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Histories
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Open Access journal
ISSN (Online) 2409-9252
Published by MDPI

[258 journals]

Histories, Vol. 3, Pages 219-230: A Puzzling Religious Inscription from
Medieval Tuscany: Symbology and Interpretation
- Authors: Stefano Vicari, Francesco Perono Cacciafoco
  First page: 219
  Abstract: At the entrance of some churches in Tuscany (Italy), the reproduction of an apparently undecipherable inscription can be found. Beginning in the 18th century, this epigraphic puzzle has originated a debate on its interpretation. This study proposes a hypothesis based on the Latin alphabet used in texts contemporary to the churches where the inscription is reproduced and a possible interpretation of the message consistent with the official religious doctrine. The proposed deciphering is extended to the full text, including some signs that were previously considered geometric forms or a specific elaboration of letters not attested in other contemporary documents.
  Citation: Histories
  PubDate: 2023-07-05
  DOI: 10.3390/histories3030015
  Issue No: Vol. 3, No. 3 (2023)
Histories, Vol. 3, Pages 231-244: Changing Natures: On Theory and Practice
of Breeding in the European Middle Ages
- Authors: Camille Schneiter
  First page: 231
  Abstract: While throughout modern history it has been shown how thoroughly biological discourses were shaped by conceptions originating in the theory and praxis of breeding, for the medieval period similar studies are mostly absent. This paper offers a symmetrical history of theory and praxis of breeding by asking to what extent they shaped medieval conceptions of human ‘race’ and ‘ancestry’ in Europe. For scholarly knowledge of breeding, the analysis relies on Albertus Magnus’ extensive Aristotelian work De animalibus. For the practical knowledge of the breeders, scattered indications from the secondary literature are compiled and promising primary sources are outlined for further research. The paper finds that various concepts and practices whose origins are commonly placed in the early modern period were already present in the Middle Ages, including the concept of reproductive heredity and the view that creation diversified over time through reproductive ancestry. Breeding practices, thus, existed before the rise of genetics in modern biology. The medieval conceptions of ‘race’ and ‘ancestry’ underwent conceptual transfers from the non-human into the human sphere, collapsing the qualitative distinction of the two spheres into one quantitively graded overarching image of nature.
  Citation: Histories
  PubDate: 2023-07-18
  DOI: 10.3390/histories3030016
  Issue No: Vol. 3, No. 3 (2023)
Histories, Vol. 3, Pages 245-260: Daniel Sennert’s Corpuscularian
Reforms to Natural Philosophy
- Authors: Gabriel Müller
  First page: 245
  Abstract: Daniel Sennert (1572–1637), professor of medicine and natural philosophy in Wittenberg, defended a highly unusual philosophical system. This paper examines Sennert’s vision of natural philosophy within the context of the rapidly changing environment of the seventeenth century and relates his philosophical innovations to his methodology. The main result is that Sennert’s postulation of corpuscles with substantial forms, though it takes place within the framework of Aristotelian natural philosophy, directly influences his philosophical view of qualities.
  Citation: Histories
  PubDate: 2023-08-16
  DOI: 10.3390/histories3030017
  Issue No: Vol. 3, No. 3 (2023)
Histories, Vol. 3, Pages 261-270: Unravelling the Mystery of the Singapore
Stone: A Comparative Analysis with the Calcutta Stone and the Possible
Kawi Connection
- Authors: I-Shiang Lee, Francesco Perono Cacciafoco
  First page: 261
  Abstract: The Singapore Stone, discovered in 1819, was blown up in 1843 and remains an enigma today. Several studies have suggested the script to be Kawi, a Brahmic script used between the 8th and 16th centuries in Java and other parts of Southeast Asia. The language remains unknown but is thought to be Old Javanese, Sanskrit, or Tamil. There is great historical value in finding out what the script says, and it is the aim of this project to offer deeper insight into this undeciphered inscription. In this paper, an in-depth comparison of the Singapore Stone with the Calcutta Stone (1041 CE), a prominent example of a Later Kawi inscription, is performed. Brief comparisons of the Singapore Stone with other inscriptions are also conducted. Numerous characters on the Singapore Stone are matched to those on the Calcutta Stone. However, the Singapore Stone appears to have a much lower frequency of diacritics and clusters. Such a phenomenon is anomalous and could have hindered decryption efforts thus far. Nonetheless, an identification and comparison of such character signs are attempted. Overall, the two inscriptions are shown to share many stylistic similarities, suggesting that the Singapore Stone could be dated to the Later Kawi period.
