The “Moral Effect” of Legalized Lawlessness

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Elkins
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
British Empire ◽  
World War ◽  
Civilizing Mission ◽  
The Creation

From 1930s Palestine to Kenya in the years following World War II, systematized violence shaped and defined much of Britain’s twentieth-century empire. Liberal authoritarianism, and with it the “moral effect” that coercion had upon colonial subjects, gave rise to the systematic use of violence against colonial subjects. The ideological roots of these tactics can be located in the twinned birth of liberalism and imperialism, together with metropolitan responses to imperial events in the mid-nineteenth century. Despite copious amounts of empirical evidence documenting the evolution of liberal authoritarianism, and the creation and deployment of legalized lawlessness throughout the British Empire, Steven Pinker either ignores this evidence, or implicitly denies its validity. In reframing Britain’s civilizing mission, and challenging liberalism’s obfuscating abilities, this article critiques not only the British government’s repeated denials of systematized violence in its empire, but also Pinker’s reinforcement of the myths of British imperial benevolence.

Ordering Empire and Democracy, 1902–1921

2020 ◽  
pp. 24-67
Author(s):  
Tobias Harper
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
British Empire ◽  
British Society ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
New Order ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Opening Up

This chapter examines the creation of new orders at the beginning of the twentieth century, which was the culmination of a prolonged period of “unprecedented honorific inventiveness” starting in the late nineteenth century. In Britain the new Order of the British Empire was branded the “Order of Britain’s Democracy” in recognition of the fact that it extended far deeper into non-elite classes in British society than any previous honour. Between 1917 and 1921 more than 20,000 people in Britain and throughout the British Empire were added to this new Order. This was an unprecedented number, orders of magnitude larger than honours lists in previous years. While the new Order was successful in reaching a wider, more middle-class audience than the honours system before the war, which was socially narrow, there was a substantial backlash to what was widely perceived by elites to be an excessive (and diluting) opening-up of the “fount of honour.” This backlash was connected to political controversies about the sale of honours that eventually helped bring about Lloyd George’s downfall. This chapter also contains a brief description of all the components of the British honours system at the beginning of the twentieth century.

African Studies in Czechoslovakia: Achievements and Perspectives

1969 ◽  
Vol 12 (02) ◽  
pp. 213-222
Author(s):  
Peter Skalník
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
African Studies ◽  
World War ◽  
Dark Continent ◽  
Zambezi River

Scientific research of African societies and cultures in Czechoslovakia has developed only in the last two decades. Nevertheless, to precede the research there was a relatively extensive background shaped by the tradition of travelers whose interest was centered especially on geography, biology, and descriptive and collective ethnography. The most important of these travelers were Dr. Emil Holub (1847-1902), who crossed South Africa as far as the Zambezi River and published several books, most of which are now available in English, about his experiences; Remedius Prutký, a missionary who visited Ethiopia in 1751-1753 and not only described his travels but even compiled a vocabulary of the Amharic language; and Dr. Stecker and Čeněk Paclt, who traveled in the nineteenth century through Ethiopia and South Africa, respectively. In the twentieth century there was a considerable number of Czechoslovak travelers who acquainted their compatriots with the “Dark Continent.” Before World War II, three professor of Semitology at Charles University, Prague -- R. Dvořák, R. Ru̇žička, and A. Musil -- started to study Ethiopian languages and history. The well-known Austrian scholar of Czech origin, Dr. Pavel Šebesta (Schebesta) became one of the best specialists in the anthropology and ethnography of the Pygmies.

From “Motherhood in the Interest of the State” to Motherhood in the Interest of Mothers

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hillary Maxson
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Japanese Women ◽  
The State ◽  
World War ◽  
World Congress ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The Creation

In the aftermath of World War II, many Japanese women felt impelled to exorcise “martial motherhood,” a stoic, tearless, child-sacrificing gender ideal constructed by the state throughout the early twentieth century. At the Mothers’ Congress of 1955, mothers from across the country gathered to reclaim motherhood from the state and began to redefine motherhood for themselves in the postwar era. This chapter argues that the Mothers’ Congress represented a moment of transition from the wartime concept of “motherhood in the interest of the state” to the postwar idea of motherhood in the interest of mothers. Furthermore, the influential power of the organizers of Japan’s Mothers’ Congress was fundamental in the creation of the 1955 World Congress of Mothers. This was the first instance in which Japanese women became international feminist leaders, and they did so through the language of matricentric feminism.

The Onassis Global Shipping Business, 1920s–1950s

2014 ◽  
Vol 88 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gelina Harlaftis
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Transitional Period ◽  
World War ◽  
Post World War Ii ◽  
Old Order

Aristotle Onassis was a leading figure in creating the new global tanker business in the second half of the twentieth century. This article examines the first thirty years of his career, before he became renowned worldwide, setting his business in the context of global shipping developments. Onassis is the most famous of the shipping tycoons that transformed maritime business in the post–World War II transitional period. He is among those “new men”—Greek, Norwegian, Danish, American, Japanese, or Hong Kong shipowners—who replaced the old order of the traditional British Empire shipowners. These new pioneers established the global shipping business in the era of American dominance.

