Warfare in Premodern Southeast Asia

Author(s):  
Michael W. Charney

Warfare in premodern Southeast Asia, roughly that fought up until the end of the 19th century, was shaped by the environment across the region. Maritime trade connections brought the introduction and circulation of external models of warfare that would help to frame the way warfare in the region was depicted in some of the indigenous literature and art (including the influence of the Indian epics on shadow puppet theater). Firearms played a more direct role in determining the development of warfare in the region over the course of the early modern period. As a result of better firearms, the elephant declined in battlefield importance and was increasingly replaced by cavalry. In the 18th century, Southeast Asians fielded some of their best-organized armies, and in the early 19th century there was a temporary revival of naval strength in parts of the region, particularly in Vietnam. Nevertheless, the introduction of the steamship and better European military technology from the 1820s ushered in the decline of the remaining Southeast Asian armies by the end of the 19th century. Although indigenous states would attempt to modernize and catch up with Europe militarily, all of Southeast Asia, save for Thailand, fell under European control.

Author(s):  
Maria Berbara

There are at least two ways to think about the term “Brazilian colonial art.” It can refer, in general, to the art produced in the region presently known as Brazil between 1500, when navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral claimed the coastal territory for the Lusitanian crown, and the country’s independence in the early 19th century. It can also refer, more specifically, to the artistic manifestations produced in certain Brazilian regions—most notably Bahia, Minas Gerais, and Rio de Janeiro—over the 18th century and first decades of the 19th century. In other words, while denotatively it corresponds to the art produced in the period during which Brazil was a colony, it can also work as a metonym valid to indicate particular temporal and geographical arcs within this period. The reasons for its widespread metonymical use are related, on the one hand, to the survival of a relatively large number of art objects and buildings produced in these arcs, but also to a judicative value: at least since the 1920s, artists, historians, and cultivated Brazilians have tended to regard Brazilian colonial art—in its more specific meaning—as the greatest cultural product of those centuries. In this sense, Brazilian colonial art is often identified with the Baroque—to the extent that the terms “Brazilian Baroque,” “Brazilian colonial art,” and even “barroco mineiro” (i.e., Baroque produced in the province of Minas Gerais) may be used interchangeably by some scholars and, even more so, the general public. The study of Brazilian colonial art is currently intermingled with the question of what should be understood as Brazil in the early modern period. Just like some 20th- and 21st-century scholars have been questioning, for example, the term “Italian Renaissance”—given the fact that Italy, as a political entity, did not exist until the 19th century—so have researchers problematized the concept of a unified term to designate the whole artistic production of the territory that would later become the Federative Republic of Brazil between the 16th and 19th centuries. This territory, moreover, encompassed a myriad of very different societies and languages originating from at least three different continents. Should the production, for example, of Tupi or Yoruba artworks be considered colonial? Or should they, instead, be understood as belonging to a distinctive path and independent art historical process? Is it viable to propose a transcultural academic approach without, at the same time, flattening the specificities and richness of the various societies that inhabited the territory? Recent scholarly work has been bringing together traditional historiographical references in Brazilian colonial art and perspectives from so-called “global art history.” These efforts have not only internationalized the field, but also made it multidisciplinary by combining researches in anthropology, ethnography, archaeology, history, and art history.


1979 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
John C. Kramer

Opium smoking began spreading slowly but steadily in China from early in the 18th Century. It grew through the 19th Century to the point that by the end of the century it became a nearly universal practice among males in some regions. While estimates vary, it appears that most smokers consumed six grams or less daily. Addicted smokers were occasionally found among those smoking as little as three grams daily, but more often addicted smokers reported use of about 12 grams a day or more. An individual smoking twelve grams of opium probably ingests about 80 mg. of morphine. Thirty mg. of morphine daily may induce some withdrawal signs, while 60 mg. daily are clearly addicting. While testimony varied widely, it appears likely that most opium smokers were not disabled by their practice. This appears to be the case today, too, among those peoples in southeast Asia who have continued to smoke opium. There appear to be social and perhaps psychophysiological forces which work toward limiting the liabilities of drug use.


