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The little-known Roman gold mining site "Gralheira" is located near the well-explored mine of Tresminas. The 2.5 km long, almost dead straight archaeological monument from the first and second centuries AD is currently under threat from possible mining activities on the one hand and from modern waste disposal in the pits on the other. Since 2019, the Roman mining traces have been investigated by means of intensive field inspections, terrestrial 3d laser scanning and aerial photography. The following article will present first impressions and findings on this structure, as well as questions and preliminary interpretations.
The grave offerings and the traces of ritual actions should prove a valuable source for speculation about views on death in antiquity. In the Classical necropolis of Medma the main features of grave’s goods reflect socio-religious believes about death and after death not completely explained yet. In this research suggestions could derive from the analysis of the vegetal charred offers discovered in some burials; they’re figs, olive stones, grapes, almond and, pheraphs, nuts laid inside the tombs, in most cases primary cremations, or in isolated cases above them. Their presence also in religious contexts like sanctuaries suggests ritual and votive actions more than luxury demonstrating, conclusion drawn from the analysis of the terracotta offers too. In Greek tradition the fruits considered are related to the meanings of civilisation, prosperity, wealth and nature renovation and for this holy to nether deities associated to burial rituals.
This paper was presented at the workshop “Goods, Languages, and Cultures along the Silk Road” at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, October 18 and 19, 2019. While many contributions to the workshop focused on recent developments in China’s current “New Silk Road” politics, on forms of communication, and on contemporary exchange of goods and ideas across so-called Silk Road countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia and with China, this short essay focuses on the history of the so-called Silk Road as an important transport connection. Although what is now called the “Silk Road” was not a pure East-West binary in antiquity but rather developed into a network that also led to the South and North, the focus here will be on describing the East-West connection.
I will start with a few brief remarks on the origins of the connection referred to as the Silk Road and will then introduce the different great empires that shaped this connection between antiquity and the Middle Ages through military campaigns and by using it as a trading route and network. But the Silk Road was by no means only of economic and military importance. Its significance for the exchange and dissemination of religions should also be mentioned. This paper does not detail the importance of the numerous individual religions in the area of the Silk Road but discusses the phenomenon of the spread of religions and the loss of some of their own distinguishing characteristics in this spread, a phenomenon that could be described as a “unity of opposites” (coincidentia oppositorum). Finally, the essay asks who, in the face of the regular replacement of powers, held sovereignty over the transport connection: the subject (in the form of the empires) or the object (in the form of the road).
Who were the main protagonists of and along the Silk Road in the course of history? Who were the people who became the great powers of the ancient Silk Road, building up the material route, governing parts of it, and organizing trade and relationships from the far East to the extreme West of the Eurasian continent?
The complexity of atmospherical processes has always yielded a multitude of ways of knowing about the weather. What has been lacking in the historiography of meteorology so far is a way to formulate differences between forms of knowledge in a way that does not privilege modern scientific structures, but focuses instead on the epistemological category of causality. Using causality as ground of comparison for different knowledge claims, I shall argue, may enable researchers to investigate meteorological knowledge across time periods, perhaps even geographical regions, in a more symmetrical manner. This review demonstrates this approach as a means to organize a large set of historical meteorological writings from German countries between 1750 and 1850. Three distinct forms of knowledge (Semiotics, Physics, and Organics of the weather) during that time and in that region are suggested and will be described. While a bibliography with a national perspective from the 1880s was the basis for the selection of historical sources, such a setup proved awkward even to contemporaries. In addition, the bibliography came with a number of biases and shortcomings that will be critically reviewed.
This article presents a case study of three different coin series (RRC 468-RRC 470) minted near contemporaneously in Hispania during the latter stages of the civil war, which present strikingly different representations of foreign peoples and places. While Caesar’s coin series (RRC 468) displays an image of submissive Gallic captives and a military trophy, Cnaeus Pompey Jr’s two series (RRC 469=470) feature personifications of the region and local cities and depicts them working together with their Pompeian counterpart in the pursuit of victory in the area. The article incorporates hoard evidence to further develop our understanding of how a contemporary viewer might have experienced these contrasting images of foreign peoples and places. It demonstrates which would have been the more common image in circulation and provides evidence for potential audience targeting with the Pompeian coin series. In light of recent scrutiny of Pompeian patronage networks in Spain, this hoard evidence for potential audience targeting allows a new interpretation of the Pompeian coin series as targeting a potentially wavering host community to be put forward.
The purpose of history education in Austria has changed over at least the last decade. While the focus used to be to give students a master narrative of the national past based on positivist knowledge, the current objective of history education is to foster historical thinking processes that enable students to form transferable skills in the self-reflected handling and creation of history. A key factor in fostering historical thinking is the appropriation of learning tasks. This case study measures the complexity of learning tasks in Austrian history textbooks as one important aspect of their quality. It makes use of three different approaches to complexity to triangulate the notion: general task complexity (GTC), general linguistic complexity (GLC), and domain-specific task complexity (DTC). The question is which findings can be offered by the specific strengths and limitations of the different methodological approaches to give new insights into the study of task complexity in the domain of history education research. By pursuing multidisciplinary approaches in a triangulating way, the case study opens up new prospects for this field. Besides offering new insights on measuring the complexity of learning tasks, the study illustrates the need for further research in this field – not only related to the development of analytical frameworks, but also regarding the notion of complexity in the context of historical learning itself.
This special edition of HERJ (number 16.1) sprang from an international symposium in Salzburg, Austria on 11 and 12 May 2017, called Triangulation in History Education Research (H-Soz-Kult, 2019). It includes 12 articles on mixed-methods research and triangulation in history education research from seven different countries: Australia, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
In his widely acclaimed book “Das Kalte Herz” (The Cold Heart), economic historian Werner Plumpe tells the story of the history of capitalism, which in his view represents a sober form of economics which has proved itself superior and higher performing than other systems. To this day, the long tradition of capitalism criticism has not understood that in capitalism, great wealth is utilized to produce goods that are usually affordable for people with small incomes.
The volume under review is the result of a conference on historical graffiti held at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich in 2017. The aim of this book is to analyse — for the first time — graffiti from the ancient, medieval and modern periods in their historical and geographical contexts from an interdisciplinary point of view. Following this comparative approach the authors show the tremendous potential of this nascent area of research by investigating epigraphic material that has been neglected and underestimated by scholars for a long time. ...
It is a rare and wonderful thing when a book of 383 pages leaves a reader wanting to read more, much more in fact. That is certainly the case with this intriguing collection of thirteen assorted essays on the Rhine economy from 1815 to the present, organized in six broad topical sections: origins, enterprises, sectors and clusters, infrastructures, transport, and environment. ...
Since the turn of the millennium, historical research has become increasingly interested in knowledge-based societies and their cultures, not least medieval ones. Whereas legal historical medieval studies have joined the interdisciplinary discussion about the notion of order as well as that of law, the notion of knowledge, and especially that of legal knowledge, has not been in the focus of interest. This observation serves as the starting point for Stephan Dusil’s habilitation thesis, which he submitted in 2016 at the Faculty of Law of the University of Zurich and which is now available as a monograph. ...
The article analyses how the decrees of the Council of Trent regarding marriage were used by the Church of Rome as a tool to contrast mixed marriages in Early Modern Europe. It investigates how these decrees were evaded by local churches in order to administer a practice of confessional coexistence impossible to eradicate, and how they were manipulated by actors – even Protestants – to put an end to undesirable unions. It also presents the interpretation that the Church of Rome made of the Tametsi to resolve the age-old issue of mixed marriages in the Low Countries, issuing the Benedictine Declaration, later applied to other contexts with a strong Protestant presence – above all out-side Europe. Although the Council of Trent claimed to have fixed a homogeneous and flawless nuptial ritual, the various local practices did not always adapt to it. Indeed, they bypassed it; sometimes refused it. This led parish priests and missionaries to turn to Rome for the resolution of concrete cases. The decisions taken for individual cases became a normative reference point. It was produced by the continuous interaction and negotiation with local churches and went on in fact to profoundly influence the sacramental rituality of marriages, which Tametsi had claimed were fixed and immutable.
The marginalization of the hijra identity in postcolonial Pakistan perpetuates the inequalities that have dogged the transgender community since the colonial era. Although Pakistan has since ratified all concerned UN treaties aimed at protecting transgender people and preventing human rights violations against them, the country’s gender-variant population nevertheless remains vulnerable to these transgressions. As such, this study aims to explore the following inquiry: “What are the lifeways of the hijra community and how do hijra people face human rights violations in their daily life activities?”
