Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Leora Auslander ◽  
Tara Zahra
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Great Majority ◽  
Great Difficulty ◽  
History Of ◽  
Displaced People ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
Book Studies

This introductory chapter provides an overview of material culture in the history of war. Across the centuries, people in flight from war or persecution have carried personal possessions with them, often with great difficulty. They and their descendants have gone to considerable lengths to preserve these objects, despite their everyday-ness, because of the value they accrued as they accompanied displaced people on their travels. These laboriously constructed objects record the resilience and ingenuity of displaced people deprived of the great majority of their possessions. Not only have individuals whose lives have been interrupted and displaced by war invested heavily in things, but so too have governments and armies. This book studies the displacement of people and things in times of war, in Europe and its former colonies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The Decentering of Democracies

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre Rosanvallon
Keyword(s):  
Great Majority ◽  
Political Obligation ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Majority Principle ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Democratic Elections

This introductory chapter considers the definitions of legitimacy in the context of democratic politics. Expressions such as the “great majority” or “vast majority” established the law of numbers, in contrast to the minority rule characteristic of despotic and aristocratic regimes. At first, it was the difference in the origins of power and the foundation of political obligation that was crucial. Later, the majority principle came to be recognized in a more narrowly procedural sense. The chapter traces this evolution within the history of democratic elections, positing a decentering of democracy as newer forms of political investment emerge, making democratic politics into something more than merely electing representatives.

scholarly journals From the History of the Studies of the “Cave Town” of Kachi-Kal’on in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

2021 ◽  
pp. 594-608
Author(s):  
Natalia A. Abramova
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Cultural Layer ◽  
Great Work ◽  
The Crimea ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
Academy Of Sciences ◽  
Functional Purpose ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Table Mountains

The “cave towns” are located atop of table mountains built of limestone, or in rocky limestone precipices, within a small section of the Inner Range of the Crimean Mountains in the south-western Crimea. Among a very few written sources on the history of mediaeval Crimea there are mostly narratives, so thorough archaeological study of the sites is essential. Only the analysis of the data obtained by archaeology will shed light on the history of the creation, development, and decline of these enigmatic cave structures. This paper addresses the history of the study of the “cave town” of Kachi-Kal’on. This site is located in the Bakhchisarai District (Republic of the Crimea). Although the travelogues from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century regularly mentioned Kachi-Kal’on, the first archaeological studies of the site were carried out only in 1930. The excavations were conducted at a small square on the promontory in front of the fourth grotto of Kachi-Kal’on, where fortifications of the fortress were allegedly located. The excavations were carried out by the Eski-Kermen Expedition of the State Academy of the History of the Material Culture under the supervision of N. I. Repnikov. In the early autumn 1933, the archaeological researches at Kachi-Kal’on continued by the same expedition. Apart from the investigations in the territory of the ancient town where the cultural layer was disturbed, a great work was done to study and describe the whole site. This paper analyses the circumstances of the said researches of the site and examines the results of these works. The origin and functional purpose of the “cave town” is still disputable. The paper is the first to publish the photographs from the collections of the Institute of the History of the Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

‘On the Formation of a National Museum of Architecture: the Architectural Museum versus the South Kensington Museum

2008 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 211-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabelle Flour
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Great Majority ◽  
Great Difficulty ◽  
The South ◽  
Gothic Revival ◽  
International Exhibitions ◽  
Representation Of Architecture ◽  
History Of ◽  
Fresh Impetus

Architectural casts collections — the great majority of which were created in the second half of the nineteenth or the early twentieth centuries — have in recent years met with a variety of fates. While that of the Metropolitan Museum in New York has been dismantled, that of the Musée des Monuments Français in Paris has with great difficulty been rearranged to suit current tastes. Notwithstanding this limited rediscovery of architectural cast collections, they remain part of a past era in the ongoing history of architectural museums. While drawings and models have always been standard media for the representation of architecture — whether or not ever built — architectural casts seem to have become the preferred medium for architectural displays in museums during a period beginning in 1850. Indeed, until the development of photography and the democratization of foreign travel, they were the only way of collecting architectural and sculptural elements while preserving their originals in situ. Admittedly, the three-dimensional experience of full-sized architecture in the form of casts, or even of actual fragments of architecture, played a considerable part in earlier, idiosyncratic attempts to display architecture in museums, indeed as early as the late eighteenth century. Nevertheless, it was only from the mid-nineteenth century that they became the preferred medium for displaying architecture. The cult of ornament reached its climax in the years 1850–70, embodied, in the field of architecture, in the famous ‘battle of styles’ and in the doctrine of ‘progressive eclecticism’, and, in the applied arts, in attempts at reform, given a fresh impetus by the development of international exhibitions. It is not surprising, then, that the first debate about architectural cast museums should have been generated in the homeland of the Gothic Revival and of the Great Exhibition of 1851. For it was in London that this debate crystallized, specifically between the Architectural Museum founded in 1851 and the South Kensington Museum (now known as the Victoria and Albert Museum) created in 1857.

