Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6030043

Authors: Markus Gerstmeier Marlene Ernst Sebastian Gassner Malte Rehbein

To date, many studies on the Nazi Special Courts have focused on the individuals involved in passing judgement or in the prosecution process in general, as well as on their political significance. For our study, we undertake a re-evaluation and computational ‘upcycling’ of an archive catalogue from the 1970s containing around 10,000 legal cases from the Munich Special Court (1933–1945). Although this was not an entirely new phenomenon–they were originally introduced by the Weimar Republic–, the Special Courts were unique in that they brought together general criminal law and ‘crimes’ in the form of non-conformity with National Socialist ideology under a single jurisdiction.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6030042

Authors: Bhadrajee Hewage

This article reconstructs a largely forgotten episode in the history of Buddhist studies: the period in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries when the Buddha was widely considered to have been Sri Lankan (Ceylonese) in origin. Contrary to modern scholarly consensus situating the Buddha firmly in northern India, early European encounters with Buddhism unfolded amid profound uncertainty regarding its geographical and historical origins. Drawing on colonial accounts, early translations, sacred relics, and the European interpretation of chronicle traditions, the article shows how Sri Lanka came to appear, within certain European scholarly frameworks, to possess a coherent and persuasive claim to Buddhist primacy, grounded in living religious practice, sacred geography, and continuous historical narratives. The article argues that the subsequent displacement of a Sri Lankan Buddha was not simply the result of improved evidence, but of a deeper epistemic transformation. During the nineteenth century, new standards of historical credibility—philology, cartography, archaeology, and comparative textual criticism—redefined what counted as authoritative knowledge. Through the interventions of figures such as Brian Hodgson and George Turnour, Ceylonese traditions were reclassified as local and symbolic rather than foundational. By tracing this shift, the article illuminates how scholarly consensus is produced through changes in method and authority, revealing how changing standards of evidence narrowed the range of historically credible possibilities.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6030041

Authors: Jordan Sant

The figure of Cesare Borgia occupies a complex and revealing place in the political thought of Niccolò Machiavelli. This article argues that the historical Cesare complicates Machiavelli’s more schematic presentation of military autonomy in The Prince. Whereas Chapter VII foregrounds Cesare’s dependence on Alexander VI, fortuna, French assistance, and contingent political circumstances, Chapter XIII presents a compressed movement from French auxiliaries and mercenary captains to “own” arms. By reconstructing the composition, financing, and command structures of Cesare’s forces, the article shows that his attempts to reduce dependence remained incomplete. His military power remained structurally dependent on papal finance, French backing, mercenary captains, intermediaries, and temporary forms of local recruitment. Cesare therefore did not consolidate the kind of stable territorial military apparatus that Machiavelli elsewhere identified as essential to durable rule. His rapid collapse after Alexander VI’s death reflects the fragility of a principality built on external, negotiated, and revocable support. The article thus reframes Cesare not as a historical exemplar of achieved Machiavellian military self-sufficiency, but as a figure whose career exposes the tension between Machiavelli’s theoretical use of armi proprie and the composite realities of warfare in Renaissance Italy.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6030040

Authors: Ali Çiçek Abdullah Turan Ömer Taylan Aslıhan Çiçek

This study proposes a new conceptual framework that moves beyond the widely used civic/ethnic dichotomy in nationalism theory by bringing Michael Billig’s concept of banal nationalism into dialogue with the literature on everyday boundary-making. It argues that the so-called “invisible” and routine markers of banal nationalism play a constitutive role in the everyday reproduction of national belonging and in delineating who is counted as inside and who is excluded as outside. Crucially, this process is not static; it is activated and contested through the constant dialectic between everyday border-drawing and the lived reality of border-crossing. Banal nationalism, therefore, is not merely composed of unnoticed symbols, but is deeply intertwined with the quotidian mechanisms of boundary-drawing that shape rights, belonging, and processes of exclusion. In this regard, the study critiques the limitations of the civic/ethnic distinction and introduces a new model (termed “banal boundary-making”) which links banal nationalism to practices of boundary construction and the management of border-crossers across linguistic, affective, material, and administrative dimensions. The aim is to contribute to nationalism theory with a mechanism-oriented approach that transcends the binary of civic versus ethnic nationalism by showing how boundaries are performatively redrawn at the very moment they are crossed.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6030039

Authors: Dimitar Mirchev

This article examines the terminological contributions of Gaspard Bauhin in his seminal work, “Theatrum Anatomicum” (1605). It is part of a series of articles exploring the development of anatomical terminology following Vesalius. Through linguistic analysis of the original Latin text, the study identifies four models of terminological transformation: (1) passive monosynonymy—the reduction of multiple synonyms to a single standard term (clavicula, scapula); (2) visual standardization—the transformation of descriptive phrases into binary terms through the labels of anatomical illustrations (musculus obliquus superior, musculus obliquus inferior); (3) conservative osteology—preservation of genitive constructions for cranial bones (os Frontis, ossa Syncipitis); (4) implicit consolidation—the establishment of terms with disputed priority (malleus, incus, stapes) by including them in an authoritative systematic text. Statistical analysis of the Index Rerum reveals a 70% binary form in the nomenclature of muscles compared to 38% in the nomenclature of bones, which confirms the selective nature of Bauhin’s standardization. The prescriptive language (vocamus, nominamus) indicates that Bauhin prescribes rather than describes. The study establishes that os frontale, os parietale, and os occipitale do not appear in Bauhin’s active nomenclature (Bauhin 1605, Lib. III, p. 531; Bauhin 1609, pp. 145–47)—a finding that qualifies the broad historiographical attribution of modern anatomical bone terminology to Bauhin (Pretterklieber 2024; Ghosh 2016) and confirms the selective character of his standardization programme. The parallel between Theatrum Anatomicum and Pinax Theatri Botanici (1671) reveals the universal applicability of the genus et differentia principle, anticipating Linnaeus’s binary system (1753).

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6030038

Authors: Wolfgang Thomas Göderle Malte Rehbein Markus Gerstmeier

The rapid digitization of large source collections in the humanities over the last three decades has comprehensively transformed the discipline. The accessibility of primary sources has improved drastically, the pre-processing of research data has been revolutionized in some areas, and new transdisciplinary approaches have emerged and become possible. However, while digital and computational historians have produced extensive reflection on these developments, the theoretical grounding of this transformation has not been fully integrated into mainstream historical methodology: most critically, the concept of ‘information’, central to computer science and computational methods, has not yet been systematically received as a technical category within the discipline’s methodological canon. In this contribution, we employ a concept from Science and Technology Studies—Bruno Latour’s ‘circulating reference’—to analyze and render describable the processes of historical research within a digitized research environment. Through three case studies—AI-supported segmentation of Habsburg cadastral maps (1817–1861), computational analysis of the Hof- und Staatsschematismus (1702–1918), and the datafication of the Munich Special Court archive inventory (1933–1945, 1975–1977)—we demonstrate how and at which specific points historical research benefits from this framework, and what new insights it enables.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6020037

Authors: Halit Baş

This article examines two reports dated 4 October 1897 and 6 January 1898 written by the Ottoman military attaché in Madrid, Reşid bin Galib, Staff Senior Captain (Kolağası), to analyze how the late Ottoman Empire interpreted the Spanish military structure and the insurrection in Cuba. Situated within the broader development of nineteenth-century military intelligence practices, the study employs textual and contextual analysis, focusing on institutional language, strategic categorization, and threat perception. The report dated 4 October 1897 provides a detailed account of the military-administrative organization in Cuba, including command hierarchy, troop distribution, logistical infrastructure, and internal security mechanisms, while the report dated 6 January 1898 evaluates the historical trajectory of the rebellion and offers a comparative assessment of combat- and disease-related casualties, highlighting the importance of logistical and administrative capacity in warfare. Taken together, these documents show that Ottoman military intelligence systematically monitored a colonial crisis beyond Europe and interpreted it through an institutional military framework. The reports also reflect late Ottoman concerns regarding external intervention, security, and imperial stability. By examining a non-European colonial conflict, the article demonstrates how military knowledge was transferred, reframed, and integrated across imperial contexts, thereby contributing to the historiography of Ottoman military attachés and highlighting their role in shaping the Empire’s global strategic awareness at the turn of the twentieth century.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6020036

Authors: Çetin Kaska

From the period of the Anatolian Seljuks onward, Iranian culture and civilization exerted a strong influence over Anatolia. As a result of this interaction, Persian gradually became the region’s administrative and literary language; it was spoken in major cities, taught as a subject in madrasahs, preferred in official correspondence, and played a central role in the production of literary works. The Anatolian Seljuk sultans and amirs of Anatolia, who possessed a profound mastery of Persian, supported this cultural exchange by patronizing Iranian poets, scholars, and intellectuals. The effort to preserve and promote Iranian culture, the Persian language, and its poetic tradition continued under the Ottomans as well. During this era, numerous poets and writers from Iran came to Istanbul, and the imperial courts became literary centers where Iranian artists gathered. In fact, those who arrived from Iran were often expected to possess poetic talent. Among the Ottoman rulers who encouraged Persian poetry were Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent, Sultan Selim I, and Sultan Murad III—each of whom composed Persian divans (collected poems). Poets who flourished during both the Anatolian Seljuk and Ottoman periods composed Persian poetry to demonstrate their literary mastery and to prove that they knew Persian as proficiently as Iranian poets. Those with only a few Persian poems interspersed them within their Turkish divans, whereas those who produced many compiled them into independent divans. This study aims to identify the Persian divans written in Anatolia during the Anatolian Seljuk and Ottoman periods and to present detailed information about these works. By systematically classifying the Persian divans of these eras, this study serves as a fundamental bibliographic reference for researchers.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6020035

Authors: Pier Remigio Salvi

This paper reviews the significant steps of the atomic–molecular theory, after Avogadro’s intimation of the equal volume/equal number of particles hypothesis until the final assertion embodied in Cannizzaro’s Sunto. Berzelius’s atomism, authoritatively present among chemists in the first decades of nineteenth century, is outlined. Applying volume theory, atomic weights were determined and later revised considering heat capacity experiments on solid elements and the law of isomorphism. The peculiar traits of Berzelius’s atomism are (a) the restricted validity of Avogadro’s hypothesis to only elementary gases, and (b) the opposition to the existence of elementary polyatomic molecules. Next, Dumas’ experiments on vapors are described, aimed at supporting Avogadro’s hypothesis, whose perplexing results were ingeniously resolved by Gaudin assuming that the elementary molecules may contain unequal numbers of component atoms. In the fifth decade of the century, Gerhardt and Laurent established molecular formulae with reference to standard volumes. Finally, at the end of the sixth decade, Cannizzaro published Sunto di un Corso di Filosofia Chimica, in which he fully acknowledges Avogadro’s hypothesis, together with all its implications, and describes how to arrive at molecular and atomic weights from gaseous densities. A brief account of the Karlsruhe congress is included, emphasizing the scientific personality of Cannizzaro.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6020034

