The balance-of-power idea became a crucial concept in the discourse of international affairs by the mid-seventeenth century. Nonetheless, the concept of balance of power was not even explicitly referenced in the Peace of Westphalia (1648). Instead, the legal principles of status quo ante and uti possidetis reigned supreme. Even though the balance-of-power principle was not mentioned in the Peace of Westphalia, it was often referenced during the negotiations and its implicit presence or practical balance of power was evident in the (...) treaties trying to reach stability in the inter-state system. Several alliances, concluded mostly against France and Louis XIV in the second half of the seventeenth century, implied the balance of power and, more specifically, the balance of sea power. The paper argues that the balancing process became less theoretical and more pragmatic as evidenced by interactive alliance treaties that established reciprocal responsibilities and numerical equilibrium. By the Peace of Utrecht (1713), the balance of power or the balance of Europe became a leading principle and it was referenced repeatedly in the treaties in different languages. The paper traces the balance-of-power idea from the diplomatic background to the diplomatic foreground as the idea moved from natural law to positive law. (shrink)

SummaryThe aim of this article is to shed light on some elements of the context in which the Dutch translation of the British Merchant of 1728 was published. At first sight the translation appears to be a straightforward mercantile handbook. No additions are made to the English language original of 1721, other than a set of tables. Yet, precisely in this mercantile function lies a different political significance. The argument of this article, built up through contextual reconstruction and analysis of (...) a number of pamphlets, trade handbooks and periodicals, is that the Historie van den algemenen en bijzonderen koophandel van Groot Brittannien provided an instrument to its Dutch readers, presumably consisting to a large extent of merchants and politicians, for coming to grips with the reality of international commerce that had emerged following the War of the Spanish Succession. Understanding, and subsequently being able to react to, the recent history of British trade and Hanoverian commercial politics had by the 1720s become a key factor in the development of Dutch trade and of the new outlooks on international politics that were required to preserve the Republic. The article suggests that the publisher of the Dutch translation of the British Merchant, a Huguenot from Delft, along with other Dutch Huguenot publishers tended to translate and publish specific texts that paved the way for a commercial politics that combined allegiance to Britain and Austria with a vision of European trade that was of French origin and contrasted with British principles of foreign trade. (shrink)

This book is the first study to engage with the relationship between cosmopolitan political thought and the history of global conflicts. Accompanied by visual material ranging from critical battle painting to the photographic representation of ruins, it showcases established as well as emerging interdisciplinary scholarship in global political thought and cultural history. Touching on the progressive globalization of conflicts between the eighteenth and the twentieth century, including the War of the Spanish Succession, the Seven Years’ War, the Napoleonic (...) wars, the two World Wars, as well as seemingly ‘internal’ civil wars in eastern Europe’s imperial frontiers, it shows how these conflicts produced new zones of cultural contact. The authors build on a rich foundation of unpublished sources drawn from public institutions as well as private archives, allowing them to shed new light on the British, Russian, German, Ottoman, American, and transnational history of international thought and political engagement. (shrink)

Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, was the mastermind behind the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 that ended the War of the Spanish Succession, and a lifelong rival of Britain’s first Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole. He is also known for his political use of history based on the saying of Dionysius of Halicarnassus: ‘history is a philosophy teaching by examples’. While much scholarly attention has been paid to Bolingbroke’s historical criticism of Walpole’s Whig oligarchy, his discussion of European (...) international history has been treated as a mere vindication of the Treaty of Utrecht, thus not meriting further investigation. This article reconstructs Bolingbroke’s writings on European politics as a history of British foreign policy. Arguing that his focus was on Britain’s role in maintaining the balance of power, this article demonstrates that, contrary to popular belief, Bolingbroke attacked the Hanoverian government not for its involvement in European politics per se but for its abandonment of the Old System of William III against France. Bolingbroke believed history was repeating itself. As the Stuarts had helped France achieve hegemony half a century ago, the Hanoverians enabled France to regain supremacy in their pursuit of private interests, re-disrupting the European balance of power. (shrink)

Historical re-enactment is an emerging social practice in the knowledge society, and it helps us better understand aspects of the past and heritage. The knowledge gained through historical recreation contributes to the construction of quality citizenship. The deepening of democratic values requires that educational systems commit to the promotion of critical citizenship. Service-learning constructively develops experiences that connect science, education and society. Our research describes a systematized praxis of historical recreation. It has been developed by university students, and it has (...) been carried out from the perspective of service-learning, in a manner consistent with the concepts of public history and public archaeology, to contribute to the promotion and defense of heritage history and the preservation of historical memory. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

Fanny Bré was a volunteer nurse in the International Brigades, who fought in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) on the side of the democratically elected Republican government. The objective of this study is to understand the relationship between Bré's antifascist ideas, her conception of care and the activities she carried out in the Spanish hospitals of Casa Roja (Murcia), Villa Paz (Selices, Cuenca) and Vic (Barcelona). We use narrative biography to describe Bré's personal, political and professional trajectory. To (...) do so, we conducted a content analysis of primary sources archived in Spain, Russia and France and secondary sources that emerged from a thorough literature review. We identified three thematic axes: (1) a concept of nursing in the service of the antifascist struggle, (2) nursing activity for high‐quality care and (3) political action for improving hospital organisation and care. The interest of Bré's texts transcends the war in Spain because, in them, Bré questions the neutrality of care by revealing that care can itself be a political act. (shrink)

In early modern times, solar eclipses were feared events that gave rise to much astrological speculation, even though these events could already be predicted long in advance. Around 1700, the situation was already different. Astrology had lost its status as a science and had largely been pushed out of the universities. On the other hand solar eclipses had become very important for cartography. From the beginning and end times of the eclipse at different locations, the differences of their geographical coordinates (...) could be calculated. The changed situation can be illustrated perfectly by the eclipses of August 12, 1654 and May 12, 1706. Whereas in 1654 there were still many astrologically influenced warnings, in 1706 there was great calm in this respect, and instead numerous astronomers tried to record the event correctly and compare their results with those of other observers. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show how modern genetics reached Spain through the Junta para la Ampliación de Estudios e Investigaciones Científicas (JAE) during the decade of 1920s, the role played by key persons, and the level of development this discipline achieved from its different points of inception and under the conditions of financial scarcity and political turmoil that prevailed during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). In addition, the effect of the war on the continuity of the (...) lines of research already began is outlined, identifying the main area in which genetics first reappeared: agronomy. (shrink)

Petro Marko (1913-1991) was an Albanian journalist, writer and communist activist, who volunteered in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War. Afterwards, he was imprisoned in the island of Ustica by the Italian occupiers of Albania during the Second World War and was briefly imprisoned by the communist regime of Albania in the late 1940s. Afterwards he worked as a journalist and a writer, being closely surveyed by the communist regime. The Spanish experience was the most important (...) formative period throughout Marko’s stormy life, through which he was able to stay faithful to his communist and internationalist beliefs in the face of fascism and one of the most totalitarian and isolationist regimes in Europe. Marko wrote about the International Brigades in his most prominent novel, Hasta la Vista, and in his posthumously published autobiography. This paper will investigate these works by putting them in the historical context of the events themselves and of the time of the writing process. The aim is to look into how internationalism moulded his own identity, but also how this ideal was presented publicly under a communist regime that was becoming more and more isolated and xenophobic. (shrink)