  Citation: Histories
  PubDate: 2023-08-29
  DOI: 10.3390/histories3030018
  Issue No: Vol. 3, No. 3 (2023)
Histories, Vol. 3, Pages 271-287: The Singapore Stone: Documenting the
Origins, Destruction, Journey and Legacy of an Undeciphered Stone Monolith
- Authors: Kelvin Cahya Yap, Tony (Wenyao) Jiao, Francesco Perono Cacciafoco
  First page: 271
  Abstract: The Singapore Stone was a large monolith present at the mouth of the Singapore River, clad with a faded inscription that was a point of interest for local and foreign antiquarians and other enthusiasts, as no person—native or otherwise—could decipher the meaning of its tongue. Tragically, the stone was blasted in 1848 by East India Company engineers as part of works to widen the mouth of the river. Only four fragments were saved; these were sent to Calcutta’s Asiatic Society of Bengal and later placed in the custody of the Indian Museum. Today, only one fragment remains, which was returned to Singapore in 1919 and at present is displayed in the National Museum of Singapore. Over the past century and a half, there has been great interest in the fate of the lost fragments and in the mysterious inscription that the fragments hold. There have been various attempts at deciphering the Stone, with a variety of suggested interpretations and languages. This research paper compiles and documents both the physical journey of the fragments and the various attempts at deciphering them, aiming to comprehensively detail the Stone’s origins and journey from its erection to its present residence while providing an analysis of the past attempts at decipherment and the future of this effort.
  Citation: Histories
  PubDate: 2023-09-03
  DOI: 10.3390/histories3030019
  Issue No: Vol. 3, No. 3 (2023)
Histories, Vol. 3, Pages 288-307: Barcelona, Naples and Salonika: Ethnic
and Civic Nationalism in Three Mediterranean Port Cities (1888–1915)
- Authors: Daniele Conversi
  First page: 288
  Abstract: How far is port cities’ cosmopolitan inclination reflected in the type of nationalism prevailing in the surrounding area or region' How do these relationships change in different timeframes, one determined by nationalist modernization, the other by neoliberal globalization' This article attempts to respond to this question by looking at three Northern Mediterranean port cities (Barcelona, Naples, and Salonica) in two different time settings: the advent of the centralizing nation-state preceding WW1 and the advent of free-market deregulation policies adopted worldwide since the 1980s. It does so by adapting a new critical reading of Hans Kohn’s dichotomy on civic/ethnic nationalism—and extending it to the realm of culture in an age of deep global transformations.
  Citation: Histories
  PubDate: 2023-09-05
  DOI: 10.3390/histories3030020
  Issue No: Vol. 3, No. 3 (2023)
Histories, Vol. 3, Pages 62-76: Harm and Harmony—Concepts of Nature
and Environmental Practice in Japan
- Authors: Regina M. Bichler
  First page: 62
  Abstract: Japan is often surrounded by the myth of featuring a unique “love for nature”, and its traditional culture and lifestyle as having been “in harmony with nature” before it was corrupted by modernization and Westernization. In this paper, I employ three examples to delineate images of nature in different times of Japanese history and point out the discrepancy between discourse on nature and physical engagement with nature. I argue that the environmental destruction that peaked in the Meiji period (1868–1912) is not primarily derived from a new, dualistic Euro-American understanding of nature. Rather, I demonstrate that environmental harm was already inherent in premodern Japan and was reconcilable with the respective concepts of nature. Therefore, industrialization and the adoption of Western technology solely released the potential for large-scale environmental impact.
