bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
‘The Dread of Innovation’
Authors: Davies Huw J.
Published: May 2023

This chapter focuses on how the British Army reached a pinnacle of professionalism and innovation, through a combination of interrelated factors. It reviews the intellectual innovation and adaptation in the face of global military challenges, the concurrent circulation of military knowledge gained through the global experience of warfare, and networks that spanned the globe and facilitated the exchange of experience, ideas and military knowledge across space and time. As the chapter highlights, these factors enabled Britain's accidental military enlightenment. But in the wake of ultimate victory at Waterloo, the relationship between innovation, global challenge and knowledge circulation began to disintegrate. The chapter argues that while the British might have curtailed the transmission of ideas to indigenous foes, the localised ideas and practices which had been the key to innovative responses in the past were transmitted from the periphery to the centre only in a fragmentary manner. In an atmosphere that sought to curtail knowledge transmission and innovation in an adversary's army, the principal outcome was merely that knowledge transmission and innovation was stymied within the British Army. With intellectual innovation stagnating, circulation of new ideas curtailed and networks of knowledge exchange dismantled, the chapter stresses that British Army in the early nineteenth century quickly moved from military enlightenment to ignorance.
Introduction
Authors: Bristow Joseph
Published: May 2023

This chapter addresses the current knowledge of the Crown prosecution of Oscar Wilde, his personal life and professional career prior to the trials, the proceedings that stretched across just over seven weeks, and the post-trials punishment that he endured at three different English prisons. It explains the courtroom events that resulted in Wilde's incarceration. It also cites initial remarks that outline the legal background to Wilde's conviction for committing acts of gross indecency. The chapter provides a background on the manner in which the press followed the staggering revelations that emerged in the course of the Crown's protracted case. It considers the impact of the trials on the remaining five-and-a-half years of Wilde's comparatively short life.
Subgroup A
Authors: Neuwirth Angelika , Wilder Samuel
Published: May 2023

This chapter discusses subgroup A of the first group of suras. Suras 93, 94, 97, and 108 are “prekerygmatic” suras, employing psalmic language to express a personally experienced unburdening following a distressed experience of crisis, or an experience of spiritual fulfillment. A further characteristic of these texts is that within them, inner-worldly situations of lack, such as the fate of an orphan, neediness, and distress, are “lifted” by way of the provision of divine favor. These lacks gain an additional spiritual dimension through the divine nearness that compensates for them, so that their significance seems to oscillate between real and spiritual situations of lack. These suras are followed by the assurances of providence, no longer exclusively oriented toward the individual, but now also to the collective, in suras 105 and 106, the former of which shows a Psalm reference.
Subgroup A
Authors: Neuwirth Angelika , Wilder Samuel
Published: May 2023

This chapter focuses on subgroup A of the second group of suras: suras 89, 91, 92, and 90. This subgroup documents a new interest in systems of ordering such as numbers and pairs of opposites in creation, and even urban structures that resemble the physical symmetries presented in creation. In sura 91, the idea of a dichotomy between acceptance and rejection, of “denial” (kadhdhaba) of the proclaimed truth, is introduced programmatically. As the Bible construes the Egyptians as an emblem of enmity toward religion, so does the Qur'an establish a standard group of “insubordinate peoples” in its historical examples of denial of the truth. In sura 91, these “insubordinate peoples” are represented by Thamūd alone, but to which further peoples are added already in sura 92.
Subgroup A
Authors: Neuwirth Angelika , Wilder Samuel
Published: May 2023

This chapter explores subgroup A of the third group of suras: suras 73, 74, 80, and 79. In their introductory parts, these suras directly address the proclaimer as the recipient of the message within the situation of a cultic act (suras 73 and 74), or criticize him because of a discriminatory action toward the hearers (sura 80). The central theme here of the warning (tadhkira) available to all also remains the focus of the following sura 79, where in verse 45 the proclaimer is confirmed in his role as “warner” (mundhir). Sura 79 is also closely connected to the preceding sura 80, through its working out of the theme of the status of humanity. The creature “human” is in sura 79 set polemically into connection with the creation of the world, and must now measure himself against the standard of the cosmic creation.
The Year of the Somme
Authors: Prior Robin
Published: May 2023

This chapter focuses on the year of the Somme campaign. It explicates the understanding that large attacks by the four Allies should take place as near simultaneously as possible in 1916 in order to prevent the Germans from switching forces similar to what they did in 1915. Sir Douglas Haig waited for a clear directive involving the clear political agreement to a joint Anglo-French summer offensive on the Western Front. The chapter explains how Verdun was a major factor in Haig's reconsideration of his unlimited offensive plan. It details Haig's attempts to win the Battle of the Somme, wherein he failed to abide by his responsibilities to inflict more damage to the Germans than the Germans on his troops.
The Defeat of the Ottoman Empire 1914–1918
Authors: Prior Robin
Published: May 2023

