bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
From Sheikhs to Sultanism
Authors: Davidson Christopher M.
Published: September 2021

Muhammad bin Salman Al-Saud and Muhammad bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, the respective princely strongmen of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, have torn up the old rules. They have spurred game-changing economic master plans, presided over vast anti-corruption crackdowns, tackled entrenched religious forces, and overseen the mass arrest of critics. In parallel, they also appear to have replaced the old ‘sheikhly’ consensus systems of their predecessors with something more autocratic, more personalistic, and perhaps even analytically distinct. Moreover, ‘MBS’ and ‘MBZ’, as they are known, are now effectively in command of the two wealthiest and most populous Gulf monarchies, and increasingly important global actors--Saudi Arabia is a G20 member, and the UAE will be the host of the World Expo in 2021–2022. Such sweeping changes to the two countries’ statecraft and authority structures could thus end up having a direct impact--for better or worse--on policies, economies, and individual lives all around the world. This study tests the hypothesis that Saudi Arabia and the UAE are now effectively contemporary or even ‘advanced’ sultanates, and situates these influential states within an international model of autocratic authoritarianism. Drawing on a range of primary sources, including new interviews and surveys, the book puts forward an original, empirically grounded interpretation of the rise of both de facto rulers.
Introduction
Authors: Davidson Christopher M.
Published: September 2021

This introductory chapter establishes the importance of studying the Gulf monarchies, while noting that relatively little attention has been paid to contemporary statecraft and the ways in which underlying authority structures might be changing. It describes how recent and possibly interconnected shifts have been taking place deep inside the political systems of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, particularly in the wake of the conspicuous strengthening of personal powers in the hands of MBS and MBZ. Given that these states now indisputably serve as major components of the global economy and are increasingly influential members of international organizations, it identifies an urgent need to recognize that major ruptures in the structural logic of their regimes could well end up having a direct impact--for better or worse--on policies, economies, and individual livelihoods all around the world.
Building a Regime-Type Framework
Authors: Davidson Christopher M.
Published: September 2021

As a first step in trying to understand the nature and impact of the changes taking place in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, this chapter considers what ‘type’ of regimes their rulers (or rather de facto rulers) now represent. Firstly, it establishes the scholarly consensus on the political systems underpinning the Gulf monarchies, namely their ‘sheikhly authority’ (based on some form of elite consultation and Islamic legitimacy), and their hydrocarbon-financed and social contract-based ‘rentier’ structures (in which citizens generally accept wealth distributions in exchange for their political acquiescence). Secondly, it makes the argument that MBS and MBZ’s regimes have taken a more autocratic-authoritarian turn--moving away from their predecessors’ sheikhly-rentierism--and hypothesizes that their highly personalistic and seemingly more arbitrary decision-making processes might represent some form of contemporary sultanism. In this context, it also makes clear that the other four Gulf monarchies do not appear to have taken the same path, and have mostly retained their historic consultative elements.
Research Methods and Data Collection
Authors: Davidson Christopher M.
Published: September 2021

This chapter identifies firstly the main research tasks that need to be carried out in order to advance a suitably scientific, evidence-based interpretation of the apparent changes in statecraft and authority structures in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and--as per the framework--to test robustly the hypothesis that MBS and MBZ have effectively supplanted the ‘sheikhly rule’ of their predecessors with something more autocratic and possibly even sultanistic. Secondly, it considers the numerous methodological challenges involved in navigating the ‘fields of power’ in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, including the opacity of official data and the numerous difficulties involved in relying on academic research, media outputs, and non-governmental organization sources. Finally, it discusses the possible means of circumventing some of these obstacles, and suggests that certain primary data gathering opportunities are nonetheless plausible (including interviews and surveys), subject to certain ‘workarounds’.
Sultanism
Authors: Davidson Christopher M.
Published: September 2021

To facilitate a comprehensive and up-to-date understanding of the concept of sultanism, this chapter provides a detailed theoretical and empirical literature review. Firstly, it considers the oriental origins of the concept, as applied by Max Weber and others to the Ottoman Empire and a number of South Asian examples. Secondly, it traces the emergence of ‘contemporary sultanism’, as applied by scholars to Latin American regimes from the mid-twentieth century and onwards. Thirdly, it explores the more recent concept of neo-sultanism and the development of a distinct international empirical category of autocratic-authoritarianism which includes: various Latin America regimes; some of the former communist republics of central Asia and Eastern Europe; and a number of regimes in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Southeast Asia. Finally, it assesses the need to address the scholarly deficit in applying contemporary sultanism or neo-sultanism to the Middle East, and suggests that the present-day Saudi And UAE regimes may be strong examples.
Routes to Power
Authors: Davidson Christopher M.
Published: September 2021

