Nineteenth-century Liberalism Research Articles

British Travellers, Nova Scotia’s Black Communities and the Problem of Freedom to 1860

British travellers commented frequently on those of African descent they encountered in colonial Nova Scotia, especially their material conditions and prospects. Those who published accounts at the peak of the campaign to abolish slavery in the British Empire intervened directly in debates about whether former slaves would prosper under conditions of colonial freedom. They cast themselves as objective imperial observers and Nova Scotia’s black communities as experiments in free labour. Attending to how most crafted and reworked their observations to argue against emancipation in the West Indies situates Nova Scotia and travel texts in intellectual histories of the production of colonial knowledge, debates about slavery, and the nature of nineteenth-century liberalism.

Anticlericalism and Public Space in Revolutionary Jalisco

The anticlerical attacks of radical nineteenth-century liberals provoked the Church and aided the rise of confessional politics from continental Europe to revolutionary Mexico. In the European case, Stathis Kalyvas has recently proposed that such anticlerical liberalism was often moved by two distinctive motives, one narrow and political, the other broad and institutional. These motives can be associated with the concepts of tactic and strategy as laid out by Michel de Certeau. Working from both conceptual pairings, we can characterize anticlericalism sometimes as a political tactic, responding to conjunctural circumstances, and other times as an institutional strategy, plotting out a terrain and a path on which to forge present and future power relationships. This sort of conceptualization, I believe, is also well-suited to analyses of revolutionary Mexico. Nonetheless, for the distinction between “political-tactical” and “institutional-strategic” to be helpful, historians also need to place anticlericalism within the confusing logic of destruction and reconstruction inherent to Mexico's revolutionary process.

Cultural difference in the national state: from trouser-selling Jews to unbridled multiculturalism

ABSTRACT Stoetzler explores a series of newspaper and journal articles published in Germany in 1879–81 that are part of what later came to be called the ‘Berlin Antisemitism Dispute’. In these articles, anti-Jewish remarks by the historian and right-wing liberal politician Heinrich von Treitschke were responded to by leading political and academic figures, including Theodor Mommsen, Moritz Lazarus and Ludwig Bamberger. Treitschke's texts have been seen as crucial to the development of modern antisemitism in Germany, but the debate that they provoked also points to some of the conceptual weaknesses of the liberal critique of antisemitism. Stoetzler suggests that both Treitschke's support for antisemitism and the ambivalence evident in the views of his opponents are rooted in the contradiction between inclusionary and exclusionary tendencies inherent in the nation-state. To the extent that liberal society constitutes itself in the form of a national state, it cannot but strive to guarantee, or produce, some degree of homogeneity or conformity in the form of a national culture that, in turn, cannot be separated from issues of morality and religion. Stoetzler argues that a discussion of the Berlin Antisemitism Dispute in its specific context of German nineteenth-century liberalism, if interpreted in the more general framework of modern liberal society, can contribute to current debates on nationalism, patriotism, ethnic minorities, immigration and ‘multicultural society’.

Anthony Howe and Simon Morgan, eds. Rethinking Nineteenth-Century Liberalism: Richard Cobden Bicentenary Essays. Modern Economic and Social History. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006. Pp. 302. $99.95 (cloth).

Anthony Howe and Simon Morgan, eds. Rethinking Nineteenth-Century Liberalism: Richard Cobden Bicentenary Essays. Modern Economic and Social History. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006. Pp. 302. $99.95 (cloth). - Volume 47 Issue 2

The Mother Tongue of Our Imagination: George Eliot, Landscape-Shaped Subjectivity, and the Possibility of Social Inclusion

