Legislatures and their past: The History of Parliament project and the significance of history

Using interviews with Conservative MPs, three aspects of the Poll Tax not covered by the extant literature are examined. Conservative backbenchers are shown to be more supportive of the tax than in previous accounts. The nature and effect of both the legal and non‐legal protests against the Poll Tax are discussed. The effect of petitioning is found to be minor, but the amount and (especially) the nature of post which MPs received had more impact. Other than the quantity, five characteristics are identified which contributed to making this post more significant than other ‘issue’ post received by MPs. The extra‐parliamentary action is also shown to have had a surprisingly strong effect on Conservative MPs.     

The history of family and colonialism: Examples from Africa,Latin America,and the Caribbean

The historical study of the family started later in the “Third World” than in Europe and North America, and the link between colonialism and family structures in the colonized or formerly colonized countries has not been explored thoroughly. In this issue we have chosen examples from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean in part because the importance of people of African background in both continents provided a certain link. The main connection, though, was the fact that all examined cultures had to cope with Christian-European family norms and with the values of the colonizers. The aims, forms, and historical circumstances of the colonial situation were quite different in all the cases examined. When changing conditions made traditional kinship bonds less reliable or less workable, people turned to alternative institutions such as gynaegamy or gender groups. If there is one conclusion to be drawn from all the examined cases, it is that colonized societies had the ability to use a variety of family forms as they adjusted to new situations.     

The flavour of history: Food,family and subjectivity in two Indo-European women's memoirs

This article examines two autobiographies written by women with family connections to the former Netherlands Indies (colonial Indonesia): Schenkhuizen, 1993, Schaapman, 2007. Particular attention is given to the customs surrounding the preparation, consumption and distribution of food within these women's families, practices that illuminate the formation and expression of identities across generations of Indo-European migrants, and between the colonial and post-colonial periods. Studies of colonial identity often essentially focus on how aspirations for group membership are expressed. Such emphasis can exaggerate the stasis and cohesion of colonial cultures at the expense of a more nuanced analysis of the varied, sometimes contradictory range of identities that exist within specific historical contexts. To approach identity and subjectivity as related but not necessarily congruent constructs provides significant insight into how ethnic identities that were formed in a family context altered in response to twentieth century decolonisation. The memoirs examined demonstrate that subjectivities formed with reference to foodways in Indo-European (Indo) families were gendered and raced. The colonial identities that were informed by these subjectivities found new and altered expression in the post-colonial era.     

Surnames,marriage, and consanguinity in eighteenth and nineteenth century haute-provence

A study of the stem family system in a group of villages in Haute-Provence during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries reveals the existence of a high degree of isonymy (same-namedness). The sources employed were marriage contracts and parish registers permitting genealogical reconstitution. Does isonymy always signify a marriage between close relatives bearing the same name? In fact, although the spouses might share a common ancestor, that ancestor might date back many generations. The relatively frequent occurrence of marriages among homonymous spouses should not be interpreted as absolute proof of a union between close relatives. Indeed, heteronymic alliances, even exogamic ones, can hide a marriage between first cousins, if consanguinity is transmitted by the mothers.     

究法制之源流 显文明之转承——《中华法制文明的演进》述评

初见张晋藩先生所著的《中华法制文明的演进》一书 ,我惊其厚 :近百万言 ,拿在手里沉甸甸的 ;通过认真学习 ,又奇其薄 :这不仅是由于该书所要阐述的是如此之大的一个对象 ,即中国传统社会数千年法制文明的演进 ,更为关键的在于 ,该书所涵盖知识面是如此之广 ,所体现的学术价值是如此之大     

中国法律史学史——一个学科史问题的透视

本文立足于对中国法律史学在二十世纪的发展历史,从史学史的角度提出了建立中国法律史学史的学术构想,认为悠久而独具特色的中华法制文明决定了法律史学在近代中国法学学科发展史中所起到的“母学科”的作用,并进而提出对学科本身的史学回顾,旨在促使中国法律史学在研究主体、研究视角、研究方法、研究对象和学科创新等方面寻找新的突破。     

Digital thombos: A new source for 18th century Sri Lankan family history. Research note

The Sri Lanka National Archives (SLNA) in Colombo preserve under the names of head thombo and land thombo several hundreds of eighteenth-century registers on family composition and landownership. At the time of their compilation by the Dutch East India Company or VOC the thombos suited a general administrative purpose; currently they are used only in genealogical research and in court cases concerning land disputes. Demographic, family and colonial history, however, can profit considerably from this neglected source. In the following we describe a project to digitize the registers of the Colombo province, and we discuss and evaluate the variables in the database by focusing on the family groups of a relatively small district.     

论历史、理性与教育学——基于历史哲学的视角

教育学和教育史分别以历史的和逻辑的方法对教育进行研究,尽管二者在研究对象、内容、方法上各有侧重,但学科之别不应成为学术研究的壁垒。教育史研究以历史为研究对象,是教育研究的一个基本领域;它通过考察历史来理解教育,因而又是一种研究方法。一部教育史潜藏着一部教育思想史。逻辑的与历史的是一致的,教育史研究不仅仅是史实的记录和复述,文献的查找与整理,而是在尊重史实的基础上,厘清教育发展的来龙去脉,通过归纳、分析、演绎、推理等方法,发现教育的逻辑。