Of Revolutions and the Problem of Choice

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophia Rosenfeld
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The Political ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Modern Democracy ◽  
History Of Capitalism ◽  
Choice Making ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth

In the cities of Western Europe and its colonies, the so-called calico-craze of the early eighteenth century helped spawn a new social practice and form of entertainment that came to be known as “going shopping.” This activity, in turn, produced a new attachment to preference determination and choice-making that several prominent historians—in an effort to reconnect the history of capitalism with that of the American and French Revolutions—have seen as fundamental to the turn to the political choice-making that they associate with the birth of modern democracy. This article argues instead for disentangling these developments. On the contrary, the article demonstrates that the individuated, privitized, and indeed commercialized form of choice-making we now typically take as an essential marker of democracy was a product of the late nineteenth century and had little connection to the conception of politics that developed in the Age of Revolutions.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nurit Yaari
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
The Political ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Jewish Culture ◽  
The Past ◽  
Future State ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
State Of Israel

This chapter examines the lack of continuous tradition of the art of the theatre in the history of Jewish culture. Theatre as art and institution was forbidden for Jews during most of their history, and although there were plays written in different times and places during the past centuries, no tradition of theatre evolved in Jewish culture until the middle of the nineteenth century. In view of this absence, the author discusses the genesis of Jewish theatre in Eastern Europe and in Eretz-Yisrael (The Land of Israel) since the late nineteenth century, encouraged by the Jewish Enlightenment movement, the emergence of Jewish nationalism, and the rebirth of Hebrew as a language of everyday life. Finally, the chapter traces the development of parallel strands of theatre that preceded the Israeli theatre and shadowed the emergence of the political infrastructure of the future State of Israel.

Schopenhauer’s Pessimism in Context

2020 ◽  
pp. 283-298
Author(s):  
Mark Migotti
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century

In this chapter, the author attempts to establish what is philosophically living and what is philosophically dead in Schopenhauer’s pessimism. Against the background of the intriguing the history of the terms “optimism” and “pessimism”—in debates about Leibniz’s theodicy in the early eighteenth century and the popularity of Schopenhauer in the late nineteenth century, respectively—the author points up the distinction between affirming life, which all living beings do naturally, and subscribing to philosophical optimism (or pessimism), which is possible only for reflective beings like us. Next, the author notes the significance of Schopenhauer’s claim that optimism is a necessary condition of theism and explains its bearing on his pessimistic argument for the moral unacceptability of suicide. The chapter concludes that Schopenhauer’s case for pessimism is not conclusive, but instructive; his dim view of the prospects for leading a truly rewarding, worthwhile human life draws vivid attention to important questions about how and to what degree an atheistic world can nevertheless be conducive to human flourishing.

The Pre-History of Religious Exclusionism in Contemporary Pakistan:Khatam-e-Nubuwwat1889–1953

2015 ◽  
Vol 49 (6) ◽  
pp. 1840-1874 ◽  
Author(s):  
TAHIR KAMRAN
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Initial Part ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Principal Objective ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Religious Polemic

AbstractDuring the late nineteenth-century colonial era in India, theKhatam-e-Nubuwwat(Finality of the Prophethood) assumed remarkable salience as a theme for religious debate among Muslim sects. The controversies around the establishment of the Ahmadiya sect in 1889 brought the issue ofKhatam-e-Nubuwwatto the centre stage of religious polemic ormunazara.Tense relations continued between Ahmadiya and Sunnis, in particular, though the tension remained confined to the domain of religious polemic. However, immediately after Pakistan's creation, theKhatam-e-Nubuwwatsqueezed itself out of the epistemic confines of the ‘theological’ and entered the realm of the ‘political’.Majlis-Tahafuz-i-Khatam-e-Nubuwwat(the Association for the Safety of the Finality of the Prophethood) grew out of the almost-defunctMajlis-i-Ahrar-i-Islamon 13 January 1949, with the principal objective of excluding the Ahmadiya sect from the Islamic fold.1This article seeks to reveal how theKhatam-e-Nubuwwathas impinged upon the course of Pakistani politics from 1949 onwards as an instrument of religious exclusion, peaking in 1953. The pre-history of religious exclusion, which had 1889 as a watershed—the year when the Ahmadiya sect took a definitive shape—thus forms the initial part of the article.

scholarly journals Itinerant Jewish and Arabic Trading in the Dene’s North, 1916-1930

2014 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Colpitts
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
First Nations ◽  
Contact Zone ◽  
Transport Systems ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
History Of Capitalism ◽  
Canadian North ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth

In late nineteenth century and especially in the interwar years, “free traders” took advantage of better transport systems to expand trade with Dene people in the Athabasca and Mackenzie Districts. Well versed in fur grading and supported by credit in the expanding industrializing fur industry in the south, “itinerant” peddlers worked independently and often controversially alongside larger capitalized fur companies such as the Hudson’s Bay Company. A large number of these newcomers were Jews. This article suggests that Jews and, to a lesser extent, Lebanese and other Arabic traders became critical in the modernization of the Canadian North. They helped create an itinerant trader-Dene “contact zone” where the mixed meaning of credit, cash, and goods transactions provided northern Aboriginal trappers the means to negotiate modernism on their own terms in the interwar years. However, by the late 1920s, the state, encouraged by larger capitalized companies, implemented policies to restrict and finally close down this contact zone. The history of itinerant trading, then, raises questions about the long-term history of capitalism and co-related economic neo-colonialism in the Canadian north and their impact on First Nations.

