ANXIETY, CHAOS, AND THE RAJ

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 777-787
Author(s):  
JOSHUA EHRLICH
Keyword(s):  
Indian Subcontinent ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
World War ◽  
Imperial Authority ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
History Of ◽  
Directing Attention ◽  
Second World

Chaos reigns – at least in the historiography of the Raj. It was once the consensus among historians that British imperial authority in the Indian subcontinent was secure for at least the century-and-a-half before the Second World War. Recently, however, this narrative has drawn a range of challenges. Prominently, Mark Condos and Jon Wilson have held that British imperial authority was chronically insecure. In their view, the irrational anxiety of generations of British officials produced a chaotic administration with minimal social purchase or ideological coherence. Instead of a confident state capable of acting as it chose, these historians have limned a psychologically embattled one incapable of acting except in the abstract, small scale, or short term. Their bold revision succeeds in dispelling the aura of indomitability that has often surrounded the Raj, and in directing attention to its overlooked discontents and weaknesses. Yet their characterization of the British regime as constantly and pervasively anxious is more an article of faith than a conclusion warranted by evidence. Nor do they explain how, if the regime suffered from permanent ‘chaos’ or ‘insecurity’, it managed to survive for some two hundred years. At the heart of Condos's and Wilson's approach is an effort to bypass texts that results, instead, in misreading them. It is largely by re-emphasizing rigorous textual methods, therefore, that Durba Ghosh offers a compelling alternative approach to the history of state vulnerability and disorder.

scholarly journals Third-Stream Orientalism: J. N. Farquhar, the Indian YMCA's Literature Department, and the Representation of South Asian Cultures and Religions (ca. 1910–1940)

2020 ◽  
Vol 79 (3) ◽  
pp. 659-683
Author(s):  
Harald Fischer-Tiné
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Indian Subcontinent ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Third Stream ◽  
Book Series ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second World

This article reconstructs the history of the Indian YMCA's Orientalist knowledge production in an attempt to capture a significant, if forgotten, transitional moment in the production and dissemination of scholarship on the religions and cultures of the Indian subcontinent. The YMCA's three Orientalist book series examined here flourished from the 1910s to the 1930s and represent a kind of third-stream approach to the study of South Asia. Inspired by the Christian fulfillment theory, “Y Orientalism” was at pains to differentiate itself from older polemical missionary writings. It also distanced itself from the popular “spiritual Orientalism” advocated by the Theosophical Society and from the philologically inclined “academic Orientalism” pursued in the Sanskrit departments of Western universities. The interest of the series’ authors in the region's present and the multifarious facets of its “little traditions,” living languages, arts, and cultures, as well as their privileging of knowledge that was generated “in the field” rather than in distant Western libraries, was unusual. Arguably, it anticipated important elements of the “area studies” approach to the Indian subcontinent that became dominant in Anglophone academia after the Second World War.

Turning Aliens into Socialists

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-93
Author(s):  
Jessica Moberg
Keyword(s):  
Outer Space ◽  
The United States ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Swedish History ◽  
Second World ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Highly Evolved

Immediately after the Second World War Sweden was struck by a wave of sightings of strange flying objects. In some cases these mass sightings resulted in panic, particularly after authorities failed to identify them. Decades later, these phenomena were interpreted by two members of the Swedish UFO movement, Erland Sandqvist and Gösta Rehn, as alien spaceships, or UFOs. Rehn argued that ‘[t]here is nothing so dramatic in the Swedish history of UFOs as this invasion of alien fly-things’ (Rehn 1969: 50). In this article the interpretation of such sightings proposed by these authors, namely that we are visited by extraterrestrials from outer space, is approached from the perspective of myth theory. According to this mythical theme, not only are we are not alone in the universe, but also the history of humankind has been shaped by encounters with more highly-evolved alien beings. In their modern day form, these kinds of ideas about aliens and UFOs originated in the United States. The reasoning of Sandqvist and Rehn exemplifies the localization process that took place as members of the Swedish UFO movement began to produce their own narratives about aliens and UFOs. The question I will address is: in what ways do these stories change in new contexts? Texts produced by the Swedish UFO movement are analyzed as a case study of this process.

