Colonial History

This is the English translation of the foreword I wrote for the publication of Indonesia historian, Ong Hok Ham's (1933-2007), 1975 Yale doctoral thesis on the history of Madiun in the 19th century--Madiun in the Crucible of History /Madiun dalam Kemelut Sejarah (Jakarta: KPG, 2018; Third Revised edition August 2025). This was the first time that Ong's thesis had been published and I took the opportunity to review his remarkable contribution to modern Indonesian history and history writing. For such a significant postwar historian there has been far too little commentary and analysis of his oeuvre. But now that his thesis is in the public domain along with David Reeve's remarkable recent biography - "To Remain Myself : The History of Onghokham" (Singapore: NUS Press 2022), there is now the chance to make a reassessment of this remarkable postwar historian and Indonesian public intellectual.

This is the English translation of the foreword I wrote for the publication of Indonesia historian, Ong Hok Ham's (1933-2007), 1975 Yale doctoral thesis on the history of Madiun in the 19th century--Madiun in the Crucible of History /Madiun dalam Kemelut Sejarah (Jakarta: KPG, 2018; Third Revised edition August 2025). This was the first time that Ong's thesis had been published and I took the opportunity to review his remarkable contribution to modern Indonesian history and history writing. For such a significant postwar historian there has ben far too little commentary and analysis of his oeuvre. But now that his thesis is in the public domain along with David Reeve's remarkable biography - "To Remain Myself : The History of Onghokham" (Singapore: NUS Press 2022), there is now the chance make a reassessment of this remarkable postwar historian and Indonesian public intellectual.

De Republiek van de zeventiende en achttiende eeuw staat bekend als een tolerante samenleving waar de standsverschillen betrekkelijk klein waren en gewelddadige vormen van onderdrukking of overheidsterreur zich zelden voordeden. Aan de 'rand' van die samenleving -en dat gold evenzeer voor de andere landen in West-Europa -bevond zich een omvangrijke en zowel cultureel als sociaal gedifferentieerde bevolkingslaag, waarvoor tot nog toe een goede samenvattende benaming ontbreekt. Randgroepen, het lagere volk, 'classes dangereuses', 'Unterschichten', 'de massa', 'het volk': het zijn termen die vooral het negatieve oordeel van het gevestigde deel der bevolking over deze groepen tot uitdrukking brengen. Een van de weinige kenmerken die de meeste mensen in deze bevolkingslaag met elkaar gemeen hadden, was dat ze gedurende een groot deel van het jaar, en gedurende een groot deel van hun leven, geen vaste woon-of verblijfplaats hadden. Velen leidden een bijna permanent reizend bestaan. Deze 'marginale' groepen -en de wijze waarop ze door de toenmalige overheden behandeld werden -staan in deze bijdrage centraal. 1 Onder hen vinden we in gezinsverband rondtrekkende scharensliepen, stoelenmatters en liedjesverkopers, alleen-reizende joodse marskramers, groepen zigeuners en losse landarbeiders, gedeserteerde soldaten op zoek naar een nieuwe compagnie, vilders en karrevoerders, mannen die langs de boerderijen gingen om lompen op te kopen, potten-en pannenhandelaars die met een schuitje rondreisden, ontslagen matrozen, muzikanten en acteurs, goochelaars en balletje-balletje-spelers die van de ene naar de andere jaarmarkt en kermis trokken, en allerlei personen die in de bronnen niet nader omschreven worden dan als bedelaars en vagebonden. Achter de vraag hoe deze groepen genoemd moeten worden gaat een uitvoerige discussie schuil over de plaats die ze in de zeventiende-en achttiendeeeuwse Europese samenleving innamen. Werden ze destijds beschouwd als deel van die samenlevingals 'marginalen' die weliswaar aan de rand stonden, maar er nog net bijhoorden -of moeten we hen zien als echte buitenstaanders: buitengeslotenen, vergelijkbaar met 'outcasts' in andere delen van de

Questo numero monografico si concentra sul lavoro delle polizie in Italia e in Germania a partire dalla fine della Seconda guerra mondiale, adottando una prospettiva che privilegia lo studio delle pratiche nelle diverse dimensioni spaziali. Analizzando le prassi operative nei territori, gli autori e le autrici indagano i processi attraverso cui le polizie operano e si muovono in contesti geografici e su scale di grandezza differenti (città, province e regioni).
I contributi di questo numero prendono in esame diverse istituzioni, vari ambiti dell’attività di polizia e molteplici modalità di controllo statale. L’istituzione di polizia viene pertanto considerata non solo come un’autorità esecutiva e funzionale del potere statale, ma anche come un attore situato nello spazio, nei territori, che compie un lavoro di mediazione tra le autorità centrali (o regionali) e i diversi contesti locali in cui opera. La storia delle polizie viene quindi raccontata anche come una storia dello spazio pubblico e come una storia sociale regionale e locale.
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Dieses Heft untersucht die Polizeien Italiens und Deutschlands nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg und wählt dafür eine praxisorientierte Herangehensweise. Deren Praktiken werden anhand einer auf den Raum bezogenen Perspektive analysiert. Die Autor:innen fragen also danach, wie die Polizeien in unterschiedlichen geografischen Kontexten (Städte, Provinzen und Regionen) agieren und den jeweiligen Raum polizieren.

