The Society of Prisoners

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renaud Morieux
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Social History ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Prisoners Of War ◽  
Prisoner Of War ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Forced Migrations ◽  
History Of ◽  
International Conventions

War captivity is an ideal observatory to address three interrelated questions. First, I argue that in order to understand what a prisoner of war was in the eighteenth century, from a legal viewpoint, we must forget what we know about this notion, as it has been shaped by twentieth-century international conventions. In the eighteenth century, the distinction between a prisoner of war, a hostage, a criminal and a slave was not always clear-cut, in theory and even more so in practice. Second, war captivity tells us something important about the eighteenth-century state, how it transformed itself, and why it endured. The third approach is a social history of international relations. The aim here is to understand how eighteenth-century societies were impacted by war: how the detention of foreign enemies on home soil revealed and challenged social values, representations, hierarchies, and practices. The book’s argument hinges on the experience of prisoners of war as the pivot of social relations within and outside the prison, between Britons and French and between prisoners and host communities. War does not simply destroy society, but it also creates new sorts of social ties.The book addresses a wide range of topics, such as the ethics of war, philanthropy, forced migrations, the sociology of the prison and the architecture of detention places. One of its strengths is the sheer magnitude and diversity of the archival material used, in English and in French, most of which have been little explored by other historians.

From Siege to Lock-out: An Actors' Strike at the Comédie-Française in 1765

1978 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Roddick
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Social History ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
En Bloc ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Cast Doubt ◽  
Typical Event ◽  
History Of ◽  
Complete Disruption

The aims and ambitions of this article are initially fairly limited. I want to examine a series of events which occurred at the Comédie-Française in April and May of 1765, leading to a complete disruption of normal performances at the theatre, to the imprisonment of most of the company's leading actors, and to the temporary withdrawal from performance of what might otherwise have been eighteenth-century France's biggest ‘box-office hit’, Le Siège de Calais, a patriotic tragedy by Pierre-Laurent Buirette de Belloy. In themselves these events, sometimes known as l'affaire Dubois after the actor most directly involved in them, are little more than a bizarre and sporadically scurrilous footnote to the theatrical history of France in the eighteenth century. But the more one examines them, the more they illuminate certain rather murky areas of literary and social history, two areas in particular: firstly, the social relations of the acting profession at a time when it was, despite considerable pressure from numerous sources, still barred en bloc from the sacraments of the Catholic church; and secondly, the degree of autonomy which could be said to have existed for a company which was, legally, a kind of workers' co-operative but which, at any rate at that stage, operated within a rather ill-defined administrative limbo (it was simultaneously autonomous and totally subject to noble whim). The strike which brought about the cancellation of performances of Le siège de Calais in April 1765 is, then, a specific and in no way typical event, but one which draws together a number of historical strands – literary, theatrical, economic, moral and political – in a particularly interesting way. I want, in the course of this article, to deal with two questions – questions to which I do not really feel able to give definitive answers but which may, when examined, cast doubt upon one or two familiar preconceptions about the nature of the eighteenth-century theatre as a profession, and at the same time open up certain areas of enquiry with regard to the theatre as a material reality rather than a predominantly literary or artistic form. The questions are in themselves quite simple: why did the sociétaires of the Comédie-Française refuse, on Monday, 15th April 1765, to perform a play which, given its enormous success earlier in the year, it was very much in their economic interests to present? And why did the resulting situation become so irreducible that, far from the usual discreet pressures being brought to bear on the relevant authorities to resolve the dispute, it led to the imprisonment of three of the most popular ‘stars’ of the century, and to an effective lockout lasting for almost a month?

scholarly journals "A definite feeling of antagonism": Rising Tensions over Clothing at the Featherston Prisoner-of-War Camp in World War Two

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristyn Harman
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Social History ◽  
Prisoners Of War ◽  
World War Two ◽  
World War ◽  
Prisoner Of War ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cultural Accommodation ◽  
History Of

This article utilises negotiations around the clothing issued to Japanese prisoners of war during World War Two as a lens through which to view aspects of the social history of the Featherston Camp. A particular focus is the prisoners’ objections to the requirement that they wear distinguishing khaki patches. Such objections went beyond being merely verbal, translating into physical interventions to modify their uniforms. The article demonstrates that tensions at the Camp continued well beyond the 1943 riot, and were not solely the province of the prisoners. Some attention is also given to New Zealand efforts at cultural accommodation and understanding.

Jumbos and Jumping Devils

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nisha P R
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Social History ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of

Jumbos and Jumping Devils is an original and pioneering exploration of not only the social history of the subcontinent but also of performance and popular culture. The domain of analysis is entirely novel and opens up a bolder approach of laying a new field of historical enquiry of South Asia. Trawling through an extraordinary set of sources such as colonial and post-colonial records, newspaper reports, unpublished autobiographies, private papers, photographs, and oral interviews, the author brings out a fascinating account of the transnational landscape of physical cultures, human and animal performers, and the circus industry. This book should be of interest to a wide range of readers from history, sociology, anthropology, and cultural studies to analysts of history of performance and sports in the subcontinent.

