‘These are not really my proper jobs’: Searching for a role, January 1932 – April 1933

1995 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 399-423
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
National Government ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Outward Appearance ◽  
Proper Role ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Valuable Role

Participation in the first brief National Government had disabused Chamberlain of many of his fondest illusions. Before the crisis he believed he still had a uniquely valuable role to play in foreign affairs and that others recognised such a claim to the Foreign Office. He also believed his voice carried considerable weight in party councils. The crisis and its aftermath appeared to suggest that this was not so. Or at least, it showed him that Baldwin and MacDonald had other ideas. While not entirely the same thing, such a realisation hurt him more rather than less. By the time the initial crisis had passed, Chamberlain had come to recognise that his ministerial career was at an end. Secure in a seat he intended to hold for only one more Parliament, he felt he could now ‘sing [his] Nunc Dimittis politically’. Many felt that this spelt the end of Chamberlain's political influence as well as his ministerial career. Even before the 1929 election, critics like Amery had believed that his proper role was as ‘the obvious successor to Balfour as principal Elder Statesman in a non-administrative office’ Certainly Chamberlain gave every outward appearance of being more rooted firmly in the parliaments of the late nineteenth than in the twentieth century. In his dress, manner and parliamentary conduct he seemed to many observers to be a charming anachronism. Yet such appearances were deceptive. For the next eighteen months Chamberlain was plunged into the depths of depression as he sought to accommodate himself to these new circumstances and to find a new role for himself — or even to discover whether there still remained a useful role for him to fulfil.

‘I am going through a mental hell’: Political crisis and the Admiralty, August – December 1931

1995 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 377-397
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Young Men ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
National Government ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
Eventual Outcome

Austen Chamberlain did not play a significant role in the events leading up to the political crisis or the decision to form a National Government on 24 August 1931. The eventual outcome of those developments, however, delivered a bitter blow to his self-esteem and marked a major watershed in his career. Had the Conservatives won the 1929 election, Chamberlain believed Baldwin would have returned him to the Foreign Office as he had promised. He continued to nurture this expectation throughout the period in Opposition. Even after being struck forcibly by the ‘violent animus against the “Old Gang”’ and the very specific attacks upon his foreign policy in Egypt and China at the Caxton Hall meeting in October 1930, he still consoled himself with the thought that none of his colleagues were excluded from criticism; that the critics consisted mainly of reactionary, disreputable or disgruntled groups (often all three) without ‘many young men of a decent type’; and that such grousing was symptomatic of the frustration engendered by Baldwin's lack of leadership and a natural impatience for youth to have its chance. As a result, he remained content to believe that not only did he still have much to contribute in foreign affairs but that there was no one else with a comparable claim to the portfolio.

The Reorganization of the Department of State

1944 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 289-301
Author(s):  
Walter H. C. Laves ◽  
Francis O. Wilcox
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Federal Agencies ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Basic Pattern ◽  
Department Of State ◽  
Administrative Organization ◽  
The Public ◽  
World Power ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
At Home

For many years there has been widespread discussion of the need for reorganizing the Department of State. Students, publicists, members of Congress, and members of the Department itself have repeatedly pointed out that the Department has not been geared up to performing the functions required of the foreign office of a great twentieth-century world power.The chief criticisms of the Department have been four: (1) that there was lacking a basic pattern of sound administrative organization, (2) that the type of personnel found both at home and abroad was inadequate for the job required in foreign affairs today, (3) that the Department was too far removed from the public and from Congress, and (4) that it was not prepared to provide leadership for, and maintain the necessary relations with, other federal agencies.

The Introduction of Plantations into East Sumatra and its Socio-economic Impacts, 1863-1929

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 563-576
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
Local Resistance ◽  
Short Period ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Fierce Competition ◽  
Plantation Crops ◽  
Colonial Government ◽  
Economic Regions

The goal of this article is to examine the introduction of plantations into East Sumatra (Indonesia) in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Attention is given to the five most important plantation crops, namely tobacco, rubber, oil palm, tea, and fiber. The article analyzes the economic and social transformation of the region as a consequence of the rapid expansion of plantations. Within a short period of time, East Sumatra emerged to become one of the most dynamic economic regions of Southeast Asia. The development of the region and the needs of a source of protection for Dutch planters in face of fierce competition from other Western companies and local resistance encouraged the Dutch colonial government to establish effective authority in East Sumatra. Received 4th June 2020; Revised 15th September 2020; Accepted 26th September 2020

Faeries, Aliens, and Leviathans: Science and Fantasy in Ian McDonald's King of Morning, Queen of Day

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 290-303
Author(s):  
Richard Howard
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Science Studies ◽  
Irish Studies ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Politics And Religion ◽  
Unexplored Area ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Cultural Movement

Irish science fiction is a relatively unexplored area for Irish Studies, a situation partially rectified by the publication of Jack Fennell's Irish Science Fiction in 2014. This article aims to continue the conversation begun by Fennell's intervention by analysing the work of Belfast science fiction author Ian McDonald, in particular King of Morning, Queen of Day (1991), the first novel in what McDonald calls his Irish trilogy. The article explores how McDonald's text interrogates the intersection between science, politics, and religion, as well as the cultural movement that was informing a growing sense of a continuous Irish national identity. It draws from the discipline of Science Studies, in particular the work of Nicholas Whyte, who writes of the ways in which science and colonialism interacted in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Ireland.

