‘Like a baby with a box of matches’: British scientists and the concept of ‘race’ in the inter-war period

2005 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 307-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
GAVIN SCHAFFER
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Scientific Communities ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
Perceived Need ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Racial Issues ◽  
Science And Politics ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Second World

Historians of science have often presented the inter-war period as a time when British scientific communities radically questioned existing scholarship on ‘race’. The ascendancy of genetics, and the perceived need to challenge Nazi ‘racial’ theory have been highlighted as pivotal issues in shaping this British revision of ‘racial’ ideas. This article offers a detailed analysis of British scientific thinking in the inter-war period. It questions whether historians have exaggerated or oversimplified the prevalence of anti-‘racial’ reform. It uses a wide range of scientific writings to consider issues of continuity and change in ‘racial’ thinking in mainstream British scientific communities. The article probes the relationship between science and politics, focusing on the extent to which ideological factors affected both the scientific agenda and conclusions as regards ‘racial’ issues. Far from dismissing the idea that events in the inter-war period triggered changes in the way in which British scientists dealt with ‘race’, the article argues that the seeds of the post-Second World War international scientific rejection of ‘race’ were sown in inter-war Britain amid considerable ambivalence and discord.We must remember that the investigator, whether a biologist, an economist, or a sociologist, is himself a part of history, and that if he ever forgets he is a part of history he will deceive his audience and deceive himself.J. B. S. Haldane, Heredity and Politics, 1938

scholarly journals Bastards, brothers, and unjust warriors: Enmity and ethics in Just War Cinema

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Finlay
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
World War ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
Popular Cinema ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Second World

AbstractHow do members of the general public come to regard some uses of violence as legitimate and others as illegitimate? And how do they learn to use widely recognised normative principles in doing so such as those encapsulated in the laws of war and debated by just war theorists? This article argues that popular cinema is likely to be a major source of influence especially through a subgenre that I call ‘Just War Cinema’. Since the 1950s, many films have addressed the moral drama at the centre of contemporary Just War Theory through the figure of the enemy in the Second World War, offering often explicit and sophisticated treatments of the relationship between thejus ad bellumand thejus in bellothat anticipate or echo the arguments of philosophers. But whereas Cold War-era films may have supported Just War Theory’s ambitions to shape public understanding, a strongly revisionary tendency in Just War Cinema since the late 1990s is just as likely to thwart them. The potential of Just War Cinema to vitiate efforts to shape wider attitudes is a matter that both moral philosophers and those concerned with disseminating the law of war ought to pay close attention to.

scholarly journals SPIRITS, POWER AND THE POLITICAL IMAGINATION IN LATE-COLONIAL GABON

Africa ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 82 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Cinnamon
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
The Political ◽  
Colonial Administration ◽  
Political Imagination ◽  
World War ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Political Events ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
Second World

ABSTRACTThrough narratives of an anti-‘fetish’ movement that swept through north-eastern Gabon in the mid-1950s, the present article traces the contours of converging political and religious imaginations in that country in the years preceding independence. Fang speakers in the region make explicit connections between the arrival of post-Second World War electoral politics, the anti-fetish movements, and perceptions of political weakening and marginalization of their region on the eve of independence. Rival politicians and the colonial administration played key roles in the movement, which brought in a Congolese ritual expert, Emane Boncoeur, and his two powerful spirits, Mademoiselle and Mimbare. These spirits, later recuperated in a wide range of healing practices, continue to operate today throughout northern Gabon and Rio Muni. In local imaginaries, these spirits played central roles in the birth of both regional and national politics, paradoxically strengthening the colonial administration and Gabonese auxiliaries in an era of pre-independence liberalization. Thus, regional political events in the 1950s rehearsed later configurations of power, including presidential politics, on the national stage.

scholarly journals To the question of the relationship between the brothers of Sheptytskyi and the Jews

2020 ◽  
pp. 159-178
Author(s):  
Ivan Matkovskyy
Keyword(s):  
World View ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
History Of ◽  
Deep Relationship ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Second World