83 “The MotherTongue of Our Imagination”: George Eliot, Landscape-Shaped Subjectivity, and the Possibility of Social Inclusion Winner of the 2007 Hamilton Prize Kev in A. Mor r ison • By the time George Eliot published The Mill on the Floss in 1860, the question of the form and meaning of national belonging was being taken up in English parliamentary debates as it had been in the years before the Reform Bill of 1832. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, national subjectivity was grounded in property ownership. Until 1832, the nation was conceived largely in terms of an aggregate of landed properties; political power resided solely in the landed gentry.After the Reform Bill’s redefinition of property, the franchise was extended to a greater number of male professionals—lawyers, merchants, factory owners—in the middle classes.While property ownership remained an essential right of political representation, the definition of what counted as property expanded from fixed to portable.The oligarchic nature of the English nation was pressured by the definitional expansion of property, which permitted greater numbers of males to participate in state affairs.The effects of the 1832 Reform Bill, however, were “symbolic rather than practical ” (Morris 4); through it, only one in six adult males garnered the right to vote. Nevertheless, the passage of the Reform Bill set in motion a process of reforming and refining a sense of both what the nation was and who counted as a national subject. The rapid urbanization of the first half of the nineteenth century led to a widespread recognition that Britain could no longer be defined as economically or demographically rural, increasing pressure on Parliament to recognize these changing conditions through a further extension of the franchise. Reform Bills put forward by the Liberals were debated in 1852, 1854, and 1860, but none garnered sufficient support to pass. Conservatives, too, had“proposed a modest measure of enfranchisement” during their brief leadership of Parliament from 1858 to 1859 (Hall 2–3). Although there was little agreement between Liberals and Conservatives on the specific ways in which the franchise might victorian review • Volume 34 Number 1 84 be expanded, they shared a sense that a “radical shift in social relations,” as Pam Morris has argued, meant that “society would have to be ordered on principles of inclusion” (Morris 3). But the impulse to craft a socially inclusive society conflicted with a belief held by members of both parties that the franchise was “a privilege and a responsibility, to be exercised by those who had a propertied stake in the country” (Hall 1). This model of political subjectivity derives from John Locke. In his originary fantasy of liberal political thought, individual males band together to overthrow an absolutist ruler. In so doing, the men emerge as equals:“The Equality which all Men are in, in respect of Jurisdiction or Dominion … [originates in] that equal Right every Man hath, to his Natural Freedom, without being subjected to the Will or Authority of any other Man” (2.54). Because these men are now rendered equally free, they must decide to form a suitable system of political governance that will hold jurisdiction over them and safeguard their proprietary interests. Consenting to be governed under a political system whose end is the preservation of property, Locke’s men guarantee their citizenship in the new polity. For the most part, while nineteenth-century Liberals and Conservatives sought to formalize principles of social inclusion, their efforts remained constricted within a Lockean framework of property ownership. The very concept of inclusiveness thus remained, paradoxically, firmly rooted in social difference. Some reformers, however, did question the proprietary basis of national subjectivity. John Stuart Mill argued in Considerations on Representative Government that the “accident” of property ownership had “so much more to do than merit with enabling men to rise in the world” (308). In On Liberty, he advocated a society made up of reasonable men engaging in rational discussion about the affairs of the nation. In his account, enlightened and spirited debate represents “one of the leading essentials of well-being” (58).The liberal subject, weighing various competing interests and subjecting his own “private partialities” in dialogue with the “principles and...

Catholicism, Popular Culture, and the Arts in Germany, 1880-1933 (review)

