The Global Bourgeoisie

Author(s):  
David Motadel ◽  
Christof Dejung ◽  
Jürgen Osterhammel

While the nineteenth century has been described as the golden age of the European bourgeoisie, the emergence of the middle class and bourgeois culture was by no means exclusive to Europe. This book explores the rise of the middle classes around the world during the age of empire. The book compares middle-class formation in various regions, highlighting differences and similarities, and assesses the extent to which bourgeois growth was tied to the increasing exchange of ideas and goods. It indicates that the middle class was from its very beginning, even in Europe, the result of international connections and entanglements. Chapters are grouped into six thematic sections: the political history of middle-class formation, the impact of imperial rule on the colonial middle class, the role of capitalism, the influence of religion, the obstacles to the middle class beyond the Western and colonial world, and, lastly, reflections on the creation of bourgeois cultures and global social history. Placing the establishment of middle-class society into historical context, the book shows how the triumph or destabilization of bourgeois values can shape the liberal world order. The book changes the understanding of how an important social class came to be.

Author(s):  
David Priestland

This article provides a new interpretation of Europe’s revolutionary era between 1917 and 1923, exploring the origins of the revolutionary wave and its diverse impact across Europe, focusing on the role of the Left. It seeks to revive the insights of social history and historical sociology, which have been neglected by a recent historiography, that stress the role of contingency, the impact of war, and the influence of militaristic cultures. Yet unlike older social history approaches which emphasised domestic social conflict at the expense of ethnic politics and empire, it argues that the revolutions were the result of a crisis of old geopolitical and ethnic hierarchies, as well as social ones. It develops a comparative approach, presenting a new way of incorporating the experience of eastern Europe and the Caucasus into the history of Europe’s revolutions, and a new analysis of why Russia provided such fertile ground for revolutionary politics.


Author(s):  
Peter Geschiere

The renewed relevance of “autochthony” and similar notions of belonging in many parts of Africa is symptomatic of the confusing changes on the continent since the “post-Cold War moment.” Africa is certainly not exceptional in this respect. The “new world order,” so triumphantly announced by President George H. W. Bush in 1990 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the apparent victory of capitalism turned out to be marked by intensifying global flows, as expected, but also by an increasing obsession with belonging all over the globe, which was less expected. Yet, it may be important to emphasize as well that this upsurge of struggles over local belonging took on special aspects in Africa. The notion of autochthony has its own history on the continent, going back to the impact of colonialism, but building on older distinctions. However, it always sat uneasily with what many historians and anthropologists see as characteristic for African social formations: a heavy emphasis on mobility and inclusion of people: wealth in people. Since the last decades of the 20th century, there seems to be an increasing closure of local communities in many parts of the continent: a growing emphasis on exclusion rather than inclusion of newcomers, immigrants, or “strangers.” After a brief sketch of the history of autochthony on the continent, also in relation to parallel notions like ethnicity and indigeneity, the focus is placed on the factors behind such a tendency toward closure: increasing land scarcity, and especially the changing global context since 1990. In many parts of the continent, the neo-liberal twin of democratization and decentralization had the effect that the feeling of belonging to the village became of crucial importance again, as well for people who had already lived for generations in the cities. The implications of such a growing preoccupation with autochthony and local belonging for national citizenship and notions on civil society are highly variable and depend on historical context. However, one recurrent trait is the paradox between a promise of basic security (how can one belong more than if one is rooted in the soil?) and a practice of deep uncertainty. The receding quality of these claims to belong—autochthony as a basic denial of history, which always implies movement—allows that they always can be contested: One’s autochthony can always be unmasked as “fake,” with someone else belonging more. Autochthony can be institutionalized in various forms and to various degrees, but its basic uncertainty gives it a violent potential.


