scholarly journals Maps hiding in plain sight

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Bruce Jones ◽  
Anthony Cavell ◽  
Michael Clarke ◽  
Robert Pratt
Keyword(s):  
Land Grant ◽  
Land Grants ◽  
Bronze Vessel ◽  
Land Disputes ◽  
Western Zhou

Abstract. Early Chinese elites were defined by their aristocratic control of land. That control came directly from the emperor and was documented on bronze ritual vessels, which were handed down from generation to generation. The land grant boundaries were defined using decorative symbols inscribed on bronze, and Western Zhou vessels containing these symbols were used to resolve land disputes. Methodical analysis comparing the inscriptions and symbols, combined with an understanding of early Chinese cartography and etymology, allows the bronze vessel land grants to be decoded.

Minor Dynasties of Early Mediaeval Bengal According to Epigraphical Data: the Dynasty of Varmans (ca. 1050-1125 AD)

2021 ◽  
pp. 48
Author(s):  
Alexander A. Stolyarov
Keyword(s):  
Economic Condition ◽  
Land Grant ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Land Grants ◽  
Short Period ◽  
Feudal Lord ◽  
Commodity Money ◽  
A Minor ◽  
Economic Ties ◽  
Peace And War

The paper presents a description of the socio-political and economic condition of South-Eastern Bengal in a relatively short period at the cusp of the 11th and 12th centuries, when the dynasty of Varmans ruled there. It is based on the data contained in their inscriptions. Altogether the period of the dynasty's reign did not exceed ¾ century. During this time four rulers succeeded the throne, namely Jatavarman, his both sons – Harivarman and Samalavarman, and also Bhojavarman, the son of the latter. There are seven historical sources ascribed to the dynasty, among them two manuscripts and five inscriptions. These five inscriptions contain three land-grant charters, and two inscriptions on large objects. Three land-grant charters are compiled on behalf of Harivarman, Samalavarman and Bhojavarman, while two inscriptions on large objects are dated back to the reigns of Harivarman and Bhojavarman. The first two of the three charters are poorly preserved; therefore, they cannot be deciphered in full, only the charter of Bhojavarman can be read moderately well. Of the two inscriptions on large objects, one is a panegyric of Bhatta Bhavadeva, who was the minister of peace and war of Harivarman, and the other was compiled on behalf of a minor feudal lord during the reign of Bhojavarman The dynasty's charters show that Varmans were a ‘regional’ dynasty whose interests did not extend beyond Bengal. Their status allowed them to give land-grants on their own; at the same time, they may be considered as minor independent rulers who constitute the orbit of the regional hegemon – the Pāla dynasty. In turn, the inscriptions on large objects ascribed to the dynasty of Varmans speak for the existence of a system of the hierarchical administration in their principality, as well as the existence of developed commodity-money relations and intensive social and economic ties of the territories controlled by the Varman with the rest of Bengal as well as with other regions of not only India, but probably with more distant countries. It should also be emphasized that their inscriptions witness the earliest evidence of the presence of Muslims in Bengal.

“No Operation in an Academic Ivory Tower”: World War II and the Politics of Social Knowledge

2020 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 214-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher P. Loss
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Land Grant ◽  
World War ◽  
Land Grants ◽  
Freedmen's Bureau ◽  
War Department ◽  
Charles Tilly ◽  
Publicly Supported

America's sprawling system of colleges and universities has been built on the ruins of war. After the American Revolution the cash-strapped central government sold land grants to raise revenue and build colleges and schools in newly conquered lands. During the Civil War, the federal government built on this earlier precedent when it passed the 1862 Morrill Land-Grant College Act, which created the nation's system of publicly supported land-grant colleges. And during Reconstruction, the Freedmen's Bureau, operating under the auspices of the War Department, aided former slaves in creating thousands of schools to help protect their hard-fought freedoms. Not only do “wars make states,” as sociologist Charles Tilly claimed, but wars have also shaped the politics of knowledge in the modern university in powerful and lasting ways.

Land Grants to American Railroads: Social Cost or Social Benefit?

1969 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 134-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lloyd J. Mercer
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Cost ◽  
Large Fraction ◽  
Social Benefit ◽  
Public Domain ◽  
Land Grant ◽  
Land Grants ◽  
Rates Of Return ◽  
Economic Issues ◽  
Federal Land

Every schoolboy knows that a large fraction of the American public domain was granted to pioneer railroads in the nineteenth century. But was the federal land-grant policy socially beneficial? Professor Mercer provides one imaginative answer based upon an analysis of the economic issues involved and estimates of the private and social rates of return on the investment in the subsidized railroads.