This chapter provides a detailed chronology of MBS and MBZ’s respective ascents. Firstly, their dynastic advantages are considered, along with their apparent early career ambitions and accomplishments. Secondly, their charismatic personalities and their relative youth are discussed, including the erection of charismatic facades by their supporters. Thirdly, their ability to position themselves as proponents of major economic reforms and long-term ‘visions’ during periods of economic crisis are emphasized. Fourthly, their capacity to repair Saudi Arabia and the UAE’s international reputations vis-à-vis the historical funding and support of terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda and (in Saudi Arabia’s case) the Islamic State is investigated. Finally, the apparent mentor-mentee relationship between the more established MBZ and the younger MBS is examined, alongside their recent support from the Donald Trump administration.
Establishing Control: Political Patronage Networks
Authors: Davidson Christopher M.
Published: September 2021

This chapter describes in depth how MBS and MBZ have established their control through building highly personalized political patronage networks. Firstly, their creation of an ‘inner circle’ of closest relatives is considered, including most prominently their full brothers and (in MBZ’s case) their adult sons. Secondly, their creation of a parallel circle of non-ruling family technocrats and gatekeepers is discussed, including key friends and cronies who have been entrusted with major political and economic portfolios. Thirdly, the special circumstances surrounded the treatment of the formal heads of state is explained--in MBS’s case his father Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al-Saud (the King of Saudi Arabia), and in MBZ’s case his older half-brother Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan (the ruler of Abu Dhabi and President of the UAE). Fourthly, the management of other influential ruling family members is studied, including the co-option or coercion of half-brothers and uncles (and in MBZ’s case senior members of other UAE ruling families). Finally, MBS and MBZ’s supervision of other, lesser ruling family members is reflected upon, including the small minority who have either been actively repressed or have flown into exile.
Establishing Control: Institutions, Media, and Security
Authors: Davidson Christopher M.
Published: September 2021

This chapter describes in depth how MBS and MBZ have established their control over most other institutions, the media, and national security. Firstly, their increasing influence over executive and consultative political institutions is considered, including their respective councils of ministers, the Shura Council (in Saudi Arabia), and the Federal National Council (in the UAE). Secondly, their de facto command over the judicial system is discussed, including the ongoing lack of separation of powers in both countries. Thirdly, their extensive efforts to manage, manipulate, and suppress the media (and social media) are explained, including the use of traditional media controls alongside more experimental counter measures. Fourthly, their attempts to re-organize their respective military, security, and intelligence organizations are studied, including key personnel and structural changes, and an emphasis on greater professionalism. Finally, their cultivation of stronger praetorian guards is reflected upon, including an apparent increased willingness to bring in greater numbers of foreign experts, and (in MBZ’s case) an emphasis on creating secretive new units.
Advanced Sultanism: A Broader Debate
Authors: Davidson Christopher M.
Published: September 2021

The second of two summary discussions, this chapter firstly assesses the likely longevity and stability of MBS and MBZ’s ‘advanced sultanates’. In particular, it notes their apparent strength, while also considering possible dangers they may face alongside some of the more peaceful forms of activity that could also result in regime change. Secondly, it contemplates the possibilities for such advanced sultanism to replicate elsewhere in the world. In particular, it notes that replication may prove difficult (though not impossible) in other contemporary sultanates given their lack of rentier state legacies and poorer access to advanced economies and consultants Nonetheless, it notes that MBS and MBZ may seek to promote—or perhaps diffuse—repressive aspects of their regimes elsewhere in the region, especially if Saudi and UAE diplomatic support and economic aid can be tied to the adoption of MBS and MBZ’s signature policies. Finally, the chapter discusses the relevance of MBS and MBZ’s advanced sultanism to several broader issues, including: the debate on Islam’s supposed incompatibility with capitalism (which their regimes seem to contradict); the prospects for modernization theory (which their regimes also seem to contradict); and--more philosophically--the extent which their regimes may complicate global intellectual support for monarchy.
Venizelos
Authors: Llewellyn-Smith Michael
Published: September 2021

This book is about the life and times of Eleftherios Venizelos, one of the greatest political leaders of Greece in the twentieth century. It covers first his upbringing, education, and political apprenticeship in Ottoman Crete. Venizelos played a major part in the Cretan struggle for Union with Greece. He worked under Prince George of Greece, High Commissioner of the Powers, when Crete became an autonomous regime, and broke with him in the uprising at Therisso which moved Crete a step nearer to Union. Venizelos moved to Greece in 1910, resolved a political crisis provoked by a military uprising, and became prime minister. He founded his own liberal party, and introduced a new constitution and major reforms of Greece's political, economic, and social affairs. He negotiated an alliance with Bulgaria and Serbia and in 1912-13 these Balkan allies attacked the Turks in Macedonia, Thrace and Epirus and were victorious. The territory and population of Greece was almost doubled as a result. These wars, in the second of which Greece and Serbia defeated former ally Bulgaria, won great gains for Greece including Salonika, but left multiple issues unresolved including the fate of the Aegean islands and a naval arms race with Turkey. But these problems were sidelined on the outbreak of the Great War in 1914. Venizelos's career will be explored further in a second volume taking the story on from 1914 to his death in 1936.
Marriage and Children
Authors: Llewellyn-Smith Michael
Published: September 2021

