Modern History (modern + history)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


VISION AS REVISION: RANKE AND THE BEGINNING OF MODERN HISTORY

HISTORY AND THEORY, Issue 4 2007
J. D. BRAW
ABSTRACT It is widely agreed that a new conception of history was developed in the early nineteenth century: the past came to be seen in a new light, as did the way of studying the past. This article discusses the nature of this collective revision, focusing on one of its first and most important manifestations: Ranke's 1824 Geschichten der romanischen und germanischen Völker. It argues that, in Ranke's case, the driving force of the revision was religious, and that, subsequently, an understanding of the nature of Ranke's religious attitude is vital to any interpretation of his historical revision. Being aesthetic-experiential rather than conceptual or "positive," this religious element is reflected throughout Ranke's enterprise, in source criticism and in historical representation no less than in the conception of cause and effect in the historical process. These three levels or aspects of the historical enterprise correspond to the experience of the past, and are connected by the essence of the experience: visual perception. The highly individual character of the enterprise, its foundation in sentiments and experiences of little persuasive force that only with difficulty can be brought into language at all, explains the paradoxical nature of the Rankean heritage. On the one hand, Ranke had a great and lasting impact; on the other hand, his approach was never re-utilized as a whole, only in its constituent parts,which, when not in the relationship Ranke had envisioned, took on a new and different character. This also suggests the difference between Ranke's revision and a new paradigm: whereas the latter is an exemplary solution providing binding regulations, the former is unrepeatable. [source]


Korea's Place in the Sun: A Modern History By Bruce Cumings

HISTORY, Issue 307 2007
JAMES H. GRAYSON
No abstract is available for this article. [source]


Rediscovering MDMA (ecstasy): the role of the American chemist Alexander T. Shulgin

ADDICTION, Issue 8 2010
Udo Benzenhöfer
ABSTRACT Aims Alexander T. Shulgin is widely thought of as the ,father' of +/,3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA). This paper re-assesses his role in the modern history of this drug. Methods We analysed systematically Shulgin's original publications on MDMA, his publications on the history of MDMA and his laboratory notebook. Results According to Shulgin's book PIHKAL (1991), he synthesized MDMA in 1965, but did not try it. In the 1960s Shulgin also synthesized MDMA-related compounds such as 3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine (MDA), 3-methoxy-4,5-methylenedioxyamphetamine (MMDA) and 3,4-methylenedioxyethylamphetamine (MDE), but this had no impact on his rediscovery of MDMA. In the mid-1970s Shulgin learned of a ,special effect' caused by MDMA, whereupon he re-synthesized it and tried it himself in September 1976, as confirmed by his laboratory notebook. In 1977 he gave MDMA to Leo Zeff PhD, who used it as an adjunct to psychotherapy and introduced it to other psychotherapists. Conclusion Shulgin was not the first to synthesize MDMA, but he played an important role in its history. It seems plausible that he was so impressed by its effects that he introduced it to psychotherapist Zeff in 1977. This, and the fact that in 1978 he published with David Nichols the first paper on the pharmacological action of MDMA in humans, explains why Shulgin is sometimes (erroneously) called the ,father' of MDMA. [source]


Swedish eating disorder services,a brief modern history

EUROPEAN EATING DISORDERS REVIEW, Issue 3 2002
Claes Norring
Abstract This brief account of the history of eating disorder services in Sweden is divided into two sections, one covering the history and present design of clinical eating disorder services, and the other depicting the scientific development of the eating disorders field. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association. [source]


Beyond Cultural Imperialism: Cultural Theory, Christian Missions, and Global Modernity