The Naturalized Female Intellect

1992 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorraine Daston
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Natural Laws ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Differences Of Opinion ◽  
Actual Content ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth

The ArgumentNaturalization confers authority on beliefs, conventions, and claims, but what kind of authority? Because the meaning of nature has a history, so does that of naturalization:naturalization is not the same tactic when marshaled in, say, eighteenth-century France and in late nineteenth-century Britain. Although the authority of nature may be invoked in both cases, the import of that authority depends crucially on whether nature is understood normatively or descriptively, within the framework of the natural laws of jurisprudence or within that of the natural laws of mechanics. During the early modern period, the denotative center of gravity of the word “nature” shifted dramatically. Writings about the female intellect are particularly well suited to reflect and focus these changes for three reasons: first, as with so many aspects of gender identity, what was distinctively female about women's way of thinking was usually alleged to be part and parcel of their “nature”; second, thepolitical and social implications of the female intellect were debated heatedly and in unprecedented detail, particularly in France; and third, the actual content of beliefs about what traits sex the intellect as female remained relatively constant during this period, despite sharp differences of opinion over their putative “natural” causes. The female intellect was naturalized not once but repeatedly, and therein lies its value for a history of naturalization.

scholarly journals Genealogies of “Verification”: Policing the Master–Servant Relationship in Colonial and Postcolonial India

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-33
Author(s):  
Nitin Sinha
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Subsequent Development ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Domestic Servants ◽  
Colonial Legacy ◽  
Legal Provisions ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Abstract Police verification of domestic servants has become standard practice in many cities in contemporary India. However, the regularization of work, which brings domestic servants under protective labour laws, is still a work in progress. Examining a long timespan, this article shows how policing of the servant, through practices of identification and verification, came to be institutionalized. It looks at the history of registration within the larger mechanism of regulation that emerged for domestic servants in the late eighteenth century. However, the establishment of control over servants was not linear in its subsequent development; registration as a tool of control took on different meanings within the changing ecosystem of legal provisions. In the late eighteenth century, it was discussed as being directly embedded in the logic of master–servant regulation, a template that was borrowed from English law. In the late nineteenth century, it was increasingly seen as a proxy for formal means of regulation, although this viewpoint was not universally accepted. Charting this history of changing structures of inclusion and exclusion within the law, the article argues that overt policing of servants is a manifestation of the colonial legacy, in which the identity of the servant is fused with potential criminality.

Paris, Real Estate, and Histories of Capitalism

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-158
Author(s):  
DESMOND FITZ-GIBBON
Keyword(s):  
Real Estate ◽  
Urban Development ◽  
Commercial Real Estate ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Capitalist Development ◽  
History Of Capitalism ◽  
Real Estate Markets ◽  
Market Formation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Selling Paris offers a superb inquiry into the particular institutions and agencies of late nineteenth-century French commercial real estate. This review assesses the contribution of the book in light of recent debates on the “history of capitalism” and argues that it addresses three important questions about the process of market formation, the qualities that make real estate so revealing of tensions within capitalist development, and the chronology of real estate markets and French urban development.

Entrustment and its Changing Political Meanings in Fuladu, the Gambia (1880–1994)

Africa ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 383-410 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice Bellagamba
Keyword(s):  
National Level ◽  
The Political ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Fabric ◽  
The Core ◽  
Social Settings ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Stable Forms

AbstractThe practice of entrustment is a form of voluntary allegiance for the sake of protection, one which historically lies at the core of host–stranger relationships along the River Gambia. Deeply woven into the social fabric of local communities, it was appropriated by various historical subjects during the twentieth century in order to construct networks of political confidence and mutual assistance at a local and national level. This article traces this dynamic process of re-elaboration. In so doing, it takes into account the history of a Mandinka commercial settlement in eastern Gambia from the late nineteenth century to post-Independence times, and questions the shifts that occurred in the political significance of entrustment with changing social and economic scenarios. Contextualised in the longue durée, the practice of karafoo shows its relevance as a cultural resource encouraging the creation of networks of trust and interdependence in social settings historically characterised by seasonal and more stable forms of migration.

SUTTON PLACE RE-EXAMINED

2014 ◽  
Vol 94 ◽  
pp. 173-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Cooper
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
English Renaissance ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early English

Sutton Place, in the county of Surrey, has for many years been misunderstood following an account of the history of the house published in the late nineteenth century. Long believed to be a precocious and little altered building of the early English Renaissance, the house has a very much more complex history than previously supposed. It is shown here that it has been radically altered at least twice, and that its existing symmetrical facade is probably the result of remodelling in the early eighteenth century, incorporating terracotta detail of c 1525–30. Few documents relating to the history of the house survive from before the mid-nineteenth century, and the account given here derives from an examination of the fabric undertaken during repairs and alterations in 1993.

SCIENCE, COMMODITIES, AND CORRUPTION IN THE GILDED AGE

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 278-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Roth Singerman
Keyword(s):  
Gilded Age ◽  
Social Power ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
The Political ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Economic Power ◽  
History Of Capitalism ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nineteenth Century United States ◽  
Political Economic

AbstractThis essay argues that categories of corruption and reform, so often used by historians to assess the Gilded Age, are themselves the ideological products of the period's struggles for political, economic, and social power. It does so by exploring fierce disputes over how to value sugar, a crucial commodity in the political economy of the late nineteenth-century United States. Confronted with evidence of massive fraud, the Treasury hoped that chemical techniques would rationalize the collection of sugar tariffs. Instead their introduction enabled the rise of the notorious Sugar Trust, by making it more difficult to distinguish corrupt influence from the legitimate exercise of expert judgment.Sugar exemplifies how Gilded Age battles over corruption should be seen in the broader and longer context of the history of capitalism, in which self-proclaimed reformers have used charges of fraud and adulteration to discredit the knowledge of artisans and workers while mantling themselves in claims to objectivity and reason. Scientific knowledge, far from being the inevitable ally of accountability and good governance, could just as easily be deployed to obfuscate and confuse, and thereby to wrest control of social and economic power.

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