Die Beiträge in diesem Heft nehmen unterschiedliche Institutionen von Polizei, diverse Räume polizeilichen Handelns sowie vielfältige Modi staatlicher Kontrolle in den Blick. Dabei wird die Institution Polizei nicht nur als funktionale Ausführungsinstanz staatlicher Gewalt begriffen, sondern als räumlich situierte Akteurin, die zwischen zentralstaatlichen (oder regionalstaatlichen) Autoritäten und den verschiedenen lokalen Kontexten vermittelt. Polizeigeschichte wird demnach als Geschichte des öffentlichen Raumes erzählt und zugleich auch als regionale Gesellschaftsgeschichte.

Modern medicine relies on observing clinical symptoms and tracking disease progression, enabling rational diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. Since the prehistoric era, medicine has advanced through observation, experimentation, and innovation, resulting in effective treatments and longer life spans. However, despite these successes, many diseases still challenge modern medicine. Our main argument is that medical progress is shaped by the interdependence between medicine, socio-political stability, and technological development. To demonstrate this, we analyzed major databases from prehistoric to modern times and conducted a narrative review of secondary sources. We found that transformative eras; from Imhotep's promotion of natural disease causes in ancient Egypt to Hippocrates' reforms in Greece and Avicenna's contributions in the Middle Ages align with strong socio-political contexts. In recent times, technological advancements, such as artificial intelligence, have driven new developments like robotic-assisted surgery and genetic medicine in the Global North. Therefore, our review concludes that robust socio-political and technological environments are crucial for medical advancement, forging a dynamic relationship between medicine, politics, and technology.

Arguably, he had addressed the issue of serfdom already in his earliest teaching of cameral sciences when he set out his main principles and lecture plan in Vienna in 1750-1752. At the very least, his criticism of serfdom had been presented in Kurzer systematischer Grundriß aller Oeconomischen und Cameralwissenschaften (first published in 1754), and when this was republished in 1761 he pointed out that these principles originated from his Vienna lectures. 2

This paper looks at how colonial history connects with today's climate crisis in African and South Asian eco-literature. During the time of empire, the land and resources of colonies were heavily exploited for the benefit of the colonizers. These actions created long-term ecological problems that still affect formerly colonized nations. By reading writers like Amitav Ghosh, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Ben Okri, and Arundhati Roy, this study shows how literature highlights the links between environment, history, and injustice. The paper argues that climate change cannot be seen as only a scientific or technical issue, but also as a historical and cultural one. Through stories of rivers, forests, and displaced people, postcolonial writers give voice to those who are often ignored in global climate debates. In this way, literature becomes a tool of resistance and a way to imagine more just futures.

Il s'agit notamment de l'extension de la juridiction dans les territoires acquis par l'ÉIC à la suite de la convention de 1894 conclue avec la France et l'Angleterre. Contient entre autres : correspondance ; extraits de publications. Épiscopat au Congo et nomination de monseigneur van Ronslé. 1896-1897. 1 chemise Archives du Ministère des Colonies N° de l'instrument: I 81 Archives relatives aux missions religieuses 38 52-62. Dossiers relatifs aux missions. 1886-1908. 11 chemises 52. Kasaï. 1898-1908. Contient entre autres : demande d'autorisation d'installation et de terrains ; incidents ; étendues des juridictions ecclésiastiques ; rapport sur les missions catholiques ; école de Lusambo (avec photo de l'inauguration) ; allocation à titre gracieux de 50 croisettes par mois à la mission de Saint-Trudon, qui prend en charge des patients atteints de la maladie du sommeil ; prestations dues par les travailleurs au service des missions ; Sankuru ; arrêt du Tribunal d'appel de Boma relatif à plusieurs homicides. 53. Mayumbe. 1898-1908. Contient entre autres : ravitaillement et prix payés par les missions aux marchés de Kangu et Kisu ; travail des enfants ; armes ; décret relatif à un terrain à Kangu ; carte de l'emplacement de la mission de Kangu.

