Histories

Granary systems formed a core institutional foundation of state governance, famine relief, and social stabilization in premodern China. Using the complete corpus of the Twenty-Six Dynastic Histories, this study employs digital humanities methods—including text preprocessing, word-frequency analysis, collocation analysis, time-series comparison, and geographic co-occurrence analysis—to examine the long-term evolution and institutional structure of three major granary types: ever-normal granaries (ChangpingCang), charitable granaries (Yicang), and community granaries (Shecang). The results reveal significant temporal and spatial variation closely associated with dynastic stability, fiscal capacity, and disaster conditions. Ever-normal granaries evolved from early formation in the Western Han to institutional consolidation in the Tang, peak expansion in the Song, and functional diversification thereafter, operating as a centralized mechanism integrating price regulation, fiscal management, and famine relief. Charitable and community granaries, by contrast, display increasingly differentiated roles, reflecting a shift toward localized and socially embedded relief in later periods. Spatial analysis further demonstrates a hierarchical deployment pattern centered on political and agrarian cores and extended through transport corridors and frontier zones. Overall, the study highlights a multilayered relief system combining state authority and social participation, offering a data-driven reinterpretation of Chinese charity and governance. Full article

Since the emergence of scientific disciplines in the 19th century, geography and history have had an undefined relationship with each other. Conventions of subject-specific responsibility have developed, but in detail the separation is difficult, and the more the boundaries between the two disciplines are emphasised, the more tempting it sometimes is to cross them. A prominent example of this interdisciplinary tension and challenge is the relationship between geographical structures and certain forms of state formation. In scholarship, Swiss history is routinely associated with the Alps. Could one imagine this history without mountains? In the present article, I argue that it is important to analyse the relationships in all their complexity and not to be guided by general assumptions. To do this, one must consult various genres of literature. In this way, the self-evident may suddenly require explanation. Full article

This article examines Max Nordau’s Entartung (Degeneration) (1892/93) at the intersection of fin-de-siècle cultural critique and contemporary psychopathology. It argues that Nordau did not simply denounce modern art, but transferred an established psychiatric vocabulary—centred on degeneration, hysteria, and neurasthenia—into the sphere of aesthetic judgement. Interpreting a range of literary and cultural phenomena as symptoms of pathological degeneration, Nordau sought to diagnose the psychological condition of modern culture through the works of contemporary writers and intellectuals. Situating Entartung within the broader nineteenth-century degeneration paradigm and within contemporary evolutionary debates, the article analyses how scientific discourse was mobilised to authorise cultural evaluation. Rather than assessing the validity of Nordau’s diagnoses, it reconstructs the epistemic logic through which psychiatric categories were transformed into instruments of cultural criticism. In doing so, it repositions Nordau within the history of the human sciences, highlighting his role in the consolidation of expert authority in late nineteenth-century cultural debates. By foregrounding the structural migration of psychiatric categories into cultural criticism, the article contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the alliance between scientific knowledge and normativity at the fin de siècle. Full article

Computational methods have become increasingly prominent within the historical sciences, generating significant enthusiasm among some scholars. Yet their practical demands, epistemic limits, and ethical implications are less often critically examined than praised. This article explores what it means to do computational history today, arguing that it is not primarily defined by algorithms but by datasets. It is methodologically specific, resource-intensive, selective in scope, labour-heavy, and dependent on pre-digitised sources, specialised infrastructure, and interdisciplinary collaboration. These dependencies limit the scope of research questions and can produce narrow outcomes despite substantial effort, lending some validity to the concern over whether the field yields sufficient historiographical return for the labour invested. Corpus construction and data work lie at the epistemic core of computational history. These often undervalued tasks are not merely technical precursors to analysis, but interpretive and epistemic acts. Data are shaped by digitisation politics, historical bias, and institutional power. They shape the questions asked, the answers produced, and the legitimacy of findings. Recognising and valuing data work is essential, both to embed critical perspectives into computational humanities and to counteract the privileging of certain forms of labour over others. Due to the association of quantification with rigour and scholarly prowess, algorithmic work receives more credit, creating a two-tier system in this division of labour in which those who develop algorithms are elevated above those who curate data, despite their symbiotic interdependence. Computational history, when done well, requires deep engagement with our sources, be they historical or data. For computational history to stabilise as a meaningful discipline, it must prioritise building better datasets over pursuing increasingly complex algorithms on an unstable basis of data. Full article