  Citation: Histories
  PubDate: 2023-03-30
  DOI: 10.3390/histories3020006
  Issue No: Vol. 3, No. 2 (2023)
Histories, Vol. 3, Pages 76-97: Adultery as a Defence: The Construction of
a Legally Permissible Violence, England 1810
- Authors: Susanna Menis
  First page: 76
  Abstract: The Mawgridge’s case in 1707 set the precedent where adultery was recognised as a justified trigger for the husband’s killing of his wife’s lover; this crystallised a partial defence for provocation. However, in an 1810 case, the killing of the unfaithful wife followed a manslaughter conviction rather than murder for the first time. This study aims to investigate the shaping of a legally permissible violence, that is, the mitigation of the husband’s culpability in killing his adulterous wife. This provides the opportunity to question the (ir)rationality behind the judiciary’s discourse in the case of R v Clinton 2012; here, despite infidelity being abolished in 2009 in England and Wales as a defence for murder, the judges still insisted on its relevance in our culture and hence on legal culpability. The theoretical framework in this paper draws upon the scholarship of masculinity, the family, and the law. This paper discusses the contribution of the hegemonic male identity in creating this legal violence and fortifying social-hierarchical structure.
  Citation: Histories
  PubDate: 2023-04-11
  DOI: 10.3390/histories3020007
  Issue No: Vol. 3, No. 2 (2023)
Histories, Vol. 3, Pages 98-111: Prehistory and Ideology in Cold War
Southeast Asia: The Politics of Wartime Archaeology in Thailand and the
Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 1954–1975
- Authors: Maurizio Peleggi
  First page: 98
  Abstract: The two decades comprised within the partition of Vietnam and the end of the Indochina Wars surprisingly saw major advances in prehistoric archaeology in the region. This article examines the political context and implications of archaeological investigations conducted in Thailand and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam under the guidance of, respectively, American and Soviet specialists, as an aspect of the cultural Cold War. Archaeological discoveries in both countries debunked colonial archaeology’s account of prehistoric Southeast Asia as a passive recipient of Chinese cultural influence by documenting autonomous technological development. The article argues that the new image of mainland Southeast Asia’ prehistory that formed by the early 1970s reflected the superpowers’ objective of empowering the region’s postcolonial nation-states notwithstanding their political contrasts, yet it was not equally congruent with the nationalist narratives of Thailand and North Vietnam.
  Citation: Histories
  PubDate: 2023-04-21
  DOI: 10.3390/histories3020008
  Issue No: Vol. 3, No. 2 (2023)
Histories, Vol. 3, Pages 112-128: Nature as a Huge Organism: Gottfried
Reinhold Treviranus (1776–1837) and Early Ecology in German Romantic
Science
- Authors: Sophie Ruppel
  First page: 112
  Abstract: The following article explores ideas of early ecological thinking within the natural sciences of early-19th-century Germany and discusses its possible roots. It tries to shed some light on the work of Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus who developed a holistic understanding of nature. The historical background and 18th-century ideas Treviranus relies on will be described—namely, the ‘great chain of being’, the idea of nature as a vast network of interconnected living beings and the question about the existence of vital forces that cause movement, growth or reproduction. Reference will especially be made to Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus’ main work, the six-volume Biologie oder Philosophie der lebenden Natur für Naturforscher und Aerzte (Biology or Philosophy of Living Nature for Natural Scientists and Physicians) published in Göttingen between 1802 and 1822 and the somewhat later synopsis Erscheinungen und Gesetze des organischen Lebens (Phenomena and Laws of Organic Life) printed in Bremen in 1831 and 1832.
  Citation: Histories
  PubDate: 2023-04-21
  DOI: 10.3390/histories3020009
  Issue No: Vol. 3, No. 2 (2023)
Histories, Vol. 3, Pages 129-155: Charging Complicity in Abuses, Ignoring
Beneficial Engagement: How American Conservatives Secured the Blocking of
U.S. Funds for the UNFPA by Misrepresenting the UN’s Efforts to
Reform China’s One-Child Policy
- Authors: Guigui Yao, Derek Hoff, Robert J. Wyman
  First page: 129
  Abstract: We describe a key moment during the world’s attempt to come to terms with enormously expanding populations. China was an extreme case, both in the magnitude of its population explosion and in its government’s control of reproduction through the One-Child Policy (OCP). The U.S. had been a founder and the main financial supporter of The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Starting in 1998, UNFPA’s program in China attempted to move the OCP away from two decades of coercive family planning and toward acceptance of the women’s rights–centered global consensus that emerged from the 1994 Cairo Conference on Population and Development. In 2001, a conservative U.S. organization, the Population Research Institute, claimed to have gathered evidence of UNFPA’s involvement in Chinese coercion. Although several investigations, including one sent by President George W. Bush himself, refuted this evidence, and UNFPA had used no U.S. funds in China, conservative political power was sufficient to cause President George W. Bush to eliminate all U.S. funding for UNFPA’s activities everywhere in the world. Ironically, this period was exactly when the UNFPA project had shown that coercion was unnecessary. China eventually followed the UNFPA’s lead, liberalizing and eventually ending the OCP.