Authors: Maximilian Teich Arne Cypionka Thomas Haider Malte Rehbein

Nuclear energy has been a highly controversial issue in post-war (West) German politics. Previous research has identified discourse on nuclear energy as an important factor in the development of German political culture. However, little work has been done on the quantitative analysis of this discourse, despite the availability of large amounts of text data. We use large language models to classify texts in a corpus of Bundestag proceedings and news articles according to speakers’ stance and framing. In combination with the texts’ metadata, this enables us to draw conclusions about the positions taken by political parties and media publications on nuclear energy over time. We find that while media reporting remained mostly neutral, Bundestag speakers became divided on the issue along party lines by the 1970s. The framing of nuclear energy in both media and politics shifted in response to events and policy needs. More generally, our approach could be applied to other problems in discourse analysis where large amounts of data are available but no high-quality annotations for classifier training exist.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6020033

Authors: Esther Pascua-Echegaray Pablo Sánchez-León

Over the past two decades, research on issues of agency and liminality around borders has highlighted the mutual permeability, fluidity and overlapping of spheres such as religion and politics, providing arguments on the construction of identity and otherness that allow us to reappraise long-standing historical debates. This framework is particularly illuminating for the case of 15th-century Castile, when consolidation of a pioneering centralized monarchy in Europe witnessed the end of the coexistence between Christian, Jewish and Muslim communities, eventually leading to the persecution of converts and the expulsion of cultural and religious minorities. Drawing upon both primary and secondary sources, and adopting the analytical framework of frontier-crossing, this article identifies the conditions under which particular social agents reconfigured the boundaries between religion and politics in 15th-century Castile. It further examines the process by which border crossing by various agents made customs and everyday practices crystallize into a third sphere for the construction of alterity and exclusion and analyzes the specific context in which the intersection of these three domains contributed to the stigmatization of Jews, Muslims and converts, ultimately leading to their exclusion and expulsion. Initially subordinated to theological and legal concerns, social practices, rituals and ceremonies became central to discourse intersecting the political, religious and moral domains, underpinning social stigmatization and the institutional mechanisms of rising monarchical centralization.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6020032

Authors: Xing Zhou Yihui Ouyang

This study applies Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory as an analytical framework to examine the development of Peking opera along the Beijing Central Axis during the Qing Dynasty. It explores how the interaction between the court and folk fields contributed to the formation of its artistic form. From this perspective, social space is understood as a structured network of objective relations, shaped by the distribution of different forms of capital and the habitus of social actors. In the Qing Dynasty, as the core of political and cultural activities, the Peking opera field along the Beijing Central Axis was divided into two major sub-fields: the court field, centered around imperial power and subject to political discipline, and the folk field, market-oriented and following secular logic. By analyzing the differences between the two fields in terms of core power, spatial characteristics, capital distribution, and the habits of actors, this study reveals their two-way interaction achieved through the movement of artists, adaptation of repertoires, and capital conversion. The interaction between the two fields was not symmetrical: while the folk field contributed performative vitality and responsiveness to audience demand, the court provided institutional authority and symbolic legitimacy. Ultimately, in the dynamic balance between power and the market, the unique form of Peking opera, characterized by the integration of elegance and vulgarity, is refined. This study deepens our understanding of the interaction between spatial organization and artistic form, while further elucidating how power, culture, and art were structurally interconnected in the Qing Dynasty through the framework of field, capital, and habitus. In doing so, it offers both theoretical insights and empirical evidence for interdisciplinary research on the social and cultural functions of traditional art.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6020031

Authors: İbrahim Çağrı Erkul Mehmet Onur Özer

This article analyses the unique features of James Callaghan’s political career. He is the only politician to have served as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary, and Prime Minister in UK history. The analysis situates his career within key national and foreign policy challenges. Callaghan did not really achieve significant success during his four different political appointments. He was often viewed as the subject of some of the political and economic failures that British society still remembers today. This article suggests that his failures were mainly due to complex parliamentary dynamics, national political landscape, the economy, and global actors, which severely constrained his ability to act. Additionally, Callaghan’s successes and failures were evaluated within the broader context of the period, rather than through a purely “results-oriented” lens, which is often used in political history. From this perspective, the article examines both the internal and external challenges of Callaghan’s premiership. It also highlights the obstacles he faced in decision-making and the factors that shaped his actions.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6020030

Authors: Marylene Santos Rodrigues João Carlos Ferreira de Melo Júnior

The history of ancient cities is often associated with devotional sculptures that accompanied the founding process of settlements. In southern Brazil, an old city founded in 1553 has its history linked to the image of Our Lady of Grace. However, the definition of its origin presents gaps, especially regarding its historical authenticity. This study aimed to identify the botanical species associated with this sculpture using the principles of historical anatomy. The sculpture underwent X-ray and CT scan examinations. Wood samples were extracted with a Pressler borer for histology and C14 dating. The identification was based on comparative anatomy. The artifact is carved from a single wood block, exhibiting wood integrity and absence of degrading agents. The species was identified as Cedrela sp. (Meliaceae), popularly known as cedar. C14 dated the wood around 1620 AD (330 ± 30 BP), offering new parameters for reflection on the origin of the piece and its relationship with the foundation of the city, traditionally associated with the year 1553. Cedar presents physical–structural characteristics of light density, is resistant to degrading agents, and possesses a pleasant aroma and dimensional stability, favoring its cultural use by master craftsmen and highlighting the richness in the carvings of religious images. The information contained within the wood was able to elucidate historical aspects regarding the founding of the city.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6020029

Authors: Jiamin Wan

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.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6020027

Authors: Hedvig Ujvári

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.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6020028

Authors: Jon Mathieu

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.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6020026

Authors: Sarah A. Lang

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.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6010025

Authors: David Webster

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.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6010024

Authors: Andrew Kurt Ahmed Mohamed Sheir

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.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6010023

Authors: Mehmet Nuri Şanda Doğan Gün

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.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6010022

Authors: Chiara Cecalupo

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.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6010021

Authors: Raúl Eleazar Arias-Sánchez

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.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6010020

Authors: Silun Chen Xuhao Hu Jiachen Liu Ke Wang Renwu Wu Bingling Pi Gangqiong Wang Zhiyi Bao

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.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6010019

Authors: Jarosław Sobolewski

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.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6010018

Authors: Milan Mašát

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.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6010017

Authors: Drew B. Thomas Julia Hintersteiner

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.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6010016

Authors: Sevim Karabela Şermet Önder Deniz

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.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6010015

Authors: Cameron Elliott Gordon

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”.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6010014

Authors: Phillip Louis Zapkin

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.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6010013

Authors: Diosey Ramon Lugo-Morin

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.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6010012

Authors: Gabriela Radulescu

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.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6010011

Authors: Carlo Galli Marco Meleti

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.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6010010

Authors: Jesús Ángel Solórzano Telechea

This article serves as the editorial introduction to the Histories Special Issue titled “Naval Warfare and Diplomacy in Southwestern Europe in the Middle Ages [...]

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6010009

Authors: Gregory B. Kaplan

During the past decade, chatbots have been integrated into commercial platforms to facilitate second language acquisition (SLA) by providing opportunities for interactive conversations. However, SLA learner progress is limited by chatbots that lack the contextualization typically added by instructors to college and university courses. The present study focuses on a collaborative Digital Learning Incubator (DLI) project dedicated to creating and testing a chatbot with a physical form, or avatar chatbot, called Slabot (Second Language Acquisition Bot), in two upper-level university courses at the University of Tennessee, asynchronous online Spanish 331 (Introduction to Hispanic Culture), and in-person Spanish 434 (Hispanic Culture Through Film). Students in these two courses believe that their oral skills would benefit from more opportunities to speak in Spanish. To provide the students with more practice and instructors with a tool for assessing Spanish oral skills in online and in-person courses, the DLI project objective was to advance current avatar chatbot platforms by enabling Slabot to elicit student responses appropriate for evaluation according to the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) standards. An initial test of Slabot was conducted, and the results demonstrated the potential for Slabot to achieve the project objective.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6010008

Authors: Moreno Paulon

Medical history of psychopathology is, to some extent, the history of the overlapping traditions of Cartesian-Platonic dualism and physical reductionism looking for a taxonomic middle ground by means of diagnostic constructs. Building on such liminality, Freud first showed that traumatic memories could well be made of pure fantasy, a mind-only construct of experience, and still act traumatically on the patient’s body. Under that sway, Freud and Janet came to intentionally modify their patients’ memories to cure “hysterical” dysfunctional behaviours by means of hypnosis. The metaphorical practice of “writing new words in the human soul” has been adopted as a clinical device since the early days of psychotherapy, as the meaning of past experiences was clinically approached, verbally and emotionally negotiated, to remove somatic symptoms. Working on memory at the interdisciplinary level, we here show that what is nowadays referred to as the abstract mind, or psyche in medicine, is the historical precipitate of quite a unique cultural construction, resulting from the porous liminality between religious domain, philosophical theory and scientific method. We hereby address psychopathology, the philosophy of medicine and the frontiers between memory and fantasy—besides those between body and mind—to suggest how psychoanalysis can be considered more as a hermeneutic than as a science, or otherwise, how hermeneutics can be appreciated as a scientific, medical and therapeutic tool. Memory itself is addressed on the threshold between consciousness, organic life and intergenerational potential.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6010007

Authors: Joel Wendland-Liu

A reading of the American Revolution and the post-Civil War Reconstruction period through the lens of W.E.B. Du Bois’s early writings provides new insights into his theory of racial monopoly capitalism. Many Americans saw the 1776 revolution as an idealistic fight for liberty, for the slaveholding elite who held disproportionate power within the revolutionary coalition; however, consolidating power and defending their property and expansionist ambitions were primary objectives. For them, the Revolution was a strategic move to establish racial nationalism and preserve slaveholder control over economic growth and national power. A century later, Du Bois’s analysis of the “bargain of 1876” revealed a similar consolidation of power, influencing both his research on the revolutionary period and his writings on Reconstruction. The political deal in 1876 abandoned the promise of Reconstruction’s “abolition democracy,” restoring white supremacist rule. Du Bois saw this as the victory of monopoly capital, which used racism to weaken interracial labor solidarity and enforce a system of super-exploitation. By linking 1776 to 1876, Du Bois demonstrated that U.S. capitalist development had been shaped by racial oppression from its settler-colonial roots through the rise of monopoly capitalism, consistently blocking the achievement of a true, non-racial democracy.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6010006

Authors: Chingduang Yurayong Pui Szeto Komkiew Pinpimai Junyoung Park U-tain Wongsathit

