War Of Succession Research Articles

Calderón, Anero Puente y la escritura de la historia

The play Luis Perez el gallego. Segunda parte, written by the Sevillian soldier and erudite Manuel de Anero Puente and staged in Madrid in 1717, constitutes one of the most unique episodes in the history of early modern theater during its most immediate posterity. With Calderon de la Barca's death (1681) fresh in the collective memory, and still without a defined set of parameters regarding the aesthetic preferences of the new century, Anero Puente took over Calderon's unfinished project, namely, a segunda parte to his piece Luis Perez el gallego (1629) that was promised, but never written. Anero Puente's sequel, however, emancipated itself from the Baroque model, placing its protagonist not as a bandit in Philip II's time as Calderon had done, but rather as an imperial soldier fighting under Charles V in the famous attack on La Goleta (1535). His play, I argue in this essay, responded to a moment of great political and literary uncertainty, still in the aftermath of the War of Succession (1701-1714), and with the theater scene in need of local heroes. Ultimately, I read this Luis Perez el gallego as a text that provides a fascinating wrinkle in Spain's intellectual history, for it allows us to reflect on the ethical and political responsibility of the sequel as a critical intervention that simultaneously rejects and celebrates the model it departs from.

The History of US-Japan Relations: From Perry to the Present ed. by Tosh Minohara

Reviewed by: The History of US-Japan Relations: From Perry to the Present ed. by Tosh Minohara Peter Mauch The History of US-Japan Relations: From Perry to the Present. Edited by Tosh Minohara. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. 352 pages. Hardcover, €88.39/¥12,317; softcover, €25.99/¥3,509. This overview of the Japanese-US relationship throughout history is an English translation of Nichibei kankei shi (Yūhikaku, 2008), a Japanese-language volume edited by preeminent diplomatic historian Iokibe Makoto and containing chapter-length contributions by teams of Iokibe's students and associates, including Kusunoki Ayako and Shibayama Futoshi. The translation, which has been ably edited by Tosh Minohara (himself one of Iokibe's many students), was sponsored by the Japan Publishing Industry Foundation for Culture as part of its ambitious Japan Library collection. The book under review is a worthy addition to the series, especially when considered as a text for the undergraduate classroom. The work opens, logically enough, with the arrival in Edo Bay of Commodore Matthew Perry's Black Ships. Chapter 1 introduces the reader to Japan's mid-nineteenth-century entry into the international order conceived and dominated by the West, and it does a good job of locating the Japanese-US relationship within that broader context. Chapter 2 deals with the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including Japan's successful wars against China and Russia and the United States' victory over the Spanish. It gives genuine insight into this intensely interesting period in relations between the two countries, which was characterized by the coincidental arrival of both "at the center stage of international politics" (p. 23). The next two chapters move on to a time of increasing trans-Pacific friction. Chapter 3, which concerns itself with the years before, during, and after World War I, is particularly lucid in its treatment of the "race issue" (pp. 46–49, 60–61). Chapter 4 opens with a brief but illuminating summary of Prime Minister Hara Takashi's foreign policy, followed by a discussion of the Japanese-US relationship through the Washington Conference and beyond. At that conference, the two nations, together with Britain, limited naval armaments according to the ratio of 5:5:3 for the United States, Britain, and Japan and also agreed not to interfere in Chinese politics, allowing Japan and the United States to "revert to a policy of mutual cooperation" (p. 69). The chapter discusses these as well as less positive currents, most notably the problem of Japanese immigration to the US. [End Page 305] Chapter 5 begins with an account of the "differing approaches to China" taken by the two countries (p. 83). It documents Japanese aggression toward China from the 1931 Manchurian Incident onward and the US response thereto, moving seamlessly into a discussion of Japan's subsequent designs on Southeast Asia and the crisis these events precipitated in Japanese-US relations. Readers will doubtless find the analysis valuable, although the parts on Foreign Minister Matsuoka Yōsuke's foreign policy may come across as confusing. Why did Matsuoka conclude the Japanese-Soviet Neutrality Pact and set Japan on a course to "pursue its southward advance policy" (p. 96) if he genuinely hoped to avoid war with the United States? Why did he, almost as soon as he concluded the neutrality pact, abandon the southward advance policy and instead urge military action against the Soviets? This is particularly puzzling if, as the authors suggest, Matsuoka was aware even before the conclusion of the pact "that Germany planned to . . . open up a new front against the Soviets" (p. 96). Such questions are not meant to imply that the authors are wrong in their assessment of Matsuoka's actions; rather, the confusion perhaps indicates the difficulties inherent in summarizing Matsuoka's complicated and (frankly) incoherent policies. This reviewer admits to having read chapter 6, on the Pacific War and the subsequent military occupation of Japan, with particular interest. In a nod to Iokibe's scholarship, the chapter focuses less on battles and military successes and losses than on wartime planning in Washington (and, to a lesser extent, Tokyo) for the postwar future. It provides a neat overview of the endgame...