Production

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Raven ◽  
Karen O’Brien
Keyword(s):  
Great Majority ◽  
Book Production ◽  
The Novel ◽  
History Of The Novel ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Critical Studies ◽  
Production History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Narrative Forms

This introductory chapter discusses the production history of the novel. The revolution in book production across all genres is dramatic. Before 1700 up to about 1,800 different printed titles were issued annually; by 1820 up to 5,500—and this is simply a crude title count that does not consider the huge increases in the edition sizes of certain types of publication, increases that escalated sharply after 1820. It was only in the 1810s that the production of literature, and notably the novel, temporarily faltered. The great majority of the new novels of 1819–20 carried either ‘novel’ or ‘tale’ in their title. Early nineteenth-century British reviewers and advertising booksellers accepted and promoted the ‘novel’ as a distinct literary category, even though it encompassed a great many narrative forms. By 1820, readers were able to enjoy an accumulation of critical studies of the novels and even accounts of their production history and domestic and foreign influences.

Why Historiography Matters

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter N. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Rich History

This introductory chapter stresses the importance of a history of the study of objects as historical evidence. It argues that there is more depth to the use of objects as evidence than we might think, and a more sophisticated inventory of approaches and arguments on which to draw than we might imagine. To expand on this point, the chapter introduces a brief background into the history of antiquarianism, with special emphasis on how people have thought about studying objects as evidence and with reference to antiquarian ideas and practices dating back to Ancient Greek times. The chapter also details the author's own explorations and extrapolations of the rich history of material culture.

Chosen Nation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin W. Goossen
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Weimar Republic ◽  
Religious Affiliation ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
The World ◽  
German Identity ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries

During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the global Mennonite church developed an uneasy relationship with Germany. Despite the religion's origins in the Swiss and Dutch Reformation, as well as its longstanding pacifism, tens of thousands of members embraced militarist German nationalism. This book is a sweeping history of this encounter and the debates it sparked among parliaments, dictatorships, and congregations across Eurasia and the Americas. Offering a multifaceted perspective on nationalism's emergence in Europe and around the world, the book demonstrates how Mennonites' nationalization reflected and reshaped their faith convictions. While some church leaders modified German identity along Mennonite lines, others appropriated nationalism wholesale, advocating a specifically Mennonite version of nationhood. Examining sources from Poland to Paraguay, the book shows how patriotic loyalties rose and fell with religious affiliation. Individuals might claim to be German at one moment but Mennonite the next. Some external parties encouraged separatism, as when the Weimar Republic helped establish an autonomous “Mennonite State” in Latin America. Still others treated Mennonites as quintessentially German; under Hitler's Third Reich, entire colonies benefited from racial warfare and genocide in Nazi-occupied Ukraine. Whether choosing Germany as a national homeland or identifying as a chosen people, called and elected by God, Mennonites committed to collective action in ways that were intricate, fluid, and always surprising.

International Legal Thought

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Kleinlein
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Critical Potential ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Legal Thought ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries

This contribution reflects on the role of tradition-building in international law, the implications of the recent ‘turn to history’ and the ‘presentisms’ discernible in the history of international legal thought. It first analyses how international legal thought created its own tradition in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These projects of establishing a tradition implied a considerable amount of what historians would reject as ‘presentism’. Remarkably, critical scholars of our day and age who unsettled celebratory histories of international law and unveiled ‘colonial origins’ of international law were also criticized for committing the ‘sin of anachronism’. This contribution therefore examines the basis of this critique and defends ‘presentism’ in international legal thought. However, the ‘paradox of instrumentalism’ remains: The ‘better’ historical analysis becomes, the more it loses its critical potential for current international law. At best, the turn to history activates a potential of disciplinary self-reflection.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Levien
Keyword(s):  
Social Relation ◽  
Comparative Sociology ◽  
Land Grabs ◽  
Book Studies ◽  
The Relationship

This introductory chapter provides the context of India’s “land wars” and growing global interest in “land grabs.” It then details and critiques the three main theories of the relationship between dispossession and capitalism, which it calls the modernization, proletarian redemption, and predatory theories of dispossession. After documenting the shortcoming of each, it argues that dispossession is a social relation of coercive redistribution that it is organized into socially and historically specific regimes. The key to a comparative sociology of dispossession is to examine how distinct regimes of dispossession interact with diverse agrarian milieux. The book studies the interaction between India’s neoliberal regime of dispossession and the agrarian milieu of “Rajpura,” and argues that the result is dispossession without development. After explaining the book’s methodology and fieldsite, the chapter concludes with an overview of the book.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Whitehead
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
History Of ◽  
Television Film ◽  
Popular Image

The introductory chapter discusses the popular image of the ‘Romantic mad poet’ in television, film, theatre, fiction, the history of literary criticism, and the intellectual history of the twentieth century and its countercultures, including anti-psychiatry and psychoanalysis. Existing literary-historical work on related topics is assessed, before the introduction goes on to suggest why some problems or difficulties in writing about this subject might be productive for further cultural history. The introduction also considers at length the legacy of Michel Foucault’s Folie et Déraison (1961), and the continued viability of Foucauldian methods and concepts for examining literary-cultural representations of madness after the half-century of critiques and controversies following that book’s publication. Methodological discussion both draws on and critiques the models of historical sociology used by George Becker and Sander L. Gilman to discuss genius, madness, deviance, and stereotype in the nineteenth century. A note on terminology concludes the introduction.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document