When the Japanese invaded Joseon at the end of the sixteenth century, a Spanish Jesuit priest, Gregorio de Céspedes, S.J. , stayed in the Japanese fortress in Ungcheon with Japanese soldiers. While Céspedes is celebrated as the first European who allegedly came with an evangelical vision of proselytizing the native Koreans, previous scholarship has inadequately acknowledged Céspedes’ role without consideration of his concrete actions in the Japanese fortress and of the broader context of sixteenth–century Spanish colonial expansion. An (...) examination of the Jesuit mission to sixteenth-century Japan, the role of the Spanish chaplains and their activities in foreign expeditions, and Céspedes’ activities in Joseon indicate that Céspedes was not a missionary sent to Korea, but rather an active chaplain who played a role in the larger development of church and state collaboration under Spanish colonialism. (shrink)

The possible Stoic origins of the natural rights and natural law theories of the Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius has been a subject of scholarly debate in recent years. Yet discussions about Grotian sociability tend to focus exclusively on the meaning of appetitus societatis in De Jure Praedae and De Jure Belli ac Pacis , with little reference to the historical context. Insufficient consideration has been given to the intended audience of these works, Grotius’ purpose in writing them, and the possible (...) correlation between his overarching argument and his working methods. This article examines Grotius’ use and abuse of Seneca's philosophical works in De Jure Praedae, commissioned by the directors of the Dutch East India Company in autumn 1604.The brutal murder of Sebald de Weert on the island of Ceylon in June 1603 is analyzed from a Stoic perspective in Chapter 15 of De Jure Praedae. Following his refusal to hand over Portuguese prisoners, De Weert and his crew were butchered on the beach of Batticaloa by Wilama Dharma Suriya, the ruler of the island's interior. Grotius blamed the victim. VOC commanders in monsoon Asia should suppress any residual loyalty which they might feel towards Christendom. It was imperative to conclude alliances with native rulers against the Iberian colonial powers, regardless of the rulers’ faith or their horrific treatment of prisoners. As Grotius noted in Chapter 8 of De Jure Praedae, Seneca distinguished between “two kinds of commonwealth, the world state and the city state.” Spanish and Portuguese violations of the natural law – freedom of trade and navigation in particular – deserved condign punishment for the sake of both the fellowship of mankind and, naturally, the VOC and Dutch Republic.In assessing the uses of Stoicism in De Jure Praedae, much can be learned from the physical characteristics of Ms. BPL 917 in Leiden University Library, its sole surviving manuscript copy. Seneca's philosophical works are not cited at all in the original text of Ms. BPL 917, which Grotius copied out in 1604–1605. Instead, quotations from De Ira, De Clementia and De Beneficiis appear in the top and bottom margins of folio-pages or on inserted sheets of paper, which can be dated to 1607–1608. These quotations serve to flesh out an existing argument about the VOC's just war in the East Indies. A case in point is the heavily rewritten Chapter 2. Grotius added quotations from De Clementia at the same time as he reformulated two natural laws on f. 8–9, a folio sheet inserted in or after January 1607. This was no coincidence. Revenging the past misdeeds of the Portuguese, which Grotius had described in great detail in Chapter 11, could no longer be considered the main or only priority of the VOC. Instead, Grotius contended on f. 8–9 that “evil deeds must be corrected” so as to achieve, in Seneca's words, “universal security.” Acting as a kind of global police force, the VOC should punish transgressors of the natural law on account of “that world community” envisioned by the Stoics. The practical consequences were felt during the Twelve Years Truce . Despite a cessation of arms in Europe, the VOC continued to engage in hostilities in the East Indies. The author of De Jure Praedae supported the Company on this. Like Cicero before him, he had successfully harnessed the Stoa to the cause of empire. (shrink)

Sometimes it feels as though we can control our minds. We catch ourselves looking out the window when we should be paying attention to someone talking, for example, and we purposefully return our attention to the conversation. Or we wrest our minds away from the bothersome thought of an upcoming dental appointment to focus on anything we can find that makes us less nervous. Control attempts such as these can meet with success, leaving us feeling the masters of our consciousness. (...) Yet at other times.. (shrink)

Following the successful cloning of genes for mostly rare genetic diseases in the early 1990s, there was a nearly universal enthusiasm that similar approaches could be employed to hunt down genes predisposing people to complex diseases. Around 1996, several well-funded international gene-hunting teams, enticed by the low cost of collecting biological samples and China’s enormous population, and ushered in by some well-connected Chinese intermediaries, came to China to hunt down disease susceptibility genes. This alarmed and, in some cases, enraged many (...) poorly funded Chinese scientists, who perceived them as formidable competitors. Some depicted foreign gene-hunters as greedy pilferers of the vast Chinese genetic gold mine, comparing it to the plundering of national treasures from China by invaders in the past, and called upon the government and their fellow countrymen to rise up and protect China’s genetic gold mine. Media uproar ensued, proclaiming the imminent “gene war of the century.” This article chronicles the key events surrounding this “war” and its aftermath, exposes some inherent complexities in identifying susceptibility genes for complex diseases, highlights some issues obscured or completely overlooked in the passionate and patriotic rhetoric, and debunks some misconceptions embedded in this conflict. In addition, it argues that during the entire course of this “war,” the public’s interest went conspicuously unmentioned. Finally, it articulates several lessons that can be learned from this conflict, and outlines challenges facing human genetics researchers. (shrink)

This article looks at the ways in which Spanish American women exploited the political and social turmoil of the late 18th and early 19th centuries to move beyond their traditional sphere of influence in the home. Women directly participated in the Túpac Amaru Rebellion (1780–1781) and in the Wars of Independence (1810–1825) providing funding, food supplies, infrastructure and reinforcements for the troops, and nursing the wounded. Others contributed by taking part in the physical fighting (both openly and disguised as (...) men) and a few led troops into battle. This article looks at some of the individuals behind the statistics and reveals their determination to participate despite the punishments imposed on women found guilty of disloyalty to the Spanish crown. Spanish colonial law had to be amended to ensure that women dissidents were given as equally harsh sentences as men. In the immediate post-independence period, rather than be seen as misfits or a threat to the patriarchal system, several of these women were given national awards. (shrink)

