s actor identity is composed of various partly contradictory role conceptions. National roles derived from China’s internal system structures and its historical past lead to continuity in foreign policy, while the ‘new’ roles resultant from China’s rise to global power require an adaptation of its foreign policy principles. In the case of its relationship with North Korea, China’s foreign policy is oscillating between the two roles of ‘socialist power’ – as thus comrade-in-arms with its socialist neighbour – and ‘responsible great power’, which leads to it being expected to comply with international norms, and thus to condemn North Korea’s nuclear provocations and related actions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article analyzes why institutional crises are bound to happen and how they impact on national intelligence systems’ development. Punctuated Equilibrium theory is reviewed and employed to explain one institutional crisis in each of Brazil, Colombia, South Africa, and India. In Brazil, the case study is the fall of the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (ABIN) director in 2008, following the Satiagraha operation conducted by the Federal Police Department (DPF). In Colombia, the 2009 wiretapping scandal known aschuzadasis examined. In South Africa, the investigation in Project Avani (2006–8) is reviewed. Finally, in India the case study is the intelligence crisis following the Mumbai terrorist attacks in 2008. We found that institutional crises are inevitable because there are tensions between security and democracy, both being co-evolutionary dimensions of successful contemporary state building. However, the impacts of such crises vary across the four cases pending on three variables: (1) degree of functional specialization inside the national intelligence system; (2) degree of external public control over the national intelligence system; (3) whether effectiveness, legitimacy or both were the main drivers of the crisis. Our analysis of the four case studies suggests that the amount of positive institutional change in the aftermath of an intelligence crisis is greater in countries with more functional specialization and stronger external control mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article addresses questions concerning Enlightenment universalism and cultural diversity by focusing on the views of China held by Pierre Bayle and the Baron de Montesquieu. In contrast to the characterizations of Enlightenment thought as insufficiently attentive to cultural diversity and as providing pretexts for imposing European values on non-European cultures, recent scholarship has sought to uncouple Enlightenment thought from imperialism and colonialism. An examination of the perspectives, positive and negative, of Bayle and Montesquieu on China suggests that Enlightenment thinkers attempted to reconcile ethical universalism and cultural diversity, but also shows the limitations of such attempts. Thus, while dismissals of Enlightenment thought as universalistic and even imperialistic fail to consider Bayle’s and Montesquieu’s subtle engagements with Chinese culture, their accounts of China arguably fall short of being robust cross-cultural or anti-colonial perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although the Cambridge Professor of Mental Philosophy and Logic James Ward was once one of Britain's most highly regarded Psychologists and Philosophers, today his work is unjustly neglected. This is because his philosophy is frequently misrepresented as a reactionary anti-naturalistic idealist theism. In this article, I argue, first, that this reading is false, and that by viewing Ward through the lens of pragmatism we obtain a fresh interpretation of his work that highlights the scientific nature of his philosophy and his original and promising theory of ‘evolutionary Kantianism’, with its applications to the philosophy of mind, epistemology, and metaphysics. Second, I show that reading Ward as a pragmatist provides us with (1) a more complex history of the reception of pragmatism at Cambridge at the turn of the twentieth century than the straightforwardly hostile one traditionally told; and (2) a more detailed understanding of the wide range of philosophical problems to which pragmatism was deemed at this time to have an appropriate application. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article reconstructs an ideational trajectory in which China's views of the Korean–American alliance evolved during the last 60 years. The article first surveys China's general policy toward alliance and alliance-making. The article then traces the evolutionary path of Chinese views in the following four periods: (1) the Cold War era (1950s–1960s); (2) transformative years (early 1970s–mid-1990s); (3) the period of a strained alliance (late 1990s–late 2000s); and (4) an era of great reversal (late 2000s–present). Principally, the article suggests that China's view of the Korean–American alliance was intense antagonism during the Cold War era, although it was significantly watered down during the transformative years of Sino–South Korean rapprochement. With the normalization of relations between Beijing and Seoul in 1992 and a decade of progressive rule (1998–2007) in South Korea, China's view encompassed some wishful thinking about a gradually diluted alliance. The strong comeback of the conservatives in South Korean politics since 2008, however, shattered such optimism and re-awoke Beijing to some cold realities. China's view of the Korea–American alliance may grow more negative in tandem with US–China relations, irrespective of the official rhetoric of sovereignty regarding alliance and alliance-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In our time span (from 1866 to 1918), the Germans become finally, and more so than ever before, a people of newspaper readers, writes historian Thomas Nipperdey, who continues: ‘Reading newspapers becomes a daily activity, it becomes important, yes, it becomes, to a certain extent, conscience and attitude-forming; the press becomes coherent, one system, it becomes a power'. Without wanting to discount already attained research achievements, it should be said that communication history has not sufficiently explored the dimensions of the process outlined by Nipperdey or its ramifications. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Like the United States and NATO, Russia is struggling to define the future security environment and shape a course to the creation of a relevant and effective military. Russia’s strategic vision is of an uncertain, complex and quite dangerous word with threats ranging from internal subversion through intercontinental nuclear exchanges. The Russian military faces an impossible dilemma. It must address a broadening spectrum of prospective conflict scenarios with inadequate resources leading inevitably to the fielding of inadequate capabilities. One reason that Russia clings so tenaciously to nuclear weapons is its recognition that it is the nation’s central, even the sole, source of political relevance and military power. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Matters related to money were fundamental to the causes of the formation of Ethiopian-type churches. These includedinter aliathe raising of funds abroad and the subsequent need to control such funds by white ministers, delay or refusal of ordination due to cost factors and differentials in stipends, lack of or poor allowances, lack of trust in the use of funds, poor emoluments and accommodation. This was in contradiction to emerging mission policy as propounded by Henry Venn in his Three-Self formula, particularly with regard to the principle of self-support following Pauline methods. At the heart of such issues was the need for missionaries to control what they had created, and maintain and perpetuate a sense of dependency. The Mzimba Secession offers substantial evidence to support the suggestion that finance was a central concern in fostering inferiority and subjection in the mission field leading to the formation of a new church movement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The longest-running and best-known Europe-wide broadcast, the Eurovision Song Contest, is devoted to popular music, but it is not on radio, the medium that would seem most suited to music, but television. By contrast, it has now mostly been forgotten that a similar show featuring pop records, called European Pop Jury ran for nearly two decades starting in the mid-1960s. This article compares, contrasts and above all contextualises these two programmes as it traces the paths of popular music through European broadcasting. In so doing, it highlights the technical, institutional and discursive constellations that have allowed, but also limited, the circulation of popular music over European borders. It thus maps not just the creation, but also the fragmentation of technological and cultural spaces in Europe. It points ultimately to both top-down and bottom-up formations of ‘Europeanisation’ understood as acts of appropriation and translation of music over borders. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Winner of the Richard W. Cox Postgraduate Prize at the 2012 British Society of Sports History annual conference. Middle-class women journeyed in increasing numbers to the Alps during the last half of the nineteenth century; a substantial minority climbed. They have received little attention from cultural, social or sport historians. Where they have been referenced, women climbers were seen either as an addendum to their fathers' and brothers' expeditions, as atypical ‘new women’ or simply non-existent until the early twentieth century. This paper will refute these premises, highlighting the wide variety of levels with which women engaged in mountaineering, from first ascents of major summits over 4,000 metres to lower level walks. It demonstrates these middle-class women ignored contemporary medical advice to avoid strenuous exercise and challenges the notion that climbing and the high Alps were a uniquely male space. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The hugely popular summer cruise tours of the West Coast Sounds in the South Island of New Zealand reveal a colonial history of leisured mobility and landscape appreciation common to New Zealand and Australia. Cruising the Sounds was a practice imbued with privilege, exclusivity, emotional upliftment and wonder, generating shared attachments to wilderness space. This culture of maritime tourism offers new insights into the mobile practices which shaped the Tasman World, and points to the centrality of ships and shipping routes as spaces of transcolonial history. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The debate about the development of sport in Ireland is a lively one and is broadening all the time as more and more historians investigate it. This essay examines the criticisms by Cronin on Finn and argues that Cronin has at best an imperfect understanding of Athleticism as an education ideology. It explores the ideology of Athleticism with a focus on two elite Irish schools and points the way for more detailed research approach in understanding the extent of Athleticism in these schools and its diffusion into wider Irish society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The assumption that an insurgency effort must culminate in the seizure of state power became the go-to cliché of the twentieth-century understandings of the Civil War. However, historical counterfactuals about Sudan's civil wars have cavilled at the accuracy of this postulate. This article argues that Sudan constitutes an outlier which does not perfectly fit this established convention. In essence, many factors have combined to be the sources of Sudan's intractable, periphery-originated civil wars. Since the Torit Mutiny in August 1955, virtually all these uprisings have exhibited deep failings in inducing a complete change in the centre; or separating