Late Eighteenth Century Research Articles

Article: A Hamiltonian Moment for EU Taxation?

This contribution explores the possibility of a ‘Hamiltonian moment’ in the European Union (EU) public finances, drawing a parallel with the historical experience of the United States (US) in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It examines the different theoretical positions on the existence and scope of the EU’s authority to tax, as well as the legal and political challenges that such an authority would entail. It argues that the EU does have the power to levy taxes for funding its budget, based on Article 311 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU), but that this power is constrained by the principles stemming from the common constitutional traditions, the respect for national identities, and the need for democratic legitimation. It suggests that a ‘Hamiltonian moment’ in the EU would require a qualitative change in the structure and size of the EU budget, as well as a stronger involvement of the European Parliament and the national parliaments in the decision-making process on the system of own resources.

Retrospective Approach to the Endemic Dianthus fruticosus L. ssp. fruticosus on Serifos Island (Cyclades, Greece)

The carnation Dianthus fruticosus L. ssp. fruticosus (Caryophyllaceae) is a range-restricted perennial, endemic plant that grows on cliffs, rocks, ravines, terraces, and boulders on Serifos Island in the Cyclades in the Aegean archipelago (Greece), possessing an impressive, aesthetic blossoming during the dry season. This indigenous carnation of Serifos has attracted the interest of naturalists and scientists. Specimens of this subspecific taxon from the island of Serifos (Greece) were collected during botanical explorations in preindustrial times by the French naturalist Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (1702) and in the late eighteenth century by the English Professor of Botany at the University of Oxford John Sibthorp (1787). Those specimens, documented in relevant publications and labelled with different names (i.e., Caryophyllus Graecus arboreus and Caryophyllus arboreus Seriphius in the early eighteenth century and Dianthus fruticosus in the early nineteenth century), are related to aspects of vegetation history, linking the past to the present and (most probably) to the future. Today, a thorough understanding of the in situ development and functionality of this endemic carnation is still required, as is a framework of its sustainability and management in small-scale insular habitats. The timeless perception of the emblematic wild carnation Dianthus fruticosus ssp. fruticosus, which is still growing on inland and coastal sites of Serifos and neighboring islands in the Cyclades (Greece), is also a reminder that a native plant is often a repository to which local communities may look when crafting their identity.

Geographic Tunnel Vision and the Past and Future of Democracy

Abstract In the twenty-first century, the democracy bequeathed by the past confronts major, diverse challenges. In thinking about how it might be reimagined, it is important to look beyond conceptions of democracy that are associated with a distinctive Western tradition, indicated at an early point by Athens two and a half millennia ago. Recent scholarship has questioned some clear connection of that specific ancient experience with the democracy that has developed since the late eighteenth century, challenging in several ways what might be called “epistemic exclusion.” One challenge concerns a long debate about Athenian uniqueness. A second concerns how the founding generation of modern democracy thought about, or did not think about, Athenian practices. A third concerns whether a broader geography of influence has infused the entire modern history of democracy in which much innovation has happened in peripheral places in hierarchies of wealth and power. These reflections have implications for where to look for good ideas to construct a better democratic future.

Exploiting inter- and intra-continental markets: The business of transporting convicts to the Australian colonies in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century

Exploiting inter- and intra-continental markets: The business of transporting convicts to the Australian colonies in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century

Translating Orientalism. Louis-Mathieu Langlès as editor and translator of English literature between Oriental studies, commerce, and popularisation

This article delves into the translation and editing work of Louis-Mathieu Langlès (1764-1824), a significant figure in French Oriental studies during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. By examining Langlès’ translations of British literature about Asia, the analysis underscores two interrelated strategies shaping his work. The first strategy involved the dissemination of knowledge about Asia through translations shaped by both a literalist approach to the text and intensive editing practices. These practices resulted in the incorporation of extensive footnotes and additions that served both informative and domesticating functions and highlighted Langlès’ agency as a mediator of knowledge. The second strategy centres on Langlès’ reform project for the French system of teaching and learning Asiatic languages, resulting in the establishment of the École spéciale des langues orientales vivantes in 1795. This strategy is strongly connected with his translation work as it reflects Langlès’ pragmatic vision of Oriental studies as based on the British example, particularly the scholarly activities of individuals working for the East India Company. His translations, therefore, were not mere acts of appropriation but both embodied and encouraged ‘emulation’, allowing us to reveal the interplay of scholarly admiration and political competition and to uncover a distinct strand of Anglophilia within the broader context of early French Oriental studies.

The Diverse Origins of Scottish Congregationalism

Scholarship on Congregationalism in Scotland has tended to explain its origins as resulting from the gospel preaching of the Haldanes and the general development of evangelical enthusiasm in the late-eighteenth century. However, this article demonstrates the diverse range of factors that contributed to its development and identifies a story of polygenesis.