In this study, we investigate the Suvarṇabhūmi area, corresponding to central–southern Mainland Southeast Asia. We test the hypothesis that this region, located to the south of the Himalayan foothills, can be characterised as a convergence zone in which diverse entities involving humans, animals, and artefacts have significantly diverged from their related counterparts outside the area. We argue that this process of convergence was facilitated by the Maritime Silk Road trade networks, which were particularly active between the 3rd century BCE and the 9th century CE. Comparative data are derived from multiple scientific disciplines, including linguistic typology, onomastics, epigraphy, archaeology, and evolutionary biology. This includes typological features of language, toponyms, inscriptions, glass bead chemistry and related material culture, and phylogenetic data from patterns of endemism to illustrate parallel convergence scenarios observed for each data type. The results reveal recurring patterns of convergence. Linguistic, technological, and biological entities tend to diverge from their original forms and realign with predominant regional types when entering the Suvarṇabhūmi area. The spread of Indic and Sinitic linguistic and cultural elements, the adaptation and development of Brāhmī scripts into distinct local forms, the secondary manufacturing of glass beads, and unique genetic lineages in mammals, amphibians, reptiles, fish, and plants all point to the region’s role as a dynamic interaction sphere. We argue that Suvarṇabhūmi functions as an ecological system, in which trajectories of convergence are notable across a number of individual aspects of cultural and biological diversity. Altogether, these components have contributed to shaping the region’s distinctive natural and cultural history.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6010005

Authors: Gamze Kaymak Heinz Aslı Pınar Biket

An architectural and cultural heritage analysis is performed in this study by systematically examining the social significance of historical hammams in today’s Historical Peninsula of Istanbul, which symbolize washing–cleansing–hygiene activities and also have socialization–entertainment–economic dimensions, as well as reflecting urban development and change. Within this scope, 81 historic hammams listed as cultural heritage sites were researched using a multi-layered dataset that integrates on-site morphological studies and historical maps. The physical and intangible transformations of these hammams are analyzed based on a database of 24 examples documented through in situ observations of hammams still in active use, revealing the effects of changing cultural and historical contexts on these buildings. The other 19 examples, which are not currently operating as hammams but still exist as buildings, are assessed to determine their current purpose or whether they are undergoing restoration. The findings reveal the evolution of hammams and identify dominant architectural typologies, such as double and single hammams. In this paper, a conceptual framework is presented that places the cultural heritage–tourism combination within a broader discussion while also revealing the current state of hammams in the Historical Peninsula of Istanbul, the primary source of their physical and cultural existence and development. This study demonstrates that hammams constitute an important part and provide concrete evidence of regional cultural heritage areas, human–environment interactions, and the spatial representation of urban memory regarding preservation and transmission to future generations.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6010004

Authors: Josep Maria Gironella Granés

This article presents some information about the participation of nearly one hundred inhabitants of Castelló d’Empúries (currently located in the Alt Empordà region, province of Girona, in the northeastern corner of the Iberian Peninsula) in the Battle of Cape Orlando (coast of Sicily), which in 1299 pitted the fleets of James II of Aragon against those of his brother Frederick III of Sicily. The article provides the names of the participants and discusses several issues related to their involvement in this expedition. It also offers relevant information about the participation of the town’s inhabitants in other military ventures and about the commercial navy of the Empordà region during the same period.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6010003

Authors: Zoltán Pető

The idea of progress constitutes a foundational, self-justifying myth of modernity. This paper explores the conservative critique of this myth, tracing its intellectual history and diagnosing its contemporary consequences. It argues that the progressive narrative is not a scientific fact but a secularized eschatology that has evolved into a form of technocratic rationalism rooted in a materialist metaphysics. The analysis examines the culmination of this worldview in transhumanism and diagnoses it, following Martin Heidegger, as a symptom of the “forgetting of Being” (Seinsvergessenheit). In contrast, the paper outlines the conservative alternative, which is not a simple return to the past but a reorientation toward a “vertical” dimension of existence grounded in Tradition, the symbolic cosmos, and a transcendent order. Ultimately, the paper frames the conservative stance as a form of metaphysical guardianship—an existential practice of “remembrance of Being” that keeps open the possibility of transcendence in an age of ontological nihilism.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6010002

Authors: Satoshi Murayama

This article focuses on ponds and reservoirs (PRs) in Sanuki, Kagawa Prefecture, Japan. Sanuki is a region in the Seto Inland Sea with low annual rainfall. In 1999, there were 14,619 PRs in the 1877 km2 area. Mannō-ike, the largest PR, is said to have been constructed at the beginning of the ninth century by Kūkai, one of Japan’s most prominent Buddhist monks. Such huge man-made structures could have been achieved only through collective human labor. The motivation to build large PRs was driven by the risk of drought. However, it is important to note that there were many more small PRs managed by individuals or families than one might imagine. PRs can range in size from huge to small and in location from mountainous areas to mountain foothills and plains. Rather than hard clustering, which classifies PRs according to a single logic, this article takes a new, historically holistic approach by using soft clustering to analyze the classification mechanism by considering the “Living Spaces” the world of all living organisms, including humans, and quantifying its complex logic.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories6010001

Authors: Steele Brand

John Adams asserted that the historical summation of republican political thought can be found in one writer: Polybius of Megalopolis. More clearly than any other, Polybius articulated those qualities that define good statesmen and citizens and make republics strong and successful. This article will examine this claim by bringing new historical analysis to Book 6 of Polybius’ Histories in order to identify the republican virtues important to Polybius. Polybius believed that Rome survived its early defeats in the Second Punic War and emerged triumphant over all of its enemies due to a unique combination of morals and merits that characterized good statesmen and strong republics. These extended deeper than political institutions and into the social fabric that bound the Roman people together and defined their relationships with one another, both in their homes as citizens and on campaign as soldiers. This article will work through Polybius’ analysis and show how Rome’s constitution used political institutions to suppress civic vices; armies in the field to cultivate civic service, sacrifice, and skill; military camps to shape public notions of duty, honor, and shame; and Roman families—as exemplified in public funerals—to habituate and showcase personal and civic virtues.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5040063

Authors: José Damián González Arce Inazio Conde Mendoza

The figure of Íñigo Ibáñez de Arteita exemplifies military and social advancement during the transition from the 15th to the 16th century. Drawing upon archival materials from Lequeitio, notarial records from Valencia and Barcelona, and royal sources such as the Registro General del Sello and the proceedings of the Royal Chancery, this study examines his multifaceted profile. It introduces his family roots in the Basque town of Lequeitio and traces his trajectory—from his roles as merchant, transporter, and pirate in the Mediterranean and Atlantic, to his service as captain in the Catholic Monarchs’ fleet stationed in the Strait of Gibraltar, and as second-in-command in the 1495 expedition to Italy. His paradigmatic evolution enables an analysis of the rise of an extraordinary figure from one of the leading bourgeois families of Biscay, who—thanks to substantial real estate holdings, influential social and political networks, and remarkable nautical expertise—came to command one of the earliest permanent war fleets of his time.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5040064

Authors: Daniel Homocianu

Historically, singlehood is a growing demographic trend shaped by economic, social, and personal factors. This study examines the key influences associated with this phenomenon across diverse global contexts based on empirical evidence provided by WVS (World Values Survey), which covers over 100 countries and spans four decades. A multi-technique analytical approach is applied to identify the most robust predictors of singlehood. This approach involves feature selection, cross-validation, robustness checks, and statistical modeling (parsimonious models with near-excellent or excellent classification accuracy as AUCROC > 0.9). The results indicate that age and parental status are negatively associated with singlehood, while precarious employment status is positively linked. Co-residence with parents also appears closely related to singlehood. Other factors, including education level, social class, and settlement size, also correlate with singlehood patterns, as resulting from supplemental analyses. Moreover, gender and regional analyses reveal some variations in these associations, highlighting the interplay between personal, cultural, and economic contexts. These findings also align with social and economic theories of marriage, emphasizing the impact of life course factors, financial stability, and cultural norms. They contribute to a deeper understanding of demographic shifts. They also provide meaningful and well-founded insights as well as strategic guidance for policy in areas such as youth employment, social welfare, urban planning, and demographic adaptation.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5040062

Authors: Jason Michael Morgan

Gerald Horne’s explication of Cold War-era political history as negotiated white supremacy leads to an enhanced understanding of Japan in the Cold War. Although subject to important qualifications, Japanese anti-racism and solidarity with non-white peoples before, during, and after World War II contextualizes the view held by American intellectual W.E.B. Du Bois—and complicated and in places contested by Horne—that Japan was, in many ways, a champion of anti-white supremacy. The experiences of Black American servicemen and -women who served in Japan during the Cold War provide important historical grounding for Du Bois’ initial, state-centered insights about Japan as an anti-racist power. This modified “Du Bois Thesis” in turn guides the Horne Thesis, on the role of white supremacy in modern global history, into a deeper harmony with the history of Cold War Japan.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5040061

Authors: Amanuel Abraha Teklemariam

This study critically examines the structure, mechanisms, and enduring relevance of character education embedded in the indigenous knowledge systems of the Greater Horn of Africa. Pre-colonial African societies upheld sophisticated educational frameworks that emphasized holistic moral formation and communal character development, values that continue to influence rural communities today. Drawing on an integrative literature review, the paper identifies preparationism, functionalism, and communalism as core philosophical foundations shaping these systems. Moral and civic values were cultivated through informal, lifelong learning, guided by the collaborative roles of the home and community in fostering respect, responsibility, and social cohesion. Central pedagogical instruments included initiation rites, which provided structured moral instruction, and oral literature, which transmitted ethical reasoning and cultural wisdom. The findings underscore the continued relevance of indigenous character education in addressing contemporary societal challenges and advocate for Decolonizing the Mind as a pathway to revitalizing these traditions. The study concludes that reformed rites of passage, when purged of harmful elements, preserve cultural identity and strengthen communal ethics, offering a sustainable model for moral and civic education in modern Horn of African contexts.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5040060

Authors: Tatsunori Koike Hirofumi Ueda Takayoshi Koike

From the perspective of environmental history, which examines the interplay between socio-economic development and the natural environment, this paper discusses the evolution of Japanese landscapes. These landscapes evolved in somewhat different ways, absorbing influences from China and the West. Following the country’s opening up in the late 19th century, various forest management techniques were introduced from Europe and America. This paper examines the environmental history of the changes to the landscape that accompanied rapid Westernisation and the guidance provided by “Forest aesthetics” in forest operations—a crucial element of the landscape. Proposed by H. von Salisch, forest aesthetics is a forest management philosophy that provided guidelines for sustainability before the concept of ecosystems emerged. Although Japan is a small nation comprising elongated islands, mountains cover 67% of its land area. Its north-south orientation means that each region has unique forests and ways of life. This overview examines historical information concerning the formation of gardens and artificial forests, landscape transformations, and perceptions of forests across different eras. Using primarily secondary sources dating from around the 11th century, it demonstrates that, even in Japan, which is subject to natural disturbances under a monsoon climate, the sustainability of gardens and forests could be achieved by emulating the nature advocated for by forest aesthetics as closely as possible. This approach also considered hunting.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5040059

