Abstract Although Linz was right in contradicting previous assumptions that the Francoist political community was homogeneous, a truth evidenced in political archival records relating to the 1967 elections of procuradores familiares and reports complied by the Delegación Nacional de Provincias about political hierarchies in preparation for elections in 1975, his concept of limited pluralism is flawed. Traditional historical methods verify the degree of correlation between the analytical description of the Francoist political sphere that Linz’ theory suggests and the actuality represented in the archival sources. The records do not indicate the existence of the politico-ideological or interest groups organized as a semi-opposition to which Linz referred in support of his thesis. Though political leaders were aligned with various ideological affiliations, loyalty to the Caudillo was the basic affinity that united all.
{"title":"Political Science, History, and Dictatorships: Linz’ Limited Pluralism Theory and the Late Francoist Regime in Spain","authors":"C. Lasús, Julio Ponce Alberca","doi":"10.1162/jinh_a_01907","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/jinh_a_01907","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Although Linz was right in contradicting previous assumptions that the Francoist political community was homogeneous, a truth evidenced in political archival records relating to the 1967 elections of procuradores familiares and reports complied by the Delegación Nacional de Provincias about political hierarchies in preparation for elections in 1975, his concept of limited pluralism is flawed. Traditional historical methods verify the degree of correlation between the analytical description of the Francoist political sphere that Linz’ theory suggests and the actuality represented in the archival sources. The records do not indicate the existence of the politico-ideological or interest groups organized as a semi-opposition to which Linz referred in support of his thesis. Though political leaders were aligned with various ideological affiliations, loyalty to the Caudillo was the basic affinity that united all.","PeriodicalId":46755,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Interdisciplinary History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45765188","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mason pays surprisingly little attention to Babeuf ’s ideas about equality or to the complex but powerful meanings that revolutionary conceptions had assumed over the revolution’s radical phase. She dismisses fellow conspirator Filippo Buonarotti’s memoir about Babeuf as hagiography without detailed refutation. She claims that Babeuf “misread” Enlightenment philosophers’ egalitarian writings, but she refrains from discussing the processes of creative adaptation and inspiration that had marked revolutionary thought (172). The Babeuf of this history seems little more than the Directory’s discursive creation. Mason also attempts to smother any hopes for either the Conspiracy of Equals or the Neo-Jacobin left, claiming that “the French Revolution was [already] over and the people had been defeated.” Yet even the dismantling of radical networks since Thermidor did not necessarily doom future movements, given the spontaneous uprisings that had marked the revolution’s earlier phases (100–101). She also seeks to distance Babeuf from the “neo-Babouvists” of the 1840s who helped to inspire Marx (227). The Last Revolutionaries is a dispiriting title for anyone interested in Babeuf ’s legacies. Her avoidance of the revolution’s continued radical potential risks falling into the Directory’s own centrist trap.
