Pre-modern Societies Research Articles

Is the decline of war a delusion? The long peace phenomenon and the modernization peace – the explanation that refutes or subsumes all others

ABSTRACT The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and the China challenge, revive the question of whether the world is becoming more peaceful. Realists’ claim that we told you so compares oranges with cabbage. Today’s world is divided into a “zone of peace”, encompassing all the developed countries, and a “zone of war”, comprising less developed countries. Within the former, interstate wars, civil wars, and the “security dilemma” itself have all disappeared. The Long Peace since 1945 is widely attributed to nuclear deterrence. However, the sharp decrease in war had begun during the 19th century. The effect of industrialization is the greatest lacuna in IR theory. The Malthusian Trap that plagued premodern societies has been broken. Wealth is no longer finite and a zero-sum game. This transformation has made democracies as well as nondemocracies fight much less, and has sharply increased international trade. It underlies both the democratic/liberal and capitalist/trade interdependence peace.

The Dual Meaning of Šafāʿa and the Social Function of the Saints in Mamluk Society

Abstract In pre-modern Islamic societies, the Sufi šayḫ was the ultimate model of the saint, who offered the laity a direct channel for intercession with God. Focusing on the šayḫs’ relations with the Mamluk elite, and examining the dual meaning of the term šafāʽa, which represents both sacred and mundane intercession, this article shows that the saints’ intercessory role was not limited to the spiritual sphere but applied also to the mundane realm of interceding between rulers and subjects. Combining both forms of intercession, while maintaining the aura of otherworldliness, greatly increased the appeal of many Sufi šayḫs. However, balancing both required some maneuvering on the part of the šayḫs, which the article considers.

Reflection of social norms, moral ideals and gender dispositions of Premodern society in the medieval chivalric romance

Reflection of social norms, moral ideals and gender dispositions of Premodern society in the medieval chivalric romance

Exploring Miracles and Wonders in Pre-Modern Korean Society through the Samguk yusa

Samguk yusa 三國遺事 (Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms), compiled by Iryŏn 一然 (1206–1289), a prominent Buddhist monk in Koryŏ, stands as one of Korea’s most valued historical classics. This classic weaves together a collection of captivating and unconventional narratives—marked by their peculiarity, miracles, and wonder—diverging from the usual societal norms. Unlike traditional historical chronicles such as Samguk sagi 三國史記 (Histories of the Three Kingdoms), Samguk yusa presents a diverse mosaic woven with historical anecdotes, legends, and folklore, especially emphasizing connections to Buddhism. The tales of miraculous events hold historical significance, serving as reflective mirrors that not only shaped the beliefs of pre-modern Korean Buddhists but also influenced the wider population of that era in Korea. This paper delves into the cultural significance and societal roles of miracles and wonders within pre-modern Korean society, particularly through a thorough exploration of narratives and accounts within the Samguk yusa. Through these miraculous stories, the Samguk yusa not only validates the spiritual power of Buddhism but also redefines concepts like filial piety and national protection by integrating them into the Buddhist framework. This ensured Buddhism’s enduring significance in Silla society and reinforced the importance of the supernatural as an integral part of a holistic view of history and culture.

:Power from Below in Premodern Societies: The Dynamics of Political Complexity in the Archaeological Record

:<i>Power from Below in Premodern Societies: The Dynamics of Political Complexity in the Archaeological Record</i>

Morphology of Pornography: Magical and Fairy-Tale Roots of Modern Porn Discourse

In this article, the author analyzes visual discourses of physicality in modern porn discourse through the prism of structuralist theory proposed by Russian researcher Vladimir Propp. The article is one of the first attempts in modern historiography to transplant the methods and principles proposed by Vladimir Propp to analyze the current state of porn in popular culture. The purpose of the article is to analyze the relationships and interdependencies between modern porn culture, presented in visual forms, and its historical predecessors. It is assumed that the origins of pornographic discourse, which operates in visual forms, can be localized in folk traditional culture. Forms and dimensions of physicality and actions of the heroes of modern pornographic discourse are perceived as structural elements of mass culture. The results of the study can be summarized in the following way: 1) the visual structure of modern porn has lost its uniqueness and originality in the consumer society; 2) the plots and sequence of actions of the heroes of modern pornographic discourse can be compared with similar plots and behavioral strategies of folk discourse; 3) porn in modern society plays roles that are similar to ones played by fairy tales in the traditional culture of pre-modern societies. The author believes that modern porn discourse imitates reality, although initially the behavior of the characters and the plots are fantastic and unrealistic in their nature. It is shown that the development of porn became a reaction to the demand of consumer society for visualized narrative constructions based on the archetypes of traditional folk culture.