  Citation: Histories
  PubDate: 2023-05-01
  DOI: 10.3390/histories3020010
  Issue No: Vol. 3, No. 2 (2023)
Histories, Vol. 3, Pages 156-175: A Theological Age: A New Way of Looking
at the History of the West
- Authors: Greg Melleuish, Susanna Rizzo
  First page: 156
  Abstract: This paper argues that the current age is best understood as a theological age in that its normal approach to the world is one based on a high level of abstraction. Theology stands in contrast with piety, which derives much more from immediate experience and embodies common sense. The cultural and intellectual development of Europe and the West can be understood in terms of the interaction of two distinct modes of thinking and viewing the world, namely theology and piety, and the way in which theology has come to dominate Western culture to the detriment of piety. Hence, the dominance of Greek rationalism within the West has led to a one-sided culture that gives priority to rationalist modes of thought. There has been a continuing tradition of piety in the West, but its existence has tended to be somewhat fugitive as can be seen, for example, in Musil’s depiction of the ‘other condition’ and in J S Mill’s personal breakdown caused by an excess of theology. The implications of a theological approach for history are evident as historical developments are viewed through the rigid prisms of perspectives that either fragment the study of history into a series of disconnected narratives endowed with their unique telos or impose an all-encompassing narrative that erases differences as well as potentialities. In both cases, it is the theological mode of thought—which has dominated the West since the so-called birth of rationalism—that turns history into ideology. This paper contends that the current condition calls for a new history of philosophy that captures and responds to the crisis affecting the West’s self-understanding and sense of purpose.
  Citation: Histories
  PubDate: 2023-05-29
  DOI: 10.3390/histories3020011
  Issue No: Vol. 3, No. 2 (2023)
Histories, Vol. 3, Pages 176-188: ‘Apart from the Experiences of
Subjects There Is Nothing, Nothing, Nothing, Bare
Nothingness’—Nature and Subjectivity in Alfred North Whitehead
- Authors: Isabella Schlehaider
  First page: 176
  Abstract: While long ignored, the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead has attracted considerable interest and wide academic reception since the 2000s. One reason for the renewed interest in Whitehead’s work is most certainly that his philosophy and concepts offer a way out of dualistic schemes of thought that have dominated the conceptual framework of the West since modernity. In my paper, I focus on Whitehead’s undoing of the opposition between nature and subjectivity, for it is a crucial aspect of Whitehead’s concept of nature not to exclude subjectivity from the ‘realm of nature’. For Whitehead, subjectivity is a fundamental feature of the whole of reality and by no means exclusively human, leading to a radically non-anthropocentric, pluralistic notion of the subject.
  Citation: Histories
  PubDate: 2023-06-02
  DOI: 10.3390/histories3020012
  Issue No: Vol. 3, No. 2 (2023)
Histories, Vol. 3, Pages 189-197: A Political Ecology of the Body: Nature
in French Anarchist Pedagogy around 1900
- Authors: Milo Probst
  First page: 189
  Abstract: This essay historicizes the concept of nature in French anarchist pedagogy around 1900. I argue that anarchist cosmology was not dualist in the sense that it did not neatly separate the natural from the cultural or social. Nature was rather understood as an ever-evolving realm that encompassed nonhuman and human entities. This example should encourage historical scholarship to look more deeply into what anthropologists sometimes call “naturalist ontology”. Instead of conceiving it as a fixed worldview, we should investigate its genealogy, transformations, and contestations.
  Citation: Histories
  PubDate: 2023-06-06
  DOI: 10.3390/histories3020013
  Issue No: Vol. 3, No. 2 (2023)
Histories, Vol. 3, Pages 198-218: Haunted in Desolation: The Murder of
Captain John Gunnison, Reconsidered
- Authors: Todd Shallat
  First page: 198
  Abstract: Deserts confuse, fogging memory and electrifying the imagination. In 1853, on Utah’s Sevier River, a ritualized killing spawned a folklore of deserts that lives on to this day. Captain John W. Gunnison, an engineer, had detoured into an ambush. Dismembered, decapitated, his heart torn from his chest, he had died, it was said, by order of the Mormon prophet and Utah’s Latter-day Saints. Fabulized over the decades, the tale was contorted with an evil king in a desert kingdom, with ghoulish assassins and restless corpses undead. Folklore saw what historians have been slow to perceive about hauntings in desolation. Memories of trauma run deep in disquieting strangeness. Places presumed to be empty set dark expectations for horror.