Authors: Christoph Sander

This paper introduces an AI-assisted human-centered and minimalist software stack and data model to structure and store early modern serial sources related to early-modern Catholic Church administration. The Vatican Archive preserves vast quantities of documents recording its administrative history. To date, the sheer volume and technical character of these Latin manuscripts have made systematic study appear nearly impossible. The multinational project GRACEFUL17 unfolds seventeenth-century Church governance on a large scale with the help of AI. It leverages simple but efficient NLP (NER, span categorizer, fuzzy searches) and classifier (gradient boost) techniques that run fast, reliably, and reproducibly to allow for multi-user offline work environments, as well as quick but controlled data modelling in a knowledge graph. By documenting this workflow, the paper enhances replicability and provides a rationale for specific design decisions beyond technical documentation. This paper advocates the use of “weak AI” on several grounds. Functionally, non-LLM pipelines offer stricter controllability and avoid many of the semantic biases introduced by large language models. They also require fewer training overheads and run locally with ease. Methodologically, the combination of simple AI models and symbolic reasoning underscores the indispensable role of human expertise: only experts can provide the ground truth necessary for models to reproduce and formalize complex semantic concepts and phenomena, rather than outsourcing this interpretive work to foundation models.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5040058

Authors: Hasan Tan

At the beginning of the 19th century, Ottoman–Iranian relations entered a new diplomatic phase shaped by Russia’s expansion in the Caucasus and Britain’s growing influence in the Persian Gulf. This shared perception of external threats led to the establishment of a more structured and representative diplomatic framework between the two empires. This study examines the embassy of Yâsincizâde Abdülvehhâb Efendi, who was appointed as Ottoman ambassador to Iran between 1810 and 1813, in the context of a shifting diplomatic mindset. Yâsincizâde’s mission is analyzed not merely as a temporary diplomatic engagement, but as a form of ideological, sectarian, and cultural representation by a figure from the ulema class. Based on archival sources, the study reveals that his diplomatic reports and observations provided critical input to the central administration, contributing to the development of more institutionalized and long-term strategies in Ottoman policy toward Iran. By focusing on the transitional character of his embassy, the paper reassesses the evolving role of religious scholars in Ottoman foreign relations and situates this case between the classical sefaretnâme tradition and emerging modern diplomatic practices.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5040057

Authors: Gerardo López Sastre John Christian Laursen

This article compares the reactions of Sofía Casanova (1861–1958) and Emma Goldman (1869–1940) to the Russian Revolution. On most issues, the Gallegan Catholic, bourgeois, conservative, monarchist, and anti-communist Sofía Casanova did not agree with the Russian and North American socialist, communist, anarchist, internationalist, and advocate of free love Emma Goldman. But political labels are surprisingly unhelpful when comparing the attitudes of these two thinkers to the Russian Revolution. From rather different starting points, they ended up with very similar conclusions: starting by welcoming the revolution, they both ended up excoriating it. They may form part of a more common pattern in which people with opposite political labels may have more in common than the labels prepare us to expect.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5040056

Authors: Fotis Pantazelos Polyxeni Kechagia Theodore Metaxas

This paper examines the period of rapid economic growth that followed World War II. The main focus of the analysis is on the factors that contributed to this era of prosperity, including economic reconstruction through the Marshall Plan, Keynesian policies of full employment and state intervention, and technological advancements that increased productivity and boosted international trade. At the same time, the paper explores the expansion of the welfare state, which improved living conditions, raised wages, and ensured social stability. The present research analyses economic inequalities between social groups and countries, the intersection between environmental degradation and intense industrial development, and structural weaknesses that arose during the studied period. Particular reference is also made to the social and political tensions associated with the labor movement and the rise in social demands, as well as the geopolitical challenges of the Cold War. Finally, the paper connects the Golden Age with the subsequent economic instability of the 1970s, marked by the collapse of the Bretton Woods system and the oil crises. While the 1950–1970 period left a positive legacy, it also revealed the limitations of a development model that was not entirely sustainable, leading to a gradual transition towards a new economic reality.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5040055

Authors: Vivien Miller

This article focuses on Florida’s death row in the 1960s and 1970s when executions stopped, even though juries continued to return capital verdicts for murder and (until 1977) rape. It first challenges the conventional wisdom surrounding the moratorium years as there were no executions in Florida from mid-May 1964 until May 1979. It investigates the overlapping governor-initiated pauses, court-ordered postponements, and significant state and national court rulings in this period. This article then explores the experiences of male death row prisoners who were held in solitary confinement with limited human contact on a special wing in the Florida State Prison at Raiford, an often violent and unstable maximum-security state prison. Prior to the Furman v. Georgia (1972) U.S. Supreme Court decision, capital prisoners in Florida waited for up to twelve years for courts and politicians to make crucial death penalty decisions. Death row conditions declined as the number of penalized bodies increased threefold between 1963 and 1972. However, Florida’s death row also became a crucial political, social, and cultural space in which some prisoners directly challenged the biopower of the state prison system, by submitting hand-written legal appeals, offering to participate in military service and medical-scientific research, and engaging in collective petitioning and hunger strike.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5040054

Authors: Shelby A. E. McPhee Nathan Andrews Maïka Sondarjee

Postcolonialism stands as a synergy between new and old sets of literature that have come together unevenly and in different ways. Postcolonial interventions have contended with IR core themes over the past four decades. Over the last two decades, there has also been a boom in the scholarship that examines non-Western IR, with some emerging from the contributions of critical theorists who sought to question the dominance of mainstream perspectives such as (neo)realism, liberal institutionalism, and constructivism. How has postcolonialism influenced IR, and how does it relate to non-Western approaches of the ‘international’? This article presents a historical categorization of postcolonial interventions on world politics as postcolonial 1.0 (the anti-colonial struggles against empire); 2.0 (subaltern studies, discourse and Otherness); and 3.0 (disrupting hegemonic epistemes). It then provides a review of whether and how postcolonial approaches align with the movement towards a non-Western IR.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5040053

Authors: María Núñez-González Pilar Moya-Olmedo

This paper investigates the complex interplay between European and pre-Hispanic urban traditions in shaping colonial urbanism across the Americas, with particular emphasis on the transformation of the City of Mexico atop the remnants of the ancient city of Mexico-Tenochtitlan. It contends that the development of the viceregal capital was not merely a straightforward transplantation of the Castilian urban model, but rather a process profoundly influenced—and in many respects enabled—by the sophisticated spatial organisation of the Mexica metropolis. The research examines how the foundational urban layout of Mexico-Tenochtitlan informed the design of the colonial city, highlighting both continuities and divergences between indigenous and Castilian urban frameworks, and analysing the fusion of these traditions in the formation of a novel urban entity. Employing a historical-analytical methodology, this article combines documentary research, comparative analysis of urban configurations from both cultures, and case studies of early colonial settlements. The findings suggest that the City of Mexico evolved into a paradigm of hybrid urbanism, wherein European planning doctrines were adapted and interwoven with enduring indigenous spatial logics and symbolic systems—a synthesis that not only characterised the viceregal capital but also established a precedent for urban development throughout Spanish America.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5040052

Authors: Andrew Skotnicki Karol Lucken

This article critiques penal philosophy and practice in contemporary society through the lens of historical–ecclesial tradition. The article opens with a discussion of the penitential rituals in the first Christian monasteries and the eventual adoption of some of these rituals in the earliest state penitentiaries in the U.S. It is argued that a nonviolent and coherent penal ideology was advocated from the inception of Christian monasticism and subsequently maintained over the centuries due to three paradigmatic values and commitments. These values and commitments, which form the basis of the critique, are a theological metanarrative, a moral ontology, and a belief in sin as an existential fact. These tenets are used to interrogate the traditional justifications of punishment that have guided government policy throughout modern history, in the U.S. and abroad.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5040051

Authors: Alex Tepperman

Historical discussions regarding labour organizing within American prisons tend to focus on the period stretching from the late 1950s to the early 1970s, framing those years as both the origin and apex of nationalized and organized inmate-led strikes behind bars. This focus is partly due to a counter-historical assumption that the rebellions of previous eras were primarily focused on “good housekeeping” and were not political in nature. This article challenges ongoing scholarly assumptions that incarcerated Americans were ever pre-political, providing a microhistorical account of the first significant labour unrest at New York’s Attica State Prison in 1932. Through an analysis of the strike’s leadership structure, this paper claims that there is no reason to believe that incarcerated Americans lacked political identities prior to their contact with conscientious objectors, Marxist revolutionaries, and other educated ideologues. Rather, this article contends that the Depression-era Jewish and Italian inmates who led the 1932 Attica strike carried into the prison their own form of political pragmatism, drawn from their experiences operating within interwar-era organized crime syndicates. While this was not a universal experience among incarcerated people, it is indicative of the notion that interwar-era strikes throughout the country surely drew from their own local, informal political norms. This paper concludes that it is unlikely any penal rebellion could exist outside of politics and that historians of prison rebellions must be more willing to look for indirect indicators of political identities that naturally emerge from the struggles of everyday life.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5040050

Authors: Skaidra Pulley Latha Varadarajan

The two-decade-long occupation of East Timor by Indonesia has long been the focus of debate within genocide studies, with scholars on one side arguing for its recognition as “genocide” and, on the other, insisting on its exclusion from acknowledgment as such due to its inability to satisfy certain legal criteria. Our article revisits this conflict and the surrounding debate in order to stake out a larger claim about the logic of the legal form in contemporary global order. Following a growing critical scholarship in genocide studies, we argue that the concept of genocide itself entrenches harmful understandings of global order and contributes to structures which encourage the mass violence it nominally aims to identify and prevent. Far from being singular, it further represents fundamental limitations regarding the legal form as a mechanism of justice and resistance. To support this claim, we use the failure of various justice and reconciliation mechanisms to prosecute genocide in East Timor to illustrate the ways in which a legal system predicated on imperialism shapes both the behavior of a newly minted domestic elite and the larger project of state sovereignty itself.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5040049