ArgumentThis paper considers some aspects of the reception and development of contemporary mathematics in Spain during the first half of the twentieth century, more specifically between 1910 and 1950. It analyzes the possible influence of scientists’ mobility in the adoption of newer views or theories. A short overview of key points of the social and scientific background in nineteenth-century Spain locates the expounded facts in an appropriate context. Three leading threads are followed. First is the consideration of the mobility of (...) some Spanish mathematicians during a period including World War I and World War II – when Spain was a theoretically neutral country – and the Spanish Civil War. Second, the emergence and socio-political behavior of a dominant mathematical group gathered around Julio Rey Pastor between 1915 and 1936 is also accounted for, as well as its continuity after the Civil War into the 1940s. Third, attention is paid to the migration or interior exile of a number of mathematicians as a consequence of the Civil War. The paper is organized around nine Tables containing information on mobility of mathematicians, doctorates awarded in the mathematical sciences, and mathematical production in Spain during this period, accompanied by statistical résumés and comments on interesting entries. The main conclusions drawn are: 1) a number of integrants of the Rey group, himself included, officially traveled to Austria, France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland – usually after having obtained doctorates and fixed positions – imported mathematical knowledge into Spain; 2) the group also managed to dominate the mathematical panorama from both the scientific and the sociological viewpoint; 3) social usages in Spanish mathematical affairs established in Spain in the years prior to the Civil War present a clear continuity under the Franco regime once the war was over. (shrink)

The possible Stoic origins of the natural rights and natural law theories of the Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius (1583–1645) has been a subject of scholarly debate in recent years. Yet discussions about Grotian sociability tend to focus exclusively on the meaning of appetitus societatis in De Jure Praedae (written in 1604–1608) and De Jure Belli ac Pacis (1625), with little reference to the historical context. Insufficient consideration has been given to the intended audience(s) of these works, Grotius’ purpose in writing (...) them, and the possible correlation between his overarching argument and his working methods. This article examines Grotius’ use and abuse of Seneca's philosophical works in De Jure Praedae, commissioned by the directors of the Dutch East India Company (or VOC) in autumn 1604. The brutal murder of Sebald de Weert on the island of Ceylon (modern-day Sri Lanka) in June 1603 is analyzed from a Stoic perspective in Chapter 15 of De Jure Praedae. Following his refusal to hand over Portuguese prisoners, De Weert and his crew were butchered on the beach of Batticaloa by Wilama Dharma Suriya, the ruler of the island's interior. Grotius blamed the victim. VOC commanders in monsoon Asia should suppress any residual loyalty which they might feel towards Christendom. It was imperative to conclude alliances with native rulers against the Iberian colonial powers, regardless of the rulers’ (lack of) faith or their horrific treatment of prisoners. As Grotius noted in Chapter 8 of De Jure Praedae, Seneca distinguished between “two kinds of commonwealth, the world state and the city state.” Spanish and Portuguese violations of the natural law – freedom of trade and navigation in particular – deserved condign punishment for the sake of both the fellowship of mankind and, naturally, the VOC and Dutch Republic. In assessing the uses of Stoicism in De Jure Praedae, much can be learned from the physical characteristics of Ms. BPL 917 in Leiden University Library, its sole surviving manuscript copy. Seneca's philosophical works are not cited at all in the original text of Ms. BPL 917, which Grotius copied out in 1604–1605. Instead, quotations from De Ira, De Clementia and De Beneficiis appear in the top and bottom margins of folio-pages or on inserted sheets of paper, which can be dated to 1607–1608. These quotations serve to flesh out an existing argument about the VOC's just war(s) in the East Indies. A case in point is the heavily rewritten Chapter 2. Grotius added quotations from De Clementia at the same time as he reformulated two natural laws on f. 8–9, a folio sheet inserted in or after January 1607. This was no coincidence. Revenging the past misdeeds of the Portuguese, which Grotius had described in great detail in Chapter 11, could no longer be considered the main or only priority of the VOC. Instead, Grotius contended on f. 8–9 that “evil deeds must be corrected” so as to achieve, in Seneca's words, “universal security.” Acting as a kind of global police force, the VOC should punish transgressors of the natural law on account of “that world community” envisioned by the Stoics. The practical consequences were felt during the Twelve Years Truce (1609–1621). Despite a cessation of arms in Europe, the VOC continued to engage in hostilities in the East Indies. The author of De Jure Praedae supported the Company on this. Like Cicero before him, he had successfully harnessed the Stoa to the cause of empire. (shrink)

