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Business history provides multiple examples of similar managerial crises occurring over an extended period. Despite the growing need for improved management decision-making, managers continue to demonstrate a lack of reflexivity and revert to formulaic practices that have contributed to previous events. In response, we employ the institutional logics perspective to explain causes of managers' nonreflexive decision-making, and as a basis for a new historical focus within business schools. Specifically, we extend the model of collective memory-making to develop a pedagogical model that outlines how management educators can develop students' historical sensibility—that is, their sensitivity to and appreciation of possible pasts and the impact of managerial actions on history—to overcome the constraining influence of dominant logics on managers' decision-making. To this end, we advocate that management educators develop students' abilities to procure and evaluate historical documents with reference to context; critically analyze retrieved documents and synthesize narratives; and communicate those narratives. The harnessing of historical sensibility is assisted by articulation of specific action foci. By focusing on both the development and harnessing of historical sensibility, we go beyond the presumption that more history will (and should) ensure better management practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evolution of the Gondwana along the flank of the West African Craton was complex and is far from understood. Subduction-related activity along this margin spanned between c. 750 and 500 Ma. Sections close to African cratons record the earliest stages, while Autochthonous and Allochthonous domains of the Variscan Belt preserve the latest stages of the arc system, essentially between c. 540 and 500 Ma. The geochemistry of the Ediacaran-early Cambrian siliciclastic series deposited along this Cadomian active margin preserves the evolutionary history of their sources, which are related to activity in the arc and nearby continental areas. In this sense, the SW Iberian Massif (Ossa-Morena Complex) preserves a section of this Ediacaran-early Cambrian peri-Gondwanan arc. Its evolution can be tracked through the characterization of the subduction-related magmatism (including the Mérida Massif) and coeval metasedimentary record (Serie Negra Group and Malcocinado Formation) during a time interval spanning almost 100 m.y., from pre-602 Ma to at least c. 534 Ma. This study reveals that arc magmatism is closely linked with synorogenic deposition in a complex way so far unexplored. Arc recycling is revealed by the isotopic equivalence of synorogenic strata to the first magmatic event (pre-602 Ma), and by geochronological data of the arc-building pulses. The earliest magmatic pulses (c. 602–550 Ma) are characterized by significant crustal input, likely favoured by subduction erosion. Subsequently, magmatism evolved towards larger mantle involvement (c. 540–534 Ma), likely associated with progressive variation in the slab angle. These slab-mantle-upper plate interactions generated changes in the arc dynamics leading to an extensional setting with alkaline magmatism during the Cambrian. This review proposes a model of petrogenetic and geodynamic arc evolution between the Ediacaran and the Early Cambrian. The gathered data could improve the accuracy of future palaeogeographic reconstructions for the northern margin of Gondwana. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to show that the neo-documentary – or complimentary – approach in Library and Information Science by no means is conservative, but highly necessary also in today's digitized media landscape. An example from a digitized photo archive is chosen to demonstrate the importance of a complimentary analysis that considers both material aspects as well as social and mental ones. Design/methodology/approach: By taking Jenna Hartel's description of the neo-documentary turn as point of departure, the paper focuses on one case, the portrait of Johannes Abrahamsen Motka taken by Sophus Tromholt in 1883 and discusses different versions of the photograph from glass plate negatives to digitized versions in different contexts and media. Findings: Many of the same paratextual elements can be found in different versions, also the digitized ones, to help the viewer to establish a historical context, but the images exhibited today are nevertheless no longer the same ones taken by Tromholt at the end of the 19th century. Not only have the material properties changed, but also – and probably even more important in most cases – the social and mental aspects. More re-contextualization is needed for today's audiences to recognize and understand a historical photograph taken in a colonial context. Focusing on document's material elements is not novel within the LIS-field, but the so-called neo-documentary turn was also a reaction on political and technological developments during the 1980s and 1990s. The increased focus on understanding a document in a complimentary way has demonstrated its impact during the last decades and is, at the same time, still work in progress. Research limitations/implications: As a scholar in the humanities the author can only relate to and therefore analyze what the author can experience and observe on screen level. Originality/value: In providing a case study, this article illustrates the necessity of employing a complimentary approach when analyzing documents. This also implicates the claim that the neo-documentary turn – or complimentary as it rather should be called – by no means is a conservative one, but a highly necessary one in today's digitized media landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on historical documents, population data, published results, remote sensing data products, statistical data and survey data, this study reconstructed the cropland area and the spatial pattern changes at 28 time points from 1000 to 2020 in Northeast China. 1000 to 1600 corresponds to historical provincial-level administrative districts, while 1700 to 2020 corresponds to modern county-level administrative districts. The main findings are as follows: (1) The cropland in Northeast China exhibited phase changes of expansion-reduction-expansion over the past millennium. (2) The cropland area in Northeast China increased from 0.55 × 104 km2 in 1000 to 37.90 × 104 km2 in 2020 and the average cropland fraction increased from 0.37 % to 26.27 %; (3) From 1000 to 1200, the cropland area exhibited an increasing trend, peaking in 1200. The scope of land reclamation was comparable to modern times, but the overall cropland fraction remained low. The cropland area significantly decreased between 1300 and 1600, with the main land reclamation area was reduced southward into Liaoning Province. From 1700 to 1850, the cropland area increased slowly, and the agricultural reclamation gradually expanded northward. After 1850, there was almost exponential growth, with the cropland area continuously expanding to the whole study area, and the growth trend persists until 2020; (4) The dataset of changes in cropland of administrative districts in Northeast China, reconstructed based on improved historical cropland reconstruction methods, significantly enhances time resolution and reliability. Additionally, the dataset shows the changing characteristics of cropland in Northeast China over the past millennium, especially over the past 300 years, which can provide a refined data base for building a historical cropland gridded dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reconstructing biological invasions from historical sources can provide insights into how they occur but are difficult to do when invasions are poorly documented. Genetic signatures left by invaders can also offer insights into invasion routes, points of origin and general biology but often present conclusions that are contradictory to expectations. Here, we test the ability of continental‐wide microsatellite genotype data from 29 loci and 3122 samples to reconstruct the well‐documented invasion of red foxes Vulpes vulpes from the United Kingdom into Australia over 150 years ago, an invasion that has led to the extinction of many native species. Our analysis reveals several key signals of invasion evident in Australian foxes. They display lower levels of diversity than foxes sampled from the UK, exhibit clines in diversity from the