Nei primi anni Settanta, accompagnata e resa popolare dalla nascente industria pornografica e allo stesso tempo dal cinereportage più o meno finzionale, che apriva la ricerca antropologica visiva allo sguardo turistico del primo mondo sugli altri mondi interni ed esterni all'Occidente (Della Gassa 2014), si sviluppa in Italia una cinematografia specifica, esteticamente ricercata, che coniuga sguardo orientalista e genere erotico. Si tratta di quel cinema porno soft che vedeva tra le sue protagoniste l'attrice eritrea Zeudi Araya e l'attrice indonesiana-olandese Laura Gemser. La prima fu al centro di una serie di importanti produzioni filmiche dirette da Luigi Scattini, tra cui La ragazza fuoristrada (1973) e Il corpo (1974), che prenderò qui in considerazione. La seconda divenne l'eroina delle più celebri tra le rivisitazioni apocrife e nere di Emmanuelle, film di Just Jaeckin del 1974 con Sylvia Kristel, tratto dall'omonimo e noto romanzo erotico pubblicato nel 1967 dalla scrittrice franco-thailandese Emmanuelle Arsan. Di questa serie prenderò in esame Emanuelle nera (1975) di Albert Thomas ed Emanuelle nera -Orient Reportage (1976) di Joe D'Amato. La ricerca che presento qui fa parte di un'indagine più ampia su come la visualizzazione dell'alterità razzializzata in Italia venga "funzionalizzata" (made operative, Hall 1980b, p. 342) alla riproduzione di un Sé maschile bianco ed eterosessuale -ossia resa funzionale alla definizione normativa della cultura egemone mediante il contrasto

La collana Quaderni camilleriani (fondata nel 2016, reperibile all’indirizzo https://www.camillerindex.it/quaderni-camilleriani/) ha pubblicato il suo ventiseiesimo volume, curato da Luigi Matt: è intitolato Lingue e stili di Andrea Camilleri (https://www.camillerindex.it/quaderni-camilleriani/quaderni-camilleriani-26/) e propone i contributi di Angelo Campanella, Marina Castiglione, Debora de Fazio, Davide Di Falco, Carolina Tudo.



La lingua di Camilleri è come un universo, ampio e in continua evoluzione. Dal 1978, quando è apparso il primo romanzo, Il corso delle cose, non ha cessato di stupire e affascinare i lettori. Così pure ha richiamato l’attenzione degli specialisti che ne hanno studiato le composite caratteristiche. In questo volume l’indagine si approfondisce e aiuta a comprendere come, dietro a quello che di primo acchito può essere inteso come un divertito gioco linguistico, esista una meditata ricerca stilistica e un intenso esercizio retorico.

Lingue e stili di Andrea Camilleri offre, forse per la prima volta, una panoramica intesa a scoprire aspetti non ancora sufficientemente esplorati di quell’universo e si sofferma su opere molto note, come sono quelle che formano il ciclo di Montalbano, e altre meritevoli di nuova o rinnovata attenzione, quali soni La novella di Antonello da Palermo, La presa di Macallè, la trilogia delle metamorfosi (costituita da Maruzza Musumeci, Il casellante e Il sonaglio) e, per concludere, Troppu trafficu ppi nenti, il testo teatrale pseudo-shakespeariano, scritto in una lingua che si differenzia dal vigatese ed è resa ricca dalle sue caratteristiche dialettologiche.



Cagliari, 6 settembre 2025

Dies ist der siebte Artikel unseres Blogfokus "Salafismus in Deutschland". Weitere Informationen gibt es hier. von Nina Wiedl Globale Dschihadisten, die Deutschland als legitimes Angriffsziel beschreiben, begründen dies unter anderem damit, dass die Bundesrepublik ein im globalen "Krieg gegen den Islam″ eingebundener "Feindesstaat″ sei. Andersdenkende Salafisten wie Mohamad Gintasi alias Abu Jibril und als gemäßigte Islamisten bezeichnete Akteure wie Samir Mourad (DIdI e.V.), aber auch Repräsentanten einiger etablierter Islamverbände, halten ihnen entgegen, deutsche Muslime hätten mit Annahme der deutschen Staatsbürgerschaft oder durch Erhalt ihrer Aufenthaltserlaubnis einen islamrechtlich bindenden Sicherheits(garantie)vertrag (amān) geschlossen. Dieser verpflichte sie, solange sie Sicherheit zugesprochen bekämen und, so ergänzen einige, den Islam praktizieren könnten, geltendes Recht zu achten. In diesem Beitrag werden Argumente und Narrative von Vertretern beider Positionen -namentlich Deutschland als Feindesstaat oder Land eines Sicherheitsvertrages -nachgezeichnet und ihre möglichen Bedeutungen für Prozesse der Radikalisierung und Deradikalisierung diskutiert.

Dies ist der siebte Artikel unseres Blogfokus „Salafismus in Deutschland“. Globale Dschihadisten, die Deutschland als legitimes Angriffsziel beschreiben, begrunden dies unter anderem damit, dass die Bundesrepublik ein im globalen „Krieg gegen den Islam″ eingebundener „Feindesstaat″ sei. Andersdenkende Salafisten wie Mohamad Gintasi alias Abu Jibril und als gemasigte Islamisten bezeichnete Akteure wie Samir Mourad (DIdI e.V.), aber auch Reprasentanten einiger etablierter Islamverbande, halten ihnen entgegen, deutsche Muslime hatten mit Annahme der deutschen Staatsburgerschaft oder durch Erhalt ihrer Aufenthaltserlaubnis einen islamrechtlich bindenden Sicherheits(garantie)vertrag (amān) geschlossen. Dieser verpflichte sie, solange sie Sicherheit zugesprochen bekamen und, so erganzen einige, den Islam praktizieren konnten, geltendes Recht zu achten....