Reviewed by: Catholicism, Popular Culture, and the Arts in Germany, 1880-1933 Raymond C. Sun Catholicism, Popular Culture, and the Arts in Germany, 1880-1933. By Margaret Stieg Dalton. (Notre Dame, Indiana: Notre Dame University Press. 2005. Pp. xi, 378. $35.00 paperback.) "In the absence of anything better, kitsch with a Catholic gloss passed for culture. . . . Catholic culture was too Catholic even for most Catholics" (p. 233). Such is Margaret Stieg Dalton's devastating commentary on fifty years of struggle by German Catholic elites to create an alternative to materialist, individualist, and secular modernity. Dalton's diligently researched study thus raises major questions about the relationship between religion and the arts in general, and the possibilities and limits of creative cultural production within the ideological and institutional framework of an embattled late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Catholicism. Moreover, Dalton's examination of the ultimately futile efforts to develop a confessional alternative to both high and popular culture in literature, music, theater, and film represents a potentially important addition to scholarship on the Catholic social-cultural milieu. However, Dalton's decision to extract her cultural subject matter from its political, social, and economic context, based on the questionable assertion that cultural values and debates "had an only indirect connection to [the political] arena" (p. 5) blunts the book's overall impact. Lacking grounding in the many political and social currents and crises that radically challenged Catholic identity and beliefs, Dalton's analysis of cultural theorizing and production among intellectual elites often seems abstract, self-referential, and divorced from larger historical realities. Recent scholarship has shown how perceptions of Catholic cultural inferiority played a central role in the formation of modern German society. Michael Gross's reassessment of nineteenth-century liberalism's cultural "war against Catholicism" and David Blackbourn's study of the Marian apparitions at Marpingen are two powerful examples of how conflicts in religion, culture, and politics have become inextricable and constitutive elements of modern German history. Dalton's research on the Catholic cultural movement, a loosely connected set of initiatives to achieve aesthetic excellence infused with Catholic spirituality, and to disseminate the resulting cultural products to an idealized Volk, thus addresses issues of immediate interest to scholars. She presents in a comprehensive and accessible manner the wide array of projects dedicated to the common goal of overcoming the culture gap while inspiring a higher commitment to Catholic identity. Literary journals, lending libraries, musical associations, playwriting, even film and radio productions—Dalton covers these with appropriate treatment of key personalities, theoretical debates, institutional histories, and relevant scholarship. Helpful too is Dalton's analysis of the inherent self-contradictions that crippled the best-intentioned efforts at Catholic cultural renewal. She correctly notes the cultural movement's underlying flaws: its profound negativity, born of a generalized angst toward modernity; the subordination of aesthetics and culture to assertions of spiritual purity; and the never-resolved conflict between cultural [End Page 164] elites' romanticized desire to connect with a pure and pious Volk coupled to their profound doubt, bordering on distaste, regarding the masses' capacity to improve their impoverished tastes. Nor was it clear what end cultural enlightenment would serve. Was it to equip Catholics to leave the confessional ghetto and transform the larger society? Or was it to strengthen an enclosed, self-sustaining subculture and inoculate it from outside pollution? Under these conditions, the Catholic cultural movement could neither develop truly outstanding art nor appeal effectively outside a narrow circle of elites. It was, in short, the poster child of activity for its own sake: "The movement did make a contribution, but it was a contribution that did more to make its participants feel good about themselves than to improve the cultural environment" (p. 231). The most frustrating aspect of Dalton's otherwise useful text is her treatment of Catholic cultural developments in isolation from their larger political and social context. The acute challenges created by direct competition from prewar Social Democracy for the political and cultural allegiance of working-class Catholics; the trauma of the World War I, the Revolution of 1918, and the political and economic crises of the early Weimar Republic; the linkage between fears of cultural degeneration...

Rethinking nineteenth‐century liberalism: Richard Cobden bicentenary essays – Edited by Anthony Howe and Simon Morgan

The Economic History ReviewVolume 60, Issue 4 p. 837-838 Rethinking nineteenth-century liberalism: Richard Cobden bicentenary essays – Edited by Anthony Howe and Simon Morgan Peter Cain, Peter Cain Sheffield Hallam UniversitySearch for more papers by this author Peter Cain, Peter Cain Sheffield Hallam UniversitySearch for more papers by this author First published: 18 October 2007 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0289.2007.00401_7.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume60, Issue4November 2007Pages 837-838 RelatedInformation

Cricket and the Liberalist World-View

A philosophical study of the link between sport and culture, this essay investigates the extent to which the structure of cricket can be seen as a product of the liberalist world-view. Nineteenth-century Britain was the cradle of both cricket and liberalism. It should not be surprising if this aspect of British culture has influenced the evolution of cricket to the extent that the modern game embodies the ideological frame of mind of its birthplace. Dealing explicitly with the constitutive, rule-bound aspects of cricket, three formal aspects in particular are discussed: first, the toss as a necessary condition of equality of opportunity in cricket matches, secondly the role of the umpire as a bounded authority within the game and thirdly, the interplay of individual and collective interest. With regard to the history of cricket it is argued that an evolution from Lockean to Smithean liberalism can be noted. In the naivety of nineteenth-century (Lockean) liberalism, in which the game was founded, cricket players were trusted to act in accordance with the spirit of the gentlemen's game. It soon became clear, however, that when afforded too much freedom by the Laws, the (Hobbesian) wolf inside many players easily gains the upper hand. In the modern and professional era of the game, it is now widely acknowledged that (in accordance with Smithean liberalism) cricket players have to be groomed into gentlemen within a sound social environment governed by explicit laws and disciplinary institutions.

