Primary Materials

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 565-583
Author(s):  
Nida Rehman

Abstract This article explores plants, seeds, soils, and other nonhuman actors as archival and architectural agents within the history of Lahore's urban landscape, as seen from the ground. It traces the halting efforts of the Agri-Horticultural Society of Punjab to enact regional improvement through the development of agricultural and botanical expertise at the advent of British colonial rule in the province, focusing on the materialization of this work in the society's gardens in Lahore. Foregrounding the contingencies of everyday garden making and maintenance, the article posits nonhuman ecologies as a materially diverse and ephemeral architecture and archive of landscape. It argues that, in helping assemble and modulate the society's efforts to model improvement, conduct plant testing, and develop an ornamental garden, plants, seeds, and soils become unlikely and sometimes unruly aesthetic and historical actors, furthering but also unsettling improvement discourse while relocating its historical effects from the region to the city, and providing new readings of the colonial urban landscape.

2020 ◽  
Vol 94 (3) ◽  
pp. 631-636
Author(s):  
Noam Maggor

Mark Peterson's The City-State of Boston is a formidable work of history—prodigiously researched, lucidly written, immense in scope, and yet scrupulously detailed. A meticulous history of New England over more than two centuries, the book argues that Boston and its hinterland emerged as a city-state, a “self-governing republic” that was committed first and foremost to its own regional autonomy (p. 6). Rather than as a British colonial outpost or the birthplace of the American Revolution—the site of a nationalist struggle for independence—the book recovers Boston's long-lost tradition as a “polity in its own right,” a fervently independent hub of Atlantic trade whose true identity placed it in tension with the overtures of both the British Empire and, later, the American nation-state (p. 631).


2019 ◽  
pp. 12-25
Author(s):  
Katherine Isobel Baxter

Chapter One provides an account of the history of colonial and postcolonial Nigeria, focusing particularly on politics and law. The chapter recounts the long history of British colonial presence in West Africa and explains the introduction of indirect rule as a system of colonial government from the turn of the century. Some of the impacts of indirect rule are considered through reference to Obafemi Awolowo’s memoir, Awo, and Chinua Achebe’s novel, Arrow of God. The chapter also sketches out the divisions that indirect rule fomented and the resistance to which it gave rise. Finally, the chapter explains the implications of indirect rule for the implementation of law in Nigeria both during colonial rule and following independence.


2019 ◽  
Vol 114 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
NAZMUL S. SULTAN

This article theorizes the colonial problem of peoplehood that Indian anticolonial thinkers grappled with in their attempts to conceptualize self-rule, or swaraj. British colonial rule drew its legitimacy from a developmentalist conception of the colonized people as backward and disunited. The discourse of “underdeveloped” colonial peoplehood rendered the Indian people “unfit” for self-government, suspending their sovereignty to an indefinite future. The concept of swaraj would be born with the rejection of deferred colonial self-government. Yet the persistence of the developmentalist figuration of the people generated a crisis of sovereign authorization. The pre-Gandhian swaraj theorists would be faced with the not-yet claimable figure of the people at the very moment of disavowing the British claim to rule. Recovering this underappreciated pre-Gandhian history of the concept of swaraj and reinterpreting its Gandhian moment, this article offers a new reading of Gandhi's theory of moral self-rule. In so doing, it demonstrates how the history of swaraj helps trace the colonial career of popular sovereignty.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
DAVID BAILLARGEON

This article examines the history of mining in British Southeast Asia during the early twentieth century. In particular, it focuses on the histories of the Burma Corporation and the Duff Development Company, which were located in British-occupied Burma and Malaya, respectively. It argues that despite being represented as “rogue” corporate ventures in areas under “indirect” colonial rule, the contrasting fates of each company—one successful, one not—reveal how foreign-owned businesses operating in the empire became increasingly beholden to British colonial state regulations during this period, marking a shift in policy from the “company-state” model that operated in prior centuries. The histories of these two firms ultimately demonstrate the continued significance of business in the making of empire during the late colonial period, bridging the divide between the age of company rule and the turn toward state-sponsored “development” that would occur in the mid-twentieth century.