This report – in French, German, Italian and English – is based on research conducted between 2023 and 2025 with colleagues Bernhard C. Schär and Ahmet Köken and provides the first assessment of human and ancestral remains from colonial contexts in Swiss museums and collections. These contain at least 4,175 skulls and other skeletal parts, but very little is known about their origin and how they were acquired. This figure is remarkable, as it places Switzerland on a similar footing to former colonial empires. 26 Swiss institutions (out of 34 contacted) collaborated with us on this inventory. In the report's conclusions, we formulate four recommendations to strengthen joint efforts in the areas of research, financial support and restitution.

This case study critically examines Christopher Columbus’s first voyage to the Americas in 1492, focusing on his interactions with Indigenous peoples. The study demonstrates how he exploited the natives’ generosity and openness for personal and imperial gain, framing them simultaneously as admirable yet subjugatable by analyzing Columbus’s own journals and letters. Sections explore the psychological manipulation of trust, normalization of violence, intergenerational consequences, and the betrayal of hospitality, revealing a pattern of predatory behavior. The study also examines long-term impacts, including cultural erasure, economic exploitation, and ethical culpability. This analysis highlights how admiration for Indigenous generosity was systematically transformed into justification for enslavement, coercion, and cultural destruction by situating Columbus’s actions within the broader context of early European colonization. The findings underscore Columbus as a calculated agent of exploitation whose actions established enduring precedents for colonial violence and oppression.

This study explores rural Muslim-Christian relations in Eastern Visayas from a historical perspective, highlighting patterns of coexistence, conflict, and collaboration. Using archival research, oral histories, and ethnographic observation, the study traces how historical trade, colonial policies, and religious missions influenced interfaith interactions. A total of 120 respondents, including elders and community leaders, provided oral histories documenting local experiences of interfaith coexistence and conflict. Findings reveal complex dynamics of cultural exchange, negotiation, and local adaptation, illustrating resilience in community-level relations (Velasco, 2023; Santos & Reyes, 2022).

“The archives about the colonisation constitute a common cultural heritage that must be shared diligently. […][They] are just as much part of Belgian history as of Congolese, Rwandan and Burundian history”. These are the unequivocal words with which the State Archives reacted on their website to the publication of the expert report of the Special Parliamentary Commission tasked with investigating the Congo Free State and the Belgian colonial past. But how to hold such a strong ethical stance, how to move from theoretical considerations to action, knowing that the State Archives are bound to preserve, by the sole virtue of the Belgian law, a significant part of the archives related to the Belgian colonisation in Central Africa? How to build a common heritage in an institution that inherited working procedures from hundreds of years ago? How to hold this stance that requires very significant investments, while the institution is chronically underfunded and already holds huge collections spanning ten centuries of history (for a total of 380 linear kilometres of records)? Is it even legitimate and appropriate for archivists to intervene in the debate about Belgium’s colonial past, its history and memory.

« Les archives relatives à la colonisation sont un
patrimoine commun, à partager de toute urgence.
[…] [Elles] font tout autant partie de l’histoire de
la Belgique que de celle du Congo, du Rwanda et
du Burundi». C’est par ces mots sans équivoque
que les Archives de l’État ont réagi sur leur site
internet, à la publication du rapport des experts
de la Commission spéciale chargée d’examiner
l’État indépendant du Congo et le passé colonial
de la Belgique.

Gérer des archives, c'est endosser une responsabilité envers une communauté. Celle de préserver son patrimoine, sa mémoire, son histoire, mais également les données utiles à ses citoyens et au bon fonctionnement de ses institutions. Celle de rendre intelligibles et accessibles à tous des ensembles documentaires parfois abscons. Conserver des archives coloniales pousse la réflexion sur chacune de ces responsabilités à son paroxysme, car la communauté au service de laquelle oeuvre l'archiviste est une réalité ancienne, dont les membres sont distants de plusieurs milliers de kilomètres. Bien plus, l'existence de cette communauté s'est construite alors sur une relation non consentie, caractérisée par la domination violente d'un de ses membres sur les autres ; situation inégalitaire dont les effets se font encore sentir aujourd'hui. En vue d'élargir et d'approfondir l'introduction à ce guide de sources, nous proposons de faire le point sur les enjeux qui entourent aujourd'hui les archives coloniales nées de l'administration belge du Congo, du Ruanda et de l'Urundi. Que sont (et ne sont pas) ces archives coloniales, à qui et à quoi servent-elles aujourd'hui ? Comment le « cas belge » s'inscrit-il dans le temps et dans le panorama des archives produites par les anciennes puissances coloniales européennes ? Et enfin, que faire des archives coloniales, à l'heure où les appels à la décolonisation des esprits, de l'espace public, des musées et autres centres d'archives se multiplient ? Le tout avec une attention particulière pour les problématiques d'accès et de conservation, à la fois centrales et inextricablement mêlées quand il s'agit d'archives coloniales.