Authors: Eray Özer Meryem Gürbüz

The image of the Virgin Mary appears with increasing frequency in written sources from the 12th and 13th centuries compared to earlier periods. Three major works produced by four eyewitness authors of the Albigensian Crusade (Historia Albigensis, Chronica, and Canso de la Crozada) reflect on and respond to this popular theme. These sources focus on the Albigensian Crusade against heretical groups, particularly the Cathars, and employ the Virgin Mary motif for various purposes. The Virgin Mary is presented as a Catholic model for women drawn to Catharism (a movement in which female spiritual leadership was also present) as a divine protector of the just side in war and as a means of legitimizing the authors’ claims. While Mary appears sporadically in Peter of Vaux-de-Cernay’s Historia Albigensis, she is extensively invoked in the Canso by both William and his anonymous successor. In contrast, the image of the Virgin Mary is scarcely mentioned in Chronica, likely due to the narrative’s intended audience and objectives. This article aims to provide a comparative analysis of how the image of the Virgin Mary is utilized in these primary sources from the Albigensian Crusade and to offer a new perspective on the relationship between historical events and authors’ intentions, laying the groundwork for further research.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5040048

Authors: Costantino Sigismondi

Galileo and the telescope revolutionized the concept of the Sun. The discovery of its rotation was possible due to the continuous observation of the sunspots. The faculae and the maculae with umbra and penumbra became accessible daily to new instruments, leaving the perfectly lucid disk to the realm of symbolism. Was this new view possible before the telescope? Technically, pinhole cameras can show the largest sunspots, as well as the naked eye under very particular conditions. However such observations were too scattered to produce any change in the established understanding of the Sun. Synoptic observations of the largest sunspots of the XXV solar cycle made with the naked eye, pinhole camera, and a telescope in camera obscura are presented and compared with the historical ones. Sunspots could have been discovered in Florence as early as 1475 with the pinhole meridian line of S. Maria del Fiore: the Spörer minimum (1460–1550) of the solar activity prevented it. Indications of white light flares and prominence observations appear in a drawing dated back to 1635, well before the first H-alpha inspections in the 19th century.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5040047

Authors: Andrew L. Williams

On 10 December 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) without a single dissenting vote. The term “human rights” coalesced rapidly and unexpectedly. Samuel Moyn, a leading intellectual historian of human rights, observes that people now view universal human rights as part of a set of “conventional and enduring truths.” To the contrary, he asserts that “it was all rather new at the time.” Although historical and philosophical roots exist for the notion of rights, the early twentieth century witnessed little “human rights” discourse. Thus, this paper illuminates two evolutions—one political and the other religious—that helped set the stage for the birth of human rights in the aftermath of World War II. Politically, the failure of the “Westphalian order” to prevent the unimaginable suffering of “total war” broadened transnationalism beyond the quest for a balance of power between sovereign nation-states. On the religious side, rights advocates adapted principles drawn from prior debates to the mid-twentieth-century context, thereby contributing to the development and widespread embrace of the concept of inherent human dignity and the corresponding notion of inviolable and universal “human rights.”

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5030046

Authors: Hedvig Ujvári

This study investigates the intertwined relationships and ideological visions of Max Nordau, Ignác Goldziher, and Abraham Shalom Yahuda, focusing on the evolution of modern Jewish scholarship, identity, and political affiliation around the turn of the twentieth century. Drawing on a diverse range of primary sources—including Nordau’s correspondence to Goldziher, Goldziher’s diaries, and contemporary press materials—it analyzes the complex dynamics among these three figures, each representing distinct biographical trajectories and ideological commitments. Particular emphasis is placed on Yahuda’s career in Madrid, his engagement with Sephardism, and his dual identity that positioned him as a unique intermediary between Eastern and Western Jewry. The study further explores Yahuda’s involvement with the Zionist movement and his stance on the Arab-Jewish question, highlighting his role in fostering Jewish–Arab cultural dialogue amid Zionist and assimilationist tensions. Ultimately, this research aims to elucidate how Jewish self-narratives were negotiated and transformed within the intellectual and political landscapes of the era, shedding light on the multifaceted nature of Jewish modernity at the dawn of the twentieth century.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5030045

Authors: David Christopher Galindo

Death notices and obituaries have existed for centuries and have been democratized to include ordinary people previously deemed unworthy of public commemoration. With the advent of the internet, mortuaries, newspapers, survivors, and memorial websites have broadcast these life epilogues online along with guestbooks, transforming monologic cyber obituaries into dialogic web cemeteries. While critics argue the internet promotes social isolation, some thanatologists counter that web cemeteries foster (para)social relationships. They contend these digital platforms are sites of meaningful personal expression and community building and combat modern society’s institutionalization of death. However, sport historians have yet to thoroughly investigate these sources, which offer much to those interpreting the human experience. This paper illustrates how web cemeteries can be valuable sources for historians researching sporting persons, communities, and fandoms; it shows how web cemeteries reveal people’s identifying features and values, their shared characteristics and experiences, and how they coped with life and death, allowing broader contemplation on historical inequities and disparities with implications beyond sport. Various applications and approaches suitable for web cemeteries are discussed here. Though not exhaustive, these provide historians a framework and point of departure for examining novel sources to develop nuanced historical inquiry and interpretation.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5030044

Authors: Kieran Edmond James

This article reports the findings of an ethnographic and historical study into an ultras group called Melbourne Croatia Fans (MCF), a group of mostly Croatian–Australian young men in their twenties who support Melbourne Knights (formerly known as Melbourne Croatia) in the second-tier Victorian Premier League competition. The aim is to explore identity formation and negotiation, and how identity formation informs relations with outsider groups. The interviews with the football club president, football club secretary, two MCF leaders, and the participant observation date back to the 2010–12 period. The supporters perceive that the club has fallen on hard times for reasons not of their own making. They participated in the former National Soccer League (NSL) (1977–2004) from 1984 to 2004, which was the first-ever national competition in Australia to involve club rather than state teams. However, the club was effectively banned from the new A-League (2005–present), which began based on a private-equity ownership model and a one-team-one-city concept. Despite this, the club can play in the annual knockout competition, the Australia Cup (formerly the FFA Cup), that features both A-League and lower-league teams. We observe here a group of young Croatian–Australian men, part of the Diaspora of Croatians that left the country, mostly in the communist era and afterwards, who aim to construct workable hybrid identities for themselves in an Anglo-majority nation on the other side of the world. They fight on two fronts—against an Anglo, corporate-style administration that effectively bans their club for reasons of ethnicity from the new national league, and against the Serbian youth who often live in the who live in adjacent or nearby suburbs and follow Serbian-origin clubs.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5030043

Authors: Cosme Jesús Gómez Carrasco

This article analyzes the dynamics of racial mixing in two regions with diverse colonial administrations in the second half of the eighteenth century: St. Augustine in the province of East Florida (under British and Spanish rule) and New Orleans in the province of Louisiana (under French and Spanish rule). Baptismal records for Black and Brown individuals were used, compiling nominal data from a sample of Afro-descendants born in the latter half of the eighteenth century. Whenever available, information was collected regarding racial classification—for both the baptized individuals and their parents—as well as legal status (enslaved or free) and birth legitimacy. The analysis is conducted from a critical intersectionality framework, highlighting how race, legal status, and gender served as amplifiers of inequality. Among the main results, we must highlight gender and racial classification that, thus, emerge as key differentiators for explaining the legal status and legitimacy of baptized individuals, and they also indicate systemic asymmetries in parental relationships.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5030042

Authors: Raúl González Arévalo Daniel Ríos Toledano

The strategic position of the coast of the Kingdom of Seville, along the western route between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, encouraged the presence of numerous fleets and merchant nations in its ports and waters. The proliferation of privateers and armed conflicts, both in Andalusian waters and beyond, had a significant impact on navigation and trade. This article examines the diplomatic strategies developed by the Genoese consuls in Seville to protect the interests of their nation in the maritime conflicts that affected them.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5030041

Authors: Diana Rodríguez-Vera Roberto Rivera Pérez Ivonne Maciel Arciniega-Martínez Marvin A. Soriano-Ursúa Aldo Arturo Reséndiz-Albor Fernanda Magdaleno-Durán Jazmín García-Machorro José A. Morales-González

Pulque, an available traditional Mexican fermented beverage, has deep ethnographic and cultural significance. It was originally consumed by pre-Columbian civilizations, including the Teotihuacanos, Mexicas, Otomies, Zapotecas, Mixtecas, and Maya. It was revered as a sacred drink with both ceremonial and medicinal uses, often reserved for elites and priests. Its production is based on the ancestral extraction and fermentation of aguamiel, a sweet sap obtained from agave plants. While advances in food technology have occurred, traditional techniques for obtaining and fermenting aguamiel remain prevalent, especially in rural communities, reflecting the resilience of indigenous knowledge systems. Recent interest in pulque has focused on its nutritional content and potential health benefits when consumed in moderation, though risks related to excessive intake remain a concern. Moreover, cultural initiatives aim to revitalize indigenous heritage through gastronomic promotion, tourism routes, and festive traditions. This study explores pulque’s production processes, its cultural symbolism, and its evolving role within Mexican society, suggesting that its survival reflects both continuity and adaptation in the face of modernity. This paper is also presented as a narrative integrative review to explore the biocultural significance of pulque across the anthropological, historical, biochemical, and public-health domains.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5030040

Authors: Nicholas Hirshon Klive Oh

Sports teams increasingly use nostalgia-based marketing to spark fan engagement and boost merchandise sales. Yet these efforts can also provoke backlash, especially when they resurrect contested imagery. This article examines how one such campaign—the New York Islanders’ 2015 revival of their controversial fisherman logo—was framed across team broadcasts and interpreted by fans on social media. Drawing on a qualitative textual analysis of television and radio coverage alongside a quantitative content analysis of 563 tweets, the study reveals a divide between institutional messaging and grassroots reaction. While team broadcasts emphasized charity and sentimental appeal, fan discourse was notably more critical, mocking the jersey’s design and recalling past failures. By positioning nostalgia not only as a branding asset but as a reputational risk, the article contributes a novel perspective to debates about commercialization, mediatization, and fan co-production in sports. It also demonstrates the value of mixed methods for analyzing how branding narratives are negotiated in real time.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5030039

Authors: Antonio Pérez-Pérez José Ramón Vallejo

Spontaneous human combustion, today scientifically discredited, was considered a legitimate medical entity in Europe beginning in the 17th century. The aim of this study is to analyze Spanish medical conceptions about this phenomenon between the 18th and 19th centuries, starting from the world context. Primary sources were used with a deductive–inductive approach. Beyond providing an account of a discarded medical theory, this work explores how certain categories of knowledge persist, disappear, and resurface under different belief systems. We analyze how the Spanish medical discourse on SHC evolved in three stages: exposure, debate, and rejection. This allows us to observe changes in medical mentality regarding factors such as searching for sources of ignition and moderating alcohol consumption as a preventive health measure. This study and its historiographical approach enable us to explore broader issues relating to ignorance, alternative ideas, the stability of scientific knowledge over time, and shifts in the field of legal and forensic medicine. This research provides a model for analyzing the complex dynamics of knowledge and its evolution at the intersection of science, culture, and power.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5030038

