Stormy Life Research Articles

Something to Guard. The Stormy Life of the National Guardian, 1948-1967

Something to Guard. The Stormy Life of the National Guardian, 1948-1967

Wasn't That a Time?

Review of Something to Guard: The Stormy Life of the National Guardian by Cedric Belfrage and James Aronson.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

ROLE OF THE SCIENTIST IN MODERN SOCIETY: THE FIRST THREE HUNDRED YEARS.

I am conditioned by pernickety and pedantic outlook of Oxford teachers, locally known as dons, so that when I started to write something on this general theme, I wondered what society was and, thence, what was modern. So I asked one of my colleagues, who is an historian, when he considered that history began. By and large, as far as England is concerned, he thought somewhere about end of fifteenth century. For purposes of today, I suppose it is legitimate to confine one's remarks to what has happened in Europe and western hemisphere, and it is generally agreed that modern science began there about end of sixteenth century. I thought, therefore, that it might be helpful in assessing our position today to try to get some historical perspective and to see what role, if any, scientists played at beginning of modern era, and to try to see how complex contemporary situation has been reached in which activities of scientists have become so important, not only in making and applying new discoveries, but in helping to determine state policy. We have recently been reminded of beginning of modern era because scientists in many parts of world have been celebrating fourth centenary of birth ofGalileo, whose complex and controversial character, I am happy to say, has kept up employment among historians, for they are still trying to unravel tortuous events of his somewhat stormy life. But it is certain, as Andrade has remarked, that the essence of Galileo's services to science was that he insisted upon and demonstrated

Economic Thought of Islam: Ibn Khaldūn

This essay has to do mainly with the economics of Ibn Khaldūn (1332–1406), historian and statesman of prominent Arab descent and medieval Islam's greatest economist, who spent most of his stormy life in northwest Africa and Egypt, engaged either in scholarly undertakings or in judicial and other governmental activities. His economic opinions, apparently the most advanced of those expressed in medieval Islam, are to be found principally in The Muqaddimah, originally intended as an introduction to his history (Kitāb al-‘Ibar) of the Arab and Muslim world and its pre-Islamic antecedents, though finally transformed into an exposition of the sources of historical change at work in that world. The Muqaddimah, initially completed in 1377, continued to be corrected or added to until shortly before the author's death; though manuscript copies were numerous, it was not issued in printed form until in the 1850's.

Financing the Central American Federation, 1821-18381

IHEN GUATEMALA declared her independence of Spain in Septembe'r, 1821, the colony, rather ambiguously called a kingdom, comprised five provinces governed by a captain-general. Early in 1822 the provisional government, headed by former Captain-General Gabino Gainza, voted to unite with Mexico. When this union was dissolved, after the overthrow of Iturbide, the National Constituent Assembly, meeting in Guatemala City, created the Federal Republic of Central America and inaugurated constitutional government in 1825. The stormy life of the federation of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica ended in 1838, although the fiction of union was preserved until Guatemala formally seceded in 1847. Many explanations have been given for the failure of the Central American Federation and the futility of countless attempts to revive it. Thanks to the absolute nature of 'Spanish rule, the new nation lacked experience in self-government. Jose Cecilio del Valle, author of the declaration of independence and a correspondent of Jeremy Bentham, understood the strength and the weakness of representative government ;2 but men of the stature of Valle were too few to provide continuous, responsible leadership and effective public administration. Their advice and warnings failed to stem the tide of factionalism which so often led to aggression and civil war. The idea of the unity

Cardano, the Gambling Scholar

No man is utterly consistent. We are all a bundle of paradoxes with some degree of the Dr. Jekyl-Mr. Hyde polarities in our nature. Unrehearsed events at unexpected moments reveal character by behavior whose motives may have been hidden or repressed. Cardan was a person of distinguished accomplishments and strong traits of character. He had contradictory attributes to a superlative degree, being a cornucopia of paradoxes. Such a description is the only one suitable for Cardan or Cardano who led a stormy life as a gambler, mathematician, scholar, polemicist, and inventor. One of the exuberant men of the Renaissance, he was the first mathematician ever to bring the problems of probability within the realm of exact mathematics rather than speculation, horoscopy, necromancy, and other aspects of magic and the supernatural. He wrote more than 100 books and probably burned at least as many more which never got printed. More writers

