This book is a history of an illusion. It is also a history of the dream that preceded the illusion. The book discusses statistics as the field of tension between the scientific claims of neutrality and universality on the one hand and the political and economic reality of the conflicting interests of nation-states on the other. The various paths of state- and nation-building that European countries traversed in the nineteenth century are recognisable in the objectives of government statistics and are reflected in the topics selected for statistical study and in the categories used in the research. Each congress was clearly dominated by the specific interests of the country in which the statisticians convened. The book shows in each case how the organisation of government statistics and national concerns influenced the international agenda. It describes the perceptions, goals and dilemmas of the protagonists and their contact with each other, and in so doing unravels the complex relationships between science, government and society, wherever possible from their point of view. The genesis of international statistics was inspired by a desire for reform. Belgium's pioneering role in the European statistical movement was informed both by its liberal polity and the special status of statistics within it, and by Adolphe Quetelet's key position as an intellectual. The consolidation of the Grand Duchy of Baden, a new medium-sized state in the Rhine Confederation and later in the German Confederation, offered great opportunities for the development of official statistics.
This book is an attempt at a comprehensive presentation of the history of humanitarian intervention in the long nineteenth century, the heyday of this controversial doctrine. It starts with a brief presentation of the present situation and debate. The theoretical first part of the book starts with the genealogy of the idea, namely the quest for the progenitors of the idea in the sixteenth and seventeenth century which is a matter of controversy. Next the nineteenth century ‘civilization-barbarity’ dichotomy is covered and its bearing on humanitarian intervention, with its concomitant Eurocentric/Orientalist gaze towards the Ottomans and other states, concluding with the reaction of the Ottomans (as well as the Chinese and Japanese). Then the pivotal international law dimension is scrutinized, with the arguments of advocates and opponents of humanitarian intervention from the 1830s until the 1930s. The theoretical part of the book concludes with nineteenth century international political theory and intervention (Kant, Hegel, Cobden, Mazzini and especially J.S. Mill). In the practical second part of the book four cases studies of humanitarian intervention are examined in considerable detail: the Greek case (1821-1831), the Lebanon/Syria case (1860-61), the Balkan crisis and Bulgarian case (1875-78) in two chapters, and the U.S. intervention in Cuba (1895-98). Each cases study concludes with its bearing on the evolution of international norms and rules of conduct in instances of humanitarian plights. The concluding chapter identifies the main characteristics of intervention on humanitarian grounds during this period and today’s criticism and counter-criticism.
jurisdiction in Germany as a case study to explain how professional accountability changed during the nineteenth century. It examines the transformation that occurred in medical jurisdiction, in order to discuss how doctors were held responsible for professional malpractice and how legal procedures changed. The transformation of medical jurisdiction is understood as the result of changing patterns of accountability in more general terms. The French sociologist François Ewald sees a shift in accountability in the workplace, from the idea of individual liability to the
of poetic representation that figured the Amerindian as an object of knowledge. The rise of periodical culture in nineteenth-century British Guiana came to ground ideas of humanity in the capacity to read and thereby participate fully in the social life of the colony. Within this framework Indigenous peoples were understood as essentially illiterate, even as colonial missionaries sought to educate British Guianese Amerindians. As we see in the writings of a missionary such as John Henry Bernau, Christianisation was imagined to precede civilisation, which meant that
3 Village rebellion and social violence in early nineteenth-century Vietnam Vũ Đức Liêm Ban cung sinh dao tac. Misery creates banditry. (Vietnamese proverb) In summer 1834, Nguyen Khac Hai, the lieutenant governor of Bac Ninh province (forty kilometres to the north of Hanoi), led a mission to inspect local dykes. In the middle of the tour, Hai was ambushed by armed men who came to be known in the imperial records as ‘bandits’ (phi).1 Taken by surprise, most of Hai’s escort of officials and troops were killed before he retreated to a nearby village to summon
Engine of Modernity: The Omnibus and Urban Culture in Nineteenth-Century Paris examines the connection between public transportation and popular culture in nineteenth-century Paris through a focus on the omnibus - a horse-drawn vehicle for mass urban transport which enabled contact across lines of class and gender. A major advancement in urban locomotion, the omnibus generated innovations in social practices by compelling passengers of diverse backgrounds to interact within the vehicle’s close confines. Although the omnibus itself did not actually have an engine, its arrival on the streets of Paris and in the pages of popular literature acted as a motor for a fundamental cultural shift in how people thought about the city, its social life, and its artistic representations. At the intersection of literary criticism and cultural history, Engine of Modernity argues that for nineteenth-century French writers and artists, the omnibus was much more than a mode of transportation. It became a metaphor through which to explore evolving social dynamics of class and gender, meditate on the meaning of progress and change, and reflect on one’s own literary and artistic practices.
-Enlightenment cases, ecclesiastical and judicial authorities joined, indeed, directed subsequent prosecution of the accused, in the Huntingdonshire of the nineteenth century, the church and the law stood firmly against belief in witchcraft. But official reactions are not fully post-Enlightenment: it should be remembered that the parish constable, an office typically held by a local farmer or other community member, refuses to give relief to
‘In greater nations, where large numbers of people create complicated social situations, where one can find plenty of riches, a lot of suffering, and high intelligence but also many degenerated individuals, the battle against self-murder can at times seem hopeless, and the onlooker is lead to believe it's all caused by grim determinism’. 1 This is how the Finnish physician Fredrik Wilhelm Westerlund (1844–1921) summarised the late nineteenth-century suicide discourse in April 1897. Observing
the Interior, Rochow, horrified at reading this, who underlined the words and phrases in the above quotation. Additionally, he marked the passage by a large question mark in the margins. He also documented his astonishment at passages reporting widespread superstition throughout the Prussian realm – one was, after all, living in the nineteenth century. In no way did the enlightened Rochow agree with the Landrat ’s summary
There are many factors at work in the iconography of human remains. Some of those frequently discussed are aesthetic criteria, iconographic traditions and specific contingencies, whether political (for example in war paintings), symbolic (essential for transi images) or cultural. There is, however, one factor that is rarely mentioned, despite its centrality: the regime of value associated with corpses. Christ’s body is not painted in the same way as that of a departed relative or that used in a human dissection. Artists choose a suitable iconography depending on how the remains are perceived. This criterion became absolutely crucial in contexts such as nineteenth-century France, when attitudes to corpses underwent major changes.