Project Report on the "Investigation of the Present Situation and Development of Ethnic Minorities in China"

2002 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-9
Author(s):  
Hao Shiyuan
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Ethnic Minorities ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Warring States Period ◽  
Warring States ◽  
The Social ◽  
Spring And Autumn Period ◽  
Long Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
Shi Ji

When viewed from the perspective of history, China has not had a flourishing anthropology and ethnology. However, China's traditions of ethnographic-like perspectives have flourished for a long time. Since the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC) and Warring States Period (475-221 BC), multiethnic structure and social relations have been recorded in China's history. Ever since Sima Qian's Shi Ji (the Historical Records), the first general history of China compiled around 100 BC, the social history and cultural customs of ethnic minorities had been covered in each dynasty's history. Moreover, some special chapters had been dedicated to keeping the records of ethnic minorities. Of course such records were not completely unbiased.

Frontier Anxieties: Toward a Social History of Muslim-Christian Relations on the Ottoman-Habsburg Border

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 25-38
Author(s):  
Edin Hajdarpasic
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Social History ◽  
History Of

AbstractThis article reframes the formation of the Ottoman-Habsburg frontier after 1699 in social historical terms. By going beyond diplomatic and military factors, it identifies how the contraction of Ottoman borders affected taxation, landholding, and Muslim-Christian relations in Bosnia. The article argues that peasants in Ottoman Bosnia experienced the mounting pressures of increasing taxation, manipulation over landownership, and religiously inflected hostility, often driven by those Muslim noblemen who tried to capitalize on the destabilizing wake of several wars that the Ottoman Empire fought with the Habsburg, Venetian, and Russian states in the eighteenth century. Through these processes, by the end of the century the meaning of the reaya or raya—an Ottoman term for taxpaying “subjects” that theoretically applied to all denominations, including Muslims—had become synonymous with “Christians,” acquiring a new political significance.

The Conditions in Jewish Society in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the Middle Decades of the Eighteenth Century

1996 ◽  
pp. 45-50
Author(s):  
Gershon David Hundert
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Social History ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Generational Conflict ◽  
East European ◽  
Explanatory Factors ◽  
Jewish Society ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

This chapter investigates the conditions in Jewish society in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the middle decades of the eighteenth century. The place of hasidism in the religious history of the eighteenth century ought to be reconsidered not only in light of the questions about the schismatic groups in the Orthodox Church raised by Ysander, but also in light of the general revivalist currents in western Europe. The social historian cannot explain hasidism, which belongs to the context of the development of the east European religious mentality in the eighteenth century. Social history does, however, point to some significant questions that ought to be explored further. One of these is the role of youth and generational conflict in the beginnings of the movement, and not only in its beginnings. A realistic recovery of the situation of the Polish-Lithuanian Jewry in the eighteenth century shows that neither the economic nor the security conditions were such as to warrant their use as causal or explanatory factors in the rise and reception of hasidism.

scholarly journals pre-eighteenth-century traditions of revivalism: damascus in the thirteenth century

2005 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
konrad hirschler
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Social History ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Current State ◽  
History Of ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Large Sections

this article examines whether it is possible to trace eighteenth- and nineteenth-century revivalist thought to earlier ‘medieval’ examples. the discussion is centred on the issue of ijtiha¯d/taqli¯d, which featured prominently in revivalist thought. taking the example of scholars in thirteenth-century damascus, it firstly compares the respective readings of ijtiha¯d/taqli¯d, by focusing on one individual, abu¯ sha¯ma (d. 1267). it secondly asks whether a scholar like abu¯ sha¯ma, who had adopted a reading similar to later revivalists, also took a critical and oppositional stand against large sections of his contemporary society, i.e. a revivalist posture. it is this article's main contention that the example of abu¯ sha¯ma shows the need to study in more detail possible revivalist traditions prior to the ‘grand’ movements. the combination of the history of ideas and social history might allow a deeper understanding of how and in what contexts calls for reform and opposition to the current state of affairs were expressed.

Subordination, Authority, Law: Subjects in Labor History

1995 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
pp. 56-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Tomlins
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Special Reference ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Labor History ◽  
Primary Site ◽  
Employment Relations ◽  
Domestic Relations ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Labor

In the first section of this essay I discuss alternative ways of interpreting an eighteenth-century anecdote about employment relations. This serves to introduce a series of arguments that advocate altering our conception of labor history (with special reference to American labor history) in ways that center it on the study of household relations. Asserting that law is the primary site upon which authoritative social relations are constituted, I also argue that legal history—in this case the history of domestic relations law—is of fundamental importance to the labor history the essay recommends.

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