The Cambridge History of America and the World

The fourth volume of The Cambridge History of America and the World examines the heights of American global power in the mid-twentieth century and how challenges from at home and abroad altered the United States and its role in the world. The second half of the twentieth century marked the pinnacle of American global power in economic, political, and cultural terms, but even as it reached such heights, the United States quickly faced new challenges to its power, originating both domestically and internationally. Highlighting cutting-edge ideas from scholars from all over the world, this volume anatomizes American power as well as the counters and alternatives to 'the American empire.' Topics include US economic and military power, American culture overseas, human rights and humanitarianism, third-world internationalism, immigration, communications technology, and the Anthropocene.

The Cambridge History of America and the World

The fourth volume of The Cambridge History of America and the World examines the heights of American global power in the mid-twentieth century and how challenges from at home and abroad altered the United States and its role in the world. The second half of the twentieth century marked the pinnacle of American global power in economic, political, and cultural terms, but even as it reached such heights, the United States quickly faced new challenges to its power, originating both domestically and internationally. Highlighting cutting-edge ideas from scholars from all over the world, this volume anatomizes American power as well as the counters and alternatives to 'the American empire.' Topics include US economic and military power, American culture overseas, human rights and humanitarianism, third-world internationalism, immigration, communications technology, and the Anthropocene.

Reading Confessions of the Flesh as the Second Volume of the History of Sexuality

Summary In this article, I propose a different reading of Foucault’s newly published work than suggested by the publishers and in initial reviews. I question the claim that it represents the fourth volume of the History of Sexuality and rather propose to regard it as an intended second volume. Comparing Foucault’s final plan of publication of the series with the background and stated purpose of Les aveux de la chair, I hold that it is part of a different philosophical project than volumes two and three. Foucault wrote Les aveux de la chair to explore the roots of modern power in the experiences that early Christianity occasioned. This makes the work relevant for current theology and the philosophy of religion.

The emperor’s herbarium: The German physician Leonhard Rauwolf (1535?–96) and his botanical field studies in the Middle East

This paper presents the results of the new interdisciplinary research done on Leonhard Rauwolf’s herbarium with plants from the Middle East, which was later owned by Emperor Rudolf II. Using various sources, it examines how the herbarium came into the imperial collections, Early Modern methods of botanical research as described by Rauwolf in his printed travelogue, and how the illustrations for the printed book were produced from the specimens in the herbarium. The appendix (available in the online version) presents the new corrected botanical identification of the c. 200 plants in the fourth volume of Rauwolf’s herbarium, and a correct transcription of the Early Modern Latin and vernacular names Rauwolf collected for these plants.

Will of Apollos Daughter of Paesis from Oxyrhynchos*)

The article is a re-edition of a papyrus published in the fourth volume of The Oxyrhynchus Papyri as a descriptum. It is a second-century will made for a female testator in Oxyrhynchos. One of the dispositions preserved in this text draws attention as it resembles the Roman legatum per praeceptionem, although the will was made for a peregrine.

Fascinating Flesh: Revealing the Catholic Foucault

The Catholic dimension in Foucault’s examination of the Church Fathers is featured because neglect of it may misrepresent the very notions of virginity and of flesh in Confessions of the Flesh. Failure to appreciate the tension between a seditious flesh and an incarnational flesh implicitly confines the Patristic vision to the limited modern field of “sexuality.” The fourth volume might be best interpreted against the background of the investigations that prompted Foucault to immerse himself in religious texts and spiritual experiences: his early writings on literature; the later interest of his lectures in pastoral technologies; and his witnessing of the political-spiritual movements both in Islam (the Iranian revolution) and in Catholicism (the anti-military protests in South America and the anti-Communism denunciations of Pope John Paul II).

Foucault’s Queer Virgins: An Unfinished History in Fragments

This essay attends to the place of virginity at the center of the fourth volume of Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality, Confessions of the Flesh. Reading virginity through a rhetorical lens, the essay argues for an ethics and a politics of counter-conduct in Foucault characterized by chiasmus, a rhetorical structure of inverted parallelism. That chiastic structure frames Foucault’s Confessions, and all of his work, as a fragmented, self-hollowing speech haunted by death and the dissolution of the subject. The essay reads Foucault as apophatic speech that returns to us, no longer itself, made strange. In that deathly movement of eternal recurrence, Foucault’s Confessions speak after death from the x’d out place of the queer virgin: on a threshold that separates life from death, in a movement of metanoia or ethical conversion. As an unfinished history in fragments, the essay’s form brings attention to incompletion as a crucial aspect of Foucault’s work. The fragmentation that characterizes an unfinished history underscores poetic discontinuity as the hallmark of Foucault’s genealogical method and thought.