Nicaragua, imagining the nation: from nineteenth-century liberals to twentieth-century Sandinistas

Nicaragua, imagining the nation: from nineteenth-century liberals to twentieth-century Sandinistas

Performing their right to the city: political uses of public space in a Mexican city, 1880–1910s

As public spaces, such as plazas and parks, were increasingly aestheticized and commercialized in late nineteenth-century Mexico, these visual and accessible shared spaces became subject to the competing visions of different urban groups. This article argues that these transformed public spaces enabled a wide range of city residents, not just the elite class, to assert their own claims to the city. Street vendors and petty entrepreneurs, in particular, found the opportunity to demonstrate their contributions to public aesthetics, the local economy and consumer needs, while simultaneously claiming their rights as political actors and their identity as civic-minded residents. Through a close analysis of letters written by working residents, the article suggests how enterprising men and women performed their ‘public civility’, ‘honest occupation’ and ‘morality’ in the ‘Lettered City’ through their written dialogues with municipal and state officials. These exchanges also reveal how the slippage between the categories of vecino (literally, neighbour) and cuidadano (literally, citizen) functioned in the everyday politics of the provincial Mexican city, highlighting how citizenship in Mexico was not just an outgrowth of nineteenth-century liberalism, but also rooted in local customs and much earlier historical notions of community membership.

Was There an "Early Russian Liberalism"? Perspectives from Russian and Anglo-American Historiography

Nineteenth-century liberalism has traditionally occupied prominent in study of intellectual and political history. Presently there is an extensive historiography on liberalism, but specialist's attentive gaze will easily discover yawning gaps, foremost of which is early stage in development of liberalism, 1850s. Research into any historical phenomenon, including intellectual history, compels scholar to address problem of origins. When and how did formative process of tradition in Russia take place? What was first variant of liberalism? The answers to these questions, in my estimation, are to be found in history of mid-19th-century socio-political thought. Tradition demands that we should give liberalism's firstborn name, to show that this was initial period in history of This circumstance alone should cause us to adopt term in universal and familiar scholarly use-early liberalism. Identifying early liberalism as an independent stage will help us in constructing periodization for entire history of liberalism, whose initial pages remain to be written. This approach will also help us come to terms with liberalism by separating it from mid-19th-century radicalism and conservatism. Interest in mid-19th-century liberalism arose, most likely, in connection with study of concrete historical topics such as well-known Westernizer--Slavophile debate, Great Reforms (1860s-70s), and zemstvo movement. Yet early liberalism has hardly been considered as an independent intellectual phenomenon for very long. The genesis of liberalism has often been tied either to Westernism or to so-called liberalism and zemstvo activity. Westernism was platform for heterogeneous ideological elements, however, primarily of radical and bent. Westernizers included A. I. Herzen, V. G. Belinskii, T. N. Granovskii, K. D. Kavelin, and other thinkers who laid foundations in 1840s of both radical and traditions. Meanwhile, concept of gentry liberalism-centered around estate identity and devoid of precise meaning-has acquired little currency among intellectual historians, while zemstvo movement did not appear until 1860s. By contrast, 1850s remain an understudied period. Thus, early liberalism continues to be topic of discussion in scholarly community. The goal of this article is to study fundamental scholarly approaches to early liberalism in both and Western historiography. In historiography, two phases are evident in study of liberalism's beginning stage. In Soviet phase, which extended from mid-1950s to early 1990s, it was commonplace to acknowledge mid-1850s as formative years when liberalism became significant social trend. (1) The earliest works devoted to genesis of tradition in Russia emphasized that the further formation of ideology and its political program took place after Emperor Alexander II (1855-81) had ascended throne in a time of heightened social tension. (2) The membership of liberal family in 1850s was also established: in addition to K. D. Kavelin and B. N. Chicherin, V. P. Botkin, A. V. Druzhinin, and P. V. Annenkov were added to roster. (3) At same time, various facts entered into historiographical circulation that subsequently gained universal acceptance among specialists. In particular, intelligentsia circles in two capitals were identified as most important centers of movement that was forming in mid-19th century-the Moscow circle of A. B. Stankevich and K. D. Kavelin's group in St. Petersburg 4 Additionally, appearance of manuscript literature and its publication abroad in series of articles in Golosa iz Rossii was acknowledged as an important event and is usually referred to as Russian liberals' first public pronouncement. …

Configuring the Nation in Fin-de-Siecle Spain: Rosario de Acuna's La voz de la Patria

