Community Studies: Fifty Years of Theorization

2002 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 82-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham Crow
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Reference Points ◽  
General Level ◽  
Community Studies ◽  
The Past ◽  
Social Units ◽  
The Way

This paper reviews the ways in which sociologists in the second half of the twentieth century attempted to make sense of the major trends unfolding in their societies. It focuses in particular on the way in which sociologists have responded to the legacy of the founding figures in terms of their identification of trends such as rationalization, bureaucratization, and proletarianization. The proliferation of other trends captured by words ending with the suffix -ization (for example globalization, McDonaldization, and postmodernization) is noted, and the argument is developed that this style of theorising is valuable but problematic. It is valuable because it encourages sociologists to think comparatively, given that the trends identified necessarily have reference points in the past and that their uneven progress in different societies (or other social units) can be compared. It is problematic because there is no agreement on what constitutes evidence that these processes are unfolding, nor on the need for such evidence. A further problem relates to the issue of how these processes are considered to relate to each other. Research undertaken in the field of community in Britain and beyond over the period 1950-2000 is drawn upon to illustrate these points and to support the argument that concepts drawn from theorization at a general level are essential tools in the analysis of contemporary trends. It is also used to support the related argument that such theorization needs to be grounded in empirical evidence if it is to go beyond mere speculation.

Agents of Social Change: Celebrating Women's Progressive Activism across the Twentieth Century

2001 ◽  
Vol 60 ◽  
pp. 218-221
Author(s):  
Kathleen Banks Nutter
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Smith College ◽  
Conference Organizer ◽  
The Past ◽  
Primary Documents ◽  
National Congress ◽  
Potential Impact ◽  
The Way

More than half a century ago, “No Documents, No History” was the rallying cry of women's historian and archivist Mary Ritter Beard. In that spirit, the Sophia Smith Collection (SSC) at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, sponsored a two-day conference from September 22–23, 2000, to celebrate the opening of eight collections that document the incredible achievement of six women and two organizations in the collective struggle for social change throughout the twentieth century. In the papers of Mary Metlay Kaufman, Dorothy Kenyon, Constance Baker Motley, Jessie Lloyd O'Connor, Frances Fox Piven, and Gloria Steinem, and in the records of the National Congress of Neighborhood Women and the Women's Action Alliance can be found primary documents associated with the ongoing quest for social justice. The potential impact of movement history based on such archival holdings is immense. As conference organizer Joyce Clark Follet noted in her opening remarks, such documentation can change the way we think about the past, thus changing the way we think about the future.

The Making of an African Missionary Hero in the English Biographies of Apolo Kivebulaya (1923-1936)

2010 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 273-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Wild-Wood
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Relative Neglect ◽  
Adventure Stories ◽  
The Way

AbstractApolo Kivebulaya was a well-respected Ganda priest who, beginning in the 1890s, established Anglican churches in Toro, Uganda, and in the Boga area of what is now Congo. A CMS colleague, A.B. Lloyd, wrote three popular biographies of Apolo for a British readership that inspired the writing of others. This article examines the style and content of Lloyd’s biographies and explores the factors that influenced them, including Keswick spirituality and boys’ adventure stories. It demonstrates early twentieth-century expectations of missionary heroism, and suggests that the way in which Apolo has been read in the past has influenced his relative neglect in the present.

Why History?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald Bloxham
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Way

What is the point of history? Why has the study of the past been so important for so long? Why History? A History contemplates two and a half thousand years of historianship to establish how very different thinkers in diverse contexts have conceived their activities, and to illustrate the purposes that their historical investigations have served. At the core of this work, whether it is addressing Herodotus, medieval religious exegesis, or twentieth-century cultural history, is the way that the present has been conceived to relate to the past. Alongside many changes in technique and philosophy, Donald Bloxham’s book reveals striking long-term continuities in justifications for the discipline. The volume has chapters on classical antiquity, early Christianity, the medieval world, the period spanning the Renaissance and the Reformation, the era of the Enlightenment, the nineteenth and early twentieth century, and developments down to the present. It concludes with a meditation on the point of history today.