continent. 2.1 (2012): 22–28. Jeroen Mettes burst onto the Dutch poetry scene twice. First, in 2005, when he became a strong presence on the nascent Dutch poetry blogosphere overnight as he embarked on his critical project Dichtersalfabet (Poet’s Alphabet). And again in 2011, when to great critical acclaim (and some bafflement) his complete writings were published – almost five years after his far too early death. 2005 was the year in which Dutch poetry blogging exploded. That year saw the foundation (...) of the influential, polemical, and populistically inclined weblog De Contrabas (The Double Bass), which became a strong force for internet poetry in Dutch in the years to follow. In the summer of that year, a lively debate raged in the aftermath of Bas Belleman’s article “ Doet poëzie er nu eindelijk toe ?” (“Does poetry finally matter now?”), on a blog specifically devoted to this question. Up to that point, the poetical debate in the Netherlands had largely been confined to literary reviews (which were often subsidized), having become mostly marginalized in more mainstream media, where poetry could be covered by only a small number of so-called authorities. As a result, literary debate had acquired a rather placid quality. Though a variety of camps with different aesthetics could be discerned, most poetical positions shared a general acceptance of poetry as a form of art somewhat apart from fundamental political concerns. Late modernists would pursue subtlety and density of reference. Others would insist poetry was best understood as a form of entertainment that should ideally be accessible and work well on the stage. Still others would insist that poetry is mostly a play with forms. Linguistically disruptive strategies were valued highly by some, but mostly for their aesthetic effect. Values of disinterested playfulness reigned supreme everywhere. Any idea that poetry could be a field in which one confronts politics and the world was decidedly marginal. This led to a climate in which most attempts at polemics were DOA, often based on far too superficial positioning and analysis. The greatest polemical debates were revolving around the question of whether poetry should be difficult or easy, with both camps defining their ideas of difficulty and accessibility in ways that were so utterly shallow as to make the entire point moot. Debates were performed, rather than engaged with. It was a postmodern hell of underarticulated poetics. Half-consciously, people were yearning for new forms of criticism that could put the oomph back into poetry. Weblogs provided for ways to explore debate directly outside of the clotted older channels of the reviews and the newspapers. Belleman’s essay and the resulting online activity had shown that there was a widespread eagerness to take poetry more seriously as a social art form. It was in this environment that Mettes started his remarkable project Dichtersalfabet . At that moment, Mettes was active mostly in academic circles, having become noted at Leiden University as a particularly gifted student of literary theory. Within the Netherlands, the field of literary theory has a very odd relationship to literature as it is practiced in the country. Academic theory tends to have a mostly international view and engage with international debates of cultural criticism, literary theory, and philosophy, with academics often publishing in English and attending conferences around the world. Literature itself however is much more concerned with domestic traditions. Consequently, in the Netherlands, there exists a language gap between academic theoretical practice (as it is studied in the literary theory departments) and literary practice (which, academically, gets studied in specialized departments of Dutch literature). The Dichtersalfabet can be seen as Mettes’s attempt to close this gap. It is also an attempt to bridge the divide between theory and practice, in which he could apply his theoretical knowledge in a very unorthodox and unacademic critical mode that moreover could reach far beyond the domain of conventional criticism. Mettes’s goal was to trace a diagonal through Dutch poetic culture, to “strangle” what he perceived to be its dominant oppressive traditions of agreeable irrelevance, in order to see whatever might be able to survive his critical assaults. But he could only do so by means of a very serious engagement with poetry itself. To this end, he would go systematically through the poetry bookshelf of the Verwijs bookshop (part of a mainstream chain of booksellers) in The Hague, buying one publication per blog item, starting from A and working his way through the alphabet, reading whatever he might encounter that way in the restaurant of the HEMA store (another big commercial chain in the country). He would subsequently write down his reading experiences, refraining however from trying to write a nuanced book review. Rather, he would write about anything that caught his attention and sparked his critical interest. This way of working would yield vast, at times somewhat rambling, dense, lively, and generally brilliant essays, in which he held no punches. He never hesitated to pull out his entire arsenal of concepts from the international theory traditions, while never degenerating into mere academic exercise and pointless intertextualities. The attempt was rather to live the poetry that he read, and to engage it with the full range of political, academic, cultural, and personal references that he had at his disposal—all that composed the individual named Jeroen Mettes as a reader. Often what he wrote would not be according to the standards of what we usually think of as a critical review of a book of poetry. Sometimes he would even be a little sloppy in his judgments of poets or representations of the books he read, for example by basing an entire essay on the blurb of a book rather than its poetry content. But what he did was always brilliant writing nonetheless—virtuoso riffs on poetic fragments randomly found within capitalist society, exposing an incisive and insistent poetical sensibility. Mettes read poetry for political reasons, to see whether poetry could offer him a way to deal with a political world he detested. The right-wing horrors of the Bush years, the Iraq war, and the turn of Dutch public opinion towards ever more conservative, narrow-minded, and xenophobic views alongside a complete failure of the political left to present any credible alternative, were weighing heavily on the times in which Mettes reported on his reading. Poetry was to measure this world, diagram it, to lay bare its inconsistencies and faults, to indicate where lines of flight might be found. Amid the ruins of a world wrecked by imperialist policies, corporate capitalism, and doctrinal neoliberalism it would have to show the possibility of a new community. And it was, through its rhythmical workings, to release the reading subject from his confinement to ideologically conditioned individuality and lead him into the immanent paradise of reading. The stakes were high. Much higher than anything Dutch poetry had seen for many years. Mettes’s blog was widely read from the start. His posts sparked lively debates. Some of these subsequently led to the publication of extensive essays on a few key poets in some literary journals, particularly Parmentier and the Flemish journal yang , for which Mettes would become a member of the editorial board, a few months after starting the Dichtersalfabet . This could have been the start of a brilliant career, but this was not to be. The initial manic energy that fueled the blog gradually subsided. The Alfabet was updated less and less regularly. Mettes sometimes just disappeared for many weeks, then suddenly returning with a brilliant essay. Until, on September 21, 2006, he posted his final blogpost, consisting of no text whatsoever. That night I learned from his mentor at Leiden University that he had committed suicide. Mettes and I had had some fruitful exchanges on poetry, rhythm, music, and form, mostly on the blogs, but also by email. Three weeks before his death was the last time I heard from him: a very sudden, uncharacteristically curt note saying “My old new sentence epic.” Attached to that message I found a DOC-file of a work so major that I felt intimidated. This was N30 , a text he had been working on for over five years. After his death, it took me a long time before I dared to read it in its entirety. In the meantime, the work of preparing the manuscript for publication was entrusted by his relatives to his colleagues at yang magazine. It took them a few years to brush up the text and to edit the Dichtersalfabet -blog (which, apart from the Alphabet project itself, incorporated many other fragments of political, polemical, and theoretical writing) into book form along with the essays. The result of this labor was finally published in 2011 as a two-book set, and Mettes burst onto the Dutch poetry scene for the second time. The work was widely reviewed, on blogs, in journals, magazines, and newspapers. Many critics who had not followed the blogs in 2005 showed themselves surprised, baffled even, by the intensity of Mettes’s critical writing. But for those who had read the blog, the main surprise was in the poetry. During Mettes’s lifetime, some of his poems had already been published in Parmentier . Although these were strong texts by themselves, in no way did they prepare readers for N30 . Nothing like it had been written in Dutch before. Instead, N30 explicitly follows the American tradition of Language Writing, directly referencing Ron Silliman and his concept of The New Sentence. However, it would seem that much of the poetical thinking around his use of this technique puts him closer to a writer such as Bruce Andrews. For Mettes, using non sequiturs as a unit of poetic construction was not only a way of reinventing formal textual construction, but it was another way of finding the fault lines in the social fabric. From the perspective of the Language tradition, one may put N30 somewhere between Silliman and Andrews. N30 shares an autobiographical element with Silliman’s New Sentence projects, and as in Andrews, there is a concern for mapping out social totality within text—what Mettes refers to as a “textual world civil war.” Again this shows a formal textual strategy for allowing the person “Jeroen Mettes” to be absorbed by the world, which here appears as a whirlwind of demotic and demonic chatter, full of violence, humor, intensity, beauty, disgust, sex, commerce, and strife. Influenced as it may by American precursors, Mettes’s tone and form end up quite different from his American counterparts, consistently referencing a world that is Dutch, all too Dutch, taking on the oppressive orderliness of Dutch society with its endemic penchant for consensus by introducing chaos into its daily life and laying bare its implicit aggressions. The work’s 31 chapters each have a different feel and rhythmical outline, but none of them follow a predetermined pattern. Rather, Mettes would consistently edit and reedit the text, randomly rewriting parts of it, as he explains in his poetical creed Politieke Poëzie (Political Poetry). N30 – referring to the 1999 antiglobalist protest in Seattle – was to be the first text of a trilogy. The work itself was written “in the mode of the present.” A second text was to be written in the mode of the future, and a third one, in the mode of the past, was going to be an epic poem about the Paris Commune, and to form an alternative poetic constitution for the European project. I still deeply regret that Jeroen Mettes never got to complete those projects, just as I would be very keen on knowing what he might have had to say about more recent political developments. Instead, in 2006, he remained stuck in the horrors of the present, that ended up consuming him completely. He left Dutch literature with some of its most piercing criticism and its most profoundly moving, exciting and powerful