Author(s):  
Mari Hvattum

In its most general sense, historicism refers to a new historical consciousness emerging in late-18th- and early-19th-century Europe. This novel “historical-mindedness,” as the cultural historian Stephen Bann has called it, sprung from a recognition that human knowledge and human making are historically conditioned and must be understood within particular historical contexts. Historicism inspired new interest in the origin and development of cultural phenomena, not least art and architecture. When used in relation to architecture, historicism usually refers to the 19th-century notion that architecture is a historically dynamic and relative phenomenon, changing with time and circumstance. This in contrast to 18th-century classicism which tended to uphold the classical tradition as a universal ideal and a timeless standard. Historicism in architecture often entails Revivals of various kinds, i.e., the reference to or use of historical styles and motifs. The term is related to concepts such as eclecticism, revivalism, and relativism. In architectural history, an early anticipation of a historicist way of thinking is Johann Joachim Winckelmann’s History of the Art of Antiquity (1764). While still idealizing Greek art, Winckelmann also analyzed Egyptian, Etruscan, Phoenician, and Persian art and architecture, paying close attention to the historical conditions in which each of these cultures emerged. This new attentiveness to the relationship between cultural conditions and artistic expression lies at the heart of historicism, as does the related idea that architecture has the capacity to represent an epoch or a nation, forming a veritable index of cultural development. There is a strong organicist aspect to historicism, i.e., a tendency to think about cultural phenomena as organic wholes that evolve according to laws.


Author(s):  
Yangwen Zheng

Opium was used as a medicinal herb during the Tang-Song dynastic era, if not earlier, but this medicinal role was transformed during the Ming dynasty as it became an ingredient in aphrodisiacs produced for the Ming court. Small countries in South-Southeast Asia included opium in their tribute items to the Ming. Tribute missions were a form of trade as well as the best way to maintain foreign relations. Opium transformed again in the early Qing dynasty as Southeast Asian Chinese brought the habit of smoking opium mixed with tobacco back to the mainland. This was soon integrated in and promoted by the sex recreation industry in the mid-18th century, and the demand for opium grew rapidly in the early decades of the 19th century. By the 1850s, increasing supply fueled a level of consumption that neither repeated attempts at prohibition, nor two opium wars could stymie; it exploded into a consumer revolution. Opium became vital to the economy as all the polities since the late Qing taxed it to sustain themselves. It also became a symbol of China’s humiliation and anti-imperialist political platform. It has now come back to haunt the country despite the Mao era success in eradication.


Author(s):  
Nicole von Germeten

Female occupational and economic choices help clarify understandings of colonial historic agency, especially in the lives of Mexican women who made their income as alcahuetas or “bawds.” These women hosted and managed other women in the marketing and selling of sex acts in the Viceroyalty of New Spain. Viceregal bawds manipulated both the sex lives of their clients and the paternalism of crown justice in hopes of exoneration in court. They walked a precarious legal tightrope, negotiating the fluctuating margins of legal procuring and the transition to more stringent laws against sex for sale. The examples presented here, drawn from contemporary archival documents, show that these women’s lives span most of New Spain’s history, ranging from 1570 to the independence era in the early 19th century. In the 16th century, bawdry resembled the clandestine personal mediation that was common and familiar in medieval and early modern Spain. Bawds working in the 1st century of Spanish rule in Mexico carefully defended their social respectability to contradict evidence that they solicited for clients in the street. Reputable hospitality featured prominently in the early 17th-century procuring, while indigenous-influenced sorcery and love magic dominated the understanding of 17th- and early 18th-century alcahuetas. Lastly, in the 19th century, profitable market exchange characterized professional brothel operations, granting bawds honorable status within their economic and occupational community. Bawds recorded in the archives demonstrate communication skills, entrepreneurialism, and a concern for reputation through all of these eras. These intelligent female survivors offer compelling representations of viceregal women who exercised their personal agency to forge their own economic prosperity.