The encounter between Italy and Siam at the dawn of the twentieth century: Italian artists and architects in the modernising Kingdom of Siam

Modern Italy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 469-484
Author(s):  
Neungreudee Lohapon
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Civil Engineering ◽  
Public Works ◽  
Diplomatic Relation ◽  
The West ◽  
Cultural Encounters ◽  
Italian Diaspora ◽  
The Way ◽  
Creative Production

This paper focuses on the encounters between Italy and Siam at the dawn of the twentieth century, as it was the most dynamic period of Italian settlement in the modernising Siam. The paper analyses the development of Siamese modernisation as a challenging opportunity for Italian entrepreneurs and professionals, thanks to a healthy diplomatic relation between the two countries. Compared to the main characteristics of the Italian diaspora, the Italian colony in Siam stands out because of the fruits of its creative production. Siam was described as a symbol of tradition, not very different from the way China was often viewed, while the West was regarded as a source of modernity. With this perspective, the fact that Siam herself initiated the modernisation process, as well as the recruitment of Italians as part of the government's team in public works, architectural construction and civil engineering, was emphasised less than the part played by Italians in transforming the image of the Siamese capital. The paper examines how the encounters between Italy and Siam developed, attempting to do this from both Siamese and Italian perspectives, since both shared cultural memories, empirical evidence of cultural encounters and transculturality.

British Conservatism in the Twentieth Century: An Emerging Ideological Tradition

1987 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 549-578 ◽  
Author(s):  
John D. Fair ◽  
John A. Hutcheson
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
National Party ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Will ◽  
Liberty Of Conscience ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The Way

Lord Acton, one of the most formidable intellects of the last century, was a master of transforming seemingly complicated or contradictory principles into concise epigrammatic statements. Attempting to reconcile Edmund Burke's many liberal views with his reputed Conservatism, Acton asked why was Burke “not an entire liberal? How thoroughly he wished for liberty—of conscience—property, trade, slavery, etc. What stood against it? His notion of history. The claims of the past. The authority of time. The will of the dead. Continuity.” One of the most important lessons to be derived from Burke's writings—recognized by countless authorities as the wellspring of modern British Conservatism—is that Conservatism is not so much a system of thought or ideology as it is a general inclination and regard for history. The behavior of the Conservative Party has been governed by precedent and pragmatism rather than by rationalism and idealism. Words such as dogma, program, or even policy have never been part of its lexicon, whereas such words as spirit, tradition, or even “way“ have more aptly described its approach to politics.By the twentieth century the Conservative Party's preference for lessons from the past (in accordance with England's common law tradition) to any scientifically derived formulas had gained for it the twin monikers of “the national party” and “the stupid party.” But Conservatism does not claim to possess the “keys or the Kingdom,” notes Ian Gilmour, an active politician and Conservative theoretician. “There is no certainty about the route and no certainty about the destination. As Burke said of himself, the lead has to be heaved every inch of the way.” Such is the way that modern British Conservatives, at least, have wished to perceive themselves.

scholarly journals Bharathi’s Concept of Women Liberation: Legacy and novelty

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kalpana B ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Future Generation ◽  
Language Politics ◽  
Tamil Literature ◽  
The Past ◽  
Feminist Ideology ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way

Subramania Bharathi is probably the greatest poet in the History of Tamil literature. Many books and articles have been written both in English and Tamil praising his works and criticizing him for the past hundred years. His works have been taken up for research, to analyze Nationalism, language, politics, literature, translation, philosophy, feminism and religion. This book entitled “Bharathi’s concept of women liberation: Legacy and novelty” analyzes his feminist thoughts and the lives of women during his period. The author of this book Dr. B. Kalpana carefully analyzes about Bharathi’s works, his period, tradition, his innovative and modern thoughts that paved the way to the future generation. In this book, Dr. B. Kalpana points out, how Bharathi overcame tradition, and became a revolutionary poet of the twentieth century. Bharathi’s feminist ideology is carefully analyzed in this book from the historical perspective.

The Lighthouse of the Mediterranean, 350 BC–100 BC

The Great Sea ◽  
2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Abulafia
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Freshwater Lake ◽  
Nile Valley ◽  
The Road ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Real Target ◽  
The Way