Scottish Missionaries, ‘Protestant Hinduism’ and the Scottish Sense of Empire in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-century India

2007 ◽  
Vol 86 (2) ◽  
pp. 278-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Constable
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Western India ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Free Church ◽  
Intellectual Engagement ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Church

This article examines the Scottish missionary contribution to a Scottish sense of empire in India in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Initially, the article reviews general historiographical interpretations which have in recent years been developed to explain the Scottish relationship with British imperial development in India. Subsequently the article analyses in detail the religious contributions of Scottish Presbyterian missionaries of the Church of Scotland and the Free Church Missions to a Scottish sense of empire with a focus on their interaction with Hindu socioreligious thought in nineteenth-century western India. Previous missionary historiography has tended to focus substantially on the emergence of Scottish evangelical missionary activity in India in the early nineteenth century and most notably on Alexander Duff (1806–78). Relatively little has been written on Scottish Presbyterian missions in India in the later nineteenth century, and even less on the significance of their missionary thought to a Scottish sense of Indian empire. Through an analysis of Scottish Presbyterian missionary critiques in both vernacular Marathi and English, this article outlines the orientalist engagement of Scottish Presbyterian missionary thought with late nineteenth-century popular Hinduism. In conclusion this article demonstrates how this intellectual engagement contributed to and helped define a Scottish missionary sense of empire in India.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Asle Toje
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Present State ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Policy Debate ◽  
Imperial Germany ◽  
Secretary Of State ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
British Foreign Office ◽  
German Parliament

We do not want to place anyone into the shadow, we also claim our place in the sun.” In a foreign policy debate in the German parliament on December 6. 1897 the German Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Bernhard von Bülow, articulated the foreign policy aspirations of the ascendant Wilhelmine Germany. This proved easier said than done. In 1907, Eyre Crowe of the British Foreign Office penned his famous memorandum where he accounted for “the present state of British relations with France and Germany.” He concluded that Britain should meet imperial Germany with “unvarying courtesy and consideration” while maintaining “the most unbending determination to uphold British rights and interests in every part of the globe.”...

Sed ubi Socrates currit? On the Gettier Problem before Gettier

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Risto Hilpinen
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Belief System ◽  
Gettier Problem ◽  
Current Belief ◽  
The Future ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Gettier Problem ◽  
The Way ◽  
Forward Looking

Medieval philosophers presented Gettier-type objections to the commonly accepted view of knowledge as firmly held true belief, and formulated additional conditions that meet the objections or analyzed knowledge in a way that is immune to the Gettier-type objections. The proposed conditions can be divided into two kinds: backward-looking conditions and forward-looking conditions. The former concern an inquirer’s current belief system and the way the inquirer acquired her beliefs, the latter refer to what the inquirer may come to learn in the future and how she can respond to objections. Some conditions of knowledge proposed in late nineteenth- and twentieth-century epistemology can be regarded as variants of the conditions put forward by medieval authors.

A Historiographical Interlude

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan D. Teubner
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Late Nineteenth

The ‘Historiographical Interlude’ presents a brief overview of the cultural, social, and political changes that occur between Augustine’s death in 430 CE and Boethius’ earliest theological writings (c.501 CE). When Augustine, Boethius, and Benedict are treated together in one unified analysis, several historiographical challenges emerge. This Interlude addresses several of these challenges and argues that trends within late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century scholarship established some unfounded interpretive biases. In particular, this section will discuss the contributions of Adolf von Harnack and Henri Irénée Marrou, focusing on how they contributed, in diverse ways, to the neglect of sixth-century Italy as a significant geographical site in the development of the Augustinian tradition.

Cultural diplomacy and the British Council: 1934 — 1939

1978 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 244-265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip M. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Diplomacy ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
British Government ◽  
International Peace ◽  
British Council ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
Political Form

In November, 1934, the British Council for Relations with Other Countries was founded on the initiative of the Foreign Office. The decision to establish a body specifically designed to conduct cultural propaganda overseas on behalf of the British Government was, perhaps, the most constructive peacetime response to the growing realization that more positive measures were required to counter the detrimental effects of aggressive foreign propaganda upon British interests and prestige. The British Council, which continued to operate under the auspices of the Foreign Office, offered a new and alternative approach to the traditional conduct of foreign affairs: the practice of cultural diplomacy. It was believed that cultural propaganda — broadly interpreted as the dissemination of British ideals and beliefs in a general rather than specifically political form – would not only serve to enhance British influence and prestige abroad, but would also effectively further the wider ideals of international peace and understanding.

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