2008 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
pp. 37-43
Author(s):  
Ainārs Dimants

Straipsnio tikslas – trumpai apžvelgti Latvijos žiniasklaidos privatizacijos ir koncentracijos procesus, sąlygotus užsienio investicijų. Straipsnyje nagrinėjama Skandinavijos, daugiausia Švedijos, kapitalo įtaka redakciniam autonomiškumui, naujų redakcinių instrumentų įdiegimui, siekiant žurnalistikos kokybės ir profesionalumo, o taip pat tokioms žurnalistikos struktūroms, kaip: profesinės sąjungos, žurnalistų rengimas ir mokymas bei žiniasklaidos tyrimai.Straipsnyje teigiama, jog pastarųjų metų Latvijos žiniasklaidos raidą atitinka Šiaurės/Vidurio Europos arba demokratinis-korporacinis žiniasklaidos sistemos modelis, suformuluotas mokslininkų Daniel C. Hallin ir Paolo Mancini trijų žiniasklaidos modelių ir politikos koncepcijoje.The role of Scandinavian investments for the re-integration of Latvian media in the North/Central European model of media systemAinārs Dimants SummaryThe aim of the paper is to give a brief overview about the development and concentration of Latvian media ownership since privatization, from the point of view of the impact of foreign investment. The paper examines the impact of Scandinavian, mainly Swedish, capital on editorial autonomy, on establishing editorial instruments to increase the quality and professionalism of journalism as well as on journalistic infrastructures such as professional unions, training and education and media research.The paper suggests that the North/Central European or Democratic Corporatist Model of media system described by Daniel C. Hallin and Paolo Mancini in their concept of three models of media and politics corresponds to the Latvian media development in the present and in the past.Key words: Latvian media system, models of media system, social history, history of communication, transparency of media ownership, investments, editorial autonomy, journalistic cultures, journalistic infrastructures, professional standards of journalism


Author(s):  
Mohammad Dawood Erfan

Afghanistan, with major rural population is of the countries that face varieties of problems for transformation from tradition to modernity (underdevelopment). Nowadays various social gaps in this geographical area have crystalized in ethnic cleft; has been originated from another background that the most important is the rural-urban gap. This hidden gap has shown itself in different forms in the social history of Afghanistan. Sometimes with a cover of Tribe, sometimes in the form of wealth and poverty and sometimes it rises with a cover over modernity and tradition. Development experts concentrate on other gaps and they didn’t pay enough attention to this important gap. The question is: What has been the role of rural-urban gap in underdevelopment and political changes in Afghanistan? In a country where social relations are generated from rural areas and political changes rise by using violent tools in different forms, necessitate deep socialistic investigations on ruling relations in rural communities that constitute the most population of the country. It seems inattention to rural people needs and problems led to the profound gap which shaped violent changes in the history of Afghanistan. Meaningful rural relations, nomadism and tribal culture, have led to many partitions in the process of development.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daryl Brian O'Connor

Suicide is a global health issue accounting for at least 800,000 deaths per annum. Numerous models have been proposed that differ in their emphasis on the role of psychological, social, psychiatric and neurobiological factors in explaining suicide risk. Central to many models is a stress-diathesis component which states that suicidal behavior is the result of an interaction between acutely stressful events and a susceptibility to suicidal behavior (a diathesis). This article presents an overview of studies that demonstrate that stress and dysregulated hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity, as measured by cortisol levels, are important additional risk factors for suicide. Evidence for other putative stress-related suicide risk factors including childhood trauma, impaired executive function, impulsivity and disrupted sleep are considered together with the impact of family history of suicide, perinatal and epigenetic influences on suicide risk.