In October 1893 the Spanish government called up its army reserves to defend the garrison town of Melilla against the Rif Arabs. Rosario de Acuna's La voz de la Patria, a one-act play in verse first performed in December that same year, is a contemporary drama written in response to the crisis.1 In it Acuna's cast are not so much individuals as stock characters who present contrasting theses on what constitutes the nation as patria. In the following article I propose to explore how Acuna's depiction of the conflict in Melilla serves a double purpose. First, I will demonstrate how it works to privilege the concept of national unity, founded on civic duty, virtuous reason and the transcending of class barriers, that is essential to the consolidation of nineteenth-century liberalism. secondly, however, it encapsulates the diverse paradoxes dominant in Spanish liberalism in the latter part of the century.In particular, Melilla becomes a symbolic space that not only allows Acuna to interrogate Spain's imperial pretensions. More importantly, it represents a means of revindicating the ideals of Progressive liberalism, associated with republicanism and federalism, and critiquing the Moderate liberalism of the Restoration period.2 The viewpoints put forward in the play will be compared with those discourses of freethinking liberalism elaborated in 1893 in articles from the weekly publication, Las Dominicales del Libre Pensamiento, to which Acuna was a regular contributor.3Set in an unspecified Aragonese village just two days' march from the French border, La voz is not intended to be, Acuna states, obra de lucha, de controversia, but eco de una realidad del presente (Dedicatoria 6). Its opening broaches the dilemma to be resolved: whether or not twenty-three-year-old Pedro, the only surviving child of Maria and Juan, well-off landholders, should fulfil his patriotic duty and join the Spanish forces in Melilla. Whereas Maria and Pedro's pregnant fiancee, Isabel, urge him to escape conscription and flee to France, Juan and fifty-year-old Rosa, Pedro's former wetnurse, argue vehemently for responding to the nation's call to its reservists. The initial lack of consensus among members of an extended family unit to heed the nation's request places in doubt any one vision of Spain and highlights how national identities are configured through competing discourses. Likewise, the eventual resolution of differences, so that all characters eventually speak with one voice, advocates an imaginary national unity attainable through reason and dialogue.Unity, as Paloma Cirujano Marin, Teresa Elorriaga Planes and Juan Sisinio Perez, Garzon have insisted, is central to nineteenth-century paradigms of the Spanish liberal nation. Moreover, they affirm, it was through the diverse meanings attached to the word espanol that these paradigms were either justified or discredited:Segun se entienda lo especifico espanol, asi se argumentara en favor de un regimen tradicionalista, moderado, progresista o democrate. Nos encontramos [. . .] una vez mas ante el concepto de nacion espanola como nueva realidad que ya no solo se utiliza para vertebrar los hechos del pasado, sino tambien para justificar la pertinencia o la inconsistencia de las distintas posiciones politicas inmersas en la revolucion liberal. (153)A similar process to that pertaining to espanol can be mapped, I suggest, in the different meanings and values attributed to patria by Acuna's characters. Following the French revolution, the concept of putria was inextricably intertwined with those of society and nation, since all privileged the loyalty of the individual to the sociopolitical community and the collective good.4 It is this framework that assumes prominence in Acuna's work.Of primary significance throughout the play, therefore, is the question of whether an individual's primary allegiance should be to family or nation. Central to this concern are the themes of maternal love and female honor, which allow Acuna to explore the various relationships envisaged as ideal between the nation, its citizens, and its colonies. …

From Liberal to Revolutionary Oaxaca: The View from the South, Mexico 1867-1911

From Liberal to Revolutionary Oaxaca: The View from the South, Mexico 1867-1911

Race, Nation, and Market: Economic Culture in Porfirian Mexico (review)