This chapter expounds on the defeat of the Ottoman Empire. The 1912 and 1913 Balkan wars saw Turkey lose most of its European possessions. As a result, the new regime became more Turco-centric and less tolerant of ethnic and religious differences compared to the old empire. The chapter explains how Turkey put the German alliance in abeyance and declared its neutrality before entering the war. The Young Turk government's actions in 1914 decided that the Central Powers would win the war. Moreover, the government's ambitions were revealed after their prompt move on the Suez Canal. The chapter also explains that any desire to keep the Ottoman Empire intact vanished when the war began.
1918 – Victory
Authors: Prior Robin
Published: May 2023

This chapter discusses the victory and aftermath of the last major German offensive on the Western Front. It details the state of the British army in July 1918, such as casualties, divisions returning from Italy and the Middle East, and new conscripts for Douglas Haig's army. Since Britain was forced to retreat and suffer equipment loss, weapons production increased, and aerial photography improved. Haig was credited with enabling the British army to develop into a most efficient fighting machine, but doubts arose on whether he ever grasped the principles of the limited offensive. The chapter also elaborates on the state of the German troops. It then explains how the German army collapsed after being outfought by the Allies on the Western Front.
1940 – Crisis Year
Authors: Prior Robin
Published: May 2023

This chapter looks into the period when Winston Churchill was establishing himself as Minister of Defence and Prime Minister after Neville Chamberlain's majority fell and he resigned. It elaborates on Churchill's War Cabinet and the work on keeping up with the war against the German army. Despite Churchill having little influence on military operations, he was a vital man in the crisis in 1940 as he ensured a policy of victory and military realism. Moreover, Churchill ensured that the war would be fought to an end in spite of whatever 1941 brought. The chapter also details the Blitz campaign, which was the last campaign in 1940 that Churchill had to handle.
The Desert – Montgomery’s War 1942–1943
Authors: Prior Robin
Published: May 2023

This chapter covers the appointment of Harold Alexander as the theatre commander and General Bernard Montgomery as the Eighth Army commander. It notes the new policies concerning the arrival of a new army commander, which brought relief when it was known that the enemy would be met and fought in a prepared position. Montgomery brought simplicity and clarity to the structure of the army amidst the desert warfare. The chapter then expounds on how Montgomery's plans for Alamein did not come to fruition. Moreover, Winston Churchill made no criticism of Montgomery and recognized Alamein as a turning point in the war.
Pivot of Power – The Mediterranean 1943
Authors: Prior Robin
Published: May 2023

This chapter examines the compromises at the Trident summit. It elaborates on the differences between parties, citing that Winston Churchill insisted on the Overlord's primacy, while Dwight Eisenhower insisted on the Overlord staying in the Mediterranean and finishing off Italy. Despite the arguments, Eisenhower proposed a compromise where plans would be produced for all eventualities, such as the collapse of Sicily. The chapter explains how distrust emerged when Churchill failed to reassure American President Franklin Roosevelt regarding the plans to abandon Overlord. It clarifies that there was no split of the British political and military ranks over strategy in 1943 regardless of Alan Brooke railing against Churchill's obsession with Rhodes.
Normandy
Authors: Prior Robin
Published: May 2023

This chapter discusses the latest Overlord plan. It expounds on the development and operation of Winston Churchill's Overlord Committee. The Chief of Staff Supreme Allied Commander (COSSAC) planners were forced to estimate both what troops would be available and when the operation might take place. The chapter explains American President Franklin Roosevelt's interpretation of military necessity. It notes that Bernard Montgomery's plans for the Normandy operation were the greatest amphibious landing ever attempted, following thousands of ships, warships, naval personnel, and troops to five landing beaches. The chapter highlights Churchill's constraints during the Normandy campaign by referencing the Transportation Plan.
Burma
Authors: Prior Robin
Published: May 2023

This chapter explores the invasion of Japanese troops in Burma. It acknowledges the general agreement not to let the war come to Burma among British statesmen and soldiers in 1941. The Japanese invasions incurred when they were trying to flank their conquests in South East Asia, which just happened to be in the position of the flank. The chapter expounds on the preparations Burma made before the outbreak of the war in the Far East. It also clarifies that the Americans did not need the British people for the Pacific Strategy, so they only accepted the offer as a gesture of goodwill. Moreover, Britain's main problem lay in attempting to fight against north-western Europe, Italy, and the Far East.
Introduction
Authors: Kirshner Alexander S.
Published: May 2023

