Emperors and Usurpers

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew G. Scott
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Roman History ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Historical Method ◽  
Eyewitness Account ◽  
Severan Dynasty

This historical commentary examines books 79(78)–80(80) of Cassius Dio’s Roman History, which cover the period from the death of Caracalla in 217 B.C. to the reign of Severus Alexander and Cassius Dio’s retirement from political life in A.D. 229 Cassius Dio, a Roman senator, provides a valuable eyewitness account of this turbulent period, which was marked by the assassination of Caracalla; the rise of Macrinus, Rome’s first equestrian emperor, and his subsequent overthrow; the tempestuous, and by all accounts peculiar, reign of Elagabalus; and the continuation of the Severan dynasty under the young Severus Alexander. In addition to elucidating important passages from these books, this study assesses Cassius Dio’s political life and its relationship to his literary career; his call to history and time of composition; his historical method; and his attitude toward and subsequent presentation of the later Severan dynasty. In its investigation of books 79(78)–80(79), the work assesses an important stretch of Dio’s actual text, which for other parts has been preserved largely in epitome and excerpts. Finally, the work aims to fill a gap in scholarship, as no commentary on these books of Cassius Dio’s history has been produced since the nineteenth century, and its publication coincides with a renewed interest in the history and historiography of the Severan period.

scholarly journals Book Review: American Political Culture: An Encyclopedia

2015 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 174
Author(s):  
Carla Wilson Buss
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Cultural Pluralism ◽  
Reliable Information ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Melting Pot ◽  
American Political Culture ◽  
Israel Zangwill

Anyone seeking reliable information on American political life since the 1970s will be pleased with Michael Shally-Jensen’s work, American Political Culture. This three-volume set covers topics from abortion to Israel Zangwill, the nineteenth-century author who coined the phrase “melting pot” and who appears in the entry for “Cultural Pluralism.”

scholarly journals Commercial Foot Soldiers of the Empire: Foreign Merchant Politics in Tampico, Mexico, 1861-1866

1990 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-314
Author(s):  
John D. French
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Current Literature ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Port Cities ◽  
Detailed Case ◽  
Central Arena ◽  
Foreign Merchants

During the period from Mexican independence in 1821 to the end of the French intervention in 1867, Mexico's primary tie to the outside world was based on trade. The foreign merchants, who monopolized this activity, played a crucial role in the economic, diplomatic, and political life of Mexico. The current literature on these nineteenth century merchants includes studies of foreign groups, such as the French, detailed case studies of individual entrepreneurs, firms and merchant families, and one work that provides a unique state-centered perspective on the Mexican/merchant nexus. None, however, have tried to conceptualize the role of foreign merchants as a whole, across national lines and individual rivalries, in the port cities that were the central arena of contact and conflict with the outside world.

Greek identities and French politics in the Revue des Deux Mondes (1846–1900)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ourania Polycandrioti
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The West ◽  
French Politics ◽  
French School ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
The Way

The longevity of the magazine Revue des Deux Mondes, its position among the French magazines, its contents, contributors and directors, all prominent scholars of France, establish the Revue des Deux Mondes as an important record of intellectual and political life in the nineteenth century, as well as of the way in which the West in general and France in particular regarded contemporary Greece during the same period. This study aims to provide an overview of all Greek-themed articles in the magazine from 1829 to 1899, with the purpose of exploring the various aspects of ancient and contemporary Hellenism, in relation to France’s foreign policies as well as the activities of the French School at Athens.

The Poetry and the Prose of the Future

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert S. Lehman
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Walter Benjamin ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Historical Method ◽  
The Third ◽  
Science Of History ◽  
The Future ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Poetic Response ◽  
Century Science

The Introduction examines three moments that have proven foundational for the fraught relationship between poetry and history. The first occurs in the fourth century B. C. in Aristotle’s Poetics, the earliest attempt to provide a systematic definition of the structure and effects of poetry and, consequently, the origin of all later crises of verse. The second appears in Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire, a text that offers a complicated poetic response to a moment of crisis in Marx’s own historical method. The third appears in the early writings of Friedrich Nietzsche, where, against the onset of the nineteenth-century science of history, the demand to see history become poetry is made explicit. Focusing on these three moments, the Introduction establishes the intellectual-historical coordinates of the poetico-historical problem that T. S. Eliot and Walter Benjamin inherit.

