Census and Sensibilities in Sarajevo

2006 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fran Markowitz

During the latter part of the twentieth century, there was a country called Yugoslavia. Built on the ruins of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the post-World War II Socialist Federated Republic of Yugoslavia was an ethnically diverse state comprised of six republics, which, by the 1960s, was committed to a foreign policy of non-alignment and to the domestic programs of worker self–management and “brotherhood and unity” among its peoples (see, e.g., Banac 1984; P. Ramet 1985; Shoup 1968; Zimmerman 1987). Like most other European states, the decennial census became a defining feature of Yugoslavia's sovereignty and modernity (Kertzer and Arel 2002: 7).

Author(s):  
Daishiro Nomiya

High modernity claims that the modernity project gave rise to institutional organs of modern nation states, culminating in an emergence of ultra-military states with wartime economy in the early twentieth century. It also argues that the same developmental pattern continued to dominate in the post-World War II period. This chapter examines this high-modernity thesis, employing Japan and Hiroshima as cases to be analyzed. Against the high-modernity thesis, many believe that Japan had a historical disjuncture in 1945, being ultramilitary before the end of World War II and a peaceful nation after. Examinations show that, while the modernity project controlled a large-scale historical process in Japan, it met vehement resistance, and became stranded in Hiroshima.


Author(s):  
Neilton Clarke

Gutai Art Association [Gutai Bijutsu Kyōkai] [具体美術協会] was an influential post-World War II Japanese avant-garde collective with an outward-looking mindset. Founded in 1954 in Ashiya, near Osaka, by Japanese artist Jirō Yoshihara (1905–1972), it had fifty-nine members over the course of its eighteen-year lifespan. Gutai—meaning ‘‘embodiment’’ and ‘‘concreteness’’—saw its artists engage a plethora of media and presentation contexts, often beyond gallery walls and frequently with more emphasis upon process than on finished product. A unifying factor among its multifarious tendencies was a spirit of adventure, exemplified by Yoshihara’s oft-cited call to ‘‘do what no one has done before.’’ Embracing performance, theatricality, and outdoor manifestations, with a characteristic impromptu modus operandi, Gutai’s experimental tendencies and liberal ideals breathed new life into art and into a society remaking itself following the cataclysm and repressions of World War II. As Japan entered the 1960s, consolidating its economy and engagement with the rest of the world, the decidedly offbeat stance of Gutai’s earlier years assumed a cooler demeanor, due in part to nation-wide technological advancement, growing internationalism, and an evolving audience base and receptivity. The Gutai group disbanded following Yoshihara’s passing in 1972.


1999 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gavin Wright

This address urges Americanists to take the post–World War II era on board as economic history, using the Civil Rights Revolution to set an example. The speed and sweepof the movement's success illustrates the dynamics of an “unanticipated revolution” as analyzed by Timur Kuran, to be grouped with famous historical surprises such as the triumph of British antislavery and the fall of Soviet communism. The evidence confirms that the breakthroughs of the 1960s constituted an economic as well as a political revolution, in many respects an economic revolution for the entire southern region, as well as for African-Americans.


2021 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-114
Author(s):  
Jakub Harašta

Over the course of the twentieth century, Japan has experienced a radical shift in its self-perception. After World War II, Japan embraced a peaceful and anti-militarist identity, which was based on its war-prohibiting Constitution and the foreign policy of the Yoshida doctrine. For most of the twentieth century, this identity was unusually stable. In the last couple of decades, however, Japan’s self-perception and foreign policy seem to have changed. Tokyo has conducted a number of foreign policy actions as well as symbolic internal gestures that would have been unthinkable a few decades ago and that symbolize a new and more confident Japan. Japanese politicians – including Prime Minister Abe Shinzō – have adopted a new discourse depicting pacifism as a hindrance, rather than asset, to Japan’s foreign policy. Does that mean that “Japan is back”? In order to better understand the dynamics of contemporary Japan, Kolmaš joins up the dots between national identity theory and Japanese revisionism. The book shows that while political elites and a portion of the Japanese public call for re-articulation of Japan’s peaceful identity, there are still societal and institutional forces that prevent this change from entirely materializing.


2014 ◽  
Vol 88 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gelina Harlaftis

Aristotle Onassis was a leading figure in creating the new global tanker business in the second half of the twentieth century. This article examines the first thirty years of his career, before he became renowned worldwide, setting his business in the context of global shipping developments. Onassis is the most famous of the shipping tycoons that transformed maritime business in the post–World War II transitional period. He is among those “new men”—Greek, Norwegian, Danish, American, Japanese, or Hong Kong shipowners—who replaced the old order of the traditional British Empire shipowners. These new pioneers established the global shipping business in the era of American dominance.


Author(s):  
Scott C. Esplin

During the second half of the twentieth century, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormonism) returned in a formal and dramatic way to Nauvoo, Illinois. This chapter discusses that return, beginning with the restoration work of J. LeRoy Kimball and the organization he headed, Nauvoo Restoration Incorporated. Over a period a several decades, Kimball led a team of renowned archaeologists and historians to restore Nauvoo into a Midwestern version of Colonial Williamsburg. Eventually, however, tensions between the historical and the religious led to a shift in emphasis for the site, as those directing Nauvoo Restoration embraced the proselytizing potential among the thousands who took to the road in the post-World War II tourism boom, visiting sites like Nauvoo.


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