This introductory chapter argues that legitimate opposition should be distinguished from democracy. Doing so will help to reevaluate and reappraise legitimate opposition. Following this path will reveal whether opposition warrants active, even militant, defense. It will help explain why it is wrong for political actors to reject the practice. And it will help show why the collapse of the United States' competitive system should be feared. To that end, the chapter first defines legitimate opposition and associated terms. It then discusses at length why one cannot rely on the democratic conception of legitimate opposition, providing both ideal and minimalist theories thereof. Finally, the chapter presents two kinds of analyses for this account of legitimate opposition: normative and genealogical.
Rethinking Opposition’s Boundaries
Authors: Kirshner Alexander S.
Published: May 2023

This chapter demonstrates that opposition is not exclusively modern. Legitimate opposition made a recognizable mark on fifth-century, democratic Athens. Corroborating this argument, the chapter illustrates how the Athenian practice of ostracism and the rules governing its political system were used to distinguish, in practice, between acceptable and unacceptable forms of competition. These institutions were not focused on participants' commitment to popular rule—their loyalty. They were focused on their clout. Maintaining a lively space for competition, Athenian institutions and practices were antimonopolistic. They raised the cost of wielding excessive political power—forms of power that plausibly constituted a threat to that system. In other words, the Athenians distinguished between legitimate and illegitimate forms of opposition. Their approach has critically important implications for understanding where the boundaries of opposition should be drawn.
Conclusion
Authors: Kirshner Alexander S.
Published: May 2023

This concluding chapter contends that legitimate opposition is still relevant in the present day. It discusses the actions of former U.S. President Donald Trump in particular, as his remarks during the 2016 presidential campaign returned the idea of the legitimacy of opposition to political prominence. However, as the chapter shows, the practice of legitimate opposition is not just in question in the United States, but in many parts of the world, even in countries where forces against opposition have failed to gain a foothold. The chapter argues that legitimate opposition is valuable because it is respectful of citizens' agency, allowing a range of individuals and groups to pursue political change peacefully. It can serve this end under a remarkably wide array of political conditions.
A Tafsir of Experience
Authors: wadud amina
Published: May 2023

This chapter presents twenty-five khutbahs written by women from a range of national, social, and political contexts across Muslim-majority and -minority communities. The khatibahs are religious and community leaders, activists, and academics hailing from Senegal, Pakistan, South Africa, Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, Indonesia, Malaysia, Egypt, Mexico, and Denmark. The chapter emphasizes the significant number of South African contributions that reflects the longer South African history of women's khutbahs and the co-authors' local context. The chapter covers the khutbah presented by Professor amina wadud at the Cape Town Claremont Main Road Mosque in 1994, which is an iconic moment that heralded a new space at the minbar for women. It describes the khatibahs that bring the tafsir of their own everyday experiences to the minbar and develop an inclusive space of religious authority.
Conclusion
Authors: Knight Roger
Published: May 2023

This concluding chapter reflects on the halt to the British convoy routine after Napoleon's abdication in 1814. Britain had also signed the Treaty of Ghent with America at the end of 1814, which ended the worrying merchant ship losses of that year, a situation that could only have worsened had the war continued. One of the last of the convoys that sailed unauthorised in mid-1815 was that of the homeward bound East Indies fleet. Convoys had always been put in place to prevent dramatic events from happening and because they were largely successful, they have attracted little notice. When the threat had passed, convoys were forgotten for a hundred years. At the outbreak of war in 1914, they were passed over as a primary method of trade protection. Only when merchant ship casualties had soared were convoys reintroduced, after much debate, in 1917.
Introduction
Authors: Gill David James
Published: May 2023

This chapter introduces the history of Britain’s unpaid debts to the United States and details the two major contributions made by this book. The first is to examine the contested logic of repayment by explaining why the British government continued to repay its debts to the United States long after many other states had defaulted. The second is to consider the longer term and largely neglected consequences of the eventual default. These two insights help to inform the work of economic and political historians but also complement research produced by social scientists, especially political scientists and international relations scholars using historical or case study data to build or test their theories.
British Default, 1934
Authors: Gill David James
Published: May 2023

The United Kingdom suspended payment of its war debts to the United States in 1934. The British cabinet was still anxious about the impact on the United Kingdom’s position as a creditor but was motivated by the absence of a settlement, shrinking domestic-political support for repayment, and the limited repercussions that had followed French default. London’s decision was also informed by events in Washington, specifically the passage of the Foreign Securities Act through Congress earlier in the year. The Johnson Act, as it became known, significantly raised the costs of repayment without offering any improvement in the chances of securing a favorable settlement. Widespread support for the Johnson Act across the United States and its swift passage through Congress outlawed partial payments and halted further income from foreign debtors, most of whom chose not to resume payments thereafter. This political stance cost the U.S. government tens of millions of dollars in 1934 and every year thereafter for decades to come. The Johnson Act nevertheless complemented broader attempts to limit U.S. involvement in European affairs for the foreseeable future.
The Sports Business
Authors: Brown Matthew
Published: May 2023