The chapter describes Venizelos's activities after his return to Crete from Athens in 1889. Family affairs were important, starting with marriage to Maria in December 1890, followed by the birth of Kyriakos (1892) and Sophocles (1894). Maria died of puerperal fever after the birth of Sophocles. Venizelos took this hard, his friends reporting his excessive display of grief, and statement that he would never marry again. This was a time of family concerns but also of legal work. He argued for exerting pressure on the Ottomans for reconvening the Assembly, but acting always within the law. In his legal practice he took on unpopular cases where necessary, and was quick to defend his honor when it was attacked. Meanwhile he extended his range of friends, mainly among liberals, and including the consuls general of the Powers, in which his improving English and French and skill at bridge paid off. He made clear e.g. to the journalist Dimitrios Kaklamanos his belief that Crete must adapt to circumstances and to the policies of the Powers.
The Akrotiri Uprising
Authors: Llewellyn-Smith Michael
Published: September 2021

The chapter describes the progressive break down of order and increase in intercommunal violence in 1895-7, leading to a form of autonomy. As the situation deteriorated the Powers (Britain, France, Russia, Italy) were sucked in, sending warships to help keep the peace, and taking on responsibility for governance and security in the large towns. Venizelos played a large part, largely diplomatic and political rather than military, once he concluded that he could no longer stand aside. He and a band of insurgents occupied the Akrotiri peninsula from which they were able to deal with the Powers' ships, the consuls, the Greek ships, and the local Christian population. The chief operators in this complex situation of insurgency were the consuls of the Powers, the Admirals who formed a governing Council for Crete, local Cretan leaders, and a Greek force under Colonel Vassos. The Greek and Cretan aim was union with Greece, but this was reduced to autonomy in deference to the Powers. The solution reached was evacuation of the Greek forces, and agreement on a form of autonomy for Crete, but not before Greece had invaded Thessaly and suffered a humiliating defeat by a Turkish army.
How to Resolve a Crisis
Authors: Llewellyn-Smith Michael
Published: September 2021

In this chapter the author analyses the problems faced by Venizelos in finding a solution to a difficult political impasse. He had to persuade all parties, viz. the military league, the old party politicians (Theotokis etc), and the king, of the merits of his solution, which was to convoke a Revisionary National Assembly to revise the constitution, with the officers of the league returning to barracks. He handled these parties with immense skill, tackling the league first, then the politicians, and finally the king. The most difficult customer was the king, deeply suspicious of the national assembly proposal because he feared its constitutional implications for the dynasty. However, with the holding of a Crown Council, and further negotiations, Venizelos's efforts succeeded, and all accepted the proposal for a revisionary assembly. Stefanos Dragoumis was appointed prime minister and Venizelos was able to return to Crete - having strengthened his links with liberal and radical politicians, and opened the way to his later entry into the Greek political system.
Venizelos Prime Minister
Authors: Llewellyn-Smith Michael
Published: September 2021

This chapter looks at Venizelos's first steps as head of government in Athens. They showed that he was determined to secure a solid majority, enabling him to implement his program, starting with constitutional revision. Rebutting the hostility of the Ottomans, for whom as the architect of enosis he was deeply suspect, he appointed a government of five ministers of whom only two had served in previous parliaments. This was new blood. Action on the constitution was held up by a major row in parliament (itself with constitutional implications) over the question of dissolution of the assembly, which Venizelos requested. The King granted this, leading to new elections which the old political parties boycotted, thus cutting their own throats. The old party leaders, Theotokis, Rallis and others, had underestimated the new prime minister, who secured an impressive majority. Young deputies such as Kafandaris, elected on Rallis's ticket, soon followed Venizelos, joining the liberal party.
The November Elections
Authors: Llewellyn-Smith Michael
Published: September 2021

This chapter outlines the approach of the Venizelists to the November elections, again for a double sized revisionary assembly. Venizelos was forced to improvise in drawing up the Liberal party electoral lists, given the continuing lack of an effective country-wide party organization. The manner of Greek elections had not changed. Examples are given of his recruitment of local notables in the tradition of Greek party politics. The party was formed in his image. The chapter continues with an account of a canvassing trip made by Venizelos, with Metaxas, to Larissa, Karditsa and other towns, and of his final speech in Athens in which he called for political discipline. The result of the 28 November election was, largely because of the main opposition parties' boycott, a great success for the liberal party, giving Venizelos a massive majority in the assembly (307 out of 362 seats) enabling him to get his program implemented.
Lloyd George, Churchill and Venizelos
Authors: Llewellyn-Smith Michael
Published: September 2021