Producing and Maintaining Minority “Groupness” through State Effects: Teaching in Croatian in Serbia

AbstractThis article ethnographically examines the situation surrounding the teaching of Croatian in Serbia. It analyzes the discourses and efforts of minority activists in promoting Croatian culture and language in various ways, specifically drawing on fieldwork conducted in a school where three mutually intelligible language varieties—Serbian, Croatian, and Bunjevac—were taught. Instruction in Croatian has been offered in Serbia since 2002 through a minority rights framework. However, prior to the wars of Yugoslav succession in the 1990s, those identifying as Croat were not considered a minority in [the] Socialist Yugoslavia, as it was a South Slavic federation. The number of children enrolling in Croatian minority programs in Serbia is small, and of those who attend them, a significant number do not come to identify as Croatian, a fact that many minority activists consider to be a problem. The article is organized in four parts. First, the context and various perspectives are introduced through an ethnographic vignette. Second, the research context and legal and institutional framework are introduced. Activist perspectives are then discussed, including tensions present. Finally, Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s concept of “state effects” is presented and elaborated with respect to the case study, and the various efforts of activists in trying to promote and/or maintain Croatian “groupness” are evaluated.

«Como si absolutamente no hubiese intervenido tal guerra»: Economía familiar y negociación femenina durante la Guerra de Sucesión española.

Este artículo aborda, a través de un estudio de caso, el papel jugado por figuras femeninas en la recuperación del patrimonio familiar tras su pérdida debido a un conflicto bélico. La familia Silva, de origen portugués, mantuvo el consulado español en Livorno durante más de un siglo. A inicios del siglo XVIII perdió su feudo como consecuencia de la Guerra de Sucesión española (1701-1713). En efecto, Andrés de Silva, cónsul español en Livorno, obtuvo el título de marqués de la Banditela con feudo en el Estado de los Reales Presidios en Toscana. Tras la ocupación de estos territorios por las tropas austrascistas en 1707, la familia puso en marcha sus contactos y agentes para poder recuperar la jurisdicción sobre estas propiedades con lo que se orquestaba la articulación de un amplio espacio. En este artículo se analiza, por tanto, no solamente la promoción social de esta familia, sino también los efectos producidos por este conflicto bélico sucesorio y las estrategias para la recuperación del patrimonio familiar. Se pretenderá calibrar el impacto del viaje de Maria de Grunembergh (viuda del cónsul) por España e Italia con el objetivo de preservar los intereses familiares.

Ordeno y mando: los gobernadores militares de frontera en la Extremadura de la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII

La victoria borbónica en la Guerra de Sucesión Española (1701-1714) agudizó el proceso de centralización institucional. Esta política se tradujo en la militarización de la administración territorial y, por ende, de las plazas fronterizas del Reino. Para la consecución de este propósito, la monarquía situó al frente de los diferentes gobiernos a oficiales del Ejército y, en este contexto, las tierras extremeñas estuvieron sujetas a este proceso desde el inicio del siglo XVIII a causa de su proximidad con la Raya portuguesa.

El factor humano en la defensa de Gijón frente al austracismo. 1700-1712

Se trata de analizar la respuesta del Ayuntamiento de una importante villa marinera del Cantábrico ante las urgencias de la Guerra de Sucesión, destacando las distintas actitudes de sus elites combinando los ámbitos defensivo, económico y social a través de un estudio exhaustivo de las fuentes primarias. Así se llega a observar distintos comportamientos, propuestas y respuestas oficiales en la relación con el gobierno del Principado y la Corona, según los temores o tranquilidad de la población, en el contexto de lo que fue una molesta carga, tanto en levas como económica, a la que hubo de resignarse.