The history of relations of the Sheptytskyj family and the Jewish people reaches back to those remote times when the representatives of the Sheptytskyi lineage held high and honorable secular and clerical posts, and the Jews, either upon invitation of King Danylo of Halych or King Casimir the Great, began to build up their own world in Halychyna. Throughout the whole life of Metropolitan Sheptytskyi and Blessed Martyr Klymentii, a thread of cooperation with the Jews is traceable. It should be noted that heroic deeds of the Sheptytskyi Brothers to save Jews during the Second World War were not purely circumstantial: they were preceded by a long-standing deep relationship with representatives of Jewish culture. In addition, the sense of responsibility of the Spiritual Pastor, as advocated by the Brothers, extended to all people of different religions and genesis with no exception. The world-view principles of Metropolitan Sheptytskyi are important for us in order to understand what was going on in the then society in attitude to the Jews. Also, of importance is the influence of the Metropolitan on Kasymyr Sheptytskyi, later Fr. Klymentii, because the Archbishop was not only his Brother, but also a church authority and the leader. And if from under the Metropolitan Sheptytskyi’s pen letters and pastorals were published, they were directives, instructions, edifications and explanations for the faithful and the clergy, and not at all, the products of His own reflections or personal experiences, which Archbishop Andrey wanted to share with the faithful. On the grounds of the available archive materials, an effort to reconstruct the chief moments of those relations was undertaken, aiming among others, to illustrate the fact that the saving of Jews during the Holocaust was not incidental, nor with any underlying reasons behind, but a natural manifestation of a good Christian tradition of «Love thy Neighbor», to which the Sheptytskyj were faithful. Keywords: Andrey Sheptytskyi, the Blessed Hieromartyr Klymentii Sheptytskyi, Jews, the Holocaust, Galicia, Righteous Among the Nations.

scholarly journals Axis Internationalism

2019 ◽  
pp. 20-56
Author(s):  
David Brydan
Keyword(s):  
International Cooperation ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Nazi Germany ◽  
New Order ◽  
World War ◽  
Axis Axis ◽  
Scientific Networks ◽  
Formed Part ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Second World

This chapter explores the relationship between Spain and the Axis powers during the Second World War. Spanish experts were involved in intensive exchange with Nazi Germany during the war. This formed part of a wider pattern of cooperation between Axis, Axis-aligned, and neutral states under the auspices of the Nazi ‘New Order’. This chapter argues that the scientific networks, conferences, and organizations promoted by Nazi Germany represented a form of ‘Axis internationalism’, which appropriated the language and practices of pre-war internationalism to promote the idea of collaborative continental order under Nazi leadership. Spanish experts, like many of their European counterparts, were willing to embrace Axis internationalism as a new, and in many ways improved, form of international cooperation. Their work highlights how internationalist structures and ideas, particularly within the ‘technical’ and humanitarian fields of health and medicine, could be appropriated by political projects from across the ideological spectrum.

scholarly journals CONSERVATIVE PARTY AND THE PROBLEMS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE IN THE EARLY YEARS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR (on the pages of “Diary of a diplomat” by I. M. Maisky)

2016 ◽  
pp. 32-37
Author(s):  
E. V. Khakhalkina
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Early Years ◽  
World War ◽  
Dominant Position ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Second World

The “Diary” of the Soviet diplomat I. M. Maisky, who worked in London for more than ten years first as a messenger, then as the Soviet ambassador to the UK, is one of the valuable sources for the interwar period and the Second World War. The “Diary” contains records of Maisky’s conversations with the leading British politicians and public figures and his own thoughts on a wide range of issues, including the problems of the British Empire. The author of the paper analyzes the views of the Tories on the prospects for the British Empire and the Commonwealth of the postwar period and reveals the plans for the reconstruction of the Empire and its transformation while maintaining the dominant position of Britain in the format of a new relationship with the dominions and colonies. The paper shows that within the British political establishment there was no consensus on the future of the empire and, as the materials of the “Diary of diplomat” evidence, the problem of the evolution of the Empire had a close relationship with other areas of foreign and domestic policy.