any part of the country through military means. Succinctly put, they have, with no exception, ended in a negotiated settlement rather than through a decisive military victory by the rebels. Based on the findings of this study, state violence, ethnic politics, and power struggle among the rebels, as well as geography, geopolitics, and the permeability of the borders have emerged as key explanatory variables to this alternative hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In November 1670, Chief Justice John Vaughan established, in Bushell's Case, that jurors could no longer be judicially fined for reaching a conclusion with which the trial judge disagreed. This case has traditionally been taken as a foundational moment in the history of jury power; but in the last few decades its significance has been downplayed by legal historians, who have pointed to the continued existence of judicial control of juries. This article, drawing on recent work on conscience as a juridical concept in early-modern England, seeks to rehabilitate Bushell's Case, and does so by situating it within its wider discursive setting. Bushell's Case, taken together with the concurrent pamphlet literature, offers a positive model of jury trial which downplays the jury's relationship either with the judge's or with the sovereign's laws in favour of a focus on the juryman's soul. Whatever the practical limitations of the idea, this reconceptualisation of jury trial is an important moment in the history of jury power, and one which warrants study on its own terms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Carl von Clausewitz produced what is widely recognised as the greatest book on war. Less commonly appreciated is the nature of the approach he adopted which enabled him to arrive at his central theoretical conclusions. In the course of his studies Clausewitz confronted a number of central methodological dualisms. He believed the tensions inherent in these pairs could not be ignored and ultimately sought to reconcile their apparent contradictions through a dialectical process of intense reflection and study. Knowledge of such issues offers students of war and strategy a valuable methodology in coming to grips with such a vast and complex subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As clinical social work has increasingly become synonymous with reflective psychotherapeutic intervention, case-management practice is often perceived as an impediment to the consolidation of a professional identity as a clinical social worker. The clinically oriented case manager is faced with the difficult challenge of addressing the inseparable psychological and environmental needs of clients while meeting the expectations of relevant agencies and institutions. In the supervisory process of case-management practice, clinical social workers have a unique opportunity to consolidate their professional identity as they directly address the dialectic between the individual's maturational processes and the larger facilitating environment. Using illustrations from supervisory relationships, this article discusses the specific challenges of clinical supervision in case-management practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The rhetoric of immigration in the United States is grounded in a cultural dialectic featuring themes of inclusion and exclusion. Throughout American history, one of these themes has usually been ascendant, while the other has been in decline. In this article, the authors analyze how President George W. Bush attempted to construct and manage the immigration issue as he pushed for comprehensive reform. They argue President Bush attempted to accommodate both sides of the immigration debate by using themes of inclusion and exclusion at the same time. Although Bush failed in his attempts to pass immigration reform, his conflicted rhetoric may actually carry with it the key to understanding how future presidents will construct and manage this issue in the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘Doctrine’ has been part of military vernacular for at least a century. Nonetheless, it is a concept which is rather under-explored. The aim of this article is thus to break doctrine down into its component parts in order to grasp what a military doctrine actually is. Thereafter, the article points out different ways to utilise doctrine as a military devise. A doctrine cannot be, or rather should not be, all things to all men. On the contrary, doctrine can be a tool of command, tool of education or a tool of change. The main upshot of the article is that the future of doctrine is far brighter than its critics want us to believe. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the coordination of text and image in the opening image for the gospel of John in a 10th-century Ottonian gospel book made in the monastery of Corvey in Germany and known as the Morgan Gospels or "Quedlinburg Gospels." The author analyzes the illumination for the gospel of John, which features a vortex and two columns of script. The author also examines illuminations for the other gospels in the manuscript as well as in other gospel books such as the Noailles Gospels. Specific topics addressed include the decoration of the monastery of Corvey, the opposition of interior and exterior space in the illuminations of the Morgan Gospels, and the use of images in revelation.

The article discusses Confederate History Month in U.S. southern states and public disputes over how to commemorate the U.S. Civil War. The author reflects on the controversy and public outcry over a proclamation of Confederate History Month issued by Virginia Governor Robert F. McDonnell that omitted any mention of slavery. Emphasis is given to debates between Confederate sympathizers such as the Sons of Confederate Veterans organization and civil rights advocates such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The author also explores the centennial and sesquicentennial commemorations of the Civil War.