The Rise of the Hindu Religious Factor in Indian Politics and State Theory

We are living in an age of reaffirmation and revival of religious/national and cultural identities as a reaction to the sweeping onslaught of socio-economic, cultural and technological globalization. In India the demand for a definition of national identity based on Hinduism or on Hindutva (Hinduness) predates the achievement of independence in 1947 and it was gradually reinforced by successive political crises, such as the partition between India and Pakistan, successive wars with Pakistan, the continuing separatist agitation in the Kashmir Valley and the rise of large-scale Islamist terrorism since the 11th of September 2001 if not before. Historically a distinction has been made between Hinduism, as the religion and way of life of more than a billion people in India and in other countries and Hindutva, a cultural ideology and a sociopolitical doctrine which defines a modernized version of Hindu or in broader sense Indic civilisation (encompassing Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and other indigenous minority religions). Many Hindus do not accept the premises or least the political theory of Hindutva whereas Hindutva proponents may not be ‘believers’ in the ritual and theological aspects of Hindu Dharma and may define themselves as sceptics, materialists or atheists. However they conceive of the common Hindu national civilisation and millenary historical heritage as the cement that can bind the country’s diverse people together and they usually reject the ‘secular’ view that India is the home of a composite culture forged out of many domestic and foreign elements and consisting of diverse ethnic groups which were brought together as a nation by British colonization. This paper succinctly retraces the evolution and expansion of Hindu nationalism in the politics of the country and distinguishes between the various nuances of the ideology which is now the source of inspiration for the National Democratic Alliance led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It strives to answer the often asked question: Is India becoming a Hindu State?

Leopold I, Louis XIV, William III and the Origins of the War of the Spanish Succession

AbstractDrawing on the correspondence of contemporary rulers and diplomats and on the work of modern European and American historians, this article reinterprets the origins of the War of the Spanish Succession by examining the triangular relationship between Leopold I, Louis XIV and William III during the last quarter of the seventeenth century. It disposes of two ‘myths’: namely that Leopold I and William III were natural allies and that Louis XIV and William III were natural enemies. During the Dutch War and the Nine Years War, relations between the allies William and Leopold were strained for various reasons. And although William regarded Louis XIV as his main rival after the Peace of Nijmegen (1678), at Rijswijk (1697) his relationship with Louis improved significantly. This resulted in two treaties between Louis and William partitioning the Spanish Empire after the death of Carlos II. Leopold I, who took no part in the treaty negotiations, refused to accept the second treaty, which widened the rift between him and the stadholder‐king. As William III refused to force Leopold I to accept the second treaty, Louis XIV accepted Carlos II's will, which left the Spanish inheritance to Philip of Anjou, Louis's grandson. When Louis XIV started to behave like a Spanish king and invaded the Spanish Netherlands, whose independence was the cornerstone of William's foreign policy, a rapprochement between Leopold and William took place, leading to the renewal of their former alliance and the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession.

Australian Involvement in the Malayan Emergency

Australian defence and foreign policy experienced a great shift in 1942. From that year on, the nation began to think of itself as an independent entity, and a key player in Southeast Asia. The first armed conflict that Australian units participated in after the end of the Second World War was the Malayan Emergency, where all service branches contributed forces to the successful counterinsurgency war. The aim of this article is, firstly to look at the events and factors that initiated this shift in Australian policy, and secondly to analyse the forces the nation committed to fighting the Emergency. This analysis includes the fighting forces of the Royal Australian Air Force, the Army as well as the Navy.