2002 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
JUAN A. SUÁREZ

Reputedly, painter Charles Sheeler and photographer Paul Strand's Manhatta is the first significant title in the history of American avant-garde cinema. It is a seven-minute portrait of New York City and focuses on those features which make the city a modern megalopolis – the traffic, the crowds, the high-rise buildings, the engineering wonders, and the speed and dynamism of street life. The film strives to capture rhythmic and graphic patterns in the movements and shapes of cranes, trains, automobiles, boats, steam shovels, suspension bridges, and skyscrapers. Due to the dominance of technology, the entire urban landscape appears in the film as a machine-like aggregate of static and moving parts independent from human intention.


1969 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Twaddle

In 1959 C. C. Wrigley published ‘The Christian revolution in Buganda’. an important essay summarizing a decade of intensive research into Buganda politics during the nineteenth century. There he demonstrated how ‘Ganda society had undergone, immediately before the advent of British imperial power, a genuine revolution, which had brought about drastic changes in ideology and in the structure as well as the personnel of government and that as a result of these [and other] changes it was uniquely fitted to cope with the new situation which confronted it in the last years of the nineteenth century’. This essay seeks to reconstruct an intriguing attempt made by the Bakungu client-chiefs who triumphed in that ‘Christian revolution’ to perpetuate their power in the Buganda kingdom by making further institutional changes during the second decade of the twentieth century. But first it is necessary to discuss the general factors shaping political relationships between these client-chiefs and their European rulers during the first and third decades of this century. In this it is possible to take account not only of several secondary sources published since the appearance of Wrigley's article nearly ten years ago, but also of certain primary materials which have recently come to light.


SPAFA Journal ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Peterson ◽  
Archie Tiauzon ◽  
Mark Horrocks ◽  
Maria Kottermair

The Jesuit House was built in 1730 on land reclaimed from the Tinago Marsh at the edge of the early Spanish settlement of Cebu City, Philippines, two centuries after it was first encountered by the Spanish explorer Magellan. As the city expanded from its core areas ca. 1565 around Fort San Pedro, Plaza Independencia, and the sites of Santo Nino Church and the Cebu Cathedral, waterways were drained and filled, and canals were dredged to extend the urban Spanish grid. Archaeological excavations at the Jesuit House and in the nearby Casa Gorordo Annex project document these changes in the urban landscape. Soil profiles throughout the downtown coastal plain in conjunction with chronostratigraphic data from the excavations demonstrate its submergence during the late Holocene high sea still-stand, followed by dissection by local drainages and the Guadalupe River. Relict channels and distinct interfluvial terraces are observed showing a migrating series of channels along the shoreline as well as a distinct escarpment at the back of the plain that marked the limits of marine intrusion during the high still-stand. Visayans and Spanish settlers selected higher ground for settlement in the interfluves and modified lowland areas such as the marshlands one of which became the Parian District of urban Cebu. Archaeological investigations at the Jesuit House and the Casa Gorordo Annex document the environmental history as well as the transition from native to colonial lifeways at the edge of Empire.Ang Balay Hesuita natukod niadtong tuig 1730 pinaagi sa pagtambak og yuta sa Katunggan sa Tinago diha sa ngilit sa nag-unang nahimutangan sa mga Katsila sa Sugbu, Pilipinas, mga duha ka gatusan ka tuig human kini nakaplagan sa Katsilang manunuhid nga si Magallanes. Sa dihang nilapad ang lungsod, gibana-bana 1565, nga naglangkob sa Kotang San Pedro, Hawan Independencia, ug mga luna sa Simbahang Santo Nino ug Katedral sa Sugbu, ang mga katunggan gipahubas ug gitambaka’g yuta, ug ang mga kanal gihawas-asan aron sa pagpalugway sa gilapdon sa lungsuranong Katsila. Makita kining mga kausaban sa lungsod pinaagi sa mga nakubkuban sa mga arkeyologo sa Balay Hesuita ug sa Sumpay sa Balay Gorordo nga duol niini. Ang mga takilirang hulagway’ng yuta sa tibuok kabaybayunang patag sa maong lungsod, tali sa datos nga kronostratigrapiko nga nakuha pinaagi sa mga arkeyolohikong pangubkob nagapakita sa pagkalubog niini kaniadto sa kinatas-ang naabtan sa dagat sa panahon sa Holosino, gisundan kini sa pagtabas-tabas pinaagi sa mga gagmay’ng sapa ug sa Subang Guadalupe. Makita sa mga karaang giagian sa katubigan ug tataw’ng mga hinagdanan ang nagsunod-sunod nga mga agianan sa tubig subay sa baybayon ug ang mga tataw nga tagaytay sa likod sa patag nga maoy nagpaila kung asa taman niabot ang kadagatan sa panahon sa kintas-ang gihunungan niini kaniadto. Gipili sa mga lumolupyo nga Bisaya ug Katsila ang hataas nga mga lugar para ila kining puy-an taliwala sa mga dagayday ug ilang giusab ang mga basa nga mga lugar sa ubos niini, sama sa mga katunggan diin usa niini ang Ditritong Parian sa Sugbu. Ang mga pagtulun-ang arkeyologo sa Balay Hesuita ug sa Sumpay sa Balay Gorordo nagapakita sa kaagi sa kalikupan lakip na ang pag-usab gikan sa lumadnon ngadto sa kolonyal nga mga pamaagi sa kinabuhi diha sa ngilit sa Imperyo.


X ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia Gron ◽  
Eleni Gkrimpa

The cities in the fortifications: the Ionian islands in Greece. Knowledge and enhancement of a heritage Residing in the Mediterranean Sea, Ionian islands signify the passage from the west to the east. A constantly sought-after region due to the trade routes, was for a long time garrisoned and under the authority of the Venetian Republic (fourteenth-eighteenth centuries) that hindered with its fleet the Turkish invasions. The bigger islands that constitute the cluster of the Eptanisa: Corfu, Lefkada or Santa Maura, Ithaka, Kefalonia, Kythira, Zakinthos and more, that had strategic positions with respect to the usual routes, had since the middle ages fortifications like walls, towers and castles, that over the time were expanded and restructured by the Venetians in order to defend those islands from the enemy attacks. The rich iconographic historic material, considering the Ionian Islands, allows to document the characteristics of those wide spread defensive structures and to identify each strong part of this big and unique fortification cluster. It has to be noted that every one of those structures gives us clues about the urban history of the city it resides since they were part of the urban landscape revealing this way the urban layout. The compelling story of the architectural consistency of those fortresses, as it is described in the historic documents, cannot be always verified. Many of those structures are nowadays completely destroyed and only a few remains are left. There are many ways to organize a project for saving those structures and in particular one that will be related with the cultural tourism.


2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (15) ◽  
pp. 87
Author(s):  
Antonia Spanò ◽  
Filiberto Chiabrando ◽  
Livio Dezzani ◽  
Antonio Prencipe

<p>The reconstructive study of the urban arrangement of Susa in the 4th century arose from the intention to exploit some resources derived from local studies, and survey activities, fulfilled by innovative methods from which the modelling of architectural heritage (AH) and virtual reconstructions are derived.  The digital Segusio presented in this paper is the result of intensive discussion and exchange of data and information during the urban landscape documentation activities, and due to the technology of virtual model generation, making it possible to recreate the charm of an ancient landscape. The land survey has been accomplished using aerial and terrestrial acquisition systems, mainly through digital photogrammetry from UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) and terrestrial laser scanning.  Results obtained from both the methods have been integrated into the medium scale geographical data from the regional map repository, and some processing and visualization supported by GIS (Geographical Information System) has been achieved. Subsequently, with the help of accurate and detailed DEM (Digital Elevation Model) and other architectural scale models related to the ancient heritage, this ancient landscape was modelled. The integration of the history of this city with digital and multimedia resources will be offered to the public in the city museum housed in the restored castle of Maria Adelaide (Savoy dynasty, 11th century), which stands in the place where the acropolis of the city of Susa lay in ancient times.</p>


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