Children born of war during and after the Second World War

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabine Lee
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Final Part ◽  
World War ◽  
Contemporary Media ◽  
East And West ◽  
Media Reports ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Second World

This chapter explores the relationship between soldiers and local women in various theatres of war during World War II, tracing in particular nationalistic and racial undercurrents in the development of national policies vis-à-vis,military-civilian relations. It traces in particular Nazi policies in both East and West with view to eugenics, as well as Allied policies in preparing for and implementing post-war occupations in Germany and Austria, including guidance for soldiers on relations with the (former) enemy. The final part of the chapter gives a voice to children born of war themselves. Using a variety of sources ranging from ego-documents including autobiographies and memoirs as well as interviews and narratives as well as contemporary media reports, it analyses the CBOW reflections on their lifecourses.

Allergic disease

2019 ◽  
pp. 129-180
Author(s):  
Gavin Spickett
Keyword(s):  
Allergic Reaction ◽  
Allergic Disease ◽  
Allergic Diseases ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Differential Diagnoses ◽  
Atopic Diseases ◽  
World War ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Second World

Allergic diseases are common: it has been estimated that 15% of the population will suffer from some sort of allergic reaction during their lifetime. There has been an increase in atopic diseases since the Second World War. This chapter discusses the presentation, immunological features, diagnosis, testing, and treatment for a wide range of allergic diseases. When appropriate, differential diagnoses are included.

Agricultural Aviation

1960 ◽  
Vol 64 (590) ◽  
pp. 87-92
Author(s):  
A. H. Wheeler
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Chemical Forms ◽  
World War ◽  
The Past ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Agricultural Chemistry ◽  
The World ◽  
General Improvement ◽  
Main Factors ◽  
Second World

The first International Agricultural Aviation Conference, held at the College of Aeronautics at Cranfield between the 15th and 18th of September 1959, was well timed to mark one stage in the development of the art of airborne farming—it was the stage when the art ceased to be mainly experimental and became essentially a commercial business.Intermittently for the past thirty years, in various parts of the world, attempts have been made with varying degrees of economic and practical success to do certain operations connected with farming, forestry or other allied activities. Two main factors within the past decade have served to intensify the interest and activity in the art. One important factor is the general improvement in aircraft, including helicopters, coupled with the very large number of relatively suitable ones which became redundant (and therefore cheap) at the end of the Second World War. The other factor, equal in importance, concerns the development of the science of agricultural chemistry which has given the farmer a new and wide range of fertilisers, selective weed killers and other chemical forms of pest control which are effective in reasonably small bulk.

scholarly journals Friends in war: Sweden between solidarity and self-help, 1939–1945

2020 ◽  
pp. 001083672090438
Author(s):  
Arash Heydarian Pashakhanlou ◽  
Felix Berenskötter
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Second World War ◽  
The Novel ◽  
World War ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Self Help ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Winter War ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Second World

This article scrutinizes the assumption that friends support each other in times of war. Picking up the notion that solidarity, or ‘other-help’, is a key feature of friendship between states, the article explores how states behave when a friend is attacked by an overwhelming enemy. It directs attention to the trade-off between solidarity and self-help that governments face in such a situation and makes the novel argument that the decision about whether and how to support the friend is significantly influenced by assessments of the distribution of material capabilities and the relationship the state has with the aggressor. This proposition is supported empirically in an examination of Sweden’s response to its Nordic friends’ need for help during the Second World War – to Finland during the 1939–1940 ‘Winter War’ with the Soviet Union, and to Norway following the invasion of Germany from 1940 to 1945.

‘Travelling is a Pleasure …’ Leisure Control, Tourism and Images of the Other in the Iberian Fascist Dictatorships

2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-178
Author(s):  
Daniel Lanero Táboas
Keyword(s):  
Leisure Time ◽  
Second World War ◽  
The Other ◽  
State Control ◽  
World War ◽  
Franco Regime ◽  
National Image ◽  
Neighbouring Country ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Second World

This article examines the relationship between Francoism and the Portuguese Estado Novo in the context of state control of workers’ leisure time. The two Iberian Fascist dictatorships reacted to the international political isolation they were experiencing by seeking to strengthen their mutual ties during a period extending from the end of the Second World War until the mid-1950s. In the sphere of leisure, this was accomplished by means of two social tourism programmes: hosting workers from the neighbouring country in state holiday centres, and organizing trips in order to get to know the monuments and culture of the other country. These trips and vacations were used by the Franco Regime and the Estado Novo as a means of political and ideological indoctrination of workers. They were also intended to improve the perception of the national identity among the visitors, thus projecting a certain national image abroad.

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