This chapter explores the correlation between sports and business. It details the trade between South American societies and the global economy, which grew alongside the popularization of soccer, cycling, and motorsports. Moreover, the rise of international clerks, traders, and engineers with a passion for physical exercise strengthened the links between sport and business. The 1920 economic growth in South America tightened the correlation between sport, capitalism, and nationalism. The chapter explains that the popularization of sports coincides with the rise of stadia, ticket prices and advertising. It also notes that sporting tournaments implied political meanings that essentially represent the national states.
Endurance
Authors: Brown Matthew
Published: May 2023

This chapter considers the origins of endurance sports in South America. It also highlights the significance of aguante. Practitioners on the continent pioneered long-distance running, cycling, and swimming, producing world record-breaking feats before 1930, so their exhausted bodies were seen as symbolizing humanity's desire to push beyond physical limits. The limits then became feats that drew on military and international routes. The chapter references the global achievements of various South American endurance athletes, such as Lucien Mazan and Manuel Plaza, to demonstrate the creation of a generation of athletes dedicated to endurance sports.
Defining the Enemy, Crafting Strategy, Imagining a New World
Authors: Cronin James E.
Published: May 2023

This chapter explores the arrangements for postwar that tended to be more or less liberal in a sense that they were aimed at creating a more open world economy. It discusses how the postwar order were deliberately framed and argued for as the means for making a reality of the Four Freedoms and the Atlantic Charter and explicitly favored democracy and self-determination. It also highlights the contradiction between the promise of democracy and the practice of the Soviet Union, both at home and within its newly enlarged sphere of influence. The chapter points out how the contradictions and the tensions they produced made it more difficult for those who clung to the empire to persist and expose the Soviet Union to sustained criticism. The importance of the tensions requires that the postwar order be recognized as incompletely liberal, or as liberal in theory but not always in practice.
Toward a Cold War World Order
Authors: Cronin James E.
Published: May 2023

This chapter confirms whether the emerging Cold War order was truly liberal or conducive to liberalism. In the vast territories controlled by Communist states, liberalism and democracy were not so much alien as forbidden by the ruling parties. It notes the difficulties in characterizing the political order as liberal in large sections of the world that remained part of European empires. The chapter explains how the world was divided behind an illiberal bloc and a Western approach, which was in theory committed to liberalism in politics and to an economy that was capitalist. It highlights that the liberal order that existed in the non-Communist world was still an aspiration, and its future would be worked out within the framework of the Cold War.
In Search of Stability and Prosperity
Authors: Cronin James E.
Published: May 2023

This chapter reviews the political stabilization of postwar that awed much to the Cold War. It emphasizes how the Cold War forced political leaders to choose sides and for political systems on both sides to accommodate the imperatives of the Cold War. It also mentions how the West was forced to narrow the range of acceptable politics and a centering of parties and policy choices. Everywhere in the West the achievement of a level of political stability was accompanied and helped by economic recovery and unprecedented growth. The chapter discusses the reform and refounding of capitalism after the war and the elaboration of social protections that led to an era of prosperity and made it possible to build democratic polities that provided the liberal international order a distinctive and attractive domestic content and a solid political anchor.
Political Stability
Authors: Cronin James E.
Published: May 2023

This chapter recounts the protests of the late 1960s and early 1970s that generated great hopes of social transformation and apocalyptic fears of what that would mean. It explores the hopes of reform and revolution that were fleeting as the fear and resentment of the political and cultural changes of the period were lasting, but intermittent in their effects. It also mentions political systems that were put in place after the war and survived a severe challenge and evolved, avoiding collapse. The chapter discusses the occurrence of a genuine crisis that would cause the parties that made the political systems work to lose their social and ideological anchoring. It describes the threat to the politics that had provided stability after 1945, which would require both a deep recession and a reorientation of the economy and a break in the geopolitics of the Cold War.
Liberalism and Liberal Order, Modified
Authors: Cronin James E.
Published: May 2023

This chapter looks at the implications for politics and political stability, which would not be apparent until changes in policy had time to take effect. It talks about how the postwar settlement brought forth a capitalism that put restrictions on what business, corporations, and the wealthy could do. There could be no talk of affluence or the affluent worker before the late 1950s and early 1960s, and mass consumption was truly a postwar phenomenon. The chapter describes the transformation of postwar settlement when the choice for market-oriented policies was made with the elections, particularly with the re-election of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. The choice for markets weakened the foundations of the postwar order politically and undermined the conditions that made political stability possible since the Second World War.
The Center Ceases to Hold
Authors: Cronin James E.
Published: May 2023