‘Oh Dutchmen, Defer this Catastrophe’

‘Oh Dutchmen, defer this catastrophe’ wrote a former Dutch plantation owner commenting on the temporary abolition of slavery in the French empire in 1794. It seems that his advice was heeded, as it took close to 70 more years to abolish Dutch slavery. Strangely, however, the successful defence of slavery does not feature prominently in the historiographical debate over the late abolition of Dutch slavery. This article ventures to explore the ideological defence of slavery in the Dutch Republic around the turn of the eighteenth century, and how it was connected to Atlantic debates on race, slavery and civilisation in the wake of the Haitian revolution (1790-1804). By studying historical publications I show that the Dutch interpretation of the Haitian Revolution came about through translated works. These works almost exclusively supported a racial conservative interpretation of Haiti. The revolt even became an important point of reference in Dutch political circles. These findings offer a new perspective on the decline of principled abolitionism in the Netherlands from the late eighteenth century until the 1840s.

Richard Kirwan a [united] Irish man of science in Europe

The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries have long been considered as a formative period for modern Irish political traditions such as nationalism, republicanism and unionism. For Europe it was the time of a turnover in science moving from observation to experiment and from speculation to fact. Richard Kirwan was a well known natural philosopher in Europe and a respected man of science in his time. Throughout all the wars, he was connected with his colleagues in a network reaching across Europe and even to America. Using a few examples, this article is intended to provide an insight how the network worked in a time that was marked by political conflicts and revolutionary events in both science and social life.

Representing Classical Sites in the Ottoman Aegean: Artifice, Absence, and Heritage in Late Eighteenth- and Early Nineteenth-Century Western European Travelogue Illustrations

Representing Classical Sites in the Ottoman Aegean: Artifice, Absence, and Heritage in Late Eighteenth- and Early Nineteenth-Century Western European Travelogue Illustrations

The Influential Influenza: The "Russian Catarrh" Pandemic of 1781-1782.

The influenza pandemic of 1781-1782 was remarkably well-documented, with investigations and treatment records produced in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Russia. Everyone agreed that outbreak began in St. Petersburg in December 1781 and then spread across northern Europe, but the medical communities' consensus did not solve all issues. Two questions would inspire years of debate. The first concerned the transmission vector of the pandemic: was it the result of neo-Hippocratic, miasmatic, or contagionist exposure? This was perhaps the greatest concern of the late-eighteenth century, and multiple physicians hoped the latest influenza pandemic could provide an answer. The second was no less difficult - where did the disease originate? This was not only because geography affected both prophylactic measures and treatment options but also produced diplomatic and commercial consequences. Was a quarantine necessary, preventing commercial exchanges? Did the risk of infection result in peace negotiations being delayed, potentially extending the American Revolution and the ongoing naval conflict in the Atlantic? Even if a consensus could be reached that this was a "Russian" catarrh, this would not resolve the method of disease transmission. The pandemic of 1781-1782 was not a turning point in the arguments among neo-Hippocratic, miasmatic, and contagionist physicians, but rather reveals all three positions could be held simultaneously.

Isolation of a NHC-stabilized heavier nitrile and its conversion into an isonitrile analogue.

Nitriles (R-C≡N) have been investigated since the late eighteenth century and are ubiquitous encounters in organic and inorganic syntheses. In contrast, heavier nitriles, which contain the heavier analogues of carbon and nitrogen, are sparsely investigated species. Here we report the synthesis and isolation of a phosphino-silylene featuring an N-heterocyclic carbene-phosphinidene and a highly sterically demanding silyl group as substituents. Due to its unique structural motif, it can be regarded as a Lewis base-stabilized heavier nitrile. The Si-P bond displays multiple bond character and a bent R-Si-P geometry, the latter indicating fundamental differences between heavier and classical nitriles. In solution, a quantitative unusual rearrangement to a phosphasilenylidene occurs. This rearrangement is consistent with theoretical predictions of rearrangements from heavier nitriles to heavier isonitriles. Our preliminary reactivity studies revealed that both isomers exhibit highly nucleophilic silicon centres capable of oxidative addition and coordination to iron tetracarbonyl.