Relato de experiência é um texto descrito que conta uma experiência realizada afim de compartilhar conhecimentos e promover o intercâmbio de ideias, situações, projetos e trabalhos. O contexto deste trabalho é relatar a experiência realizada entre os dias 13 e 15 de dezembro de 2024, onde uma turma com cerca de 20 discentes e 2 docentes da Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos os quais saíram dessa mesma universidade, em São Leopoldo, no Rio Grande do Sul, com destino às Missões Jesuíticas, nas cidades de Entre-Ijuís, São Miguel das Missões e Santo Ângelo afim de realizar uma viagem de estudos. Com a moderação dos professores, houve a oportunidade de conhecer a história do povo guarani, aos sítios arqueológicos de São João Batista, São Miguel Arcanjo e Santo Ângelo, examinar os processos sociais e culturais da região, a economia, atividades produtivas, relações com a religião, artes, música, arquitetura, incursões portuguesas, espanholas, guerras e orientações nas visitações. Na oportunidade, a experiência da viagem de estudos aos participantes proporcionou vivenciar na prática conhecimentos teóricos de história e aproximação com a interação das Missões religiosas por meio das reduções, conduzidas pelos jesuítas. Recomenda-se como sugestões de pesquisas futuras a expansão de pesquisas arqueológicas, análise de vestígios de outras reduções menores ou postos avançados, viagens de estudos continuamente aprimorada como ferramenta pedagógica, também afim de entender desdobramentos, histórias, documentos, materiais e construções, na compreensão de particularidades do processo de ocupação e colonização do território gaúcho.

Revealing dynamic dialogues between early modern China and Latin America through a new methodology

https://services.publishing.umich.edu/Books/K/Knowing-an-Empire

"Knowing an Empire: Early Modern Chinese and Spanish Worlds in Dialogue" unveils how these two vast empires, separated by thousands of miles, developed comparable systems to gather, order, and wield knowledge about their local worlds in the process of empire-building. From the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, officials in both empires compiled large quantities of structured data on the climate, topography, natural products, languages, religions, and more of their locales, creating a vision of their empires as diverse yet unified. Through a new methodology of “juxtapositional comparison,” the book reads the difangzhi 地方志 (local gazetteers) of China and the relaciones geográficas of the Spanish world in parallel.

Knowing an Empire does not see the conveyance of information across an empire as a top-down process with an active center as a knowledge-maker. Instead, it amplifies a blend of voices that speak as much to imperial bureaucracy as to the rich local and Indigenous cultures, revealing these two early modern empires as diverse polities whose equilibria were constantly rebalanced among local powers. Comprised of 18 chapters, this edited collection reflects on the historical evolution and inner structures of the imperial epistemologies, as well as the many ways historians today read difangzhi and relaciones geográficas to understand the spatial, natural, and social order in both the Chinese and the Spanish empires. At once a comparative and a connected history, it places Chinese and Spanish imperial knowledge in the globalizing early modern world, highlighting the migration of people, goods, and ideas and revealing how these wide-ranging influences are reflected—or not—in the difangzhi and the relaciones. The book concludes by broadening our scope beyond China and Spain to reflect how other early modern empires, such as the Portuguese, failed to develop such systematized imperial genres.

With contributions from leading scholars across Latin American and Asian Studies, this book synthesizes political, environmental, and socio-economic history with historical anthropology to highlight parallel governance and knowledge structures. The contributors challenge conventional binaries of Western versus Eastern, and colonial versus non-colonial, presenting a nuanced perspective of early modern empires as dynamic, interconnected entities through the shared challenges of scale, diversity, and increasing globalization. Through these dialogues, Knowing an Empire illuminates the complex entanglement of ruling and understanding. This groundbreaking collection offers a highly innovative and dialogic approach to comparative studies of empires, with major implications for Asian, European, Latin American, transnational, and global history.

Mackenzie Cooley is Associate Professor of Early Modern History of Ideas at Hamilton College. Her books include The Perfection of Nature: Animals, Breeding, and Race in the Renaissance (University of Chicago Press, 2022) and Natural Things in Early Modern Worlds (Routledge, 2023).

Huiyi Wu is a historian of early modern Sino-European relationships and a permanent research fellow at the National Center of Scientific Research (CNRS) in France. She is the author of Tranduire la Chine au XVIIIe siècle (Translating China in the Eighteenth Century, Honoré Champion, 2017).

“This book is an intellectual delight and a comparative joy—an invitation to revel in the play of likeness and divergence. Comparison here is no mere tool, but a portal: a passage into two imperial knowledge projects—the Spanish relaciones geográficas and the Chinese difangzhi—that, though born of distinct political worlds, pursued strikingly similar aims. Each sought to render distant realms legible through questionnaires, maps, images, and ordered prose. A must-read for every historically minded reader.”