This chapter describes the liberal order a decade after the end of the Cold War, which vastly extended its reach and encompassed countries that had recently been part of an alternative socialist world order. The expansion of liberal order came at a price for it now incorporated states with vastly different histories and cultures that make it less coherent. It mentions the commitment to a liberal international order that had been based on domestic politics in the West and had a very strong political center. The chapter talks about the centripetal tendencies in domestic politics that had begun to erode in the 1980s and 1990s. It highlights the stability of the liberal international order and of liberal democracy that would face severe tests over the next two decades.
Conclusion
Authors: Cronin James E.
Published: May 2023

This chapter reviews the great difference between the Cold War era and the present, which is that the relative power of the most powerful states has altered. This fundamental difference means that the quest for a stable international order needs to operate with a more limited set of goals and ambitions. It emphasizes that efforts to promote democracy should be undertaken with greater realism, less grand expectations, and more specific goals. The chapter points out that the lesson of the most recent past is that some of the most serious threats to liberal order and democracy come from within democratic states themselves. The focus should be on the illiberal enemy and the dire effects of its policies, on practical steps aimed at its defeat, and on nurturing the prospects that will continue to emerge for the advance of a liberal democratic world.
The Propagandists' Playbook
Authors: Tripodi Francesca Bolla
Published: May 2023

This book peels back the layers of the right-wing media manipulation machine to reveal why its strategies are so effective and pervasive, while also humanizing the people whose worldviews and media practices conservatism embodies. Based on interviews and ethnographic observations of two Republican groups over the course of the 2017 Virginia gubernatorial race—including the author's firsthand experience of the 2017 Unite the Right rally—the book considers how Google algorithms, YouTube playlists, pundits, and politicians can manipulate audiences, reaffirm beliefs, and expose audiences to more extremist ideas, blurring the lines between reality and fiction. The book argues that conservatives who embody the Christian worldview give authoritative weight to original texts and interrogate the media using the same tools taught to them in Bible study—for example, using Google to “fact check” the news. The result of this practice, tied to conservative marketing tactics, is more than a reaffirmation of existing beliefs: it is a radicalization of content and a changing of narratives adopted by the media. The book also demonstrates the pervasiveness of white supremacy in the conservative media ecosystem, as well as its mainstream appeal, scope, and spread.
The Muslim Difference
Authors: Patel Youshaa
Published: May 2023

How did Muslims across time and place define the line between themselves and their neighbors? This book explores why the Prophet Muhammad first advised his followers to emulate Christians and Jews, but then allegedly reversed course, urging them to “Be different!” It details how subsequent generations of Muslim scholars canonized the Prophet’s admonition into an influential doctrine against imitation that enjoined ordinary believers to embody and display their religious difference in public life. Tracing this Islamic discourse from its origins in Arabia to Mamluk and Ottoman Damascus, colonial Egypt, and beyond, this sweeping intellectual and social history offers a panoramic view of Muslim identity, revealing unexpected intersections between religion and other markers of difference across ethnicity, gender, and status. Against conventional wisdom, the book contends that Muslim efforts to stand out from the crowd were not spectacular and oppositional, but carefully calibrated into small differences, which drew on a cultural ecosystem of symbols that paradoxically connected them to the cosmopolitan societies around them. It becomes evident that contemporary debates in the West over visible expressions of Islam, from headscarves and beards to minarets and mosques, are just the latest iterations in a long history of how small differences have defined Muslim interreligious encounters.
Empire of Small Differences
Authors: Patel Youshaa
Published: May 2023

This chapter zooms out and take a bird’s-eye view of the hadith traditions against imitation, reading them alongside the Pact of ʿUmar. By illuminating thematic convergences between canonical texts belonging to distinct literary genres and directed toward specific audiences, it demonstrates how religion and politics in early Islamic history were twins. This holistic approach brings into view the grand cosmological vision of the Partisans of Hadith that illuminates why Muslim perceptions of other religions took the shape they did during the formative and early periods of Islam. The Partisans of Hadith espoused an imperial imaginary, a social imaginary that aimed to maintain distinction and hierarchy. By exploring this imperial imaginary, this chapter reveals unexpected intersections between religion and other categories of difference that otherwise go unnoticed with an exclusive focus on religious identity.
Protest
Authors: Crabtree Mari N.
Published: May 2023

The brutal lynching of Emmett Till in 1955 and the popular outrage that followed helped spark the civil rights movement, but this mass movement also had roots in the antilynching crusade of Ida B. Wells, the NAACP’s campaign to enact federal antilynching legislation, and a Black southern tradition of armed self-defense. This chapter examines how Black southerners’ memories of lynching spurred protest, and it develops an expansive understanding of Black protest that encompasses acts of resistance aimed at white supremacy—from marches and revenge fantasies to critiques of lynching expressed in art and literature—but also acts of love, protection, and mourning within Black families and communities.
The Origins of Judaism Reappraised
Authors: Adler Yonatan
Published: May 2023

