Les élections à la chambre introuvable en aoÛt 1815

Summary

A number of historians have recently advanced the thesis that the millones of 1601 transformed the structure of Castilian politics by shifting the constitutional balance of power toward the Cortes and cities at the expense of the crown. The thesis rests on three principal arguments: that the millones established a contractual relationship between crown and parliament, that they created a public system of tax revenue controlled by the Cortes and cities, and that they helped to unify Castile fiscally. This article reviews these conclusions through an examination of the actual administration of the millones from 1601–1621. The analysis suggests that the conclusions drawn by revisionist historians, largely from the texts of successive millones agreements, have been overstated. In reality the millones did not transform Castilian politics and many of the gains ascribed to the Cortes and cities were either never achieved, or achieved only in partial or provisional ways. Nevertheless the millones of 1601 did alter the context of Castilian politics and set the stage for a prolonged period of constitutional debate that took well over three decades to resolve.     

The politics of China's peasant revolution

Abstract

Efforts to explain the success of the Chinese Communist revolution have preoccupied more than a few American historians and political scientists in recent years. Most of these scholars, following the trail blazed by George Taylor's The Struggle for North China, have focused attention on the War of Resistance period (1937–1945) in search of the factors responsible for the phenomenal growth in Communist power. Chalmers Johnson, with his famous thesis of “peasant nationalism,” emphasizes the importance of the Japanese invasion for rural mobilization in China. Mark Selden, by contrast, identifies the Communist Party's positive wartime policies—the “Yenan Way”—as the key to revolutionary victory. Carl Dorris, while agreeing with much of Selden's explanation, locates the source of these successful wartime policies not in the capital of Yenan, but in the guerrilla bases of North China, especially Jin-Cha-Ji.     

The Ottoman Identity: Turkish,Muslim or Rum?

It is awkward for historians to depict a clear-cut portrayal of Ottoman identity. Scholarly analyses by and large lay emphasis on the Islamic and Turkish character of the Ottoman Empire. However, it would be reductionist to evaluate an empire that lasted for six centuries, on three different continents, with solely monolithic ethno-religious tools. A new approach around the term Rum may help to get rid of this reductionism and to understand the sui generis structure of the Ottoman identity. Instead of focusing on ethnic and religious aspects, this novel approach would add both a territorial dimension of Ottoman hegemony and also a social component regarding the relations between the rulers and the ruled. The Rum, with a meaning above Orthodoxy, Greek or Roman Empire, can highlight the ingredients of Ottoman identity and help to overcome the influence of modern nationalist discourses in historical readings.     

Crown and Cortes in Castile, 1590–1665

Summary

Preparations for the Estates General of 1789 constituted one of the last acts of the anclen régime in France. The accompanying elections have received relatively little attention, yet they bequeathed much more to the electoral practices and political mentalités of the Revolution than most historians have realised. Though separate orders were preserved at the final meeting of the Estates General, with disastrous consequences for the monarchy, custom was breached by the uniform fashion and broad franchise with which deputies were elected. When the National Assembly was created the orders were dissolved, but much of this semi‐traditional electoral system survived. Assemblies of voters, an indirect, two‐tier process of election and exhaustive balloting were all retained from the past. A pronounced aversion to declared candidatures and electoral canvassing remained equally entrenched. Moreover, radicals drew upon the old‐régime heritage, rather than upon Rousseau, in their use of mandates, oral voting and the pursuit of unanimity at the polls. The revolutionary experiment with elections ultimately faltered in face of apathy and cynicism among voters. This article concludes by suggesting how the electoral legacy of the anden regime inhibited the emergence of a ‘modern political culture’, which is currently hailed as the major achievement of the French Revolution.     

De la Monarchie

SUMMARY

In this article Michel Peronnct discusses the problem of finding a clear, unambiguous terminology, based on contemporary texts, for the comparative discussion of political societies by historians. It takes as its example the classifications of Monarchy. The use of a priori categories, invented by the historians themselves, such as ‘absolutism’ or ‘enlightened despotism’ is argued to be unsatisfactory as such invented terminology cannot yield the necessary clarity. The paper concentrates on the comparison between the French and the English monarchies both of which originated as ‘consultative monarchies’ based on divine right, where the prince is sovereign but by custom takes advice from groups of his subjects, while retaining for himself the ultimate decision making power. This basic monarchical type can continue over long periods of time, as it did in France down to 1789 or it can develop in two directions. Rulers may, over time reduce or even discontinue the consultative processes, leading to autocratic monarchy, of which Joseph II of Austria would be an example. Or as in England the consultative institutions may develop an increasingly representative character and build on this to enforce limitations on the final decision making powers of the prince, producing the third type, representative monarchy. It is shown how this typology can be derived from contemporary texts and argued that it can offer a reliable system of classification for the purpose of comparative analysis.     