point of introduction (south‐east Australia) to the edge of their range, and show strong evidence of allele surfing in westerly and north‐easterly directions. These characteristics are consistent with a single point of origin followed by rapid expansion in westerly and north‐easterly directions as suggested by historical records. We also find little genetic structure in foxes across Australia with only the vast Nullarbor Plains and Great Victoria Desert region presenting a detectable barrier to their dispersal. As such, no mainland region within the current range of foxes can be considered genetically isolated and therefore appropriate for localised eradication efforts. Overall, our analyses demonstrate the ability of comprehensive population genetic studies to reconstruct invasion histories even after more than 80 years since colonisation was stabilised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Croatia has both significant CO2 emissions from the point sources and a history of oil and gas exploration, and this is why the CCS technology surfaced as a viable solution for curbing CO2 emissions on a national level. Since approximately half of emissions from the stationary industrial sources occur along the Adriatic coastline, the entire offshore area became an exploration target. Regional studies revealed the potential storage plays, one of which is in the aquifer of the Mesozoic carbonate complex with dual porosity extending all along the Croatian offshore area. Three structures were chosen in its central part–Klara, Kate and Perina. For the first two, the models were constructed based on the data from old exploration wells and a regional structural map, while for the Perina structure, a new seismic interpretation was added to better characterise its properties. It came out that the Kate structure appears to be the most prospective in general (45 Mt), with neighbouring Klara as the second (39 Mt), while the initially promising Perina (7 Mt) turned out to be of far lesser importance. The Perina structure case is an example that new seismic interpretation can reduce the capacity estimate if it reveals certain limiting factors, in this case, the limitation of structural closure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ancient texts dedicating or commemorating temples that can be associated with archaeological remains such as architecture and inscriptions, along with identifiable kings who built or commemorated those temples and the specification of the elapsed number of years from a past event, are known from Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Levant over the span of several centuries. Although the texts originate from differing religious, cultural, and geographic contexts and were recorded on various mediums, the similarity in content, style, and objective indicates a shared tradition and allows the grouping of these texts into a distinctive category. These temple construction and dedication texts document a king or kings involved in the construction, reconstruction, or remembrance of a temple, a deity with whom the temple was connected, the location of the temple, and the specific number of years elapsed between construction or dedication and another significant cultural or religious event. Known examples come from Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Phoenicia, and Israel, spanning the 13th to the 2nd centuries BC, along with a text from ancient Rome that was likely influenced by this practice. Because the kings named are known from various historical documents and inscriptions, archaeological remains related to the temples have often been recovered; since the construction or dedication texts record elapsed years in reference to another event, these texts can be analyzed in regard to their viability as sources for the history and chronology of the ancient Near East in the context of religion and official records of the state. Investigation of these texts alongside king lists and temples reveals that temple construction and dedication texts of the ancient Near East that included mention of elapsed years provide valuable, detailed, and accurate information that can be used to identify the existence of ancient temples in time, corroborate periods of kingship or other important events, and contribute to understanding a method of historical chronology used by the ancients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vesuvio is likely the most if not one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world. It is an active volcano, quiescent since 1944. The activity of the Monte Somma and Vesuvio volcanic complex is commonly referred to as two central volcanic edifices, namely Monte Somma and Vesuvio. Nevertheless, the opening of numerous eruptive fissures and related vents have characterized Monte Somma and Vesuvio throughout their lives. Spatter cones, spatter ramparts, and related eruptive fissures are disseminated downslope of Vesuvio's main cone and on the southern slopes of the volcano. Similarly, cinder cones, spatter cones, and welded spatters are distributed in the sequence cropping out on the Monte Somma cliff and on the northern slopes of Monte Somma. In this work, a total of 168 eruptive vents have been identified and characterized in a GIS environment in which field data have been merged with relevant information from historical maps and documents. These vents have been arranged into units bounded by unconformities (Unconformity Bounded Stratigraphic Units) defining the eruptive history of the volcano. Alignments of vents and eruptive fissures within each unit have been compared with regional tectonic elements and the volcano-tectonic features affecting Monte Somma and Vesuvio during the last 5600 years, thus inferring that different structural trends were active in the different stratigraphic units. In particular, we show that the N300°–320° regional, Apennine, left-lateral, strike-slip fault system, the N040°–055° Torre del Greco direct fault system, the N70° and the EW fault system, and the generally NS oriented group of local brittle elements, all analyzed here, were differently active during the investigated time span. These tectonic trends might control the position of the eruptive fissures and vents in case of future unrest of the volcano. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The green monkey Chlorocebus sabaeus, L. 1766, native to West Africa, was introduced to the Cabo Verde Archipelago in the 16th century. Historical sources suggest that, due to the importance of Cabo Verde as a commercial entrepôt in the Atlantic slave trade, establishing the precise place of origin of this introduced species is challenging. Non-invasive fecal samples were collected from feral and captive green monkey individuals in Cabo Verde. Two mitochondrial fragments, HVRI and cyt b, were used to confirm the taxonomic identification of the species and to tentatively determine the geographic origin of introduction to the archipelago from the African continent. By comparing the new sequences of this study to previously published ones, it was shown that Cabo Verde individuals have unique haplotypes in the HVRI, while also showing affinities to several populations from north-western coastal Africa in the cyt b, suggesting probable multiple sources of introduction and an undetermined most probable origin. The latter is consistent with historical information, but may also have resulted from solely using mtDNA as a genetic marker and the dispersal characteristics of the species. The limitations of the methodology are discussed and future directions of research are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis of co-citations, which occurs when two publications or authors are mentioned together in the same text, has long been established as a practice within scientometrics, particularly in the field of "science mapping". However, historiography has shown less openness to utilizing co-citation analysis for distant reading purposes. To address this gap, this article presents a comprehensive methodology for applying co-citation analysis to extensive collections of historical documents, specifically 17th-century letters indexed in the ePistolarium database. In science mapping, co-citation serves as an indicator for tracking the development of scientific fields. Similarly, I employ co-citation to map the Dutch socio-intellectual landscape during the Scientific Revolution period (1623–87) and evaluate the strengths and limitations of this approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a novel approach for automatically classifying illustrations from historical Chinese local gazetteers using modern deep learning techniques. Our goal is to facilitate the digital organization and study of a large quantity of digitized local gazetteers. We evaluate the performance of eight state-of-the-art deep neural networks on a dataset of 4,309 manually labeled and organized images of Chinese local gazetteer illustrations, grouped into three coarse categories and nine fine classes according to their contents. Our experiments show that DaViT achieved the highest classification accuracy of 93.9 per cent and F1-score of 90.6 per cent. Our results demonstrate the effectiveness of deep learning models in accurately recognizing and categorizing historical local gazetteer illustrations. We also developed a user-friendly web service to enable researchers easy access to the developed models. The potential for extending this method to other collections of scanned documents beyond Chinese local gazetteers makes a significant contribution to the study of visual materials in the arts and history in the digital humanities field. The dataset used in this study is publicly available and can be used for further research in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Takeshima Bunwa, a collection of epistolary discussions on Ulleungdo between Suyama Shoemon, Hanshi of Tsushima, and Kishima Hyosuke, a fellow Hanshi from Tsushima, confirms that Tsushima was certain that Korea had more convincing historical sources proving that Ulleungdo is Korean territory and that Ulleungdo and Dokdo constitute a unitary territory. Dokdo is not subject to contention as Japan claims, and because Ulleungdo is a representation of Dokdo as a liveable space, Ulleungdo‐Dokdo is the proper name for the Korean territory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decade, future thinking has rapidly gained importance as a topic of historical study. This article provides an overview of the existing historiographies of future thinking as well as the actions and practices that follow such thoughts. We trace the pedigree of histories of the future back to the German historian of ideas Reinhart Koselleck and show how his conceptual framework has been adopted and adapted by later scholars. We highlight the sources and methods that are typically used. A particularly fruitful approach that emerges from our meta study revolves around the concept of pluritemporality – the coexistence of different layers of time. The article also seeks to uncover some weaknesses and biases that are still present in the field. The most urgent issue being probably the lack of consensus on a conceptual apparatus; other blind spots concern the relationship between future thinking and its linguistic expression in historical sources, the question of whose future thinking we are talking about, how future thinking relates to human action in the past, and how short‐term futures interact with their long‐term futures equivalents. Overall, however, the aim of this survey is to emphasise the potential of this burgeoning field for future historical research. Much is to be gained from new theories of historical time which are themselves the consequence of ideas about climate change and the dangers of the Anthropocene, human extinction and trans‐ and post‐humanism and about artificial intelligence and the digital world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An instrument of wealth accumulation and racial segregation in housing markets, the intersections between zoning and labor are often overlooked. Extending theories of space, race, and class, and drawing on historical and archival evidence, I elaborate three ways that American land-use zoning emerged to shape labor markets in the early 20th century: (1) zoning constrained households from engaging in subsistence and direct market activity, acting as a regulatory source of labor commodification; (2) zoning first emerged as a xenophobic tool for regulating labor competition; and (3) zoning introduced racialized boundaries distinguishing formal work from a sphere of economic informality. I illustrate these theoretical-historical propositions with a study of the frontier origins of American land-use zoning laws in late-19th -century Los Angeles. This first and influential approach to residential zoning emerged amid racial dynamics of western settlement and the class politics of a national "free" labor market. I demonstrate how efforts to regulate the settlement and labor practices of poor urban households and Chinese immigrants on in Los Angeles became the direct legal basis for the dichotomous categories of "residential" and "industrial" districts that the city first defended before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1915. By theorizing the intersections of land-use zoning and labor markets, this paper provides a theoretical framework and historical genealogy for future work to consider entanglements of housing and labor politics amid the concurrent flexibilization of work and land use in the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the planning intentions and practices of sixteen administrative cities in Taiwan during 1683-1895, focusing on their relationship with the giant city system of Qing Dynasty. Since Taiwan was brought under Qing's rule in 1683, sixteen cities were gradually planned and constructed as government seats to achieve spatial governance of new territory. These cities thus became a small but typical group within the entire city system, which included over 1500 members at that time. How were these cities planned and constructed in such remote, undeveloped territories? What principles and methodology had been strictly complied with or actively adjusted in their planning, facing the reality of various topography, unstable policies, diverse social demands, and changing situations of different times? This article attempts to answer the questions from four aspects: city site selection, city-wall shaping, functional facility configuration, and planning and construction sequence. Multiple study materials were employed in this research to reconstruct and analyse historical planning practices, including officially compiled local gazetteers, multisource historical records, digital elevation model(DEM), and field survey data. This study aims to enrich the understanding of city planning history in Taiwan, and to reveal these cities' conformity and variety to the age-old Chinese city-planning tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hand-painted magic lantern glass slides frequently present significant conservation problems, mainly due to the painting's deterioration and detachment from the glass support surface. However, the study of these objects is a very recent field. This work reviews the materials and techniques applied to hand-painted slides until the nineteenth century in Europe and North America to follow their evolution throughout time and place, aiming to further our understanding of the slides' historical, cultural, and artistic impact. This review identifies 22 historical sources from five countries, written between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, containing information on the production of hand-painted slides, from the glass support to the painting materials and techniques. The production processes changed from the mid-seventeenth to the eighteenth century with the apparent transition from fired paints (enamels) to cold paints (watercolours, oil colours, and varnish colours). Different stages of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century production processes are explored. Concerning the glass support, crown and plate or ground-polished glass (later patent plate) were commonly advised. Although the paintings' palette was mainly restricted to transparent colours, around 70 colourants and 25 binding medium components are listed. Their chronological distribution unveiled a possible correlation between their evolution and the advent of the Industrial Revolution. The knowledge of the original materials and techniques will not only contribute to understanding the differences between locations, periods, and slides' producers, helping in future attributions, but will also support further investigations on the key factors and mechanisms that lead to the degradation of historical hand-painted slides, enabling the improvement of current conservation practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tobacco