Self-identity construction via self-reference in pre-modern Chinese intellectuals’ letters home: A case study

This study explores pre-modern Chinese intellectuals’ identity construction through the choice of self-referring forms in their letters home. Based on a case study of Hu Shih's letters home, it categorizes the self-referring forms he used and self-identities he constructed, and further investigates the underlying sociocultural factors. It shows that Hu Shih employed four categories of self-referring forms, namely first-person pronouns, kinship terms, names, nicknames, and pen names, and appositive expressions. With these forms of self-reference, he constructed himself as a kin member, an independent person, and a scholar. Hu's construction of the first self-identity might have been influenced by the traditional family ethics and ideology prevalent within Chinese social structure, whereas that of the other two could be ascribed to the emerging social changes at the historical turning point, and scholarly principles. The study provides a new perspective for understanding traditional Chinese intellectuals’ letters home in the pre-modern society of China.

Al-Asrūshanī’s Jāmiʿ aḥkām al-ṣighār as a Source for the History of Childhood in Muslim Societies

A comprehensive compilation of legal rulings about children, one of particular historical utility and yet largely overlooked, is Muḥammad al-Asrūshanī’s Jāmiʿ aḥkām al-ṣighār. It offers a rather holistic view of the legal status of Muslim children and, more importantly, insight into common concepts of childhood and attitudes to children in premodern Muslim societies. Moreover, although drawing on the written heritage of middle-class urban scholars, the normative yet multilayered text of Jāmiʿ provides many precise details on children’s lives and their social environment. This article introduces al-Asrūshanī’s unique work—its structure, contents, and sources—and offers, as a case study, an analysis of the chapter the author dedicates to enslaved children. While al-Asrūshanī intended some, or even the majority, of instances discussed in this chapter to address theoretical legal debates, others, particularly those drawn from fatwas, mirror the real experiences of enslaved minors, concubines, and enslavers. Together they provide a picture of a moderate form of domestic slavery in the Islamic world, particularly in Central Asia of the Mongol period.

Représentations et pratiques nocturnes dans la société roumaine (XVIIIe – XXe siècles)

Folklorists, ethnographers and anthropologists have dedicated few studies to the night, and they especially emphasized its negative representations: an interval of darkness, of anxiety and fear, a time of intensified activities of evil supernatural forces. By favoring imaginary and mythical components, night was taken into consideration as an exceptional and extraordinary time, as a negative counterpart to the day, and not as a natural reverse of it. For a long time, the night did not draw the attention of historians, being perceived as a time when nothing happens, a time for rest and sleep. Starting with Jean Verdon’s pioneering book (“La Nuit au Moyen Âge”, 1994), historians have become increasingly interested in night habits, and explored the nightlife of people in ancient societies, bedtimes and waking times, sleep duration. The history of sleep has become a new field of research, opened by the American historian Roger Ekirch (2001, 2005), who advanced the theory that people in pre-industrial societies used to sleep differently. During the night, the sleep was biphasic (or segmented), divided into two moments and separated by a period of wakefulness (watch) at around midnight (between the first sleep and the second one). In our study we intend to verify if the results of Ekirch’s research are also applicable to the realities of the Romanian society in the 18th-20th centuries. We must recognize the difficulties of a history of nocturnal time, the fragmentary nature of the sources, the lack of direct and explicit testimonies (few people have been able to subjectivize their experience of sleep and transmit written testimonies). Therefore, we investigated sources such as chronicles, judiciary documents and literary texts, in search of the segmented sleep pattern. We have identified direct or indirect references to the two periods of sleep, and the intervening period of wakefulness. These references allow us to cautiously advance the hypothesis that this sleep pattern also existed in pre-modern Romanian society, in rural and urban environments. The future researches, based on teamwork, will more accurately determine the validity of this hypothesis.