Racial Articulation and Labor in the 19th Century Brazil

2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 445-481 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felipe Dias
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Historical Method ◽  
Political Structures ◽  
The 19Th Century

This article seeks to explain how economic and local political structures shaped the ways in which public officials articulated ideas of race and labor in the nineteenth century Brazil. Employing a comparative historical method, this work advances the literature in two ways. First, it suggests that what we have come to view as a positive valuation of blackness has roots in the economic development prior to the centralized nation-building processes. Second, the findings of this study point to the effects of intra-national factors, such as economic structures and patterns of labor incorporation, in shaping how regional public officials articulated notions of “race,” labor, and progress.

‘The Sword of Avenging Justice’: Politics in Sutherland after the Third Reform Act

Rural History ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANNIE TINDLEY
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Political Life ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Scottish Highlands ◽  
The Third ◽  
General Decline ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThere has been much historical debate over the role of aristocratic landed families in local and national politics throughout the nineteenth century, and the impact of the First, Second and Third Reform Acts on that role. Additionally, the period from 1881 in the Scottish Highlands was one of acute political and ideological crisis, as the debate over the reform of the Land Laws took a violent turn, and Highland landowners were forced to address the demands of their small tenants. This article addresses these debates, taking as its case-study the ducal house of Sutherland. The Leveson-Gower family owned almost the whole county of Sutherland and until 1884 dominated political life in the region. This article examines the gradual breakdown of that political power, in line with a more general decline in financial and territorial influence, both in terms of the personal role of the Fourth and Fifth Dukes of Sutherland, and the broader impact of the estate management on the mechanics and expectations of politics in the county.

Utilitarianism and Distributive Justice: The Civil Law and the Foundations of Bentham's Economic Thought

Utilitas ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. J. Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
General Structure ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Prison Reform ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Wealth Of Nations

Between 1787, and the end of his life in 1832, Bentham turned his attention to the development and application of economic ideas and principles within the general structure of his legislative project. For seventeen years this interest was manifested through a number of books and pamphlets, most of which remained in manuscript form, that develop a distinctive approach to economic questions. Although Bentham was influenced by Adam Smith's An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, he neither adopted a Smithian vocabulary for addressing questions of economic principle and policy, nor did he accept many of the distinctive features of Smith's economic theory. One consequence of this was that Bentham played almost no part in the development of the emerging science of political economy in the early nineteenth century. The standard histories of economics all emphasize how little he contributed to the mainstream of late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century debate by concentrating attention on his utilitarianism and the psychology of hedonism on which it is premised. Others have argued that the calculating nature of his theory of practical reason reduced the whole legislative project to a crude attempt to apply economics to all aspects of social and political life. Put at its simplest this argument amounts to the erroneous claim that Bentham's science of legislation is reducible to the science of political economy. A different but equally dangerous error would be to argue that because Bentham's conception of the science of legislation comprehends all the basic forms of social relationships, there can be no science of political economy as there is no autonomous sphere of activity governed by the principles of economics. This approach is no doubt attractive from an historical point of view given that the major premise of this argument is true, and that many of Bentham's ‘economic’ arguments are couched in terms of his theory of legislation. Yet it fails to account for the undoubted importance of political economy within Bentham's writings, not just on finance, economic policy, colonies and preventive police, but also in other aspects of his utilitarian public policy such as prison reform, pauper management, and even constitutional reform. All of these works reflect a conception of political economy in its broadest terms. However, this conception of political economy differs in many respects from that of Bentham's contemporaries, and for this reason Bentham's distinctive approach to problems of economics and political economy has largely been misunderstood.