quickly found favour in Japan after its introduction in the late sixteenth century, leading to the development of the kiseru—a distinctive Japanese tobacco pipe. Building upon a long-standing tradition of concealing weapons within a variety of mundane objects, tobacco pipes and smokers' accessories were soon modified to incorporate hidden spikes, blades, and even firearms. This short article, believed to be the first detailed assessment in the English language, explores the fascinating world of these covert self-defence tools. Through the examination of select artefacts, historical sources, and popular culture, this study provides a concise overview of these objects, shedding light on their design and purpose, and situating them within the broader Japanese arms and armour tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historical paper documents are susceptible to complex degradation processes, including biodeterioration, which can progressively compromise their aesthetic and structural integrity. This study analyses seventeenth century handwritten historical letters stored at the Correr Museum Library in Venice, Italy, exhibiting pronounced signs of biodeterioration. The techniques used encompassed traditional colony isolation on agar plates and proteomics analyses, employing nanoscale liquid chromatography coupled with high-resolution mass spectrometry (nano-LC–MS). Fluorescence microscopy was used for the first time in the historical paper biodeterioration context to supplement the conventional stereoscopic, optical, and scanning electron microscopic imaging techniques. This method enables the visualisation of microorganisms beyond and beneath the paper's surface through their natural intrinsic autofluorescence in a non-invasive and non-destructive way. The results demonstrate a diverse, complex, and abundant microbiota composed of coexisting fungal and bacterial species (Ascomycota, Mucoromycota, Basidiomycota, Proteobacteria, and Actinobacteria), along with mite carcasses, insects, parasites, and possibly protists. Furthermore, this study reveals certain species that were not previously documented in the biodeterioration of historical paper, including human pathogens, such as Histoplasma capsulatum, Brucella, Candida albicans, and species of Aspergillus (A. flavus, A. fumigatus, A. oryzae, A. terreus, A. niger) known to cause infections or produce mycotoxins, posing substantial risk to both artefacts and humans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The flooding and diversion of the Yellow River is a major concern for the Chinese. Since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States periods, historical documents have recorded many events of the Yellow River's migration and diversion, but there are few records of earlier events. The ancient Daluze Lake, located in the transitional area between the North China Plain and the Taihang Mountains, has been greatly affected by the Yellow River's flooding throughout history. The sediment in the lake continuously recorded the regional environmental evolution information, which is of significant value for studying prehistoric floods of the Yellow River and the interactive effects of early human activities and natural environment. Using a combination of geophysical, geochemical, and biological properties of drilling sediments, we establish the climate and vegetation evolution history in the ancient Daluze region since the Middle Holocene, and discuss a migration event of the Yellow River in the Middle Holocene. The results suggest that: 1) Since Mid-Holocene, the ancient vegetation of the Daluze area has always been a temperate mixed coniferous-broadleaf forest type of sparse forest-grassland, but its internal structure has changed: the local vegetation experienced a transition from sparse forest-grassland vegetation to grassland-meadow expansion, while in the middle of the Holocene (∼ca. 4.04 ka) forest vegetation began to show a growth trend. 2) At about ca. 4.04 ka, an environmental anomaly event occurred in the ancient Daluze area, with grain size and other indicators changed significantly, indicating that the Yellow River may have undergone a migration: the mainstream of the Yellow River changed from northward to southward and forced the ancient humans of the Longshan Culture and Dawenkou Culture periods to construct ramparts to prevent flood disasters caused by the migration of the mainstream of the Yellow River. The study deepens the understanding of the environmental evolution history and human-environment relationship of the Daluze area to some extent, and provides some theoretical basis for local ecological restoration and sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reports submitted by the sefirs (ambassadors) assigned by the Ottoman State to establish relations with other states since its establishment were called sefâretnâme. Sefâretnâmes were written about many different countries and are important documents that give information about Ottoman foreign policy. The meticulousness in the selection of ambassadors and the appointment of experienced statesmen to the post have increased the importance of these reports in terms of being a source for scientific studies. The sefâretnâmes, which have rich observations and comments about the country visited, have included developments in education, economy, technology, art and administration. Thus, it also contributed to the development and modernization of the Ottoman State. On the other hand, these reports have been important historical sources for European historians. Sefâretnâmes have been published in various forms such as articles, books, book chapters and graduate theses. In this study, the manuscript copy of Derviş Mehmed Efendi's 1755 dated Russia Sefâretnâmesi in Fatih Millet Library, numbered 829, is evaluated. The aforementioned sefâretnâme has not been analyzed and published as a separate work before. The original images and the transcribed text of the Sefâretnâme are also included in our article. Thus, it is aimed to contribute to academic studies by publishing another sefâretnâme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ramazzini Institute (RI) has been conducting animal carcinogenicity studies for decades, many of which have been considered by authoritative bodies to determine potential carcinogenicity in humans. Unlike other laboratories, such as the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP), the RI does not provide a report or record of historical control data. Transparently documenting historical control data is critical in the interpretation of individual study results within the same laboratory. Historical control data allow an assessment of significant trends, either increasing or decreasing, resulting from changes in laboratory methods or genetic drift. In this investigation: (1) we compiled a dataset of the tumors reported in control groups of Sprague-Dawley rats and Swiss mice based on data included in published RI studies on specific substances, and (2) conducted case studies to compare data from this RI control dataset to the findings from multiple RI studies on sweeteners and corresponding breakdown products. We found considerable variability in the tumor incidence across multiple tumor types when comparing across control groups from RI studies. When compared to the tumor incidence in treated groups from multiple studies, the incidence of some tumors considered to be treatment-related fell within the variability of background incidence from the RI control dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A detailed study of the ancient caravan routes connecting Mongolia and Tibet has yet to be established. This paper describes the results of initial investigations on the identification of caravan traces through Mongolia from historical sources, fieldwork, and remote sensing reconnaissance. Recreating the Roerich Central Asian Expedition of 1927, we identify several artifacts and locations that support our belief that these routes contributed to the movement and exchange of people, ideas, and commerce across the desert landscapes of Inner Asia and helped shape cultural and religious identities that still exist to this day. Moreover, we argue the Mongolia to Tibet caravan routes were part of the greater network of ancient Silk Roads and should be considered as such: an important, intangible cultural heritage worthy of further exploration, preservation, and scholarly study. • Mongolia-Tibet caravan