- Dagmar Schäfer, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin

“Knowing an Empire provides sharp analysis on the early modern Chinese and Spanish empires: their limits and challenges in knowing and governing their domains and the role of the indigenous groups and other people on the ground in acquiring knowledge about these empires. It presents various perspectives and interpretations on the intricacies of imperial knowledge production and demonstrates the richness of data that can be culled from the difanzhi and the relaciones geográficas, which are very important source materials for future studies.”

- Jely A. Galang, University of the Philippines, Diliman

“Timely and ambitious, Knowing an Empire offers a new framework for comparative histories. It does more than examine relationships between empire- and knowledge systems-building and how their developments informed scientific practice, economies, transformations of natural environments, and perceptions of diverse populations. Cooley and Wu’s collection dismantles assumptions about the Scientific Revolution and its absence in China and the Spanish empire. It forces us, from the perspective of our world of big data and digitized knowledge systems, to think critically about how all knowledge-making involves processes of objectification and othering.”

- Junko Takeda, Syracuse University

“Knowing an Empire demonstrates the possibilities for cross-cultural understanding offered by comparative approaches to global history. In doing so, it offers new strategies for going beyond exceptionalism and exploring alternatives to histories of connection. Knowing an Empire brings new legibility to landscapes of knowledge and power across the early modern world.”

- Julia McClure, University of Glasgow

“The authors of this edited volume explore the intriguing parallels between two distinct imperial knowledge systems: the relaciones geográficas of Spain and the difangzhi, or local gazetteers, of China. This timely and indispensable comparative study examines how both empires aimed to systematize, centralize, and control information about their vast territories through independently developed standardized questionnaires and instructions for compiling local gazetteers.”

- Antonio Barrera-Osorio, Colgate University

En este trabajo reconstruimos los envíos de remesas desde las tesorerías regionales que componían la Real Hacienda del Virreinato del Río de la Plata hacia la caja de Buenos Aires entre 1780 y 1800. Sobre la base de los libros mayores de contabilidad de la caja de Buenos Aires, estimamos los volúmenes de recursos que las cajas del interior rioplatense enviaron a la administración de hacienda de la capital. En una comparación con la evolución de los fondos del situado potosino (principal ingreso de la tesorería principal del Virreinato) buscamos evaluar la relevancia que los recursos aportados por otras jurisdicciones tuvieron en los ingresos de la caja de Buenos Aires. Consideramos la reconstrucción de estos valores como elemento fundamental para poder elaborar indicadores de presión fiscal durante las últimas décadas del siglo XVIII que logren diferenciar/identificar las cargas de las múltiples jurisdicciones fiscales que componían el sistema de la hacienda colonial (municipal, regional, corporativo, virreinal). Las principales fuentes utilizadas se componen de libros de contabilidad (mayores) de la caja de Buenos Aires, de la caja de Santa Fe, Caja de Mendoza y libros manuales de arbitrios de Santa Fe (Archivo General de la Nación).

In this sweeping biography of Ralph Bunche, Kal Raustiala combines the best of history and biography to shed light on the man and his times and to show how each influenced the other. Bunche played an outsized role in the United Nations (UN), which became the venue for his lifelong quest to bring an end to colonialism. This quest involved him in some of the twentieth century's most profound political debates and the Cold War's most divisive conflicts. As a scholar, diplomat, and peacemaker, Bunche was a man ahead of his times, frequently espousing views that would become popular years, if not decades, later. The book is a phenomenal achievement and an invaluable contribution to the literature on the United Nations and the Cold War, phenomena that scholars have tended to treat separately and that have therefore developed distinct historiographies. 1

Amy Nygaard, "Memetic Reproduction of Anthropological Knowledge: Ethnographic Dioramas and Jane Alexander’s ‘African Adventure’ (1999–2002)" in Fabrics of Anthropological Knowledge Changing Perspectives in Europe and Beyond. Edited by Hande Birkalan-Gedik and Fabiana Dimpflmeier. Oxford: Berghahn Books, pp 263 - 284. https://doi.org/10.3167/9781805399742

Este  trabajo  propone  una  reflexión  historiográfica sobre el carácter y la lógica rectora de la hacienda colonial en la región  andina,  revisando  los  argumentos  esgrimidos  en  las previas  discusiones  sobre  el  modo  de  producción  en  América. Se  interpreta  al  orden  colonial  como  parte  de  una  transición más  amplia,  de  escala  global,  en  la  que  se  enmarca  también  la “acumulación originaria” europea. Se estudia el surgimiento de las  haciendas  andinas  a  partir  de  la  noción  de “hibridez” que plantea  Jairus  Banaji  para  el  estudio  del  surgimiento  del capitalismo    agrario.    Se    presta    especial    atención    al    rol determinante  que  jugó  en  ello  un  mercado  interno  articulado en  torno  a  la  producción  argentífera  potosina  (orientada,  por su  parte,  a  la  exportación).  Las  haciendas  coloniales  son entendidas  como  empresas “híbridas”, presididas  por  una incipiente lógica capitalista a pesar del carácter premoderno de sus    regímenes    laborales.    Por    último,    se    analizan    los fundamentos  de  la  tendencia  del  capitalismo  colonial  hacia trabajos menos forzados.