In Search of Native Dissidence: RT Kawa’s Mfecane Historiography in Ibali lamaMfengu (1929)

Abstract

This article situates RT Kawa’s Ibali lamaMfengu (1929) as a canonical text of South African historiography, and mfecane historiography in particular. In Ibali lamaMfengu, Kawa attempts to give an account of the origins of amaMfengu clans, who were Mfecane refugees, as well as their political situation, when they were incorporated into the Gcaleka kingdom of King Hintsa in the 1820s and 1830s. Kawa’s work is significant in clarifying key disputes on the origins of amaMfengu although is not comprehensive in detailing their early life amongst amaXhosa. Although a key text, its analysis was not only excluded, but rejected by ‘‘mainstream’’ South African historians in the 1980s and 1990s. This omission resulted in dominant scholarly versions of the Mfecane dismissing the validity of the interpretations and analyses of African writers, in effect, rendering Mfecane historiography a ‘‘white-only’’ debate. I demonstrate in this article that Kawa’s work is in fact, a valid and persuasive history of amaMfengu, and is largely accurate on the basis of their origins, their life under chief Hintsa, and the reasons for their exodus from amaXhosa, that led to their loyalty pledge to the British in 1835.     

The limits to royal power: contrafueros or actions against violations of privileges in the Valencian parliamentary assemblies until 1604

SUMMARY

The parlement of Navarre, which was located at Pau (1620–1789), had a very distinctive existence during the crisis years 1760–70. The first to experience a purge in May 1765, through a series of forced resignations of magistrates, which culminated in the Maupeou reforms of 1771, this parlement was the last to resume its functions after ten years of exile in 1775. If no one doubts the urgent need for a reform of the judiciary in the eighteenth century, and as part of it a virtual revolution at the heart of the magistracy, the methods adopted by the royal government have not ceased to divide French historians, who have rarely gone beyond the parameters of contemporary debate, which contrast two revolutions: that of the king for the common interest and that of the office holders for the interests of the nobility. The crisis of 1765 had originated in a local disciplinary problem but in a context of exacerbated national protests over taxation and resulted in a purge of most of the magistrates, amid a local indifference that was scarcely mitigated by the few gestures of support from fellow magistrates. A careful study of the parlementaire discourse of the new officers appointed by Maupeou, the ‘interlopers’, drawn from the bourgeois members of the local Bar, reveals in reality a disturbing continuity with that of the ‘expelled’ magistrates. Ridiculed by public opinion, harassed by the Estates of Béarn and by the intendant, and on top of that poorly rewarded for their devotion to the royal authority, the new magistrates, who had suffered a total lack of appreciation, displayed to extremes the defensive attitudes of the traditional office holders. This unwavering stand throws new light on the continuities of a political culture and modifies as too simplified and one-dimensional assessments of the principles and discourse of the parlementaire opposition.     

Rejoinder to Adam Fforde

Abstract

The issue of scholarship regarding Asian socialist countries is by no means a new one. This has faced China scholars for a long time. The difficulties of gaining access to these countries, assessing information from elusive sources, and gathering data are common to all scholars of countries like China, Korea, and Vietnam. Of course, research conditions are less than ideal. Vietnam, Korea and China are to a large extent closed societies, even if we speak their languages. However, as I stated in the beginning of my article, my present purpose is to raise issues that I think should be discussed, and not to do an original piece based on anthropological fieldwork. But more than this, it seems to me that given the limited commentary on socialist states as Vietnam, any new issues that come up should be given wider currency. And this was another major purpose of my article—to bring to readers of the Bulletin new debates which have focused on Vietnam, specifically in French academic circles, among a number of Vietnamese economists and historians. It was in the context of these debates that I focus on selected issues and offer some judgments of my own.     

Pouvoir royal et représentation provençale du XVIIème au XVIIIème siècle

SUMMARY

This paper examines assemblies of the clergy in early modern Castile and France. It provides a short overview of the representative nature of these assemblies, their functions, and their power over the ecclesiastical purse strings. In the process it argues that, in addition to secular representative institutions, historians need to take a closer look at ecclesiastical assemblies in order to understand politics, finance and representation in Catholic polities.     