Perpetual peace and shareholder sovereignty: the political thought of José de Carvajal y Lancaster

ABSTRACTThis article contributes to the recent historiography on Enlightenment plans for European peace by shedding light on the political and intellectual work of the neglected Spanish minister and intellectual José Carvajal y Lancaster. The article begins by outlining the intellectual context surrounding the War of Spanish Succession, and proceeds to analyse the ways that Carvajal deployed, both in his texts and in power, Enlightenment ideals to reform the Spanish Empire and achieve perpetual peace in Europe. The ideas of his first work, his Testamento Político, revealed the ways that the logic of joint-stock companies could catalyse the reform of the Spanish Empire. His measures in government, in turn, illustrated how international cooperation could be mutually beneficial, but turned on his fraught relationship with the future Marquis of Pombal. Finally, his text Mis Pensamientos, written in 1753, envisaged a formal commercial and political coalition between the Spanish and the British Empires. Carvajal’s vision for European peace was at once utopian and clear-eyed, and the ideas behind his plan persist as demanding questions for our age.

Territorio, inundaciones y defensa en Flandes: los proyectos de Verboom y Vauban para las fortificaciones de Lier en 1702

La Guerra de Sucesión en Flandes fue un escenario idóneo para la formación técnica del ingeniero militar Jorge Próspero Verboom. Si durante la Guerra de la Cuádruple Alianza se enfrentó a Vauban en el asedio y defensa de plazas, ambos ingenieros trabajaron juntos para la causa felipista al inicio del siglo XVIII. Pronto se vio la necesidad de realizar un ambicioso proyecto para la ciudad de Lier, que modificaba su implantación en el territorio, y la gestión de las inundaciones de áreas circundantes a la ciudad a través de un complejo sistema de esclusas. Lier se incorporaba así a la generación de una línea de fortificaciones —la ligne de Boufflers— que se prestaban apoyo logístico mutuo en la frontera norte de Flandes con Holanda. Estas páginas analizan el proyecto que redactó Verboom, y que Vauban alabó por su calidad técnica y adaptación a los recursos disponibles. Se aporta una valiosa planta, ejemplo excepcional en historia de la ingeniería militar, que recoge las propuestas de Verboom y las correcciones que estableció Vauban.

Paper trail: slavery and governance in the Spanish Empire

ABSTRACTThis article explores the role of the Spanish legal ecology in maintaining social cohesion, bolstering the popular legitimacy of the imperial project, and setting the boundaries of economic development. Drawing the connections between Hapsburg and Bourbon governance through two (inconclusive) legal cases, the first lasting throughout the Spanish War of Succession (1700–1713), and the second occurring during the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763). The ambiguity of missing appeals and references to previous legal actions corresponds to the reality for Africans and their descendants in the Spanish Indies for whom there was rarely a clear endpoint in their dealings with the courts. The first case follows two sisters, Maria Josefa Copete and Lorenza Elena, as they defend their freedom against their half-brother. In the second case Nicolás Quintana, an African slave, fights to avoid being sent to the gold mines and separated from his family.

The Advantage of Legal Diversity for State Formation: Bourbon Reforms and Aragonese Law in Eighteenth-Century Spain

Most theories of state formation emphasize the advantages of legal uniformity for the development of early modern states. The Bourbon monarchy in eighteenth-century Spain demonstrates alternative possibilities because Philip V created a more unified legal system in the kingdoms of Valencia and Aragon in 1707 only to reinstate the distinctive Aragonese civil law in 1711. Philip pursued this change in policy because the difficulties caused by changing Aragonese civil law undercut his support among the local elite, while reinstating these laws increased the dependence of these elite upon the success of the king in the War of Spanish Succession (1700–1714). Philip V’s policies following 1711 demonstrate a consistent interest in securing the support of the local elite over the desire to unify the divergent civil laws throughout his kingdoms. For these reasons, selective legal diversity proved a compelling approach to governing. The persistence of these regional variations in law contributes to broader theories of state formation by demonstrating the potential benefits of legal diversity.

