Global Historiography Research Articles

Revisiting Industrial Policy and Industrialization in Twentieth Century Latin America

This brief article seeks to introduce the reader to this special number on industrialization in contemporary Latin America. It does so considering three issues. First, the importance of industrialization in sustaining high rates of economic growth leading to high levels of income per capita. Second, the long-standing debate in global historiography regarding the successes and failures of industrial policy: markets vs. states. Lastly, Latin America´s industrial trajectory through the lenses of four historiographical tendencies, and the ways in which each of the four original papers relate to the extant literature, and contribute to enhancing our understanding of one of the most important economic transformations in the history of the region.

Political Ideology and the Production of Architectural Theories in Mao’s China (1949–1976)

This paper reveals a missing thread in the global historiography of architectural theory by scrutinizing the relationship between political ideology and architectural discourse in Mao’s China (1949–76). Several critical moments in this era, during which new theories or concepts emerged, deserve close study: 1) the National Style in 1954; 2) the official design principle, ‘appropriateness, economy, and if possible, beauty’ in 1955; 3) the Socialist New Style in 1959; 4) the Design Revolution in 1964; and 5) the ‘new architecture’ in 1973. The political context and the role of state ideology are discussed with regard to the relevant texts, buildings, architects and design institutes. Discussion focuses on the mode of theoretical production in the Mao era, which is summarized as a relation between ‘container’ and ‘content’. The broad and abstract theories of the time are conceptual containers that failed to define specific contents. Architectural autonomy continued to exist in the form of knowledge accumulation, especially the absorption of modernism, even though state ideology and political movements dominated architectural discourse.

Shahrazad’s 1001 Mediations: Translation in the Inter-Imperial Economy

This article builds on longue durée global historiography to identify the role of imperial translation projects in culture and political economies, clarifying how these economies rest on control of women and labour. To do so it develops the concept of inter-imperiality based on recent historical data and then considers The 1001 Nights as a case study. Highlighting the political allegory embedded in the translation tales of the frame-text, this article shows how literature and translation have taken shape within inter-imperial economies and how authors have shrewdly commented on these economies. Arguing that global literary histories would benefit from further attention to the co-formed empires and economies of the first millennium, it also proposes further rethinking of periodization and vocabularies, including of the so-called medieval and modern epochs.

Connecting the Indies: the hispano-asian Pacific world in early Modern Global History

Abstract This article reconsiders the place of colonial Latin America in global history by examining the Transpacific interactions, conflicts, and exchanges between Latin America and Asia in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Setting aside earlier imperial histories that present the Pacific as a 'Spanish Lake', I conceptualize a dynamic Hispano-Asian Pacific World that was forged by a myriad of actors in and around the Pacific basin. Instead of a Pacific dominated by far-off Spain, my research reveals a Transpacific world that in fact defied imperial efforts to claim, regulate, or convert it. I structure this study along three broad lines of inquiry: the economic ties that made the Asian-Latin American 'Rim', the consequences of human transits and cultural exchanges along new Transpacific conduits, and the barriers of distance and culture that limited both cosmopolitanism and imperialism. For societies in Latin America, this Hispano-Asian Pacific world provided them with greater autonomy than the Atlantic world. They shared, alongside diverse groups in this maritime world, a common story of circumvention, of freewheeling exchanges, and of checked powers, for no single shoreline, empire, or group predominated. Ultimately, by charting the currents of Hispano-Asian interactions in the Pacific world, I provide a riposte to theories in global historiography that have situated Latin America at the periphery of Western Europe.

Parasites, politics and public science: the promotion of biological control in Western Australia, 1900-1910.