Author(s):  
Kate Boehme

In India, as in much of the world, the 19th century witnessed the emergence of urban capitalist classes, effected by the rapid growth of global mercantile capitalism and, later, industrial manufacturing. As a colonial city, Bombay—like its eastern counterpart, Calcutta—developed two connected, but distinct business communities: one, a European community with foreign, imperial connections, and the other, an Indian community with roots in long-standing regional networks. In Bombay, the latter took the form of a class known as the “Merchant Princes,” who capitalized on long-standing commercial traditions in western India and their ability to command both Indian and colonial networks to establish themselves as commercial powerhouses. These commercial networks and patterns of behavior, established before the arrival of the British, had an indelible impact on the character of Indian business in colonial Bombay. The business community brought such traditions with them when they migrated to Bombay at the end of the 18th century and used them to build the famous mercantile firms of the early 19th century. The Indian business elite likewise built collaborative links within their own community to expand their business interests; when barriers erected by the colonial establishment sought to limit their expansion, Indian businessmen used the resources at their disposal (both in the Indian hinterland and within the city itself) to circumvent them. Class identity similarly began to emerge as they cooperatively campaigned for particular agendas, intended to improve the fortunes of the entire community. They fought for greater influence in the Bombay government—in line with the wealth they then commanded—and used their financial resources to mold the physical and intellectual landscape of the city in their favor.


Author(s):  
Fábio Kühn

A general overview of the economy and society in the southern part of Portuguese America from the late 17th century to the early 19th century (c. 1680–1820) must address three interconnected areas of colonization: the commercial and military settlement of Colonia de Sacramento, located on the banks of the La Plata River within the borders of modern-day Uruguay, and the captaincies of Santa Catarina and Rio Grande de São Pedro, Brazil. Originally founded as a Portuguese effort to penetrate the mercantile markets of Spanish America, the La Plata settlement was highly disputed until it was definitively conquered by the Spanish in 1777. In contrast, the Portuguese were able to effectively colonize the southern captaincies, which became relatively stable by the end of the 18th century, reflecting the Crown’s relatively successful implementation of a policy of targeted settlement. The economic formation of the southernmost areas of Portuguese America underwent a change in pattern at the turn of the 19th century. The original economy, centered around the export of livestock, hides, and precious metals, was replaced by a new model based on food production to supply the markets of Brazil’s Southeast and Northeast. At one end of the spectrum lay Colonia de Sacramento, which focused on the smuggling and export of hides; at the other lay Santa Catarina and Rio Grande de São Pedro, linked to the export of manioc flour, dried meat, and wheat to the rest of Brazil.


2007 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
pp. 404-408 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ø. Nordli ◽  
E. Lundstad ◽  
A.E.J. Ogilvie

AbstractSystematic temperature observations were not undertaken in Norway until the early 19th century, and even then only sporadically. Climate-proxy data may be used to reconstruct temperatures before this period, but until now there have not been any climate proxies available for late winter. This situation has recently changed, as a diary containing historical ice break-up data from a farm near lake Randsfjord in southeastern Norway has been discovered. These data, together with observations from lake Mjøsa in the same region, make it possible to reconstruct temperature back to 1758. The reconstructed series, combined with instrumental series from the area near the lake, were merged into one composite time series covering the period 1758–2006. The lowest temperatures are seen during the Dalton sunspot minimum in the early 19th century. The 20th century was 1.3˚C warmer than the 19th century, whereas the 19th century was 0.4˚C warmer than the last 43 years of the 18th century. During the period 1758–1850, the mean temperature was 1.4˚C lower than the mean value of the 20th century. The warmth observed in the 1990s and at the start of the 21st century is unprecedented during the whole series.


