Histories

This article considers the historiography of the British Jacobites and American loyalists. It argues that they have been treated unfairly by history. In short, their importance has been minimized out of regard for dominant narratives. The article looks at older and newer historical accounts that reinterpret events in 17th and 18th century Britain and in revolutionary America to give Jacobites and loyalists a fairer share in these events. In conclusion, the article states that historiography will soon have to integrate the experience of these hitherto neglected currents into its main narrative. Full article

Like in most places around the world, childbirth assistance in Brazil was traditionally performed by women. In 1832, however, a law was passed requiring a license for the exercise of medicine, pharmacy, and midwifery. That event marked the differentiation between the traditional and the modern kind of childbirth assistants, leading to an increasing process of medicalization of birth. Hence, the historiography on the subject has pointed out the appropriation by men of a traditional women’s world. This article seeks to understand the gender dynamics in the birthing room by focusing on the new kind of professional that emerged in Brazil in the early nineteenth century: the “graduated midwife.” To what extent was there cooperation or competition between physicians and graduated midwives? How different were their obstetrical practices? After examining the Annaes Brasiliensis de Medicina—the official publication of the Imperial Academy of Medicine—I argue that the graduated midwife was the historical intermediate in transitioning from traditional midwifery to scientific obstetrics. Finally, I conclude that, as a woman of science, the graduated midwife filled the gap that isolated the female sphere of care from the male sphere of science, paving the road for the entrance of women in medicine in 1879. Full article

After the establishment of the communist regime in Albania, many Albanian students, mainly males, went to study in the Mecca of Revolution—the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR). Many of them fell in love there and married Soviet girls who returned with them to the tiny Balkan country to build socialism with their Albanian husbands. These women were considered as missionaries who were helping Albania to build a communist future. In 1960, however, their position changed when the Albanian leadership refused de-Stalinization and denounced the Soviet Union as an imperialist power. After Enver Hoxha’s split with Khrushchev, many Soviet women left Albania, but others decided to remain with their husbands in that country. Albanian authorities, considering Soviet women spies of the KGB (The Soviet Committee of State Security), persecuted many of them. Full article

The (secular-humanist) philosophical theology governing (positivist) disciplines such as International Law and International Relations precludes a priori any communicative examination of how the exclusion of Arab-Ottoman jurisprudence is necessary for the ontological coherence of jurisprudent concepts such as society and sovereignty, together with teleological narratives constellating the “Age of Reason” such as modernity and civilization. The exercise of sovereignty by the British Crown—in 19th and 20th century Arabia—consisted of (positivist) legal doctrines comprising “scientific processes” denying Ottoman legal sovereignty, thereby proceeding to “order” societies situated in Dar al-Islam and “detach” Ottoman-Arab subjects from their Ummah. This “rational exercise” of power by the British Crown—mythologizing an unbridgeable epistemological gap between a Latin-European subject as civic and an objectified Ottoman-Arab as despotic—legalized (regulatory) measures referencing ethno/sect-centric paradigms which not only “deported” Ottoman-Arab ijtihad (Eng. legal reasoning and exegetic hermeneutics) from the realm of “international law”, but also rationalized geographic demarcations and demographic alterations across Ottoman-Arab vilayets. Both inter-related disciplines, therefore, affirm an “exclusionary self-image” when dealing with “foreign epistemologies” by transforming “cultural difference” into “legal difference”, thus suing that it is in the protection of jus gentium that “recognized sovereigns” exercise redeeming measures on “Turks”, “Moors”, or “Arabs”. It is precisely the knowledge lost ensuing from such irreflexive “positivist image” that this legal-historical research seeks to deconstruct by moving beyond a myopic analysis claiming Ottoman-Arab ‘Umran (Eng. civilization) as homme malade (i.e., sick man); or that the Caliphate attempted but failed to become reasonable during the 18th and 19th century because it adhered to Arab-Islamic philosophical theology. Therefore, this research commits to deconstructing “mainstream” Ottoman historiography claiming that tanzimat (Eng. reorganization) and tahdith (Eng. modernization) were simply “degenerative periods” affirming the temporal “backwardness” of Ottoman civilization and/or the innate incapacity of its epistemology in furnishing a (modern) civil society. Full article

75.6% of land comprising Hong Kong remains undeveloped according to the special administrative region’s planning department. In turn, Hong Kong’s constricted real estate, now estimated to be the world’s costliest, has created eye-popping living arrangements historically and contemporarily. Denizens’ colorful reputation and imagination for flouting city ordinances, zoning laws, and spatial management stand emblematic of tenacious self-sufficiency and a free-spirited brand of runaway capitalist initiative. Why is this conspicuous trademark of Hong Kong’s societal fabric very much alive in the 21st Century? Why does this matter in a rapidly urbanizing world witnessing the ascension of mega-urban centers alongside ever-widening socioeconomic chasms? This paper intends to illuminate the peculiar origins and longevity of the Kowloon Walled City, an urban monolith of notoriety and autonomy that blossomed in a semi-legal grey zone unencumbered under British protectorate rule for nearly a century. Parallels will connect the linear trajectory between Kowloon’s hardnosed living to today’s comparable Chungking Mansions and the hundreds of thousands of cage homes appearing in all corners of the city. This paper aims to answer why these residential paradoxes continue to function with efficiency and relevancy, posing solutions for indigent housing while exacerbating the stigma of social and economic ostracism. Full article

