John French Research Articles

The power bases in multiplayer video games

This study deals with how players employ different power relations while playing videogames.Power is a difficult concept to define but it is usually explained with the ability to influence.Social psychologists John French and Bertram Raven’s studies have defined five bases for social influence: coercive (based on punishment), referent (based on affection), reward (based on reward), expert (based on expertise) and legitimate (based on agreed regulations) powers. Many other studies have tested their theory in various fields, and it proved to be a lasting one. Researchers conducted studies in areas such as education, business, sports with this theory and obtained meaningful results. However, the power bases of video game players has never been studied, despite the fact that video game studies has already been established as an academic field –with many scholars discussing empowerment through games. This study focuses on measuring the power of a player over another one. There can be two types of such relations: it can either take place among players in an everybody-for-themselves kind of environment – which is called inter-power relations, or it can take place between the members of a team, working together for a common goal. This is called intra power relations. This study demonstrates that expert and reward powers are preferred in inter and intra-power relations, referent being another valid option for teamwork.

What Is Latin American History?

What Is Latin American History?

Lula and His Politics of Cunning: From Metalworker to President of Brazil

Lula and His Politics of Cunning: From Metalworker to President of Brazil

Editor's Introduction

Like Appalachian coal mining, the Northwest logging industry has not gone down without a fight. Again, somewhat akin to the politics of mineworking communities in West Virginia, the protagonists in ensuing bitter fights over jobs versus environmental protectionism have skewed traditional class alliances and threatened long-standing regional progressive traditions. As Steven Beda makes clear in his assessment of a still-smoldering controversy that upended ambitious cap-and-trade legislation to stem logging in 2020, environmental regulation combined with a more long-term sectoral economic decline have fueled a decidedly right-wing version of populism across the region since the early 1970s. In this thoughtful assessment of Oregon's internally conflicted Timber Unity rank and file—a movement based on marginal, independent timber contractor-producers and small sawmill operators who draw variously on old-Wobbly and antiregulatory rhetoric redirected at “elitist” protectors of the spotted owl and a recreation-oriented middle class—Beda discovers a microcosm of a larger rural shift away from radical working-class identities (see A. Brooke Boulton's accompanying Common Verse poem) toward the defensiveness of populist backlash.Francis Ryan tracks an important but little-noticed component of the post–World War II labor force: school crossing guards. Born of the Baby Boom expansion of school-age children combined with a population of mothers eager for rewarding part-time work, official, uniformed crossing guards—taking the place of otherwise overworked police officers—became a fixture at urban intersections beginning in the early 1950s. Although initially linked in the public mind to the “voluntary” sector associated with “PTA women” and others, Ryan convincingly connects them to a labor feminist tradition centered on an emergent public sector workforce. By the 1960s, the guards’ economic demands encompassed both benefits and wages, and their formalized associations began to affiliate with established unions like AFSCME and the SEIU. Not surprisingly, the urban fiscal crises of the 1970s also directly touched the interracial guard associations, who fought back against massive job cuts. Yet the real threat—and seeming denouement—to this once-classic urban occupation, suggests Ryan, came with a decline of collective, public protection of street corners by the guards, replaced by the hyper-individualized vigilance over children by their own parents.In the course of a larger biographical study of civil rights and labor icon, A. Philip Randolph, Eric Arnesen pauses here to zero in on Randolph's relation to what might be considered the ultimate expression of late 1930s Popular Front radicalism: the National Negro Congress. With a spirited assault on both racial and economic exploitation—critiquing the inadequacies of the New Deal, supporting interracial trade unionism, combating segregation , and opposing fascism—the NNC temporarily repaired a breach between Communist Party–linked militants led by Ben Davis Jr. and the heretofore vociferously anticommunist socialist, Randolph. Just how responsible (despite their public attempts to submerge their identity) was the party cadre for the NNC's direction and initial strategic success defines a sustained research quest. Against the “reassessment” of many recent historians in the service of a more broad-based, “grassroots” understanding of Popular Front initiatives like the NNC, Arnesen insists that the centrality of the party's role must be reckoned with.As is frequently the case, the books under review cover the labor map, touching down on a rich historical mix of geography and chronology. Subjects covered include at least three that our readers are not likely to have encountered before: turtle harvesters in the Caribbean, women working in the production of British cinema, and Mozambican migrants passing across the “night trains” to and from apartheid South Africa. Among generally positive and respectful treatment of their charges, Elizabeth Tandy Shermer tweaks Michael Kazin's history of Democratic Party successes for forgetting that given the flawed structure of American democracy, the party itself is “not enough to win and govern.” Similarly, Benjamin Goldfrank faults John French's otherwise “excellent” biography of Brazilian leader Lula for underplaying its hero's collaboration with a culture of “clientelism” that (at least temporarily) reversed his and his movement's fortunes. Less positive yet is Joseph Viteritti's treatment of Benjamin Holtzman's study of neoliberalism and New York City's fiscal crisis: curious readers will likely want to consult the original before making up their own minds.