This chapter explores when it would have been most likely for the Torah to have been adopted as authoritative law among the Judean masses. It begins by investigating the likelihood that this might have occurred as early as the Persian period, an idea that many scholars take for granted. As it will be shown that there are good reasons to think that at this time many Judeans knew nothing of the existence of anything resembling the Pentateuch, or at the very least were not adhering to its laws, the chapter proceeds by assessing the likelihood that Judaism may have emerged in the subsequent Early Hellenistic period. The chapter concludes with a cautious assessment of the proposition that the Torah came to be widely known to the masses and regarded as authoritative law only in the Late Hellenistic period, following the cataclysmic events surrounding the Hasmonean revolt toward the middle of the second century BCE.
Pacific Power Paradox
Authors: Jackson Van
Published: May 2023

After more than a century of recurring conflict, the countries of the Asia-Pacific region have managed something remarkable: avoiding war among nations. Since 1979, Asia has endured threats, near-miss crises, and nuclear proliferation but no interstate war. How fragile is this “Asian peace,” and what is America's role in it? This book argues that because Washington takes for granted that the United States is a force for good, successive presidencies have failed to see how their statecraft impedes more durable forms of security and inadvertently embrittles peace. At times, the United States has been the region's bulwark against instability, but America has been a threat to Asian peace as much as it has been its guarantor. By grappling with how America fits into the Asian story, the book shows how regional stability has diminished because of U.S. choices, and why America's margin for geopolitical error is less now than ever before.
The Asian Peace as a Guide to Statecraft
Authors: Jackson Van
Published: May 2023

This chapter introduces the concept of Asian peace. It presents a more refined understanding of what it is (and is not) before using it to assess the risks and wagers implicated in U.S. policy across presidencies. The chapter explains why sustaining it has relied on many factors including and beyond the United States, and how a layered understanding of the peace can be leveraged to draw meaningful conclusions about U.S. statecraft in Asia. The chapter also distinguishes between literal violence, perpetrated by individuals against others, and structural violence, which describes social groups deprived of the means for realizing a life free from oppression. The chapter highlights that Asian peace does not merely cover a diverse geographic expanse; it covers diverse ranges of peace with different depths. It elaborates on the multiple valid “causes” of Asian peace that have existed simultaneously and complementarily with one another.
A Unipolar Imperium and Its Discontents
Authors: Jackson Van
Published: May 2023

This chapter spans the bulk of the “unipolar moment,” starting in the George H. W. Bush administration and continuing through the Clinton presidency. It describes that the “unipolar moment” is a period of unrivaled global primacy the United States won by default once the Soviet Union began to dissolve. The chapter also stresses that U.S. strategy toward Asia in the immediate post-Cold War years was premised primarily on asserting continuity at a time of radical uncertainty before transitioning into a period of liberal hubris. The chapter then shifts to discuss how Asia's newly industrializing economies grew bolder not only in their advocacy for various forms of regionalism but also in their self-promotion of a distinctly “Asian way” of peacefully combining illiberal politics and economic development. It also looks at the Asian financial crisis in 1997 that chastened East Asia's newly industrialized countries, but without dislodging the trends that were underpinning them: growing economic interdependence, the rise of China, the growth of regionalism, and the centrality of the United States' forward military presence to just about all of Asia. The chapter reviews how the experience of the crisis heightened some fundamental tensions.
The War on Terror versus Great-Power Competition
Authors: Jackson Van
Published: May 2023

This chapter documents the war-on-terror coloring of the George W. Bush administration. It tracks how the Bush era's crusading wars of choice in the Middle East and Afghanistan, coincidentally, saved Asia from the worst of the neoconservative impulse. The chapter begins by reviewing how the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and 1998 diminished America's standing among nations affected by the crisis. It explores how Asia had emerged as a “complex patchwork” of cooperative regional architecture, unprecedented migration, and declining poverty, but also nuclear proliferation, ethnic tensions, historical rivalries, terrorism, kleptocracy, and territorial disputes. The George W. Bush administration found itself in the middle of these dueling trends, unwittingly presiding over, and accelerating the end of, the unipolar moment. The chapter delves into how Bush bequeathed a peace on Asia by his neglect, sparing it the most militaristic impulses of his cabinet. By making terrorism and the Islamic world the primary focus of national security, his administration had no practical ability to also pursue war-risking policies in Asia in any meaningful way.
Life, Genes, and Phages
Authors: Summers William C.
Published: May 2023