British government and public views were important to Venizelos in promoting Greek aims and exploiting the sympathy of liberal quarters in Britain. The Anglo-Hellenic League, founded in 1913 by Professor Ronald Burrows and other sympathizers with the aim of promoting the 'just claims and honor of Greece' was a useful means of propaganda. Venizelos saw contact with the British government, especially Lloyd George, Chancellor, and Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, as a crucial part of his visit to London. His talks with them were facilitated by the banker and diplomat John Stavridi. Venizelos, Lloyd George and Churchill explored the possibility of a British-Greek entente based on Greece allowing the British fleet access to Argostoli in Cephalonia in return for British support for Greece's aims; or a general entente of which naval cooperation would be an element. These talks did not result in an agreement, but were the start of a close relationship between Lloyd George and Venizelos which was important to Greece during the Great War and after.
Death of the King
Authors: Llewellyn-Smith Michael
Published: September 2021

King George, who had stayed in Salonika as a symbol of Greek sovereignty, was assassinated there in early March 1913. He deserved the eloquent tribute Venizelos gave him in parliament. His son Constantine, who became king, was a more difficult customer. The main persisting difficulty facing the Greek government and military authorities was over Bulgaria, where Venizelos's policy was regarded by colleagues (Streit and Skouloudis) as too conciliatory. However, on the question of sovereignty Venizelos was firm, while continuing to persuade the new Bulgarian prime minister Danev to his point of view, which was that if no agreement was possible there should be recourse to arbitration or mediation by friendly countries. Meanwhile a blockage of the London negotiations was resolved by Grey, ambassador Elliot and Venizelos, and the London treaty was signed in May. The Bulgarian issue threatened war in early summer, prompting Greece to conclude a defensive treaty with Serbia in May/June, following a dispute between Venizelos and the King as to the extent of Greece's commitments under it (specifically, whether in the event of war between Austria and Serbia Greece would be obliged to help the latter). This issue was to return during the Great War.
Simplifying
Authors: Srinivasan Sharath
Published: September 2021

This chapter, ‘Simplifying’, probes the pathologies of a central means of making peace in civil war. In any project of ‘making’, designs aim towards simplicity. In peacemaking, a neat make-do design first involves reductively naming a politically complex reality to make a solvable problem. Yet design-based simplifications collide with the complexity of the actual civil war, and then need forceful means to be sustained and actualized. Taking the crucial Machakos Protocol of 2002 and the SPLM/A as its focus, this chapter digs deeper into how simplifying is implemented in peacemaking practice, how it is resisted, and its effects. A close-up analysis of peacemakers’ attempts to detach and localize conflict in the border regions of the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile, and resistance to this by the SPLM/A and others, further demonstrates the perils of simplifying the politics of civil war as a mode of peacemaking. Although simplifying was a useful means to achieve Sudan’s ‘north-south’ peace, its ramifications for reproducing violent resistance ensured it was a mere pause on war which later took on new and different character.
Unfounding
Authors: Srinivasan Sharath
Published: September 2021

This chapter, ‘Unbounding’, illuminates the opposition between peace as a project of making and the founding or refounding of a political community through civil political action. The chapter examines how peacemaking was implicated in South Sudan’s violent failure as a new political community. Without diminishing domestic elite political responsibility for the destruction of order and civility, the chapter analyses how this collapse was possible within the context of a heavily internationalized peacemaking, statebuilding and peacebuilding effort. By ordaining a government-in-waiting that needed no further legitimacy from its people, and focusing on a technocratic and transactional mode of ‘building’ peace and state in southern Sudan after war, international intervention made a peace without politics in southern Sudan between 2005 and 2011. The new political beginning of independence, the founding of a new political community, became a mirage when overtaken by the memories and wounds of intra-southern violence, rekindled political rivalries and the militarized, corrupted and coercive logic of power to rule that quickly pulled South Sudan down into war.
Conclusion
Authors: Srinivasan Sharath
Published: September 2021

The book’s conclusion insists that we must not start with the question of ‘what should we do differently?’ but rather ‘how might we think differently (about peacemaking in civil war)?’ Having rebuffed solutions of crude design and the dangers of reducing politics to modes of making, there can be no neat and easy answers. Inspired by what the Postscript allows us to see differently, and alongside the book’s core arguments critically appraising the failures of peacemaking in the Sudans over two decades, the conclusion underscores that a different kind of thinking about what politics is and what it demands of us is essential in order to move beyond the tragedy inherent in contemporary peacemaking practice. Only with such thinking, for which the conclusion provokes some new beginnings drawing from ideas on negotiated revolutions and civic republicanism, can other ways of acting in the world become clear and make their claim amidst the unavoidably messy make-do realities of peacemaking in civil wars.
Introduction
Authors: Coker Christopher
Published: September 2021