Authors: Miguel-Ángel García-Madurga

Situated at the intersection of social history and psychology, this study examines how early Christian communities in Bithynia-Pontus navigated the persecution narrated in Pliny the Younger’s Epistle X 96. Through systematic textual analysis of Latin and Greek sources—triangulated with comparative evidence from Tacitus and corroborating archaeological data—and interpreted through Conservation-of-Resources and Social Identity theoretical frameworks, we reconstruct the repertoire of collective coping strategies mobilised under Roman repression. Our findings show that ritualised dawn assemblies, mutual economic assistance, and a theologically grounded expectation of post-mortem vindication converted external coercion into internal cohesion; these practices neutralised informer threat, sustained group morale, and ultimately expanded Christian networks across Asia Minor. Moreover, Pliny’s ad hoc judicial improvisations reveal the governor’s own bounded rationality, underscoring the reciprocal nature of stress between the persecutor and persecuted. By mapping the dynamic interaction between imperial policy and subaltern agency, the article clarifies why limited, locally triggered violence consolidated rather than extinguished the nascent movement. The analysis contributes a theoretically informed, evidence-based account of religious-minority resilience, enriching both early Christian historiography and broader debates on group survival under systemic duress.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5030037

Authors: Ebru Güher

This study examines how the newly established United States pursued economic development through diplomatic and commercial initiatives with the Ottoman Empire, navigating regional powers and the era’s political-economic conditions. It analyzes using American archival sources how America endeavored to establish commercial and diplomatic relations with the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions, which it viewed as critical markets in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, before signing any formal agreement. The research tracks how these early efforts laid foundations for what would become one of the world’s largest economies. The study analyzes America’s diplomatic efforts to secure an agreement with the Ottoman Empire prior to the 7 May 1830 trade agreement—which laid the foundation for bilateral relations—alongside the reactions of regional powers, the prevailing conditions of the period, and the Ottoman administration’s reluctance due to various factors, based on U.S. archival sources that, to the best of our knowledge, have not previously been utilized in existing studies.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5030036

Authors: Irven Michael Resnick

The capture of Jerusalem during the First Crusade, the extirpation of various heresies in the twelfth and thirteen centuries, the gradual expansion of Christian rule in the Iberian peninsula, and the mass conversion of Jews to Christianity there during the fourteenth century, all seemed to support a Christian triumphalism that imagined that as the End Time approached, Jews and other infidels would inevitably be absorbed into the Church. Nonetheless, an expanding medieval awareness of the many ‘Others’ beyond Christendom contributed to Christian anxieties that Jews (or Muslims) might expand their number through mass conversion, and not Christians. This paper will examine some sources of this anxiety.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5030035

Authors: Lingkai Kong

Johannes Althusius (1563–1638) was a pioneer of early modern federalism. Opposing Jean Bodin’s theory of absolute sovereignty, his theory, centered on association and symbiosis, laid the groundwork for later concepts such as associationalism, consociationalism, and the principle of subsidiarity. While his ideas have been rediscovered and reinterpreted by scholars since the 20th century, systematic research on his federalist framework, especially contrasting it with rival theories of that time, remains insufficient. This article addresses this research gap by systematically exploring Althusius’s federalism. It argues that Althusius’s covenant-based, multi-level associational/federal framework provided a counter-theory to the concept of absolute sovereignty. Systematically studying his federalism not only helps to restore his federalist ideas to their rightful place in the history of federalist thought, but also provides insights for contemporary governance paradigms struggling with modern pluralism.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5030034

Authors: Dennis Ioffe

The essay offers an expansive and multi-stratified investigation into the role of esoteric traditions within the development of Russian modernity, reframing occultism not as an eccentric deviation but as a foundational epistemological regime integral to Russia’s aesthetic, philosophical, and political evolution. By analyzing the arc from Petrine-era alchemical statecraft to the techno-theurgical aspirations of Russian Cosmism and the esoteric visual regimes of the avant-garde, this essay discloses the deep ontological entanglement between sacral knowledge and modernist radical experimentation. The work foregrounds figures such as Jacob Bruce, Wassily Kandinsky, and Kazimir Malevich, situating them within broader transnational currents of Hermeticism, Theosophy, and Rosicrucianism, while interrogating the role of occult infrastructures in both late-imperial and Soviet paradigms. Drawing on recent theoretical frameworks in the global history of esotericism and modernist studies, the long-read article elucidates the metaphysical substrata animating Russian Symbolism, Abstraction, Malevich’s non-Euclidian Suprematism and Moscow Conceptualism. This study contends that esotericism in Russia—far from marginal—served as a generative matrix for radical aesthetic innovation and ideological reconfiguration. It proposes a reconceptualization of Russian cultural history as a palimpsest of submerged sacral structures, where utopia and apocalypse, magic and technology, converge in a distinctively Russian cosmopoietic horizon. Ultimately, this essay reframes Russian and European occultism as an alternate technology of cognition and a performative semiotic universe shaping not only artistic modernism but also the very grammar of Russian historical imagination.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5030033

Authors: Yelis Erolova

The article is aimed at building on the existing studies devoted to the last stage of the assimilation policy directed at the Muslim population in Communist Bulgaria during the second half of the 1980s. The 40th anniversary of the forced change of the given Turkish–Arabic and Persian names of this population is an occasion to revisit this dark period of the recent past. This study focuses on the short- and long-term consequences of the political measures, which became known as the ‘Revival process’ (1984/1985–1989). For the first time, the author presents new written sources, including analytical and field reports commissioned by the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party and prepared by Bulgarian scholars during the second half of the 1980s, as well as later collected biographical data related to Muslims affected by the events, derived through an (auto)ethnographic method of research among Turks, Crimean Tatars and Muslim Roma.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5030032

Authors: Mark Thomas McNally

Two of the renowned figures of Edo-era Kokugaku (National Learning), Motoori Norinaga and Ueda Akinari, famously debated the merits of their scholarly approaches to Japanese antiquity during the latter half of the eighteenth century. Their intellectual dispute was the result of the radical conclusions reached by Tō Teikan in his Shōkōhatsu (An Outburst of Provocations; 1781) in which he argued that the Korean peninsula and China influenced ancient Japan, and that Japan’s first emperor, Jimmu, was from Ryukyu. While Akinari supported the notion of continental influence on ancient Japan, Norinaga did not, and while the former was mostly agnostic about Jimmu’s Ryukyuan roots, the latter opposed that as well. Norinaga, however, was not opposed to the idea of ancient ties between Ryukyu and Japan, an issue with which Akinari’s silence seemed to signify some degree of agreement. This commonality between these two intellectual giants demonstrated the extent to which Japanese intellectuals of the Edo period viewed the Ryukyu Kingdom (now Okinawa Prefecture) as occupying an ambivalent geopolitical space, in which it was neither fully foreign nor fully native. At the same time, Akinari’s historiographical approach to Japanese antiquity, which emerged in his debate with Norinaga, exerted an influence on nineteenth-century depictions of Ryukyu’s historical and cultural ties to Japan, chiefly Kyokutei Bakin’s Chinsetsu yumiharizuki (Fantastic Tales of the Moon Bow; 1811).

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5030031

Authors: María Ignacia Ibarra

This article examines the struggles for water justice led by women in the Aconcagua River Basin (Valparaíso, Chile) through a hydrofeminist perspective. Chile’s water crisis, rooted in a colonial extractivist model and exacerbated by neoliberal policies of water privatization, reflects a deeper crisis of socio-environmental injustice. Rather than understanding water merely as a resource, this research adopts a relational epistemology that conceives water as a living entity shaped by and shaping social, cultural, and ecological relations. Drawing on life-history interviews and the construction of a hydrofeminist cartography with women river defenders, this article explores how gendered and racialized bodies experience the crisis, resist extractive practices, and articulate alternative modes of co-existence with water. The hydrofeminist framework offers critical insights into the intersections of capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy, and environmental degradation, emphasizing how women’s embodied experiences are central to envisioning new water governance paradigms. This study reveals how women’s affective, spiritual, and territorial ties to water foster strategies of resilience, recovery, and re-existence that challenge the dominant extractivist logics. By centering these hydrofeminist life histories, this article contributes to broader debates on environmental justice, decolonial feminisms, and the urgent need to rethink human–water relationships within the current climate crisis.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5030030

Authors: James Trapani

President John F Kennedy faced an impending crisis upon taking office in January 1961. The revolutionary threat of Cuba held the potential to spread to several neighboring countries. This crisis was the product of decades of neglect from successive US presidents, that ultimately invited the USSR into the region and fell to Kennedy during his first year as President. Kennedy sought to recast the image of the US in the hemisphere to inoculate against the example of Cuba. The cornerstone of this plan was the Alliance for Progress, a substantial program of economic assistance from the US to Latin America. However, that program has widely been criticized as a failure. Rather than reflect on the economic and social limitations of the Alliance for Progress, this paper will evaluate the diplomatic impact of Kennedy’s approach in forming the anti-Cuban coalition in the first year of his presidency. Kennedy successfully changed the Latin American attitude towards the US prior to the releasing of any substantial economic aid. Therefore, this paper will argue that “The Kennedy Plan” was a diplomatic success that reduced the threat of Castro’s Cuba in the context of the Cold War.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5020029

Authors: Helen Parish

Across the centuries, trees have been recognised as one of the oldest lifeforms on earth, witnessing and subject to the passage of time on a scale that far exceeds human life, telling us who we are in the world. This paper explores the intricate nature of human interactions with trees across a broad chronological and conceptual range, and the cultural, symbolic, and ecological meaning of “iconic” trees, drawing upon a selection of case studies to explore and analyse the relationship between the tree as a living organism and its cultural, textual, and mnemonic meaning. In conducting this, it reflects upon the cultural geographies of presence and absence, and the role of emblematic trees as places of memory and structures of belief. The relationship between human life and the life of trees is shown to be symbiotic; multiple cultural values and symbolic forms are ascribed to trees, and those same trees shape the physical, ecological, and human environment. The social and cultural construction of the landscape and sites of memory is presented as a key component in the formation of narratives and mentalities that define the relationship between humans and iconic trees, material and imagined. Physical, ecological, and cultural erosion, it is suggested, have the capacity of memorialising forgetfulness and creating a space in which the absence of presence and the presence of absence co-exist. The iconic image of the fallen tree, in its presence and absence, exposes the extent to which trees are also human objects, constructed and understood in human terms, and subject to a range of personal, political, and pragmatic impulses. A tree can be iconic not simply because of what it was but because of what it was believed to be, integrating a physical, historical, memory, and ecological or cultural space into our relationship with the natural world.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5020028

