Showing papers in "Comparative Studies in Society and History in 1984"
TL;DR: In a more sober tone, Wolf as mentioned in this paper suggested that the field of anthropology is coming apart, that sub-fields (and sub-sub-fields) are increasingly pursuing their specialized interests, losing contact with each other and with the whole.
Abstract: Every year, around the time of the meetings of the American Anthropological Association, the New York Times asks a Big Name anthropologist to contribute an op-ed piece on the state of the field. These pieces tend to take a rather gloomy view. A few years ago, for example, Marvin Harris suggested that anthropology was being taken over by mystics, religious fanatics, and California cultists; that the meetings were dominated by panels on shamanism, witchcraft, and “abnormal phenomena”; and that “scientific papers based on empirical studies” had been willfully excluded from the program (Harris 1978). More recently, in a more sober tone, Eric Wolf suggested that the field of anthropology is coming apart. The sub-fields (and sub-sub-fields) are increasingly pursuing their specialized interests, losing contact with each other and with the whole. There is no longer a shared discourse, a shared set of terms to which all practitioners address themselves, a shared language we all, however idiosyncratically, speak (Wolf 1980).
2,246 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the mediation of the culture of terror through narration, and the problems of writing effectively against terror, which for most of us, including myself, are known only through the words of others.
Abstract: This essay is about torture and the culture of terror, which for most of us, including myself, are known only through the words of others. Thus my concern is with the mediation of the culture of terror through narration—and with the problems of writing effectively against terror.
440 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that many anthropologists have been all too ready to accept global views of peasant communities and social relations without proper consideration of the interplay between local and global processes, and that the anthropological perspective regarding these communities has shifted.
Abstract: It is increasingly fashionable for anthropologists to castigate themselves (or at least to castigate other anthropologists) for failing to take into account the larger or global processes that affect the small communities they study. We accuse ourselves, for example, of treating peasant communities as if they were primitive isolates and of failing to consider the external forces that created those communities and that cause them to operate the way they do. While this accusation may be warranted for the earliest work on peasant communities, I suggest that for quite some time now the anthropological perspective regarding these communities has shifted. In fact, I will argue here that many anthropologists have been all too ready to accept global views of peasant communities and social relations without proper consideration of the interplay between local and global processes.
132 citations
TL;DR: The use of internal colonial theories to examine racial developments within the United States of America had become almost fashionable by the late 1960s and by the early 1970s, the internal colonial approach was criticised as a new variant of a time-worn model.
Abstract: The use of internal colonial theories to examine racial developments within the United States of America had become almost fashionable by the late 1960s A decade later, a study of the political economy of Wales described the internal colonial approach which it criticized as a “new variant of a time-worn model’ Amongst historians, however, the internal colonial concept does not appear to be as familiar as it is to other social scientists This article is addressed to historians who do not subscribe unreservedly to Alfred Cobban's belief that sociologists are their natural enemies, and amongst whom some might still be considering the implications of Fernand Braudel's contention that a “general history always requires an overall model, good or bad, against which events can be interpreted ‘No theory, no history’” The purpose here is to indicate some uses and characteristics of theories that the internal colonial concept has promoted, to comment briefly about some of the methodological issues which these theories present, and to suggest some benefits that the concept might have for certain types of social and historical enquiry
72 citations
TL;DR: For example, the authors show that there is an improbable degree of cohesion and identity of interest within the metropolitan community and within each different colonized group of an empire's subjects, and the revolts against the West, against the Dutch, the British, the French, and so on, helped to promote and reinforce this idea.