Contrato de Asesoría N° 5 -03-92-97 y N° 5-03-99-98. En el plano de la arqueología hispanocolonial se ha desempeñado como colaboradora de diversos estudios de impacto ambiental y cultural entre los que destaca el trabajo como arqueólogo asesor SERVIU Metropolitano, Gestión Parques Urbanos, para proyecto Obras de Riego en el Cerro Blanco de Santiago. Es investigadora responsable del Proyecto FONDECYT N° 1090325 referido al estudio arquitectónico y urbanístico de la Catedral de Santiago. Se desempeña en el Consejo de Monumentos Nacionales. Es autora de numerosas publicaciones entre las que se pueden destacar: Gómez, A.

This article identifies the first known instance of visual engagement with the iconic anatomical imagery of Andreas Vesalius' De humani corporis fabrica (1543) east of Istanbul. Two skeleton men from the Fabrica provide the design for skeletal sculptures decorating the Dutch cemetery in the colonial port town of Pulicat, in Tamil Nadu, India. We ask what it meant to engage with these iconic images of European anatomy in a seventeenth-century trading port on the Bay of Bengal, both for those who were responsible for their production and for those who passed by the cemetery. This article argues that the visual solutions of the Pulicat sculptures bring into conversation not only medical anatomy and funerary architecture, but also the artistic traditions of Europe and the Deccan, and, most importantly, the somewhat differing early modern European and Indian approaches to visualizing the skeletal structures of human bodies. The Pulicat sculptures can be productively understood as a potential meeting point for the contemplation of the fragile human body from the perspectives of European and Islamicate anatomy, Christian traditions of natural theology and memento mori, as well as South Indian and especially mystic Sufi asceticism.

Around 2009 I was contacted by an independent researcher who had worked on the excavations at the Phips site with Robert Bradley. This researcher shared with me many pieces of correspondence that he had with Bradley over the years about the excavations, as well as correspondence he had with archaeologists around the world about various artifacts found at the site. In fact, that is how I became acquainted with the site, the researcher contacted me about some artifacts that I had found on some of the sites that I had worked on that had parallels at the Phips site. We had hopes that working together. We could come up with a final report on this important site as a legacy to Bradley. Subsequently, we stopped working together on the project, and all traces of the previous research posted online about the site by another archaeologist, were taken down. But, the site is very important, and I feel that information that is not shared is lost, and this is the antithesis of what archaeology is all about. What I present here is information that I have personally gathered about the site. I do not include any of the information shared with me by that independent researcher. That is his information and he has to make the decision about whether he wishes to share it with the world or not.
This report was compiled through a review of  Robert Bradley's notes and yearly site reports stored at the Maine Historic Preservation Commission (MHPC), an article published by Bradley in the Maine Archaeological Society Bulletin in 1989 and another in 1990 in the magazine of the Fort Western Museum , and six newspaper articles about the excavations in 1986, 1987, 1990, 1991, and 1992.

This was the PowerPoint which I gave at the launch with the Indonesian translation of the Babad Diponegoro at the Indonesian National Library (Perpustakaan National / PerpusNas RI) on 23July 2025 as part of the Bicentennial of the outbreak of the Java War (20 July 1825-20 July 2025). This is the first time since Diponegoro's death on 8 January 1855 in Fort Rotterdam that his famous autobiographical chronicle (babad), has appeared in print. First dictated to an unknown amanuensis (jurutulis) in Fort Nieuw Amsterdam, Manado, over nine months between 20 May 1831 and 3 February 1832, Diponegoro's babad was recognised by UNESCO as a Memory of the World (MoW) on 18 June 2013. The irony is that the Dutch moved faster than the Indonesians in embarking on a translation of this key text. The Dutch translation took place under the aegis of the Batavian Society of Arts & Letters (Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen) directed initially by the Leiden-trained Kawi scholar, A.B. Cohen Stuart (1826-76). But it never saw the light of day due to the inability of the Batavian Society to identify a single competent scholar of Javanese prepared to take on such a massive literary work (Notulen 1877:89-95). Instead, the manuscript was given to the KITLV by the grandson of the last translator – Willem Palmer van den Broek (1823-1881) in 1937 – and accessioned as H589. This was eventually put forward to UNESCO along with the pegon script copy in the Indonesian National Library (PerpusNas) in Jakarta, for the successful 2012 revised application to the UNESCO MoW Committee, the first having been rejected.