War Becoming Phantasmal: A Cognitive Shift in Organized Violence beyond Traditional Limits

The entirety of human existence suggests multiple war theories and competing belief systems on what war is and how it can or cannot be exercised, even if we often are preoccupied with the current framework. Premodern societies differed from modern ones on whether humans or something divine or supernatural control the contexts and outcomes of war. Collectively, our species retains a firm appreciation of the assumed limits of what constitutes organized violence for political, social, or cultural aims, depending on the group and context. Yet in the twenty-first century, we may finally have set into motion the seeds of an unfamiliar, potentially incomprehensible, and likely transformative pathway where artificial intelligence or transhuman modifications may reveal what is called a “phantasmal transformation of war.” Complexity science explains reality and war so that earlier attempts—particularly those of the classical or natural science period and earlier prescientific attempts—are illuminated as insufficient or irrelevant outside of narrow or contextual applications. Today, Western militaries remain wedded to what is explained as a “Newtonian-style worldview” for understanding war, with select terms assimilated from complexity science and others ignored entirely. Indeed, modern military theorists assume an almost ideological devotion to what is largely a pseudo-scientific, static mode of framing war. Humans paired with certain advanced technology may also redefine war beyond previous physical domain and kinetic circumstances, including new manifestations in space, in cyberspace, and through accelerated human-machine teaming arrangements. Such novel conflict may in some applications exceed both human design and comprehension, potentially existing in planes or manifestations that are either undetectable by humans, rendered incomprehensible by select human actors, or potentially in modes that exceed the witting participation and awareness of our species.

Resolving Gender Ambiguity: An Initial Approach to Hermaphroditism in al-Andalus: The Case of the “Bearded Woman” of Tudela

ABSTRACT In the context of al-Andalus, intersexuality is a topic that has received limited exploration, despite its significance. Within this landscape, a narration discovered in al-Bakrī’s geographical treatise, which details a forced change of gender, prompts us to question the role of undetermined gender in al-Andalus. This offers a unique opportunity to delve into the legal distinctions between men and women, the perceptions of masculinity and femininity and, particularly, an initial exploration of how khuntha was perceived in a pre-modern Islamic society like al-Andalus, comparing also with other accounts coming from Eastern sources.

USING CULTURE AS A PARADIGM FOR ERADICATING CORRUPTION IN NIGERIA, YORUBA CULTURE IN THE CONTEXT

Culture serves as a social tool for maintaining historical knowledge and maintaining order in all premodern societies. One way to look at it is as teaching one the fundamentals of what constitutes right and wrong behaviour, moral versus immoral behaviour or acceptable versus unacceptable behaviour in the society. Comparatively, development is most likely to emerge in acceptable behaviour valued and upheld. The incorrect, immoral or unacceptable behaviour could hinder development in the society. The unacceptable behaviour contradict the culture of respect, honesty, transparency, openness, accountability, probity, belief systems and way of life valued in the same society (Baecker, 1997). Corrupt practices are by all standards unacceptable behaviours and according to International Transparency (IT, 2021), corruption takes place in many forms, including behaviors such as: Public employees requesting or accepting money or favors in return for services, politicians squandering public funds or providing public positions or contracts to their sponsors, friends, or families, and companies bribing authorities to get lucrative business agreements. Corruption exists in every facet of society, from business to government to the judicial system to the news media to the nonprofit sector to even the sports world. Professional enablers including bankers, attorneys, accountants, and real estate agents, as well as opaque financial systems and faceless companies, facilitate corruption by making it easier for corrupt individuals to engage in corrupt schemes and launder and conceal their unlawful money. Adamolekun (2015) argued that corruption has eaten deep into the fabric of the society that civilize society or country become curious about how to eradicate it. David Cameron, the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, supported such idea in 2016 "Corruption is the cancer that eats away at the foundation of so many of today's issues. It has an annual cost to the global economy of billions of pounds and is responsible for the destruction of employment and slow growth. Because of this, the world's impoverished are kept in abject poverty when governments are corrupt, they steal money from their citizens and keep them from enjoying the progress that is rightfully theirs. When corrupt people and businesses do not pay the taxes they should, it deprives public institutions like schools and hospitals of much-needed funding (Cameron, 2016). IT (2021) warns that corruption damages confidence, undermines democracy, slows economic growth, and deepens social and environmental divisions. As Paul Collier cited in Cameron (2016) explained, there are hotspots where corruption is more prevalent than others; these might be specific companies, countries, or historical periods. The extraction of natural resources and the construction industry have a special negative reputation for corruption. Therefore, this study interrogates how the efficacy of Yoruba traditional cultural values can be harnessed as paradigm for eradicating corruption in contemporary Nigeria state.

