Dragons,lions and gibbering demons

China: A New History, by John King Fairbank. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA and London, 1992. xvii ± 519 pp., photos, maps. £19.95, $27.95. ISBN 0–674–11670–4. The Lion and the Dragon: The Story of the first British Embassy to the Court of the Emperor Qianlong in Peking 1792–94, by Aubrey Singer. Barrie and Jenkins, London, 1992. xv ± 192 pp., illus, maps. £18.99. ISBN 0–7126–5444–5.

Britain's Encounter with Revolutionary China, 1949–54, by James Tuck‐Hong Tang. Macmillan Press, Basingstoke and London; St Martin's Press, New York, 1992. xiii+ 264 pp., £45. ISBN 0–333–54896–5.     

Holocaust inversion,anti-Zionism and British neo-fascism: the Israel–Palestine conflict and the extreme right in post-war Britain

ABSTRACT

The British extreme right has always struggled to distance itself from the crimes of the Third Reich, not helped by the high level of Holocaust consciousness in Britain and by the importance of antisemitic conspiracy theory to British neo-fascist ideology. Bland’s article charts attempts by British neo-fascist actors to use Holocaust inversion and—by extension—anti-Zionism as a mask for their Nazi sympathies. It shall, first of all, demonstrate how the Israel–Palestine conflict was incorporated into British neo-fascist antisemitic discourse in the 1960s. It shall then use the 1980s National Front as a case study, to illustrate the manner in which the extreme right can use anti-Zionist activism as a tactic aimed at legitimizing its politics and gaining new supporters. The article therefore contributes to the historiographies of antisemitism and anti-Zionism in Britain, as well as to scholarly understandings of neo-fascism.     

Chav-spotting in Britain: the representation of social class as private choice

The word chav is a relatively new one in British English, used to describe a supposed social group defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as “a young person of a type characterised by brash and loutish behaviour and the wearing of designer-style clothes … usually with connotations of a low social status”. Discourse on chavs in contemporary Britain has been widely implicated in the reinforcement of social inequalities. This article argues that a central element of such discourse is the representation of “everyday” British public experience as a practice of chav-spotting, of reading materials as signs of the private characteristics of those with which they are associated. This means reading class as a privately motivated phenomenon, as the product of the “choice incompetence” of chavs. This chav-spotting practice is viewed from two perspectives: (1) as a recontextualisation of class as the result of private choice; and (2) as a practice of sign-making by which meanings are articulated for publicly observable materials in accordance with (1).     

The citizen of empire

In this paper, the authors imagine a Citizen of Empire. This is a conceptualization of global citizenship as it might appear in Hardt and Negri's global social order of Empire. The article draws on Hardt and Negri's Empire as the model of global society to imagine what citizenship might look like on a global scale. Hardt and Negri's conceptualization of Empire offers a palette of new and emerging social relationships from which a vibrant conceptualization of citizen and citizenship can be imagined and new democratic politics practiced. First, the authors examine the concept of Empire to unearth foundational concepts upon which a notion of Citizen of Empire can be built. Second, the authors imagine a citizen who ‘calls Empire into being' rather than participating in the ready-made political, cultural, and economic institutions of the nation-state. Without institutional support, citizenship in Empire must be highly generative and creative, and it will operate on a virtual and poetic terrain by enacting mechanisms of deterritorialization, networking, and communication.     

First impressions: Western barbarians at the Celestial Court

Britain's First View of China: Lord Macartney's Embassy to the Peking Court, 1792–94. A joint British Museum/British Library Exhibition. Sponsored and supported by the British Taiwan Cultural Institute. British Museum, 10 October 1992–4 April 1993.

The Collision of Two Civilisations: The British Expedition to China 1792–4, by Alain Peyrefitte (translated from the French by Jon Rothschild). Harvill, London, 1993. xxxiii + 630 pp., colour illus., maps. £30. ISBN 0–00–272677–7.     

Complaining about rivals: Indifference,cooperation, and competition in the governance of advertising

What should rivals do when they see competitors breaking agreed rules within systems of self‐regulation? This study investigates compliant behavior among British advertisers to empirically answer this question. It analyses five years of complaints (n = 146,062) and adjudications (n = 4,832) published by the self‐regulatory body for the British advertising industry. The majority of firms adopt a strategy of indifference and rarely regulate their rivals. Highly engaged firms either adopt an angelic strategy as they use their resources to complain about their rivals; a deviant strategy as they are subject to a large number of complaints; or a predatory strategy as they attack their rivals through advertising regulation. This illustrates a unique form of regulatory capture in which a regulatory system becomes an arena of competition for some actors while continuing as a governance mechanism for others.     