poetry. Excerpts from N30 Translated by Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei from Jeroen Mettes. "N30." In N30+ . Amsterdam: De wereldbibliotheek, 2011. Published with permission of Uitgeverij Wereldbibliotheek, Amsterdam. Chapter 1 1999. A day is a space too. And another man, who had chained himself, had his ribs crushed, and a motor has driven over somebody’s legs. Dutch health care system spends ±145 million guilders per year on worriers. A spiderweb vibrates as I pass by. Randstad renovating. She slaps her bag against her ass: “Hurry up!” OPINION IS TRUE FRIENDSHIP Your skin. It doesn’t express anything. “But the use of the sword, that’s what I learned, and you’ll need nothing more for the moment.” Just try to interrogate a guy like that. Gullit in Sierra Leone. Codes silently lying all around. But that’s simply what belongs to “that it’s just allowed”: that sigh of “world” (a word expressing that the trees are now standing along the water like black men with white bags in their hair); that’s nothing else right? And you see how everything has to move, and first of all what cannot do so. Without Elysium and without savings, barbarians lashing out, horny for an enemy, staring across the water, staring into the air—staring to get out of it. “You’ve never showed me more than the mall,” she said. All those “dreams” in the end—and now? It was lying on the stairway, so I picked it up and took it upstairs. Chapter 3 “You know what?” Telecommunication. For love… I don’t really like that cheap cultural pessimism, but… The holy city is on pilgrimage in the earthly bodies of the faithful until the time of the heavenly kingdom has come. The end of an exhausting autumn day behind the computer, my eyes filled with tears of fatigue. KITCHEN / INSTALLATION / SPECIALIST. Network integration. In the sun, stretched out on a sheet. (…) I don’t believe what I’m reading, because I want to believe something else. An illusion? Suits me. There’s a variety of shapes and tastes… “So what?” you may think. 102 dalmatians can’t be wrong. But I want more, dear… A feel good movie. I’m smashing the burned body. So what? We continue to save the European civilization. What’s there to win? Plato with poets = Stalin without gulag? Ball against the crossbar. No wonder. She comes straight to her point. She’s standing in the kitchen eating an apple. (…) The godless Napoleon had used her as a stable and wanted to have her taken down. “Our” Rutger Hauer. Ready or not here I come. Psst… are you also wearing a string? Nobody understands our desire. Cliffs breaking the waves and shattering the sunset. I used to be a real romantic (as a poet). A typical fantasy used to be the one in which I brutally raped mother and daughter Seaver from the sitcom Growing Pains . Nevertheless you only contain bad words. Eyelashes. Automatic or manual? That your skin always in the afternoon. Integration. The air is empty. Too bad! Hand in hand on their lonely way. Alaska! Chapter 12 May 5, 2001 [10:00-10:30] A dust cloud on a hill. Globe. Indian (British) (tie) / pope. Damascus. Rape. We’re carrying the ayatollah’s portrait through the streets. At the moment the girl is mostly suede jacket with white ribbons on her sleeves. A small explosion flares up/impact. Camouflage. Close up. We’re analyzing the situation. He’s dead right? Dead dead. Dead. Everything without, these, and only with the body. Indices signal death. Dollar bills are printed in factories. Holes. Light patch. Globe in a box. Microphone. What’s the situation? Grey impact on a green hill (field?). The water is blue. He has no lips. Interns on the background with skirts that are too long. This is an example of a sonnet. An Islamic woman pushes against the door of an electronics shop. Arrows (percentages (prices)). Is this what awaits the American? Touch screen interface. The word, an island, can only be a sign in that situation. We pull up a chair, join in on the fun. On the shelves only books about computers. One glance in the distance is enough to lighten up a luna park in the distance. She’s really desperate, especially when she laughs. Click. Ah. Next. And now it’s raining, but that’s ok. Yellow stains sliding over the south. Shallow caves light: clothes, boots, electrical equipment. 45. 22:10. Nothing gives you the right to eat more than people starving to death. The Hague. Slam dunk. Traffic light. Two H’s, one L (standing for the L (little prick)). We’re happy to say something. Clouds, small suns, temperatures, cities. The truth is never an excuse. Yellow. Yellow. Green. Yellow. Yellow. Yellow. Yellow. Green. Green. Yellow. Will you email me? Skeleton: “No.” Ex-nerds in brand-new and brightly red sport cars. $$$. I love. Shihab. Hooves in the sand. Skinny senior with over-sized sunglasses; old jockey (cap, trophy) smiling in slow motion. And there I am again, flashback, crying with my head in between my hands. Sometimes I’ve got the feeling that cannibals. Eyes: blue. Cancer. Why would I wait until tomorrow? Golden beams protruding from the lifted/lit earth. May 5, 2001 [11:30-12:45] You’ll remember this for the rest of your life. Graphs, diagrams. Bu$ine$$. Blue shirt, white collar, no neck (porn star). A name lights up. I’m hysteric. Will you join us? Letters falling in their words. Fingers set up a tent and start to dance. Young entrepreneurs from poor neighborhoods (read: black) guided by Microsoft. Kinda makes me happy, that sort of kitsch. A sense of exhaustion/impotence to see anything but the present. (…) Wouldn’t you like to? Orange explosion in an industrial zone. YOU’RE DOING THIS FOR AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL. Would you. A familiar face. Clouds and blossom. Sunflowers. Supermodels. Mountainous area in a rectangle: shades of brown, from dark to beige, more green toward the south. Tents and next to them (it’s all a blur) people. Plane. Stadium. Geometrical block of people. No, I ain’t crying. I don’t speak no more. I just want. Quote + photo. (Positive:) screaming crowd. Three-piece suit, seen from the back, before entering the arena. On the back: “Daddy abused me.” Oh, bummer. State of emergency has been declared and everyone has to cooperate. She’s cut her wrists. What we do know (…) is that there’s never been a unique word, an imperative name, nor will there ever be. [Click here for work that suits you.] Barefooted children are watching it (coherent pieces revelation of what’s lying below). Who knows how she’s changed during those two years. “Everything used to be better” + sigh. And here we are. An empty field of parquet. A city lying behind it. Explosion. Blue. A rain drop falling in my coffee. May 5, 2001 [14:30-15:30] A young Arafat on video speaking with raised finger. “I’m calling from my convertible.” Names on walls, victims, numbers… Tourists. Yellow. Yellow. “Your own child! Really, what kind of human are you?” I don’t want to hear it no more. A woman jumping out of the water in a yellow bikini against a background of fireworks and the Cheops pyramid. Thy sorrow shall become good fortune, thy complaints laudation. All planets will float and wander. Wo die Welt zum Bild wird, kommt das System (…) zur Herrschaft. It is something, but is it? May 5, 2001 [18:30-19:00] Iris. Leaves. NASDAQ. Open / and white and. For the one who’s doing nothing, just waiting. (…) NO DEFEAT is made entirely up of defeat -- since / the world it opens is always a place / formerly / unsuspected. October 2002. “Jeroen, I’m leaving for the cemetery, byeeee.” The rise of the middle class. My entire oeuvre is an ode to the. My entire head is a fight against the. God always demands what you cannot sacrifice. You may take that the easy way, but… “The state hasn’t made us, but we make the state” (Hitler). A stork exits the elevator. Skeletons of. Moscow. Helsinki. Palermo. Paris. Chapter 30 Like your paradises: nothing. United Desire, as only remaining superpower. And even though the sea is now calmer and the wind is blowing pleasantly in my face… Heart! Who determines whether a tradition is “alive”? The yellow leaf or the white branch? Mars. This sentence is a typical example. Most Dutch people are happy. No consolation. When I see a girl sitting at a table with a book, a notepad, a pen, a bottle of mineral water, her hand writing in the light—then I consider that one thing. “Presents,” “poetry,” “classics.” We are what we cannot make from ourselves. “Left”: mendicant orders, missionaries. Saint-Just: “A republic is founded on the destruction of its enemies.” She crosses the street with a banana peel between her fingers. (…) We chose our own wardens, torturers, it was us who called all this insanity upon ourselves, we created this nightmare… But “no”? Girl (just like a beach ball) talking rapid Spanish (Portuguese?) in a mobile phone. Do I have a chance now that her boyfriend is getting bold? CLIO, horny bitch. What else do you want? An old woman, between the doors of the C1000, is suddenly unable to go on; her husband stretches out his hand, speaking a few encouraging words. Selection from. Der Führer schenkt den Jüden ein Stadt. How can it reach us if we haven’t been already reached somehow? It doesn’t “speak.” No problem. Each word she uses is a small miracle, as if she doesn’t belong to it, to language, but wanders around with a pocket light looking for the exit; she’s never desperate (maybe a little nervous), lighting up heavy words from the inside. But indeed, we’re free. But the predicate is not an attribute, but an event, and the subject is not a subject, but a shell. That’s why also samurai, knights, and warriors raised the blossom as emblem: they knew how to die. Locked up in a baby carriage with a McDonald’s balloon. Blue helicopter, the blue sky. Whether you want to refer? The point is. How / Motherfucker can I sing a sad song / When I remember Zion? You’ll feel so miserable and worthless that you think: “If only I were dead!,” or: “Just put an end to it!” “So you’re an economist?” Her card—two little birds building a nest, her handwriting shaking—is still on the mantelpiece. Guevara: “No, a communist.” A straw fire, such was our life: rapidly it flared up, rapidly it passed. I’m fleeing, coming from nowhere. (…) Eazy-E drinking coffee with the American president. If I’d scream, would that be an event? Drown it: the cleaner it will rise up from the depths. No! The night, so fast… As if there’s something opened up in that face. Come on, we may not curse life. He shows me his methadone: “If you drink that all at once, you’ll die instantly.” The last one dictates how we should behave to deserve happiness. One shine / above the earth. “I want to go to Bosnia,” I said bluntly. I don’t even know the name of the current mayor. Let’s despise our success! “There is no future; this is the future. Hope is a weakness that we've overcome. We have found happiness!” Sun. Sushi. Volvo. I feel like a bomb about to explode at any moment. Makes a difference for the reconstruction right? The decor moves forward. Daughter of Nereus, you nymphs of the sea, and you Thetis, you should have kept his tired head above the waves! Alas! This sentence has been written wearing a green cap. I receive my orders from the future. A frog jumps into it. Her husband has turned the Intifada, which he follows daily on CCN, into his hobby, “to forget that he doesn’t have his driver’s license yet." Suddenly the sun slides over the crosswalk. Her (his?) foot is playing with the slipper under the table. Is this how I’m writing this book now? I’m not a fellow man. I hate you and I want to hurt you. These are my people. Their screaming doesn’t rise above the constantly wailing sirens which we've learned to ignore. My whole body became warm and suddenly started to tremble. Unfortunate is he who is standing on the threshold of the most beautiful time, but awaits a better one. Arafat’s “removal” is contrary to American interests. Jeep drives into boy. What you can do alone, you should do alone. A food gift from the people of the United States of America. Two seagulls. [...]. (shrink)

