scholarly journals Agrarian Nationalism or “Imperial” Science? “El Sabio” Moisés S. Bertoni and Paraguayan Agricultural Science

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 194-222
Author(s):  
Robert Wilcox
Keyword(s):  
Natural Science ◽  
Agricultural Policy ◽  
Agricultural Development ◽  
Agricultural Science ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Trial And Error ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Scientific Experts ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Paraguayan War

As a contribution to recent discourse over the practice of natural science in Latin America’s liberal years, this paper examines Swiss-born botanist Moisés S. Bertoni’s place in Paraguay’s agricultural development following the Paraguayan War (1864-70). The war forced leaders in a devastated Paraguay to promote the immigration of European scientific experts and farmers, with the expectation that their knowledge of modern agricultural science and practice would revitalize the nation’s agriculture and lift Paraguay out of its poverty. From the late nineteenth century Bertoni’s work and knowledge of Paraguay’s tropical and semi-tropical climate and botany shaped much of Paraguayan agricultural policy and practice. And while his contributions were influential in understanding the nation’s environment and agriculture, what is unclear is how much his approach was the product of deliberate introduction of European agricultural science or the result of autochthonous experience and his own trial and error.

scholarly journals Agrarian Nationalism or “Imperial” Science? “El Sabio” Moisés S. Bertoni and Paraguayan Agricultural Science

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-222
Author(s):  
Robert Wilcox
Keyword(s):  
Natural Science ◽  
Agricultural Policy ◽  
Agricultural Development ◽  
Tropical Climate ◽  
Agricultural Science ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Trial And Error ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Scientific Experts ◽  
Paraguayan War

Abstract: As a contribution to recent discourse over the practice of natural science in Latin America’s liberal years, this paper examines Swiss-born botanist Moisés S. Bertoni’s place in Paraguay’s agricultural development following the Paraguayan War (1864-70). The war forced leaders in a devastated Paraguay to promote the immigration of European scientific experts and farmers, with the expectation that their knowledge of modern agricultural science and practice would revitalize the nation’s agriculture and lift Paraguay out of its poverty. From the late nineteenth century Bertoni’s work and knowledge of Paraguay’s tropical and semi-tropical climate and botany shaped much of Paraguayan agricultural policy and practice. And while his contributions were influential in understanding the nation’s environment and agriculture, what is unclear is how much his approach was the product of deliberate introduction of European agricultural science or the result of autochthonous experience and his own trial and error. Keywords: agricultural science; natural science; Paraguay; tropical climate

The Shift toward Secular Ideology

2021 ◽  
pp. 273-298
Author(s):  
Jon D. Wisman
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Natural Science ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Social Thought ◽  
The State ◽  
Invisible Hand ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Economic Science ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Following the rise of the state, religion served to legitimate societies’ institutions, practices, and unequal distributions of income, wealth, and privilege. However, emerging capitalism and its expanding bourgeoisie in Western Europe challenged the Catholic Church’s monopoly on truth and meaning, opening space for secular legitimation. The science of political economy increasingly evolved as a principal body of social thought legitimating inequality. This transfer from religion to political economy begins with the mercantilists and is mostly complete by the end of the nineteenth century. Political economy’s principal inequality-legitimating doctrines include the utility of poverty, the justice of the invisible hand, the Malthusian population doctrine, the wages-fund doctrine, and the trickle-down thesis. Most of these doctrines take on more of a patina of “natural” science in the late nineteenth century when the neoclassical revolution in economics attempted to sever economic science from morality and politics and express itself technically with calculus.

Chemistry with and without God

2019 ◽  
pp. 111-129
Author(s):  
John Hedley Brooke
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Natural Science ◽  
Turning Points ◽  
Spiritual Transformation ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Scientific Naturalism ◽  
Cultural Implications ◽  
Scientific Materialism ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Chemistry has been distinctive in its relations with religious and anti-religious belief. In its alchemical formation it minimally provided analogies for spiritual transformation. By the late-nineteenth century it was a prominent resource for scientific materialism and reductionism. Currently, it underpins ambitious projects for biosynthesis, usurping a vocabulary of ‘creation’. The aim of this chapter is to identify turning points as chemistry became a fully naturalized science. Five theses are introduced: that a simple antithesis between natural science and supernatural religion is inadequate; that chemistry, for much of its history, could be on the side of the angels; that, conversely and in other contexts, it could be corrosive of religious belief; that, as a catalyst for both belief and unbelief, it could be ambiguous in its cultural implications; and that the importance of scientific naturalism as an agent of disbelief is easily exaggerated.

scholarly journals Razorbacks, Ticky Cows, and the Closing of the Georgia Open Range: The Dynamics of Institutional Change Uncovered

1991 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 861-886 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shawn Everett Kantor
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Change ◽  
Transaction Costs ◽  
Agricultural Development ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Voluntary Agreement ◽  
Closed Range ◽  
Historical Case ◽  
Net Benefits ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Distributional Conflicts

This article attempts to explain why the adoption of potentially productive institutions is delayed and why inefficient ones persist by exploring the dynamics of institutional change in a particular historical case—the closing of the Georgia open range in the late nineteenth century. A closed range policy would have generated net benefits for specific regions of Georgia, but distributional conflicts, coupled with high transaction costs, made a voluntary agreement to do that unattainable. The article describes the Georgia legislature's important role in facilitating the adoption of a policy that led to more rapid agricultural development in the postbellum period.