Abstract: The magnitude of contrasts within modern empires is incontrovertible. In the opinion of some scholars, the range of human experience they encompassed is so immense that it is impracticable to study adequately even one empire in its entirety. This premise has contributed to the formation of clusters of scholars with circumscribed areas of interest, whose research demonstrates unequivocally the distinctive characters of the various societies under each empire's jurisdiction, and the diverse effects of imperial policies upon them. Other scholars elect to concentrate upon the imperial macrocosm, but their work often highlights imperial differentiation too. Analyses such as those which hinge upon a core-periphery nexus and focus upon antitheses within metropolitan and colonial relationships are inherently inclined to give prominence to contrasts within an empire. Some studies, moreover, convey the impression of an improbable degree of cohesion and identity of interest within the metropolitan community and within each different colonized group of an empire's subjects. The revolts against the West, against the Dutch, the British, the French, and so on, helped to promote and reinforce this idea. These revolts also revealed that amongst peoples under imperial subjection there was a degree of identification with each other, in their relationships to members of the metropolitan society.
27 citations
TL;DR: For comparative history to be meaningful, the phenomena compared must possess important and comprehensive unities of character as discussed by the authors, and Bolland accepts this maxim in theory; he ignores it in practice.
Abstract: For comparative history to be meaningful, the phenomena compared must possess important and comprehensive unities of character. In his “Systems of Domination after Slavery: The Control of Land and Labor in the British West Indies after 1838”, which appeared in the October 1981 issue of Comparative Studies in Society and History, O. Nigel Bolland accepts this maxim in theory; he ignores it in practice.
26 citations
TL;DR: The authors argued that Christians and Muslims spent more time fighting their coreligionists than making war on each other during the Middle Ages, and that Islam continued to exist in the lands of Islam, and mosques survived under Christian rule as well.
Abstract: Historians have long debated the importance of religion as a determining factor in relations between Christians and Muslims during the Middle Ages. On the one hand, each side consigned adherents of the enemy's religion to eternal damnation. Religious animosity provided the casus belli of crusade and jihad; Christian and Muslim met each other on the field of battle with great frequency. On the other hand, Christian-Muslim relations also included peaceful commerce, institutional borrowing, and even cultural exchange. Christians and Muslims spent more time fighting their coreligionists than making war on each other. Churches continued to exist in the lands of Islam, and mosques survived under Christian rule as well. Such evidence has led some historians to minimize the degree to which religious intolerance influenced Christian-Muslim contacts during the Middle Ages.
26 citations
TL;DR: A century ago, the phrases "darkest Africa" and "the dark continent" were encountered often in European and American literature as mentioned in this paper, signifying their general ignorance of African geography and ethnography.
Abstract: A century ago the phrases “darkest Africa” and “the dark continent” were encountered often in European and American literature. The darkness, one would suppose, was in the minds of the writers, signifying their general ignorance of African geography and ethnography. Yet I doubt if many who spoke of darkest Africa thought of it in quite those terms. For most of them, the darkness was in the minds of the Africans themselves; a metaphor for their moral backwardness and for their ignorance of the higher arts of civilization. African darkness thus contrasted with European and American enlighten-ment—and the contrast provided moral justification for Europe's mission civilisatrice .
24 citations
TL;DR: In the United States, the technological optimism that accompanied the birth and diffusion of the magnetic telegraph between 1844 and 1880 had few predecessors-if any-and was regarded as an important element in Moral Progress as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: In the United States, the technological optimism that accompanied the birth and diffusion of the magnetic telegraph between 1844 and 1880 had few predecessors-if any. Commercial telegraphy was barely a year old in 1847 when the telegraph was seen as “facilitating Human Intercourse and producing Harmony among Men and Nations\….[I]t may be regarded as an important element in Moral Progress.” “The telegraph system is invaluable,” a business journalist declared twenty years later, “and when the missing links shall have been completed of the great chain that will bring all civilized nations into instantaneous communication with each other, it will also be found to be the most potent of all the means of civilization, and the most effective in breaking down the barriers of evil prejudice and custom that interfere with the universal exchange of commodities.”