Happiness as an Impossible Horizon: On Andrei Platonov and Michel Houellebecq

This article offers an analysis of the short story Dzhanby Andrei Platonov written in the early 20th century, and the novel The Possibility of an Islandby Michel Houellebecq penned in the early 21st century. Genre-wise, both works navigate between utopia and dystopia. The text explores the potential for happiness in conditions of a primordial, pre-modern society (in Dzhan) and in the context of hypermodernity (The Possibility of an Island). The article questions: What happens to the perfect utopian machine and the pursuit of happiness today? Or,how does the absence of desire and imagination, the lack of a lasting yearning for future horizons, as an essential existential aspect of humanity, undermine even the in human itself?

Acercamiento al asociacionismo en Sinaloa, México: 1875 a 1929

This work aims to demonstrate the existence of groups that gave way to the formation of civil society in the state of Sinaloa, Mexico. Through the critical-analytical method with a qualitative approach, we proceeded to review the bibliography, journalistic sources, and archives; with which it was possible to obtain the classification, division and segmentation in the fields: social, political and labor of these groups between the years of 1875 to 1939. These organizations were evidence of the transition from pre-modern society to a liberal, modern and revolutionary post in Sinaloa. The listed societies give us reference of the presence and the beginning of the political, charitable and social participation of women, as well as the creation of organizations in favor of the defense of labor rights. They also indicate the formalization of the political clubs that became the antecedents of the political parties.

Reviving Premodern Africa? The Anointed Objects and the Magical Economy in Un(der)developed Africa

African neo-Pentecostal prophets (ANPPs) address the issue of economic powerlessness in un(der)developed regions of Africa by reviving elements of the premodern African magical economy. They use anointed objects, such as anointed water, for economic purposes, while African Traditional Religions (ATR) use magical charms in their economic life. Therefore, with their anointed objects, ANPPs revive the premodern ATR worldview of the economy. This research is guided by the following question: in what ways do ANPPs’ anointed objects syncretise with the occult economy of African Traditional Religions (ATRs) in their responses to the prevailing economic powerlessness in African contexts? ANPPs perpetuate the magical economy practiced by premodern African societies who sought to alleviate their un(der)development by using magic to exert control over the spiritual world to acquire material wealth. Thus, ANPPs are challenged to adopt a scientifically informed response that empowers Africans to address structural elements that perpetuate un(der)development in contemporary Africa.

The vulnerability of aging states: A survival analysis across premodern societies.

How states and great powers rise and fall is an intriguing enigma of human history. Are there any patterns? Do polities become more vulnerable over time as they age? We analyze longevity in hundreds of premodern states using survival analysis to help provide initial insights into these questions. This approach is commonly used to study the risk of death in biological organisms or failure in mechanical systems. The results reveal that the risk of state termination increased steeply over approximately the first two centuries after formation and stabilized thereafter. This provides the first quantitative support for the hypothesis that the resilience of political states decreases over time. Potential mechanisms that could drive such declining resilience include environmental degradation, increasing complexity, growing inequality, and extractive institutions. While the cases are from premodern times, such dynamics and drivers of vulnerability may remain relevant today.