{"title":"The Talk of the Town: Information and Community in Sixteenth-Century Switzerland by Carla Roth","authors":"William Monter","doi":"10.1162/jinh_r_01917","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/jinh_r_01917","url":null,"abstract":"Mason pays surprisingly little attention to Babeuf ’s ideas about equality or to the complex but powerful meanings that revolutionary conceptions had assumed over the revolution’s radical phase. She dismisses fellow conspirator Filippo Buonarotti’s memoir about Babeuf as hagiography without detailed refutation. She claims that Babeuf “misread” Enlightenment philosophers’ egalitarian writings, but she refrains from discussing the processes of creative adaptation and inspiration that had marked revolutionary thought (172). The Babeuf of this history seems little more than the Directory’s discursive creation. Mason also attempts to smother any hopes for either the Conspiracy of Equals or the Neo-Jacobin left, claiming that “the French Revolution was [already] over and the people had been defeated.” Yet even the dismantling of radical networks since Thermidor did not necessarily doom future movements, given the spontaneous uprisings that had marked the revolution’s earlier phases (100–101). She also seeks to distance Babeuf from the “neo-Babouvists” of the 1840s who helped to inspire Marx (227). The Last Revolutionaries is a dispiriting title for anyone interested in Babeuf ’s legacies. Her avoidance of the revolution’s continued radical potential risks falling into the Directory’s own centrist trap.","PeriodicalId":46755,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Interdisciplinary History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"64386380","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Decolonization must be either “revolutionary or inexistent,” declared the Martinican poet and politician Aimé Césaire (356). So long as it enforces a relationship between domination and subjugation, colonialism cannot be “reformed” in any substantive way. The International Colonial Institute (ICI, 1893–1982)—the subject of Wagner’s penetrating volume—begged to differ. The ICI claimed that under the guidance of European experts, colonial subjects could become productive contributors to global capitalist society “voluntarily” and “without renouncing their culture and traditions” (354). It rejected modernization theory’s claims of liberal universalism, arguing instead for localized models. Nonetheless, ICI experts shared “best practices” from around the world, creating a “trans-colonial” sphere of knowledge. Its ideas shaped colonial policies before 1945 and neocolonial practices thereafter; famous colonizers like Frederick Lugard and Hubert Lyautey were among its members. Wagner argues that the very consistency of the ICI’s calls for reform reveals the hollowness of imperial apologetics. Despite the group’s significant influence, the ICI has received little study. By conducting research in twenty archives across six countries, Wagner provides an account of the group’s institutional history, engaging critically with its central ideas and tracing its impact on policy. His central argument? “The ICI is the smoking gun that proves the immobility of colonialism” (350). Wagner’s approach is mainly historical, though he has read relevant sources in other disciplines. Chapter 5 draws from law and sociology to show how ICI experts like Cornelis van Vollenhoven used codification to manipulate indigenous laws for the benefit of colonizers. He draws from social theory, especially Foucault’s, to frame his interpretation of colonial reform as the search for “governmentality”—the control of colonies through elite knowledge and with the voluntary cooperation of the colonized. Through the ICI’s minutes and publications, Wagner reconstructs the group’s discourse of reformist colonialism. Chapter 3 explains the group’s standard discursive method. Colonial “experts” would begin by identifying a “stereotype” of successful colonialism (usually in Dutch Southeast Asia), which could be juxtaposed with unsuccessful ventures (often
非殖民化必须“要么是革命性的，要么是不存在的”，马丁尼诗人和政治家艾姆斯·卡萨伊尔(aimise csamsaire)宣称。只要殖民主义还在实行统治和征服之间的关系，就不能以任何实质性的方式“改革”殖民主义。国际殖民研究所(ICI, 1893-1982)——瓦格纳那部极具穿穿力的著作的主题——却不这么认为。ICI声称，在欧洲专家的指导下，殖民主体可以“自愿地”和“不放弃他们的文化和传统”成为全球资本主义社会的生产性贡献者(354)。它拒绝了现代化理论的自由普遍主义主张，转而主张本地化模式。尽管如此，ICI的专家们分享了来自世界各地的“最佳实践”，创造了一个“跨殖民”的知识领域。其思想塑造了1945年之前的殖民政策和此后的新殖民主义实践;著名的殖民者如弗雷德里克·卢加德和休伯特·利奥特利都是其中的成员。瓦格纳认为，ICI对改革的一贯呼吁揭示了帝国辩护的空洞。尽管该组织有着巨大的影响力，但ICI得到的研究却很少。通过对6个国家的20份档案进行研究，瓦格纳提供了该组织制度历史的描述，批判性地参与其核心思想，并追踪其对政策的影响。他的中心论点是什么?“ICI是证明殖民主义不可动摇的确凿证据”(350)。瓦格纳的方法主要是历史的，尽管他也读过其他学科的相关资料。第五章从法律和社会学的角度展示了像Cornelis van Vollenhoven这样的ICI专家是如何为了殖民者的利益而使用编纂来操纵土著法律的。他借鉴社会理论，特别是福柯的理论，将他对殖民改革的解释框定为对“治理”的探索——通过精英知识和被殖民者的自愿合作来控制殖民地。通过ICI的会议记录和出版物，瓦格纳重构了该组织关于改良主义殖民主义的话语。第三章解释了该小组的标准话语方法。殖民“专家”会首先确定成功殖民主义(通常在荷属东南亚)的“刻板印象”，并将其与不成功的冒险(通常是在东南亚)相提并论