La minería andina colonial ha suscitado mucho interés en la historiografía; sin embargo, el aspecto de las técnicas mineras y metalúrgicas ha sido tratado de manera más desigual. Este artículo —parte de una investigación más amplia— pretende, inspirándose en estudios recientes sobre la historia de las técnicas modernas en otros espacios, hacer un trabajo antropológico-histórico de dichas técnicas, enfocándose en la figura del experto minero y metalúrgico en el Alto Perú y el desierto de Atacama entre 1675 y 1775, periodo poco conocido y marcado por el desprecio hacia estos expertos andinos antes de la impactante irrupción de la ciencia europea. De este modo, se prestará un interés especial a las prácticas cotidianas y a sus grados de pericia, así como también a los procesos innovadores, es decir, a las etapas de reflexión, debate, modificación y difusión que hacían posible que el inventor inventase (que se llegase a lo que entendemos por invento). El objetivo de este artículo, por tanto, es presentar nuevos enfoques de trabajo sobre la minería andina colonial.

Anhand der TV-Serie Mr. Sunshine soll das Konzept des "Chinilpa" als eigenständiger literarischer und cineastischer Charakter in Abgrenzung vom "liebenswerten Lebenskünstler" diskutiert und seine geschichtspolitische Funktion innerhalb des "Sageuk"-Genres erläutert werden. In der Umgangssprache wird "Chinilpa" in Südkorea als Kampfbegriff gegen alle Koreaner*innen verwendet, die sich in der Kolonialzeit angepasst haben oder apologetisch über die japanische Kolonialherrschaft (1905-1945) urteilen. Die Serie ist in einem Zeitfenster angesetzt, das als Schlüsselmoment für die Nationswerdung Koreas verstanden werden kann. Nach einer über zweihundertjährigen Phase politischer Isolation brachen zwischen 1865 und 1905 Moderne, Kapitalismus und Imperialismus mit Gewalt in das kleine ‚Einsiedlerreich' in Ostasien ein. Mr. Sunshine folgt den Lebenswegen der Protagonist*innen Eugene Choi, Go Ae-sin und Koo Dong-mae durch das untergehende Königreich Joseon bis zur Annexion durch Japan. Für den Leibeigenen Choi und den Unberührbaren Koo eröffnen sich neue persönliche Handlungsspielräume, die sie auf unterschiedliche Weise nutzen. Als primärer Antagonist der Serie wird der Übersetzer und Diplomat Lee Wan-ik präsentiert, der durch seine Kontakte nach Japan reich geworden ist. Lee Wan-ik ist vom ‚alten' Korea desillusioniert und strebt die Unterwerfung Koreas durch Japan an. Mr. Sunshine stellt Koo und einige Nebencharaktere als ‚sympathische' Opportunisten dem "Chinilpa", also dem ‚verwerflichen' Opportunisten, Lee Wan-ik gegenüber. Damit leistet die Serie einen geschichtspolitischen und erinnerungskulturellen Debattenbeitrag zur Frage nach individuellen historischen Handlungsspielräumen.

The forerunner of the present British Geological Survey was founded on 11 July 1835 as a branch of the Ordnance Trigonometrical Survey. Its role at this time was to provide an understanding of the geology of Britain, which would be 'of great practical utility to the Agriculturalist, the Miner, and those concerned in projecting and improving the Roads, Canals, and such other public works, undertaken for the benefit and improvement of the Country.' Its founder and first director, Henry Thomas De la Beche, also set about creating a Museum of Economic Geology that would contain 'specimens illustrative of the application of geology to the useful purposes of life.' The museum was established at a house (later two adjoining houses) at Craig's Court, Whitehall, under the jurisdiction of the Office of Woods and Forests. In April 1839 the eminent analytical chemist, Richard Phillips, became the museum's first curator and chemist, and in June of that year he was furnished with a laboratory for analysing rocks, minerals and soils. However, in his role as effectively the first 'government chemist', Phillips soon found himself called upon by various government departments to analyse and test a range of such unlikely materials as sweets, seaweed and soap! Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk

The Indian Uprising of 1857 was a watershed moment in British colonial history. Starting as a military mutiny it spread to the civilian population in north and central India and became the largest anti-colonial rebellion of the nineteenth century. Despite reasserting control Britain’s confidence was severely shaken, leading to an increasingly pessimistic and racist attitude towards the Indians. This paper examines the raft of policies innovated by the British administration after 1857 with a view to establishing greater control over the colony. It will focus on the reform of the political and military structures in India, the replacement of the pro-peasant Ryotwari land policy for one which cultivated the support of landed interests, and the extent to which the education policy was changed.

Batay sa historya at karanasan, mapapansin na kung nagtatayo ng simbahan ay karaniwan itong nakaharap sa katubigan o daluyang-tubig gaya ng ilog, lawa, at dagat. Ganu'n ang unang simbahan ng Taytay na gawa sa mahihinang materyales nang itindig ito sa malapit sa baybayin ng lawa noong 1579. Nakaharap sa kalawakan ng Laguna de Bai.

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