Non-alignment was officially born at a conference in Brijuni, Croatia (then Yugoslavia), in 1956 and then formalized in Belgrade in 1961. Yet its origins go back to the independence struggle of Indonesia in 1945–1949 and especially to diplomacy around the Korean War in 1950–1953. During that conflict, United States unilateralism pushed India, Indonesia, and Burma (now Myanmar) into forming an Asian bloc aligned for diplomatic purposes in the goal of peace. The search for peace in turn formalized a bloc of Asian states that would initiate the Bandung Asian–African conference of 1955 and finally the Non-Aligned Movement. This article explores the emergence of non-alignment in the late 1940s and early 1950s as a conscious rejection of both Cold War alignment and earlier European concepts of neutralism in favour of an “active and independent” non-aligned diplomacy that would lead to the emergence of a bloc of non-aligned states. Full article

Greater Ethiopia in the late medieval period, a somewhat delicate federation in the Horn constituted by the Christian highland kingdom and bordering Muslim princedoms, was integrated by interregional links of great significance, in a balance of roles within a wide trade network. Yet the interlacing web of connections saw as many disconnections. Sources from the Christian side as well as the Muslim side with its associated parties continue to provide light on various regional dynamics involved and allow analysis of how interactions were influenced by external actors such as Mamluk Egypt, the Ottoman Empire, and Christian Mediterranean states drawn by the belief that Abyssinia was ruled by Prester John. The purpose of this study is to expound the factors that shaped dealings between the two religio-political parties in order to help build a comprehensive perspective of the entangled milieu. The authors argue that a variety of conditions prevented domination by a single group and forged acceptance of a practical reality as a modus operandi. While several sources and references in Western languages on the wide regional interactions are known, this study aims to present a transcultural view on the topic through untapped Arabic studies examining related primary Arabic sources. Recent archeological work is also taken into account. Some emphases and clarifications are offered to promote an understanding of the region’s circumstances, the timing and aims of key episodes, and foreign interventions. Full article

This study examines the chronic continuity and multi-layered structure of poisoning cases observed in the Ottoman Empire between the 1845 and 1912. The primary aim is to reveal how the central administration perceived these events, which seriously threatened food safety and public health, and the administrative, medical, and legal defence mechanisms developed in response. The scope of the research encompasses Ottoman Archive documents ranging from accidental poisonings to consumption of spoiled food, use of untinned vessel, and large-scale military poisonings. Conducted using qualitative methods, the study involved transcribing, classifying, and interpreting archival data. These records confirm that the administrators of the period considered poisoning to be a significant and challenging threat. Consequently, this study evaluates the information in the archival documents at the intersection of forensic epidemiology and political toxicology, substantiating with data the risk management capacity of the central administration of the period and its institutional adaptation to crises. By analysing poisoning cases through the lens of food safety and public health policies, the research offers a new academic contribution to Ottoman history, medical history, public health history, and food safety literature. Full article

This article focuses on the rediscovery of catacombs in the central Mediterranean and explores some of this historiographic heritage through different kinds of documents in order to present some interesting results regarding human and cultural connections among Tunisia, Malta and Italy. It presents an overview of the history of the rediscovery of the catacombs without focusing on the details of individual explorers or events but rather by identifying some key points that reveal a trend among scientific research, antiquarianism and confessionalism. These points are crucial elements in defining a broad international and interdisciplinary phenomenon, one that goes way beyond the rediscovery of every single catacomb. This article begins with an archaeological point of view to explain what was a catacomb between the 2nd and the 7th centuries and then offers a brief history of catacomb exploration through the centuries, from the late 16th to the early 20th century. The central part of the text is dedicated to the development of the main pillars that identify the process of catacomb rediscovery: the political frame, cultural circulation and the movement of people. Full article