Authors: Anita Barbara Młynarczyk-Tomczyk

Polish scholarly literature has not comprehensively analysed the image of the French Revolution of 1789–1799 in history textbooks. Similarly, 20th- and 21st-century historiography has presented no exhaustive overview of these events. This article does not claim to exhaust the subject matter. In addressing the topic of the French Revolution, the author seeks to connect with ongoing research in Poland concerning the philosophical interpretation of selected themes in Polish and world history. Moreover, given that the philosophical interpretation of these events in history education compendia has been and remains consistent with historiographical approaches, the author also extends the discussion to a broader consideration of the historiography of the French Revolution from the late 19th century to the present day. The French Revolution occupies a significant place in Polish historical education. However, while contemporary historiography increasingly associates it with crisis, injustice, and oppression, textbook narratives continue to uphold the myth of the French Revolution—favoured in Poland since the late 19th century—as a crucial event perceived as beneficial for France.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5020027

Authors: Victòria A. Burguera i Puigserver

Since the early 14th century, the Mediterranean coasts of the Crown of Aragon had mechanisms in place to alert populations of incoming threats from the sea. In addition to maritime surveillance systems strategically positioned at elevated vantage points, any information reaching the coast that posed a threat to the safety of the population or trade was swiftly relayed along the shoreline, ensuring that coastal communities could prepare and defend themselves. This information, preserved in the correspondence of coastal city authorities, serves today as a primary source not only for reconstructing maritime threats in the late Middle Ages but also for assessing the role of urban leaders in managing defence. This article explores both aspects. By analysing maritime alerts either received in the city of Barcelona or disseminated from it during the first half of the 15th century, this study examines the main threats to the Catalan coastline while emphasizing the central role of cities in managing the alert system.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5020026

Authors: Eric A. Baldwin

Massachusetts in the 1780s was deeply polarized. In the preparty era, the most developed communities were able to monopolize the levers of policymaking and governance in order to secure their interests. The least commercial–cosmopolitan communities, lacking organization and resources, were unable to advance their interests. The least commercial–cosmopolitan communities’ inability to influence politics and secure relief stemmed from the absence of party competition. The absence of oppositional political organizations to counteract the natural advantages of elites in preparty politics obstructed the representation of the least commercial–cosmopolitan communities. Such obstruction caused the accumulation of populist frustration, culminating in Shays’s Rebellion.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5020025

Authors: Adam Hall

This article assesses the importance of two tax controversies in conditioning market access in fifteenth-century Bruges. It looks at diplomatic posturing on the management of this market and the conditions for partaking in its trade. The theory of ‘signalling’ is applied to highlight diplomatic stances and reveal the reasoning behind policy decisions including reprisals, taxes, and boycotts hitherto absent in the literature. Diplomatic, urban legal, and fiscal sources are consulted to reveal what the Castilians and Catalans, sizeable and organised merchant communities in Bruges, perceived as an existential threat to their trade—the ‘fiscalisation’ of market access. This article takes a comparative approach, employing the theory of signalling to determine the strategies of the various actors involved and their efficacy. The Duke of Burgundy and his administration emerge from this story as the prime agent in determining this equilibrium, with the Castilians and Catalans bringing their diplomatic and economic leverage to bear to prevent it. The city of Bruges, as lobbyist and interlocutor, was involved throughout attempting to find a balance between its many merchant communities. These cases offer historical insights into strategies of negotiation when the economic stakes are high.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5020024

Authors: Douglas J. Lanska

The Latin (De Homine, 1662, 1664) and French (L’Homme, 1664) editions of René Descartes’ Treatise on Man present different iconographic traditions, but the iconography of the Latin editions is little known. Dutch physician and botanist Florentius Schuyl edited De Homine and illustrated it himself with a mix of woodcut and copperplate illustrations. This paper examines Schuyl’s innovative depictions of purported dynamic aspects of the pineal gland as claimed by Descartes: (1) repeatedly illustrating the pineal gland as the corporeal–spiritual linkage of the brain and soul; and (2) using a movable flap anatomy to illustrate the pineal gland as a motile structure that both responds to and directs animal spirits. None of the canonical illustrations in the later French edition attempted to depict the corporeal–spiritual linkage of the brain and soul, and the modest attempts in the French edition to depict the motility of the pineal gland relied simply on superimposition of two purported positions of the gland, a technique also employed by Schuyl. This paper also reviews how Schuyl’s illustration of a corporeal–spiritual linkage of the brain and soul in a goat sharply contrasts with his written defense of Descartes’ bête-machine doctrine in the extended preface to De Homine.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5020023

Authors: Sarah Albiez-Wieck

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.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5020022

Authors: Maha Ali Alkhashil Samia Boubaker Ghazouani Nouf Rezeg Al-Rodhan

This study examines how English newspapers portrayed the First Saudi State (FSS) between 1794 and 1819, focusing on their role in shaping European perceptions. The starting point, 1794, corresponds to the earliest located article mentioning the FSS, while 1819 marks the final reports on its downfall, including the fall of Diriyah in 1818 and the execution of Imam Abdullah bin Saud. While most historical research on the FSS has analyzed travelogs and diplomatic reports, this study highlights newspapers as a contemporaneous and underexplored source. It finds that English press coverage primarily relied on Ottoman and allied sources, often lacking direct Saudi perspectives. As a result, articles frequently framed the FSS as a rebellious religious sect rather than a legitimate state-building effort. Using a qualitative content analysis of 55 randomly selected newspaper articles, the study identifies recurring themes, sources, and biases. Coverage peaked during major geopolitical events, but inaccuracies, sensationalized terminology, and selective reporting reinforced negative stereotypes about the Saudis. By filling a gap in historiography, this research underscores how newspapers shaped public perceptions and foreign policy decisions toward Arabia. It also highlights the broader implications of media dependency in shaping historical narratives.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5020021

Authors: Jorge Hugo Villafañe

During the 17th and early 18th centuries, within the framework of Castilian inheritance law—which mandated the equal partition of marital assets among all legitimate descendants—the elites of colonial La Rioja devised a set of complex and adaptive strategies to safeguard the integrity of their principal estates. This study examines four lineages spanning three to six generations to analyze the mechanisms employed to ensure patrimonial continuity. These included the foundation of mayorazgos (entailments), strategic transactions among co-heirs, differentiated inheritance arrangements, the symbolic and legal assignment of familial roles, and highly endogamous marriage patterns. In a region characterized by demographic constraints, limited commercial integration, and economic stagnation, elite families also relied on credit networks involving landowners, convents, and merchants to sustain their influence. By situating these practices within broader colonial legal frameworks and recent historiography on legal pluralism and credit economies, this article offers a nuanced understanding of the legal, social, and financial instruments that shaped elite reproduction in a peripheral colonial setting.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5020020

Authors: Shaoyu Yuan

China’s engagement with global governance has evolved significantly since 1949, transitioning from outright rejection during its revolutionary isolation (1949–1971) to strategic engagement with key institutions such as the United Nations, IMF, and WTO (1971–2000), and more recently to the creation of parallel institutions like the AIIB and Belt and Road Initiative (2000–present). This paper traces these historical phases to analyze how China has navigated and reshaped global norms, balancing its integration into existing frameworks with efforts to build alternative governance structures. While Hegemonic Stability Theory and Power Transition Theory offer insights into China’s evolving strategy, neither fully encapsulates its pragmatic, adaptive approach. China’s domestic regulatory innovations, such as the Social Credit System and its promotion of cyber sovereignty, increasingly influence its global governance initiatives, reflecting a deliberate effort to export its governance models. Rather than fully integrating into or replacing the U.S.-led liberal order, China employs a dual-track strategy: engaging with global institutions where advantageous while promoting state-centric alternatives to liberal norms. This study argues that China’s historical trajectory underscores its pivotal role in shaping a multipolar world order, where competing governance frameworks coexist and challenge the dominance of Western-led institutions.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5020019

Authors: Neil Tarrant

In this article, I consider the narratives framing Italian-language accounts of ecclesiastical censorship in early modern Italy and its impact on the modern Italian state. I set out Adriano Prosperi, Vittorio Frajese and Gigliola Fragnito’s interpretations of the significance of the Roman Inquisition and the Congregation of the Index. Although each of these historians engaged with the theories of modernity developed by such scholars as Max Weber and Michel Foucault, I argue that their narratives were informed by a desire to explain a different historical problem. Weber and Foucault sought to demonstrate that the achievements of modern society were achieved through the creation of structures of social discipline that impinged upon individual liberty. The historians I consider here addressed a different question. They were seeking to consider whether the suppression of individual liberty enacted by the Catholic Church’s disciplinary structures prevented Italy’s progress to modernity and statehood. These arguments were initially formulated during the mid-to-late nineteenth century by such scholars and politicians as Bertrando Spaventa and Francesco de Sanctis, whose thought had been shaped by exposure to Hegelian historical and philosophical thought. In this paper, I argue that in Italian historical discourse, accounts of the nature and effects of ecclesiastical censorship have been framed by what is, in effect, an inverted Protestant narrative of progress.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5020018

Authors: Paula Jane Byrne

Three languages of service in the Hunter Valley show the emotional impact of new labour systems on valuing and self-valuing in work. The newspaper advertisements present a self-image of the servant as a negotiator for wages and conditions, and servants read these advertisements and formed attitudes from them. Their language suggests they were significant players in the modernising of work. Wealthy employers sought the cheapest labour possible, and the new lower middle-class townsman added notions of respectability that servants adopted themselves. In conflict with this, the letters of a squatter family represent the servant as an object of humour, as sly, untrustworthy, and dangerously sexualised. This abject status derived from notions of servants as less than human, as stock, from slavery. In response, servants replied that they knew their work and emphasised a labour market perspective.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5020017

Authors: Philip Reeder Harry Jol Alastair McClymont Paul Bauman Mantas Daubaras

Jacob Gens, the head of the Vilnius Ghetto Police Force, and eventually the entire Ghetto during the Holocaust, was murdered on 14 September 1943 by the head of the Vilnius Gestapo. Historical documents and Holocaust survivor testimonies indicate that he was killed at a site that became known as the Rasu Street Prison, and not the Gestapo Headquarters, as it is widely believed. In 2016, research was completed at the Rasu Street Prison site using ground penetrating radar (GPR) and electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) to locate subsurface reflection patterns that possibly indicate the location of where Jacob Gens is buried. Intersecting GPR and ERT reflection patterns were discovered and a plan was put in place to excavate that location. The excavation revealed the presence of human remains at 1.45 m below the surface. A skull and upper torso were exposed, and two teeth were collected for DNA and radiocarbon analysis. The DNA from the tooth was compared to Jacob Gens’ daughter’s DNA, and this comparison yielded a negative result, so the human remains were not those of Jacob Gens. The radiocarbon analysis provided a date between 1685 and 1735. In 1705, a plot of land was donated to the Visitation Monastery, which used this plot, and which coincides with the location of the Rasu Street Prison, as a cemetery for the poor. In 1709 and 1710, a plague epidemic was prevalent in Vilnius, as was turmoil and famine associated with the Great Northern War (1700 to 1721). Based on these discoveries, rather than finding the remains of Jacob Gens, it is likely that we found human remains that are part of a forgotten 18th century cemetery associated with the Visitation Monastery.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5020016