This chapter briefly explores the history of the American Phage Group and how molecular biology as a whole became established as part of modern science. This “discipline formation” took place (roughly) between the 1930s and the 1950s. Molecular biology is usually taken to stand in distinction to classical biology, organismal biology, or general biology, all of which were heavily dependent on generalizations from morphological studies and field behavioral research. What distinguished molecular biology was its exploration of chemical and physical explanations and experimentation as the central focus of investigation. Within this context is the story of a particular research program which led to an understanding of the material basis of heredity, about the adoption of bacterial viruses, or bacteriophage, to seek the physical nature of the gene.
Heterogeneity
Authors: Summers William C.
Published: May 2023

This chapter turns to the even more heterogeneous groups of chemists and biologists who joined the American Phage Group. The formation of the American Phage Group and the development of its own research framework required incorporating commitments from chemists and biologists as well as physicists. These three research traditions, disciplines, or schools of thought had distinct, sometimes conflicting ideas about phage research. Yet in the end, these ideas were successfully molded into the framework of shared concepts that unified and defined the American Phage Group. For the American Phage Group founders, a significant task was to meld, adjust, and negotiate research commitments held by existing disciplines into a communal sharing of a new set of phage-oriented research commitments.
The American Phage Group as a Model of Discipline Formation
Authors: Summers William C.
Published: May 2023

This chapter considers how the activities of the American Phage Group can be seen as part of the disciplinary formation story of molecular biology. It reveals that a “framework of shared commitments” provides a useful way to see how the American Phage Group has contributed in a central way to the origin of molecular biology. The shared assumptions and beliefs of a research community can exist even in the early stages of its development. These shared commitments help to define who is admitted as a member of the community. Concept formation, concept communication, concept sharing, and concept revision are all notions that have been played out in the life of the American Phage Group.
Introduction
Authors: Carey John
Published: May 2023

This introductory chapter contains the author's views on a new selection of reviews as a sequel to a previous collection of essays. It discusses the selection process used to choose the reviews for this book and how the new selections differ from that of the author's previous work. The chapter also considers the significance of book reviews and how delicate the act of reviewing books can be. An argument here is made that the act of reviewing an author's work is intensely important to that author, as it could make or break their career. Finally, the chapter offers further advice and encouragement for aspiring book reviewers.
Eat Me: A Natural and Unnatural History of Cannibalism
Authors: Carey John
Published: May 2023

This chapter examines cannibalism in nature as well as in human society through Bill Schutt's Eat Me: A Natural and Unnatural History of Cannibalism (2017). It begins by discussing the fact that cannibalism is common throughout the natural world. Invertebrates are the star performers at this kind of showy exit, but cannibalism also occurs in every class of vertebrates from fish to mammals, including chimpanzees, humanity's closest relatives. The focus then turns to cannibalism in human history, where since biblical times it has been resorted to as a means of survival. Aside from survival cannibalism, the chapter also examines cultural cannibalism, as Schutt approaches the question of whether revulsion from cannibalism is really hard-wired in the human brain, or whether it might borne of western prejudice. To conclude, the chapter reflects on what cannibalism might mean for humanity in the future.
Universe of Stone: Chartres Cathedral and the Triumph of the Medieval Mind
Authors: Carey John
Published: May 2023

This chapter explores Chartres Cathedral through Universe of Stone: Chartres Cathedral and the Triumph of the Medieval Mind (2008) by Philip Ball. Begun in 1200 and finished in 1226, it was the crowning example of the Gothic style. The cathedral marked, Ball suggests, a shift in the way the Western world thought about God, the universe, and man's place in it. Chartres' architecture is shown to expectations of how cathedrals were built at the time. Universe of Stone explores the ideas surrounding Chartres' architecture and the history behind the school of Chartres, which was one of the great centres of European learning. It also provides a section on how to build a medieval cathedral, complete with diagrams.
Vauxhall Gardens: A History
Authors: Carey John
Published: May 2023

This chapter discusses the history of Vauxhall Gardens in the book, Vauxhall Gardens: A History (2011). Written by David Coke and Alan Borg, Vauxhall Gardens tells the story of the eponymous pleasure gardens, built by Jonathan Tyers as a showplace of art and civilisation. The book itself contains new research as well as contemporary prints and paintings of the Vauxhall Gardens, inviting the reader to take a stroll in the gardens as many others have done years before. Indeed, the chapter shows how Tyers's Vauxhall was democratic, open to anyone who could pay the shilling entrance fee, and once inside there were no private enclosures. Tradesmen and apprentices thus rubbed shoulders with dukes and princes. In addition, the chapter explores Vauxhall's architecture and the works of art it was known to house, as well as the exhibitions and spectacles it had once showcased.
Private Words: Letters and Diaries from the Second World War
Authors: Carey John
Published: May 2023