HISTORY AND THEORY, Issue 3 2002
Ryan Dunch
"Cultural imperialism" has been an influential concept in the representation of the modern Christian missionary movement. This essay calls its usefulness into question and draws on recent work on the cultural dynamics of globalization to propose alternative ways of looking at the role of missions in modern history. The first section of the essay surveys the ways in which the term "cultural imperialism" has been employed in different disciplines, and some of the criticisms made of the term within those disciplines. The second section discusses the application of the cultural imperialism framework to the missionary enterprise, and the related term "colonization of consciousness" used by Jean and John Comaroff in their influential work on British missionaries and the Tswana of southern Africa. The third section looks at the historiography of missions in modern China, showing how deeply the teleological narratives of nationalism and development have marked that historiography. The concluding section argues that the missionary movement must be seen as one element in a globalizing modernity that has altered Western societies as well as non,Western ones in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and that a comparative global approach to the missionary movement can help to illuminate the process of modern cultural globalization. [source]


The Concept that Came Out of the Cold: the Progressive Historicization of Generic Fascism and its New Relevance to Teaching Twentieth-century History

HISTORY COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 1 2003
Roger Griffin
This article first surveys the confusion that prevailed in fascist studies for decades, and which makes it quite understandable if the term ,fascism' has been generally avoided both by historians and by lecturers and others teaching inter-war European history to students in non-specialist ,survey' courses. It then outlines the main features of the ,new consensus' that is emerging among scholars on the heuristic value of seeing fascism as a form of revolutionary ideology, bent on purging society of decadence and inaugurating the rebirth of the nation. Next, it focuses on how this approach enables Fascism and Nazism to be located within the supranational forces shaping modern history, and on the light it throws on their profound relationship to totalitarianism, political religion and modernity. It closes with brief examples of how this approach can be applied to structuring answers to essays and exam questions on inter-war Europe, and welcomes the prospect opened up by the new consensus for greater collaboration between specialists in fascist studies, empirical historians, university lecturers, textbook writers and students , and even, one day, students in secondary education, and their teachers and examiners , in this fascinating, and rapidly evolving, field of teaching and research. [source]


International political marketing: a case study of United States soft power and public diplomacy

JOURNAL OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, Issue 3 2008
Henry H. Sun
Political marketing can be categorized with three aspects: the election campaign as the origin of political marketing, the permanent campaign as a governing tool and international political marketing (IPM) which covers the areas of public diplomacy, marketing of nations, international political communication, national image, soft power and the cross-cultural studies of political marketing. IPM and the application of soft power have been practiced by nation-states throughout the modern history of international relations starting with the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Nation-states promote the image of their country worldwide through public diplomacy, exchange mutual interests in their bilateral or multilateral relation with other countries, lobby for their national interests in international organizations and apply cultural and political communication strategies internationally to build up their soft power. In modern international relations, nation-states achieve their foreign policy goals by applying both hard power and soft power. Public diplomacy as part of IPM is a method in the creation of soft power, as well as, in the application of soft power. This paper starts with the definitional and conceptual review of political marketing. For the first time in publication, it establishes a theoretical model which provides a framework of the three aspects of political marketing, that is electoral political marketing (EPM), governmental political marketing (GPM) and IPM. This model covers all the main political exchanges among six inter-related components in the three pairs of political exchange process, that is candidates and party versus voters and interest groups in EPM ; governments, leaders and public servants versus citizens and interest groups in GPM, including political public relations and lobbying which have been categorized as the third aspect of political marketing in some related studies; and governments, interest group and activists versus international organizations and foreign subjects in IPM. This study further develops a model of IPM, which covers its strategy and marketing mix on the secondary level of the general political marketing model, and then, the third level model of international political choice behaviour based the theory of political choice behaviour in EPM. This paper continues to review the concepts of soft power and public diplomacy and defines their relation with IPM. It then reports a case study on the soft power and public diplomacy of the United States from the perspectives of applying IPM and soft power. Under the framework of IPM, it looks at the traditional principles of US foreign policy, that is Hamiltonians, Wilsonians, Jeffersonians and Jacksonians, and the application of US soft power in the Iraq War since 2003. The paper advances the argument that generally all nation states apply IPM to increase their soft power. The decline of US soft power is caused mainly by its foreign policy. The unilateralism Jacksonians and realism Hamiltonians have a historical trend to emphasize hard power while neglecting soft power. Numerous reports and studies have been conducted on the pros and cons of US foreign policy in the Iraq War, which are not the focus of this paper. From the aspect of IPM, this paper studies the case of US soft power and public diplomacy, and their effects in the Iraq War. It attempts to exam the application of US public diplomacy with the key concept of political exchange, political choice behaviour, the long-term approach and the non-government operation principles of public diplomacy which is a part of IPM. The case study confirms the relations among IPM, soft power and public diplomacy and finds that lessons can be learned from these practices of IPM. The paper concludes that there is a great demand for research both at a theoretical as well as practical level for IPM and soft power. It calls for further study on this subject. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Jonathan Edwards and the Language of Nature: The Re-Enchantment of the World in the Age of Scientific Reasoning

JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY, Issue 1 2002
Avihu Zakai
For a long time Jonathan Edwards (1703-58) was thought of more as a preacher of hellfire and revival than as a theologian, and rather as a Calvinist theologian than a philosopher of importance, and he was dismissed accordingly. Yet Edwards was more than a hellfire preacher, more than a theologian. This New England divine was one of the rare individuals anywhere to recognize and answer the challenges posed to traditional Christian belief by the emergence of new modes of thought in early modern history - the new ideas of the scientific thought and the Enlightenment. His force of mind is evident in his exposition of the poverty of mechanical philosophy, which radically transformed the traditional Christian dialectic of God's utter transcendence and divine immanence by gradually dimin-ishing divine sovereignty with respect to creation, providence, and redemption, thus leading to the disenchantment of the world. Edwards constructed a teleological and theological alternative to the prevailing mechanistic interpretation of the essential nature of reality, whose ultimate goal was the re-enchantment of the world by reconstituting the glory of God's majestic sovereignty, power, and will within the order of creation. [source]


The Anthropology in American Historical Archaeology

AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 3 2001
Charles E. Orser Jr.
Since its infancy, American historical archaeology has maintained a relationship, albeit often a tenuous one, with its anthropological parentage. Given both the history of the field and its practitioners' often-tortured efforts to define their intentions, goals, and perspectives, it is not surprising, perhaps, that many anthropologists may not recognize the important contributions historical archaeology can make to the anthropological project. A multifaceted and wide-ranging examination of the post-Columbian world gives historical archaeology a special ability to investigate modern history and to provide insights into the historical circumstances of today's world, [historical archaeology, post-Columbian archaeology, history of American archaeology] [source]


Welfare state and women's work: the professional projects of nurses and occupational therapists in Sweden

NURSING INQUIRY, Issue 4 2005
Lars Evertsson
In this article we explore how Swedish welfare politics within health-care and rehabilitation has opened up a space for nurses' and occupational therapists' professional projects. Using historical data, an analysis of the policy-making process behind welfare programs central to the professionalization of nursing and occupational therapy is presented. The time period covered is, in the case of nurses, the larger part of the twentieth century, while the modern history of occupational therapists first began in the 1940s. Special emphasis is placed on the corporative nature of the Swedish welfare state and the professional strategies utilized by nurses and occupational therapists in their struggle for jurisdiction. In the article, politicization is identified as a core strategy by which female-dominated welfare state occupations in Sweden have tried to gain influence over the welfare policy-making process and their occupations' jurisdiction. [source]


Chinese R&D: naissance, renaissance, or mirage?