New letters from Hiroshima

Abstract

Wartime censors, as Phillip Knightley's The First Casualty reminds us, perform a twofold mission: (l) deny vital data to the enemy and (2) conceal from the citizenry potentially perturbing news as to how their leaders are conducting the mayhem at the front. This protective zeal tends to be habit forming and can outlast formal hostilities. Take the case of two historians who tried to pry past the “received wisdom and the received ignorance” about Western military activities in a gory conflict fought on Third World terrain: A tyrant launched a lightning invasion into a neighboring southern country over which he claimed historical sovereignty. A U.S. diplomat earlier had “signaled” the avaricious dictator that the target state lay outside the perimeter of vital U.S. interests. Nonetheless, seventeen U.N. countries—though primarily the United States—charged in to repel the invaders with a ferocious aerial campaign and a massive ground assault. The tyrant, alas, survived this onslaught because several hundred thousand—and eventually several million—highly motivated Chinese troops came to the rescue.     

Illusions of Influence; The Political Economy of United States Philippines Relations, 1942–1960, by Nick Cullather; Managing Nationalism: United States National Security Council Documents on the Philippines, 1953–1960, by Nick Cullather,ed.

Abstract

Nick Cullather has mined archives in the United States and the Philippines, many of them recently opened, to produce these two books. Both volumes provide much new evidence on and many important insights into the U.S.-Philippine relationship, but Cullather aspires to do more than this; he claims to offer an alternative interpretation of that relationship, challenging the view shared by dependency theorists in the United States and nationalist historians in the Philippines.     

Individuals,Parties and the Parliamentary Record in the 1690s

SUMMARY

In this article Colin Brooks reviews the historical writing of the last thirty years on British history between 1688 and 1714. This has offered a variety of interpretations which give priority to a number of different factors. The problem now facing historians is how to synthesize these interpretations into a coherent account. The article suggests that while it is possible to reconstruct from the surviving source materials what happened in the House of Commons, the incompleteness and the ambiguities of the evidence make it much more difficult to determine why it happened, or what were the motives of the individuals taking part. The nature of the source materials requires that they be interpreted with more caution than they have often received: they have as much to tell about individual perceptions as about what actually happened.     

David Marr's ‘Vietnamese anticolonialism’

Abstract

Because of its legendary resistance against the United States and its struggle for national salvation, Vietnam has entered into the consciousness of progressive mankind and has begun to attract the attention of foreign historians. In the United States, the war of aggression waged by the U.S. government has been costly in lives and property and has seriously weakened the country in all aspects, leading to the increasing opposition among the American people to the war. While protesting against the policy of the U.S. government of continuing and widening its aggression in Vietnam, for the purpose of defending America's honor and to fight for their democratic rights and economic livelihood, the American people from all walks of life have been building a friendly relationship with the Vietnamese people. Because of this reason, the American people would like to have a better understanding of the land and people of Vietnam, past and present. However, in the United States “the study of Vietnamese anti-colonial movements has been largely the preserve of the political scientist, the practicing journalist, and the intelligence specialist.” Since nearly all of these people have conducted their research according to strict political guidelines from the White House and the Pentagon, they have ignored the historical truth in an effort to justify present-day American neo-colonialism. Despite these limitations, Marr's Vietnamese Anticolonialism is one of the first historical studies published in the United States which makes a larger contribution to America's understanding of the Vietnamese struggle for freedom and independence, and thereby shows that the present U.S. war of aggression is doomed to failure.     

Dependence and opposition. Problems in Soviet Estonian historiography in the late 1940s and early 1950s

Abstract

Soviet rule was established in Estonia by late autumn 1944. By that time only two historians with a PhD degree from the University of Tartu remained in the country, one of whom was Professor Hans Kruus. Until World War II, neither of the two had published any work that interpreted history from the viewpoint of Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist ideology. Thus, as far as Estonia was concerned, this type of ideologically based reinterpretation of the past did not exist, and had to be organized from scratch. The main aim of this article is to examine Estonian historians' dependence on the official Soviet interpretation of history after 1945 and during the early 1950s. How were they guided and controlled through the Stalin era, i.e. until 1953? What happened in this respect between Stalin's death and the XX CPSU Congress at the beginning of 1956? And how did the results of that Congress influence later writing of history? The article also examines the possibilities for opposition among professional historians to the official Party interpretation of history. In what context did this opposition arise, how did it manifest itself, and in what ways might it possibly have influenced Soviet Estonian society?     