In 333 BC Alexander III, king of Macedon, whose claims to Greekness were treated with some scepticism down in Athens, wreaked vengeance on the Persian kings who had posed such a threat to Greece in past centuries, by defeating a massive Persian army at the battle of the Issos, beyond the Cilician Gates. Yet he did not pursue the Persian king, Darius III, into the Persian heartlands. He well understood the need to neutralize Persian power along the shores of the Mediterranean, and marched south through Syria and Palestine, where he ruthlessly took charge of the Phoenician cities that had in the past provided Persia with its fleets; Tyre resisted him for seven months, much to his fury, even after he built the great mole that for ever after joined the island city to the mainland. Once he had captured Tyre, most of its inhabitants were slaughtered, enslaved or crucified. He bypassed Jerusalem, choosing the road through Gaza, since his real target at this stage was Egypt, ruled by a Persian satrap for nearly 200 years, since the days of Cambyses, and his conquest of this land transformed not just Egypt but the entire eastern Mediterranean. The result of his victory was that Egypt was turned around, looking outwards to the Mediterranean rather than inwards to the Nile valley. In 331 BC he decided to found a city on the northernmost edge of Egypt, on a limestone spur separated from the alluvial lands of the interior by a freshwater lake – a city next to rather than actually in Egypt, as its designation in later Latin documents as Alexandria ad Aegyptum, ‘Alexandria on the way to [or ‘next to’] Egypt’, affirms. This sense that Alexandria was more a city of the Mediterranean than of Egypt would persist for over two millennia, until the expulsion of its foreign communities in the twentieth century. For much of that period it was the greatest city in the Mediterranean. Alexander’s motives certainly included his own glorification.

scholarly journals HISTORY IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY ETHIOPIA: THE ‘GREAT TRADITION’ AND THE COUNTER-HISTORIES OF NATIONAL FAILURE

2017 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 425-444 ◽  
Author(s):  
SARA MARZAGORA
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Young Student ◽  
The Past ◽  
Great Tradition ◽  
The Way

AbstractDrawing from both fictional and non-fictional sources, this article traces the way history was conceptualised in twentieth-century Ethiopia by secular educated elites, charting the changing power relations between Ethiopia's hegemonic historiographical paradigm and the alternative historical visions that challenged this ‘Great Tradition’ over the course of the century. While the Great Tradition extols Ethiopia's past and future glories, the counter-histories focused instead on the country's failure to develop and democratise. Against the interpretation that the counter-histories supplanted the Great Tradition in the late 1960s, the article examines them in terms of complementarity. The intellectual interventions of young student radicals in the late 1960s constitute a break, but not a drastic paradigm shift from the past. The Great Tradition had already been called into question by older generations of intellectuals, even if they proved unable or unwilling to translate their disillusionment into political action.

Regional Associations and the Chinese City: A Comparative Perspective

1979 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 346-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary G. Hamilton
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Comparative Perspective ◽  
Chinese Society ◽  
Chinese City ◽  
The Past ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Regional Associations ◽  
The City ◽  
The Way

This essay outlines research that has occupied much of my time for the past several years. It concerns regional associations in traditional China, or what is known as hui-kuan or tung-hsiang-hui. When I began this research, inspired in part by Ho Ping-ti's masterful survey (1966), I believed, as did Ho, that most of the stones on this particular field of knowledge had been turned.What remained to be done, it seemed to me, was to record the vicissitudes of these traditional associations in the modernizing atmosphere of early twentieth-century China. But the more I began to look into these associations—into the way they operated, what they implied about Chinese society, and how they seemed to put the countryside into the city—the less I felt I knew and the less I was satisfied with previous generalizations made about them.

scholarly journals The Problem of Attitudes towards History in the Theory of Architecture of Postmodernism

2019 ◽  
pp. 35-42
Author(s):  
Alexey A. Khudin
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
End Of History ◽  
The Past ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
The End Of History ◽  
The Times ◽  
Art And Architecture ◽  
Late Twentieth Century ◽  
Radical Transformation ◽  
The Way

The article contains a study of changes in the attitude to history in the foreign architecture of the twentieth century, in connection with the radical transformation of the perception of categories of time. The peculiarity of the sensation of time in the period of modernity is accompanied by the feeling of being at a particular point of the eternal "now", constant modernity, for which you need to keep up with the actualized state of being "in step with the times". In this state, the memory value is reduced to a minimum. For the "modern man", turning to the past becomes meaningless if there is only a series of obsolete, outdated and irrelevant forms in it It is replaced by the feeling of being in the position of exhaustion, completeness, and impossibility of producing innovations, reaching thelimit in the discovery of the new, which leads to the feeling of the end of history, the exhaustion of art. This leads to the decline of modernism, the emergence of fatigue and satiety in the race for technology and a departure from orientations to newness, which opens the way for a new attitude towards history as a source for inspiration, and its corresponding rediscovery in the late twentieth century, expressed in multiple retrospectives, conservative, traditionalist searches in art and architecture. The study touches upon the problems of postmodernism, as a style that opens a new round of references to history, viewed as a form of neo-traditionalism and eliminating a state of stalemate in a culture that has broken its ties with the past. The article presents various areas of the historical search of postmodern architects differing in their attitudes towards the phenomenon of history, continuity, and inheritance.

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