ABCs of the Revolution

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 278-291
Author(s):  
Egor A. Yesyunin
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Special Significance ◽  
Development History ◽  
The People ◽  
Red Army ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second World ◽  
The Revolution

The article is devoted to the satirical agitation ABCs that appeared during the Civil War, which have never previously been identified by researchers as a separate type of agitation art. The ABCs, which used to have the narrow purpose of teaching children to read and write before, became a form of agitation art in the hands of artists and writers. This was facilitated by the fact that ABCs, in contrast to primers, are less loaded with educational material and, accordingly, they have more space for illustrations. The article presents the development history of the agitation ABCs, focusing in detail on four of them: V.V. Mayakovsky’s “Soviet ABC”, D.S. Moor’s “Red Army Soldier’s ABC”, A.I. Strakhov’s “ABC of the Revolution”, and M.M. Cheremnykh’s “Anti-Religious ABC”. There is also briefly considered “Our ABC”: the “TASS Posters” created by various artists during the Second World War. The article highlights the special significance of V.V. Mayakovsky’s first agitation ABC, which later became a reference point for many artists. The authors of the first satirical ABCs of the Civil War period consciously used the traditional form of popular prints, as well as ditties and sayings, in order to create images close to the people. The article focuses on the iconographic connections between the ABCs and posters in the works of D.S. Moor and M.M. Cheremnykh, who transferred their solutions from the posters to the ABCs.

B'nai B'rith on the European continent after World War Two

1992 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-126
Author(s):  
Hans Levy
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
The State ◽  
Jewish Organization ◽  
World War Two ◽  
World War ◽  
European Continent ◽  
History Of ◽  
State Of Israel ◽  
Second World

The focus of this paper is on the oldest international Jewish organization founded in 1843, B’nai B’rith. The paper presents a chronicle of B’nai B’rith in Continental Europe after the Second World War and the history of the organization in Scandinavia. In the 1970's the Order of B'nai B'rith became B'nai B'rith international. B'nai B'rith worked for Jewish unity and was supportive of the state of Israel.

The Nonviolent Struggle for Indian Freedom, 1905-19

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Hardiman
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Passive Resistance ◽  
Civil Resistance ◽  
Political Concept ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second World ◽  
Moral Stance

Much of the recent surge in writing about the practice of nonviolent forms of resistance has focused on movements that occurred after the end of the Second World War, many of which have been extremely successful. Although the fact that such a method of civil resistance was developed in its modern form by Indians is acknowledged in this writing, there has not until now been an authoritative history of the role of Indians in the evolution of the phenomenon.The book argues that while nonviolence is associated above all with the towering figure of Mahatma Gandhi, 'passive resistance' was already being practiced as a form of civil protest by nationalists in British-ruled India, though there was no principled commitment to nonviolence as such. The emphasis was on efficacy, rather than the ethics of such protest. It was Gandhi, first in South Africa and then in India, who evolved a technique that he called 'satyagraha'. He envisaged this as primarily a moral stance, though it had a highly practical impact. From 1915 onwards, he sought to root his practice in terms of the concept of ahimsa, a Sanskrit term that he translated as ‘nonviolence’. His endeavors saw 'nonviolence' forged as both a new word in the English language, and as a new political concept. This book conveys in vivid detail exactly what such nonviolence entailed, and the formidable difficulties that the pioneers of such resistance encountered in the years 1905-19.

History of the Second World War. B. H. Liddell Hart

1972 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 104-105
Author(s):  
Gordon A. Craig
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second World

scholarly journals Limiting the executive power after the Second World War: the invention of administrative science

2021 ◽  
pp. 002085232098559
Author(s):  
Céline Mavrot
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
World Order ◽  
Daily Practice ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
World War ◽  
Administrative Power ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second World ◽  
Administrative Science

This article analyses the emergence of administrative science in France in the wake of the Second World War. The birth of this discipline is examined through the history of its founders, a group of comparatist aiming at developing universal administrative principles. The post-war context prompted the creation of checks and balances against administrative power (through oversight of the legality of administrative action) and against the powers of nation states (through human rights and international organizations). Administrative science and comparative law were meant to rebuild international relations. The history of this discipline highlights a legal project to redefine the role and limits of executive power at the dawn of the construction of a new world order. Points for practitioners Looking at long-term developments in the science of administration helps to inform administrative practice by providing a historical and reflective perspective. This article shows how a new understanding of the administrative reality emerged after the fall of the totalitarian regimes of the first half of the 20th century. It highlights the different ways in which administrative power was controlled after the Second World War through greater oversight over administrative legality, the establishment of universal administrative principles and the proclamation of human rights. Questions of administrative legitimacy and the limitation of administrative power are still very much part of the daily practice of executive power, and represent a central aspect of administrative thinking.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document