Commission Newsletter: Autumn 2012 Minutes of the 63rd Conference of ICHRPI/CIHAE,Cadiz

SUMMARY

The permanent imperial diet at Regensburg (1663–1806), one of the central institutions of the Holy Roman Empire, has been viewed in a negative light by historians for a long time. In recent decades there has been a fundamental re-evaluation of the diet by researchers. The diet is no longer seen as an institution which was incapable of action. Rather, in recent years the focus has been on its powers to maintain lawfulness and peace. One of the new research approaches is that the permanent imperial diet was an important forum for the courts of Vienna and Berlin in building and maintaining a loyal clientele and to gain the support for their own foreign and imperial policies from the imperial Estates. This became particularly obvious in phases of open conflict between Austria and Prussia. Both sides perceived the events at Regensburg increasingly as bipolar and this was especially the case in the Seven Years War (1756–63). If one visualizes the fiercely fought battles between the Partheyen that were dominated by Austria and Prussia, on stage and off stage, then it becomes obvious that it is high time to modify the one-sided old picture of the sleepy diet.     

“I Fought. I Screamed. I Bit”: The Assertion of Rights Within Historic Abuse Inquiry Transcripts

ABSTRACT

This article examines how treating historic abuse inquiry testimonies as retrospective assertions of rights can help to shed light on how this abuse was able to occur and how memories are recalled in an inquiry environment. It presents its approach as a possible framework for other historians seeking to analyse testimonies with sensitivity. It uses, as an example, a case study from the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse concerning two interrelated “homes” for girls, showing the ways in which abuse survivors can use their testimonies to assert rights denied them in the past and further the goals of public inquiries.     

Japan studies old and new at the end of the eighties

Abstract

During the first two decades of the Cold War era, many historians of Japan in American universities sought to rise above the hatreds of the war era and develop a brighter, more positive image of Japan's recent past. Concentrating on the rational nature of the state-building process (but downplaying the ways in which irrationality was also institutionalized), they described how the Meiji oligarchs constructed a modern state that led Japan at the end of the nineteenth century into the worlds of capitalist industry, great-power politics, and colonial empire. This explicitly anti-Marxist phase of American historiography is known as the modernization perspective.     

Supporters and Opponents of Perestroyka: The Second Joint Soviet Economy Roundtable

Support and opposition to perestroyka in the USSR and the U.S. are discussed on the eve of Academician Andrey Sakharov's trip to the U.S. in November 1988. Participating in the roundtable are leading Soviet economists, historians, philosophers, publishers and journalists as well as American Sovietologists. Different perspectives are offered on resistance to perestroyka and its origins, on concepts of change, the constitutional revisions in prospect, the pace and scope of the reform and the nationalities issue. Selected statements, notably those of Andrey Sakharov, are of historical significance. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: 027, 124.     

The dark valley illuminated: Recent trends in studies of the postwar Japanese economy

Abstract

Historians are continually fascinated by the way a new idea, seemingly independently and simultaneously, emerges from many minds at once. Such ideas step assuredly into the mental environment that has been prepared for them by material conditions, but they seem to belong so naturally that it is easy to forget to question how they arrived. In the case of historians this often involves a re-examination of a historical period. The most recent years to emerge, reorganized in a novel interpretation, are those of World War Two. In several recent publications the war has been described as the crucible for Japan's postwar growth. This presents the embryo of a new theory of the origins of Japanese economic growth, competing with the earlier explanations of culture, miracles, and rational and evolutionary modernization.     

The Transformation of Labor Party Immigration Policy, 1901–1945

ABSTRACT

The Commonwealth Labor government’s introduction of a program of mass immigration after the Second World War was a pivotal moment in the nation’s history. The program itself and the experiences of those who settled in Australia have been studied closely by historians and social scientists. Less attention has been given to the fact that the postwar policy represented a transformation of Labor’s traditional attitude to immigration. Since its foundation in the 1890s, the Australian Labor Party had been suspicious of immigration and opposed to programs of assisted immigration on the basis that migrant labour threatened the wages and conditions of Australian workers. This article traces Labor’s attitudes to migration before the Second World War and shows how economic and security exigencies compelled the party to repudiate its decades-long opposition to assisted immigration. The article suggests that the reason that the postwar immigration program does not receive greater prominence in histories of the Labor Party is because the policy and its chief architect, Arthur Calwell, are diminished by their association with the White Australia policy.