routes were pivotal in shaping Inner Asian identities but are often overlooked in Silk Roads research. • Evidence of these routes include tracks, cairns, temples, and forts, signifying their role as well-traveled trade paths. • These routes were part of the broader Silk Roads network and merit attention for their intangible cultural heritage value. • Inclusive Silk Roads heritage acknowledges diverse cultural contributions and fosters understanding and conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historical data poses unique challenges to natural language processing (NLP) and information retrieval (IR) tools, including digitization errors, lack of annotated data, and diachronic-specific issues. However, the increasing recognition of the value in historical documents has promoted efforts to semantically enrich and optimize their analysis. This article contributes to this endeavour by enriching the Corpus de Textos Antigos through NLP tools and techniques to enhance its usability and support research. The corpus undergoes linguistic annotation, including part-of-speech tagging, lemma annotation and named entity recognition (NER). Subsequently, the article delves into the tasks of entity disambiguation and entity linking, which involve identifying and disambiguating named entities by referring to a knowledge base (KB). Addressing the challenges posed by factors such as text state, epoch and the chosen KB, the article presents insights into related work, annotation results and the linguistic interest of a medieval annotated corpus for named entities. It concludes by discussing the challenges and providing avenues for future research in this domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the number of digital archives increases – both traditional archives that have been digitized and 'born digital' collections – so, too, grows the number of tools and methodologies through which they can be better understood. This article explores how archives can be 'mapped' digitally, using network analysis to examine epistolary networks built on the State Papers archives of England. It will outline some of the core contributors to the archives, while also pointing to smaller actors and collections, whose place in the epistolary network and the archives are best revealed when viewed at scale within this 'mapping' process. This article demonstrates that – as with any other historical dataset – understanding the archives and the ways in which they are constructed is vital to further quantitative analysis, and how this is turn may bolster digital historical narratives. As such, this article not only demonstrates the outcomes of adopting digital methodologies, and how they may shape ongoing historical research and narratives, but also illustrates the ways in which the adoption of these quantitative measures allows for a critical reconsideration of historical sources, their origins and the ways in which they can be used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This process note explicates the methodological intervention of maintaining fieldnotes on government documents and its significance for historically situated international relations (IR) research. For the most part, IR scholarship treats archival documents as the neutral preserve of the state, representing its coherent national interests. Building on discussions around critical methods within IR, I argue that there is a need to reflexively engage with the writing and curating practices of the state. This process note deploys the ethnographic hallmark of thick description within IR research through critical annotations on archival documents and other government publications on India's eastern Himalayan borderlands between 1880 and 1965. These annotations encourage a granular reading of government documents and situate them within a larger context of their production, reception, archival memorialisation and subsequent access. I propose that critical annotations help us move beyond post-hoc analyses of foreign policy in terms of success and failure. Instead, in viewing IR theorising as 'unfinished dictionaries of the international', I argue that critical annotations challenge a unitary view of the state and facilitate a more nuanced analysis of foreign policymaking emphasising historical contingencies within which policies are articulated and enacted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The availability of digital copies of historical artifacts modeling the territory through the so-called "plan-reliefs" is important for many reasons: the preservation of the artifact if the physical object is damaged or destroyed, the possibility of creating virtual showrooms and providing researchers a tool to study the object combining information from different sources. For these reasons, a set of plan-reliefs created during World War I on the Italian front and kept by the Italian Historical War Museum of Rovereto (Italy) was surveyed to create digital models of the surfaces, which were georeferenced in the ETRS89 datum. A set of historical military maps of the same period was georeferenced to overlay the sets to the surface in the digital representation and to try to infer clues about the cartographic sources used in the historical artifact creation. The best transformation for georeferencing the maps is different depending on the map scale, map origin, conservation status and number of Ground Control Points. The georeferencing process precision and accuracy were evaluated. The digital models created in this study were compared to the official Digital Terrain Model (DTM) provided by the Regions or the autonomous provinces. The results demonstrate the feasibility of the approach, and the combination of the models with the georeferenced maps is used by historians to describe the process used in the creation of plan-reliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this position paper is to describe a historical timeline of science education. Using historical documents and current science education research, the authors create an evolutionary description of science education changes over time and how these shifts could influence how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is used in science education. The focus is on how societal and educational catalyst events, spanning from the Industrial Revolution to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and the COVID-19 pandemic, influenced science education. Next, the authors suggest that teachers should meaningfully implement the use of AI in ways that focus on student-centered learning and restore the progress made by the K-12 Framework and NGSS. These include generating ideas about problems that students can solve in an interest area, analyzing large sets of real-world data, generating grade appropriate science readings to develop background knowledge, and using AI to grade unique student work to replace multiple-choice response exams. AI and science education may best be described by a Chat GPT response: "It's important to note that while AI can enhance science education, it should not replace human teachers. Instead, it should be used as a tool to augment and support their expertise, fostering a blended learning environment that combines the benefits of technology with human guidance and mentorship." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I present a paradigmatic case to exemplify how cross-examining sources constitutes one of the core pillars of our research work. I argue that a primary source, which can be easily regarded as a piece of evidence that is beyond accidental or intentional alterations, that can only convey veracity, and is, therefore, broadly speaking, authentic, must also be cross-examined. There is no such thing, or there should be no such thing as a primary source invested with an aura of sanctity, exempt from the need for verification. The critical examination of sources, that process of comparing and contrasting information, is to our profession what the microscope and reagents are to the natural sciences. Cross-examining pieces of evidence constitutes the crux of all research work, as a piece of evidence is, as a rule, an incomplete and imperfect piece in the puzzle. But no matter how incomplete and imperfect they may be, those fragments of evidence are all we have to recreate the past. Tracing the origins of a tiny detail, such as a handwritten note in a mostly typewritten archival document, can be the thread that gives us the answer to a series of questions. From now on, all meticulous research work will consist of pulling this thread so that it may lead us to new and better explanations. That tiny detail is what we have been waiting for in order to finally piece together the pattern. This article is made from the analysis of documents from the Guatemalan Army, documentary collections from the Historical Archive of the National Police, newspapers, declassified documents from the United States Government, and oral sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natalie Zemon Davis is remembered as a pioneer in women's and gender history. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Davis and Jill Ker Conway produced a bibliography of books and sources on the history of European women, challenging the belief that there were no primary sources or scholarship on the topic. Davis's work focused on bringing individuals from different cultures onto the world stage and examining their interactions and the flow of languages. She also emphasized the power and agency of women throughout history, challenging the notion that women had never wielded power. Davis's scholarship was transformative and she was known for her lively and engaging writing style. She also emphasized the importance of hope in history, finding inspiration in the resourcefulness and resilience of her subjects. [Extracted from the article]

This article is the first to document the historical significance of the Indianapolis-based Syrian Ark , the official newspaper of the Midwest Federation of Syrian American Clubs from 1936 to 1954. Extant copies of the periodical provide a detailed record of Arab, Syrian, and Lebanese midwestern life in the middle twentieth century. Using elements of Thomas A. Tweed's spatial theory of "crossing and dwelling," author Edward E. Curtis IV analyzes how the newspaper's editor, correspondents, and other contributors moved across and inhabited local, regional, national, and diasporic spaces in their reporting. He argues that the Syrian Ark 's collective mapping of Arab American dwelling or "homemaking" in the shared public culture of the U.S. Midwest and U.S. nation-state was co-constituted through inhabiting the terrestrial space of diasporic Arab nationalist identity and the cosmological aspirations of religious ecumenism. The article illustrates this thesis by showing how the coverage of multiple midwestern locales in the Syrian Ark constructed a sense of Arab belonging to an ideal midwestern "hometown" of economic prosperity and strong civic engagement; how the newspaper's deep U.S. patriotism was joined to grassroots Arab diasporic nationalism, including activism on behalf of Palestinian liberty; and how the periodical created a cosmological home of religious ecumenism that sought to bring Muslims and Christians together across the Arab diaspora. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Handwriting-based technologies have progressed significantly over the years. Scientists have worked beyond just recognizing pieces of plain text from paper. With archaeological advancements, discovery of ancient documents has not been as scarce as it was in the past. However, such documents are discovered in perfect condition once in a blue-moon. They are often subjected to degradation due to the perils of time and understanding them requires skilled manpower which is not easy to find. Here, an automated system is proposed for this task. The proposed system uses a new CNN-based framework to analyze the macro and micro features of an image to recognize the text. Experiments are performed with over 250K historical images of numerals from a publicly available dataset and a highest accuracy of 99.68% is obtained. The data is further subjected to different type of noises and distortions. A novel technique is used to introduce synthesized degradation in the documents. The system performs steadily in all these experimental scenarios. Comparative analysis indicates that our results are higher than the reported works and other standard techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little is known about Libyan trade unionism and its role in the Arab workers' movement. Drawing on a variety of archival sources, this article contributes a general overview of trade unionism in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica from the time of the British Administration (1943–1951) until 1957. In this period, the Libyan General Workers Union (LGWU) emerged as the main workers' organisation and the first trade unions laws were promulgated. Since 1957, with the establishment of the Petroleum Workers Union and the presence of foreigners working in oil companies, the LGWU's supremacy as a representative of Libya's workers waned, and Libyan unionism entered a new phase. This article chronicles the unknown history of Libyan trade unionism and highlights the significance of trade union internationalism, specifically, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions in Libyan labour affairs. This research discusses internal enablers as well as frictions within the labour movement, which ultimately hampered its social and political influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on unraveling the mystery of Laura, a woman buried in the Sunnyside Cemetery at Victor, Colorado, with limited information about her life and death. Topics explored include Laura's potential identity as a transient or a prostitute, efforts to trace her through historical records, and the discovery of her connection to her sister Rose Barnett and mother Mary Walker Rice, shedding light on her family history and possible reasons for her anonymity in historical records.

In the continental Mediterranean mountains of the Iberian Peninsula is located a landscape characterized by the presence of enclosed land parcels delimited by dry stone walls or vegetation, or by both these elements. This landscape has been included, since 2018, in UNESCO's Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity under the name of Art of dry stone walling, knowledge and techniques. However, today's territorial dynamics jeopardize the maintenance of this landscape heritage. This work set out to understand their origins, dynamics, and evolution from the 11th century (Middle Ages) to the present using historical documentation from different sources and diachronic cartography from aerial photographs. The fieldwork was designed to identify natural, cultural features and recent dynamics, in particular those related to urbanization changes of the last 70 years. Finally, we delved into the new dynamics of exploitation that were based on extensification and a loss of productive diversity. The results obtained lead us to consider that the loss of this agro-landscape must be prevented, with a reasonable livestock grazing criteria and a rational management of its heritage features. This requires regional, national, and European policies that recognize the enclosed landscape as a heritage ecosystem in which biodiversity and agriculture are closely linked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the objects in the barniz de Pasto collection at the Museo de América, Madrid. The barniz de Pasto technique will be described, as well as the historical documentary sources that have previously discussed this varnish. The article will also mention the historical reasons why Spain is the European country in which the greatest number of objects decorated with varnish have been found, in both religious and private collections. The main body of the article discusses all the barniz de Pasto objects held in the Museum collection, focuses on the history of their arrival at the Museum, and investigates their possible origin, with the help of ample photographs. The final section examines the Museum's three most recent acquisitions, completed in the second half of 2022, in detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid evolution of the urban landscape highlights the need to digitally document the state and historical transformations of heritage sites in densely urbanised areas through the combination of different geomatics survey approaches. Moreover, it is necessary to raise awareness of sites by developing strategies for their dissemination to a diverse audience through engaging, interactive, and accessible 3D web platforms. This work illustrates a methodology for the digital documentation and narration of a cultural heritage site through the implementation of a lightweight and replicable 3D navigation platform based on open-source technologies. Such a solution aims to be an easy-to-implement low-cost approach. The methodology is applied to the case study of the Farnese Castle in Piacenza (Italy), describing the data collection and documentation carried out with an in situ survey and illustrating how the resulting products were integrated into the web platform. The exploration functionalities of the platform and its potential for different types of audiences, from experts to users not familiar with 3D objects and geomatics products, were evaluated and documented on a ReadTheDocs website, allowing interested users to reproduce the project for other applications thanks to the template code available on GitHub. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual sources, capturing aspects of life silenced or left untold in textual accounts, have the potential to offer new, historical understandings of the individual experience of war. During World War I, official war artist James McBey created a series of images of Australian soldiers – Cameliers – on reconnaissance in the Sinai Desert. This article reads a selection of those images, arguing that what they signified and the emotions they aroused can be retrieved historically by considering their multiple contexts. These include not only the social, political, and military environments, but also the cultural imaginaries which the artist shared with his audiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: The bighorn sheep is a species of great ecological, cultural, economic, and social importance in Mexico. However, the current sheep population status in the state of Baja California has been unknown since 2010. The objective of this research was to update information on the abundance, distribution, and population structure of bighorn sheep in Baja California through an aerial survey. The flight was conducted in 2021, and 456 bighorn sheep were observed, resulting in an estimated 1697 ± 80 animals. The observation rate was 16 sheep recorded per hour of flight, and the ram:ewe:lamb ratio was 62:100:19. A statistical comparisons of these results with previous those of aerial surveys, which began in 1992, indicate that the Baja California bighorn sheep population has been stable for twenty-nine years, in contrast to other areas of the species' range, where the sheep population increased during the same period. Given these results, Baja California authorities should consider modifying the current bighorn sheep conservation strategy to increase the species' population in the state. The bighorn sheep in Mexico is classified as at-risk by the Mexican federal government. In the state of Baja California, wild sheep can be observed throughout the length of the state from the USA–Mexico border south to the Agua de Soda mountain range. This research aimed to document the historical trend of the bighorn population based on aerial surveys conducted in 1992, 1995, 1999, 2010, and 2021, and the abundance, distribution, and structure of bighorn sheep populations in Baja California, based on an aerial survey conducted from 8–14 November 2021, covering thirteen mountain ranges. The estimated sheep population in 2021 was based on the number of individuals observed; the sightability of the animals; the area sampled; and the total area of habitat available. In 30.5 flight hours, 456 bighorn sheep were observed, with an estimated population of 1697 ± 80 individuals. The observation rate was 16 sheep sighted per hour of flight, and the ram:ewe:lamb ratio was 62:100:19. When the results of the 2021 flight were compared to the results of the previous aerial surveys, there was a large variation between the data, which was related to the lack of consistency between the sampling designs used in each study. Nevertheless, a statistical test of the results of aerial surveys conducted in the state suggest that the Baja California bighorn sheep population remained stable between 1992 and 2021. This study highlights the need to standardize wild sheep aerial surveys by defining flight paths and establishing a consistent duration of flights. On the other hand, Baja California authorities should consider modifying the current conservation strategy for bighorn sheep to increase the species' population in the state by initiating community-based wildlife conservation programs in rural communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historical politeness scholars use Discernment as a second-order metaterm for compulsory social behaviour that is scripted according to circumstances and rank difference. However, in Renaissance courtesy books the Italian verb discernere 'to discern' has a first-order meaning: to individually work out appropriate behaviour when the fit of rules to circumstances is unclear. Discernment1 and Discernment2 appear to contradict each other. This paper addresses a theory gap: a theory of Discernment2 must unravel the link with Discernment1, given that Discernment1 functions as a metaterm in prescriptive politeness sources from a historical period for which scholars believe social practices are determined by Discernment2. Using a self-built corpus of ca. one hundred nineteenth-century etiquette books in US-UK English, French, Italian and Dutch, I conduct a semantic analysis of discern* (92 hits) and its collocate "tact", tact, tatto, takt (575 hits), which point to a practical type of reasoning, to carry out a careful assessment of the unique and complex situation at hand before deciding on a course of action. However detailed etiquette scripts are, discernment (tact) is needed to process the complexity of real-life circumstances. Hence, Discernment1 and 2 appear complementary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Slackwater deposits representing past flood events provide a robust means to extend systematic gage records further back in time, place historic floods in a longer-term context, and reduce uncertainties in flood hazard analysis. The identification and application of slackwater deposits in riverine paleoflood hydrology has traditionally been limited to arid bedrock-controlled environments and periglacial environments. In this study, we utilize methods developed in humid alluvial settings and apply them to slackwater deposits, one of the first studies to do so. This novel approach uses sediment texture and geochemistry to distinguish slackwater deposits from in situ material in a temperate alluvial setting. We identify multiple slackwater deposits in two rock shelters situated on bluffs adjacent to the lower Ohio River. Flood age estimates are based on optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating, and discharge estimates are based on a 1D HEC-RAS model. The uppermost slackwater deposit at both sites corresponds to the AD 1937 historic flood of record (∼31,400 m3/s), while another slackwater deposit identified only at the lower elevation site corresponds to a paleoflood that occurred around AD 1650 with a discharge of ∼23,900 m3/s. Our findings imply that the AD 1937 flood represents the largest magnitude flood on the lower Ohio River in at least the last 400 years. Inclusion of the paleoflood into a flood frequency analysis for the Ohio River at Louisville reduces uncertainties in large flood quantiles by ∼50%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Glazed tiles were prestigious building materials reserved for embellishing the roofs of royal architectures of ancient states in East Asia. This paper, by studying glazed tiles from the palace precincts of Shangjingcheng, Xigucheng, and Baliancheng, three capital cities of the Bohai state (698–926 ad), aims to expose the vibrant technological and economic interactions among ancient states of East Asia untold in historical chronicles. Although it is well recorded that Bohai maintained intimate political, cultural, and commercial engagements with the Tang empire and the Yamato state, it is obscure what kinds of technology and commodities were involved in these activities. It appears that the bodies of these tiles were produced of local iron‐rich clays, and the glazes were made of compounds of the same clays and lead materials. The glazing technique may have been transmitted from the Tang empire yet modified in response to local circumstances. Lead materials were acquired from various sources, partly from the one for the Huangye sancai wares in the Tang empire, and partly from the one for Nara sancai wares of the Yamato state in Japan. Archaeology is therefore