This article analyzes two historical episodes in which seafaring leaders were interpreted as divinities by island cultures: the voyage of the Inca Túpac Yupanqui to Oceania in the 15th century and the arrival of Captain James Cook to Hawaii in the 18th century, where he was identified as the god Lono. Drawing on historical, ethnographic, and colonial chronicle sources, the article examines the technological, symbolic, and cultural elements that fostered such confusion. It is proposed that these encounters constituted not only material exchanges but also profound mythological resignifications, in which premodern navigation played a central role in the construction of identities and sacred narratives. This comparative analysis invites us to reconsider Eurocentric narratives about American isolation and to recognize the interoceanic circulation of knowledge and technologies in pre-Columbian and colonial contexts. Full article

Since the 19th century, the United States has continuously conducted plant introductions from around the world to expand high-quality germplasm resources for agriculture and horticulture. Beginning in 1898, China—shaped by millennia of agrarian civilization and characterized by exceptionally rich biodiversity—became a key focus of these efforts. To clarify the historical trajectory of the introduction of plants originating in China into the U.S., this study compiles the Office of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction series Inventory of Seeds and Plants Imported (The Inventory of Seeds and Plants Imported is a serial publication compiled by the SPI since 1898, documenting plant introduction activities of the United States worldwide. The original volumes and their digitized versions are publicly accessible through the USDA National Agricultural Library (NAL) Digital Collections. These archival records constitute the primary source of the historical plant-introduction data used in this study.) and synthesizes the history of introductions from 1898 to 1949; after verifying and analyzing the composition and selectivity of introduced taxa in terms of scientific nomenclature, spatiotemporal distribution, collectors, taxonomic structure, and plant uses, we find that 23,890 introduction records were documented, encompassing 159 families, 869 genera, and 2252 species, spanning 34 provincial-level administrative regions and 230 prefecture-level cities in China, with more than 566 collectors participating over nearly half a century, among whom F. N. Meyer, J. F. Rock, P. H. Dorsett, W. J. Morse, and F. A. McClure made particularly prominent contributions. Plant introductions from China enriched U.S. germplasm collections, expanded the genetic and functional diversity of U.S. plant resources, and reshaped the composition of agricultural and landscape systems. Full article

This article analyses post-World War II UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration) activities that supported the restoration of livestock in Poland, with a focus on veterinary work associated with animal shipments. The study is based on archival UNRRA documentation (mission and programme reports) and contemporary veterinary publications describing clinical practice in Polish port clinics and on board livestock ships. It reconstructs major health risks during transoceanic transport (crowding, heat, poor ventilation); outlines veterinary procedures applied before loading, during the voyage, and after arrival; and summarises mortality and morbidity data reported for the period 1945–1946. By foregrounding veterinary practice within post-war humanitarian logistics, the paper contributes to a more detailed understanding of how animal health management shaped livestock rehabilitation efforts in Poland. Full article

Central European children’s literature can be read as both archive—recording shifting norms, institutions, and visual regimes—and agent, a medium through which childhood, citizenship, and cultural memory are made legible. This conceptual article proposes an edition-sensitive framework for analysing texts, images, and paratexts across Central Europe (1860–2025), with particular attention to institutional mediation. Rather than offering a comprehensive dataset or causal claims about reception, it synthesises research in childhood history, book and media history, memory studies, and translation and circulation studies to advance three arguments. First, children’s books are institutionally framed artefacts: paratexts and material features (series branding, curricular endorsements, library markings, pricing cues, regulatory traces) can be read as historically interpretable speech acts of legitimation. Second, shifts in visual and material regimes should be analysed as changing conditions of legibility—expectations of clarity, affect, and authority—rather than as mere stylistic evolution. Third, translation and circulation function as infrastructures that reorganise repertoires and interpretive horizons, complicating nation-centred narratives without exhaustive market mapping. The article concludes by stating methodological limits (catalogue gaps, survival bias, uneven metadata) and outlining a transferable agenda for paratext-centred documentation and edition-sensitive reading. Full article