Biological control of arthropods emerged as a scientific enterprise in the late nineteenth century and the orchard industry of California was an early centre of expertise. In 1900, as the Australian colonies prepared for federation, each had a government entomologist attached to its agriculture department. The hiring of George Compere from California by the Western Australian Department of Agriculture began a controversial chapter in the early history of biological control that was linked to a late, local popularization of acclimatization. Compere became known as the 'travelling entomologist' and for a decade brought 'parasites' of pest insects from overseas and released them in Perth. His antagonistic disciplinary rhetoric and inflated claims for the 'parasite theory' created conflict with his counterparts in the eastern states. The resulting inter-state entomological controversy was played out in the press, revealing the political use of science for institutional and even state identity. It is a story of transnational exchanges, chance discoveries and popular public science: popular because of the promise of a simple, natural solution to agricultural insect pests and because of the public nature of the disputes it generated between the experts. This microcosm contributes to the global historiography of acclimatization, biological control, scientific exposition and the professionalization of agricultural science.

‘From the Land of the White Elephant through the Gay Cities of Europe and America’: Re-routing the World Tour of the Boosra Mahin Siamese Theatre Troupe (1900)

Bangkok, Singapore, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, St Petersburg – some thirty performers of the Boosra Mahin Siamese Theatrical Troupe toured the world in 1900. Daily newspapers enthusiastically reported on the unprecedented shows of the performers ‘from the land of the white elephant’. After they disappeared from the map of theatre history, in 2010 Thai choreographer Pichet Klunchun ‘revives’ the troupe in his performance Nijinsky Siam. He follows their October 1900 St Petersburg show – the very performance attended by choreographer Mikhail Fokine and costume designer Léon Bakst, who later worked closely with Vaslav Nijinsky. In 1910, Nijinsky's La danse siamoise/Siamese Dance premiered at the Marinsky Theatre, St Petersburg. This article follows the routes of the Boosra Mahin Troupe on the basis of selected primary sources and from a global-historical perspective. In tracing the Boosra Mahin Troupe and their tours, the article not only maps their manifold routings and reroutings, but also advocates for the need for a global theatre historiography that puts past cultural entanglements and connected performance histories centre stage.

From a Catholic Identity to an American View: Historical Studies, Reviews, and Fundamentals in Articles on Late Modern and Contemporary Europe

The CHR has always paid attention to modern European history in its pages. But the meaning of what modern European history entailed varied over its history. At the beginning the journal presented Catholic research on the different origins of American Catholic cultures. In the central decades of the twentieth century, the focus shifted to Europe as a bona fide research subject that had significance for American history. A later tendency offers evidence for the American effort to be a leader and active partner in the main debates about a global historiography.

Automobility and Citizenship in Interwar Lebanon

Based on newspaper resources from Lebanon’s French mandate period (1920–46), Monroe’s essay offers a new perspective to a developing global historiography of automobility by considering, in a provisional way and primarily as a basis for further research, how the driving of cars shaped everyday and national life in Lebanon in the interwar era. First, Monroe explores how the driving of cars, as a demonstration of state power, served as a tool and representation of government. Second, she looks at how vehicular excursions by urban elite from the city to the mountain and rural areas created new patterns of leisure and recreation that put into practice the bourgeois habitus. Finally, she examines the gendered dimensions of automobility as women who took the wheel traversed boundaries both social and geographical. The essay explores how automobilities in mandate-era Lebanon participate in, and depart from, automobility paradigms that take the global North as the primary site of historical research and interest by providing insights into the ways in which the motor vehicle not only served a utilitarian function, but also contributed to particular constructions of class, gender, and nation.

The Philippines. Colonial counterpoint: Music in early modern Manila. By David R.M. Irving. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Pp. 394. Maps, Plates, Notes, Bibliography, Index.