The identity construction of the hijra is a complex process. Pakistan is a patriarchal society that determines gender based on biological sex. While a genitally ambiguous child is generally recognized as intersexed, the family usually obscures this circumstance or tries to enforce a predominantly male identity onto the child. To some degree, an intersexed child is allowed to perform feminine roles, particularly when compared to a biologically male individual who is inclined toward femininity. They may partake in “girls’ games” or in “women’s chores” like cooking; they may opt to don feminine clothing and jewelry or practice walking and talking “like a girl.” Many family members and relatives consider such actions a threat to family honor and/or an indication of weakness, which in turn renders the child vulnerable to sexual or physical assault. Abuse also causes some gender-variant children to drop out of school. As adults, many hijras do not see childhood sexual encounters as assault, particularly because they considered themselves to be feminine even from a young age. Nevertheless, experiences of isolation, abuse, and exclusion often compel a gender-variant child to seek company outside of his/her family of orientation.
Many transgender individuals see redemption in joining the hijra community: there, a new identity is defined and shaped. New members mirror themselves after more senior hijras. In the community, relationships are solidified through similar childhood experiences and interests as well as a shared freedom to express the outer reflection of an “inner feminine soul.” Here, they accept the childhood label affixed to them by heteronormative society: hijra. In fact, the identity now becomes the key to economic viability and socialization.
The predominant livelihood strategies within the hijra community are dancing and prostitution. New members must adhere to stringent norms and rules; they risk (sometimes severe) punishment if they do not. For example, a new hijra must adopt a very strict feminine appearance; if she does not appear feminine enough she may be socially isolated or physically punished. Similarly, a hijra is required to remain passive during sex. In fact, because hijras are stereotyped as passive and vulnerable, many clients physically exploit or even rape them. If she tries to resist, a hijra may face physical violence and, in extreme circumstances, death. Reporting abuse to law enforcement authorities often leads to further exploitation. As such, whether dancing or performing sexually, hijras are encouraged to do whatever is asked of them.
In the last decade, the Supreme Court of Pakistan has taken significant steps to ensure the rights of transgender people. The Court has similarly compelled local governments to amend existing legislation in order to protect the transgender community. Nevertheless, discrepancies exist in legislative and judicial interpretations of the transgender identity, which continues to impede the struggle for basic rights. Indeed, there is a long way to go in the effort to incorporate transgender people into the folds of mainstream Pakistani society.
Wilhelmine Germany enjoyed something of an economic miracle that enabled men from modest backgrounds to become wealthy and influential. Among these was Carl Duisberg, who rose as the son of a modest ribbon weaver in Barmen to head the Bayer chemical works and later the massive German chemical trust I. G. Farben. Like others of his generation, Duisberg was the beneficiary of an excellent scientific education and the opportunities opened up by a rapidly expanding economy. In this massive and definitive biography of the man, Werner Plumpe explores Duisberg’s life as an industrial entrepreneur to uncover the role of the individual manager in the creative-destructive dynamics of capitalism, drawing on his own extensive knowledge of German entrepreneurship and industrial relations in the Wilhelmine and Weimar eras. ...
During the transition from early-modern societies to the nation states of the 19th and 20th centuries, the formation of the territorial state performed an important function. The combining of dominions to form a geographical and political unit could occur through the annexation of the weaker territory by the stronger one, but it could also occur with the mutual agreement of the political decision-makers of both territories. In the case of a union, a distinction emerged very early on between a real union and a personal union (or union of crowns). While in a real union agreements under international law were equally binding for both partners, the personal union assumed a special status, in which the person of the ruler was the only connection between the two states. However, this strictly legal definition only applied to the political institutions. Below the state level, there were forms of transfer that could give a personal union a special, transnational character. Academic opinion remains divided on the extent to which these connections, which are referred to using the term "composite statehood", constitute a Europe-wide development.
Last week’s printed edition of Focus had a piece about how Germany’s politicians are using social media. It made the dubious claim that 61% of Green top candidate Katrin Göring-Eckardt’s Twitter followers could have been bought.
Let’s actually instead try to get to grips with what is going on here, and try to draw some conclusions. ...
In 1905, the managing editor of the Jewish Encyclopedia, Isidore Singer (1859–1939), published an article in the journal Ost und West from a "bird’s eye perspective on the development of American Jewry in the last 250 years." In this historical overview, Singer eventually attested that Jewish scholarship in America had an "absolute dependency on the European motherland." This judgment was based on his disapproving view of the two American rabbinical seminaries that existed at that time. According to Singer, there were still no scholars at the Hebrew Union College (HUC) in Cincinnati of the "already American[-born] generation of Israel." In fact, Singer’s observation was appropriate because it applied to the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTSA) in New York as much as to the HUC.3 Despite the history of Jewish settlement in America, around 1900 there was still no native Jewish scholarship in America. The scene was dominated by scholars educated in Europe, who often came with broken English and a strict academic sense of mission. In 1903, Kaufmann Kohler (1843–1926), born in Bavaria and trained at German universities, was chosen as the president of HUC. And a year earlier, Solomon Schechter (1847–1915) had been called to the JTSA in New York as its new president. ...
In Charlemagne, Johannes Fried offers a new account of the life of the Frankish king and emperor, one of the most influential figures in European history. Although the limited surviving resources from the period make the book more of an in-depth account of the socio-political context of Charlemagne’s reign rather than a strict biography, Sara Perley welcomes this as a well-researched and engaging read that will foster curiosity about both Charlemagne and this lesser known period of history.
The author, a professor of English linguistics at Freiburg University, was a member of the German Council of Science and Humanities (Wissenschaftsrat) from 2006 to 2012 and, in this capacity, was involved in this advisory body’s rating and assessment activities. The present contribution focusses on issues arising in the rating of research output in the humanities and is informed by his dual perspective, as planner and organizer of the ratings undertaken by the Wissenschaftsrat and as a rated scholar in his own discipline, English and American Studies.
In a year of many anniversaries – the death of Charlemagne 814, Council of Constance 1414, Congress of Vienna 1814, the outbreak of World War 1914 – it was appropriate to remember Bouvines 1214 for, as Pierre Monnet and Claudia Zey note in their Introduction (p. 9–15), it marked an important event in Franco-German relations with which all these events are in one way or another bound up. These two authors attach much importance to Georges Duby and his study of the battle, making it clear that the book is not about a single event, but concerned to contextualize and set it in the longue durée, hence the timespan of the title. ...
Writing the history of archaeology has become increasingly diverse in recent years due to developments in the historiography of the sciences and the humanities. A move away from hagiography and presentations of scientific processes as an inevitable progression has been requested in this context. Historians of archaeology have begun to utilize approved and new historiographical concepts to trace how archaeological knowledge has been acquired as well as to reflect on the historical conditions and contexts in which knowledge has been generated. This volume seeks to contribute to this trend. By linking theories and models with case studies from the nineteenth and twentieth century, the authors illuminate implications of communication on archaeological knowledge and scrutinize routines of early archaeological practices. The usefulness of different approaches such as narratological concepts or the concepts of habitus is thus considered.
In Johannes Fried’s The Middle Ages, the author makes his case for an alternative interpretation of the medieval period as much more sophisticated than commonly thought, writes Ignas Kalpokas. The book intricately traces how ideas and systems of thought that we now consider quintessentially modern European ways of life, thinking and culture stemmed from this time period.
Adam Smith formulated a fundamental critique of economic growth in his philosophical oeuvre The Theory of Moral Sentiments, published in the year 1759. What might seem to be irony concerning the history of ideas – irony in the sense of the exclamation “he of all people” – is actually not irony at all. Smith wrote a substantial review of Rousseau’s Second Discourse, referring to Rousseau’s critique of commercial society. Additionally, one of the principal topics of Rousseau’s critique, the deformation of fundamental needs to passions in service of the satisfaction of self-love, is a major subject in Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments. But whereas Rousseau suggests egalitarian politics, Smith proposes individual stoicism: “In ease of body and peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level, and the beggar, who suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that security which kings are fighting for.” Nevertheless, both authors and analysts of pre-capitalist society identify the difference between fundamental needs and desires as having been born out of comparison as both a source of unhappiness and of economic development.
In the past few years a multidisciplinary team of scholars based at Goethe Universität Frankfurt has been involved in the development of three projects: the research project “Political language in the Middle Ages: Semantic Approaches”, and two online platforms, “Computational Historical Semantics” and “eHumanities Desktop”. These are closely related to each other, as they bring together historical research on Latin medieval texts and Digital Humanities. This article will offer an overview of the projects, focusing particularly on the digital tools which have been developed by the team.
Johannes Fried saves the programmatic aim of his book for the last chapter, but I’ll begin with it: unlike their counterparts in China or India or really any other center of historical civilizations, Europe has a particular disdain neither for its oldest period nor for the most recent but for the middle age (507). Some, and Fried chooses his countryman Immanuel Kant as their chief, regard the middle ages as an age lacking in the beauty of the ancient world and without the dedication to reason that his modern counterparts share. He holds Gothic architecture in particular contempt (506). Just as bad, Fried notes, are those who would romanticize the middle ages, ignoring the truly radical thought of characters like Meister Eckhart and William of Ockham, whose philosophical explorations set the stage for the most radical thought of what Kant would regard as his own era’s Enlightenment (508). In his masterful book titled simply The Middle Ages, Fried begins with Boethius and wends his way to Machiavelli in a campaign against such dismissals and such flattening accounts, telling a tale of political thought and philosophical exploration and most importantly of complexity at every step, a journey through Western Europe’s middle millennium that encourages the reader to think of the period as a truly fruitful period of intellectual, political, and social transformation. ...
With its broad spectrum of cults and coexisting religions Graeco-Roman antiquity seems, at first glance, to be the embodiment of religious freedom. Yet, a closer analysis shows that a concept of tolerance or the idea of religious freedom did not exist. Political institutions could easily suppress religious practices that were regarded as offensive. Fighting against the oppression of Christians appears to have increased under the influence of oecumenical paganism during the reign of the Severans. In this time, the Christian thinkerTertullian discovered and articulated the concept of religious freedom. However, he did not do so emphatically and the concept was not very successful in antiquity. With the Christianization of the Roman Empire it disappeared soon, although its rediscovery in later epochs contributed heavily to the formation of the European norm of religious freedom.
Andreas Fahrmeir’s history of the first half of the "long nineteenth century" begins with a disdainful Arthur Young travelling through France at the beginning of 1790 and ends with London’s Great Exhibition of 1851. The contrasting fortunes of France and Great Britain exemplify the contrasting concepts of the title. While the former experienced at least eleven contested regime changes – 1789, 1792, 1793, 1794, 1799, 1814, 1815 (twice), 1830, 1848 and 1850 – the British political system endured, albeit modified by reforms. Moreover, revolutionary-Napoleonic France was responsible for numerous revolutions from above elsewhere, uprooting old regimes and creating satellite states right across the continent, from the Batavian Republic to the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. Old Europe was not restored in 1815. With the Holy Roman Empire gone for good, the Low Countries combined in a single kingdom, Poland expunged from the map once again and the Habsburg Empire much more of an Italian and Balkan power than in the past, quite a new order had emerged. The shallow roots of the new creations ensured their future fragility. ...
It has become increasingly apparent over the last decades that cooking pottery played a considerable role as a trade commodity in ancient times, yet relatively little research has yet been done on this topic for its own sake. By taking a closer look at the cooking pottery found in Priene, a small city in southern Ionia re-founded in the middle of the 4th century BCE, we want to trace some of the broader developments within the cooking wares that were used over a period of roughly 300 years. The aim is not only to outline the general shapes that were in use over this period of time, but also to register if and how these shapes correlate with the different fabrics observed in Priene so far.
The Crusade movement is one of the most important occurrences of medieval history. It took place throughout two centuries in the Levant and affected both Muslims and Crusaders and in turn changed the way in which West and East related to one another. When the Crusaders took control of the Holy Land and many Islamic cities in the Levant, they transferred their feudal European system there. They established four main fiefdoms or lordships, Jerusalem, Edessa, Antioch and Tripoli. In addition, there were another twelve secondary fiefdoms, of which Tibnīn was one. Tibnīn was called “Toron” by the Crusaders. Once the Crusaders had captured Tibnīn, they began building its fortified castle, from which the fief of Tibnīn gained its importance throughout the period of the Crusades.
This paper traces the military role of Tibnīn and its rulers in the Latin East against the Muslims until 1187/ 583. Tibnīn played a key role in overcoming the Muslims in Tyre and controlled it in 1124. It also played a vital role in the conflict between Damascus and the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Tibnīn participated in defending Antioch, Banyas, Hebron and Transjordan several times. Furthermore, its soldiers and Knights joined the army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem to capture Ascalon in 1153, and joined the campaigns of Amaury I, King of Jerusalem, against Egypt from 1164 to1169. The military situation of Tibnīn under the rule of the royal house until its fall to the Muslims in 1187/ 583 will be studied as well.
Buff, red, grey – these are common descriptions of pottery in archaeology. Colour is usually part of the recording of ceramic data, but these data are rarely used for more than the most general characterisation of pottery. Despite hesitations concerning the subjective nature of these observations and other factors involved in colour notation, is has been shown that the data can lead the way to broader interpretations, and careful recording with a standardised system such as the Munsell colour charts may reduce the effects of personal perception. A sample of colour notations of pottery from Tell Mozan, Syria, is presented here as an example of the possibilities; it is hoped that this study will provide comparative data for other sites in the region.
Published in good time for the 2014 "Karlsjahr", marking 1200 years since the emperor’s death, Johannes Fried’s latest book is intended to make specialist scholarship on Charlemagne accessible to a broad audience. Judging by the impressive sales figures, it has admirably fulfilled that purpose. That is not however to say that it is an anodyne synthesis of current research. The picture of the Frankish ruler it provides is very much the author’s own, as he himself emphasises, so there is little danger that it might be lost to sight amongst the many other biographies currently available. ...
“Shades” of Postmortem Personal Identity: ψυχή καὶ εἴδωλον in the Dream Passage (Il. 23.103-104)
(2013)
In a recent contribution entitled, “Homer’s Challenge to Philosophical Psychology,” Fred Miller proposes an “aporetic approach” to the Homeric poems. That is to say, a close reading of the epics reveals “serious aporiai,” at least insofar as philosophical consistency is concerned. Homeric readers, ancient and modern alike, have found irreconcilably-different answers to our perennial questions about humanity and divinity, fate and free will. To his credit, Miller rightly relieves Homer of an undue burden – viz., that of addressing the philosophical problems of later generations. “The analysis of concepts and the resolution of aporiai”: these are, as Miller notes, definitively not the priorities of an epic bard. Instead, such poets, working freely within the parameters of their oral traditions, understandably use language in ways not strictly-philosophical. Ultimately, Miller wants to argue that the ambiguities of Homer’s poetic language hastened Greece’s philosophical awakening...
Die Dissertation stellt das Machtgeflecht in der Islamischen Stadt Marawi City (Mindanao, Philippinen) dar, in die die dortigen Gender-Debatten involviert sind. In einer Umgebung, die als Konsequenz des Mindanao Konfliktes als “no war, no peace”-Umgebung definiert werden kann, gibt es drei Hauptdarsteller: die nationale Regierung des mehrheitlich christlichen Staates der Philippinen (GRP), die Autonome Regierung im Muslimischen Mindanao (ARMM), zu der auch Marawi City zählt, und die islamische Rebellengruppe Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), die einen islamischen (unter-)Staat fordert. Die GRP unterstützt Re-Islamisierungs- und Re-Traditionalisierungsbewegungen in der ARMM, um die Opposition zur MILF zu stärken. Die Konsequenz ist jedoch keine Kollaboration zwischen der GRP und der ARMM. Stattdessen nutzen Politiker ihre Privilegien aus, um ihren eigenen Absichten zu folgen. Sei dies, um politische Gegner auszuspielen oder das traditionelle Sultanatssystem zu fördern. Für Gender-Debatten gibt es in diesem Kontext der ungelösten nationalen Frage kaum Spielraum außerhalb einer Islamischen Narrative; dies bedeutet jedoch nicht, dass Gender nicht debattiert wird, sondern, dass die Debatten inner-Islamisch sind, hauptsächlich zwischen Repräsentanten des traditionell synkretistischen Islam und Vertretern Islamischer Revitalisierungsbewegungen. Speziell erstere erscheinen sehr einflussreich bezüglich Gender Strategien in der Region. Dies ist nur teilweise auf die Unterstützung der nationalen Regierung zurückzuführen, sondern ist vor allem eine Frage von Identität. Diese wiederum wird nicht vorranging über Religion, sondern nach ethnischen Maßstäben und im Speziellen im Rahmen von Clanstrukturen definiert.
Responding to studies on prejudice in the Greco-Roman world, E. Gruen argues that Greeks and Romans had more nuanced and complex opinions about foreigners than often recognized. G. observes that the Greek and Romans could discover or invent links with these other societies through cultural appropriations of the past. These connections, G. contends, show that the Greeks and Romans cannot be ‘blanketed’ with xenophobia, ethnocentrism, and “let alone racism” (p. 3). G. argues that the Greeks and Romans were more interested in drawing connections with the other through cultural appropriation. G. contends that this approach reveals a positive outlook which does not reject or degrade the foreign other.
The global economic crisis in the 1890s affected the economy of Greece severely, and in 1893 the Greek State had to stop servicing its foreign debt. Part of the
problem was the lack of diversity of Greek agricultural production, which was focused on raisins and currants (especially flavourful raisins, grown exclusively in the area around Corinth) for export. The collapse of market prices for this good seriously affected the Greek treasury and society in the growing regions. The Greek government responded by trying to withhold part of the harvest in fertile years to stabilise world market prices. Plans to organise a monopoly company for the currant trade necessitated high sums of capital from abroad. This article investigates the question of how foreign bankers in London (Hambro & Son, Emile Erlanger) and Paris (Banque de l’Union Parisienne) could be convinced to participate in the project. Which factors allowed foreign bankers to trust in the Greek national economy despite its poor reputation? What factors influenced their risk management? The focus is on the role of Greek brokers in persuading the foreigners to invest in Greece, especially the role played by Ioannis Pesmazoglou, the director of the young and innovative Bank of Athens.
Zeitgeschichte in Germany has now been focusing for some time on the 1970s and 1980s, and has produced a substantial number of studies on the period "after the boom" (Lutz Raphael/Anselm DoeringManteuffel). By contrast, the history of the (West) German historical profession is still lagging behind and remains by and large confined to the first two postwar decades. What makes this gap even more problematic is the fact that most of the existing historiographical texts have been written by historians at the very center of the new developments during the 1970s, most notably Hans-Ulrich Wehler and Jürgen Kocka, or by sympathetic observers such as Georg Iggers. Thus the critical evaluation of these decades remains a historiographical desideratum. The present volume, a Gedenkschrift for the late Wolfgang J. Mommsen, constitutes a step in the right direction. ...
"Shades" of postmortem personal identity : ψυχή καὶ εἴδωλον in the dream passage (Il. 23.103-104)
(2013)
This paper describes the ongoing efforts of the authors to present ancient Greek and Roman numismatic data on the public internet, with an emphasis on efforts to integrate information from multiple sources using Linked Data and Semantic Web techniques. By way of very modern metaphor, it is useful to think of coins as intentionally created packages of 'named entities'. Each coin was struck by a particular authority, often at a known site, and coins often make reference to familiar concepts such as deities, historical events, or symbols that were widely recognized in the ancient world. The institutions represented among the authors have deployed search interfaces that allow users to take advantage of this aspect of numismatic databases. The American Numismatic Society's database provides faceted search to its collection of over 550,000 objects. The Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) in the UK presents individual finds (and hoards) recorded throughout the country. The Römisch-Germanische Kommission and the University of Frankfurt (DBIS) are developing a prototype metaportal (INTERFACE) that accesses national databases of coin finds held in in Frankfurt, Vienna and Utrecht. Each of these resources is beginning to explore Semantic Web/Linked data approaches so that the role of numismatic standards is immediately coming to the fore. DBIS and INTERFACE are developing a numismatic ontology. At the ANS and PAS, the public database already presents RDF serializations based on Dublin Core. Together, the authors have begun to explore standardization of conceptual names on the basis of the vocabulary presented at the site http://nomisma.org . Nomisma.org is a collaborative effort to provide stable digital representations of numismatic concepts and entities. It provides URIs for such basic concepts as 'coin', 'mint', 'axis'. All of these are defined within the scope of numismatics but are already being linked to other stable resources where available. This is particularly the case for mints. For example, the URI http://nomisma.org/id/corinth is intended to represent that ancient city in its role as a minter/issuer of coins. The URI is linked via the SKOS ontology to the Pleiades Gazetteer of ancient places. This allows Nomisma to be the basis for a common representation of the concept that an object is a coin minted at Corinth. The ANS has already deployed such relationships in its public database. The work of all these projects is very much in progress so that this paper hopes to generate discussion on how multiple large projects can move forward in their own work while encouraging sufficient commonality to support large scale research questions undertaken by diverse audiences.
This conference report comprises the contributions of European and American specialists in Fascism on the topic of networks, promises for the future and cultures of violence in Europe, 1922–1945. It was concluded that a much more in-depth examination of fascist networks, as well as their learning and acquisition processes is required, especially after 1939 and in the currently under-researched regions of Eastern and Southern-Eastern Europe. Secondly, the concept of a ‘New Man’ should be applied in more detailed studies on population and educational policies. Thirdly, there is a need to counter the frequently lamented asymmetrical state of research between Italian fascism and National Socialism.
What happened to Jews in areas annexed to Nazi Germany between 1935 and 1941? In what ways was their persecution similar or different from that of Jews in the old Reich? What do we learn about the Nazi regime more generally by examining anti-Jewish policies in the annexed areas? This elegant volume explains how the unique demographic, economic, and social situation in each area annexed to the Third Reich played out in antisemitic policies. For some areas, such as Memel, Eupen-Malmedy, and Alsace, it offers the first overview of the persecution of Jews in a particular area. In other locations, such as Austria and East Upper Silesia, the volume presents a stellar overview of areas of the Final Solution that scholars have already well documented. But as the editors' introduction underscores, the real strength of the volume is that it examines the cases together. This, in turn, reinforces insights into some of the fundamental dynamics of the Final Solution, including the role of local initiative and the transfer of Nazi persecution practices from one area to another.
Rezension zu: Raimon Graells i Fabregat (Coord.), El valor social i comercial de la vaixella metàllica al Mediterrani centre-occidental durant la protohitòria in: Revista d’Arqueologia de Ponent 16-17, 2006-2007, 257-340 <81 pages, 65 illustrations. Edited by Secció d’Arqueologia, Prehistoria i Història Antiga, Departament d’Història, Facultat de Lletres, Universitat de Lleida. ISSN: 1131-883-X>
Nusa Tenggara Timor, a south-eastern province of Indonesia, is populated mainly by Christians. The Alor-Pantar Archipelago has a majority of Protestant inhabitants who were baptized by Dutch Calvinists in the first half of the twentieth century. In addition, there are some coastal enclaves that have been inhabited by Muslims for centuries. In some areas, such as in the headland of Muna (Tanjung Muna) forming the northeast of Pantar Island, there is an even greater diversity of monotheistic religions, with some Catholic families living next to Protestants and Muslims. All adherers of the three religious faiths living at Tanjung Muna share core elements of the local adat, which consists of core rules relating to social behavior. It is believed that the ancestors will notice transgressions of these rules, and may use their supernatural power to punish their human descendants. In Indonesia, the term adat was first used by Muslims to distinguish the non-Islamic practices from Muslim faith (Keane 1997:260-261). This is definitely not the case in the village of Pandai at the coast of Tanjung Muna, where Islam tolerates ancestral worship. The same is true for the Catholics in the inland village of Helangdohi, who do not only tolerate but even support such customs. Some villagers from Helangdohi had become acquainted with this kind of Catholicism on the nearby island of Flores, where ancestral worship is encouraged by the missionaries of the Societas Verbi Divini (SVD). The attitude of Protestantism, at least in the Alor Archipelago, is quite the contrary of the permissive views held by Catholicism and Islam. In the 1930s the Protestant-Calvinist missionaries banned any kind of ancestral worship and destroyed most relics (Dalen 1928: Picture 1). These drastic measures demanded the disavowal of the ancestors, including the destruction of heirlooms and omitting of rituals.
On 15 August 2005, when the Republic of Indonesia and the Free Aceh Movement (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka, GAM) signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in Helsinki, Finland, it was considered yet another uncertain attempt at putting an end to Indonesia's thirty years of conflict in its westernmost province, Aceh. After a historically unprecedented reconstruction process that followed the tsunami of December 2004 and two orderly elections in 2006/2007 and 2009, Aceh’s peace process is not only still on track, but widely considered a role model for ending protracted civil wars by means of political participation and autonomy regulations. This article reviews past developments that have led to the reconfiguration of Aceh's political landscape and seeks to illustrate the most recent developments in GAM's transformation from an independence movement to an Indonesian local political party.
Mike Rapport is one of the few scholars who write European history not as the history of a few select countries, but of the entire continent. Rapport is at home in the history of the Balkans as well as France, Italy, Germany, Russia, and Scandinavia, and well versed in the historiography published in English, French, and Italian. Rapport's well-rounded viewpoint is one excellent argument for anyone suffering from "1848 fatigue" after the sesquicentennial celebrations and their aftermath in conference volumes and historiographical reviews to put aside any skepticism regarding the possibility of anyone presenting a novel perspective; the book itself is another. In it, Rapport offers a narrative history of the events of 1848 in those European countries and regions affected directly by the revolution--France, Italy, the German states, Denmark, and Rumania--with some remarks on areas where the impact was more indirect (Britain, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and Scandinavia). This book is less obviously an academic textbook than Jonathan Sperber's excellent survey of the revolutions of 1848, and less encyclopedic than the survey of national events and overarching themes edited by Dieter Dowe and others for the 1998 anniversary. ...
The focus of this work, the debate about a body of law dealing with aristocratic issues, is not easy to summarize. This problem stems in part from a topic that historians who do not work on law might be forgiven for considering nonexistent; in part, it has to do with the indirect way in which Dorothee Gottwald engages with current trends in the historiography of nineteenth-century Germany. ...
Although throughout the history of anthropology the ethnography of urban societies was never an important topic, investigations on cities in Africa contributed to the early theoretical development of urban studies in social sciences. As the ethnography of rural migrants in towns made clear, cultural diversity and creativity are foundational and permanent elements of urban cultures in Africa (and beyond). Currently, two new aspects complement these insights: 1) Different forms of mobility have received a new awareness through the concept of transnationalism. They are much more complex, including not only rural–urban migration, but also urban–urban migration, and migrations with a destination beyond the continent. 2) Urban life-worlds also include the appropriation of globally circulating images and lifestyles, which contribute substantially to the current cultural dynamics of cities in Africa. These two aspects are the reasons for the high complexity of urban contexts in Africa. Therefore, whether it is still appropriate to speak about the “locality” of these life-worlds has become questionable. At the same time, these new aspects explain the self-consciousness of members of urban cultures in Africa. They contribute to the expansive character of these societies and to the impression that cities in Africa host the most innovative and creative societies worldwide.
Over the last few years the boom in Rathenau-studies has continued. The latest addition to the list is Lothar Gall’s biography, which was published last year. Reading Gall’s biography makes it understandable why Rathenau’s life has remained such a popular subject. As a multi-facetted polyglot and business man, as an active and critical commentator of political events and contemporary trends and as an early victim of violent anti-Semitism, he remains a focus for study and research. ...
The 900th anniversary of the death of Emperor Henry IV (7 August 2006) occasioned several special colloquia (in Cologne, Speyer, Goslar) and publications in celebration of the so-called "Year of the Salians" . While several scholarly publications and exhibits also appeared with specific focus on Henry IV himself, the present volume contains the papers given at a colloquium held at the University of Cologne (26–30 September 2006), which accordingly focused on the Salian dynasty’s history in the lower Rhine region. Prof. Dr. Tilman Struve (emeritus professor at the University of Cologne), who has spent much of his career studying the Salian house during the Investiture Struggle, lends his considerable expertise to framing this collection of disparate essays. ...
This study explores the development of the concept of administratio between the early Merovingian period and the late ninth century. The author’s thesis is that administration lost its original connotation of authority delegated by and exercised on behalf of the state, and that this signals the loss of an abstract awareness of the commonwealth in the early medieval period. In the fifth century the idea of administratio as public powers derived from a higher authority was still in place, but soon thereafter this conception vanished (p. 2–3). Yet when in 814 Louis the Pious became emperor, the original meaning of administratio seemed to get a revival – or, should one say, a new lease of life? Hardly, for only in Italy and Aquitaine was there any awareness left of public service as an abstract concept (p. 7–37). North of the Alps, those in charge did not understand such abstract concepts referring to "Staatlichkeit", as is shown by the fact that the authority of the Carolingian mayors of the palace was never called administratio, even though, in the original meaning of the word, the mayoral office was a clear case of delegated power (p. 16–18). ...
Rezension zu: Stefan Ehrenpreis, Ute Lotz-Heumann, Olaf Mörke, Luise Schorn-Schütte, eds. Wege der Neuzeit: Festschrift für Heinz Schilling zum 65. Geburtstag. Historische Forschungen. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2007. 656 pp. EUR 78.00 (paper), ISBN 978-3-428-12394-0.
Many historians of Britain (and indeed, many Britons) celebrate that nation's "splendid isolation" from what they often deem "the continent," a.k.a. Europe. Scholars ranging from J. D. B. Clark to Linda Colley frame the formation of the United Kingdom as a "modern" state and a "modern" nation over the course of the eighteenth century as a process either unique to the British Isles or one that occurred as a (more often than not, positive) reaction to political and religious developments occurring across the English Channel. Few of these historians acknowledge that from 1715 until 1837, the British monarch also was the elector (after 1806, king) of Hanover, and that for most of this period the interests of that electorate/kingdom played a significant role in British politics and foreign policy, just as Ireland and Scotland had while they were in personal union with England. Those who note this union refer to these rulers as "The Hanoverians" (as a bevy of titles of works on eighteenth-century Britain attest to), but by and large, they minimize any influence that the actual or ancestral homeland of these rulers had in Great Britain besides the bequeathing of their dynastic name or, more negatively, the involvement of a reluctant "Blue Water" power in "European" wars of little significance to her. ...
In the last thirty years, the study of the Late Roman period has intensified and has spawned a whole new branch of study commonly known now as Late Antiquity. Within this field there are now research journals dedicated exclusively to the theme, regular congresses now convene on the same and scholarly articles and books are produced at a rate annually that makes it a herculean task to keep up with it all. Within such a historiographical framework is the Germanic invasion and settlement in Western Europe by a wide variety of tribes. Discussions on the nature and impact continue without abatement, as an example the recent works by Heather, Ward-Perkins, Goffart and others demonstrate that considerable divergence of interpretation still abound and will so for a long time. ...
Rezension zu: H.-M. von Kaenel and F. Kemmers (eds.). 2009. Coins in Context I: New Perspectives for the Interpretation of Coin Finds. Studien zu Fundmünzen der Antike 23 (Mainz: von Zabern).
As Bernhard Jussen correctly stresses in his introduction to this essay collection, we do not need to rediscover kingship. Kings and queens have always been favorite subjects for historians--at least, one might add, as far as medieval and early modern history are concerned. But even for the premodern period, kingship has rarely been studied in long-term perspective. This lacuna is all the more striking as kingship, existent in one form or another since ancient times, seems ideally suited to such a study. A history of kingship--prescinding from specific rulers--would bring to light the very characteristics of this form of rule. Moreover, as kingship was a highly visible and politically relevant phenomenon, and thus comparatively well represented in the sources, such an approach would also allow insights into general social, political, and cultural developments. Jussen's essay collection, in filling the gap, strives for both goals. It does so in a form that, at least in the German context, is innovative. The book combines the characteristics of a single-author volume and essay collection in the sense that each chapter follows clear rules and--with some exceptions--the same structure, though written by different authors. In addition, the strict chronological order, with each of the twenty-six chapters focusing on one particular date and source, and the respective headlines in the form of general questions (for example, "How to Depose a King"), point beyond the scope of the chapter and at the same time make the process of historical analysis visible to the reader. ...
The geodynamic processes and the chemical and thermal evolution of the mantle beneath the Kaapvaal craton (South Africa) was investigated with further regard to diamond formation. For this, 31 coarse-grained peridotites and 21 individual subcalcic garnets from heavy mineral concentrates (HMC) from the Finsch mine were studied for their major and trace element compositions, Lu-Hf and Sm-Nd isotope composition. Furthermore, processes in the Earth’s mantle that follow kimberlite sampling and propagation were studied in polymict peridotite breccia from Kimberley mines. Inter mineral equilibrium of the peridotites was tested by comparing the results from different, independent thermometers. These, well equilibrated peridotites stem from a restricted pressure of 5 to 6.5 GPa (depth ~160-200 km) and a temperature range of 1050-1250°C, following the 40 mW/m2 conductive geotherm. The majority of the samples display a well developed anti-correlation of oxygen fugacity with pressure, which is in contrast to the sheared and oxidised, younger kimberlite erupted peridotites from Kimberley. All analysed samples have homogeneous trace element mineral chemistry. Variations in trace elements among Finsch peridotites reflect their complex nature and the intricate development of the subcratonic mantle. The 3.6 Ga is the oldest crustal age recorded in the Kaapvaal craton, and is confirmed by the Lu-Hf model age of a highly radiogenic subcalcic garnet in this study. Therefore, this age probably represents the oldest depletion (partial melting event) of the subcratonic mantle beneath the Kaapvaal craton. Both, subcalcic garnets and Finsch peridotites yield Lu-Hf isochron ages of around 2.5 Ga, which probably represent the last depletion event of the Kaapvaal craton. Several older (than 2.5 Ga) depletions were also necessary to explain higher isochron initials of the both isochrones. The Cr# and HREE concentrations and ratios of the Finsch subcalcic garnets and peridotites indicate that partial melting of the Kaapvaal craton happened at different depths. One group of subcalcic garnets (group-1) experienced depletion at high pressure in the garnet stability field and another one (group-2) at low pressures in the spinel or plagioclase stability field. Major and trace elements indicate that up to 50%, of the melt was remover from the primitive (primer) mantle in at least two melting events. Thus, first continental crust was created early (> 2.5 Ga) from high degrees of partial melting of the lithospheric mantle. According to the Sm-Nd isotope signatures at least two metasomatic events took place significantly after 2.5 Ga. As monitored by group-1 subcalcic garnets, the first enrichment was produced by a fluid and occurred at around 1.3 Ga. The second metasomatic event was much later at 500-300 Ma ago and has changed both Nd and Hf isotopic compositions of group-2 subcalcic garnet as well as some Finsch peridotites. During partial melting any carbon species will be dissolved in the melt and removed from the residue. Therefore, any diamond growth before the last depletion (~2.5 Ga) would have been probably completely removed from the lithospheric mantle. Consequently, carbon was apparently reintroduced into the system, i.e. during Metasomatism, and triggered the growth of diamonds. The Sm-Nd isotope systematics of the subcalcic garnets of this study indicates that enrichment occurred at ~1.3 Ga or later, which implies non-Archean, late diamond growth in Finsch. Fertilisation of the subcontinental craton associated with the percolation of group-2 (~120 Ma) or even younger (~90 Ma) group-1 kimberlites and their precursors are not observed in Finsch peridotites, but are well presented in mantle xenoliths from Kimberley. Therefore, these younger events were studied on specific mantle xenoliths, polymict breccia from Kimberley. A polymict peridotite found at the Boshof road dump, Kimberley, represents a mechanical mixture of upper mantle clasts and minerals (opx, cpx, garnet and olivine) of different lithologies, cemented by fine-grained olivine and minute amounts of interstitial ilmenite, phlogopite and sulphide. According to Ni in garnet thermometry, single porphyroclastic garnets were sampled and mixed during ascent in a 100 km stratigraphic column, starting from ~250 km until ~120 km. During this ascent, melt has reacted with the porphyroclasts and at theirrims neoblastic minerals were formed, i.e. neoblastic opx around opx porphyroclast, neoblastic garnet around garnet porphyroclast, and neoblastic opx around cpx porphyroclast. Analyses of those neoblastic minerals indicate that volatile-rich, kimberlite-like melt was the agent that collected the mantle minerals and amalgamated this xenolith. Several complex processes were responsible for the formation of the polymict breccia. They comprise melt degassing at high pressures that probably created “explosive” Brecciation of the cratonic roots (~250 km), propagation of the melt that collected different porphyroclasts on a way and amalgamation at around 120 km. The whole process of “explosive” brecciation, turbulent transport and mixing of mantle porphyroclasts and melt, porphyroclast dissolution and neoblast precipitation happened very fast and was part of the kimberlite formation. Therefore, the here studied sample probably represents one frozen part (with variable mantle clasts) of the kimberlitic magma precursor, with kimberlite eruption at ~90 Ma years ago in Kimberley.
Ancient coins are among the most widely collected and demanded objects among American collectors of antiquities. A vocal lobby of ancient coin dealers/collectors has arisen to protect the importation of undocumented material into the United States and also seeks to make a distinction between antiquities trafficking and that in ancient coins. Coins are an equally important historical source and are no less important 'antiquities' than a Greek painted vase. I examine the scale of the trade in ancient coins in North America and address some points made by proponents of a continued unfettered ancient coin trade.
Extrait des Minutes de la Secrétairerie d’Etat au quartier imperial de St Polten, le 22 brumaire an 14 Napoléon Empereur des Français et Roi d’Italie Sur le rapport de notre ministre de l’interieur Nous avons décreté et décretons ce qui suit Dispositions Générales Art. 1er l’Ecole existante dans le local du ci devant Gymnase Laurentien à Cologne, Departement de la Roer, prendra à l’avenir le titre d’Ecole secondaire communale de premier dégré II. Independamment de cette école, il en sera établi une autre sous le nom d’Ecole secondaire communale de second dégré. Le batiment et dépendances du collège des Jesuites du ci-devant couvent de St. Maximin sont concédé à la Ville de Cologne pour l’usage de cette école III. Tous les biens capitaux et revenus des fondations et bourses d’études des ci-devant Gymnases, et tous les biens capitaux et revenus provenant des Jésuites supprimés spécialement et originairement affectés aux établissemens d’instruction publiques de Cologne sont destinés à l’entretien des écoles de premier et second dégré de cette Ville
Jonathan Wagner has written a monograph on a migration movement that was in many ways a peripheral one. From a Canadian perspective, Germans accounted for a relatively minor share of immigrants, compared to former residents of the British Isles, of eastern or southern Europe. Seen from Germany, Canada was one of many destinations for migrants who wished to leave the country and were prepared to travel over long distances, but were, for whatever reason, not attracted by the United States, the destination for the overwhelming majority of transcontinental emigrants. Nevertheless, the movement from Germany to Canada was significant in absolute and often symbolic terms. The way Wagner tells it, the story of German-Canadian migration was a tale of parallel experiences: both Germany and Canada experienced federation and increasing international autonomy from the 1860s; both were ruled by domineering conservative figures presiding over de facto liberalization in the 1870s; both participated in the First World War, and both went through traumatic economic crises in the interwar period. ...
The history of German migration policies was a growth industry during the 1990s. The political battles of the present, such as asylum legislation, integration, and citizenship reform, created growing interest in the German historical experience of migration, migration controls and citizenship law. At the time, the only major work to tackle the subject was Klaus Bade's pioneering study of Prussian migration policies before the First World War, recently republished in an updated edition.[1] Initially, interest in German migration policies was guided largely by two leading questions. Histories of citizenship in Germany tended to adopt a long or a comparative perspective, which sought to test the hypothesis that German citizenship law and its implementation in practice reflected a particularly ethnic German conception of nationhood.[2] Histories of migration policy, by contrast, tended to focus on particular episodes in which a German tendency to view migrants primarily with regard to their usefulness, and not as potential immigrants and future citizens, clearly emerged, especially with regards to histories of the German Empire, the First World War, National Socialism, the Second World War and the post-war treatment of Gastarbeiter. The Weimar Republic, in contrast, was usually passed over in a few pages that highlighted the continuity of labor market control.[3] This state of affairs was remarkable because research on other countries highlighted the interwar period as an epoch of massive change in international migration policies. Race and ethnicity loomed larger than they had before, as indicated by the implementation of a quota system and barred zones in the United States. Moreover, with the First World War came the introduction of documentation requirements and the creation of labor-management bureaucracies that facilitated the distinction between citizens and aliens, as well as attempts to match labor supply to labor demand. Gérard Noiriel had even gone so far as to argue, largely with a view to migration and documentation policies, that the practices of Vichy had their roots in republican reforms of the late 1920s and 1930s.[4] Jochen Oltmer's magisterialHabilitationsschrift closes this gap all but completely. Based on a thorough reading of the archival record and contemporary public debate, his book shows that the transition from the politics of the First World War to the politics of National Socialism in the years of a labor shortage was more complicated previously assumed. He also highlights that migration policy was a field in which the Weimar Republic's problems emerged with particular poignancy. Oltmer's account is organized thematically rather than chronologically, though his subjects are arranged in the order in which they emerged as the main foci of internal administrative and public political debate. In the Weimar Republic's early years, these topics concerned ethnic Germans left outside the Empire's post-Versailles borders, prisoners of war and political refugees. In the later years, the position of migrant workers gained more prominence. While publicly committed to aiding fellow Germans, the republic's practice was ambivalent. The arrival of former residents of Alsace--mostly skilled workers in industries where labor was in demand, from a territory unlikely to be re-conquered soon--was welcome, but emigration of ethnic Germans from areas under Polish control was actively discouraged. The official view of these potential emigrants was less positive, their numbers were larger by several orders of magnitude and maintaining a visible German minority outside Germany's eastern borders seemed a good way to bolster the German case for a revision of the Treaty of Versailles. Migrants from Poland who could not prove they had been persecuted could therefore only expect accommodation in forbidding refugee camps in remote locations. As Oltmer's third chapter shows, this attitude also shaped the Weimar Republic's response to ethnic German emigration from Russia, which peaked during the famine years of the 1920s. Individual ethnicity was, therefore, not a dominant factor in the treatment of refugees; aliens of all ethnic backgrounds remained in a precarious position in the Weimar Republic, regardless of whether they were former prisoners of war who had opted to stay, or Jewish refugees from eastern and southeastern Europe who loomed relatively large in public debates or refugees from Soviet Russia. Ethnicity and race also loomed large in debates on the desirability of labor immigration. In general, the attitudes of state governments had more or less come full circle since the days of the empire. Whereas Prussia had been most concerned about the impact of Polish immigrants on national homogeneity before 1914, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg proved most rigid after 1919. However, the majority of migrant workers were interested in jobs in Prussia, in the industrial areas of the Ruhr and, more prominently, in the agricultural east, which continued to rely on the access to Polish labor markets, particularly for potato planting and harvesting. In theory, the states and the empire had a powerful new tool to control labor migration: the obligatory work permit, issued only if no German applicants could be found for a job. Things were, however, not so simple in practice. Political interest in ethnic homogeneity was equal to interest in increasing the supply of food, a goal that could only be achieved, East Elbian landowners claimed, if Polish seasonal workers remained available to German employers. Immigration was, however, regarded with distaste by the völkisch right, Prussia's conservative bureaucracy and the Social Democrats, who viewed Polish laborers as an obstacle to the long-overdue modernization of rural Prussia through mechanization and unionization. The solution, fixed quotas for migrant laborers set to decline every year, proved unworkable, as rural employers turned to undocumented laborers. Moreover, the German government did its bit to undermine respect for legality in immigration matters. Seeking to reimpose a de facto policy forcing Polish migrants to return home for part of the year to prevent their settlement in Poland, German officials came into conflict with Polish determination to cut the state's ties to long-term emigrants, and were frequently forced to aid migrants in clandestinely crossing the border, before an unequal agreement could be concluded with Poland in 1927 that confirmed the status of Polish workers as second-class migrants excluded from social insurance and subject to a forced return for part of the year. Oltmer's comprehensively documented study does more than simply fill a gap in existing research. He unearths a striking pattern to Weimar policies, which could be found in many other fields of policy and may contribute to explaining why successive Weimar governments had such a difficult time in gaining the population's respect. Public pronouncements frequently contradicted secret or semi-secret policies. Official quotas for foreign workers, for example, were unofficially raised and little attempt was made to sanction employers of undocumented workers. Such actions exposed the Republic to criticism from the right and created a climate in which even more restrictive National Socialist policies could acquire broad popular support. Oltmer's book thus treats a question at the center, not the periphery, of the Weimar years.
The volume consists of eight essays with a precise focus: the study of the "dynamics of social exclusion" as reflected in data available for 1994 to 1996, when a detailed survey of a sample of households in EU countries, the "European Community Households Panel," was conducted. On the basis of these data, the authors document the extent and prevalence of poverty generally and specifically in regard to particular risk groups defined in terms of age, health and personal circumstances (young adults, lone parents, people with sickness or disability and retirees).[1] The analysis was carried out for five countries: Austria, Germany, Greece, Portugal and the United Kingdom, which were taken to be representative of the extremes of EU membership: north and south; wealthy and poor; large and small. The essays discuss income poverty (measured as incomes at 40, 50 or 60 percent of median incomes) as well as housing problems, access to basic necessities like food and utilities, access to consumer durables and social interactions. The essays document not only that the extent of poverty varies between countries--a well-known fact--but also that its causes and effects continue to differ even in an increasingly united western Europe. Austria had the lowest proportion of the population in poor households (17 percent--compared to 18 percent in Germany, 21 percent in the United Kingdom and Greece, and 24 percent in Portugal). While sickness and disability were likely to impoverish individuals in all the countries studied, this was particularly true of Austria, Germany and the United Kingdom (that is, northern Europe); retirement was more likely to result in income poverty in the south. The north-south divide was less relevant for parents; single income households with children were particularly likely to suffer from income poverty in the United Kingdom, Germany and Portugal. Poverty was more likely to be persistent than merely a brief phase in the life cycle. Persistence rates of income poverty were around 80 percent in Greece and Britain, above 70 percent in Portugal and above 60 percent in Germany and Austria. But the effects were rather different. In the United Kingdom, high persistence rates of income poverty coincided with low persistence rates (34 percent) of amenities deprivation, whereas the persistence of necessities deprivation was relatively low in Greece at 39 percent. The volume was conceived as a contribution to policy decision-making in the aftermath of the 2000 Lisbon Declaration, which focused (among other things) on poverty and encouraged member states to set more concrete targets for dealing with social exclusion. Some member states did so; Britain, for example--a country where income poverty was particularly likely to result in deprivation of basic necessities--vowed to abolish "poverty" by 2020. The volume is a treasure-trove of data and empirical analysis; it makes essential, though at times rather trying, reading for anyone interested in the extent of social exclusion, and the likelihood of falling into or escaping from it. It also provides ample proof--if any were needed--that governments seeking to combat social exclusion have to set different priorities, because they are not attacking the same phenomenon. Unfortunately, the empirical as well as the more conceptual contributions reveal some of the approach's and the book's shortcomings.[2] The book's very advantage--providing a precise research agenda--is also a drawback. With its focus on three years, and on the life-cycle rather than more stable factors such as ethnicity, occupation or regional origin, the volume presents a particular image of the risk (and duration) of deprivation, which may be more or less comprehensive for different countries. The narrow temporal focus makes one wonder whether measuring poverty's "persistence" of poverty makes much sense for such a relatively short time. Such doubt is enhanced when considering some of the oddities in the results: how did households that remained poor in the United Kingdom manage to get their hands on consumer durables? (The same question could be asked for the sudden increase in access to necessities in Greek households.) Illustrating the empirical findings with more concrete examples would have been helpful, particularly when they are counterintuitive, for instance the statement that patterns of poverty in eastern and western Germany were converging in spite of the continuing divergence in unemployment patterns. Another question--admittedly suggested by events of the last several years--is whether ethnicity, regional origins or occupations are not more important in determining the extent and duration of social exclusion than life cycle. These factors were not, and partly could not be, measured on the basis of the data used, but have moved to the center of policy debates today. This matter relates to another issue the book does not address: who is to blame for poverty, and what roles have governments and the European Union assumed in determining poverty patterns and trends? Have past policy choices--for instance, cutting benefits; increasing "flexibility" in labor markets; encouraging the emigration of jobs (such things the European Union is frequently accused of doing)--made a difference? Is combating poverty a serious policy agenda, or merely window-dressing to make the "reforms" that were key to the Lisbon agenda for modernizing the EU more palatable? Europe seems to be facing an internal contradiction between the agenda of competition and privatization (which results in higher access costs to essential services for "low value" customers) and the agenda of abolishing poverty. This contradiction is partly sustained by U.K. data. Which element is and should be more important to the European Union or national governments is hotly debated, but of course serious contributions to the debate require a comprehensive review of the present state of affairs through the type of careful studies of which this volume is an excellent example.
The articles in this volume represent anthropological approaches to the study of external and internal boundaries in Europe. The authors raise fascinating methodological and empirical questions by approaching European societies from the perspective of a discipline usually working on the basis of greater cultural distance between scholars and the objects of their research. Moreover, the volume tackles a subject usually understood as a political project and a political problem, E.U. Europe, in an original non-political-science perspective. The volume's case studies are all based on bottom-up views of Europe, with fieldwork the methodology of choice. The first articles focus on institutions. Cris Shore and Daniela Baratieri's article focuses on the ambivalent results of attempts by European schools, which cater mainly to Eurocrats in Brussels and Luxemburg, to replace nationalism with a sense of European identity or nationhood, while Gregory Feldman discusses Estonian programs for the integration of Russian-speakers and Davide Però addresses the position of Italy's left-wing parties and public to the "new immigration." While these essays argue that "Europe" may not be as destructive to national (institutional) boundaries or the nation state as is often supposed, the next block of articles tackles migration across boundaries in a more conventional perspective, focusing on particular immigrant groups. Helen Kopnina discusses Russians in London and Amsterdam, while Christina Moutsou focuses upon immigrants in Brussels and Jacqueline Waldren examines Bosnians in Mallorca. To me, the case study of Turkish migrants in West Berlin by Sabine Mannitz is particularly intriguing, because it uses the peculiar experience of a lesson on Jews' fate in the Holocaust in which the teacher cast immigrants as permanent outsiders in Germany to explore pupils' sense of boundaries, and the East-German West-German divide appeared to loom much larger for immigrants than that between foreigners and Germans. The last section focuses on concrete and contested boundaries in European states and towns: William F. Kelleher, Jr. discusses Northern Ireland, Greek towns are the focus of Venetia Evergeti and Eleftheria Deltsou's article and South Tyrol is examined by Jaro Stacul. The volume makes for diverse and diversifying reading, and can only be highly recommended to anyone interested in innovative perspectives on the fate of the European project.
Douglas G. Morris's excellent book poses a broad question: what happened to the rule of law in Germany after 1919? How severe was the collapse of judicial impartiality and competence? Can one doubt whether the Weimar Republic ever qualified as a republic, "if a necessary part of a republic is a judiciary committed to democratic ideals and impartial justice" (p. 1)? That there was a collapse in judicial impartiality is hardly in doubt. As early as 1922, Emil Julius Gumbel provided statistical proof: between late 1918 and summer 1922, a total of 354 political murders committed by perpetrators affiliated with the political right had been punished with one life sentence plus 90 years and 2 months imprisonment; in 326 cases, there had been no punishment at all. By contrast, the 22 murders committed by left-wing sympathizers in the same period had been punished with 10 death sentences, 3 life sentences and 248 years and 9 months imprisonment; only 4 perpetrators escaped (p. 1). To be sure, this statistic may indicate more about the political leanings of police officials and prosecutors investigating cases than of judges who rule on the evidence put before them, but the divergence in sentencing remains remarkable. Morris reformulates this insight to ask how Germany's judges, trained to apply the law in an impartial and technically correct manner, could become raving political partisans willing to twist the law in favor of a particular political position. He does not seek to provide a comprehensive answer, but focuses on cases which involved Max Hirschberg, a Jewish attorney who practiced in Munich from 1911 to 1934, when he escaped to Italy. Hirschberg moved on to the United States in 1939, where he died in 1964. Hirschberg was not only involved in the major political trials of the day in 1920s and early 1930s Munich, but also developed a systematic interest in judicial error, which culminated in a major work on Das Fehlurteil im Strafprozeß, published in 1960. Morris is interested primarily in how trials were conducted. This in-depth analysis is divided into three blocks: political trials in 1922 and 1925, when Germany's war guilt and the causes of defeat were treated in libel suits and criminal prosecutions; non-political cases in which Hirschberg succeeded in having judicial errors reversed; finally, political cases linked with the rise of the Nazi party from 1926. In each case, Morris offers a clear exposition of the facts and substantial as well as legal issues in the case, a step-by-step analysis of trials and appeals processes, and an evaluation of the outcome. The main lines of argument which emerge from these analyses are, first, that some problems were peculiar to Bavaria. The main issue was the existence of people's courts, introduced during Bavaria's brief socialist phase to provide swift justice. The people's courts did not just increase judges' freedom of action by abolishing procedural safeguards, but also protected judges from professional scrutiny and criticism because there were to be no appeals. One of Hirschberg's major victories in the cases of the early 1920s was successful lobbying for their reintroduction. Second, Munich's judges may have been particularly traumatized by the brief revolutionary episode (and by the political preferences of Bavaria's ministries, which were systematically anti-Republican); moreover, they were called upon to decide a stream of political trials, some of which--notably libel trials--effectively sought the impossible, namely a definitive judicial ruling on the validity of a certain interpretation of history or a personal political position. Third, in spite of significant personal variations in style and substance, even after the reintroduction of appeals judges tended to use their freedom of maneuver in an anti-left-wing (which implicitly meant pro-National Socialist) sense. However, until 1933, this state of affairs did not challenge the ties which bound the profession. The Bavarian ministry of justice failed in its attempts to have Hirschberg disbarred in the early 1920s. Even when Hirschberg was released from so-called protective custody in 1934, most of his colleagues rallied round the decorated war veteran, allowing him to retain an access to the court building that was denied most Jewish attorneys. Finally, the problems of the justice system affected non-political cases as well, which may have deepened distrust of Republican institutions. The meticulously researched book benefits immensely from its author's experience as a practicing attorney familiar with courtroom drama and legal technicalities, which are vividly recreated and succinctly explained. The focus on Hirschberg illustrates both the immense obstacles a defense attorney faced and the victories an exceptionally gifted attorney could still win. Even though the courtroom perspective disregards some of the motivations which have their roots outside court--be it the social structure of and career perspectives in Munich's legal profession or political pressures on judges--these are not the main focus of Morris's research. Finally, one could argue about the optimist portrayal of pre-1918 German justice in politically sensitive cases. The clear focus on Weimar trials ensures that the book is no biography. Although Morris includes brief chapters on Hirschberg's youth and his years in exile, not much information is offered on Hirschberg's private life, the economics of his legal practice or his time in exile. But this decision does not diminish Morris's achievement in providing a fascinating insight into the workings of Weimar justice.
Hazar Lake sunken city
(2006)
In November 2005, a survey was begun of the wells in and around Hagia Sophia Church in Istanbul. The long-term goal of the survey is the understanding of the function of the tunnels and the water systems used for Hagia Sophia and its surroundings during the Byzantine and the Ottoman periods. Alternate research methods, such as geophysical research, will be used in future surveys. The 2005 survey examined the channels that run from under the narthex and continue northwards and the southwards of the building as well as channels that run towards the atrium, hippodrome, and garden in the north. The survey resulted in the first photos of the well-bottoms in the history of Hagia Sophia.
A version of this paper was originally written for a plenary session about "The Futures of Ethnography" at the 1998 EASA conference in Frankfurt/Main. In the preparation of the paper, I sent out some questions to my former fellow researchers by e-mail. I thank Douglas Anthony, Jan-Patrick Heiß, Alaine Hutson, Matthias Krings, and Brian Larkin for their answers.
In 1875, the Liebig Extract of Meat Company began to distribute a series of pictures printed on small (11 x 7 cm), colorful, collectible cardboard cards along with its main product, Fleischextrakt. While not the first to adopt this advertising technique, Liebig quickly became the best-known purveyor of Sammelbilder. ...
After the introduction of the pottery tradition of La Hoguette and contemporaneous research on Earliest LBK about 10 to 15 years ago, research onthe spread of farming in Central Europe had somewhat stagnated; there were hardly any major advances in factual knowledge, nor could theoretical models be refined. In the last few years, however, an abundance of new data has appeared, partly deriving from botanical and anthropological analyses. Furthermore, newly available results from excavations in European Russia widenour understanding of the manifold and complex changes occurring during the latter 7th and 6th millennium cal BC.
The Way of the Beer analyses how Mafa re-enact their history in the ritual transfer of sorghum beer from junior to senior members of their society. Beer is the ‘Eucharist’ of Mafa religion, standing for the linkage between God, the ancestors, the fertility of the living and the agricultural land. The ritual sequences in which beer is exchanged and offered at family and community shrines are an encoding of settlement history. The CD-ROM version of the "Way of the Beer" not only contains everything found in the printed version of this work, but also a digital map (figure 8) whichis too large to be printed. The key to the digital map (figure 9) is electronically linked to the map. Please note that figure 9 is displayed when the option "key", found under each ward name (in the bookmark section of figure 8), is activated. If this is done for the first time, figure 8 needs to be brought up again in order to be tiled next to figure 9. However, the best option for exploring the map is to print out the key. Please refer to "The Way of the Beer"(pages 142-144) for further information on how the large digital map needs to be read. The text, maps and images can be viewed in Word (please install the linguistic fonts before using the Word version) or Acrobat Reader (version 4.0 has beencopied on to the CD-ROM). The CD-ROM also contains version 1.03 of the Northern Mandaras Homepage which must be viewed with Microsoft Explorer. The CD-ROM is organised in five main folders which are labelled "Text", "Figures", "Tables", "Plates" and "Homepage". Each folder contains a Word 97 as well as an Adobe Acrobat version of "The Way of the Beer". It is only the large digital map which does not exist as a Word but only as an Adobe Acrobat version. The page numbering apart from figure 8) continues through the sections, beginning with the text and ending with the plates.