Roman Literature After The Gracchi

1951 ◽  
Vol 20 (60) ◽  
pp. 123-136
Author(s):  
R. E. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Turning Point ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
The State ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Roman History ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Main Concern ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
Roman Literature

The Gracchi in literature as in all else mark a turning-point in Roman history; they brought one epoch to a close and inaugurated a fresh one; and by their choice of means to effect their end they unwittingly determined the direction of events for the following century. In order to be able to appreciate the literature as a reflection and a phenomenon of its society, we must first briefly consider the effects of the Gracchi upon political life, and then the effects of that political life upon Roman society. The Gracchi set out to solve certain problems; but owing to the twist that they gave to Roman history, those problems fell into the background, to be supplanted by a problem of politics which absorbed all the energies of the governing class to the exclusion of the problems which should have been their main concern and responsibility.The problems that confronted the State at the time of the Gracchi were many; they were social, economic, political, and administrative problems of vast complexity that required wisdom, patience, and, above all, goodwill for their solution. By this time real political power was wielded by a comparatively small number of families, grouped round leading men; they had come to believe that they governed by divine right, and while the better among them were aware of their responsibilities, there were many to whom the emoluments of government were reason enough for restricting the profits of empire among the smallest number. During the second century the attitude of the governing class had become conservative, opposed to any change which might alter the existing organization or deprive them of some of their great power.

Policing Rome

1984 ◽  
Vol 74 ◽  
pp. 20-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wilfried Nippel
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Roman Empire ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Fundamental Question ◽  
Roman History ◽  
Public Order ◽  
Fundamental Change ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The One ◽  
Considerable Loss

One fundamental question is already implied in the use of the word ‘policing’. A glance at the scholarly literature shows that ‘policing’ is used in the context of Roman history with respect to the aediles and the tresviri capitales, or as an equivalent of magisterial coercitio; or it is applied to the vigiles, the cohortes urbanae or the cohortes praetoriae of the Principate as well as to the respective praefecti; and, of course, to the various controlling bodies and agents of the Later Roman Empire. This is at least partly due to the fact that the fundamental nineteenth-century works reflect a usage of ‘policing’ which oscillates between the description of a function, i.e. securing public order, on the one hand and the designation of a specialized agency to fulfil this function on the other hand. This is due to the fact that the establishment of a specialized law-enforcement apparatus only took place during the (eighteenth and) nineteenth century. The institutionalization of a professional police force represents a fundamental change in societal as well as individual attitudes towards and demand for public order. It may easily be overlooked that the indisputable gain in security and public order had to be paid for with a considerable loss of flexibility in the interaction between rulers and ruled (which was now mediated by a bureaucratic organization), and with an intensification of control and discipline in the everyday life of most members and strata of society.

scholarly journals Socio-political life of the Ukrainian lands in the Russian Empire in the middle of the nineteenth century.

10.33287/1193 ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 24-35
Author(s):  
І. В. Довжук
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Russian Empire ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Russian Government ◽  
The West ◽  
Significant Component ◽  
Social Organizations ◽  
The Russian Empire

The policy of Russian Empire’s government which had been realized on Ukrainian lands in the middle of ХІХ century is scrutinized. It is pointed that in that time there was an increasing of Empire’s regime on the territory of Ukraine, centralization increased, there was an ignorance of peculiarities of regions, social organizations were pursued. The policy of the tsarist government towards the Ukrainians was especially repressive com-pared to his attitude to other peoples of the Russian Empire. After the Polish uprising of 1830–1831, there is a sharp turning point in the «politics of nationalities» in the west of the Russian Empire. The traditional policy of cooperation with the national elite here has been defeated and replaced by the policy of forced integration. Ukrainians, who for many years were under Polish domination, were perceived by the Russian government as part of the Polish rebels. In the 40 years of the ХІХ century, the crisis of the imperial feudal-feudal system deepened, manifested in the mass peasant uprisings, the decline of the landed economy, the awareness of the need for the liquidation of serfdom by representatives of all sectors of the population. In our opinion, it is precisely at the origins of this crisis that one should look for the reasons for the rise of the Ukrainian national revival and its politicization in the middle of the ХІХ century. Socio-political life at that time was concentrated around the struggle for the elimination of serfdom, and national harassment was a significant component of this struggle. Without the liquidation of serfdom and the democratization of political life, Ukrainian national revival had no prospects.

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