For Science and Country: History Writing, Nation Building, and National Embeddedness in Third Republic France, 1870–1914

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Guillaume Lancereau
Keyword(s):  
Nation Building ◽  
Third Republic ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
History Writing ◽  
The West ◽  
Academic Competition ◽  
The Past ◽  
Methodological Nationalism ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Territorial Claims

This article examines late nineteenth and early twentieth-century historiographical practices and convictions in Third Republic France. It shifts the focus from the question of whether French academic historians were nationalists to the issue of how they were nationalists. If republican academic historians took a critical stance on nationalist distortions of the past, they nevertheless associated the teaching of history with patriotism and opposed historiographical “pan-Germanism” in ways favorable to French cultural and territorial claims. Meanwhile, the growing internationalization of the field stimulated scholarly competition across the West and spurred reflections about nationals’ epistemological privilege over national histories, methodological nationalism, and the invention of national historiographical traditions. Uncovering the anxieties of continual debate with foreign historians and the nationalist right wing, this article offers a prehistory of present-day dilemmas over global, national, and nationalist histories in an international field characterized by structural inequalities and academic competition.

Murderous Mumbo-Jumbo: The Significance of Fraternity to Three Criminal Organizations in Late Nineteenth-Century America

2015 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 1067-1088
Author(s):  
KRISTOFER ALLERFELDT
Keyword(s):  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
The West ◽  
Nineteenth Century America ◽  
The Past ◽  
Criminal Organizations ◽  
Mumbo Jumbo ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Over the past thirty years or so the study of American fraternity has been used to explore a variety of phenomena in the nation's evolution, especially around the turn of the twentieth century. Fraternities have been used to understand the exploration, taming and exploitation of the West. They have been shown to represent proof of the various turn-of-the century crises of gender, race and ethnicity. They have been seen as the very embodiment of bygone caring, sharing, communities. However, among the aspects to have escaped attention is the importance of fraternity in criminal organizations. Given that crime, then as now, was seen as one of the most pressing of social issues, and given that over these years there was a deep suspicion that there were a variety of ultra-secret fraternities organizing, facilitating and manipulating wide-ranging criminal activities, this may be considered a little odd. This article investigates the idea that there was really such a thing as a genuine criminal “fraternity.” Looking at three of the most famous of such organizations – the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), the Molly Maguires and the Mafia – it demonstrates that not only were ideas of fraternity central to their very existence, but they are also crucial to our understanding both of them and of the period in which they were situated.

Cultural heritage wars may affect Israeli-Arab ties

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
West Bank ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The West ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us ◽  
Peace Accords ◽  
Trump Administration

Significance The ‘Abraham Peace Accords’ between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and between Israel and Bahrain, were signed in September, after being brokered by the US Trump administration. Deals with Sudan and Morocco have since followed. Impacts Palestinian complaints will become more pointed as other Arab-Israeli ties strengthen and tourism increases. The Biden administration could engage in more scrutiny of right-wing Israeli claims, especially over the West Bank settlements. As right-wing politicians entrench their dominance, archaeological finds will drive more nationalistic interpretations of the past.

A View of the Past: Action Française Historiography and its Socio-Political Function

1976 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Third Republic ◽  
Popular Education ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
General Belief ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Function ◽  
History Books ◽  
The Church ◽  
Do So

There seems to have existed in France, at least after 1830, a general belief in the enormous social and political potenntial of education. Socialists, even after the penetration of vulgar Marxism, regarded ignorance as the great obstacle to working-class emancipation; democrats of all shades believed that the authentic Republic would emerge when a secular state primary education system became established; while, for conservatives, to entrust popular education to the Church was the only hope of preventing radical social change or collapse. Education became, therefore, one of the central political issues of the Third Republic. Recent work on the history and civics textbooks used in schools has given some indication of the picture of their society and its history which French schoolchildren were presented with, and of the way in which this may have guided their future attitudes and reactions. It is always difficult to assess the influence and importance of such material in the formation of mentalités, but, in order to do so, it must be remembered that the school textbooks were not the only formers of popular attitudes in this sphere. Not only did state school and Catholic textbooks present rival views, albeit mainly to two distinct audiences, but the period from 1900 to 1940 saw a flourishing of popular history books addressed to adults. These were mainly of Right-wing inspiration and were directed against the academic orthodoxy of the Republican University. A central role was played in this enterprise of historiographical vulgarization by the nationalist and royalist Action Francaise movement, whose ideology was often explicitly or implicitly present in it. The aim of this paper is to analyse the view of the past presented by the Action Franchise historians, and to suggest that the function of their historiography was to project a particular conception of what society was and ought to be like.

The Occupied Territories, Gaza, and Israel’s Recent Slide to Authoritarianism

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-292
Author(s):  
Menachem Mautner
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Press ◽  
Occupied Territories ◽  
Fascist Regime ◽  
The Government ◽  
Israel Defense Forces

AbstractIn recent years there have been numerous warnings in the press and in the social networks that Israel is about to convert its liberal democracy into a fascist regime. This Article argues that the occupation of the West Bank stands at the root of the most important processes that have been taking place in Israel in the past five decades. One of those processes is the erosion of Israel’s liberalism. I claim that the prolongation of the occupation is the central, lasting threat to Israel’s liberalism. In essence, the occupation breeds denunciations of and protests against the government and the Israel Defense Forces, and these, in turn, bring about measures on the part of the government and right-wing civil society organizations that undermine or threaten Israel’s liberalism. In addition, the full-scale wars between Israel and Gaza, and the continuation of violence between the parties in the periods between the wars, undermine or threaten Israel’s liberalism.

