Synthetic technocracy: Dutch scientific intellectuals in science, society and culture, 1880–1950

2010 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID BANEKE
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Educational Reform ◽  
Western Society ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Dutch Society ◽  
Political Fragmentation ◽  
Science Society ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
Late Nineteenth

AbstractIn the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, changing social and cultural climates challenged the position of scientists in Western society. Ringer and Harwood have described how scientists reacted by adopting either pragmatist or ‘comprehensive’ styles of thought. In this article, I will show how a group of Dutch intellectuals, including many scientists, came up with an alternative approach to the dilemmas of modernity, and eventually became influential in shaping Dutch society. They combined elements of both styles into what I call a ‘synthetic technocrat’ ideology, a reaction against intellectual and political fragmentation. These ideas were often combined with pleas for educational reform, culminating in a plea for gebildete Tatkraft. I will analyse the development of the synthetic technocrat movement from the late nineteenth century into the 1940s. During this period, the movement became increasingly political in nature, but in a radically different way to comparable movements in other countries, especially Germany.

‘This Life of Misery and Shame’: Female Prostitution in Guatemala City, 1880–1920

1986 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 333-353 ◽  
Author(s):  
David McCreery
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
National Development ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Western Society ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Guatemala City ◽  
Agricultural Export ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Impact

A number of recent studies1 suggest that prostitution – ‘The act or practice of indulging in promiscuous sexual relations, especially for money’2 – in western society increased dramatically in the late nineteenth century, both in real terms and in popular consciousness. ‘Large scale, conspicuous prostitution’, they argue, ‘was a by-product of the first, explosive stage in the growth of the modern, industrial city…’ It is a proposition of this article that such changes were, in fact, far more widespread. From the evidence of Guatemala it appears that prostitution also increased during these years in agricultural export societies. Under the impact of demands from industrializing nations, colonial and neo-colonial regimes overhauled domestic economic and social structures to increase raw material and food production for export. Unprecedented but unstable economic prosperity, urbanization, and the social disorganization resulting from the implementation of systems of forced labour and removal from the land created a climate propitious for an increase in and institutionalization of commerical sex. This paper is an examination of the growth of female prostitution in late nineteenth-century Guatemala City, of the situation and attitudes of the women involved, and of state efforts to control the traffic. More broadly, it argues that attempts to regulate prostitution must be understood as part of a liberal drive to mobilize and control society as a whole in the interest of a class-defined vision of national development.

Late Nineteenth-Century Anglican Missionary Expansion: A Consideration of some Non-Anglican Sources of Inspiration

1978 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 349-365
Author(s):  
Andrew Porter
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Western Society ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Missionary Movement ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Published Research

More than a decade ago, Max Warren suggested that the nature of protestant missionary expansion in the last quarter of the nineteenth century presented ‘some of the most perplexing features in the history of the modern missionary movement’; but the extensive ‘painstaking research’ which he called for into the metropolitan roots of that movement has hardly yet been forthcoming. Historians have more usually preferred to direct their attention to the impact of western missions outside Europe, and to consider their contribution to the modernisation of the non-European world. This growing body of published research unquestionably aids the would-be historian of metropolitan motives, but—for reasons requiring too much space for elucidation here—also makes his own work the more necessary if the expansive forces within western society are to be clearly understood and placed in perspective.

Islamic Modernism in the Works of Jamaluddin Al-Afghani and Syed Ahmed Khan

2021 ◽  
pp. 469-481
Author(s):  
Priyanka Chandra
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Educational Reform ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Political Islam ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Nationalist Movements ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Islamic Modernism

Linkages between religion and politics have engaged the interest of scholars for centuries. Two thinkers, whose works are central to these inter-linkages are Jamaluddin al-Afghani and Syed Ahmed Khan. Both were Islamic modernists in the late nineteenth century who sought to reform religion by engaging with modernity. They have also contributed significantly to shaping the nationalist movements in West Asia and India respectively. This chapter will examine their ideas on important issues like religious and educational reform, nationalism and Pan-Islamism, differences and contrasts in their ideologies and their contributions to Islamic modernism. Through this examination this chapter will highlight the relevance of their contributions to the study of contemporary political Islam.

Islamic Modernism in the Works of Jamaluddin Al-Afghani and Syed Ahmed Khan

2016 ◽  
pp. 68-85
Author(s):  
Priyanka Chandra
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Educational Reform ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Political Islam ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Nationalist Movements ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Islamic Modernism

Linkages between religion and politics have engaged the interest of scholars for centuries. Two thinkers, whose works are central to these inter-linkages are Jamaluddin al-Afghani and Syed Ahmed Khan. Both were Islamic modernists in the late nineteenth century who sought to reform religion by engaging with modernity. They have also contributed significantly to shaping the nationalist movements in West Asia and India respectively. This chapter will examine their ideas on important issues like religious and educational reform, nationalism and Pan-Islamism, differences and contrasts in their ideologies and their contributions to Islamic modernism. Through this examination this chapter will highlight the relevance of their contributions to the study of contemporary political Islam.

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