Of all the explanations that have been advanced for the persistence of war over time the most compelling is by the Dutch ethologist Nico Tinbergen. His study of animal behavior led him to propose an investigative strategy which raises four questions about war: what are its origins; what are the mechanisms which allow it to flourish; what is its ontogeny, or its historical evolution over time; and how does  it function- how does its adaptive significance facilitate its reproductive success? War continues to evolve, to offer new opportunities and options. The question is whether it will escape human control. Thanks to scientists like Tinbergen we have discovered that our intelligence is specific to one species – it’s different from that of other animals and  it will be different again from the machine intelligence we are about to create.
Ontogeny
Authors: Coker Christopher
Published: September 2021

Unlike any other animal we have a history. We live in historical time thanks to culture and culture is largely technological in nature, whether the technologies we identify are languages, cities or machines. History as the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus told us, is the story of constant change. In the case of war, our behavior has witnessed three major historical transitions: from the primate stage of evolution to one that was recognizably human; from the hunter – gather stage of existence to the emergence of agrarian societies; and finally the transition from the agricultural to the industrial era. And if war is universal – if it transcends both time and culture – different societies have different ways of thinking about war and conducting it. Indian, Chinese and European ways of thinking were all different from each other and were different again from the Meso– American. Uniformity has finally arrived with the digital era.
On the Problematic of Sectarianism
Authors: Bishara Azmi
Published: September 2021

This chapter presents the problematic of sectarianism, discussing how identities have often overlapped and intermingled despite the periodic dominance of one or another under specific historical circumstances. The problem addressed in this chapter is that modern sectarianism is, in real terms, producing imagined sects by transforming religious and confessional affiliations into imagined communities that form a political reference point for the individuals that belong to them. This chapter contends that political sectarianism generally aims to treat religious affiliations as communities whose members share fixed inherited traits, regardless of whether they are believers or not. It also finds that the difference between a sect as a local community and an imagined ta’ifa produced by sectarianism is precisely that sectarianism delineates the borders and in doing so produces a community or group—an imagined community.
Firqa and Iftiraq in Islam
Authors: Bishara Azmi
Published: September 2021

This chapter demonstrates that the classical literature on firqas does not necessarily depict them as social entities, but mostly as groups of scholars with opinions on doctrine. By this definition, Sunnis constituted neither a firqa (sect in the Weberian sense) nor a ta’ifa: Sunnism began as a jurisprudents’ Islam articulated in opposition to what its proponents considered the deviations of a particular historical period. Nor was Sunnism an original, authentic Islam from which all other firqas diverged. This chapter also notes that the term milla referred to all Muslims— expressing a shared set of core beliefs and practices—and that a strong cultural antipathy developed towards disunity, which was identified with decline and fragmentation. This chapter finally emphasizes the anti-sectarian character of Arab secularism.
Japan Must Fight Britain
Authors: Kornicki Peter
Published: September 2021

After the Anglo-Japanese Alliance came to an end in 1923, and especially in the 1930s, relations between Britain and Japan gradually worsened. This had been predicted privately by Lt.-Gen. Sir Ian Hamilton in Britain but publicly by Hector Bywater and publicly in Japan by Ishimaru Tōta, whose books were translated into English. Although the War Office made no linguistic preparations for war, GC&CS (the Government Code & Cypher School) had begun working on Japanese naval codes in the 1920s and for this purpose hired former members of the British consular service in Japan, who had a good knowledge of Japanese, along with Eric Nave, a brilliant Australian linguist and cryptographer working for the Royal Australian Navy. The outbreak of war in Europe in 1939 created a need for linguists to work as censors, and this brought the famous translator Arthur Waley and a retired naval captain with a good knowledge of Japanese, Oswald Tuck, back to work.
The Dulwich Boys and their Successors
Authors: Kornicki Peter
Published: September 2021

To meet the need for linguists in the war with Japan, the War Office finally responded to pressure from SOAS and in 1942 instituted a series of language courses at SOAS in London. For the first course, which consisted only of men, schoolboys were recruited from all over Britain and they were accommodated at Dulwich College during their 18-month course, so they became known as the Dulwich Boys. Frank and Otome Daniels were the key teachers, but Daniels had to recruit many more teachers as the courses expanded, including some Canadians of Japanese origin, some Japanese residents in the UK who were released from internment so that they could teach, and assorted others. Other courses at SOAS were taught by linguists and phoneticians with no knowledge of Japanese who nevertheless successfully trained students to recognize and understand spoken military Japanese, a skill that they put to good use monitoring air-to-ground communications in the Burma Campaign.
Mauritius in Danger
Authors: Kornicki Peter
Published: September 2021