Authors: Paul Redding

While Kepler is regarded as a major figure in standard historical accounts of the scientific revolution of early modern Europe, he is typically seen as having one foot in the new scientific culture and one in the old. In some of his work, Kepler appears, along with Galileo, to be on a trajectory towards Newton’s celestial mechanics. In addition to his advocacy of Copernicus’s heliocentrism, he appealed to physical causes in his explanations of the movements of celestial bodies. But other work appears to express a neo-Platonic “metaphysics” or “mysticism”, as most obvious in his embrace of the ancient tradition of the “music of the spheres”. Here I problematize this distinction. The musical features of Kepler’s purported neo-Platonic “metaphysics”, I argue, was also tied to Platonic and neo-Platonic features of the methodology of a tradition of mathematical astronomy that would remain largely untouched by his shift to heliocentrism and that would be essential to his actual scientific practice. Importantly, certain features of the geometric practices he inherited—ones later formalized as “projective geometry”—would also carry those “harmonic” structures expressed in the thesis of the music of the spheres.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5010015

Authors: Filippo Besana Stefano Pasquariello Valentina Costa Attilio Negri

The history of addiction treatment in Italy reflects a complex evolution shaped by cultural, social, and legislative changes from the mid-20th century to the present. This paper explores the transition from more moralistic and punitive to public health-oriented approaches, the development of therapeutic communities, and the establishment of specialized outpatient clinics. It highlights the impact of pivotal legislation, the rise of harm reduction strategies, and the integration of behavioral addictions into the healthcare framework. Challenges such as stigma, emerging addiction patterns, and the need for integrated care models are some of the future directions of the addiction treatment alongside Italy’s progressive steps in offering personalized and multidisciplinary care.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5010014

Authors: Sumaira Niazi Elyse Zavar Alex Greer Sherri Brokopp Binder

U.S. government agencies execute home relocation programs, known as buyouts, in flood-prone areas to reduce hazard exposure. By converting the buyout properties into open space, these governmental agencies assume ownership and management responsibilities. As with all landscapes, the post-buyout landscape reflects power dynamics and institutional forces that shape how the land is managed, perceived, and used. For acquired properties, historic housing polices, disaster risk reduction strategies, and the social construction of the land have all accumulated over time on the post-buyout landscape and influence contemporary land management practices. To understand the influence of power and social capital on post-buyout land management, this study analyzes land management practices and compares them with the socioeconomic characteristics of buyout neighborhoods in Harris County, Texas, USA, a county with a fifty-year buyout history. Results indicate that homeownership status, race, and ethnicity were related to post-buyout land management to varying degrees, thus reflecting differing degrees of social capital in buyout neighborhoods and therefore power to shape the management of post-buyout open space.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5010013

Authors: Weixuan Li

This article introduces a novel methodological framework—the “spatial reading of inventories”—to reconstruct domestic interiors in seventeenth-century Amsterdam. By integrating probate inventories with architectural floor plans, this study establishes three house typologies with schematic 3D drawings that resolve ambiguities in room labels and spatial organization, bridging the gap between architectural history and material culture studies. Focusing on methodological innovation, this article both reveals how house size and structure created distinct spatial context and breathes new life into the well-researched probate inventories by using its untapped spatial information. While using seventeenth-century Amsterdam as a case study, this approach offers a model for studying historical domestic spaces across contexts and provides a foundation for future analyses of object placement, sensory experience, and cultural practices at home.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5010012

Authors: Chitja Twala Ayanda Sphelele Ndlovu

The Bantustans in South Africa during the Apartheid era engaged in the extension of their territories, as this entailed increased revenue from the Apartheid regime. The latter aimed to concentrate African populations within these Bantustans, which effectively divided them into ‘ethnic’ groups. The Bantustan project, orchestrated by the regime, sought to implement a ‘divide-and-rule’ strategy. The regime was acutely aware that if the African population were to unite, they could pose significant political and security threats; consequently, it was imperative to maintain divisions through the establishment of ‘ethnically’ segregated Bantustans. This study interrogates how the regime enticed Bantustan leaders with territorial extensions to enforce the pseudo-independence and freedom of Africans within these ethnic enclaves, which received financial backing from the regime. As demonstrated in this study, liberation movements accused Bantustan leaders of collaborating with the regime, thereby branding them as ‘stooges’ of the latter. The Bantustan leaders were neither mere dupes nor entirely independent actors; rather, they were constrained to operate within the politically violent confines of the Apartheid system. Their apprehension towards acting against the regime was driven by self-interest. However, by demanding and accepting territorial extensions, they intensified their subordination to the regime. Utilising primary sources alongside secondary interpretations regarding the Bantustans, this study examines the advantages and disadvantages of territorial extensions. It becomes evident that such collaboration undermined the unity of the African populace in their struggle against Apartheid. This study critiques the management of territorial extensions by both the regime and the Bantustan leaders, focusing specifically on the relationships fostered by these extensions, particularly in relation to the TBVC states.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5010011

Authors: Christopher Adair-Toteff

In Plato’s Republic, Socrates praises reason and vilifies force. This preference for reason continued its role in philosophy and only a few political thinkers considered the use of force. Plato also dismissed persuasion as the Sophists’ art of making the weaker argument appear stronger and the stronger argument appear weaker. It was Machiavelli who focused on force and persuasion, but he was criticized for his advice to the Prince. Vilfredo Pareto did not offer counsel but rather provided one of the first realistic accounts of social behavior. For Pareto, that meant exploring the range of means which humans use to achieve what they want. For Pareto, that meant less attention on reason and more on persuasion and cunning. Thomas Hobbes wrote that force and fraud are two means, but Pareto insisted that humans use force, persuasion, and cunning. It is to Pareto’s credit as a social behaviorist that he provided one of the first scholarly analyses of cunning and deceit.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5010010

Authors: Theodora Semertzian Ifigeneia Vamvakidou Theodore Koutroukis Eleni Ivasina

This study analyzes the award-winning documentary film Searching for Rodakis, directed by Kerem Soyyilmaz, produced in 2023. The aim of this study is the historic comprehension and analysis of this filmic narrative in the field of social–semiotic literacy and its utilization in historical studies for approaching issues of conflict in modern history, otherness, collective experience and trauma, and collective memory. The research material is the documentary Searching for Rodakis (produced by Denmark, Turkey 2023; screenplay/director, Kerem Soyyilmaz; duration, 57’), which received the following awards: Adana Golden Boll FF 2023 Turkey | Best Documentary, Thessaloniki International Doc. Festival 2023 Greece, Greek Film Festival Los Angeles 2023 USA, and Istanbul Documentary Days 2023 Turkey. As regards the historic context, the year of production, 2023, coincides with the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne, where Turkey’s current borders were set and the “population exchange” legally sealed, i.e., the violent expulsion of 400,000 Muslims, citizens of Greece, many of whom spoke only Greek, and 200,000 Orthodox citizens of Turkey, who in the majority spoke Turkish. At the same time, the Treaty of Lausanne ratified and finalized the expulsion of approximately one million Orthodox who were forced to leave the Ottoman Empire, as well as 120,000 Muslims who had fled Greece since the beginning of the Balkan Wars (1912–1913). About two million people were deported and lost their citizenship and property, in the context of “national homogeneity” (which connotes an ethnic cleansing), with the official states ignoring the criticisms of lawyers and academics who spoke of violations of constitutional rights. Mohammedan Greeks, estimated at around 190,000 as early as 1914, based on ecclesiastical statistics in the Pontus region, did not receive attention from the provisions of the Treaty of Lausanne, even though linguistically and culturally (origin, customs, culture and traditions) they did not differ in any way from the Orthodox Greeks. In Turkey, there was general indifference to the thousands of desperate people who arrived, with the exception of a few academics and the Lausanne Exchange Foundation. The filmic scenario is as follows: as a Greek tombstone of unknown origin is discovered underneath the floorboards in an old village house in Turkey, an almost forgotten story from the country’s creation unravels—the forced population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923. The engraved Greek letters tell of a woman, Chrysoula Rodaki, who died in 1887. Thus the search for her descendants begins. It leads director Kerem Soyyilmaz to local archives, where his own family’s role in history is laid bare; to abandoned ghost towns, and through the memories of older villagers—all while Soyyilmaz meets massive support for his quest from Greeks on the other side of the border. The stone becomes a portal to the past—and for a while, the trauma becomes redeemed when the previous owners of the village house return. Searching for Rodakis is a movie that reconnects people, culture, and the stories that were discarded in order to build a strong, nationalist state—told through the director’s personal experiences. The research questions, as they arise from the cinematographic material itself, are as follows: How is the historical memory of traumatic events of the previous century, such as the exchange of populations according the Treaty of Lausanne, recorded in the cinematographic narrative? What are the historical sources? To what extent did the origin, ethnicity, and geographical location of the narrators as participants influence the preservation of historical memory and the historical research? What are the criteria of the approach of the creator, and what are the criteria of the participants? Methodologically, we apply historic and socio-semiotic analyses in the field of public and digital history. The results: The types of historical sources found in filmic public discourse include the oral narration of testimonies, of experiences and of memories, as well as the director’s historical research in state archives, the material cultural objects, and the director’s digital research. Thus, historic thematic categories occur, such as the specific persons and actions in Turkey/Greece, actions on-site and in online research, and the types of historical sources, such as oral testimonies, research in archives, and objects of material culture. Sub-themes such as childhood, localities and kinship also emerge. These cinematic recordings of biographical oral narratives as historical and sociological material help us understand the political ideologies of the specific period, between the years 1919 and 1923. The multimodal film material is analyzed to provide testimonies of oral and digital history; it is utilized to approach the historical reality of “otherness”, seeking dialogue in cross-border history in order to identify differences, but above all the historic and cultural similarities against sterile stereotypes. The historic era and the historic geography of the Greek and Turkish national histories concern us for research and teaching purposes a hundred years after the Treaty of Lausanne which set the official borders of the countries.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5010009

Authors: Luigi Capoani

Focusing on a specific interaction between physics and economics, this study delves into the realm of econophysics and investigates the birth, evolution, and practical applications of this interdisciplinary field. This study explores the influence of Newton’s laws, the concept of gravity, and, more generally, mechanical physics on the development of economic thought. It examines the application of Newtonian principles in interpreting economic dynamics, with a particular focus on the contributions of neoclassical economists and Isard’s gravitational model, offering insights into the intricate dynamics of economic equilibrium in complex systems. Finally, these concepts are situated within the broader debate between determinism and indeterminism in the social sciences.

Histories doi: 10.3390/histories5010008

Authors: Pier Remigio Salvi

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.