Textile Mobilities across Medieval Afro-Eurasia

Textiles counted among the most precious and prized categories of material culture in the medieval world: made with care in specialized workshops, handed down over generations as part of family wealth, repurposed until threadbare for use as dress and furnishings, serving as diplomatic gifts and luxury trade goods, cloth played a major cultural role across premodern societies. Such importance stands in contrast to how fabrics are often viewed by students today, as cheaply-made, disposal material outsourced from distant factories for mass consumption. The disjuncture between premodern attitudes toward cloth and prevailing views today offers a compelling entry point for students to contemplate historical continuities and difference through the lens of a universally familiar medium of textiles.&#x0D; This pedagogical file considers textiles’ mobilities across premodern Afro-Eurasia to explore medieval global networks through a focus on exchanges evidenced in material culture. The presented examples focus on textiles in European and North American museum collections, thus layering in also more recent mobilities of these objects as artworks with modern collecting histories.

Trauma &amp; hysteria in fin de siècle European culture (Part 1)

The purpose of the article is to analyse the reasons for the actualisation of the issues of trauma and hysteria in the European culture of the fin de siècle. The research methodology includes general scientific principles of systematisation and generalisation of the problem under study, which enabled identification and scientifically substantiation of existing theories and conceptual approaches to understanding the content of concepts of trauma, psychological trauma, hysteria, and mental illness. The application of the axiological approach helped to reveal the interdisciplinary nature of the considered theories, as well as to outline personalised cultural scientific positions. The use of the analytical method contributed to the identification of conceptual foundations for further scientific perspectives on the problematisation of trauma, psychological trauma, hysteria as mental illnesses in the context of cultural knowledge. The scientific novelty lies in the implementation of cultural reflection to clarify the socio-cultural determinants of the spread of hysteria and psychological trauma as mental illnesses. Conclusions. The article examines the issues related to the problematic field of contemporary trauma studies, and for this purpose, the interconnection of such phenomena as hysteria and trauma in the context of fin de siècle culture is highlighted. The specificity of the latter lies in its transitivity, which determines its "centaurism" (S. Krymskyi), and therefore it is described with the help of two mutually exclusive tropes. In the first case, it is pessimism, decline and decay, moral degeneration and degradation, doubts about the reliability of scientific knowledge, criticism of religious and scientific authorities, accompanied by a kind of "fall into archaism" and perceived as an idealisation of the past, a return to nature, to the traditions of pre-modern society. On the other hand, there is the expectation of a new era, optimism, and faith in progress, supported by the achievements of the Second Industrial Revolution and the yet-to-be-discovered abilities of the human mind to penetrate the depths of the unknown, including the human psyche. Such a cardinal contradiction, such an epochal cultural breakdown, has become a fertile ground for the spread of mental illnesses, including hysteria and psychological trauma.&#x0D; Keywords: trauma, hysteria, problematisation of trauma &amp; hysteria, mental illness, European culture, fin de siècle.

:Gender and Status Competition in Pre-Modern Societies

:<i>Gender and Status Competition in Pre-Modern Societies</i>

Evolution of Anti-Slavery Sentiments From 1776 to 1865 &amp; a Critique of Reparations

Slavery existed in pre-modern societies throughout the world. While enslaving other peoples in most civilizations was legal, only Western civilization developed a moral revulsion against it. Therefore, the United States dialogue about slavery and reparations should focus on recognizing the 4000 years of slavery that ended through the efforts of abolitionists and their allies. The American abolitionist movement was fueled by a diverse group of individuals, including Quaker abolitionists, women’s rights activists, and influential figures like Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and Martin Delany. The moral and political philosophies of Kant, Mill, Nietzsche, and Hegel also influenced the abolitionist movement with ideas about the inherent worth and dignity of human beings, individual liberty, and freedom, shaping the abolitionist movement’s vision of a future without slavery. This led to a Civil War which was the catalyst for ratifying a U.S. Constitutional Amendment in 1865 that eliminated slavery nationwide. In 2019, discussions resurfaced about reparations for slavery, raising questions about justice, individual responsibility, and the potential impact on social cohesion.