Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War. I. Six Years of War: The Army in Canada, Britain and the Pacific

Historical analogiesOn 2 August 1990, much to everyone's surprise, Hitler invaded Kuwait. The ensuing conflict was mired in history—as Francis Fukuyama might say—or at least in historical analogy. The ruling analogy was with the Second World War; more exactly, with the origins and nature of that war. George Bush's constant reference during the Second Gulf War was Martin Gilbert's Second World War, a monumental construction well described as ‘a bleak, desolate evocation of the horrors of war, a modern Waste Land, an unremitting catalogue of killing, atrocity and exiguous survival’. The paperback edition of this exacting volume weighs three pounds. The text runs to 747 pages. Understandably, the President stashed his copy on board Air Force One. ‘I'm reading a book’, he informed an audience in Burlington, Vermont, in October 1990, ‘and it's a book of history, a great, big, thick history of World War II, and there's a parallel between what Hitler did to Poland and what Saddam Hussein has done to Kuwait’. As Paul Fussell has reminded us, the wartime refrain was Remember Pearl Harbor. “ ‘No one ever shouted or sang Remember Poland’? Not until 1990, that is. Of course, Bush himself had served in that war, as he was not slow to remind the electorate: he flew fifty-eight missions as a pilot in the Pacific. For those who wondered what he knew of Poland, Gilbert's book—at once a chronicle of remembrance and an indictment—told him this:

Download Full-text

Resources for the History of Gabon in French Missionary Archives in Rome

History in Africa ◽

10.2307/3171525 ◽

1981 ◽

Vol 8 ◽

pp. 323-325 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

David E. Gardinier

Keyword(s):

Elementary Education ◽

Formal Education ◽

Second World War ◽

Past Century ◽

World War ◽

Holy Ghost ◽

The Pacific ◽

History Of ◽

The Government ◽

Second World

The archives of two Roman Catholic congregations of French origin which have missionaries in Gabon are located in Rome: the Sisters of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception of Castres (commonly called the Blue Sisters) and the Brothers of Saint Gabriel of Saint Laurent-sur Sèvres. The Blue Sisters were founded by Emilie de Villeneuve in 1836 to improve the condition of women, in particular by educating poor and orphaned girls. The Brothers of Saint Gabriel were organized by Louis Grignion de Montfort in 1715 to provide a primary education for poor boys and were reorganized in 1821 by Gabriel Deshayes. Initially both congregations worked only in France. They entered Gabon at the request of the Holy Ghost Fathers-the sisters in 1849 and the brothers in 1900. The sisters had communities at most of the mission stations--in the Estuary at first and from the 1880s along the Ogooué river and other points in the interior. The brothers operated schools at Libreville and Lambaréné, and after the Second World War at Port-Gentil and Oyem as well. During the past century both congregations became primarily missionary bodies, with the sisters active in Africa and South America and the brothers in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. These international activities led to the transfer of their headquarters to Rome in the 1950s.The sisters who worked in Gabon prior to the Second World War included many with intelligence but few with much formal education beyond the primary grades. They spent their time in social service, health care, and elementary education. The latter included French as well as religion and the domestic arts. The sisters had much less contact with the government or the colonial administration than did the Holy Ghost Fathers, who were their ecclesiastical superiors. Though some sisters toured to provide medical aid to persons away from the mission stations, most of their contacts with Africans took place in or near the stations.

Download Full-text

A 2x2=4 hobbyhorse: Mark Blaug on rational and historical reconstructions

Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics ◽

10.23941/ejpe.v6i3.151 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 6 (3) ◽

pp. 64 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Harro Maas

Keyword(s):

World War I ◽

Second World War ◽

Economic Thought ◽

Historical Reconstruction ◽

World War ◽

History Of Economics ◽

History Of ◽

Magnum Opus ◽

Second World ◽

Do So

Over time, Mark Blaug became increasingly sceptical of the merits of the approach to the history of economics that we find in his magnum opus, Economic theory in retrospect, first published in 1962, and increasingly leaned to favour 'historical' over 'rational' reconstructions. In this essay, I discuss Blaug's shifting historiographical position, and the changing terms of historiographical debate. I do so against the background of Blaug's personal life history and the increasingly beleaguered position the history of economic thought found itself in after the Second World War. I argue that Blaug never resolved the tensions between historical and rational reconstructions, partly because he never fleshed out a viable notion of historical reconstruction. I trace Blaug's difficulty in doing so to his firm conviction that the history of economics should speak to economists, a conviction clearly present in his 2001 essay: "No history of ideas, please, we're economists".

Download Full-text