Auguste Rodin and His English Friends 1885–1889

In the long and stormy life of Auguste Rodin, a special interest attaches to the period of the 1880's. The sculptor was then at the height of his power; his greatness was recognized. In 1881 he was commissioned by the Ministry of Fine Arts to produce the entrance-door of the new Musée des Arts décoratifs, and it was thus that he conceived La Porte de l'Enfer. This—the richest, if not the greatest, of his masterpieces—was to be twenty years in the making. As the door was to be twenty feet high and his studio in the Rue des Fourneaux was not large enough, the government allotted him the use of Studio J at the Dépôt des Marbres in the rue de l'Université. In 1884 the Municipal Council of Calais decided to set up in their city a group of statuary representing the burghers of Calais on their way to the camp of Edward III—the famous episode in Froissart. Rodin was approached, and, being entrusted with the work in 1885, undertook to complete it in 1886.

Reviews

Select Documents in Australian History, 1851–1900. By C. M. H. Clark. Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1955. Pp. 866. 70/‐. Country and Calling. By W. K. Hancock. Faber and Faber, London, 1954. Pp. 246. 18/‐ stg. Australia: A Social and Political History. Edited by Gordon Greenwood. Angus and Robertson, 1955. Pp. 445. 45/‐. Thomas Mitchell. By J. H. L. Cumpston. O.U.P., Melbourne, 1954. Pp. xiv + 270, maps, illus. 30/‐. The Count. By Geoffrey Rawson. Heinemann, Melbourne, 1953. Pp. xix + 214, maps, illus. 27/6. The Viking of Van Diemen's Land —The Stormy Life of Jorgen Jorgensen. By Frank Clune and P. R. Stephensen. Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1954. Pp. xiii + 482, illus. 25/‐. Think of Stephen—A Family Chronicle. By Ruth Bedford. Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1954. Pp. xiv + 297, illus. 25/‐. Bernard O'Dowd. By Victor Kennedy and Nettie Palmer. M.U.P., 1954. Pp. x + 194, illus. 30/‐. The Peaks of Lyell. By Geoffrey Blainey. Melbourne University Press, 1954. Pp. x + 290. 30/‐. Friends and Neighbours. Australia and the World. By the Rt. Hon. R. G. Casey, C.H., D.S.O., M.C., M.P. F. W. Cheshire, Melbourne, 1954. Pp. 166. Social Structure and Personality in a City. Edited by O. A. Oeser and S. B. Hammond. Social Structure and Personality in a Rural Community. Edited by O. A. Oeser and F. E. Emery. Two volumes of Studies of Social Behaviour carried out in Australia by staff and students of the Department of Psychology, University of Melbourne. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1954. Pp. xxii + 344; xiii + 279. 79/3. Wainewright in Tasmania. By Robert Crossland, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1954. Pp. vii + 166. 22/6. The Records of Western Australia, Vol. I. By F. K. Crowley. Publications Committee of the University of Western Australia, Perth, 1953. Pp. 1094. 63/‐. The Origins of the Eastern Goldfields Water Scheme in Western Australia: an exercise in the interpretation of historical evidence. By F. Alexander, F. K. Crowley and J. D. Legge. University of W.A. Press, 1954. Pp. 154. 5/‐.

Auguste Rodin and His English Friends, 1885-1889

In the long and stormy life of Auguste Rodin, a special interest attaches to the period of the 1880's. The sculptor was then at the height of his power; his greatness was recognized. In 1881 he was commissioned by the Ministry of Fine Arts to produce the entrance-door of the new Musee des Arts decoratifs, and it was thus that he conceived La Porte de l'Enfer. This—the richest, if not the greatest, of his masterpieces—was to be twenty years in the making. As the door was to be twenty feet high and his studio in the Rue des Fourneaux was not large enough, the government allotted him the use of Studio J at the Depot des Marbres in the rue de l'Universite. In 1884 the Municipal Council of Calais decided to set up in their city a group of statuary representing the burghers of Calais on their way to the camp of Edward III—the famous episode in Froissart. Rodin was approached, and, being entrusted with the work in 1885, undertook to complete it in 1886.