{"title":"Colonial Internationalism and the Governmentality of Empire, 1893–1982 by Florian Wagner","authors":"B. Coates","doi":"10.1162/jinh_r_01911","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/jinh_r_01911","url":null,"abstract":"Decolonization must be either “revolutionary or inexistent,” declared the Martinican poet and politician Aimé Césaire (356). So long as it enforces a relationship between domination and subjugation, colonialism cannot be “reformed” in any substantive way. The International Colonial Institute (ICI, 1893–1982)—the subject of Wagner’s penetrating volume—begged to differ. The ICI claimed that under the guidance of European experts, colonial subjects could become productive contributors to global capitalist society “voluntarily” and “without renouncing their culture and traditions” (354). It rejected modernization theory’s claims of liberal universalism, arguing instead for localized models. Nonetheless, ICI experts shared “best practices” from around the world, creating a “trans-colonial” sphere of knowledge. Its ideas shaped colonial policies before 1945 and neocolonial practices thereafter; famous colonizers like Frederick Lugard and Hubert Lyautey were among its members. Wagner argues that the very consistency of the ICI’s calls for reform reveals the hollowness of imperial apologetics. Despite the group’s significant influence, the ICI has received little study. By conducting research in twenty archives across six countries, Wagner provides an account of the group’s institutional history, engaging critically with its central ideas and tracing its impact on policy. His central argument? “The ICI is the smoking gun that proves the immobility of colonialism” (350). Wagner’s approach is mainly historical, though he has read relevant sources in other disciplines. Chapter 5 draws from law and sociology to show how ICI experts like Cornelis van Vollenhoven used codification to manipulate indigenous laws for the benefit of colonizers. He draws from social theory, especially Foucault’s, to frame his interpretation of colonial reform as the search for “governmentality”—the control of colonies through elite knowledge and with the voluntary cooperation of the colonized. Through the ICI’s minutes and publications, Wagner reconstructs the group’s discourse of reformist colonialism. Chapter 3 explains the group’s standard discursive method. Colonial “experts” would begin by identifying a “stereotype” of successful colonialism (usually in Dutch Southeast Asia), which could be juxtaposed with unsuccessful ventures (often","PeriodicalId":46755,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Interdisciplinary History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48362494","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Bleeding Wound: The Soviet War in Afghanistan and the Collapse of the Soviet System by Yaacov Ro’i","authors":"E. Tasar","doi":"10.1162/jinh_r_01919","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/jinh_r_01919","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46755,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Interdisciplinary History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42345278","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Histories of Russia focus almost exclusively on discontinuities—the “Time of Troubles” in the sixteenth century, the Emancipation Act of 1861, the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Such emphases have reinforced a general view of Russian society as perpetually lurching from crisis to crisis. There is certainly value in the study of Russian upheaval; episodes of instability can shed light on larger questions about social and political organization in the past. But, according to Lankina, the (often overlooked) continuities across ruptures can teach us at least as much, as is borne out by the findings of her ambitious new study of the Russian middle class. In this book, Lankina investigates the reproduction of Russia’s small but (as she shows) constant bourgeois stratum from the imperial era, across the turmoil and upheaval of the twentieth century, to the postSoviet present day. She is interested in the transmission of values across generations and the implications of this phenomenon for social, political, and economic development. Can we connect those estates (socio-legal groups, or soslovii in Russian) associated with “bourgeois” values in the imperial period to the Soviet intelligentsia in the twentieth century, and further, to groups with more positive views of democratic reforms in Russia today? And can we draw any larger lessons from the Russian case? These are, as Lankina herself acknowledges, big, complicated, and difficult questions to answer; refreshingly, she approaches them as such. Instead of reducing the problem to one narrow question that she can address using data alone, she takes a truly interdisciplinary approach, consulting literatures and methodologies from a range of fields, including history, sociology, and quantitative political science. She uses both textual and quantitative evidence and formulates her hypotheses in relation to a broad range of disciplinary concepts from Weber’s notion of the Ständestaat and Bourdieu’s idea of “cultural capital” to de Vries’ “industrious revolution” and Piketty’s recent work on inequality. Lankina moves comfortably between micro-history and statistical analysis, between a local archive filled with textual sources and large data sets. She quickly introduces us to a local community in Samara province in the nineteenth century, the fortunes of which she follows across generations. These people’s actions and words—the way in which they perceived their social identity and values and the choices that they