This chapter takes a glimpse into the lives of various individuals during World War II. Via the letters and diaries of various soldiers, artists, poets, and individuals of many other stripes, Ronald Blythe's Private Words: Letters and Diaries from the Second World War (1991) provides intimate glimpses into what life was like for people living in the thick of conflict. Indeed, as the chapter shows, the Second World War was an unprecedentedly literate conflict. The vast outburst of letter-writing that it promoted testified to the high standards of pre-war elementary schooling. A major insight revealed through this collection of writings is that war changes perspectives. Many of the writers find themselves contending with new lands and cultures, their horizons having been greatly expanded through conflict.
A Great Feast of Light: Growing Up Irish in the Television Age
Authors: Carey John
Published: May 2023

This chapter is about the cultural history of Ireland shaped via the television. In John Doyle's A Great Feast of Light: Growing Up Irish in the Television Age (2006), television was wholly a force for good, an agent of enlightenment that helped to free Ireland from the Catholic Church and from obsession with its own cruel past. The new medium encouraged debate and open-mindedness. It expanded viewers' horizons to places and cultures nigh on inconceivable for them at the time. And television's profound effects on culture are furthermore highlighted through Doyle's personal reflections of growing up with the television. The chapter also examines and ultimately argues against television as a bad influence.
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
Authors: Carey John
Published: May 2023

This chapter demonstrates that J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Manhattan Project laboratory that developed the first atomic bomb, was not a mythical hero but a damaged and limited human being. It stresses that his main problem was his prodigious brainpower, which made it hard for him to mix with other people, or even recognise them as the same species. His wealth was another isolating factor. The chapter narrates that the Oppenheimers were German-Jewish immigrants who had made a fortune in the garment business. Afflicted by social guilt, the chapter also analyzes how Oppenheimer, as a student and young academic, sought the company of communists and subscribed to party funds. But he was also ashamed of his Jewish background and craved acceptance by the Establishment. The chapter digs into his ‘triumph’ in July 1945 after the successful testing of the first atomic bomb in the New Mexico desert. It then assesses how he succumbed to the lure of the Establishment, and went along with the boneheaded generals and horror-comic politicians in countenancing a preventive nuclear airstrike that would obliterate every main Soviet city.
Swimming with My Father: A Memoir
Authors: Carey John
Published: May 2023

This chapter unfolds Tim Jeal's memoir of his father, noting that it is unusual, in that it gives some inkling of what it would be like to be a saint's wife or son. Clifford, Jeal's father, belonged to a fellowship of Christian mystics called The Order of the Cross, who sought oneness with ‘the all-pervading divine presence, the Father-Mother’. The chapter chronicles that Clifford found that swimming in various ponds and rivers scattered across the home counties brought him closest to this pantheistic deity, and when he was a little boy, Jeal was encouraged to accompany him. The chapter also looks at the time of Clifford and Norah's marriage. It argues that they were an unlikely pair. Norah's ancestry was aristocratic and full of firebrand militarists. Clifford, on the other hand, was the son of a haulier, and was serving in Heal's furniture shop in the Tottenham Court Road when Norah met him. Going through his father's journals after his death, the chapter reveals how Jeal found a full account of his father's affair with a friend called Joy, with whom he achieved both spiritual and physical ecstasy. The chapter concludes by telling the story of his father's slow death from Parkinson's disease, and his mother's descent into cantankerous decrepitude.
Naked at Lunch: The Adventures of a Reluctant Nudist
Authors: Carey John
Published: May 2023

This chapter tackles Mark Haskell Smith's research into nudism that brought him into nudist holidays in California, Florida, Spain and the South of France. It discusses the history of the nudist movement, which started in Britain before spreading to France, Germany, and America. In America, nudism is mainly for retirees. Haskell Smith sees the point of nudism during a week's hiking in the Austrian Alps with the Naked European Walking Tour. He finds that clothing gives some sort of psychological protection. At the end of Haskell Smith's research, he does not convert to nudism, but he does understand that nudists are a persecuted minority victimized by American puritanism.
Orchard: A Year in England’s Eden
Authors: Carey John
Published: May 2023

This chapter highlights Benedict Macdonald's hatred and disdain of English orchards, which are described as rows of fruit trees that are evenly spaced and have the ground beneath them cleared to allow access. It mentions Macdonald and his co-author Nicholas Gates' book Orchard that has much to offer in its observation of wildlife and reflected the study on their adopted orchard for eight years. Orchard is full of unexpected revelations, such as the vital capacity for a queen bumblebee to detect mouse urine. The chapter explains how Macdonald detects intelligence in the animal world, citing the wild boar that eats large quantities of fruit and then excretes the seeds complete with fertiliser. Orchard vividly shows how the human evolution has upset a perfectly balanced ecosystem.