When the war began in 1939, Edward Twining was working for the British Colonial Service on the island of Mauritius and entirely on his own initiative began monitoring Vichy French signals emanating from Madagascar and Réunion. In this he was helped by his sister-in-law, Evelyn DuBuisson, who turned out to have a talent for codebreaking. After the outbreak of war with Japan, Mauritius was in danger of invasion but Twining began to monitor Japanese communications, taking advantage of the height of Mauritius, which enabled it to pick up Japanese transmissions that could not be picked up in other Allied territories. Since he had shown that Mauritius was able to pass on valuable intelligence to London, three of the precious graduates of the Bedford Japanese School, Robert Sellar, Elizabeth Anderson and Francis Dashwood, were sent out to Mauritius. Sellar did codebreaking there, Anderson ran Japanese classes for locals working in Twining’s covert organization and Dashwood did intelligence work.
The Backroom Boys—and Girls
Authors: Kornicki Peter
Published: September 2021

After finishing their course at the Bedford Japanese School in 1942, some people were sent out to the Wireless Experimental Centre in Delhi, which was the equivalent to Bletchley Park in India and which also absorbed cryptographers from the Far East Combined Bureau after the fall of Singapore. The Wireless Experimental Centre was primarily concerned with monitoring communications connected with the Burma Campaign and the Japanese attempted invasion of India. Meanwhile, the members of the Women’s Royal Naval Service who had been working at the Far East Combined Bureau in Singapore, and who had been the first British servicewomen to be posted overseas, were transferred to Kilindini Naval Base near Mombasa, where the British Eastern Fleet was based after having been forced to leave its base on Ceylon (Sri Lanka). In 1944, as the tide of the war was turning, the Eastern Fleet returned to Ceylon: one of the troopships, SS Khedive Ismail, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine and this led to the largest single loss of Allied servicewomen and of African troops in the war, including some of the Wrens.
On the Front Line in Burma
Authors: Kornicki Peter
Published: September 2021

After the Japanese invasion of Burma, the British and Indian armies were forced to retreat to India, where they finally held their ground at Imphal and then began to turn the tables and force the Japanese armies to retreat. The long Burma Campaign which involved grueling jungle warfare required up-to-date intelligence and that depended upon linguists and codebreakers. The Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre (India) sent out Mobile Sections following the troops: their job was to scour the battlefields for documents, diaries and battle orders, often found on corpses, translate them and convey the intelligence they contained as quickly as possible. Later in the war the South-East Asia Translation and Interrogation Center was formed under Admiral Mountbatten to bring together all the Japanese linguists and intelligence officers, including some who had been trained at the School of Japanese Instruction in Simla, which later moved to Karachi.
From Australia to Leyte Gulf
Authors: Kornicki Peter
Published: September 2021

In 1940 a small group of mathematicians and classicists began to work on Japanese codes with the encouragement of the Australian Army, and several of them began to learn Japanese. In the same year the Censorship Office in Melbourne launched a Japanese course to meet the needs for censors with a command of Japanese. This was the first Allied response to the demand for Japanese linguists. Some of the graduates were posted to Wireless Units in Queensland or the Northern Territory where they derived intelligence from Japanese wireless communications. After US forces had been forced to abandon the Philippines, General Douglas MacArthur had set up his headquarters in Australia. While the US Navy established the Fleet Radio Unit Melbourne, MacArthur created Central Bureau in Brisbane to deal with encrypted messages. This was staffed by graduates of US language schools, the Censorship Office School in Melbourne and Bedford Japanese School. Soon afterwards the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section was formed, which provided linguists to follow the troops as they fought their way towards Japan: they interrogated prisoners and translated documents found on the battlefield.
Finishing the Job
Authors: Kornicki Peter
Published: September 2021

After the war came to an end, British linguists in Burma and Malay were busy screening Japanese surrendered personnel in order to identify war crimes suspects. Also, they interviewed Japanese commanders to gain a historical understanding of the war in South-East Asia, for the Japanese forces had destroyed all their records. The British Commonwealth Occupation Force reached Japan in 1946 and was given responsibility for policing the Occupation of Japan in the south-western part of the country. Few of those who participated felt that the Occupation was worthwhile. For the Tokyo Trials, Allied interpreters were not used: instead, members of the Japanese Foreign Ministry acted as interpreters, though their work was supervised by American linguists.
Looking Back
Authors: Kornicki Peter
Published: September 2021

What happened to those who learned Japanese during the war? The lives of some of them were changed forever, since many who learnt Japanese for the war later became teachers of Japanese in universities in Britain, the USA, Canada, and Australia, while others returned to their pre-war interests. In the USA, the Defense Language Office, created in 2005, has worked to maintain regional and linguistic studies in US universities, but in Britain the impact of so-called market forces on universities has led to the inexorable decline of language studies in schools and universities.
Introduction
Authors: Walter Ryan
Published: September 2021