Colonial counterpoint: Music in early modern Manila By DAVID R.M. IRVING Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Pp. 394. Maps, Plates, Notes, Bibliography, Index. doi: 10.1017/S0022463413000726 Colonial counterpoint is a unique study on the colonial cultural encounter and develops new paradigms in historiography and musicology. Meticulously exploring a series of musical encounters between imperial Spain and colonial Philippines in the early modern period, the book embodies the 'history of cultural globalization' which seeks a 'bigger picture of increasingly entangled global histories' (pp. 234, 231). Simultaneously, Irving, the author, blends historical musicology and ethnomusicology in connecting the music of the periphery of Europe and its transplantation in Asia. Elements of postcolonial critique also make the work relevant to contemporary discourses with a multidisciplinary flavour. With hints of Edward Said's 'contrapuntal analysis' (Said 1994), Irving employs the metaphor of counterpoint, a compositional technique for polyphony in Western classical music, as a governing principle of the arguments throughout the book. As counterpoint regulates imitative and oppositional (and other) movements of notes in the raw, the metaphor is certainly a helpful guide in reaffirming Filipinos' proactive and strategic engagement with colonialism, through adoption and adaptation of Spanish elements and eventual inversion and subversion against colonialism. Such a perspective confirms and advances the arguments found in such masterpieces as Reynaldo Ileto's Pasyon and Revolution (1979) and Vicente Rafael's Contracting colonialism (1988). It is suggested, however, that further clarifications be made about how to reconcile the premise of independence and equality of each voice in counterpoint and the unquestionable colonial hegemony. As Homi Bhabha suggests, 'the menace of mimicry is its double vision which in disclosing the ambivalence of colonial discourse also disrupts its authority' (Bhabha 1994, p. 88). But mimicry is, as Bhabha declares, 'almost the same but not quite' (p. 89). Among a number of valuable contributions Colonial counterpoint makes, some are worth particular mention. First, pointing to the significance of 'Manila 1571' as the starting point of (musical) globalisation by referring to Dennis O. Flynn and Arturo Giraldez is a fascinating wake-up call to Philippine and global historiography; 'Manila was the final link in the world's first circumferential trade network' (p. 9). Second, following the path of William Henry Scott (e.g. 1982, 1994), Colonial counterpoint reveals the richness of Spanish resources on indigenous culture as manifestations of Spaniards' interest in and strategic employment of it, rather than disrespect. …

Introduction: Reframing Australian Design History

Australian design and its history, popularly perceived from both within and without as marginal, are little known beyond Australia. The following virtual special issue of Journal of Design History comprises a compilation of nine articles from the journal focused on Australian design, as well as a consideration of alternative frameworks and approaches for rethinking design history in an Australian context. This introduction begins with a brief overview of developments in Australian and global historiography in order to situate Australian design history within broader historical research, particularly problematizing the issue of national histories. Following this, a review of scholarship on Australian design over the past twenty–five years will help situate the prominent areas of inquiry and methods employed in the articles on Australian design featured in this virtual issue of the Journal of Design History. However, rather than conceive Australian design history as singular and separate, a final section comprising related scholarship—derived from art history, social history, history of technology, labour and manufacturing history, migrant history and histories of material culture—is intended to identify main threads that could constitute what I have termed Australian design history’s ‘expanded field’. Finally, a brief conclusion suggests future possibilities and themes.

Eating People is Wrong: Famine's Darkest Secret?

Cannibalism is one of our darkest secrets and taboos. It is the ultimate measure of the resilience or otherwise of civilizational processes to extreme conditions. How common was cannibalism in times of famine in the past? Both the nature of the evidence for famine cannibalism and the silences about it challenge the empirical historian to the limit. After a review of the global historiography, this talk will attempt to assess the evidence for cannibalism during Ireland’s many famines, culminating in the Great Irish Famine of the 1840s.

A Concise Companion to History, ed. Ulinka Rublack

This is better than one might imagine. Each of us who has entered the world of ‘Companions’, ‘Encyclopaedias’ and ‘Dictionaries’ knows the difficulties and limitations of the genre; and a ‘Concise’ version could alarm by compounding superficiality with brevity. Concision this collection certainly possesses. Even with the large font deployed by Oxford University Press, the text of these sixteen essays does not reach four hundred pages and some of the pieces struggle to capture a universe in the few thousand words allotted. Three things help transcend the breathlessness. Ulinka Rublack’s editing shows the right blend of sympathetic autocracy which lends coherence to what could have been a surge of loosed cats. Second, she has some very sleek cats with famous names. Third and most decisive, this is not a ‘Companion’ at all: it makes no attempt at surveying a vast field but rather offers a manifesto for a number of fashions, enthusiasms and projects in current Anglo-American historical practice. It resembles David Cannadine’s symposium What is History Now (2002) more closely than any of the larger surveys of global historiography or guides to historical theory that are now filling the bookshelves. The mood of this compendium becomes immediately visible in the list of contributors: seventeen of them because Donald Kelley and Bonnie Smith collaborate in the essay on ‘Historians’. Of the seventeen, nine are based in the United States. Of the eight based in Britain, five are Cambridge historians. A ‘correct’ gender balance among all contributors is punctiliously maintained.