{"title":"The Estate Origins of Democracy in Russia: From Imperial Bourgeoisie to Post-Communist Middle Class by Tomila Lankina","authors":"T. Dennison","doi":"10.1162/jinh_r_01918","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/jinh_r_01918","url":null,"abstract":"Histories of Russia focus almost exclusively on discontinuities—the “Time of Troubles” in the sixteenth century, the Emancipation Act of 1861, the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Such emphases have reinforced a general view of Russian society as perpetually lurching from crisis to crisis. There is certainly value in the study of Russian upheaval; episodes of instability can shed light on larger questions about social and political organization in the past. But, according to Lankina, the (often overlooked) continuities across ruptures can teach us at least as much, as is borne out by the findings of her ambitious new study of the Russian middle class. In this book, Lankina investigates the reproduction of Russia’s small but (as she shows) constant bourgeois stratum from the imperial era, across the turmoil and upheaval of the twentieth century, to the postSoviet present day. She is interested in the transmission of values across generations and the implications of this phenomenon for social, political, and economic development. Can we connect those estates (socio-legal groups, or soslovii in Russian) associated with “bourgeois” values in the imperial period to the Soviet intelligentsia in the twentieth century, and further, to groups with more positive views of democratic reforms in Russia today? And can we draw any larger lessons from the Russian case? These are, as Lankina herself acknowledges, big, complicated, and difficult questions to answer; refreshingly, she approaches them as such. Instead of reducing the problem to one narrow question that she can address using data alone, she takes a truly interdisciplinary approach, consulting literatures and methodologies from a range of fields, including history, sociology, and quantitative political science. She uses both textual and quantitative evidence and formulates her hypotheses in relation to a broad range of disciplinary concepts from Weber’s notion of the Ständestaat and Bourdieu’s idea of “cultural capital” to de Vries’ “industrious revolution” and Piketty’s recent work on inequality. Lankina moves comfortably between micro-history and statistical analysis, between a local archive filled with textual sources and large data sets. She quickly introduces us to a local community in Samara province in the nineteenth century, the fortunes of which she follows across generations. These people’s actions and words—the way in which they perceived their social identity and values and the choices that they","PeriodicalId":46755,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Interdisciplinary History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43256979","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In 1951, Handlin began his Pulitzer Prize-winning volume, The Uprooted, by centering the role of immigration in the history of the United States: “Once I thought to write a history of the immigrants in America. Then I discovered that the immigrants were American history.” Kane now makes an equally bold claim in The Immigrant Superpower, contending that the greatness and prosperity characterizing the American past and present are the products of immigration more than of any other factors. The subtitle of Kane’s volume was chosen with far more than alliteration in mind. In Kane’s view, newcomers’ “brawn” yielded economic dividends derived from their labor. Their “bravery” translated into patriotism and contributed to the military strength and security of the United States, and their “brains” fueled the innovation that has made the United States a model for every nation aspiring to world leadership. Kane’s book is a history but also unabashedly a work of advocacy. Conservative politically, Kane does not hesitate to criticize those Republicans, including Donald Trump, who push for a restrictive approach to immigration. Kane views immigration as an essential ingredient in preserving this country’s dominant place in the world order. He views immigration as both “central to American identity” and a “force multiplier,” essential to the grand strategy that today makes the United States “a dominant superpower,” capable of fending off foreign threats such as a “technologically surging China” (7, 10). Although seasoned with colorful anecdotes, Kane’s evidence is grounded in a carefully constructed quantitative analysis of economic data. What emerges is a portrait of how immigrants have enriched the United States with a “demographic vibrancy” expressed in their physical strength and vitality, their commitment to serving their country patriotically in the military, and the brainpower they contributed to their adopted home, evidenced by the number of patents acquired, companies started, and prestigious awards won in science and medicine (11). According to Kane, immigration advocacy has also proven to be the key to political success for American presidents. He counts Presidents Washington, Lincoln, Wilson, Kennedy, Johnson, Reagan, and George W. Bush as successful presidents because they advocated opening America’s doors to the foreign-born, while rejecting the criticisms of nativists. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency is clearly not among Kane’s favorites. Kane reminds readers of President Roosevelt’s “shameful turning away of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution” (66). In contrast, he praises President Truman who “encouraged the country to ‘fulfill our responsibilities to these suffering and homeless refugees of all faiths’” (90).
{"title":"The Immigrant Superpower: How Brains, Brawn, and Bravery Make America Stronger by Tim Kane","authors":"A. Kraut","doi":"10.1162/jinh_r_01922","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/jinh_r_01922","url":null,"abstract":"In 1951, Handlin began his Pulitzer Prize-winning volume, The Uprooted, by centering the role of immigration in the history of the United States: “Once I thought to write a history of the immigrants in America. Then I discovered that the immigrants were American history.” Kane now makes an equally bold claim in The Immigrant Superpower, contending that the greatness and prosperity characterizing the American past and present are the products of immigration more than of any other factors. The subtitle of Kane’s volume was chosen with far more than alliteration in mind. In Kane’s view, newcomers’ “brawn” yielded economic dividends derived from their labor. Their “bravery” translated into patriotism and contributed to the military strength and security of the United States, and their “brains” fueled the innovation that has made the United States a model for every nation aspiring to world leadership. Kane’s book is a history but also unabashedly a work of advocacy. Conservative politically, Kane does not hesitate to criticize those Republicans, including Donald Trump, who push for a restrictive approach to immigration. Kane views immigration as an essential ingredient in preserving this country’s dominant place in the world order. He views immigration as both “central to American identity” and a “force multiplier,” essential to the grand strategy that today makes the United States “a dominant superpower,” capable of fending off foreign threats such as a “technologically surging China” (7, 10). Although seasoned with colorful anecdotes, Kane’s evidence is grounded in a carefully constructed quantitative analysis of economic data. What emerges is a portrait of how immigrants have enriched the United States with a “demographic vibrancy” expressed in their physical strength and vitality, their commitment to serving their country patriotically in the military, and the brainpower they contributed to their adopted home, evidenced by the number of patents acquired, companies started, and prestigious awards won in science and medicine (11). According to Kane, immigration advocacy has also proven to be the key to political success for American presidents. He counts Presidents Washington, Lincoln, Wilson, Kennedy, Johnson, Reagan, and George W. Bush as successful presidents because they advocated opening America’s doors to the foreign-born, while rejecting the criticisms of nativists. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency is clearly not among Kane’s favorites. Kane reminds readers of President Roosevelt’s “shameful turning away of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution” (66). In contrast, he praises President Truman who “encouraged the country to ‘fulfill our responsibilities to these suffering and homeless refugees of all faiths’” (90).","PeriodicalId":46755,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Interdisciplinary History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49193293","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