Author(s):  
Fred L. Borch

Explores the role of the Dutch in the Indies from 1595, when sailors from Amsterdam first arrived in the islands, to 1942, when the Japanese invaded the colony and inflicted a devastating defeat upon the Dutch. The history of the Dutch in the Indonesian archipelago is critical to understanding the impact of the Japanese occupation after 1942, and the nature of the war crimes committed by the Japanese. This is because the ultimate goal of the Japanese occupiers was to erase all aspects of Dutch culture and influence the islands. The chapter begins with an examination of the early Dutch settlement of the islands, and the development of the colonial economy. It then discusses the so-called “Ethical Policy,” which sought to unify the islands under Dutch rule and implement European ideas about civilization, culture, and prosperity. The chapter looks at the colony’s social structure prior to World War II and closes with a discussion of the colony’s preparations for war with the Japanese in 1942. A short postscript explains what occurred between August 1945, when the Japanese surrendered, and December 1949, when the Netherlands East Indies ceased to exist.


Author(s):  
Paul Stevens

This chapter is concerned with the role of oil and gas in the economic development of the global economy. It focuses on the context in which established and newer oil and gas producers in developing countries must frame their policies to optimize the benefits of such resources. It outlines a history of the issue over the last twenty-five years. It considers oil and gas as factor inputs, their role in global trade, the role of oil prices in the macroeconomy and the impact of the geopolitics of oil and gas. It then considers various conventional views of the future of oil and gas in the primary energy mix. Finally, it challenges the drivers behind these conventional views of the future with an emphasis on why they may prove to be different from what is expected and how this may change the context in which producers must frame their policy responses.


Author(s):  
Stephen D. Bowd

Renaissance Mass Murder explores the devastating impact of war on the men and women of the Renaissance. In contrast to the picture of balance and harmony usually associated with the Renaissance, it uncovers in forensic detail a world in which sacks of Italian cities and massacres of civilians at the hands of French, German, Spanish, Swiss, and Italian troops were regular occurrences. The arguments presented are based on a wealth of evidence—histories and chronicles, poetry and paintings, sculpture and other objects—which together provide a new and startling history of sixteenth-century Italy and a social history of the Italian Wars. It outlines how massacres happened, how princes, soldiers, lawyers, and writers, justified and explained such events, and how they were represented in contemporary culture. On this basis the book reconstructs the terrifying individual experiences of civilians in the face of war and in doing so offers a story of human tragedy which redresses the balance of the history of the Italian Wars, and of Renaissance warfare, in favour of the civilian and away from the din of the battlefield. This book also places mass murder in a broader historical context and challenges claims that such violence was unusual or in decline in early modern Europe. Finally, it shows that women often suffered disproportionately from this violence and that immunity for them, as for their children, was often partially developed or poorly respected.


Author(s):  
Xavier Tubau

This chapter sets Erasmus’s ideas on morality and the responsibility of rulers with regard to war in their historical context, showing their coherence and consistency with the rest of his philosophy. First, there is an analysis of Erasmus’s criticisms of the moral and legal justifications of war at the time, which were based on the just war theory elaborated by canon lawyers. This is followed by an examination of his ideas about the moral order in which the ruler should be educated and political power be exercised, with the role of arbitration as the way to resolve conflicts between rulers. As these two closely related questions are developed, the chapter shows that the moral formation of rulers, grounded in Christ’s message and the virtue politics of fifteenth-century Italian humanism, is the keystone of the moral world order that Erasmus proposes for his contemporaries.


2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 449-465
Author(s):  
Stanley N. Katz ◽  
Leah Reisman

AbstractThis article discusses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement on the arts and cultural sector in the United States, placing the 2020 crises in the context of the United States’s historically decentralized approach to supporting the arts and culture. After providing an overview of the United States’s private, locally focused history of arts funding, we use this historical lens to analyze the combined effects of the pandemic and Black Lives Matter movement on a single metropolitan area – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We trace a timeline of key events in the national and local pandemic response and the reaction of the arts community to the Black Lives Matter movement, arguing that the nature of these intersecting responses, and their fallout for the arts and cultural sector, stem directly from weaknesses in the United States’s historical approach to administering the arts. We suggest that, in the context of widespread organizational vulnerability caused by the pandemic, the United States’s decentralized approach to funding culture also undermines cultural organizations’ abilities to respond to issues of public relevance and demonstrate their civic value, threatening these organizations’ legitimacy.


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