Reviewed by: Race, Nation, and Market: Economic Culture in Porfirian Mexico Danny J. Anderson Weiner, Richard . Race, Nation, and Market: Economic Culture in Porfirian Mexico. Tucson: U of Arizona P, 2004. 167 pages. In Race, Nation, and Market: Economic Culture in Porfirian Mexico, Richard Weiner provides an innovative exploration of turn-of-the century Mexican economic history. Focusing on the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first of the twentieth, Weiner analyzes the way that the market functioned as contested signifier. Rather the empirical approaches to Mexican economic history that characterize the scholarship of John Coatsworth or Stephen Haber, Weiner examines the discursive construction of various meanings associated with the concept of the market and emphasizes the relationship among these constructions and political positions in the larger social field. In the first chapter, Weiner describes his methodology, explaining that he "analyzes discourse," or more specifically "public discourse" (7), in order to examine the competing notions of market that circulated in the Porfirian period and the rhetorical defects achieved by these notions in the struggle for power. Inspired by the scholarship of Albert Hirschman and of Ricardo Salvatore (the latter also examines economic discourse in Latin America), Weiner notes that "the market is not a physical place where goods are exchanged but a symbolic site where the identities and programs of social movements are constructed" (5). Following from this insight, he identifies a series of different markets that are discursively contested during these decades: "land, labor, capital, commodity, and international markets" (8). According to Weiner, at this particular historical moment, the market and economic discourse became central for a variety of reasons. Unprecedented political stability had finally allowed for attention to economic matters. International economic changes underscored the importance and impact of modernization processes. State emphasis on material progress directly linked the nation to notions of market success and competition. And discourses critical of the state also used the market rhetorically to formulate justifications for dissent and opposition. In order to follow through on this analytical model in the ensuing chapters, Weiner identifies principal symbolic uses of the market formulated from three particular social positions: developmentalist liberalism, social Catholicism, and radical liberalism/anarchism. Throughout, Weiner emphasizes the ways that the symbolic conceptualizations of market participate in the notions of identity, serve to construct racialized identities (especially of Mexico's indigenous population), and supposedly affect behavior depending on the social power attributed to the market. In chapters two and three, Weiner examines the establishment discourse of the group known as los científicos, the members of the ruling elite who were "scientific" because of their positivist legacy. Weiner takes a term from Alan Knight and characterizes this group as "developmentalist liberals" (21–22): they were interested in [End Page 107] the creation, not distribution, of wealth as the key to Mexico's progress. In chapter two Weiner attends particularly to the domestic policy implications of developmentalist liberalism: market rhetoric emphasizes discipline and control with the goal of creating a manageable, educated labor force able to increase national productivity. Weiner concludes that although nineteenth-century market theories such as those of Adam Smith and David Ricardo attributed power to the market and the inevitable emergence of homo economicus, the Mexican versions of this liberal discourse attenuated the power attributed to the market and noted the failure of the market to conjure individuals economically driven to maximize profit. Indians in particular, with communal lands and misunderstood behavior, were outside the market system and thus developmentalist liberals supported state intervention through practices such as forced labor, vagrancy laws, mandatory consumption, labor contractors, and education. The hacendado class and the hacienda system were diagnosed as needing more forceful state intervention to inculcate a capitalist ethic of productivity. In chapter three, Weiner keeps his focus on the científicos, but turns toward international markets. With the dramatic changes in global flows of capital, labor, and goods in the late nineteenth century, the international markets had an immense impact on Mexico. Whereas nineteenth-century liberalism ascribed to the concept of competition in a free market, Weiner notes that developmentalist liberalism, influenced by social Darwinism and the desire to consolidate national sovereignty, called for strong state intervention...

Culture Wars: Secular-Catholic Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Europe ed. by Christopher Clark, Wolfram Kaiser