The seminal works of Jean Bodin (c.1530–96) and François Hotman (c.1524–90), the Six livres de la République, and the Francogallia, were written and re-written over the turbulent course of the French wars of religion (1562–1629). Whilst conventionally these works are understood to represent fixed, and opposing, theories of monarchy (absolutist versus constitutionalist), this article explores them as they transformed in response to the changing circumstances of French politics, and especially the succession crisis of 1584. Theories of monarchy were in (...) flux in this period, and so the political thought of the late sixteenth century in France was in a constant state of mutation. This raises questions about the ways in which intellectual historians read ideas ‘in context’, even as those ideas, and those contexts, shift. What did it mean, to have a theory of monarchy in the French sixteenth century? (shrink)

SUMMARYThis article investigates the Anglo–Dutch scholar and diplomat Isaac Dorislaus's sole published work, Praelium Nuportanum, on the battle of Newport in 1600. After presenting some new or little known information about the work, it discusses PN's intellectual context and concludes that the work is a reminder of successful Anglo–Dutch cooperation in the past, of Dutch indebtedness to English assistance, and the Republic's importance as an ally for England, all relevant to the negotiations running in 1640 for an Orange–Stuart wedding, and (...) their backgrounds in the British Civil Wars and Anglo–Spanish–Dutch relations at the time. After the troubles ensuing from Dorislaus's Cambridge lectures on Tacitus in 1627, PN shows the author reconciled with the Court and the Laudian faction. With respect to style and content, PN appears clearly Tacitist in style, with many direct quotations from Tacitus, but this Tacitism operates more on a literary than a political level. Much of PN's historical content is a reworking of Francis Vere's Commentaries. From the perspective of the Protestant ‘Anglo–Scoto–Dutch public sphere’ recently discussed in the scholarship, PN might perhaps be read as a warning of the gradual emergence of an Anglo–Dutch Calvinist–parliamentarian ‘realm’ as a force opposing the Crown. (shrink)

Some of the most powerful persons today are those most successful at convincing others they have the greatest claim to victimhood. This new, socio-political shift marks the rise of what recently has been called “victimhood culture.” This article addresses how certain Christian theological views on God’s wrath, along with differing appropriations of the church’s collective victimhood both have played significant roles in generating a “culture war of victimhood”—a mode of conflict in which individuals and parties fight for the status of (...) being the most socially oppressed and marginalized, especially for the purpose of gaining power. To better understand this collective intentionality of victimhood, the article provides a multidisciplinary exploration into recent works in sociology of religion, anthropology, and historical theology. (shrink)

In the last year of the Great War, Italy was also hit by the Spanish flu. The Civic Hospitals faced a deadly disaster with insufficient resources. All the heavy workload fell on the female nursing staff, who were the only ones able ensure the continuity of the hospital services. This study aimed to explore the impact of the influenza on the health of the nurses at the Maggiore Hospital in Milan during the second and third epidemic waves. Historical research (...) was conducted between February and May 2020. Primary sources were retrieved from the historical archives of the Fondazione IRCCS Ca' Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico and the daily newspaper Corriere della Sera. In the autumn of 1918, the Maggiore Hospital in Milan changed its organization to hospitalise patients affected by the influenza pandemic. Although the hospital managers wanted to protect their healthcare staff from the risks of contagion by means of prophylaxis rules, 388 lay nurses and 80 religious sister nurses were affected by this insidious disease. The second and third waves of the pandemic claimed 25 victims of duty. Remembered for their altruism and spirit of abnegation, the hospital community honoured their sacrifice, and the citizens expressed their gratitude. (shrink)