Populism and Cosmopolitanism as a Unitary Structure of Global Systemic Process

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 66-76
Author(s):  
Jonathan Friedman ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Right Wing ◽  
The West ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Past ◽  
Systemic Process ◽  
Right Wing Extremism

Populism is discussed here in terms of the larger global systemic matrix in which it occurs. It is suggested that it is not, as has been claimed so often, recently, somehow related to what is labelled as right-wing extremism. It is an expression of an aspiration to sovereignty, control over one’s conditions of existence and its links to either left or right are based on that aspiration. And, of course, right and left are themselves terms that have shifted or even been inverted over the past 30 years. The core argument is that populism and cosmopolitanism form a complementary opposition that has emerged as a product of the hegemonic decline of the West.

scholarly journals A New Dawn in Nationalism Studies? Some Fresh Incentives to Overcome Historiographical Nationalism

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Storm
Keyword(s):  
State Formation ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Nation State ◽  
History Writing ◽  
Methodological Nationalism ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Nation State Formation

Nationalism studies does not seem to be a very innovative field of research. The path-breaking views of Anderson, Gellner and Hobsbawm – all published in 1983 – still form the starting point for almost all existing investigations. Moreover, most recent studies focus on one national case, which implicitly results in a vast collection of ‘unique’ trajectories. However, over the last few years a number of highly original studies on the origins of nationalism, nation-state formation, banal nationalism, methodological nationalism and nation-building in a global perspective seem to announce a new dawn. Some of these refreshing interpretations – which will be discussed in this article – clearly demonstrate that historiographical nationalism still has a preponderant role in history writing. In the concluding paragraphs I will emphasize the need to overcome not only methodological nationalism, but also the terminological and normative nationalism that still dominates our discipline.

scholarly journals Days of the Cavemen? Adorno, Spengler, and the Anatomy of Caesarism

2021 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-204
Author(s):  
Mikko Immanen
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Walter Benjamin ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Authoritarian Populism

Abstract This article addresses the controversial question of Theodor W. Adorno’s debt to right-wing Zivilisationskritik by a close reading of his essay “Spengler after the Decline” (1950). The article shows that despite Adorno’s harsh polemics against Oswald Spengler’s Decline of the West (1918, 1922), he sought to make Spengler’s analysis of Weimar Germany’s undemocratic tendencies—“Caesarism”—serve progressive ends. However, Adorno’s essay was not just an effort at “coming to terms with the past” in Adenauerian West Germany. Reading the essay’s original 1941 version together with Adorno’s correspondence with Max Horkheimer sheds light on Spengler as an overlooked key (next to Max Weber, Sigmund Freud, and Walter Benjamin) to their Dialectic of Enlightenment, written in 1941–44. Adorno’s daring effort to appropriate Spengler’s analysis of Caesarism makes Adorno’s critical theory an asset in understanding today’s authoritarian populism.

History writing and nation building in post-independence Tajikistan

2010 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helge Blakkisrud ◽  
Shahnoza Nozimova
Keyword(s):  
Educational System ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
History Textbooks ◽  
National Consciousness ◽  
Gray Zone ◽  
Imagined Community ◽  
History Writing ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Curriculum ◽  
Common Understanding

Since the end of the Tajik civil war in 1997, the Tajik authorities have being seeking to instill a new national consciousness. Here the educational system plays a crucial role, not least the way history is taught. Through a state-approved history curriculum, the authorities offer a common understanding of the past that is intended to strengthen the (imagined) community of the present. In this article, we examine the set of history textbooks currently used in Tajik schools and compare them with Soviet textbooks, exploring continuities and changes in the understanding of the Tajik nation. We distinguish between changes in the perception of the national “self” and the new “other,” the Uzbeks, and introduce two intermediary categories: the Soviet/Russian heritage as an “external self” and Islam as an “internal other.” The main battle for the further delimitation of the Tajik “self” is likely to take place within the discursive gray zone between the two latter categories, where the authorities will have to find a balance between a continued secular state ideology and the heavy presence of Islam, as well as between a Soviet past and a Tajik present.

Against the Last Bastion of the West-centric Master Narrative

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 188-203
Author(s):  
Yulia Mikhailova
Keyword(s):  
Master Narrative ◽  
History Writing ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Academic History ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
Marginal Status ◽  
Western European

This review discusses Reimagining Europe by Christian Raffensperger in the context of the evolution of academic history writing during the past few decades. It notes relations between the current political agendas and historical interpretations of the seemingly distant past exemplified by influence that modern perceptions of Russia and Ukraine exert on representations of their medieval “ancestor,” and it argues that marginal status of Rus’ in general medieval histories is the last survival of a discourse of Western European superiority. The review supports Raffensperger’s call to “reimagine” medieval Europe in such a way as to make Rus’ its integral part.

scholarly journals Regional history in literature, narratives and performance in Bengal and Santhal Pargana

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-31
Author(s):  
Ranjan Kumar
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Knowledge ◽  
Oral History ◽  
History Writing ◽  
The West ◽  
Profound Impact ◽  
The Past ◽  
Local Areas ◽  
History Of ◽  
Regional History ◽  
And Performance

This is an attempt to study the regional history of Bengal with the help of literature and narratives and unheard past of Santhal Pargana through narrative performances. Since, the history was written for the ruling and aristocracy class which gives an understanding of the past from above and it hardly talks about the history of lower strata. There is a massive need of history writing pertaining to local areas. The knowledge of the local people is acquired through qualitative research because the indigenous knowledge is transferred from one generation to another and because of  the west centric knowledge, the indigenous knowledge is marginalised which will even vanish after sometime. Similar is the situation of the knowledge of spiritual and religious past. The hagiographical literature of this region is considered as an important source to understand the socio- religious outlook. Beneath these literatures, there were several proto socio- religious outlooks that exercised a profound impact on people at lower level. In process to study these , one has to depend upon the oral history available in its surroundings.

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