capable of enriching our knowledge of the human past, even in the historical period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the development of a coding scheme for analyzing mathematical tasks in Primary Source Projects (PSPs), curriculum materials based on primary historical sources designed for teaching standard topics from today's undergraduate mathematics curriculum. Our scheme attends to social-cultural aspects of mathematical learning while focusing on the student actions expected as they work tasks. We exemplify our scheme with tasks drawn from a diverse set of PSPs and report results from its application to these projects. We conclude with comments on how our work can assist instructors, curriculum developers, and researchers, including those who are interested in other types of curricular materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The Fuegian fox (Lycalopex culpaeus) is a rare inhabitant of the Tierra del Fuego Archipelago on account of: (a) It is the southernmost Canid in the world. (b) It is the second largest, heaviest, and tallest native Canid in South America. (c) It is currently scarce in northern Tierra del Fuego. (d) It may have been tamed by the Selk'nam natives. Methods and results: Based on chronicles and scientific reports we document the timeline since discovery of the distinctive and island-confined Fuegian fox. We pay attention to its patchwork distribution within the Fuegian archipelago, with populations spread on the large Tierra del Fuego Island (Fuegia) and on two smaller ones, Hoste and Gable. This fox seems to have disappeared recently from the latter and historic records from Navarino Island are dubious. We provide new distributional records and unpublished photographs. Among the socio-ecological aspects studied, we highlight the relationships of this fox with two local indigenous people: The Yahgan and the Selk´nam. Discussion: The introduction of sheep Ovis aries in 1885 and the ensuing persecution of its putative predators apparently caused the fox decline from the northern half of Fuegia. The introduction of the continental Chilla fox Lycalopex griseus in 1951 further impacted the Fuegian fox, apparently by competition for food but perhaps also by diseases. It is currently concentrated in the southern half of Tierra del Fuego Island. The possibility that the Selk'nam introduced this fox from the mainland and that they tamed it, is also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The city of Valencia (Spain) is famous for its Gothic bridges, built in the 16th century. Today, the bridges no longer cross over the Turia River but have become walkways over one of the most extensive gardens in Europe. One of these bridges is the Serranos Bridge, the oldest bridge in the city and for centuries, it was the only one that existed. This research narrates the evolution of the historical changes related to this bridge, using Historic Building Information Modelling (HBIM) technology. The Serranos Bridge (and related Serranos Towers) were recorded with the help of terrestrial laser scanning, and parametric 3D modelling was followed after scan-to-HBIM. By referring to historical documents and traces from the past, the height of the historic wall of the city was obtained and used to recreate the urban footprint of the area. In addition, the details of the historical bridge components and the subsequent volumetric changes were reconstructed through HBIM. This investigation shows that there is a common symbol in the historical bridges of Valencia, called Casilicium, of which no traces can be identified in the present bridge. The effective integration of historical data, geomatics and HBIM can be used to understand the past and its complex transformation over six centuries with unprecedented expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Domestication is a set of processes that requires active reconfigurations of interspecies relations, environments, and technologies. In this view, both ethnographic and historical sources help us track the exact ways that domestication as a practice actively reveals and conceals relations of power among people and between people and other animals. Two pertinent cases—training rats in Tanzania to detect landmines and releasing mosquitoes to deter the transmission of pathogenic viruses in Brazil—take place in contexts where animals are being modified to achieve certain developmental, medical, or humanitarian goals. These animals, like any in the history of domestication, breach boundaries, crossing wild and domestic categories, in these cases at the moment and experience of being bitten. These moments draw our attention to the stakes involved in thinking about domestication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Together with Procopius' other texts; namely "Wars" and "Secret History", "Buildings" is one of the principal sources for writing the history of the reign of the emperor Justinian (527-565). "Buildings" is a panegyric and conforms to literary conventions. Procopius portrays Justinian as a powerful patron who expanded and transformed the empire, and ended the schism in Christianity by uniting the Church. The first book of Buildings is dedicated to Constantinople and focuses on the churches of the imperial capital. In the second book, Procopius focuses on Mesopotamia and Syria. He starts with Dara and devotes a passage even longer than the one he wrote on Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. When he wrote Buildings, the discussions about Christology were as pressing as the wars with Persians, and Mesopotamia and Syria were the main centers of Syriac miaphysite Christianity. Procopius rarely mentions the churches in this book on the eastern frontier and he never talks about the miaphysites. Northern Mesopotamia is an important frontier and it may seem only natural that Procopius chose to focus on fortifications to depict a strong frontier. This article argues that while avoiding tackling the Christological disputes of the day, Procopius gave implicit references related to the unity of the Church by employing some literary devices and suggests that some buildings that Procopius neglected may have pointed to the division in the Church. Procopius dedicates a long section to the Church of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus in Constantinople which has been claimed was built in the Hormisdas Palace for the miaphysite refugees and compares it with the Church of Sts. Peter and Paul, which had relics of these saints received from the Pope in Rome. His narration can potentially be interpreted as a reference to the unity of the Church. While discussing Procopius' preferences in choosing his material and treatment, this article shows the potential of analysing the many layers of his texts and reads the "Buildings" in a new light in relation to the miaphysites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Lotus Blossoms and Purple Clouds: Monastic Buddhism in Post-Mao China" by Brian J. Nichols is a book that provides a comprehensive and accessible study of the Kaiyuan Monastery in Quanzhou, southeast China. The book explores the monastic life at the monastery and its relationship with the wider community, as well as its significance in the context of transnational Chinese Buddhism. Nichols conducted extensive research, including participant observation, interviews, and archival research, to provide insights into the historical progression, religious practices, and material culture of the monastery. The book offers a nuanced portrayal of the monastery, addressing the impact of modernity and the coexistence of opposing forces. It is a valuable contribution to Chinese Buddhist scholarship and will be of interest to scholars and the general public alike. [Extracted from the article]

This article discusses the challenges faced by historians researching queer subcultures in Soviet Latvia. The author argues that queer memory is not widely acknowledged or discussed in Latvia, even though more than thirty years have passed since the decriminalization of male homosexuality. The article emphasizes the importance of researching the history of queer people to minimize marginalization and strengthen social identity. It also highlights the need for studies on the interaction between queer people and the Soviet state. The research presented in this issue focuses on the Baltic states and provides valuable insights into the queer history of the Soviet period. [Extracted from the article]