NEWMAN STUDIES JOURNAL 80 Enterprising editors do a real service to understanding when they bring scholars together from different national and language areas to compare notes on an internationally occurring historical phenomenon, in this case the late nineteenthcentury “culture wars” that typically pitted Liberals against Catholics. Following essays by the editors outlining the “New Catholicism” (Clark, Cambridge) and the European anticlericalisms of the time (Kaiser, Portsmouth), ten specialists, some well known, some younger historians, describe the hotter phases of this kind of conflict from the perspective of the different countries. All are solid historiography, some enlivened by local case studies that give a feel for the tensions aroused at the grassroots. For anyone interested in nineteenth-century Catholicism in Europe,this is informative and interesting; for scholars of the subject, it is must reading. It contains an up-to-date annotated bibliography of select works. One author, Manuel Borutta of Berlin, writing on the Prussian case (1870–1878) that provides the paradigm of Kulturkampf, adopts an intriguing suggestion. In this view, the academic disciplines of history and sociology, so heavily influenced by the German university tradition, have carried on in objectified form the passions and prejudices of the nineteenth-century liberals. For if Catholicism was innately inhibited in (self-) critical thinking, that alone would explain Catholics’ obvious cultural and intellectual inferiority and societal untrustworthiness. At any rate, the contributions in this book seem to indicate that those passions and prejudices are finally dying out in the academy, so that a wider range of explanatory reasons come into view in examining the heated controversies of that time. For the contributor on the United Kingdom, J. P. Parry (Cambridge), the principal contenders in what might pass for an English culture war around the time of the First Vatican Council are the Liberal Party under Gladstone and the nonconformist Protestants. The latter see themselves as better suited than the Established Church to guarantee the survival of traditional English Protestant culture. Not that the Catholic specter was absent from the picture; it was there in the Irish, in the papal infallibility proclaimed at the Council, in the converts from the Church of England and last not least in the Romanizing tendencies detected within the Establishment itself. But Catholics themselves were not under particular assault at this time,certainly not from the Liberal Party,nor were they girding for battle like so many ultramontane Catholics on the continent. Kaiser (p. 69) tells us that Gladstone’s Expostulation of 1874, The Vatican Decrees in Their Bearing on Civil Allegiance, was influenced by Ignaz Döllinger, of all people, hardly a “secular” liberal and only “anticlerical” in a derived Culture Wars: Secular-Catholic Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Ed. Christopher Clark and Wolfram Kaiser. Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pages viii + 368. Cloth, $80.00, ISBN 0-521-80997-5; eBook format, $64.00, ISBN 9-780521-809979. CULTURE WARS: SECULAR-CATHOLIC CONFLICT IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY EUROPE CHRISTOPHER CLARK AND WOLFRAM KAISER, EDS. 81 sense. Newman’s answering Letter to the Duke of Norfolk would be part of an innerCatholic argument with Cardinal Manning—a sideshow for the British public. After all, Gladstone’s electoral defeat in 1874 came not so much because he alienated his base among Irish Catholics or Protestant nonconformists, but because the latter had created such a stir over disestablishment and loosening the Church of England’s grip on education that voters preferred the Conservatives. Newman, with his view of the Church of England serving as a breakwater (remora) against the tides of infidelity, would have understood. One does wonder to what extent Newman might have contributed to the relatively pacific English situation in the otherwise strife-torn 1870s: Liberals, Protestant, or secular, on one side and mainly Catholics on the other. Had the Apologia proVita Sua of 1864/65 so cut the ground out from under cultured liberals, those inclined to see priestcraft as the enemy,that they could not mount a meaningful attack? More broadly, the historical context this book offers may help one to understand why Newman chose to sum up his life’s work as directed against “liberalism” in some of its many shades of meaning. This was the label...

The Place of Liberalism

here was liberalism? From the liberal point of view, this is almost certainly the wrong question to ask. As Uday Singh Mehta notes in his provocative study, Liberalism and Empire (1999), the universalist principles of nineteenth-century liberalism promoted a denial of place in liberal political theory, a purposeful neglect of the significance of territory (120). Liberal thinkers embraced the concept of evolution in time, emphasizing that individuals and societies unfolded in historical stages. But if the significance of time in liberal theory was assured, the role of place was suspect. Indeed, the liberal espousal of historical development was matched by an equally powerful insistence on transcending categories of place—region, territory, or nation—as part of the peculiar pointillism or decentralization of power in liberal society. In the nineteenth century, the repudiation of place was politically meaningful because it aided the articulation of a specifically liberal brand of imperialism. The rejection of place allowed Victorian liberals to refuse the territorial claims that typically bolstered anticolonial nationalist movements. Thus, the doctrine of “placelessness” had great utility for the governance of empire. But it has been a remarkably robust doctrine, a sturdy legacy of liberal thought. It continues to function as a crucial element in the neoliberalisms and neocolonialisms W

Crafting the republic: Lima's artisans and nation building in Peru, 1821-1879

This clearly written, cogently argued assessment of social and political mobilisation in nineteenth-century Peru focuses on 5,000 Lima artisans, 70 percent of whom were black, Indian, or mestizo. Garcia-Bryce traces the evolution of these guild artisans into class-conscious workers. His discussion gives special attention to how artisans' declining economic success meant not only a loss of income but undercut gains in social status. It is in this interplay of economics and race that Garcia-Bryce's analysis of the origins of class identity is most revealing. The fate of Lima's artisans, the most numerous of whom were shoemakers, tailors, and carpenters, is discussed against the backdrop of nineteenth-century Liberalism, which sought to align everyone to the 'greater good' of the state while side-stepping demands from special interest groups such as craft workers. Indeed, following the abolition of guilds in 1862, the artisans fully subscribed to the modernisation promised by the liberal elites. But when in the 1870s it became clear the state could not deliver on its promises, working-class identity began to emerge, especially fostered by a newly emergent group of artisans, the printers.