Biographies of Labor Activists: Trajectories, Daringness, and Challenges

AbstractThis comment discusses three topics. First, John French's biography of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is located in the broader trajectory of the production of biographical narratives of activists under the auspices of the historiography of the labour movement. Second, French's daring gesture of comparing the trajectories of Lula and August Bebel, who lived in such different contexts, and the impact of this in terms of a more sophisticated understanding of labour history in Brazil is discussed. Finally, we look at some of the challenges faced by writers of biographies of working-class leaders, notably in relation to the intersectionality between class, race, and gender.

The Politics of the Social Biographical Approach to Working-Class Leaders

AbstractIn this paper, I consider John French's biography, Lula and His Politics of Cunning: From Metalworker to President of Brazil (2020). French discusses his methodology, which he characterizes as “a social biographical approach”. I argue that this methodology is already in historians’ toolkit. Historians writing biography seem to start with first premises rather than building on what went before. I thus contextualize the methodology, situating French's biography of Lula within more general shifts in approaches to biography.

When the Tallamys Met John French: Translating, Printing, and Reading The Art of Distillation.

Centered on the life story of the Tallamy family's copy of John French's The Art of Distillation (London, 1651), this article explores translation, print, and medical reading in early modern England. It traces the adaptation and reuse of textual and practical knowledge across linguistic, geographical, gender, and spatial boundaries and shines light on the scientific labor of translators, technicians, and householders, historical actors who are so often hidden by structures of the archival record. By historically situating translation, reading, and writing practices, it joins recent calls to view each translation as an independent text shaped by new contextual settings. It concludes by offering the concept of "knowledge itineraries" as a framework for analyzing long-view connected histories of knowledge transfer across time and space.

Lula and His Politics of Cunning

Abstract Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is the focus of a roundtable review on John D. French’s Lula and His Politics of Cunning: From Metalworker to President of Brazil. The reviewers offer a reading of Lula and his legacies from perspectives that range from LGBTQ+ studies to racial politics, including an analysis centered on the story of a humble man that rose from below, “a most exceptional common man,” from his humble beginnings up to his election as president; a review that underscores how the book addresses Lula’s work with regards to human rights, including race and the LGBTI+ community; a deconstruction of the use of the word “cunning” as a positive term of appreciation, comparing Brazil’s journey under Lula with the promise of post-apartheid South Africa; and a reflective commentary that seeks to understand how a figure like Lula is not born but created, in this case through class struggle. Finally, John French responds to these observations and offers additional insight on his book and the living legacy of Lula’s Brazil.

Editor's Introduction

Editor's Introduction

Another World Is Possible: A Comparative Perspective

Another World Is Possible: A Comparative Perspective

When the Big House Freaked Out: The Rise and Fall of Industrial Brazil in a Single Lifetime

When the Big House Freaked Out: The Rise and Fall of Industrial Brazil in a Single Lifetime

More Than Three Meals per Day

More Than Three Meals per Day

On the Urgency of a Cunning Politics

On the Urgency of a Cunning Politics

Interview: John French

Can very low-carbon buildings be constructed cheaply enough to suit the pockets of private-sector commercial developers? Yes, says Professor John French, who has set himself that target in his new role as director of sustainability for Cambridge Innovation Parks. But to do so involves overhauling approaches to procurement, contracting, materials and risk.

Bertram H. Raven (1926–2020).

Memorializes Bertram H. Raven (1926-2020). Raven is best known for his theoretical and empirical work, beginning in the 1950s with John (Jack) French, on the bases of social power, a widely recognized framework for studying interpersonal influence. In 1956, Bert joined the UCLA faculty and played a leadership role in developing the social psychology area. Bert also served as president of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues and editor of the Journal of Social Issues. He was a fellow of five divisions of the American Psychological Association and received many significant recognitions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

ПОЄДИНОК ЖАНА ДЕ БЮЕЯ ТА ДЖОНА ЧЕЛОНСА В МІСТІ ТУР 1446 РОКУ: КІННЕ ТУРНІРНЕ ЗІТКНЕННЯ À OUTRANCE У ТЕКСТАХ ТА ЗОБРАЖЕННЯХ

This paper is focused on the joust between English squire John Chalons and French écuyer Louis de Bueil, that was held in 1446 in Tours, France, in the King Charles VII of France and his courtiers presence. The mounted combatants fought with full armour on using couched lances. The article also covers the connection issue of this chivalric encounters type with warfare and military practices of that time, their effectiveness in then military training and interpretations of 15th century tournaments and pas d’armes in the 20th -early 21 century historiography. Available existing sources for this event suggest that the fighters with premeditation used lethal combat techniques during the collision, that resulted in Louis de Bueil death. However, Jean de Bueil, the older brother of the deceased, soldier, courtier and writer, expresses his highly hostile attitude towards chivalric practices of this kind in his autobiographical work "Le Jouvencel", which in the long run led to a false interpretation of the Late Middle Ages pas d’armes as an escapist and anachronic manifestation of the Late Middle Ages elites culture, spread by renowned Dutch scholar Johann Huizinga and his epigones. The article has its emphasis on participants’ arms and armour, as well as their impact on the course and result of a joust. The paper presents the analysis of the narrative program of eight mid. 15th century colored handwritten miniatures, conveing the stages and course of the duel. Visual narration is created with profound knowledge of the knight weapon and equipment features, as well as an accurate understanding of the equestrian encounters course and logic. Depicted by unknown artist plate armor on the combating fighters has direct historical analogies among the preserved survived artifacts of knights weapons. This miniatures series may be considered as a ‘documentary military art’ prominent example for its time.

