Boxers,Christians and the culture of violence in north China

History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth, by Paul A. Cohen. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Pp.xviii + 249. £27.95/US$34.50 (hardback); US$18.50 (paperback). ISBN 0 231 10650 5 and 10651 3

On the one hand, the Boxers have been condemned as a product of uncivilised, irrational, superstitious anti‐foreignism among the common people. On the other, the Boxers are praised as patriotic anti‐imperialists. This latter characterisation remains the prevailing view not only in current Chinese writings but also in some recent Western accounts. While not denying the unsettling impact of certain aspects of foreign imperialism at the end of the nineteenth century, it is argued here that greater emphasis must be placed on the endogenous factors that gave rise to the Boxer Movement. In its broadest sense, the movement was a multi‐stranded and complex response to mounting internal and external pressures. A careful analysis of this conjuncture of factors will provide a more satisfactory explanation for the fateful events of 1898–1900.     

Finance capital and peasants in Colonial West Africa: A comment on Cowen and Shenton

The presence of finance capital in colonial West Africa was predicated on the presence of imperial administration and merchant capital. From these it derived its profits. Cowen and Shenton suggested finance capital was seeking to diversify its sources of profit by engaging cocoa farmers in credit. While this may have been true for the period of cocoa boom before the First World War, it is argued in this piece that in 1938‐more than 20 years later ‐ the banks’ motivation was entirely defensive. No diversification was intended, and the action was directed at salvaging current business. This comment does not question Cowen and Shenton's ‘Fabianism’ thesis but substitutes merchant for finance capital as being in conflict with Colonial Office attitudes.     

Haseki Women’s Hospital and the female destitute of nineteenth-century Istanbul

This article is on one of the longest-lived medical institutions of the Ottoman Empire, the Haseki Hospital. I will try to glimpse to the daily workings of the Haseki Hospital and the transformations it underwent in terms of the services it offered, its patients, its social functions, and its relevance for the urban lives of the destitute women of the empire for the period between the 1830s and 1893. During that period, the Haseki Women's Hospital was an institution hosting poor and destitute women as well as pregnant, ill, feeble-minded, convicted women, widows, prostitutes, and orphans. Although it has been called a hospital, it has been used as a women's hospital, lying-in clinic, madness asylum, widow's house, orphanage, and a women's prison. I submit that the Haseki Women's Hospital fulfilled a dual purpose by combining social relief services with medical care for female patients. Besides being a locus of medicine, the hospital was also a site where women in the margins were confined and isolated, but also received care otherwise denied to them. Along these lines, this article searches the vulnerability of the destitute women of nineteenth century Istanbul.     

The "Polish Problem"– American War-Time Perspectives

As one of the initial, and arguably most devastated, casualties of the Second World War, Poland's restoration as a free and independent state was seen as a test case for the viable continuation of the victorious Grand Alliance. Yet seemingly irreconcilable differences between the Western powers and the Soviet Union over intricate territorial and political issues (with the Polish state and people caught firmly in the middle) would signal the end of the working alliance. The US collectively struggled to come to terms with this "Polish problem"– its government failing to deliver to the Poles on those democratic principles enshrined within the Atlantic Charter, and its people finding the very ideals for which they had gone to war compromised. While reflecting the unique complexities of this particular dilemma, American officialsrsquo; perceptions of the conundrum over Poland bear a ringing familiarity to future East European developments and certainly set the tone for the ensuing West-Soviet impasse there. Indeed, this author would not be alone in suggesting that the superpower struggle over Poland at the close of World War II was itself the very genesis of the Cold War conflict.     

Local government in the Canadian provincial north

Abstract. The purpose of this article is to explore the difficulties inherent in the organization of local government in large and geographically remote areas and the responses to those problems over time in a comparative cross-provincial perspective. After defining the provincial north, the article traces the origin and early development of local government structures in the provincial north to indicate just how these structures differ from those in the southern regions of the provinces. The article then discusses the range and nature of the problems faced by northern communities. This is followed by an analysis of the desires of northern local governments and the manner in which they express them. The final section describes the nature of governmental responses to the demands expressed by local governments. Sommaire. Le but de cet article est d'enqêter sur les difficultés inhérentes à l'organisation du gouvernement local dans de grandes régions gégraphiquement isolées et le traitement de ces problèmes sur une période de temps et ce dans une perspective interprovincial comparative, Après avoir défini le nord provincial, l'auteur retrace l'origine et l'ébauche du développement des structures de gouvernement local dans le nord provincial pour montrer en quoi celles-ci diffèrent de celles des régions du sud des provinces. Il analyse ensuite les desiderata des gouvernements locaux du nord et leur façon de les exprimer. Il consacre le dernier chapitre à l'analyse de la nature des réactions gouvernementales aux exigences manifestées par les gouvernements locaux.     

Indicative planning: failure or success?

Abstract. Two forms of national economic planning are distinguished imperative planning (planning with controls) and indicative (persuasive) planning. The trend away from controls in the Soviet Union is briefly treated. The French planning machinery and the factors determining the initial success of the French method of planning by inducement, its subsequent decline, and its anticipated recovery are outlined. Greater attention is paid to the more democratic British experiment in planning by consensus, with particular emphasis on the structure and evolution of the planning institutions and their strengths and weaknesses. Reasons for the British attempt at national economic planning and for its failure are also indicated while the aborted move towards greater intervention in the private sector is analysed in depth. The author concludes that the new emphasison planning the public sector, using both central policy reviews and annual five-year expenditure projections linked with economic assessments, is likely to prove more effective than earlier methods and that the deliberate retreat from planning the entire economy will prove a sound basis for a subsequent advance. Sommaire. L'auteur distingue deux sortes de planifications de l'économie nationale- la planification imposée (planification avec contrôles) et la planification suggérée (par persuasion). Puis il traite rapidement de la tendance en Union Soviétique d'abandonner les contrôles. L'auteur explique ensuite le mëcanisme français de planification, les facteurs qui ont déterminé le succès initial de la méthode française de planification par encouragement, son déclin subséquent et l'anticipation de son renouveau. Il examine ensuite plus en détail l'expérience britannique, d'un caractère plus démocratique, qui consiste à planifier par accordg général en insistant particulièrement sur la structure et l'évolution des institutions de planification, sur leurs points forts et sur leurs points faibles. Il expose les raisons des efforts britanniques de planification de l'économie nationale et pourquoi ils ont échoé et analyse en profondeur la tentative avortée d'une plus grande intervention dans le secteur privé. L'auteur conclut que la nouvelle importance accordée à la planification du secteur public en se servant à la fois de révisions des politiques-clés et d'estimations annuelles des dépenses quinquennales par rapport aux évaluations économiques, risque de se montrer plus efficace, comme méthode, que les précédentes et que l'abstention délibéreé d'une planification totale de l'économie permettra de faire un pas en avant.