Barrack-Building, Mapping, and Settlement in Eighteenth-Century Ireland

The history of residential army barracks in Ireland has in recent years become a focus for more concerted study. 1 While a number of works focused upon individual barracks have been published over the years since the 1970s, 2 the first substantive consideration as to why a permanent country-wide network of barracks was built in Ireland in the late 1690s and early eighteenth century was first published in 2012. This work assessed why these barracks were built, how they were paid for, and ultimately what purposes they served. 3 Since then, additional work has been undertaken with regard to a more comprehensive identification and inventorying of over 360 such barracks built between 1690 and 1922. 4 However, while some consideration has been given to the impact of the building of a country-wide network of barracks upon cartographic practice, 5 there has been little to no assessment of the impact that such residential army barracks had upon patterns of settlement. It is the aim of this article to assess these interlinked elements of barrack-building, mapping, and settlement patterns in relation to each other in an eighteenth-century context, with a particular focus upon barracks built in County Armagh. 6

The Conjuring Girdles of King Solomon and Doctor Faustus in Early Modern Material Magic

Abstract The article concerns conjuring girdles in early modern material magic, particularly in Central Europe during the long eighteenth century (c. 1660–c. 1820). Magicians in ritual circles could wear such girdles on the body as belts or sashes to conjure and command angels, spirits, and demons. Emphasis in the article is on anonymous German manuscript books of learned magic dating from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, with pseudepigraphal attributions to King Solomon and Doctor Faustus. These manuscripts explain the design, text, imagery, materials, measurements, production, and applications of conjuring girdles. The article also discusses what is known about their compilers, end-users, and readers during a period marked by hybridizing, variability, and democratization in material magic. The article includes three illustrations in books of learned magic with designs for conjuring girdles (Göttingen, Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. Ms. Hist. Nat. 80; Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. Mag. 6 [no. 51]; Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. Mag. 133 [no. 27]); and two conjuring scenes from the legends of Doctor Faustus and his apprentice Christoph Wagner.

Attitudes to Pedlars and Street Traders in Late Eighteenth-Century England: ‘Commercial Hatred’ or Anti-Jewish Prejudice?

Abstract The late eighteenth century saw intense debate over the status of pedlars. In 1785, Pitt imposed a tax on shopkeepers and attempted to placate them by suggesting that he would ban the economic competition they faced from pedlars. It was only thanks to the support of manufacturers that pedlars were saved from economic destitution. Following the eventual repeal of the legislation, the spotlight moved to the itinerant tradesmen of London. The work of Patrick Colquhoun, a magistrate, highlighting Jewish street traders in London, led to proposed legislation which would have identified all Ashkenazi Jews in England and created a board with the power to levy a tax on the Jewish community. This article seeks to explain the complexity and inadequacy of the pedlars’ licensing legislation. It considers both economic and class conflicts and the anti-Jewish prejudices behind both debates. The article argues that the national debate over the tax on shopkeepers was a question of economic conflict and that anti-Jewish stereotypes played a limited role. In contrast, it argues that the debate over tradesmen in London was heavily influenced by anti-Jewish sentiments which were particularly powerful in the City of London. The debates highlight both the nature of economic conflict in late eighteenth-century England and the way in which anti-Jewish prejudice led to the proposal of legislation identifying and stigmatising the Jewish community.

The re-making of a Europe of differences: mobile lives and the globalization of categories in revolutionary and post-imperial times (c.1770–1970)

ABSTRACT This article discusses the fundamental question of how the differentiation of people on the move or in transit and their categorization changed in revolutionary and post-imperial times. These interacting processes have affected Europe and the negotiation of its internal and external boundaries. Drawing on examples from the rich history of migration and mobility since the late eighteenth century, the article demonstrates how individual research studies can be situated and expanded within a broad temporal and analytical framework which focuses on the historical actors’ struggles over the distinctions and categories imposed upon them by others (e.g. the administration or the family). It explores dynamics arising both from the socio-economic and cultural practices of mobile people (e.g. on localizing or globalizing their concepts of life) and from legal-administrative procedures to distinguish between these people (e.g. through categories). These differentiations interacted and changed especially during two threshold phases, around 1800 and 1945. During these periods, international actors renegotiated the relationship between territory and population by grappling with the distinction between ‘refugees’ and numerous other migrants and claiming a universalist or more particularistic definition over which people were entitled to protection and support. Through this approach, Europe is understood as a lived, administered and negotiated space whose external and internal boundaries are also the result of long, more or less overlapping processes of self- and external evaluation of people located outside their place of origin.

Against observation: the panoramic legacy of Sergei Loznitsa

ABSTRACT Critical reception of Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa’s documentary films typically concludes that the director privileges observational techniques to depict historical events and political movements, resulting in conflicting judgements on his films’ significance and reducing Loznitsa’s own involvement in the depicted events. This article addresses the techniques and visual grammar of Loznitsa’s 2014 film Maidan and challenges the film’s status as an example of the observational documentary mode. This article proposes approaching Maidan through a recognition of the influence of the panorama on realist representation from its inception in the late eighteenth century to its transformation of cinema in the twentieth century, showing how Loznitsa has developed a panoramic filmmaking language since his early short films. Maidan contrasts the ideas of objectivity and passivity typically assigned to observational films by constructing a historical narrative about the events that occurred in Kyiv’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti during the Euromaidan movement of 2013–2014. This renegotiation of Loznitsa’s filmmaking mode reveals Maidan’s unique contribution to non-fiction representational forms as well as to narratives of national identity within the post-Soviet context.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN THE DOWNTOWN BERDYCHIV