Liberalism in nineteenth-century Europe: the political culture of limited suffrage

In these two books, Alan S. Kahan and Laura E. Nym Mayhall provide stimulating accounts of the history of franchise reform. Kahan compares the language of exclusion used by nineteenth-century liberals in Britain, France, and Germany to justify only gradual, limited extensions of the right to vote. Mayhall's canvas is smaller, exploring in considerable detail aspects of the militancy of the twentieth-century women's suffrage movement in Britain in terms of its cultural and historical meanings. Kahan's discussion starts from a careful examination of the term liberalism

El manto liberal: Los poderes de emergencia en México, 1821–1876

The early national period in Mexico has often been characterized as tumultuous and unstable. Despite the great hopes harbored on the eve of independence in 1821, the following decades witnessed countless pronunciamientos, at least three major civil wars (1832, 1854–55, 1858–61), and four foreign interventions (1829, 1837– 38, 1846– 48, 1862–67). Mexico lost half of its territory to the United States and was occupied by a French expeditionary force that placed a Habsburg prince on its throne. The idealism of its more enlightened politicians was, as a result, understandably eroded, as their attempts to forge a lasting liberal constitutional framework failed time and again. The moderate politician Manuel Gómez Pedraza came to the conclusion that constitutions were nothing but pieces of paper written to be subsequently trampled and thrown away. The disenchantment of conservative ideologue and historian Lucas Alamán was expressed along similar lines when he came to the conclusion that Mexico’s constitutions did not last because they simply did not conform to Mexico’s customs and traditions. In the words of Santanista thinker José María Tornel, they were “exotic plants” that could not survive in the Mexican political climate. As became the view of the once–hombre de progreso José María Gutiérrez Estrada, Mexicans did not know how to govern themselves. They had tried every possible form a republic could take—it did not matter. All of their constitutions failed despite the good intentions of the liberal political class.Aguilar Rivera’s study is a welcome and provocative interpretation of this history of constitutional failure. In his mind, the failure must be attributed to the absence of emergency powers in the constitutions of 1812, 1824, 1836, and 1843. By not including a constitutional clause that could have enabled congress to grant the executive extraordinary powers in a time of crisis, the authors of Mexico’s first constitutions tied the hands of government and forced it to adopt extraconstitutional (even anticonstitutional) authoritarian measures to survive. In so doing, the governments of the 1820s through the 1840s seriously undermined the prestige of their respective constitutions, showed them up to be impractical and unworkable, and, in turn, inspired their opponents to overthrow them via extraconstitutional means. Aguilar Rivera develops this interpretation by systematically analyzing the arguments that were used by the different liberal constituent congresses to prevent the inclusion of emergency powers in their charters. He then proves how inadequate such resolutions were in the light of the many crises that surfaced and the manner in which these were handled. As final proof, he attributes the success and appeal of the 1857 constitution to its inclusion of emergency powers. Benito Juárez may have presided over Mexico (whether on the run or from Mexico City) arbitrarily and with a certain degree of authoritarianism, but he did so constitutionally. According to Aguilar Rivera, this meant that people were more prepared to fight for this constitution than others, because it worked—because Juárez was able to lead the country without recurring to extraconstitutional measures.Aguilar Rivera is indeed persuasive in his subtle and paradoxical interpretation. There is no doubt either that this book will inspire a lively discussion in years to come over the extent to which the inclusion of emergency powers could have stabilized the early republican political system. While I cannot but help empathizing with all those nineteenth-century liberals who refused to include emergency powers in their constitutions because they feared (probably rightly) abuse, Aguilar Rivera’s argument is difficult to ignore and must be read by anybody concerned with the constitutional history of Mexico and the Hispanic world.

Por una historia de la sociabilidad femenina: algunas reflexiones

To apply the instruments of the analysis of sociability to Spanish women does not mean merely the application of a comfortable category to a colourful object. Even extending them to the modern history of Spain, these instruments allow nuance in the category of so-called «informality», by analysing the ways in which the history of gender blurs the two forms of sociability; a precise, historicised and critical study is called for. If in the 1970s and 1980s feminist groups investigated their past, they have had a notable aftermath: in recent years, studies have proliferated on the Falange, on the workers movement, and on the suffragists, both on the national and (with the development of research in the Autonomous Communities) the regional level. And if one can trace a chronology of democratic associations from the nineteenth-century liberals to recent times, the historiography will also be able to establish key themes and statistical studies.