Among the many things which distinguish man from the lower animals and perhaps in a more spectacular but less extensive way distinguish man at an advanced level of culture from primitive man is the capacity to use the recorded experience of the past. This can help determine his actions in the present and thus determine in part what kind of future the world will see. The codification of knowledge of the past and its interpretation constitute the material of history. Doctrines and beliefs, various schools, and ideological sets about history determine each period's interpretation of what has gone on in the past. For instance, how may one reconcile the doctrinal myth of progress with the fix that the world is in now? In the light of contemporary ideas about causation, determinism, accident, objectivity, and the function and role, if any, of the individual person in history, ideas thin out. Professor

What is History

When Black Culture and Black Consciousness first appeared thirty years ago, it marked a revolution in our understanding of African American history. Contrary to prevailing ideas at the time, which held that African culture disappeared quickly under slavery and that black Americans had little group pride, history, or cohesiveness, Levine uncovered a cultural treasure trove, illuminating a rich and complex African American oral tradition, including songs, proverbs, jokes, folktales, and long narrative poems called toasts--work that dated from before and after emancipation. The fact that these ideas and sources seem so commonplace now is in large part due this book and the scholarship that followed in its wake. A landmark work that was part of the \"cultural turn\" in American history, Black Culture and Black Consciousness profoundly influenced an entire generation of historians and continues to be read and taught. For this anniversary reissue, Levine wrote a new preface reflecting on the writing of the book and its place within intellectual trends in African American and American cultural history.

Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom

The importance of medicinal plants in traditional healthcare practices, providing clues to new areas of research and in biodiversity conservation is now well recognized. However, information on the uses for plants for medicine is lacking from many interior areas of Himalaya. Keeping this in view the present study was initiated in a tribal dominated hinterland of western Himalaya. The study aimed to look into the diversity of plant resources that are used by local people for curing various ailments. Questionnaire surveys, participatory observations and field visits were planned to illicit information on the uses of various plants. It was found that 35 plant species are commonly used by local people for curing various diseases. In most of the cases (45%) under ground part of the plant was used. New medicinal uses of Ranunculus hirtellus and Anemone rupicola are reported from this area. Similarly, preparation of "sik" a traditional recipe served as a nutritious diet to pregnant women is also not documented elsewhere. Implication of developmental activities and changing socio-economic conditions on the traditional knowledge are also discussed.

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Traditional use of medicinal plants among the tribal communities of Chhota Bhangal, Western Himalaya

That Noble Dream: The "Objectivity Question" and the American Historical Profession. Peter Novick

Ethnopharmacological field studies: a critical assessment of their conceptual basis and methods.

A Time Bomb Lies Buried: Fiji's Road to Independence, 1960-1970

Places matter. We are shaped by them, and in turn we shape them physically and imaginatively. They connect us to time and locality, perhaps even to life and death itself. This is a book about places and how our engagement with them-complex, changing, and varied-forms and transforms our understanding of them, of ourselves, of the human condition itself. Pacific Places, Pacific History brings together leading Pacific Islands studies scholars and invites them to talk about the places they have inhabited and to contemplate the meaning of that experience. The result is a veritable collage of reflections, distinct and different from each other but moving in their collective impact. Our engagement with places becomes daily more complicated with the transnational movement of peoples, ideas, technologies, and cultures. Global capitalism relentlessly alters established ethnographic assumptions about the meaning and importance of where we are and have been. The essays presented here are about letting go, learning and un-learning, transgressing physical, emotional, and intellectual boundaries. They are about personal quests, narrated in distinctive voices, raising particular concerns. Together they contribute significantly to our understanding of how small islands in a vast ocean enable us to see ourselves and the world around us.

Pacific places, Pacific histories : essays in honor of Robert C. Kiste

Electoral systems in divided societies: The Fiji constitution

When Commodore Frank Bainimarama deposed Fiji's democratically elected government on 5 December 2006 in the country's fourth coup in 20 years, most citizens breathed a sigh of relief that a long-si...

/pdf/editorial-fiji-s-coup-conundrum-ufrqzdfi5w.pdf

Editorial: Fiji's Coup Conundrum

Fiji’s postcolonial journey has been fraught. The promise of prosperity and political stability, high at the time of independence in 1970, dissipated soon afterward as the politics of ethnicity came to the fore and as disagreements developed among indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians about the nature and direction of public policy. A military coup in 1987 removed a democratically elected government, but instead of ensuring the entrenchment of Fijian political control, it unleashed forces whose ultimate effect was the undermining of Fijian political unity. Commodore Frank Bainimarama’s coup in 2006 removed from power an indigenous Fijian–led government, promising in the process to overturn the assumptions and understandings about power sharing that underpinned the understandings and assumptions that were embedded in the Independence constitution and to lead the country towards a non-racial future. The reaction to the latest coup from Fiji’s different communities remains a matter of intense debate in the country.

https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10125/23850/1/v23n2-412-436.pdf

Brij V. Lal

Papers

A Time Bomb Lies Buried: Fiji's Road to Independence, 1960-1970

Pacific places, Pacific histories : essays in honor of Robert C. Kiste

Electoral systems in divided societies: The Fiji constitution

Editorial: Fiji's Coup Conundrum

Where Has All the Music Gone? Reflections on the Fortieth Anniversary of Fiji's Independence