Materials of 2024 scientific and rescue research in the downtown Berdychiv, at 11/4 Zhytomyrska Street are published in the paper. These are the first available results of archaeological research of the part of the city of the 18th—19th centuries outside the complex of the Barefoot Carmelite Monastery. The paper provides a brief outline of the settlement’s history and a description of the history of archaeological research in the central part of the city. In 2024, on an area of 61 m2 in the valley of the Kanava stream, materials of the late 18th—19th centuries were discovered. Some items can be associated with the functioning of a nearby marketplace that served the town. The research area belongs to the territory of the Jewish shtetl, and the found objects, including a metal dreidel, illustrate the material culture of its inhabitants. The 2024 field season is the first archaeological research on the territory of the exact settlement part of Berdychiv. These explorations supply the information of the 2018 research on the stratigraphic situation in the city. The survival of organic materials (bone, wood, leather) in the lower, waterlogged layers of the city raises the question of the need for a special program for the preservation of such organic artifacts dating from the nineteenth and even the late eighteenth century. The discovery of individual objects which are the ethnic and religious markers of the inhabitants (a dreidel) and evidence of trade relations (trade seals) helps to supply the information about the life of the city’s inhabitants. Now the processing of the artifacts obtained as a result of the research in progress. We hope that the analysis of the discovered artifacts will provide a more complete picture of the material culture of Berdychiv residents at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This research indicates the prospects, scientific and social feasibility of archaeological research in the city. The analysis of the current Historical and Architectural Reference Plan indicates the lack of enough information about archaeological sites and objects on the territory of the modern city. We hope that this publication will be an impetus for the future clarification of the protection and registration documents for the city’s archaeological sites and will initiate further scientific and scientific-rescue research not only in Berdychiv and its environs but also in other cities and towns.

Dhat Syndrome East and West: A History in Two Acts.

The intriguing story of dhat syndrome is that of medical modernity (psychiatry, clinical sexology) declaring medical premodernity (Ayurvedic concepts of semen loss) as its object. The early history and prehistory of this "culture-bound" diagnosis help understanding it as a dynamic confrontation of local, shifting knowledges. For instance, semen loss anxiety was an established motif both in European early twentieth-century psychoanalysis and again in several Indian psychodynamic texts of the 1960s. Moreover, it became problematically tied to notions of "Indian character". Little realized is that European venereologists were dealing with much comparable clinical presentations since the late eighteenth century, often resolving them in strikingly similar ways. For centuries, European proto-endocrinological ideas tied masculinity to theabsorption and recirculation of semen, informingpopular conceptions of "semen loss" (spermatorrhea) much comparable to those driven by dhatu physiology, dovetailing in colonial-era medicine. Expressive of growing controversy concerning this physiology after the mid-eighteenth century, a leitmotif of exaggerated fears tied to both "quacks" and proselytizing leading authorities such as Tissot and Lallemand, informed diagnoses of "tabes imaginaria", "spermatophobia", and "imaginary spermatorrhea."

The nineteenth century evolution of the threshing machine in Britain

Manual farm work with the traditional flail, beating out grain from the sheaf-corn, was an arduous, labour-intensive task. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, machines (driven by water, wind or horse-power) started to take over—firstly in Scotland and northern England, then further south. Farm workers, losing their winter-time employment with the flail, rose up in 1830 in anger against the machines. Their riots and disorder were violently repressed and threshing machine development resumed. New machines were proudly displayed at the 1851 Great Exhibition. Improvements over the following years concentrated on steam-powered machines, and on achieving better power utilisation and cleaner grain separation. Competitive trials—and careful measurements of efficiency—played a major role in machine development. The threshing machine became a widely visible symbol of technological progress in agriculture and contributed substantially to Britain’s growing agricultural engineering industry.

Vanishing Nubia

As the Nasserist state built a large hydroelectric dam in the south of Egypt in the early 1960s, Egyptian botanists undertook salvage surveys of the area to be flooded behind the dam, known as historic Nubia. Scientists in these surveys searched for a type of palm tree (Medemia argun) well documented in ancient Egyptian tombs but unrecorded “in living condition” since the late eighteenth century. Gathering written and photographic accounts in memoirs, archives, and botanical tracts, this essay charts the documentary traces of the search for Medemia argun and the affective responses that surface along the margins of texts to show how debate over the potential absence or extinction of a “flagship” endogenous plant coincided with two important shifts in botanical knowledge production: transitions in botany as a discipline that employed new research methodologies and located Egypt “geobotanically” as the temporal and spatial origin for world flora; and transitions in botany as an arena of scientific expertise during postcolonial nationalism's reordering of the Egyptian academy. Building on extinction and destroyed landscape studies, this article explores ecological lexicons of absence and practices of “following” in botany.