This paper looks at the Kurdish women’s struggles for gender justice at the intersection of two diverse social movements in Turkey: the Kurdish national movement, on the one hand, and the Turkish feminist movement, on the other. It argues that the Kurdish Women’s Movement (KWM) has functioned as a powerful process of learning for both men and women in the Kurdish community and in the larger society. It has destabilized and transformed the feudal–patriarchal relations and norms in the Kurdish community, the lingering sexism in the Kurdish movement, and the majoritarian constraints in the Turkish feminist movement. Full article

This paper is about the shaping of the law understood as a positivist enterprise. Positivist law has been the object of contentious debate. Since the 1960s, and with the surfacing of revisionist histories, it has been suggested that the abstraction of the doctrine of criminal law is due to its categorisation in early histories. However, it is argued here that positivism was hardly an intentional master plan of autocratic social control. Rather, it is important to recognise that historians do not provide a value-free recount of history. This paper examines this assertion by drawing on the writings of the English jurists William Blackstone and his work Commentaries on the Law of England (1765), and James Fitzjames Stephen’s A History of the Criminal Law of England (1883). Taking these scholars not as mere a-historical writers but reflecting on the fact that they inevitably ‘functioned’ as conduits of their own social practise opens an inquiry into the social response to a social need, which was already under way long before their time. Full article

We have re-examined and discussed all chronological, historical and astronomical elements which can be referred to the year of Herod the Great’s death, which occurred—according to Josephus—after a lunar eclipse and before Passover. Since the XIX century, most scholars still assume the eclipse occurred on 13 March 4 BC, so that Dionysius Exiguus was wrong in calculating the beginning of the Christian era—by four years at least—because Herod the Great must have been alive when Jesus was born. We have solved the apparent incompatibility of the events narrated by Josephus, occurring between the eclipse of 13 March 4BC and a too-near Passover (12 April 4 BC), by determining another date after studying all eclipses visible from Jerusalem in near years. This analysis—supported by a novel simulation of naked–eye visibility of partial lunar eclipses—has shown that the most eligible eclipse associable to Herod’s death occurred in the night of 8–9 November 2 AD. Besides this astronomical finding, our conclusion is also supported by significant correlation between segmented sleep and eclipse intervals; by its compatibility with the long sequence of events narrated by Josephus and with the rabbinic tradition about Herod’s death. This dating also agrees with other historical facts connected to Roman and Jewish history. In conclusion, Herod the Great must have died in the first month of 3 AD and, very likely, Dionysius Exiguus was correct. Full article

Much has happened since Dipesh Chakrabarty, at the turn of the millennium, paradigmatically called for a “provincialization of Europe”. The paper connects with three major trends in current history of technology, exploring these threads with regards to the Global South in general and post/colonial Africa in particular: (1) exemplifying and (later) disentangling transnational connections; (2) rethinking (colonial) infrastructures; and (3) exploring technologies-in-use, everyday practices and perceptions. Unpacking established Science and Technology concepts such as Thomas P. Hughes “Large (Socio)Technical Systems” (LTS) approach for post/colonial contexts, the paper argues that we need to move beyond the much-invoked “key figures” and drivers of global technological (ex)change and scrutinize place- and time-specific landscapes of technology instead. In particular, we need to pay closer attention to seemingly peripheral actors and actants as well as to the manifold interrelations between the human and the “natural” world. Full article

Jan de Vries revised Akira Hayami’s original theory of the “Industrious Revolution” to make the idea more applicable to early modern commercialization in Europe, showcasing the development of the rural proletariat and especially the consumer revolution and women’s emancipation on the way toward an “Industrial Revolution.” However, Japanese villages followed a different path from the Western trajectory of the “Industrious Revolution,” which is recognized as the first step to industrialization. This article will explore how a different form of “industriousness” developed in Japan, covering medieval, early modern, and modern times. It will first describe why the communal village system was established in Japan and how this unique institution, the self-reliance system of a village, affected commercialization and industrialization and was sustained until modern times. Then, the local history of Kuta Village in Kyô-Otagi, a former county located close to Kyoto, is considered over the long term, from medieval through modern times. Kuta was not directly affected by the siting of new industrial production bases and the changes brought to villages located nearer to Kyoto. A variety of diligent interactions with living spaces is introduced to demonstrate that the industriousness of local women was characterized by conscience-driven perseverance. Full article

This article summarizes observations on the “archive question” as it manifests itself in Argentina at the present moment. Based on a presentation delivered in Buenos Aires, it opens with a general appraisal of the multiple dynamics (political, disciplinary, technological) converging on this issue. Then, it focuses on a particular dimension of this process—namely, the impact of the digital archive on the reconstruction of the Argentine past. Full article