What Comes After ISIS: A Sociological Analysis of Radicalisation into Violent Extremism

If we can determine what drives people to commit such heinous crimes, it is suggested, perhaps we can change their behaviour. While it has been nearly two decades since the beginning of the global war on terrorism, the experiences gained in successive processes have revealed the fact that destroying terrorists in the battlefield is not a sufficient measure to neutralize the global threat of violent extremism. Even if a terrorist organization is deactivated in the battlefield—as is the case with Al-Qaida and ISIS examples—similar extremist ideas can proliferate in a different domain with a different organization. In this respect, along with the physical efforts exhibited in the combat zone, a successful war on violent extremism should also strategically focus on why individuals adopt and internalize the extremist visions and, in turn, engage in terrorist acts. To put it another way, as Borum emphasized, we should “seek to understand not only what people think, but how they come to think what they think, and, ultimately, how they progress—or not—from thinking to action.” This perspective provides an important hint regarding how to prevent the emergence of a new terrorist organization and to avert individuals’ acceptance of radical views after the ISIS falls. If we can clearly lay bare how individuals come to adopt radical views and participate in ISIS—in particular, and terrorist organizations—in general, we can take effective precautions to overcome this crucial issue. In line with this viewpoint, this policy report seeks an answer to the question of how we can stem the tide of a reemergence of violent extremist views after the fall of ISIS. Extant academic research and policy reports have exerted a notable effort in explaining the triggers of participation in terrorist organizations. Some studies—especially studies from political science—have generally concentrated on the role of the ideology and religion. Yet, the ideological transformation almost always takes place after joining a radical group and the ideology functions merely as a vehicle to be a violent extremist. The main question should be why these individuals feel a need to belong to a radical group and to which processes they are exposed until deciding to join radical groups. The “ideology” approach is therefore not sufficient to explain involvement in violent extremism. Explanations of religion as a trigger of violent extremism are also problematic. Recently, several academic studies demonstrated that religion was seldom, if ever, the root cause of violent extremism. Along with these researches, some other studies examined the issue from a sociological perspective and prioritized illiteracy as the main cause of violent extremism. While this approach could be utilized for extremists who reside in Western countries, however, the unique case of ISIS clearly showed us that the average educational attainment of its members was higher than that of the public in source countries. Aforementioned studies have generally failed to present a comprehensive model that explains the social processes and accounts for the variability of individual and social-structural factors—facilitating the engagement in violent extremist actions—for different extremists residing in different countries. Thus, the current study intends to fill this gap through providing a comprehensive sociological model which would be suitable for explaining the process of radicalization both for individuals who reside in source countries (Middle East) and for those who reside in Western countries. To sum up, the purpose of this policy report is two-fold: (1) to elucidate the nature of the sociological process by which an individual adopts radical views, joins an extremist organization, and engage in violence; and (2) to extend policy recommendations towards the effective sociological measures that should be taken to undermine the process that might culminate in violent extremism.

Game of Thrones: Solomon’s ‘Succession Narrative’ and Esarhaddon’s Accession to the Throne

In this study I re-examine the vast literature that has grown around the work that Leonhard Rost called “the succession to the throne of David” (the Succession Narrative, or SN). I suggest that the SN is a unified literary composition that originally included 2 Samuel 13–19 and 1 Kings 1–2 and that it was composed at the time of King Manasseh in the first half of the 7th century BCE. The course of events rests in part on occurrences that took place in Assyria during the last years of Sennacherib and the early days of Esarhaddon. The author borrowed elements from an Assyrian oral story and fitted them to a plot he devised. In this creative manner he was able to adapt some major elements from the story of Esarhaddon’s accession to the throne and transplant them within his own work. Years later, the Deuteronomist wrote the story of David and Urijah, which culminates with Nathan’s prophecy of doom to David (2 Sam 11:2–12:25) and inserted it after the account of David’s successful wars against Israel’s neighbours. In this manner he explained the shift from the period of David’s rise and prosperity to the period of decline and the struggle among the members of the royal family over their father’s throne.