China Confidential: Methodological and Ethical Challenges in Global Nursing Historiography

As the history of nursing as a field of scholarship expands its global consciousness, it seems timely to join other scholars of international history in rethinking conventional approaches to historiography. The lament by mission scholars at the invisibility of nurses and indigenous workers in historical mission records coincides with calls by China scholars to reconsider traditional reliance on English-language data generation and interpretation for an English-speaking audience. In a similar way, nursing scholars are challenging historians of nursing to find ways to build a body of scholarship and a cadre of scholars that can open up new linguistic and cultural space for vibrant discussion and dialogue. Drawing on Sonya Grypma's research on the role of missionary nurses in the development of modern nursing in China and based on a series of interviews by the authors in China of participants with ties to a former Canadian mission hospital, we explore methodological and ethical challenges in global nursing historiography. By offering insights gleaned from our early attempts to capture voices not included in conventional mission records, we hope to stimulate more dialogue about conceptual and structural issues central to a "new" global nursing historiography.

Historiografia alemã sobre a Companhia de Jesus – pesquisas recentes sobre os jesuítas e a sua atuação nas Américas portuguesa e espanhola

The Society of Jesus and its global performance in the Modern Age is the focus of this international and global historiography research. This article aims to present to the academic community in Brazil the results of some studies performed recently in Germany on the Jesuits from Central Europe who worked in the Portuguese and Spanish Americas. All of these studies are related to a research project based in the University of Mainz, in Germany.

Child Labor in the Gold Coast: The Economics of Work, Education, and the Family in Late-Colonial African Childhoods, c. 1940-57

Historical knowledge of childhood in the Gold Coast (modern Ghana) is sparse and too often disconnected from a global historiography that has convincingly demonstrated the "child" to be a social construct. In contemporary discourse the "African child" is most commonly portrayed as either aspiring scholar or helpless victim—images that are echoed in the fleeting appearances of children in Africanist historiography. This essay, by contrast, explores the economic aspects of childhood in the colonial periphery and paints a more complex picture of the "African child." Children in the twentieth-century Gold Coast were vital economic actors and agents: at once producers, consumers, and accumulators of wealth. They remained so despite the political and commercial upheavals of the colonial period. Exploring the economic use and the social purpose of child labor illuminates both the material experience of children and their place in the household and wider society—and it sheds light, too, on the question of why both illiteracy and child labor are stubbornly persistent in modern Ghana.

Reconceptualizing the Social: East Central Europe and the New Sociocultural History

This introductory essay reviews recent debates on social history, with a focus on the revival of this field of studies in post-communist East Central Europe and its potential impact on rejuvenating approaches to the social history of Europe. The first part of the essay provides a brief overview of the emergence of social history as a reaction to the dominant political history of the nineteenth century and its crystallization in different national schools, and highlights recent responses to the poststructuralist and postmodern critiques of “the social.” The second part focuses on traditions of social history research in East Central Europe, taking Poland and Romania as main examples. The third part summarizes the main claims of the articles included in this issue and evaluates their implications for future research. It is argued that, at first glance, post-communist historiography in East Central Europe provides the picture of a discipline in transformation, still struggling to break up with the past and to rebuild its institutional framework, catching up with recent trends and redefining its role in continental and global historiography. The recent attempts to invigorate research in traditional fields of social history might seem largely obsolete, not only out of tune with international developments but also futile reiterations of vistas that have been for long experimented with and superseded in Western Europe. At closer scrutiny, however, historiography in East Central Europe appears—unequal and variegated as it is—as a laboratory for historical innovation and a field of experimentation, and interaction of scholars from various disciplines and scholarly traditions, in which old and new trends amalgamate in peculiar ways. It is suggested that the tendency to reconceptualize the “social” that we currently witness in humanities and social sciences worldwide could be not only reinforced but also cross-fertilized by the “social turn” in East Central Europe, potentially leading to novel approaches.