  Citation: Histories
  PubDate: 2023-06-09
  DOI: 10.3390/histories3020014
  Issue No: Vol. 3, No. 2 (2023)
Histories, Vol. 3, Pages 19-20: Acknowledgment to the Reviewers of
Histories in 2022
- Authors: Histories Editorial Office Histories Editorial Office
  First page: 19
  Abstract: High-quality academic publishing is built on rigorous peer review [...]
  Citation: Histories
  PubDate: 2023-01-15
  DOI: 10.3390/histories3010002
  Issue No: Vol. 3, No. 1 (2023)
Histories, Vol. 3, Pages 21-31: It’s a Doge’s Life: Examining
Term Limits in Venetian Doges’ Life Tenure
- Authors: Juan J. Merelo
  First page: 21
  Abstract: During most of the lifespan of the Venetian republic, doges (the name their presidents received) were elected for life. However, a long tenure was a rare event, which effectively resulted in term limits, as has already been reported by several authors. In this paper, we examine the length of these tenures and their evolution during the existence of the Venetian republic, following Smith et al.’s claim that specific events in Venetian history caused this shortening, but also the dates and possibly event or events that effectively caused that limitation by design. Finally, we will discuss the causes of this limitation and its effective consequences.
  Citation: Histories
  PubDate: 2023-01-16
  DOI: 10.3390/histories3010003
  Issue No: Vol. 3, No. 1 (2023)
Histories, Vol. 3, Pages 32-45: Man as Image of Nature in Magnus Hundt:
The Perspective of a Thomist ca. 1500
- Authors: Karsten Engel
  First page: 32
  Abstract: This paper draws on a late medieval example to show that images of nature can also be images of the human body. It presents the Anthropologium de hominis dignitate by the Leipzig magister Magnus Hundt (1449–1519). The Anthropologium is a text that prominently integrates the human body into its conception of man and its account of human dignity. The body is not presented as a prison of the soul, but as a perfectly balanced physical counterpart to the soul. The paper shows how Hundt’s reflections were influenced by his commitment to the Thomistic school. Moreover, it reveals how the elevated Imago Dei thesis provides a justification for the study of the human body. Hundt is shown to offer nothing less than a theological–philosophical legitimation for practising medicine. In doing so, he also incorporates images of nature in a literal sense, insofar as he includes images of the human body in his book.
  Citation: Histories
  PubDate: 2023-02-10
  DOI: 10.3390/histories3010004
  Issue No: Vol. 3, No. 1 (2023)
Histories, Vol. 3, Pages 46-61: Religion and Diplomacy: The ‘Clash
of Civilizations’ as Historical Libel
- Authors: Robert A. Denemark, Matthew J. Hoffmann, Hasan Yonten
  First page: 46
  Abstract: The ‘Clash of Civilizations’ hypothesis suggested that global politics would revert to inter-civilizational (inter-religious) conflict with the end of the Cold War. Conceptual and empirical refutations followed, but the idea that pre-Cold War inter-polity interaction was generally characterized by such conflict was not addressed. We consider this a possible historical libel. First, we briefly review the position of major faith traditions toward making and keeping agreements with those of other faith traditions. Most forms of agreements are sanctioned, and there is inconsistent and minimal support for duplicity. Second, using the MATRS database of multilateral treaties, we identify 79 sovereign entities active between 1750 and 1900 (when multilateral treaties were numerous and official state religions were prominent), link states to their official religions, and analyze the pattern of 385 multilateral treaties’ signings. We conclude that there is no tendency among states with one official religion to avoid entering into treaties with those of other official religions. The ‘Clash of Civilizations’ hypothesis is a historical myth.
  Citation: Histories
  PubDate: 2023-03-21
  DOI: 10.3390/histories3010005
  Issue No: Vol. 3, No. 1 (2023)