In their exploration of an alternative approach to large historical databases, the authors aim to bridge the gap between the anticipations regarding Web-based collaborative work and the prevailing practices and academic culture in social and economic history. Until now, the collaboratory model has been derived from examples in the natural sciences. Moreover, publications on collaboratories in the social sciences and humanities revolved primarily around the potential of this model and were rarely based on actual research practices. In this article, the authors report on practices, risks, and opportunities of collaboratories in the field of social and economic history. The collaboratory model is a feasible alternative for the creation of large historical databases, but the practical challenges of such an enterprise are greater than generally assumed. In the concluding section, the authors formulate a number of guidelines for scholars interested in setting up collaboratories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the Dred Scott decision in 1857, Abraham Lincoln embarked on a public campaign to prevent the expansion of slavery in the federal territories. Lincoln's opposition to Dred Scott was, however, bound up with a certain theoretical orientation that is often rejected in the general milieu of modern constitutional theory. Within the context of two recent revisionist accounts of slavery and American constitutionalism, I argue that our retrospective evaluations of the sixteenth president's statesmanship must enter into a deeper engagement with Lincoln's attachment to natural law and his theological interpretation of the Civil War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Commentators have found Hobbes's translation of Thucydides' history puzzling. It was Hobbes's first publication and it preceded his earliest political treatise by more than a decade. Although towards the end of his life Hobbes himself claimed that he published it in order to warn his compatriots of the dangers of democracy and demagoguery, some commentators have dismissed his explanation as an attempt to tie it to his own political theory, in hindsight. Through an examination of Hobbes's preface and essay on the life and history of Thucydides, published alongside his translation, this paper shows that Hobbes's view of Thucydides and his usefulness remained consistent throughout. Siding with Plutarch, Hobbes valued Thucydides for his ability to turn the auditor into a spectator, thereby protecting him, as far as possible, from the dangers of demagoguery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Richard Evans, In Defense of History , W.W. Norton & Company, New York and London 1999 (US edition), ISBN 0-393-04687-7 (hb) Richard Evans, Lying about Hitler. History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial , Basic Books, New York 2001 (US edition), ISBN 0-465-02152-2 (hb) Mary Fulbrook, Historical Theory , Routledge, London and New York 2002, ISBN 0-415-17986-6 (hb) 0-415-17987-4 (pb) Konrad H. Jarausch and Michael Geyer, Shattered Past. Reconstructing German Histories , Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford 2003, ISBN 0-691-05935-7 (hb) 0-691-05936-5 (pb) José López, Gary Potter (eds), After Postmodernism. An Introduction to Critical Realism , The Athlone Press, London and New York 2001, ISBN 0-485-00421-6 (hb) 0-485-00617-0 (pb) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzes the responses of pupils to the charter schools in Ireland during the early 19th century. Criticism of the school system in both Ireland and England; Importance of children in the history of educational developments; Relevant comparisons with the experiences of pupils confronting similar educational regimes.

Discusses the relationship between Balkan Muslims and their Catholic and Orthodox neighbors, using crucial Serbian epics and texts. Impact of the battle at Kosovo Polje in forging Serbia's national consciousness; Relationship between Serbia's state and the church; How the Ottomans invasion affected Serbia's national identity; Impact the invasion had on religious life in Serbia; How the Serbian Church was saved from extinction.

The article focuses on the role of history to promote group solidarity and pride or to strengthen beliefs, values or moral habits. Especially in societies which are at least in part democratic or open, among people of a liberal or progressive outlook, uses of history have come to be regarded as an unjustifiable mode of indoctrination. A central problem in any study of history at any level is that of how important should be the subsequent success or failure of individuals or groups and their ideas or policies. A common contemporary extension of unconditional relativism is the argument that since no evidence is complete and all people have a point of view it is inevitable that all historical explanations will be biased and prejudiced. It is anachronistic folly to judge an individual, a groups a generation or a society by arbitrary standards derived from other times and places. The crisis in Aboriginal education in Australia now a days arises in part from the adoption of unconditional relativism as the only perceived alternative to an imposition of white ethnocentric values. If one set of beliefs were as rational or explanatory or generally as adequate as any other there could be no reason why any group should change its beliefs. Any profitable study of history includes a dimension of moral judgment and a concern about human worth. In the absence of explicit criteria implicit and unexamined assumptions are usually influencing historical writing and thinking.