Bronze Vessels: Style, Assemblages, and Innovations of the Western Zhou Period

2020 ◽  
pp. 450-470
Author(s):  
Yan Sun
Keyword(s):  
Local Communities ◽  
River Valley ◽  
Bronze Vessel ◽  
Bronze Vessels ◽  
Western Zhou ◽  
Military Posts ◽  
Wei River ◽  
Ritual Practices ◽  
Three Phases

This chapter, by employing securely dated vessels, discusses stylistic characteristics of three phases of Western Zhou bronzes in the Zhou metropolitan centers in the Wei River Valley in Central Shaanxi and Luoyang area in Henan. The assemblage of bronze vessels in tombs and caches is also discussed in order to understand Zhou ancestral sacrifices and ritual practices and their changes from the Early to Middle and Late Western Zhou periods. The Zhou interaction with local communities through regional states and military posts beyond the center also stimulated the rise of exotic bronze vessel types inspired by local ceramic traditions.

The Evangelist

2019 ◽  
pp. 113-139
Author(s):  
Lorena Oropeza
Keyword(s):  
New Mexico ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
Land Grant ◽  
Land Grants ◽  
Spanish Colonial ◽  
Cultural Genocide ◽  
Fertile Ground ◽  
Ownership Of Land

In New Mexico, Reies López Tijerina saw long-held aspirations—to secure a piece of land, to find ultimate justice, and even to establish and protect a cultural haven—hit fertile ground. Within two years of the 1963 Alianza Federal de Mercedes founding, he convinced thousands to join his new organization by spreading a three-part land-grant gospel that: 1) upheld Spanish colonial documents as a sign of legitimate ownership; 2) blasted American ownership of land grants as fraudulent; and 3) accused Americans not only of land theft but “cultural genocide.” Many land-poor Spanish-speakers in New Mexico responded to Tijerina’s fearless accusations and, as Tijerina turned to his preacher past, his religious allusions. Many shared his deep faith. More importantly, they bitterly recalled how their ancestors had once used the land without interference.

The Origins of English Feudalism? An Episcopal Land‐Grant Revisited*

2000 ◽  
Vol 73 (180) ◽  
pp. 80-92
Author(s):  
T. S. Purser
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Traditional View ◽  
Land Grant ◽  
Private Land ◽  
Land Grants ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
Domesday Book ◽  
The Subject

Abstract The debate over whether English feudalism developed immediately after the Norman Conquest or early in the twelfth century is still very much alive. The wealth of information contained in Domesday Book actually tells little of the nature of land‐holding. Only three private land‐grants survive from the reign of the Conqueror. One, the 1085 grant from Bishop Losinga of Hereford to Roger de Lacy, was the subject of a celebrated article by V. H. Galbraith in 1929, in which he argued that the grant was a prime example of the new feudalism developing in the wake of the Conquest. However, recent writings have challenged that traditional view. This article re‐examines the grant in the light of those new views and assigns it a rather different significance.

Land Grants and Railroad Entrepreneurship

1950 ◽  
Vol 10 (S1) ◽  
pp. 53-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas C. Cochran
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Regional Economic Development ◽  
Land Grant ◽  
Land Grants ◽  
Regional Economic

The effects of Federal and state land-grant policies on railroad investment, railroad policy, and regional economic development are too varied to be treated in less than a volume. And such a book would require much research that has not as yet been attempted. The following discussion presents only brief notes on a few of the reactions of railroad entrepreneurs to land-grant policy. These notes were accumulated in the course of research on other problems and are in no instance complete enough to warrant broad generalizations.

Some Economic Issues Relating to Railroad Subsidies and the Evaluation of Land Grants

1972 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 443-463 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley L. Engerman
Keyword(s):  
Land Grant ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Land Grants ◽  
Large Measure ◽  
Government Aid ◽  
Net Benefits ◽  
The Government ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
History Books

The federal policy of granting land in aid of railroad construction in the mid-nineteenth century has been the focus of many heated discussions. Both praised and attacked by contemporaries, it has remained a lively issue in the pages of history books and in journal articles. Several “land-grant legends” have developed, referring to different problems in the evaluation of these measures. At issue have been the question of the justification for land grants, the value of the benefits provided the railroads, and the determination of whether the government aid did provide net benefits to society as a whole. While the “land-grant legend” has been frequently buried, it has invariably been resurrected in one guise or another. In large measure this state of affairs has been due to the failure to specify fully the problems under discussion, and to approach systematically their resolution.

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