Marcell Benedek. The Double of Mr. Golyadkin

It is here presented the Russian translation of the introduction Dostoevsky’s short story The Double, firstly published in the fourth volume of the Hungarian translation of Dostoevsky’s Collected Works (1922) that was part of a large educational project by the publishing house Révai. The author of this short article about The Double, Marcell Benedek (1885–1969), writer, translator, and literary scholar, was an eminent representative of the Hungarian culture of the early and mid-20th Century. His works and media appearances were intended to familiarize readers with the works of Hungarian and European literature, to teach them to understand the language of fiction and the mechanisms of the aesthetic interpretation of reality. Benedek wrote one of the first articles about Dostoevsky’s early work in the European history of Dostoevsky studies and is at the origins of a tradition of deep reflection on the nature of the writer’s aesthetic principles.

„Melpomene” by Herodotus as a source on international and military history in the northern Black Sea region in the VI century B. C.

The article considers the peculiarities of the existence of a regional international order in the northern Black Sea region during the Scythian rule based on the analysis of the fourth volume of the work „History”, entitled „Melpomene” by the ancient Greek historian and writer Herodotus. Emphasis is placed on the coverage of the causes, course and results of the Persian king Darius I in Scythia described in the treatise in 513 B. C. As a result of the study, the author concludes that the fourth chapter of Herodotus' „History” of Melpomene allows us to shed light on the ancient international order that existed on the steppe outskirts of the ancient world, where Scythian tribes ruled during the period under study. Among the aspects considered by the author and useful from the point of view of research of the chosen problem, there are features of mutual relations between Scythians and their allies – Greeks. Based on the testimony of Herodotus, we can conclude that during the intensification of contradictions with the Persian Empire of the Achaemenids in the VI century B.C. and the beginning of the military conflict with it, relations between Greece and Scythia move to a new, qualitative level. There is, in fact, a deepening of relations to the level of military-political alliance directed against the Persian king Darius I. There is also evidence of local Scythian allies – neighbors, some of whom refused to help them in the fight against the Persians, some – supported. Support for the latter, not only allowed to increase the army, but also allowed to wage a war of attrition, which provided for constant retreat, including in the territory of the Allies. It can be concluded that due to effective allied cooperation with local tribes, the Scythians succeeded in the main strategic task of this war – to create a threat to the bridge over the river Istra. This circumstance, which posed a risk for Darius to be cut off from his Caucasian possessions, forced the Persian ruler to retreat.

Some thoughts on historical and legal aspects regarding the fourth volume of the “Laws of the Great Ming dynasty” translated into Russian. [Review on:] Svistunova N. P. (transl.), Dmitriev S. V. (ed.). Laws of the Great Ming Dynasty with the Combined Commentary and Enclosed Decrees (Da Ming Liuy Tsi Tze Fu Li). Pt. IV. Moscow: Vostochnaya literature; 2019. 550 p.

The article is a survey of the Russian translation of “Laws of the Great Ming dynasty” in four volumes published since 1997 to 2019. The introduction of this legal monument to the Russian scientific society is of great importance as it substantially expands contemporary idea on Chinese traditional legal system and meets a lack in the history of law ofChinain 14th–17th cc.To survey the legal monument there special legal scientific methods were used. Historical legal approach allowed to trace the creation and acting of this codification in the specific historical circumstances, value its urgency for the epoch of Ming dynasty (1368–1644). Comparative legal method gave an opportunity to compare this legal monument with other codifications of traditional Chinese law since the ancient times to the legislation of Qing, last dynasty of the imperialChina(1644–1911). Formal legal approach provided the analysis of the legal technique of the document, specific features of its structure and content, characteristic of legal terminology, etc.The analysis allowed to appreciate the “Laws of the Great Ming dynasty” at its high value as a source on history, state and law of medievalChina. It had similarities and differences with other sources of traditional Chinese law. Besides, it is of great importance for the further development of legislation of imperialChina.The codification is an important document on statehood and law of the Ming China as it contains valuable information on power system and competence of authorities, basic fields of legal relations in the medieval Chinese society. Its structure is traditional (based on the example of codification of Tang dynasty, 618–907), at the same time it has larger volume and regulates new fields of legal relations, takes into account changes in the internal and externaln status ofChinaafter the expelling the Mongolian Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) and foundation of “national” Ming dynasty. Some principles of domestic and foreign policy of Qing dynasty were legally fixed during the epoch of Ming.The analyzed legal monument is of great interest for researchers of the history ofChina, its state and law. In fact, each chapter as well as specific articles and supplement statements could be a subject of investigation. “Laws of the Great Ming dynasty” also could be used by lecturers of history of state and law and for students who study this discipline.