Freud’s formal work on mourning would indicate that in order to be successful at it you must detach from your cathexis to the loved object; yet he said to the poet Hilda Doolittle that he remembered the last war year very well, as that year he lost his favourite daughter, Sophie, to the Spanish flu epidemic, but that, in fact, she was not lost. ‘“She is here”, he said, and he showed me a tiny locket he wore, fastened to (...) his watch chain’.The ‘blameless physician’ did not want to let go of Sophie and would have held a photograph in his hand many times every day as he checked the time, closed the locket, put it back into his pocket. This article investigates a social media site as that contemporary ‘pocket’ in which we might place a cherished photograph, thus the tension between the durational time of the artefact and the time-in-motion of the networked image. (shrink)

This paper focuses on a crucial and insufficiently examined issue of the conflict between legality and legitimacy, seen as a key element in securing continuity and providing the intellectual justification of the Francoist regime. Without analyzing the tension between legality and legitimacy, it is impossible to comprehend and successfully dismantle the thesis of the regime's intellectuals, recently revitalized by revisionist historians, according to which Francoism succeeded in re-establishing historical continuity and political normalcy in Spanish society. In the context of (...) the Cold War, it was crucial for Spanish legal scholars to portray Francoism not as a bastion of anti-liberalism, but as a regime whose survival entailed an original interpretation of notions such as freedom, rule of law, sovereignty and authority. They argued that the significance of Francoism consisted not only in defeating liberalism in Spain but in offering an alternative interpretation of its main tenets. By aspiring to justify and overcome its own historical exceptionality, the Francoist regime sought to avoid the inevitability of its demise. By virtue of its failure to do so, Francoism remained outside the European political norm, to which only democratic Spain would be re-admitted. (shrink)

The Spanish Civil War was one of the pivotal events of the 1930’s, the moment when fascism and socialism came into open conflict. First published in 1939, _The Spanish Tragedy_ recounts the experiences of Jef Last. Activist, poet and novelist, Last might have been the archetypal Republican volunteer but his experience left him even more disenchanted than most. Critical of Soviet Communism, a court martial loyal to Moscow tried to sentence him to death and he was forced to (...) flee to Scandinavia. (shrink)

The traditional ludomotor activities (LA) are recognized by UNESCO as an intangible piece of cultural heritage. The ethnomotricity analyzes LA in its sociocultural context, taking into account the proprieties of rules or motor conditions (internal logic) and the link with local culture (external logic). The aim of this research was to identify and reveal the distinctive ethnomotor features of LA in order to understand the adaptations that occurred in the social scenario of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) in Lleida. (...) The corpus of the research was constituted by 101 LA which were collected from the analysis of 20 semi-structured interviews. An “ad hoc” tool was designed and agreed upon by expert observers. It was comprised of a total of 27 ethnomotor variables related to LA. The experts achieved high reliability [Cohen’s kappa coefficient (κ) and Spearman’s correlation coefficient = 1] when the classification of LA was carried out on two different occasions. Descriptive statistics, cross-tabulations (Pearson’s chi-squared) effect sizes, and two-step clusters were performed by external and internal logic variables. The presence or absence of motor interaction (X2= 9.029;df= 1;p< 0.003;ES= 0.298) was enlightening when comparing LA with and without a war connotation. On the other hand, the hierarchy of variables rested primarily on IL-Domain (Psycho-Coop-Oppo-Coop/Oppo) (PI = 1). Among other singularities, while two-step cluster analysis revealed a corresponding ethnomotor silhouette with cluster 1, with the warlike connotation (n= 48; 96.0%), its homologous structure was expressed (Cluster 2) in the absence of the warlike character (n= 26; 50%). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Social and Moral Aspects of the WarBertrand Russell and Introduced by Andrew G. BoneAmong nine loose-leaf folders of typed transcriptions of Russell's History of Western Philosophy lectures at the Barnes Foundation1 are two copies of a fourteen-page stenographic record of a political talk he gave there on 2 March 1941.2 The bulk of this significant new accrual to the Russell Archives, bearing as it does on Russell's most successful (...) philosophical work, could stimulate much further research and textual study. But his isolated Barnes lecture, about the politics of American neutrality, Nazi Germany's brutal and expansionist dictatorship, and the causes and possible consequences of the war against it, is also of considerable interest.The transcription reads more like detailed notes than a verbatim account, and there is no evidence that Russell approved this text.3 The stenographer initially recorded Russell in the third person, dispensed with this device before the second [End Page 52] paragraph, but then occasionally returned to it.4 There is also more enumeration of Russell's points than he would have supplied in a prepared script. Even the title may not be his: there is nothing in the text on any social changes wrought by the war. But this title has been retained in the absence of a more plausible alternative in a short report of the speech (quoting sixteen sentences) in the next day's Philadelphia Evening Bulletin.5 Russell's hour-long address on the "Social and Moral Aspects of the War" appears to have been the only occasion when he "laid philosophy aside"6 at the Barnes Foundation. It was delivered on a Sunday to an audience of 160 students (and possibly some invitees, although none are mentioned in the newspaper article), sandwiched between two of his weekly philosophical lectures (on Socrates and Sparta7) in the series scheduled for each Thursday.In opening his case for the United States joining the Allied war effort, Russell challenged the arguments for the "policy of conciliation" which, by his own recent admission in the New York Times,8 he had earlier endorsed. Published two weeks before Russell spoke on a similar topic at the Barnes Foundation, this 2,000-word letter to the editor served as a very detailed and public renunciation of the pacifist viewpoint—neutrality for national governments combined with non-resistance for individuals—which Russell had promoted in Which Way to Peace? (1936) and continued to condone after the Munich Agreement (September 1938) and even the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia (March 1939).Yet Russell the "relative political pacifist"9 also admitted in this most programmatic statement of his prewar position that "In other times and other circumstances, I should be prepared to consider gains and losses, and to concede that war might be worth while" (WWP, pp. 151–2).That moment had obviously arrived and may have done so already when on 15 October 1939 Russell confided to Constance Malleson that his passionate desire for a British victory made a "thorough-going pacifism difficult" (ra Rec. Acq. 596). But six months later he still did "not feel sufficiently sure of the opposite to say anything publicly by way of recantation"—before adding in this letter to Gilbert Murray that "it may come to that" (21 April 1940, ra Rec. Acq. 71g). It clearly did shortly afterwards—when the "phoney war" in Western Europe was dramatically ended by the invasion of France and the [End Page 53] Low Countries. On 13 May Russell asked the editor of the New Statesman and Nation to notify its readers that he had abandoned his once strongly held pacifist convictions.10In his lecture to the Barnes Foundation, Russell turned next to the defence of American non-intervention by Robert M. Hutchins (see n. 16 below)—which he had already critiqued in the New York Times. Although rather precariously situated as a resident alien in the United States, Russell was hardly circumspect about pushing a policy that so sharply divided American opinion.11 He also listed the faults of the League of Nations and the most grievous diplomatic mistakes made since the end of the last war and the fatally... (shrink)