The 1717 Convention of Amsterdam according to French Diplomatic Archives

The Amsterdam Convention, a treaty marking the alliance and mutual guarantees between France, Russia and Prussia and signed in Amsterdam on 15 August 1717, was, over the coming centuries, celebrated in France as the cornerstone of a permanent alliance which would withstand the vicissitudes of the revolutionary and imperial periods. While the impact of the treaty was limited in the short run, it was nevertheless the result of the tsar’s wish to integrate Russia into the new European order determined by the Treaties of Utrecht (1713) and Rastatt (1714) at the end of the War of Spanish Succession. In proposing this alliance, Peter I wished to detach Sweden from France, his ally from the time of Richelieu, or even take Sweden’s place in a diplomatic game where France needed to find a counterweight to the Holy Roman emperor’s power on the continent. He enlisted Prussia to assuage the misgivings of the regent and his minister Dubois, who were first concerned about preserving the triple alliance formed on 4 January 1717 in The Hague with their erstwhile enemies England and Holland. The analysis of the treaty documents kept in the Archives of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs provides valuable data as to the conditions of the first official negotiations between the two countries as well as what set them apart: Peter’s firm ambition to be legally recognised as a sovereign with power equal to that of the European princes. The seal of this triple alliance thus found itself confronted with a ceremonial issue: due to the refusal of the tsar and the Prussian king to give precedence to the other, the treaty did not take the form of three copies of a single text with three signatures on each, but a more complex form of six copies signed by the representatives of only two powers in order to uphold the principle of equality. The file kept in the French Diplomatic Archives thus contains two instruments with identical texts, one signed by France and Prussia, the other by France and Russia: it is this inseparable pair of documents that gave power to the triple alliance. The six articles and three secret articles of the text provided for a “close union” between the three sovereigns and brought their people together through trade advantages as the most privileged nation. However, the instrument still reflects France’s initial reservations, namely that the convention should not challenge the English alliance and France would only commit to acting as a mediator for re-establishing peace in the north (secret articles). It did, however, create favourable conditions for opening permanent embassies in the two countries.

Lexicon of Tanjas Ostojic and feminism in transition

The text examines artist Tanja Ostojic?s interdisciplinary research project entitled Lexicon of Tanjas Ostojic, in the light of feminist materialist theories, participatory art, and socio-political analysis of the former Yugoslav region. Tanja Ostojic decided to frame her project around the lives of women who share her first and last name. Ostojic?s name-sisters became her collaborators as the work turned into a large-scale, long-term project involving 33 women and their personal histories. The women all share a mutual connection to the Yugoslav region that has directly or indirectly shaped their lives through its turbulent recent history. Artist?s intent was to use the stories encountered by collaborating with her name-sisters as a foil to uncover and highlight the connecting personal narratives following Yugoslav wars of succession in the 1990s and in doing so point to the detrimental legacies of war and transition on women?s lives. In this article, author?s main argument borrows from Karen Barad?s discursive-material ontology to point out that Lexicon activates a form of material feminism which functions intra-actively, in other words, in both its form and content the work recognizes that women?s lives are continuously constituted and re-constituted through multiple linguistic and material formations, or through complex relationships between humans, non-humans, and various discursive and material contexts. In using materialist feminist analysis, the author argues that Lexicon gives primacy to women?s agency and proposes a sustained, growing forms of resistance to the forms of post-socialist exploitation.

Los nuevos gobernantes de la Monarquía borbónica o el mundo de relaciones y servicios de Bruno Mauricio de Zavala (1682-1736)

El reinado de Felipe V supuso un momento de importantes cambios en la Monarquía hispánica. La aplicación de las primeras reformas también conllevó el cambio de las elites gobernantes, donde los colectivos periféricos fueron privilegiados por su especial lealtad a la causa borbónica durante la Guerra de Sucesión. Entre ellos, vascos y navarros fueron especialmente privilegiados, alcanzando las más cotas de poder, Así le sucedió a Bruno Mauricio de Zavala, que alcanzó los más altos cargos en la jerarquía militar y estuvo al frente de la gobernación de Buenos Aires. Familias, negocios, capitales, patrocinios, vínculos, servidumbres, contactos en la corte o servicio al rey fueron elementos fundamentales para conocer las formas de gobierno de la Monarquía de principios del siglo XVIII, lo que ayudará a desentrañar los fundamentos de la carrera del fundador de la ciudad de Montevideo como uno de los hombres principales de Felipe V.

A model for warfare in stratified small-scale societies: The effect of within-group inequality.