This study evaluates whether a multimodal retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipeline originally developed for early modern woodcuts can be effectively transferred to the domain of medieval manuscript illumination. Using a dataset of Wenzelsbibel miniatures annotated with Iconclass, the pipeline combined page-level image input, LLM description generation, vector retrieval, and hierarchical reasoning. Although overall scores were lower than in the earlier woodcut study, the best-performing configuration still substantially surpassed both image-similarity and keyword-based search, confirming the advantages of structured multimodal retrieval for medieval material. Truncation analysis further revealed that many errors occurred only at the deepest Iconclass levels: removing levels raised precision to 0.64 and 0.73, with average remaining depths of 5.49 and 4.49 levels, respectively. These results indicate that the model’s broader hierarchical placement is often correct even when fine-grained specificity breaks down. Taken together, the findings demonstrate that a woodcut-oriented RAG pipeline can be meaningfully adapted to manuscript illumination and that its strengths lie in contextual reasoning and structured classification. Future improvements should incorporate available textual metadata, explore graph-based retrieval, and refine Iconclass-driven pathways. Full article

The memoirs of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw are among the most significant Western sources portraying the Ottoman Empire in the late 16th century. Sent on a diplomatic mission and later taken captive, Wratislaw offers a dual image of the Empire: as a powerful, well-organised state and as a despotic regime evoking fear. His account reveals two contrasting perceptions of the Ottoman court and administration. While their rigid authoritarianism challenged Western admiration for Ottoman governance, it also reinforced existing notions of Oriental despotism. The shifting diplomatic conduct and hostile treatment of the Bohemian delegation further shaped the Ottomans as unreliable and deceptive in Western eyes. Culturally, Wratislaw presents the Ottomans as “the other civilization,” highlighting differences in religion, lifestyle, and social structure. Yet he also acknowledges their hospitality, generosity, and religious tolerance. This study examines how Wratislaw’s personal experiences reflect broader Western imaginations of the Ottoman world. It argues that cultural and diplomatic encounters shaped a complex and often ambivalent image, influenced by both structural dynamics and individual perspectives. Positioned at the intersection of historical sociology and imagology, the article contributes to the understanding of cross-cultural perception in early modern diplomacy. Full article

On 10 March 1933, an earthquake of roughly 6.4 on the Richter scale (retrospectively estimated) hit the City of Long Beach, California, and the counties surrounding it. Seismically, the quake was of moderate magnitude. However, to this day it remains one of the most destructive quakes in California history in terms of structural damage and fatalities, largely because of faults in building construction of the time that resulted in widespread collapses resulting from earth movement. This article tells the story of the quake itself in full detail; examines its role in the passage of the Field Act, tracing out how that act has impacted earthquake-resistant building design policy, law and practice in California and beyond; assesses the way in which the earthquake altered the trajectory of earthquake science; and details the economic policy response to the quake and the short-term stimulative effects this had on Long Beach and Southern California economies (referred to here as “Disaster Keynesianism”). While there is a large historiographical literature on the Long Beach quake and some of its singular impacts, this research is unique in that it describes and analyzes impacts across multiple dimensions and puts them in the context of contemporary literature on disaster studies, economic analysis, and the history of science, all based on extensive archival research. The paper concludes by positing that the policy, technical and economic response to the Long Beach earthquake represented a sort of “high modern” example of socially and institutionally constructed “disaster” that firmly set in place the notion that “natural disaster” could be managed and ultimately prevented by material and technical means. It is argued that such a view is still contained within more current and broader concepts of “Resilience” and “Anti-fragility”. Full article