R & D MANAGEMENT, Issue 4 2004
William A. Fischer
China's re-emergence has been treated mostly from economic and political standpoints. This article integrates these perspectives with a review of China's modern history of research and development (R&D). It starts with a brief retrospective of China's efforts in science and technology before the reforms of 1978. It then discusses China's principle R&D issues in the early 1980s and the most significant results of 20 years of rapid industrialization. Based on this historic review and a wide literature analysis, some observations are made about China's R&D capabilities in the first years of the new millennium as well as what challenges may still lie ahead for China before becoming a leading source of scientific and technological innovation. [source]


The Tyranny of Diagnosis: Specific Entities and Individual Experience

THE MILBANK QUARTERLY, Issue 2 2002
Charles E. Rosenberg
Diagnosis has always played a pivotal role in medical practice, but in the past two centuries, that role has been reconfigured and has become more central as medicine,like Western society in general,has become increasingly technical, specialized, and bureaucratized. Disease explanations and clinical practices have incorporated, paralleled, and, in some measure, constituted these larger structural changes. This modern history of diagnosis is inextricably related to disease specificity, to the notion that diseases can and should be thought of as entities existing outside the unique manifestations of illness in particular men and women. During the past century especially, diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment have been linked ever more tightly to specific, agreed-upon disease categories, in both concept and everyday practice. In fact, this essay might have been entitled "Diagnosis Mediates an Invisible Revolution: The Social and Intellectual Significance of Specific Disease Concepts." It would have been even more precise, if rather less arresting. The articulation and acceptance of specific disease entities constitute one of the most important intellectual and cultural events of the past two centuries. This notion is central to how we organize health care delivery, think about ourselves, debate and formulate social policy, and define and manage deviance. Diagnosis is indispensable to linking specific disease concepts with doctor and patient and the social and economic institutions shaping such clinical interactions. Disease is a social entity, not an array of ideal types. The history of medicine is partly the story of how disease entities have become social entities, accumulating the flesh of diagnostic and therapeutic practice, social expectation, and bureaucratic reification. Despite criticism of reductionist medicine in the West and less focus on disease entities and mechanisms, our social response still depends on this concept of sickness. But this concept can no longer remain invisible if we are to understand contemporary medicine as both a social and a technological system. The articulation and acceptance of specific disease entities constitute one of the most important intellectual and cultural events of the past two centuries. This notion is central to how we organize health care delivery, think about ourselves, debate and formulate social policy, and define and manage deviance. Diagnosis is indispensable to linking specific disease concepts with doctor and patient and the social and economic institutions shaping such clinical interactions. Disease is a social entity, not an array of ideal types. The history of medicine is partly the story of how disease entities have become social entities, accumulating the flesh of diagnostic and therapeutic practice, social expectation, and bureaucratic reification. Despite criticism of reductionist medicine in the West and less focus on disease entities and mechanisms, our social response still depends on this concept of sickness. But this concept can no longer remain invisible if we are to understand contemporary medicine as both a social and a technological system. The articulation and acceptance of specific disease entities constitute one of the most important intellectual and cultural events of the past two centuries. This notion is central to how we organize health care delivery, think about ourselves, debate and formulate social policy, and define and manage deviance. Diagnosis is indispensable to linking specific disease concepts with doctor and patient and the social and economic institutions shaping such clinical interactions. Disease is a social entity, not an array of ideal types. The history of medicine is partly the story of how disease entities have become social entities, accumulating the flesh of diagnostic and therapeutic practice, social expectation, and bureaucratic reification. Despite criticism of reductionist medicine in the West and less focus on disease entities and mechanisms, our social response still depends on this concept of sickness. But this concept can no longer remain invisible if we are to understand contemporary medicine as both a social and a technological system. The articulation and acceptance of specific disease entities constitute one of the most important intellectual and cultural events of the past two centuries. This notion is central to how we organize health care delivery, think about ourselves, debate and formulate social policy, and define and manage deviance. Diagnosis is indispensable to linking specific disease concepts with doctor and patient and the social and economic institutions shaping such clinical interactions. Disease is a social entity, not an array of ideal types. The history of medicine is partly the story of how disease entities have become social entities, accumulating the flesh of diagnostic and therapeutic practice, social expectation, and bureaucratic reification. Despite criticism of reductionist medicine in the West and less focus on disease entities and mechanisms, our social response still depends on this concept of sickness. But this concept can no longer remain invisible if we are to understand contemporary medicine as both a social and a technological system. [source]