The Tortured and the Torturers: Six Films on Prisoner Abuse

During World War II, German naval codebreakers in the B-Dienst made extensive breaks into Naval Cypher No. 3, an enciphered code used by the Allies for the vital Atlantic convoys. It is often suggested that they did not discover that Cypher No. 3 was insecure until May 1943. This article shows that the British had learned about this much earlier, in August 1942, and that they informed the US Navy then. British solutions of messages encrypted with the Wehrmacht's Tunny teleprinter cipher machine had revealed that the B-Dienst was solving Naval Cyphers Nos. 3 and 4. Surprisingly, those ciphers were not replaced until June 1943.     

Governing at the frontier of the European commission: The case of seconded national officials

Political Integration and Disintegration in the British Isles. By A. H. Birch. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1977. Pp. 184. £6.50 hardback, £2.95 paperback.

Divided Loyalties. British Regional Assertion and European Integration Edited by M. Kolinsky. Manchester University Press, 1978. Pp. 224. £9.50

The Break up of Britain: Crises and Neo‐Nationalism. By Tom Nairn. London, New Left Books, 1977. Pp. 318. £750.

The British Right: Conservative and Right Wing Politics in Britain. Edited by Neill Nugent and Roger King, Westmead : Saxon House, 1977, Pp. vi + 230 £7.50     

‘I can’t remember a more depressing time but I don’t blame anyone for that’: remembering and commemorating the wartime internment of enemy aliens in Britain

ABSTRACT

In October 2000, David Cesarani decried the unnecessary internment of refugees from Nazi Germany in Britain during the Second World War on the BBC Radio 4 programme Behind the Wire. Until the last few decades, little was known about the internment of enemy aliens by the British during the war. However, in recent years, novels such as David Baddiel’s The Secret Purposes, published in 2004, and exhibitions such as ‘Schwitters in Britain’ at the Tate Britain in 2013, have introduced a wider audience to this oft-forgotten part of the British wartime narrative. Some of those interned in Britain were sent to Canada and Australia, which led to the greatest tragedy of the entire internment debacle, the sinking of the Arandora Star. The year 2015 marked the seventy-fifth anniversary of this tragedy, and the memory of those who were lost lives on in the British–Italian community. However, outside those affected by the Arandora Star disaster, little is commemorated or understood by the general public. Yet the legacy of the former internees is all around us. Who has not, on visiting the British Library, walked past former internee’s Eduardo Paolozzi’s statue of Newton? What connoisseur of classical music has not enjoyed the sound of the Amadeus Quartet, perhaps the only positive outcome of internment? Pistol’s article will examine the memory of the camps and consider the differences between how internment has been remembered and commemorated by former internees and the general public.     

On mediators: Intellectuals and the ideas trade in the knowledge society

This paper aims to provide some broad outlines of a model of intellectual practice that is arguably gaining increasing salience today: the model of the intellectual as mediator. The paper begins by drawing briefly upon some empirical data from a recent study in order to suggest that, although institutions such as universities and think tanks do seem to be embracing practices of intellectual production that are at some remove from ‘traditional’ models of knowledge, the shift is not absolute – not least because the idea of the ‘traditional’ intellectual as a basic norm is itself no doubt somewhat problematic. In seeking to address precisely this question as to how to think about norms of intellectual practice, the main body of the paper is more theoretical in its orientation. It seeks to adapt and extend some features of the work of Michel Foucault and Zygmunt Bauman in attempting to theorize a fourfold typology of intellectual style on the basis of the concepts of legislation, expertise, interpretation and finally mediation itself. Lastly, the paper considers the status of the intellectual as mediator in today's ‘knowledge society’, considering whether the so-called ‘end of ideology’ has led to the demise of the intellectual who generates ‘big ideas’.     