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 150
Author(s):  
Ahmad Athoillah

This paper discusses the process of forming identities carried out by the Hadhrami community in Batavia throughout the late 18th century until the beginning of the 20th century. The taking of the topic was motivated by the strong social identity of the Hadhrami community in Batavia, especially in religion and economy since the 19th century to the present. The problem of this research is about the form and process of forming Hadhrami social identity from the end of the 18th century to the beginning of the 20th century. To answer these problems, a critical historical method is used by using various historical sources and relevant reference studies.Some of the results obtained from this study are various historical realities, such as the formation of social religious symbols including mosques and religious teaching forum. Some important things are the formation of economic identities such as wholesale trade, shipping businesses and property businesses. In addition, there were also shifting settlements from Hadhrami over the Koja people in Pekojan in the early 19th century, as well as the shift of the Hadhrami to the inland of Batavia in the late 19th century. These various realities ultimately affected various forms and processes of forming the social identity of the Hadhrami community, such as the material aspects, language, behavior, and collective ideas of the Hadhrami community especially at the beginning of the 19th century. Generally the Hadhrami community had transformed themselves and their collective parts into colonial society in Batavia until the beginning of the 20th century.


2014 ◽  
pp. 26-41
Author(s):  
Joanna Nowak

“To identify and understand oneself”. Polish Romantic thought on national awarenessThe awareness factor commonly termed as “national awakening,” in the Polish Romantic reflection was considered the utmost determinant of national maturity of  community. In the opinion of Polish romantics, national awareness seen in a broader societal sense was a relatively new phenomenon (for some authors it originated in the late 18th century, for others in the early 19th century). Earlier, the nation did exist but it was not firmly established and  remained “salient.” On the basis of the 19th century sources, this article analyses some major topics of the Romantic period discourse on nation. These issues included, first of all, the meaning of national awareness and understanding of this idea as time progressed. Moreover, questions concerned the exact moment when a conscious picture of a national community came to exist, thus certifying that a mature form of nation finally originated. Moreover, this romantic discussion concerned spatial conditions of the development of national awareness (dependence of the distance from the national centre) and focused on social acceptance of this idea. According to romantic authors, the process of self-definition of a nation consisted of two stages. First, national identification was not intellectual but sensual; only at a later and more sublime stage; mature national awareness came to exist. As far as a more practical aspect of this issue goes, the contemporary aim was to expand national awareness gradually so that it could possibly be experienced by all members of nation, and not only by its political and intellectual elites. „Rozpoznać i zrozumieć siebie”. O świadomości narodowej w polskiej myśli romantycznejW polskiej refleksji romantycznej czynnik świadomościowy, który powszechnie określano terminem „narodowego przebudzenia”, był nadrzędnym wyznacznikiem dojrzałości narodowej wspólnoty. Zdaniem polskich romantyków świadomość narodowa w szerszym zakresie społecznym była stosunkowo nowym zjawiskiem (dla jednych autorów koniec XVIII wieku, dla innych początek XIX stulecia). Wcześniej naród istniał, ale jako byt nie do końca ukształtowany, pozostający w „uśpieniu”. W artykule, w oparciu o źródła z epoki, przeanalizowano najistotniejsze motywy w romantycznym dyskursie dotyczącym omawianej kwestii. Chodziło przede wszystkim o rozumienie pojęcia świadomości narodowej, jego kształtowanie się w czasie, w tym o ustalenie „momentu” pojawienia się świadomego wyobrażenia wspólnoty narodowej w szerszym zakresie, które niejako sankcjonowało powstanie jej dojrzałej formy. Istotnym wątkiem w dyskusji było także dostrzeżenie przestrzennego uwarunkowania rozwoju narodowej świadomości (w zależności od oddalenia od narodowego centrum), jak również problem związany ze społecznym zakresem tej wizji. Analizowano proces samopoznania narodowego, który zgodnie z ówczesnym przeświadczeniem realizował się dwuetapowo. Najpierw rozpoznanie i utożsamienie ze wspólnotą odbywało się poprzez bezrefleksyjne odczuwanie, a następnie dokonało się samopoznanie wyższe, czyli wyrobienie dojrzałej idei narodowej. W wymiarze bardziej praktycznym chodziło o stopniowe rozszerzenie narodowej świadomości, aby poczucie wspólnoty objęło możliwie wszystkich członków narodu, a nie tylko jego polityczno-umysłowe elity.


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