In order to predict the features of non-raiding human warfare in small-scale, socially stratified societies, we study a coalitionary model of war that assumes that individuals participate voluntarily because their decisions serve to maximize fitness. Individual males join the coalition if war results in a net economic and thus fitness benefit. Within the model, viable offensive war ensues if the attacking coalition of males can overpower the defending coalition. We assume that the two groups will eventually fuse after a victory, with ranks arranged according to the fighting abilities of all males and that the new group will adopt the winning group’s skew in fitness payoffs. We ask whether asymmetries in skew, group size and the amount of resources controlled by a group affect the likelihood of successful war. The model shows, other things being equal, that (i) egalitarian groups are more likely to defeat their more despotic enemies, even when these are stronger, (ii) defection to enemy groups will be rare, unless the attacked group is far more despotic than the attacking one, and (iii) genocidal war is likely under a variety of conditions, in particular when the group under attack is more egalitarian. This simple optimality model accords with several empirically observed correlations in human warfare. Its success underlines the important role of egalitarianism in warfare.

"Networks of Diplomacy and Trade in the Contested Florida Borderlands"

"Networks of Diplomacy and Trade in the Contested Florida Borderlands" Diana ReigelspergeriD When Cuban engineer Antonio de Arredondo debarked from his ship and set foot on the docks in St. Augustine in August of 1736, he might have been surprised by the three British ships he likely noticed in port.1 Unlicensed trade with British ships was illegal in the Spanish colonies, although smuggling and contraband trade were common. The city of St. Augustine, the capital of Spanish Florida, was isolated from regular Spanish commercial traffic and had long relied on illicit trade to fill the gap when supplies ran short. Nevertheless, the openness of these operations might have caught Arredondo's attention. If the large number of foreign ships did not surprise him, then the stores openly selling British goods and British citizens wandering the city certainly would have. Spanish authorities in Florida were in the midst of tense negotiations with the British over the settlement of Georgia, the colony recently established to the north. Arredondo had been sent by the governor of Cuba to order the governor of Georgia, James Oglethorpe, to withdraw from Georgia completely. He was also there to survey the Florida fortifications in case the conflict devolved into war, and he might have found it alarming that British visitors could easily explore the city and do the same. Or perhaps he was not surprised at all. Arredondo had also been given a secret directive to investigate the administration of Florida's governor, Francisco del Moral y Sánchez, for openly violating trade laws, mismanaging religious affairs, and imprisoning anyone who opposed him.2 Governor Moral y Sánchez had assumed leadership in Florida in 1734, in the midst of a decade shaped by border conflicts. Spanish maps had once claimed most of the eastern seaboard as "La Florida", but these claims had been dramatically reduced by encroaching English settlement over the years. This circumscription of Spanish territory culminated in 1713 with the end of the War of Spanish Succession. British invasions had reduced effective Spanish control to the capital at St. Augustine and its immediate surroundings. In the subsequent years, royal authorities labored to repopulate the colony and fortify it against European rivals and their indigenous allies, though with limited success.3 In 1733, the establishment of Georgia added a new facet to the Anglo-Spanish conflict over territory in the Southeast. British settlers and soldiers were closer than ever before. [End Page 511] British agents expanded their trade networks with the native chiefdoms of the region, undermining the Spanish sphere of influence.4 Yet even as the contest for territorial control developed, St. Augustine also became enmeshed in the rapidly growing trans-imperial economy that connected so many parts of the Atlantic world. Both legal and illicit trade expanded.5 Despite trade regulations, this commerce became central to the economic success (and sometimes survival) of colonies with limited resources like Florida and Georgia. By the middle of the eighteenth century, Florida routinely relied on British trade goods. Such trade was also beneficial to larger colonies like South Carolina that enjoyed having local export markets.6 Had Arredondo seen four, five, or even six ships in the harbor, it might have been a typical day. The presence of many foreign ships in colonial Florida has long been recognized by historians.7 In the surviving records of maritime traffic, the names of ships and ship captains change frequently, giving the impression of a diversity of traders in the customs and naval logs. Records of ship owners, however, reveal that the bulk of the city's commerce was influenced by a small handful of merchants. Each of these merchants operated multiple ships that travelled all over the eastern seaboard and the Caribbean, making regular stops in St. Augustine. The unusual administration of Governor Moral y Sánchez enabled them to gain a foothold within the Spanish community itself by setting up resident agents and permanent stores. As a result, some of them became enmeshed in the political and commercial landscape of the colony. In the case of the Florida-Georgia border negotiations, commercial networks facilitated diplomatic relations. As the Spanish and British moved closer to war...