successful practices respected indigenous traditions and attracted voluntary participation, and then lobby governments and private investors to bring these modalities to other colonies. Chapter 4 offers an especially revealing study of the Buitenzorg botanical garden inDutch Java, the plants and techniques ofwhichwere imported to German East Africa, the Belgian Congo, and French West Africa. But according toWagner, such supposed colonial success stories were inevitably based on “myths.”Theywere neither as profitable nor as transferrable as the experts claimed, and they actually relied on heavy doses of coercion and violence. The true function of places like Buitenzorg was ideological; they stood for the idea that trans-colonial science could improve colonialism. Thus, Wagner concludes that the main function of the ICI was not to improve life for colonial subjects, nor even to enhance the productivity of the colonies. Instead, it helped its members to “boost their careers as colonial experts” (349), with commensurate salaries, pensions, and respect. Chapters 6 to 9 trace the group’s lasting influence from the 1920s into the decolonization era. By the 1930s, it stood in opposition to the liberal reformism of the League of Nation’s Permanent Mandate Commission (PMC) and became a haven for fascists and their sympathizers from Italy, Germany, and Portugal. The organization—which renamed itself the Institute of Differing Civilizations (INCIDI) in 1949—even admitted war criminals and notorious antisemites. The group continued to embrace “cultural relativism” and local knowledge, arguing not only that the PMC’s liberal universalism reflected ignorant Eurocentrism but that prominent anticolonial nationalists were unrepresentative of the diverse desires of their people. At times, the significance of the ICI in shaping particular colonial policies can be difficult to ascertain from this book, and Wagner’s claims of wide INCIDI influence into the 1960s are not fully developed. Moreover, the book’s deep research can sometimes result in excessively dense passages. Wagner succeeds, however, in demonstrating the centrality of the ICI to discourses about colonial governance. That the group’s members promoted a remarkably consistent narrative of reform throughout its lifespan should interest the many scholars tracing the role of empire in the construction of twentieth-century internationalism and development.
{"title":"Saving the Children: Humanitarianism, Internationalism, and Empire by Emily Baughan","authors":"M. Barnett","doi":"10.1162/jinh_r_01912","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/jinh_r_01912","url":null,"abstract":"successful practices respected indigenous traditions and attracted voluntary participation, and then lobby governments and private investors to bring these modalities to other colonies. Chapter 4 offers an especially revealing study of the Buitenzorg botanical garden inDutch Java, the plants and techniques ofwhichwere imported to German East Africa, the Belgian Congo, and French West Africa. But according toWagner, such supposed colonial success stories were inevitably based on “myths.”Theywere neither as profitable nor as transferrable as the experts claimed, and they actually relied on heavy doses of coercion and violence. The true function of places like Buitenzorg was ideological; they stood for the idea that trans-colonial science could improve colonialism. Thus, Wagner concludes that the main function of the ICI was not to improve life for colonial subjects, nor even to enhance the productivity of the colonies. Instead, it helped its members to “boost their careers as colonial experts” (349), with commensurate salaries, pensions, and respect. Chapters 6 to 9 trace the group’s lasting influence from the 1920s into the decolonization era. By the 1930s, it stood in opposition to the liberal reformism of the League of Nation’s Permanent Mandate Commission (PMC) and became a haven for fascists and their sympathizers from Italy, Germany, and Portugal. The organization—which renamed itself the Institute of Differing Civilizations (INCIDI) in 1949—even admitted war criminals and notorious antisemites. The group continued to embrace “cultural relativism” and local knowledge, arguing not only that the PMC’s liberal universalism reflected ignorant Eurocentrism but that prominent anticolonial nationalists were unrepresentative of the diverse desires of their people. At times, the significance of the ICI in shaping particular colonial policies can be difficult to ascertain from this book, and Wagner’s claims of wide INCIDI influence into the 1960s are not fully developed. Moreover, the book’s deep research can sometimes result in excessively dense passages. Wagner succeeds, however, in demonstrating the centrality of the ICI to discourses about colonial governance. That the group’s members promoted a remarkably consistent narrative of reform throughout its lifespan should interest the many scholars tracing the role of empire in the construction of twentieth-century internationalism and development.","PeriodicalId":46755,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Interdisciplinary History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44929792","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
lack of an organizing framework (other than the panoramic question posed at the outset) is a major weakness. As a result, it reads more like a textbook than a scholarly work exploring a readily identifiable question and argument. It may well provide a foundation for subsequent research, but it misses an opportunity to explore pointed questions in greater depth. Despite these minor qualms, Altman’s informative and important book will undoubtedly benefit the next generation of scholars of the early Spanish Caribbean.