Summary José María Albareda (1902–1966) was an applied chemist and a prominent member of the Roman Catholic organization, Opus Dei, who played a crucial role in organizing the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), the new scientific institution created by the Franco regime in 1939. The paper analyses first the formative years in Albareda's scientific biography and the political and social context in which he became an Opus Dei fellow. Then it discusses the CSIC's innovative features compared with the Junta (...) para Ampliación de Estudios (JAE), the institution in charge of scientific research and science policy in Spain from 1907 up to the Civil War (1936–1939). Next it goes into Albareda's ideas about science and science policy. Finally, it shows how they shaped the organization of the CSIC, of which Albareda was the General Secretary from 1939 to his untimely death in 1966. (shrink)

Master Sun's _The Art of War_ is by no means the only ancient Chinese treatise on military affairs. One chapter in the _Huainanzi_, an important compendium of philosophy and political theory written in the second century B.C.E., synthesizes the entire corpus of military literature inherited from the Chinese classical era. Drawing on all major, existing military writings, as well as other lost sources, it assesses tactics and strategy, logistics, organization, and political economy, as well as cosmology and the fundamental morality (...) of warfare. This powerful work set out to become the last word on military matters, subsuming and replacing all preceding literature. Written under the sponsorship of Liu An, king of Huainan, the _Huainanzi_'s "military methods" emphasize the preservation of peace as the ultimate value to be served by the military, insisting that the army can be effectively and rightly used only when defending the sacred hereditary position of the emperor and his vassals. This position stands in stark contrast to that of _The Art of War_, which prioritizes the enrichment and empowerment of the state. Liu An's philosophy also argues that military success depends on the personal cultivation of the commander and that deception is not enough to secure victory. Only a commander with the exceptional qualities of insight and cognition, developed through a program of meditative practice and yogic refinement, can effectively control and interpret the strategic situation. Andrew Seth Meyer offers both a full translation of this text and an extensive analysis of its historical context. His thorough treatment relates Liu An's teachings to issues in Chinese philosophy, culture, religion, and history, helping to interpret their uncommon message. (shrink)

This paper addresses questions of friendship and political community by investigating a particular complex case, comradeship in the life of the soldier. Close attention to soldiers’ accounts of their own lives, successes and failures shows that the relationship of friendship to comradeship, and of both to the success of the soldier’s individual and communal life, is complex and tense. I focus on autobiographical accounts of basic training in order to describe, and to explore the tensions between, two positions: (1) Becoming (...) a soldier is a corrupting loss of individuality and moral sensitivity, and friendship is resistance to it. (2) Becoming a soldier is one form of flourishing, and comradeship—the soldier’s distinctive form of friendship—is one of its constitutive virtues. I draw particularly on George Orwell’s account of basic training and fighting in the Spanish Civil War, and on Tim O’Brien’s account of basic training and fighting in Vietnam. (shrink)

In this article there is a criticism of the thesis that defines the Spanish political transition as a successful attempt to put an end to the "law of the pendulum" that had been governing our constitutional history. On the one hand, this thesis underestimates the conditions of the Spanish situation of 1978, marked by the transit between two worlds, the modern one that inherited and the emerging postmodern, which would become an unquestionable reality from 1989. In addition, the (...) Spanish Constitution of 1978 was drafted at a time when the political-normative conceptual assumptions of the dominant constitutional paradigm in Europe after World War II were declining. Likewise, the thesis ignores the specific spanish differential feature: the civil war of 1936-1939 and the subsequent rupture and radical separation of Spanish modernity into two distinct historical sections: one initiated with the French Revolution and culminated in the most absolute destruction of the pre-existing political and social order; and another that starts in 1939, since the construction of zero of a radically new pattern of society and culture, with which the Spaniards encountered in December 1975 when they assumed their full political protagonism in a situation unprecedented and completely devoid of precedents in our national constitutional tradition. (shrink)

The organization of the mobile atomic exhibition, Mostra Atomica, designed by the United States Information Service to travel through Italy in 1954–55, had to meet technical, scientific, artistic, and political challenges. The head of the group in charge of the exhibition was architect Peter G. Harnden whose pedigree in the intelligence and training in architecture were an ideal match for leading the unit dedicated to exhibitions. The political sensitivity of the Mostra Atomica also required the intervention of the Italian Ministry (...) of the Interior to guarantee safe mobility and secure shows. In every major town, American and British diplomats attended the local opening ceremony, while the very symbol of science diplomacy was Enrico Fermi, whose recorded message praised international cooperation. All in all, the USIS campaign promoting peaceful applications of nuclear physics was successful in reaching and involving Italian society. Visual and spatial aesthetics were particularly relevant: the geometrical design of the exposition rooms conveyed a strong sense of modernity that contrasted with the artistic heritage of Italian cities. The present article is based on archival files, newspaper reports, and photographs that document who was responsible for planning, setting up, and reporting this Cold War propaganda event. (shrink)

Nowadays there is a growing interest in business ethics, both in academia and professionally. However, moral lapses continue to happen in business activities, leading academicians and professionals to rethink what is being done and reinventing new strategies to successfully manage ethics in business organisations. Thus, whereas efforts to promote ethics are basically oriented to using and developing explicit, written formal mechanisms, the literature suggests that other instruments are also useful and necessary to achieve this. Thus, studying the role of the (...) Human Resource Management (hereafter, HRM) in promoting ethics is an emerging research topic due to the heavy influence that HRM practices are thought to have on employees. This paper is aimed at developing a thorough analysis of HRM's role in promoting ethics, and specifically at focusing on one of its practices, training. As an illustrative example of the utility of this practice, an empirical study was conducted on a range of Spanish banking companies in which an impact was found on the employees' ethical behaviour when ethics training was being provided inside the organisation. Finally, the practical implications of these findings and directions for future research are presented. (shrink)

The article represents an attempt to outline ad systematize peculiarities of landscape and practices of personnel selection in the conditions of BANI-environment with the influence of continuous digital transformation, war conflicts, and sustainable development. General scientific methods of analysis, synthesis and generalization constituted the methodological base of research. It was revealed that one of the most successful vectors of personnel selection within sustainable HRM today is talent marketplaces.

The aim of this study was to assess the predictive capacity of some of the most relevant cognitive skills pertaining to the academic field as measured by the Spanish Primary School Aptitude Test Battery. This psychometric tool was applied to all students who were enrolled in the final year of Early Childhood Education in the public schools of the province of Alicante and a follow-up of their academic progress was carried out when they completed Primary Education. The results obtained (...) show that medium-high and high scores in Verbal Aptitude and Numerical Aptitude tests in Early Childhood Education, can predict academic success at the end of Primary Education in instrumental subjects such as: Language and Mathematics. We have determined the importance of developing pedagogical programs that stimulate the development of these skills during Early Childhood Education, while implementing support strategies during Primary Education, for those students who present underdeveloped aptitudes in these areas. In this way, school difficulties would be prevented in the instrumental subjects that provide access to other academic areas. (shrink)