This chapter describes how the book departs from the existing historiography that concerns the work of Thomas Robert Malthus and David Ricardo. In short, the approach here is to focus on intellectual contexts and linguistic evidence. This excludes the usual treatment of these authors in terms of their methods and models, and it also forecloses the study of their work in relation to ‘classical political economy’ since this category is a retrospective invention of Karl Marx that he coined for the purpose of establishing his supersession of these writers. The implications of the general revision attempted here are far-reaching, especially in relation to the propriety of approaching past thinkers in terms of their ‘method’ and the nature of political economy as a vocation in the early nineteenth century.
Introduction to Part III
Authors: Walter Ryan
Published: September 2021

This Introduction indicates the aim of the next three chapters: to study the doctrinal contest between Malthus and Ricardo in historical terms. This is a challenge since the temptation is to treat the articulation of correct doctrine as the natural form for economic knowledge. Yet it is crucial to note that doctrinal elaboration was pioneered by Malthus and Ricardo, such that this development needs to be registered as a historical event. This is achieved by studying doctrinal claims alongside the appraisive vocabularies that Malthus and Ricardo used, which reveals that the vocabulary of theory and practice was once again at the centre of the contest. In particular, Malthus used this vocabulary to impugn Ricardo’s reasoning as dangerous because it neglected the needs of legislators and because it seemed to be the product of an undisciplined mind.
Doctrinal Contest III
Authors: Walter Ryan
Published: September 2021

This chapter completes the study of doctrinal contest between Malthus and Ricardo by considering their rival treatments of profits. Ricardo’s account gave a central role to his idea of the ‘natural wage’, in which he adapted Malthus’s arguments on population for his own purposes. Ricardo also completed his destruction of Smith’s arguments regarding capital allocation and the quasi-providential properties of the system of natural liberty, as expressed in Smith’s overly quoted notion of an ‘invisible hand’. Ricardo’s uncomprehending reading of Wealth of Nations combined with his doctrinal correction of Smith appears, in hindsight, to have been a toxic reception context for Smith’s work. Malthus responded to Ricardo’s account of profits by claiming to have bested him both theoretically and practically by keeping his analysis open to all causal factors and by being able to account for the relevant facts of Britain’s commercial history. Once again, Malthus targeted the hastiness of Ricardo the theorist in attempting to simplify what could not be simplified. In his response, Ricardo had few rhetorical resources with which to defend the legitimacy of abstract theory.
Texts, Translations, Notes, and Commentary
Authors: Fraade Steven D.
Published: September 2021

The chapter provides a critical representation of the text(s), based on manuscript comparison and consulting of digital images, an English translation that cleaves to the original Hebrew while rendering it in accessible prose. Critical Notes to both the Hebrew text and its English translation, and a Commentary that seeks to highlight and interconnect the overarching themes and rhetorical strategies of the text, as it might have been communally performed in the intellectual and ritual life of the Qumran community (or communities). Suggestions for Further Reading are incorporated into each section. The Notes, which form the largest part of this chapter, identify and analyze the plenitude of both explicit (citation) and implicit (allusion) scriptural interpretation, both legal and non-legal, as well as convergences and divergences with a panoply of ancient Jewish sources, including, in addition to the Hebrew Bible, other scrolls, other second temple Jewish literature, New Testament, and early rabbinic sources, the last of which is a particular feature of this commentary in comparison to its antecedents (see Ancient Source indices). These cross-references will serve to better understand and appreciate the Damascus Document in its broader historical and cultural contexts. The Comments on each editorial unit seek to frame the text in relation to broader consideration of the identity formation, reinforcement, and transmission of both individuals and communities, of both veteran members and novices. Particular attention is given to the seeming polemical nature of much of the text, as well as its intra-mural educational purposes. The commentary takes seriously the self-designation of the community, through this text (CD [MS B] 20:10, 13), as a studying and practicing community, “the house of the Torah.” Another important feature of the Damascus Document, and hence its commentary, is the different types and functions of human leadership of the community which sees both it leaders and itself as divinely elect and in possession of esoteric wisdom and discernment.
Ordering
Authors: Cotnoir A. J. , Varzi Achille C.
Published: September 2021

Classical mereology is based on the idea that parthood is a reflexive, transitive, antisymmetric relation—a weak partial order. Proper parthood is irreflexive, transitive, and asymmetric—serving as the corresponding strict partial order. This chapter critically and carefully evaluates each of these conditions, and considers a range of alternate definitions for proper parthood and other basic notions.. Along the way, it discusses formal relationships between these definitions, and the logical implications of adopting them. The philosophical controversies surrounding these axioms are addressed: discussing self-parts, parthood loops, mutual parts and extensionality, and non-transitive notions such as immediate parthood, local transitivity, and more.
Plurals and Second-Order Logic
Authors: Florio Salvatore , Linnebo Øystein
Published: September 2021