Drawing from archival research, this article explores Thomas Jefferson’s understanding of property and his embrace of a political community defined by communal sharing. Tracing the evolution of Jefferson’s view on property holdings from the Anglo-Saxons to the American colonies to his speculative vision of ward republics, this paper argues that fears concerning economic and property inequities in the early republic compelled the principal author of the Declaration of Independence to endorse small, communal experiments. Importantly, this reading of Jefferson problematizes strict liberal or republican interpretations of his thought, further calling into question the philosophical heritage of the American republic. By evaluating personal letters from 1804 to 1824, this article offers an alternative reading of Jefferson, one that carefully showcases his wholly original, compelling, and radical democratic thinking. The significance of this heterodox interpretation has far-reaching implications on our understanding of the foundational principles of the early republic as well as how we address the issue of economic inequality in the modern-day United States. Full article

It was from the middle of the eighteenth century that discussions regarding the strategies taken up by the Protestant missionaries to propagate the Gospel generated the issue of healthcare and medical facilities among people in India. Medical mission, which hitherto was not considered, started to gain importance and reaped positive results in terms of curing individuals and its trustworthiness among tribes residing in the frontier regions. However, this developed a separatist religious identity among the population, which apparently did not appear lethal, but later culminated in the fragmentation and impeachment of solidarity among the adivais (tribal) and vengeance from the Hindu population. This article will show how the Canadian Baptist Mission, with its primary aim of spreading the Kingdom of God among the tribal Savaras in the Ganjam district of Orissa, undertook measures for serving health issues and provided medical facilities to both the caste Oriyas and the tribal Savaras. Although medical activities oriented towards philanthropy and physical well-being, medical mission was not limited to healing illness and caring for all, but also extended to spreading the word of God and influencing the people to embrace Christianity as well, which invited political troubles into the region. Full article

The expectation that punishment be effective at controlling crime is a longstanding convention in the U.S., and no doubt elsewhere. While the history of American punishment has not been shaped entirely by the question of efficacy, it has played a predominant role in justifying penal policy for over 200 years. The question has become even more salient in policy decision-making of late, as research has begun to certify and consolidate findings on what is effective at reducing recidivism. What is lacking in this ongoing conversation, however, is a critique of this penal policy question and the answers it generates in the form of recidivism rates. The current paper fills this void by interrogating the claims of the evaluation literature, namely that better proof of what is effective is available and that more research is still needed. The questions and findings of 19th, 20th, and 21st Century seekers of what is effective in the American adult penal system are recounted and analyzed using several data sources. They include government reports, professional association meeting minutes, legislative documents, scholarly reports, individual studies, research reviews, and statistical analysis of systematic reviews. Ultimately, an overarching narrative is provided that deepens and challenges our understanding of what is known about what is effective. Full article

In 2016, the Swiss government tasked a commission of experts to investigate its former coercive welfare measures. Before 1981, innumerable children, young people and adults alike were affected by them. From the very start, this commission drew those affected into their research—with ambiguous consequences, both for the people themselves and for the research project. Criticism of this undertaking in the media resulted in a vehement reaction. A discussion over a cup of coffee did not bring the parties involved any closer to a common understanding, but at least it enabled the historian to assess the impact of his intervention. In a best-case scenario, the result of such discussions can enable de-escalation. Full article

This paper considers and analyses the idea propounded by Iain McGilchrist that the foundation of Western rationalism is the dominance of the left side of the brain and that this occurred first in ancient Greece. It argues that the transformation that occurred in Greece, as part of a more widespread transformation that is sometimes termed the Axial Age, was, at least in part, connected to the emergence of literacy which transformed the workings of the human brain. This transformation was not uniform and took different forms in different civilisations, including China and India. The emergence of what Donald terms a “theoretic” culture or what can also be called “rationalism” is best understood in terms of transformations in language, including the transition from poetry to prose and the separation of word and thing. Hence, the development of theoretic culture in Greece is best understood in terms of the particularity of Greek cultural development. This transition both created aporias, as exemplified by the opposition between the ontologies of “being” and “becoming”, and led to the eventual victory of theoretic culture that established the hegemony of the left side of the brain. Full article

“Time” and “temporality” are difficult and central notions for historical scholarship. They exist in many varieties, which renders generalizations challenging. An interesting attempt has been made by US-scholar William H. Sewell in his Logics of History. Social Theory and Social Transformation (2005). He qualifies historical temporality as fateful, contingent, complex, eventful, and heterogeneous. It is rare for a historian to be so explicit. Sewell was inspired by discussions with sociologists and anthropologists during his transition from social to cultural history in the 1980 and 1990s. This article examines the question whether and how the change of the intellectual environment impacted the theoretical outcome. Are Sewell’s attributes to historical temporality plausible for historical scholarship in general, or do they reflect the boundary work of a particular group? Full article