An Emerging Modern World, 1750–1870. Edited by Sebastian Conrad and Jürgen Osterhammel. A History of the World. Edited by Akira Iriye and Jürgen Osterhammel. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2018. Pp. vi+1090. $45.00.

2021 ◽  
Vol 93 (3) ◽  
pp. 677-680
Author(s):  
Patrick O’Brien
Author(s):  
Mauricio Onetto Pavez

The year 2020 marks the five hundredth anniversary of the “discovery” of the Strait of Magellan. The unveiling of this passage between 1519 and 1522 allowed the planet to be circumnavigated for the first time in the history of humanity. All maritime routes could now be connected, and the idea of the Earth, in its geographical, cosmographic, and philosophical dimensions, gained its definitive meaning. This discovery can be considered one of the founding events of the modern world and of the process of globalization that still continues today. This new connectivity awoke an immediate interest in Europe that led to the emergence of a political consciousness of possession, domination, and territorial occupation generalized on a global scale, and the American continent was the starting point for this. This consciousness also inspired a desire for knowledge about this new form of inhabiting the world. Various fields of knowledge were redefined thanks to the new spaces and measurements produced by the discovery of the southern part of the Americas, which was recorded in books on cosmography, natural history, cartography, and manuscripts, circulating mainly between the Americas and Europe. All these processes transformed the Strait of Magellan into a geopolitical space coveted by Europeans during the 16th century. As an interoceanic connector, it was used to imagine commercial routes to the Orient and political projects that could sustain these dynamics. It was also conceived as a space to speculate on the potential wealth in the extreme south of the continent. In addition, on the Spanish side, some agents of the Crown considered it a strategic place for imperial projections and the defense of the Americas.


2021 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-26
Author(s):  
Oleksandra Severinova ◽  

The article analyzes the theoretical and methodological aspects of the formation and development of doctrinal ideas about the meaning of the concept of «armed conflict» in the history of world political and legal thought. The question of the name of the branch of law that regulates armed conflict, by analyzing its historical names such as «law of war», «laws and customs of war», «law of armed conflict», «international humanitarian law» and «international humanitarian law, used in armed conflicts». As a result of this analysis, it can be concluded that it would be most appropriate to use the terms «international humanitarian law» only in a narrow sense or «international humanitarian law applicable in armed conflicts», which is more cumbersome but most accurately describes the field. It is emphasized that due to the availability of new powerful weapons (economic, political, informational, cultural and weapons of mass destruction), which are dangerous both for the aggressor and for the whole world; the aggressor's desire to downplay its role in resolving conflicts in order to avoid sanctions from other countries and international organizations, as well as to prevent the loss of its authority and position on the world stage; the attempts of the aggressor countries to establish their control over the objects of aggression (including integrating them into their political, economic and security systems) without excessive damage to them is the transformation of methods and means of warfare. It is determined that the long history of the formation of the law of armed conflict has led to the adoption at the level of international law of the provision prohibiting any armed aggression in the world, which is reflected in such a principle as non-use of force or threat of force. At the same time, the UN Charter became the first international act in the history of mankind, which completely prohibited armed aggression and enshrined this principle at the international level, which is binding on all states of the modern world.


Itinerario ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-214
Author(s):  
Carolien Stolte

This interview took place at Harvard University, where Kären Wigen, the Frances and Charles Field Professor in History of Stanford University gave the 2015 Reischauer Lectures. This year’s theme was ‘Where in the World? Map-Making at the Asia-Pacific Margin, 1600-1900.’ Carolien Stolte and Rachel Koroloff interviewed Professor Wigen to the tunes of Persian music at the Kolbeh of Kabob restaurant on Cambridge Street.


Author(s):  
Stephen J. Davis

Monasticism is a social and religious phenomenon that originated in antiquity, which remains relevant in the 21st century. Monasticism: A Very Short Introduction discusses the history of monasticism from the earliest evidence for it, and the different types that have developed. It considers where monasteries are located around the world, and how their settings impact the everyday life and worldview of the monks and nuns who dwell in them. Exploring how monastic communities are organized, this VSI also looks at how all aspects of life are regimented. Finally, it discusses what the stories about saints communicate about monastic identity and ethics, and considers what place there is for monasticism in the modern world.


2005 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 108-110
Author(s):  
Ali Hassan Zaidi

One effect of 9/11 has been that Muslim voices, which until then had beenmostly ignored, are increasingly reaching a wider audience of other Muslimsand non-Muslims. In Europe and North America, this has meant that selfidentified“progressive” Muslim scholars who emphasize social justice, aswell as “traditional” Muslims who emphasize Islam’s spiritual or esotericdimension, have been contributing in a much more vocal manner to the contemporaryinterpretation of what it means to be Muslim. Since most of theleading figures presented herein are Sufi Muslims of a particular strand ofesoteric Islam, this book helps fill an important lacuna concerning the developmentof the traditionalist position – a position that has been voiced bysuch Muslim scholars as Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Martin Lings.Sedgwick promotes the book as a biography of René Guénon (1886-1951) and an intellectual history of the traditionalist movement that heinaugurated in the early twentieth century. Guénon’s movement combineselements of perennial philosophy, which holds that certain perennial problemsrecur in humanity’s philosophical concerns, and that this perennialwisdom is now only found in the traditional forms of the world religions ...


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Margaret Sraku-Lartey

This paper focuses upon the importance and value of local Indigenous Knowledge and how it is being threatened in today’s modern world rather than being leveraged to catalyze development. The author specifically calls out three types of Indigenous Knowledge: (1) medicinal knowledge related to human health, i.e., herbal medicine; (2) sacred groves – geographic areas set aside to preserve plants and animals and that can help to mitigate the impact of climate change; and (3) living libraries – communities of people who are also holders of cultural wisdom and history and who are custodians of all knowledge relating to the history of their own community. The author makes a call to action, requesting that scientists, librarians, publishers, and others in the information community collaborate and move forward together to save and build upon global Indigenous Knowledge.


2011 ◽  
pp. 58-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Talbot

This article presents a history of coffee in the modern world-economy, w;ing an analyticalframework synthesized from Arrighi's concept of systemic cycles of accumulation and Braudel'snotion of three levels of economic analysis: material life, the market economy, and capitalism. Ittakes the commodity chain as the unit of analysis, and argues that this choice helps to illuminatethe caw;al connections between Braudel 's three layers. The method of incorporated comparisonis w;ed to compare restructurings of the coffee commodity chain with the restructurings of thelarger world-economy during each of Arrighi 's systemic cycles.


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