Editor’s Choice Articles

Editor’s Choice articles are based on recommendations by the scientific editors of MDPI journals from around the world. Editors select a small number of articles recently published in the journal that they believe will be particularly interesting to readers, or important in the respective research area. The aim is to provide a snapshot of some of the most exciting work published in the various research areas of the journal.

Order results
Result details
Results per page
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:
24 pages, 2661 KB  
Article
Racializing Mestizos and Mestizas in the Philippines—Dean Worcester’s Anthropometric Types in the Early 20th Century
by Sarah Albiez-Wieck
Histories 2025, 5(2), 23; https://doi.org/10.3390/histories5020023 - 6 May 2025
Viewed by 10419
Abstract
In the Spanish Empire, the term mestizo/mestiza denoted, overwhelmingly, people of so-called “mixed” European and indigenous ancestry, but there existed also some regional adaptations with differing genealogies such as the mestizos de sangley in the Philippines. The article traces some developments of the [...] Read more.
In the Spanish Empire, the term mestizo/mestiza denoted, overwhelmingly, people of so-called “mixed” European and indigenous ancestry, but there existed also some regional adaptations with differing genealogies such as the mestizos de sangley in the Philippines. The article traces some developments of the application and racialization of the term mestizo shortly after the end of the Spanish Empire in the Philippines under U.S. rule. It will look at photographs that were taken in by Dean Worcester, secretary of the interior, and his staff, in order to apply and develop theories of the biologist racism, which in the early twentieth century was en vogue all over the globe. Worcester and his crew took the photographs during their expeditions and used them to illustrate their hypotheses about racialized taxonomies, adapting and further developing Spanish colonial ideas. I will contrast them with a photograph from a local studio in Mindanao. The photographs stem from the photographic collection of the Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum in Cologne, Germany. Full article
(This article belongs to the Section Cultural History)
Show Figures

Figure 1

30 pages, 5115 KB  
Article
On the Birth of Modern Chemistry: I—The Atomic–Molecular Theory from Dalton to Avogadro
by Pier Remigio Salvi
Histories 2025, 5(1), 8; https://doi.org/10.3390/histories5010008 - 28 Feb 2025
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 9865
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to review the basic steps in the development of the atomic–molecular theory with the support of the original documentation. The most important contributions are examined, from the first intimation of the theory by Dalton to the Avogadro [...] Read more.
The purpose of this paper is to review the basic steps in the development of the atomic–molecular theory with the support of the original documentation. The most important contributions are examined, from the first intimation of the theory by Dalton to the Avogadro hypothesis, intended to reconcile empirical relations observed by Gay-Lussac in gaseous reactions with the atomistic ideas. The genesis and the structure of Dalton’s theory are described, and attention is focused on the rules of the greatest simplicity by means of which the relative weights and sizes of elementary and compounds atoms were determined. The first striking achievements are outlined. A peculiar trait of the Daltonian principles is represented by the rejection of a simple relation between specific gravities of elastic fluids and weights of the ultimate particles. On the contrary, the fixed (and small) ratios of reacting volumes in gaseous reactions, a result discovered by Gay-Lussac, suggest that particles combine according to simple numbers. The equal volume/equal number of particles hypothesis was a substitute better than Dalton’s rules for the determination of the atomic weights and led to the prediction of elementary polyatomic molecules. Full article
(This article belongs to the Section History of Knowledge)
Show Figures

Figure 1

13 pages, 441 KB  
Article
Surveillance Capitalism: Origins, History, Consequences
by Kenneth Lipartito
Histories 2025, 5(1), 2; https://doi.org/10.3390/histories5010002 - 7 Jan 2025
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 23478
Abstract
This article investigates the early history and recent development of what is now termed surveillance capitalism. It argues that an underappreciated aspect of the surveillance of people and intensive data collection is a regularization of behavior that attempts to erase uncertainty. This process [...] Read more.
This article investigates the early history and recent development of what is now termed surveillance capitalism. It argues that an underappreciated aspect of the surveillance of people and intensive data collection is a regularization of behavior that attempts to erase uncertainty. This process has been ongoing for more than a century, but its expansion through increasingly sophisticated digital technology and the widespread adoption of data gathering as a business strategy has the potential to stifle and inhibit the innovative entrepreneurship that is crucial to the capitalist system. How this will play out remains unclear, but history argues that we should look for ways to mitigate the potentially negative consequences of complex technological systems such as these. Full article
(This article belongs to the Section Political, Institutional, and Economy History)
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop