Chinese Xenology and the Opium War: Reflections on Sinocentrism

2014 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 927-940 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dilip K. Basu
Keyword(s):  
Modern World ◽  
Asian Studies ◽  
Amitav Ghosh ◽  
Opium War ◽  
Chinese Studies ◽  
History Of ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Standard Terms ◽  
First Time ◽  
Distinctive Role

Editor's Note: The essay that follows is based on a conference paper by Dilip K. Basu that has long circulated informally, in the process exercising an unusually high degree of influence for an unpublished commentary. Most notably, some ideas embedded in it have been spread via literary scholar Lydia Liu's engagement with and quoting of the paper inThe Clash of Empires: The Invention of China in Modern World Making(Liu 2006), a provocative and much-cited book that calls for a radical rethinking of some of the standard terms and concepts used in the past to refer to the Qing Empire's ties to and conflicts with other political and territorial units. Those familiar with Liu's work will find here an essay that complements some arguments in her book; those who have not read it will be introduced to those ideas for the first time. Beyond this, though, all readers will find a discussion of various ideas and events—visions of China's place in the world, how the story of the Opium War is thought about in different settings, the history of Sinology—shaped by personal as well as scholarly concerns.The essay's ties to the author's life and associations, which come into play more as the essay proceeds, make it a good fit with the goals of our recently introduced and still evolving “Reflections” genre. In addition, since it revisits critically ideas about China associated with the work of John K. Fairbank, it can be placed well beside some of the essays published in the “Legacies” series launched by Kenneth George, in his time as editor of the journal. And regular attendees of the Association for Asian Studies annual meetings may notice that much that follows resonates with the keynote address by Amitav Ghosh, one of those familiar with Basu's essay in draft form, when that conference was held in Toronto in 2012. The pages that follow are tightly focused on China, but Basu's discussion of “xenology” (a term for the ways that cultures think about those deemed “others,” which has, of course, the same root as the more familiar term “xenophobia”) clearly has implications for widely varied times and places, just as the handling of Fairbank's distinctive role in Chinese studies may bring to mind parallels to the influence that other prominent Western academics from the last century once shaped and via their legacies can continue to shape academic work on other parts of Asia. While focused tightly on China, in other words, it has much to offer readers whose primary interest is not in that country.

The Strait of Magellan—a Gateway to New Worlds

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mauricio Onetto Pavez
Keyword(s):  
Global Scale ◽  
Modern World ◽  
American Continent ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Strait Of Magellan ◽  
The World ◽  
The Strait Of Magellan ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Time

The year 2020 marks the five hundredth anniversary of the “discovery” of the Strait of Magellan. The unveiling of this passage between 1519 and 1522 allowed the planet to be circumnavigated for the first time in the history of humanity. All maritime routes could now be connected, and the idea of the Earth, in its geographical, cosmographic, and philosophical dimensions, gained its definitive meaning. This discovery can be considered one of the founding events of the modern world and of the process of globalization that still continues today. This new connectivity awoke an immediate interest in Europe that led to the emergence of a political consciousness of possession, domination, and territorial occupation generalized on a global scale, and the American continent was the starting point for this. This consciousness also inspired a desire for knowledge about this new form of inhabiting the world. Various fields of knowledge were redefined thanks to the new spaces and measurements produced by the discovery of the southern part of the Americas, which was recorded in books on cosmography, natural history, cartography, and manuscripts, circulating mainly between the Americas and Europe. All these processes transformed the Strait of Magellan into a geopolitical space coveted by Europeans during the 16th century. As an interoceanic connector, it was used to imagine commercial routes to the Orient and political projects that could sustain these dynamics. It was also conceived as a space to speculate on the potential wealth in the extreme south of the continent. In addition, on the Spanish side, some agents of the Crown considered it a strategic place for imperial projections and the defense of the Americas.

“Oil Weapon” in the Third and Fourth Arab-Israeli Wars

2010 ◽  
pp. 47-56
Author(s):  
K. Belousova
Keyword(s):  
Local Population ◽  
Arab Countries ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Output Level ◽  
The West ◽  
Base Materials ◽  
History Of ◽  
Economic Ties ◽  
And Control ◽  
First Time

In the modern world, energetic base materials, and especially petroleum connections, with their hubs, streams and directions, are much closer than economic ties. The history of relationship between oil-producing countries and the leading powers of the West became especially vivid during the Arab-Israeli wars of 1967 and 1973. The attempts of "petroleum weapon" employment in 1967, under the weight of radical Arab regimes and local population against the U.S. and West-European countries (Israel's allies), failed owing to a two-faced position of Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing Arab countries. During the Arab-Israeli war of 1973, the "petroleum weapon" had more serious consequences for the West. For once the Arabs were acting more in concert. Oil-importing countries realized their economic exposure. For the first time the Arab countries started to determine their oil output level and control its price assessment. In this way, the war of 1973 and its consequences created the new phenomenon: the oil prices dynamics came to be integrated with politics in the Middle East.

scholarly journals Parental HLA Sharing, Feto-Maternal Compatibility and Neonatal Birthweight in Families With a History of Recurrent Spontaneous Abortion

1993 ◽  
Vol 11 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 125-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. C. Kilpatrick ◽  
W. A. Liston
Keyword(s):  
Spontaneous Abortion ◽  
Placental Weight ◽  
Normal Families ◽  
Recurrent Spontaneous Abortion ◽  
Hla Antigen ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Mean ◽  
High Degree ◽  
First Time ◽  
Hla Compatibility

The mean birthweight of babies eventually born to couples with a history of recurrent spontaneous abortion (RSA) is allegedly lower if the parents have a high degree of HLA antigen sharing (Reznikoff-Etievantet al., 1991), but this relationship has not been independently confirmed. We have re-investigated this question by analysing data from 36 families. In 22 instances, we were able to relate birthweight directly to feto-maternal HLA compatibility for the first time in such families. We were unable to confirm any appreciable influence of paternal or feto-maternal HLA sharing on birthweight or placental weight and conclude that RSA families do not differ markedly from normal families in this respect.

scholarly journals Inventory of the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery (1615): An Experience of Using Spectrosonal Visualization to Reconstruct the History of the Text

2021 ◽  
pp. 651-664
Author(s):  
Evgeny A. Lyakhovitskii ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Visible Region ◽  
Wavelength Region ◽  
Main Text ◽  
Additional Information ◽  
Near Ir ◽  
Color Differences ◽  
History Of ◽  
High Degree ◽  
First Time ◽  
Made In

The article describes the results of a codicological study of the Inventory of the Kirillo-Belozersky (St. Cyrill of Beloozero) Monastery (1615). The main codicological problem for the researchers posed by this monument is its numerous and asynchronical edits. It is possible to identify edit layers by studying the ink by means of spectrosonal imaging in near-IR wavelength region of the spectrum. This method is based on the property of inks (except those with a carbon base) to acquire transparency beyond the visible region of the spectrum (after 700 nm). As additional information, visually observed (in natural indirect daylight) color differences between inks have been used, as well as color estimation using a digital portable microscope Dinolite with Dinoscope software. As a result of the study, the main stages of work on the Inventory have been established. A significant part of the marginalia are in the same ink and handwriting as the main text: brown, with moderate transparency in near-IR wavelength region. Thus, the text was probably supplemented in the course of creation. This edit was accompanied by the text on the insert sheets made in ink that is slightly translucent in the IR region of the spectrum and has a dark brown color. The same ink was used in the main text of the manuscript. When the main text was rewritten in 1616-1617, it was compiled in a codex and significantly revised for the first time. The marker of this revision stage is light brown and yellowish-brown ink with high degree of transparency in IR wavelength region of the spectrum. In addition to the editing, the notebooks are numbered in the same light brown ink. The edit of this layer mainly included clarifications to the items description. The next significant revision of the inventory text, marked with brown ink that has low transparent in the IR wavelength region of the spectrum, refers to the period after July 22, 1621. Most of these edits, as well as the earlier ones, were devoted to clarifying descriptions, to clarifying location of objects, and to describing the monastery’s acquisitions and losses. Apparently, the later stage of editing is associated with the use of gray-brown ink, similar in spectral behavior to the ink of the main text. The record of the contribution of Prince Khvorostinin made in 1622–23 was written in this ink.

scholarly journals PROBLEMS OF CULTURE IN THE WORKS OF VSEVOLOD IVANOV

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 80-91
Author(s):  
E.A. Papkova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Creative Work ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Spiritual Values ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Culture ◽  
The Buddha ◽  
First Time

Statement of the problem. The article is a continuation of our work devoted to the problems of the history of culture in the creative work of Vsevolod Ivanov in the 1940s–1960s. A new stage in the formulation of the problem, which makes it possible to trace the origins of the theme of culture in Ivanov’s creative work, became possible thanks to the publication of unknown texts by the writer of his early Siberian period. The purpose of the article is to analyze the theme of culture in Ivanov’s early work, to examine the evolution of the writer’s views. Methodology. The article uses comparative historical textual methods, the method of historical and cultural commentary. Research results. The theme of culture is considered for the first time on the material of Ivanov’s works of the 1910s, the evolution of his views is traced, which were formed in a dialogue with re- gional ideas and the concept of the East and West by A.M. Gorky. It is noted that the early works of the writer reflected anxiety for the fate of cultural values in the modern world. Particular attention is paid to the spiritual values of the culture of the East, understood by Ivanov in his own way and found embodiment in his work. The analysis of the story “The Return of the Buddha” and the third the edition of the novel “The Edessa Shrine” shows how the writer’s attitude to the East changed. Conclusions. The analysis of Ivanov’s works devoted to the theme of culture shows that this problem interested the writer from the very beginning of his creative path. Reflecting on the fate of the outgoing culture of Siberia in early works, dreaming of the possibility of the influence of the ancient East cultures on the historical choice of Russia and Europe in the 1920s, in the story “The Return of the Buddha”, the writer, by the end of the 1950s, obviously, comes to the conclusion that it is impossible for the forces of culture to resist the development of civilization.

scholarly journals Issues of International and Interchurch Relations in the Work of Holy Council 1917–1918 of the Orthodox Russian Church

2019 ◽  
pp. 176-201
Author(s):  
A. I. Mramornov
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Modern World ◽  
World War ◽  
Russian Orthodoxy ◽  
Local Council ◽  
Ecumenical Movement ◽  
The Future ◽  
Church Relationships ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Time

The convocation of the Local Council in 1917, the first Council in over two centuries, had a great significance for the internal life of the Orthodox Church of Russia. But in a period when the World War was still ongoing and there were pressing issues to resolve in the sphere of cooperation of Russian Orthodoxy with other orthodox and non-orthodox churches, the Local Council could not but touch upon the international and inter-church issues. For the first time in the history of Russian Church the official ecclesiastical forum was attended by official elected delegates who served abroad and who could bring the opinion of the foreign part of the Russian Church to its «maternal» part and to provide the mutually beneficial exchange of practices and opinions. Moreover, in a situation when the church was liberated from the tutelage of the state, it became possible to engage with foreign religious organizations not through social organizations or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but directly. This opened a way for creating the Church’s own structures which would be responsible for contacts with other confessions, including Old-Catholics and Anglicans, with whom there had already been lengthy unofficial dialogue. The efforts of some historians and publicists shaping contemporary discourse in Russia depict the restoration of the Patriarchate in the Russian Church as the only important act of the Council are challenged by the material presented in this article, which shows how the Council constructed the future position of Russian Orthodoxy in dialogue with the non-Orthodox churches, in its presence abroad and its missions in non-Christian countries. The word of the Council in this sphere was completely new and never before told. The Council was ahead of its time in the issues of international connections (like in many other spheres of its work). Many issues at the Council were expressed for the first time or in a completely new way. How to manage the missions abroad (in Japan, China, Korea, Urmia, and Palestine)? The Council, occupied with the internal problems in the situation of the beginning of persecution against it, could not abandon these missions. How was it possible to unite Russian emigrants abroad? The idea of Paris as a centre of their unification was expressed for the first time at the Council. The scholars who touched upon these issues before analyzed them through the concept of ecumenism (following the participation of the Russian Church in the ecumenical movement). But it seems more appropriate to research them in the context of the time of the Council itself, since it was a time that preceded the emergence of the Ecumenical Movement proper. The author of the article draws a conclusion that during the year of the Council (August 1917 – September 1918) the issues of international and inter-church relationships transformed in its agenda from being of secondary to primary importance. This conclusion allows us to challenge the dismissive perspective that the Moscow Council 1917-1918 was ineffective. Although it did not have time to complete its agenda, the Council was ahead of its time and contributed much for the future mission of the Russian Church in the modern world.

scholarly journals THE CASE OF THE COUNTERFEITER ADAM BOGUSZ (1868‒1870)

2021 ◽  
pp. 139-152
Author(s):  
Andrii Boiko-Haharin
Keyword(s):  
National Level ◽  
Russian Empire ◽  
Scientific Methods ◽  
Original Language ◽  
History Of ◽  
General Scientific ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
Xix Century ◽  
High Degree ◽  
First Time

Summary. The purpose of the research is to introduce into the scientific circulation the history of the activity of the counterfeiter Adam Bogusz, who played a significant role in the financial sabotage of the British against Russian Empire during the second half of the XIX century. The research methodology is defined by a set of general scientific methods, citations of the archival materials are given in the original language. The scientific novelty is that for the first time the main stages and the result of the activity of the counterfeiter Adam Bogusz are fully covered. Conclusion. In the first quarter of the XIX century the increase of the number of detected counterfeit credit notes brought to the Russian Empire from Kingdom of Great Britain has seriously alarmed the authorities. The investigation has gradually gained a national level of importance. In the 1820s, the Russian authorities resorted to careful tracking of all Jews who went through the Kingdom of Poland and could potentially carrycounterfeit credit notes for spending them in Russia. Attempts to transport so-called "English" counterfeiting in Poland were also recorded across the border with Prussia, the appearance of such citizens with a high degree of authority and trust them fake Prussian documents. In October 28, 1868 the Governor of Warsaw received the report from the Chief of the Radzewski County on available credible records of a salesman who fabricated in London as early as 1864 fake ten Russian ruble credit notes by a Polish-born owner of an estate in Olganowo, Włocław County of Warsaw – Adam Bogusz, who was selling them in the Prussian province – the Grand Duchy of Poznan to the sheep traders. On January 11, 1870, the Warsaw Penitentiary Court sentenced the seller of the counterfeit banknotes – Adam Bogusz – to deprivation of all rights and freedoms and exile to Siberia for six years of hard labor. But he was not the only one whose case was notorious for investigating a financial subversive activity from London.

The Birth of Modern Belief

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ethan H. Shagan
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Protestant Reformation ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Individual Judgment ◽  
Common Notion ◽  
History Of ◽  
Reformation History ◽  
First Time

This book traces the history of belief in the Christian West from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, revealing for the first time how a distinctively modern category of belief came into being. The book focuses not on what people believed, which is the normal concern of Reformation history, but on the more fundamental question of what people took belief to be. It shows how religious belief enjoyed a special prestige in medieval Europe, one that set it apart from judgment, opinion, and the evidence of the senses. But with the outbreak of the Protestant Reformation, the question of just what kind of knowledge religious belief was—and how it related to more mundane ways of knowing—was forced into the open. As the warring churches fought over the answer, each claimed belief as their exclusive possession, insisting that their rivals were unbelievers. The book challenges the common notion that modern belief was a gift of the Reformation, showing how it was as much a reaction against Luther and Calvin as it was against the Council of Trent. It describes how dissidents on both sides came to regard religious belief as something that needed to be justified by individual judgment, evidence, and argument. The book demonstrates how belief came to occupy such an ambivalent place in the modern world, becoming the essential category by which we express our judgments about science, society, and the sacred, but at the expense of the unique status religion once enjoyed.

Diachronic development of gender in city names in Spanish

2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
pp. 505-538
Author(s):  
Javier Caro Reina ◽  
Jessica Nowak
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Data ◽  
Gender Assignment ◽  
Assignment Rule ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
History Of ◽  
Diachronic Development ◽  
High Degree ◽  
First Time ◽  
Basic Level ◽  
Masculine Gender

Abstract This paper examines the gender assignment rules that apply to city names in the history of Spanish, relying for the first time on extensive corpus-based material. The empirical data show that gender assignment changed from a referential principle that consistently assigned city names to the feminine (due to the feminine basic level noun for ‘city’) to a phonologically driven assignment rule, with city names ending in -a generally being assigned to the feminine (e.g. Barcelona) and those ending in -o or -C to the masculine (e.g. Toledo, Madrid). However, the overall picture is much more complicated than previously suggested in the literature since there is still a high degree of gender variation in Modern Spanish. The use of the feminine is still possible in city names ending in -o or -C. Interestingly, the change from referential to phonological gender assignment occurs first within the NP (mainly with quantifiers such as tod- o/-a ‘all-m/-f’). It is in this morphosyntactic context that city names with final -a most commonly shift from the feminine to the masculine gender. This case of “evasive gender” will be discussed from a typological perspective.

Adam Zalužanský’s “De sexu plantarum” (1592): an early pioneering chapter on plant sexuality

2013 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 244-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holger Funk
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
English Translation ◽  
History Of Botany ◽  
Main Work ◽  
Botanical History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The University ◽  
First Time

In the history of botany, Adam Zalužanský (d. 1613), a Bohemian physician, apothecary, botanist and professor at the University of Prague, is a little-known personality. Linnaeus's first biographers, for example, only knew Zalužanský from hearsay and suspected he was a native of Poland. This ignorance still pervades botanical history. Zalužanský is mentioned only peripherally or not at all. As late as the nineteenth century, a researcher would be unaware that Zalužanský’s main work Methodi herbariae libri tres actually existed in two editions from two different publishers (1592, Prague; 1604, Frankfurt). This paper introduces the life and work of Zalužanský. Special attention is paid to the chapter “De sexu plantarum” of Zalužanský’s Methodus, in which, more than one hundred years before the well-known De sexu plantarum epistola of R. J. Camerarius, the sexuality of plants is suggested. Additionally, for the first time, an English translation of Zalužanský’s chapter on plant sexuality is provided.

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