While plural logic can be interpreted in monadic second-order logic, the full system of second-order logic cannot be interpreted in plural logic. This means it is formally possible to eliminate plural logic in favor of monadic second-order logic. However, a number of philosophical considerations militate against such an elimination. The conclusion of this chapter echoes that of the preceding ones: although the two systems can occasionally be used for similar purposes, the notions they represent are different and must be kept apart.
Superplurals
Authors: Florio Salvatore , Linnebo Øystein
Published: September 2021

Can the step from the singular to the plural be iterated? The resulting superplurals would have many valuable applications but are often met with skepticism. This chapter clarifies what superplural reference would be and distinguishes four grades of superplural involvement, ranging from the possibility of a superplural logic to the existence of superplurals in natural language. While the lower grades are shown to be unproblematic, the chapter provides a careful analysis of arguments for and against the higher grades, concluding, in particular, that a strong case can be made for the existence of superplurals in natural language.
Absolute Generality and Singularization
Authors: Florio Salvatore , Linnebo Øystein
Published: September 2021

Is it possible to assert something of absolutely everything there is? While such absolute generality appears possible, it faces serious theoretical challenges. This chapter examines one such challenge, based on the possibility of one-to-one mappings from pluralities to objects. The challenge gives rise to a trilemma. First, generality relativists deny the possibility of absolute generality, at the cost of being unable to express various important insights. Second, traditional generality absolutists deny the possibility of the mentioned mappings, but are pushed up a hierarchy of logics of higher and higher order, resulting in an expressibility deficit akin to that of the relativists. This motivates taking a closer look at the third option, which restricts traditional plural logic.
Critical Plural Logic
Authors: Florio Salvatore , Linnebo Øystein
Published: September 2021

This chapter develops and motivates an alternative, more critical plural logic, thus exploring the third horn of the trilemma from the previous chapter. First, a liberal view of mathematical definitions is defended, according to which any objects can be used to define a set. This entails that the traditional plural comprehension scheme needs to be restricted. Some successor principles are then formulated on the basis of the idea that any plurality needs to be circumscribed. Finally, the resulting critical plural logic is shown to give rise to a natural and elegant approach to set theory.
Mr Spectator and the Doctor
Authors: Cowan Brian
Published: September 2021

Joseph Addison and Henry Sacheverell were almost exact contemporaries. Born within two years of one another, both men attended Magdalen College, Oxford in their youth, and they both took up their studies at the college in the wake of the Glorious Revolution. From this moment onward, the lives and public careers of Addison and Sacheverell would be curiously intertwined. Scholarship and college life would bring them together as friends, but politics and public fame would pull them apart. A contrast between the agreeable Addison and the distasteful Sacheverell is commonplace in eighteenth-century studies, and not without reason. As perhaps the chief proponent of a new culture of ‘politeness’ for post-revolutionary Britain, Addison is well known for his friendliness, if not perhaps for his volubility, in company. Addison’s powerful reputation as the patron saint of eighteenth-century politeness did not sit well with his ties to Sacheverell, whose firebrand reputation was deeply controversial in his lifetime and only declined further as time went by. For this reason, the youthful friendship of the two Magdalen scholars has been a source of awkwardness for later commentators. This chapter places the friendship between Addison and Sacheverell within the context of post-revolutionary political and literary culture.
Coins and Circulation in Addison’s Prose
Authors: Power Henry
Published: September 2021

In his Remarks on Several Parts of Italy (1705), Addison regularly draws on his deep knowledge of Latin poetry in order to ‘compare the natural face of the country with the Landskips that the Poets have given us of it’. Less conventionally, but just as regularly, he elucidates landscape, history, and antiquities through reference to ancient coins. Roughly contemporaneously, Addison wrote a defence of numismatics in the Dialogues Upon the Usefulness of Ancient Medals (published posthumously in 1721), in which one character, Philander, seeks to persuade Cynthio from his view that numismatists are mere ‘critics in Rust’ (Cynthio’s view closely resembling the attacks on Bentley and others by satirists such as William King). Addison, through Philander’s person, sees the poems and medals he juxtaposes as representing ‘the same design executed by different hands’; ‘A reverse often clears up the passages of an old poet, as the poet often serves to unriddle a reverse.’ But coins have, for Addison, a moral as well as an explanatory function, publicizing the characters and deeds of great men and women by keeping them in circulation. This chapter explores the relationship between the moral and the fiscal function of coins, drawing out connections between Addison’s views on ancient numismatics and his approach both to modern British coinage and to the circulation of texts and ideas.