Commitment and sacrifice: personal diaries from the Great War

Introduction I. It was like ten thousand devils let loose: John French, British sapper 2. Young men ... helping this nation to save its soul: Phillip Cate, American ambulance driver 3. Behind barbed wire in ... a stable for men: Willy Wolff, German internee in Britain 4. A year ... such as I can never hope to have again: James D. Hutchison, ANZAC artilleryman 5. Life has been spent among the dead: Henri Desagneaux, French infantry officer 6. Hunger was stronger than all punishments: Felix Kaufmann, German POW in France Select Bibliography

PM318 Variation in care between English speaking and culturally and linguistically diverse patients in SNAPSHOT ACS

Karice Hyun*, Julie Redfern, Bernadette Aliprandi-Costa, John French, Greg Gamble, Karen Lintern, Tegwen Howell, Robyn Clark, Kannikar Wechkunanukul, David Brieger, SNAPSHOT ACS Investigators The George Institute for Global Health, Sydney Medical School, The University of Sydney, Department of Cardiology, Concord Hospital, Department of Cardiology, Liverpool Hospital, Sydney, Australia, Department of Medicine, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand, Agency for Clinical Innovation, Sydney, Qld Snapshot Co-ordinator, Brisbane, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia

Fifty Years on: The Guns of August , Always Popular, Always Flawed

Fifty Years on: The Guns of August, Always Popular, Always Flawed Samuel R. Williamson Jr. (bio) Barbara W. Tuchman, The Guns of August. Library of America, 2012. Illustrated. 1,268 pages. $40. Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August appeared to glowing reviews in the popular press in February 1962. Orville Prescott, writing in the New York Times on February 5, declares it “a splendid and glittering performance, one of the finest works of history written in recent years”; she writes “elegant and polished” prose that reflects “a sardonic sense of humor.” And Tuchman, Prescott continues, concentrates “on what people said, did and felt. Her pages are full of apt quotations and of hundreds of dramatic scenes and episodes.” The work, he concludes, “is a fine demonstration that with sufficient art rather specialized history can be raised to the level of literature.” The reading public agreed with Prescott. The book stayed on the bestseller list for more than forty weeks. In 1963 it won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction. President John Kennedy reportedly read The Guns of August before the Cuban missile crisis later in 1962. It was said that he found in Tuchman’s admonitions to be skeptical about military plans the reasons behind his own sharp questioning of the military plans offered to him that October—plans that turned out to be exceptionally suspect. And, in the years since, the work has been assigned to generations of students on courses that deal with the First World War and with questions of grand strategy. In contrast to the popular acclaim received by the book, professional historians have from the start been equally critical of it. Some, such as the reviewer in the Journal of Modern History (March 1963), praised its prose style but found the account based “only partially” on the best available sources and castigated its flagrantly “one-sided treatment of imperial Germany.” Another reviewer, in Military Affairs (autumn 1962), pronounced that the “serious military scholar, however, will find nothing here that is new either in facts or interpretations and will be struck by the author’s significant omissions.” The writer of this review, who read The Guns of August when it first appeared and cited it three times in a major study, has always regarded the effort as seriously flawed. The republication of this influential popular study offers this reviewer [End Page 163] an opportunity to explain the widely discordant reception that the book received when it first appeared. The comments that follow first address why it was popular and then turn to the critics and the long-term place of The Guns of August in the historiography of the opening days of the First World War. First Tuchman’s study heralded a new wave of publications about the First World War on the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of its outset. Although access to the relevant archives among the European powers remained closed, save the German records captured in 1945, the vast majority of memoir material had been published, as well as major collections of documents. Tuchman uses some of this material skillfully, and her narrative style gives the reader a sense of intimacy with the events. A few examples will suffice to show her ability. Of those who worked planning mobilization schedules, she observes: “The best brains produced by the [German] War College, it was said, went into the railway section and ended up in lunatic asylums.” Of events in London, “The method was plain; the muddle was in the British mind.” “The German navy was the dog in the night. It did not fight.” And of General Joseph Joffre, the French commander, whom she rightly praises for recovering after his initial mistakes: “Joffre did not panic like Sir John French, or waver like Moltke or become momentarily unnerved like Haig or Ludendorff or succumb to pessimism like Prittwitz. What went on behind that opaque exterior he never showed. If he owed his composure to a failure of imagination, that was fortunate for France. . . . When ruin was all around him, he maintained an even tenor, a stolid control.” Nor did she neglect some prescient statements by the major leaders, such as General Moltke’s observation...

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