Return of Geopolitics: Land Grab or Migration? Historians’ World Congress in Sydney, 2005

Every five years, historians from all over the world gather to discuss whatever happen to be the major issues of the time in their discipline. These congresses are organised by an International Committee of the Historical Sciences to which are affiliated more than fifty national sections and around forty research institutions and associations. This ‘ecumenical council of the historians’ (Karl Dietrich Erdmann) was, at the beginning of the twentieth century and during the inter-war years, a means of conducting national disputes, a showcase of national research achievements and also an attempt to overcome the national narrowness of nineteenth century historiography. After 1945 the conferences became an object of the Cold War but also one of the few platforms on which historians from both sides of the Iron Curtain could meet. All in all, these congresses, throughout their long and honourable history, remained eurocentric and entirely focused on the historiography of the West. The choice of Sydney as the location of the twentieth world congress of historians was in itself a signal. For the first time in the long history of the congresses, around one thousand three hundred historians from seventy countries congregated in the southern hemisphere, for the first time the meeting was neither in Europe nor in North America. It was time to at long last take seriously the global ambitions of the organisation and of the discipline it represents. The programme, too, aimed at a universalisation of the research landscape. The preferred method was comparative, the key issue cultural transfer. Both have to go hand in hand if historians want to advance to a global historiography which deserves that name. This became especially clear in the impressive lecture by the anthropologist Anne Salmond on the connection between humans and nature in the Pacific region. The history of Polynesia simply could not be written without the history of many exchanges between diverse cultures. Australian history certainly does not feature among the special interests of most of the historians assembled in Sydney. For this reason, congratulations must go to the local organisers, Martyn Lyons and his colleague Penny Russell, on the collection of essays tracing the most important debates in Australian history and which was given to each participant for free. The stimulating book frequently returns to the tensions between the history of white Australia and the history of the indigenous people. The congress itself had a section focusing on this tension between settlers and indigenous peoples in a comparative perspective. The forms of violence and the reactions to violence were quite varied under colonialism. Everywhere comparisons and culture transfers provided the key theme in the labyrinth of sessions in Sydney. This was shown in the three large themes which each occupied a whole day. Environmental history, Myths and History, and War and Peace constituted the thematic blocks linking all five continents. The ecohistorians naturally emphasised the importance of environmental factors for the course of history. Time and again, the papers highlighted the strong CISH CONFERENCE 2005

Julian Barnes's Theses on History (In 10 1/2 Chapters)

n 1984, Julian Barnes published Flaubert's Parrot, critically acclaimed account of an academic's rummage through the surviving trash of Flaubert's life in vain attempt to string this detritus together into meaningful whole. Hailed as postmodern tour de force of parody and parrotry, the novel treats literary form as playfully as it treats literary history. In 1989, as many cultural theorists were morosely contemplating the postmodern condition and Francis Fukuyama was cheerfully sounding his first proclamation of the end of History, Barnes published A History of the World in 10 Chapters. Barnes's fifth novel announces shift from literary to global historiography and, it would appear, move from biographical failure to historical success. The title alone suggests that the goal that eluded the narrator of Flaubert's Parrot is, paradoxically, attainable when surveying the sweeping stage of human history. Moreover, that breadth can be meaningfully encompassed in under eleven chapters. Or so it seems. Certainly, Barnes's ten full chapters evoke the academic solemnity of authoritative universal history or the distilled substance of popular account, but the dangling halfchapter addendum undercuts the sonority of the proclaimed endeavor. Even cursory perusal of the volume's contents quickly verifies the fragmented focus of Barnes's snapshot historical vision. Closer inspection reveals random series of apparently unrelated episodes with little rightful claim to the grand narrative paradigm that a history of the world suggests. Since the novel opens with vi-