Obstacle race? ‘race’, racism and the recruitment of British Asian professional footballers

Burdsey examines the ways in which British Asian footballers perceive ‘race’ and racism as factors influencing their under-representation in the professional game. He argues that issues of ‘race’ and racism in football often manifest themselves in forms that are far more complex, nuanced and subtle than are recognized within dominant discourses. Using their oral testimonies, Burdsey demonstrates that the attitudes and opinions of British Asian footballers often contradict the viewpoints proposed by anti-racist football organizations and the media. In particular, for a variety of reasons, the British Asian players in this research, many of whom have first-hand experience of playing at professional clubs, do not attribute the under-representation of British Asian professional footballers to racism in the professional game. These players believe that it is necessary to examine how issues of ethnicity, ‘race’ and racism manifest themselves at the amateur levels of the game, and how this situation inhibits the progression of British Asians into professional football. At amateur levels, racism from opponents, together with the role of football clubs as symbols of ethnic identity, means that British Asian players often play in all-Asian teams and in all-Asian leagues. This restricts their opportunities for being identified and recruited by professional clubs. Finally, Burdsey analyses the use of British Asian coaches as cultural intermediaries in facilitating the inclusion of British Asians in professional football. He argues that not only can this approach be disadvantageous, but also that it is hypocritical, and thus causes offence to many British Asian players.     

The Politics of Race and the Future of British Political History

This article addresses the field of British political history's blind spot when it comes to race. Where modern British political historians are comfortable approaching politics in ‘high’ and ‘popular’ forms as well as in terms of ideas, institutions and policy, they often struggle even to see a politics of race in operation. Using examples drawn from research on the post-1945 history of the white supremacist movement in Britain, this article maintains that the means to render race visible in the political history of modern Britain lies in the incorporation of previously overlooked perspectives. In search of these perspectives, it looks to black British history and critical studies of race. In particular, it highlights analyses and critiques of British racism by black political activists, from those who organised in response to the 1959 murder of Kelso Cochrane, to the Black Power groups of the 1970s.     

British fascism,fascist culture,British culture

ABSTRACT

In reading British fascism as a cultural phenomenon, historians have started to chart the cultural products and visions of British fascists during the interwar and post-war periods. Such analysis has tended to focus on fascists’ discourse on culture (particularly the ways that they position liberalism and modernism as degenerate), or on the cultural texts of fascists/fascism in the form of, inter alia, literature, music, dress and art. George Mosse goes as far as to argue that it is only through a cultural interpretation of fascism that we can come to understand the movement ‘from the inside out’. However, the notion of fascist culture is contentious, and not simply because the meanings of both ‘fascism’ and ‘culture’ are highly contested. Eschewing Mosse’s invitation to interpret fascism as culture, Richardson nevertheless argues that ‘the cultural’ can be understood as one approach to fascism. In this article, Richardson discusses six ways into a critical cultural analysis of the continuing presence of fascist political projects, focusing in particular on the British variant.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article: Uniting the United Kingdom? The Making of British History, edited by Alexander Grant and Keith J. Stringer. Conquest and Union: Fashioning a British State 1485–1725, edited by Steven G. Ellis and Sarah Barber. A Union for Empire: Political Thought and the Union of 1707, edited by John Robertson. The British Problem, c.1534–1707, edited by Brendan Bradshaw and John Morrill. Macmillan. Three Nations—A Common History? England, Scotland, Ireland and British History c.1600–1920, edited by Ronald G. Asch. Brockmeyer. Scots and Britons: Scottish Political Thought and the Union of 1603, edited by Roger A. Mason. The Monarchy and the Constitution, by Vernon Bogdanor. The Hidden Wiring: Unearthing the British Constitution, by Peter Hennessy. Prime Minster, Cabinet and Core Executive, edited by R. A. W. Rhodes and Patrick Dunleavy. SDP: The Birth, Life and Death of the Social Democratic Party, by Ivor Crewe and Anthony King. Enlightenment's Wake: Politics and Culture at the Close of the Modern Age, by John Gray. The Way We Live Now, by Richard Hoggart. Arts and Cultures: The History of the 50 Years of the Arts Council of Great Britain, by Andrew Sinclair. The Faber Book of Science, edited by John Carey. But is it True? by Aaron Wildavsky. Orchestrating Europe: The Informal Politics of the European Union 1973–95, by Keith Middlemas. Living Islam:From Samarkand to Stomoway, by Akbar S. Ahmed. Jihad vs. McWorld: How the Planet is both Falling Apart and Coming Together and What This Means for Democracy, by Benjamin Barber. Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity, by Francis Fukuyama.     