Mortgage Rates and American Capital Market Development in the Late Nineteenth Century

1987 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 671-691 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth A. Snowden
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Market Segmentation ◽  
Capital Market ◽  
Agricultural Development ◽  
Market Development ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Regional Pattern ◽  
Substantial Impact ◽  
Mortgage Rates ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Substantial regional differentials in mortgage rates persisted throughout the postbellum period. I find that these differentials reflected not only variations in lending risk, but also the costs incurred in transferring funds between markets and unexplained regional premia. The results are consistent with the traditional interpretation that capital markets were at least partially segmented throughout the late nineteenth century. The effects on home and farm mortgage rates in the South and West were substantial and suggest that market segmentation could have had a substantial impact on the regional pattern of urbanization as well as agricultural development.

Diphtheria in late-nineteenth-century Sweden: policy and practice

1994 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie C. Nelson
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Santé Publique ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Taux De Mortalité ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Sante Publique

Quoique le taux de mortalité général ne cesse de décliner pour l'ensemble de la Suède, après 1810, certains groupes d'ôge ne présentent pas ce modèle de comportement. La mortalité des enfants augmente en effet – particulièrement de 1 à 10 ans – après 1850. Cet accroissement est en partie attribué à des épidémies de diphtérie. Cet article s'attache à présenter la législation en matière de santé publique en Suède à cette époque, en particulier à l'egard des maladies infectieuses, et étudie deux villes, Sundsvall et Göteborg, qui furent l'objet de sévères épidémies de diphtérie. La législation imposait que soient présentés des rapports réguliers à l'administration centrale. Néanmoins, on voit varier d'une ville à l'autre aussi bien les dispositions prises pour les hôpitaux spécialisés dans les maladies infectieuses que les mesures d'isolation des malades contagieux et les modalités de désinfection des maisons touchées par l'épidémie ou plus tard le recours à des serum traitants. En conclusion nous posons la question de savoir si l'opinion publique s'est émue de cet accroissement de la mortalité enfantine.

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 256-264
Author(s):  
Inge Van Hulle
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
West Africa ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Legal Discourse ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Trial And Error ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Empire Building ◽  
Late Nineteenth

The conclusion revisits the key findings of the previous chapters. The first half of the nineteenth century was a period of increased British presence in West Africa and one in which traditional normative commercial patterns with African polities were challenged through the introduction of new legal techniques and the re-interpretation of old ones. Such experimentation with legal techniques was often haphazard, improvisational, and a process of trial and error which escaped the control of the metropole and in which local protagonists took centre-stage. International legal discourse was characteristically open-ended, which allowed imperial protagonists to apply legal norms as much as possible to the benefit of varied imperial objectives. These findings paints a vastly different and more nuanced picture of British empire-building that has traditionally relied on a limited set of sources and particularly on the discourse of late nineteenth-century legal scholars.

French ‘Islamic’ Policy and Practice in Late Nineteenth-Century Senegal

1988 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 415-435 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Financial Resources ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Younger Generation ◽  
Sphere Of Influence

In contrast to the negative conclusions reached by Donal Cruise O'Brien, it is here argued that the French, in the last half of the nineteenth century, maintained an Islamic policy. They practised some of it all of the time and all of it when they had the human and financial resources. They consistently opposed the Islamic state where it conflicted with their own political and economic interests. They identified it with their old nemesis of Futa Toro and the Tokolor, and then with the Tijaniyya. This attitude can be contrasted with a much more tolerant disposition towards the established monarchies, with whom thay coexisted for a much longer time and upon whom they relied to supply the cadre of chiefs.In the case of Umar, the French confronted a jihad that was launched before they began their own expansion in the upper valley, but they contained its influence. They quarantined the Wolof areas and pushed the Umarian state to the margins of their sphere of influence. By allowing much of the younger generation of Tokolor to depart, they turned the preaching of hijra to their own advantage. The French opposed the efforts of Ma Bâ to move into the heart of the peanut basin and the campaigns of the Madiyankobe to block the river trade or disrupt cultivation in Cayor. As soon as Mamadu Lamin mobilized for jihad they responded by driving him out of their gateway to expansion.

scholarly journals Swedish Education Exhibitions and Aesthetic Governing at World´'s Fairs in the Late Nineteenth Century

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-30
Author(s):  
Christian Lundahl
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
International Comparisons ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Local Adaptations ◽  
Modern Education ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Regional Process ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Shed Light

For many historians of education, the emergence of a modern education system after the mid-nineteenth century was a national and regional process, neatly and carefully closed off within the borders of the nation. However, these accounts have often disregarded the effects of the flows of cross-border ideas and technologies, such as international comparisons, lesson-drawing, policy diffusion and travel, as well as local adaptations and translations of education policy originating elsewhere. The purpose of this article is to shed light on the relations between Swedish education and the international scene when it comes to policy and practice formation. The field of study is the international World´s Fairs of 1862–1904. Looking at what Sweden displayed, and understanding how visitors perceived it, the article raises questions concerning how exhibitions like these worked as mediators of educational ideals. The focus will be on the dissemination of aesthetic ideals, and the article will show that the World’s Fairs were platforms for an aesthetic normativity that had governing effects locally as well as globally.

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