Asia’s Ambivalence about International Law

2019 ◽  
pp. 15-36
Author(s):  
Simon Chesterman
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
International Law ◽  
Political Power ◽  
World War ◽  
Push Factors ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
History Of ◽  
Unequal Treaties

This chapter traces the broad history of Asia’s engagement with international law, focusing on three aspects that continue to have resonance today. First is the experience of colonialism by India and many other countries across the continent. Second, the unequal treaties of the nineteenth century and the failure to recognize the People’s Republic of China for much of the twentieth century encouraged a perception that international law was primarily an instrument of political power. Third, the trials that followed World War II left a legacy of suspicion that international law deals only selectively with alleged misconduct, leaving unresolved many of the larger political challenges of that conflict with ongoing ramifications today. The chapter then argues that Asian states’ ongoing ambivalence towards international law and institutions can also be attributed to the diversity of the region, power disparities among states, and the absence of ‘push’ factors driving greater integration.

Chesterfield Smith, America's Lawyer

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary E. Adkins
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Small Firm ◽  
World War ◽  
Combat Experience ◽  
State Constitution ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Law ◽  
Bar Association

Chesterfield Smith was one of the boldest lawyers of the twentieth century. A child of a poor, broken household but also a child of a politically connected family, Smith grew up aimless. His World War II combat experience changed him. He returned an ambitious and impatient man who had learned from the European theater what systemized hate and prejudice could do. Smith rose fast, building his small firm to a goliath, leading the Florida Bar, and masterminding the creation of a new state constitution. As president of the American Bar Association during Watergate, his was one of the earliest voices calling for Nixon to obey the law or resign. At home, Smith urged his lawyers to improve the practice of law, and the world around them, by “doing good.” Smith’s larger-than-life personality and drive to improve his surroundings irritated some and inspired many.

From Race Relations to Community Relations

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allan W. Austin
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Race Relations ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Community Relations ◽  
World War ◽  
Interracial Relations ◽  
The 1950S

This chapter explores the activities of the Race Relations Committee, which was established in 1943 and remained after World War II. The new committee created several integrated projects (including housing efforts and a work camp) as well as interracial projects such as minority hiring efforts and a university lectureship program. By 1950, Quakers in the AFSC had thus developed an indirect, Friendly approach to interracial relations that while still working to correct individual ignorance now saw the need to reform society as well. Understanding the details of that approach and how Quakers arrived at it provides important insights into Quakers and race in the first half of the twentieth century. It also helps to fill in the historiographical gap concerning the racial activism of Quakers between their nineteenth-century efforts at reform and their participation in the Civil Rights Movement that blossomed in the 1950s and beyond.

To Reconstruct the Medieval: Rural Reconstruction in Interwar China and the Rise of an American Style of Modernization, 1921–1961

2000 ◽  
Vol 9 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 169-196
Author(s):  
David Ekbladh
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
World War ◽  
Post World War Ii ◽  
American Style ◽  
The Cold War

AbstractThe concept of modernization exerted a powerful influence over international affairs in the twentieth century. It offered not only a way of understanding the profound global transformations of the period but also a means of influencing the course and pace of those changes. While the preoccupation with the causes and consequences of modernity can be traced back at least to the nineteenth century, .modernization. as a school of thought and a set of practices is usually understood to be a decidedly post–World War II phenomenon. Many scholars have interpreted the rise of modernization as a response to the imperatives of the Cold War and the great postwar wave of decolonization, and have therefore located the origins of this concept in the years after 1945.

The Formation of a Budding Man Alone: The God Boy (Murray Reece, 1976)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alistair Fox
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
World War ◽  
Value System ◽  
Feature Films ◽  
The Family

This chapter analyses the earliest of the New Zealand coming-of-age feature films, an adaptation of Ian Cross’s novel The God Boy, to demonstrate how it addresses the destructive impact on a child of the puritanical value-system that had dominated Pākehā (white) society through much of the twentieth century, being particularly strong during the interwar years, and the decade immediately following World War II. The discussion explores how dysfunction within the family and repressive religious beliefs eventuate in pressures that cause Jimmy, the protagonist, to act out transgressively, and then to turn inwards to seek refuge in the form of self-containment that makes him a prototype of the Man Alone figure that is ubiquitous in New Zealand fiction.

Représentations de l’absence et du manque : de La Dispersion au Livre brisé de Serge Doubrovsky

2011 ◽  
pp. 111-121
Author(s):  
Nurit Levy
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
French Literature ◽  
World War ◽  
Indelible Mark ◽  
Contemporary French Literature ◽  
Post Modernism ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Serge Doubrovsky

Author and academic, Serge Doubrovsky is an important figure in contemporary French literature. His numerous publications foretell the emergence of a new literary concept, positioning him in the domain of post-modernism with the emergence of auto-fiction. From The Dispersion to The Broken Book, the auto-fiction unfolds in a jerky narrative while the genesis of the work revolves around a profound sense of lack and absence that the writer tries to fill through his writing. The experience of World War II left a life long indelible mark on the writer’s own identity and brings forth the creation of this hybrid autobiography that aims at tearing down ge-neric and literary boundaries. Letters and words are used to confront what is missing in his life in a transgressing style that describes the violence of this experience. In this way, Doubrovsky leaves a trace of his existence, transforming his life into a novel – a work of fiction – and by giving space to imagination when telling his own story.

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