Neoliberal feminism as political ideology: revitalizing the study of feminist political ideologies

Abstract

The emerging literature on neoliberal feminism appears to signal the revitalization of the study of feminist ideologies, suspended since the mid-1980s. However, it is argued here that scholars tend to conceptualize neoliberal feminism in a way that inhibits ideological analysis, as exemplified in Nancy Fraser’s Fortunes of Feminism. They take classifications of feminist political ideologies from the 1980s as representative of the only true feminisms, and thus view neoliberal feminism as a perversion, rather than an outgrowth, of earlier feminisms. This account of the emergence of neoliberal feminism is both historically inaccurate and politically problematic: it positions feminists as passive in the face of an overpowering neoliberal agency, and limits feminists’ capacity to imagine themselves as agents of political and ideological change. Building on Michael Freeden’s work on political ideologies, an alternative account of neoliberal feminism is offered, one that locates feminist agency in the production of new feminist ideologies.     

Strategic Thinking,Shared Meaning‐Making and the Interpretive Turn in Policy ‐ A Case Study

Governments' demands for results in a complex and rapidly changing policy environment call for more strategic and nuanced ways of approaching policy. Drawing on the work of the British interpretive ‘turn’, evidenced in the network governance literature and the differentiated polity critique of Westminster narratives, and of Liedkta on strategy as design, this paper suggests that shared strategic narratives, more consciously applied to policy development and implementation, could deliver better results; that consensus from shared meaning‐making may have depth, and that it could emphasise the transformative over the conservative forces of individuals' traditions and beliefs. Data for the paper came from a micro‐study on the implementation of SmartGate automated border processing system in New Zealand.     

Majoritarian Democracy in Britain: New Labour and the Constitution

In May 1997 the British electorate voted a Labour government into office after 18 years of Conservative administration. This government has subsequently enacted a large number of constitutional reforms. However, a debate exists in relation to the degree to which, taken together, these reforms amount to a fundamental shift in the nature of British democracy. This article utilises Arend Lijphart's work on patterns of democracy in order to provide a conceptual lens through which New Labour's constitutional reforms can be analysed in terms of representing either a minor or major shift from a traditionally majoritarian to more consensus-orientated system. The article concludes that, although significant, the actual degree of reform in Britain is less radical than is commonly assumed: although New Labour is committed to far-reaching constitutional reform in principle it has been far less committed in practice.     

The Alexander memorandum

ABSTRACT

British officials knew a good deal about the upsurge in malignity following the terrible euphoria of the Anschluss in March 1938. Word even reached a British consul working under Sir Frederick Leith-Ross in China. Alexander made his way from the Far East to Germany, the place where he had spent contented days as a student, in order to negotiate the release of a Jewish friend from Dachau. Negotiations were progressing nicely until they were interrupted by the outburst of destructive fury against Germany’s Jews in November 1938. As talks faltered in a febrile atmosphere of Jew-hatred, Alexander used his connections to gain access to a member of the Nazi aristocracy. The British diplomat got more than he bargained for. The senior Nazi made a shocking proposal. He outlined an incredible scheme that, he claimed, would lead to permanent peace between Germany and Britain. His plan uncannily presaged details of the Final Solution three years before its implementation. This information quickly made its way back to London and indeed to the British Foreign Secretary himself, Lord Halifax. So, how would the Foreign Office react? Wallis’s article tells the story of a forgotten memorandum, one that challenges whether theories concerning the limits of the British imagination are sufficient to explain British inaction in the face of massive anti-Jewish persecution and violence.     

近20年英美哲学的最新进展(下)

2、实在论.在当代美国哲学家看来,实在论、自然主义和实用主义在哲学基本倾向上是一致的,它们之间的关系可以解释为,是一种以实用主义为主导精神,以实在论为基本态度,以自然主义为思想方法的美国特有的生活方式.在当代美国哲学中,实在论和实用主义构成了一幅美国哲学的未来图景.当今美国哲学中的一种重要动向,就是实用主义实在论的兴起.2000年10月在美国纽约布法罗州立大学举行的"美国实用自然主义传统中的实在论的未来"国际研讨会,就充分体现了这样一种倾向.例如,默菲(Mur-ray G. Murphey)指出,实用主义不是要揭示世界的真实情况,而是要说明人类对环境做出有限反应的能力,例如人类根据自己的兴趣或态度对某种所与物(the giyen)作出选择.这里并不涉及真实世界的独立存在问题,而仅仅涉及到外在事物对人类感官产生的感觉刺激,也就是知觉(perception)过程.罗森塔尔(Sandra B. Rosenthal)明确地把实用主义与实在论联系起来.     

Policy Learning and British Governance in the 1960s

Book reviewed: Hugh Pemberton. Policy Learning and British Governance in the 1960s.
Reviewed by DAVID P. DOLOWITZ