{"title":"Promised Lands: The British and the Ottoman Middle East by Jonathan Parry","authors":"L. Fawaz","doi":"10.1162/jinh_r_01933","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/jinh_r_01933","url":null,"abstract":"lack of an organizing framework (other than the panoramic question posed at the outset) is a major weakness. As a result, it reads more like a textbook than a scholarly work exploring a readily identifiable question and argument. It may well provide a foundation for subsequent research, but it misses an opportunity to explore pointed questions in greater depth. Despite these minor qualms, Altman’s informative and important book will undoubtedly benefit the next generation of scholars of the early Spanish Caribbean.","PeriodicalId":46755,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Interdisciplinary History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48891608","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Unsettled Plain: An Environmental History of the Late Ottoman Frontier by Chris Gratien","authors":"Isacar A. Bolaños","doi":"10.1162/jinh_r_01934","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/jinh_r_01934","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46755,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Interdisciplinary History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47223550","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
particularly extreme economic opportunity not often evident in human history. In a society where so much property was held in the “dead hand” (mortmain) of the Catholic Church—at least one-third of it by the end of the Middle Ages—what should have been the right way to redistribute it if the opportunity were to arise? The Reformation not only presented Europeans with new theological choices; it (perhaps inadvertently) also offered them the chance to restructure systems of property ownership in a truly radical way now that a plurality of all economic assets was up for grabs. Chung-Kim does not neglect to highlight the many disputes that arose between Reformed leaders and their secular princely (or urban) counterparts about how to redistribute that property. But Chung-Kim could have reflected much more deeply on the magnitude of this opportunity, the problems that it raised, and the new vistas that it opened. How much of the new economic thinking of the reformers— about poor relief, as well as about work and the household—should be attributed to the worsening conditions of the sixteenth century and how much to the shocking disruption of so much wealth at one time? More attention to the latter could have helped to flesh out more fully the titular “economics of faith.”
{"title":"Twisted Words: Torture and Liberalism in Imperial Britain by Katherine Judith Anderson","authors":"D. Gorman","doi":"10.1162/jinh_r_01914","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/jinh_r_01914","url":null,"abstract":"particularly extreme economic opportunity not often evident in human history. In a society where so much property was held in the “dead hand” (mortmain) of the Catholic Church—at least one-third of it by the end of the Middle Ages—what should have been the right way to redistribute it if the opportunity were to arise? The Reformation not only presented Europeans with new theological choices; it (perhaps inadvertently) also offered them the chance to restructure systems of property ownership in a truly radical way now that a plurality of all economic assets was up for grabs. Chung-Kim does not neglect to highlight the many disputes that arose between Reformed leaders and their secular princely (or urban) counterparts about how to redistribute that property. But Chung-Kim could have reflected much more deeply on the magnitude of this opportunity, the problems that it raised, and the new vistas that it opened. How much of the new economic thinking of the reformers— about poor relief, as well as about work and the household—should be attributed to the worsening conditions of the sixteenth century and how much to the shocking disruption of so much wealth at one time? More attention to the latter could have helped to flesh out more fully the titular “economics of faith.”","PeriodicalId":46755,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Interdisciplinary History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45092118","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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