This essay examines six depictions of the 1898 suicide of New Zealand businessman and politician William Larnach: four historical narratives and two dramatic/fictional depictions. Drawing on the insights of postmodern historiographers like Hayden White, I argue that these tellings reflect an increasing influence of the Hippolytus myth, a culturally authorized narrative rooted in traditional British colonial education structures and Antipodean reception of classics. In particular, as New Zealand shifted away from British identification to a distinctly Kiwi identity, classics legitimized New Zealand culture within a global north from which the Antipodean nation is geographically isolated. Analyzing depictions of Larnach’s death and the possible incestuous scandal leading up to it reveals important historiographic insights both into how history is conceptualized and emplotted and into how Antipodean cultures navigate their positions on the fringes of a larger global north primarily seated in Europe and North America. Full article

This study examines the social, economic and cultural impacts that Latin American women face due to climate-induced displacement, considering these impacts as arenas of conflict and negotiation. Using an intersectional framework, the study analyses how climate disasters exacerbate structural inequalities rooted in patriarchal systems, thereby constraining women’s adaptive capacity while simultaneously catalysing resistance strategies. Through a comparative analysis of Bangladesh and the Dry Corridor in Central America using a Gender Vulnerability Index (GVI), the study reveals that displaced women navigate contested spaces, disputing access to resources, legal recognition and territorial belonging, while constructing transnational solidarity networks and cooperative economies. The emergence of women climate refugees challenges international legal frameworks, exposing critical gaps in protection regimes. The findings emphasise the need for gender-responsive policies that recognise women as transformative agents who negotiate power asymmetries in contexts of environmental crisis, not merely as vulnerable populations. This research contributes to our understanding of the nexus between climate change, gender and migration by foregrounding the dialectic of domination and agency in Latin American displacement processes. Full article

This paper addresses the knowledge gap on the beginning of the history of contact with extraterrestrial intelligent beings in international astronautics. In the mid-1950s, the world’s space law practitioner, Andrew G. Haley, proposed the concept of Metalaw, the law governing interactions between all beings in the Universe, as he represented the American Rocket Society in the International Astronautical Congress, the single largest gathering of space-faring nations. Haley, with experience in radio communications law dating back to the 1930s, played a pivotal role in pushing for the international allocation of radio frequencies in space. Haley was, too, an agile mediator with the Soviet Union and its bloc, acting across various organizations and forums. This article, in contextualizing Haley’s introduction of Metalaw, shows how the onset of the Space Age coincided with the emergence of a contact scenario involving extraterrestrial intelligence enabled by the corresponding techno-scientific capabilities of the time. It demonstrates how extraterrestrial intelligence discursively addressed outer space regulation as a bone of contention between the two geopolitically divided parts, a regulation upon which the US’s global satellite system would depend. The analysis in this article recounts the birth of the Metalaw concept at the intersection of outer space imaginary, law, international organizations, science and technology, diplomacy, the Space Race, the Cold War, and radio astronomy’s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Full article

This manuscript examines how distinct epistemic attitudes toward singularity and generality have been articulated in medical writing across different historical contexts, offering a conceptual and meta-historical analysis of two enduring genres in biomedical literature: the individualized case report and the systematically aggregated clinical trial. Hippocratic case narratives are considered as a particularly lucid articulation of a mode of inquiry that privileges detailed observation of individual patients, while medieval Aristotelian natural philosophy exemplifies a contrasting emphasis on regularity, intelligibility, and general explanation. Renaissance medical and philosophical traditions are treated as a mediating moment in which attention to anomaly, wonder, and singularity was explicitly re-legitimized within learned medicine. These historically situated articulations are not presented as stages in a progressive narrative, but as recurrent epistemic orientations that are repeatedly reconfigured under different theoretical, institutional, and technological conditions. The paper argues that the tension between attention to exceptional cases and the pursuit of generalizable knowledge continues to structure modern biomedical writing, where case reports remain essential for identifying rare, novel, or anomalous phenomena, while clinical trials formalize strategies for producing reproducible, population-level evidence. Full article