24 citations
TL;DR: A history of the Maraka textile industry provides a glimpse into the fitful and uneven social and economic changes taking place during the nineteenth century in the area of the Western Sudan that is now part of Mali as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: A history of the Maraka textile industry provides a glimpse into the fitful and uneven social and economic changes taking place during the nineteenth century in the area of the Western Sudan that is now part of Mali. Although the major historical events of this period are well understood, historians know very little about the social and economic history of the West African interior. Exactly how the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade, renewed Islamic militancy, and European territorial encroachment influenced African societies remains poorly understood. This is even more apparent for the Middle Niger valley, located near the geographical center of continental West Africa. Paradoxically, the gradual end of the Atlantic slave trade and the coincident expansion of the so-called legitimate trade in agricultural crops increased the use of slaves within Africa to meet demand for all types of African goods. The nineteenth century was thus an era of commodity production and market activity which was probably unparalleled in the history of West Africa prior to this period. The inhabitants of the Middle Niger participated in these changes, and this study describes what these changes meant to one group of African men and women.
23 citations
TL;DR: Many fixed and movable festivals in ancient Mexico were occasions for human sacrifice, and the sun in particular was offered hearts and blood, ostensibly because its vitality and life itself depended on such oblations as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Many fixed and movable festivals in ancient Mexico were occasions for human sacrifice. The sun in particular was offered hearts and blood, ostensibly because its vitality and, therefore, life itself depended on such oblations. Numerous festivals also included ritual cannibalism, apparently because it was thought to facilitate communion with the gods.
TL;DR: In the middle decades of the nineteenth century, as slavery was disappearing elsewhere in the New World, slave-based plantation production of sugar in Cuba reached remarkable heights of technological sophistication and output as mentioned in this paper. Yet just as production reached these levels, the abolition of slavery in Cuba was initiated, beginning a process of slave emancipation that was to last nearly twenty years.
Abstract: In the middle decades of the nineteenth century, as slavery was disappearing elsewhere in the New World, slave-based plantation production of sugar in Cuba reached remarkable heights of technological sophistication and output. In 1868 Cuba produced 720,250 metric tons of sugar, more than 40 percent of the cane sugar reaching the world market in that year. Yet just as production reached these levels, the abolition of slavery in Cuba was initiated, beginning a process of slave emancipation that was to last nearly twenty years. Yet just as production reached these levels, the abolition of slavery in Cuba was initiated, beginning a process of slave emancipation that was to last nearly twenty years. This concurrence of events raises the question, What was the relationship between slavery and the development of sugar production, and why did emancipation in Cuba take place when and as it did?
TL;DR: The study of material culture and geography is relatively new and underdeveloped in most fields of history, but this underdevelopment is particularly acute for the history of the Middle East since the rise of Islam as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The study of material culture and geography is relatively new and underdeveloped in most fields of history, but this underdevelopment is particularly acute for the history of the Middle East since the rise of Islam. Although, for most historians, the period when nearly everything in Middle Eastern history was ascribed to Islam has passed, and there is a new awareness of socioeconomic factors, discussions of these factors often overstress trade or center almost exclusively around dependent relations with the West, virtually ignoring specific internal developments in Middle Eastern material culture and ecology that help explain Middle Eastern history. This essay will suggest what may be learned from such studies by drawing attention to some of the relevant conclusions of works written on these subjects. It will also show how study of material culture can illuminate phases of development and decline in the Middle East and suggest some reasons why the West overtook and passed the Middle East economically.
TL;DR: The period of relative tranquility between 1925 and 1955 was followed by a marked resurgence of ethnicity and a revitalization of international migrations during the 1960s and 1970s as discussed by the authors, which was not confined to the Western Hemisphere or the new countries in Africa and Asia, but included a revival of ethnic mobilization in such nationstates as Great Britain, France, and Spain and the migration of millions of workers from southern Europe to the advanced industrial countries in northern Europe.
Abstract: Migrations, with all the incidental collision, conflicts and fusions of peoples and cultures which they occasion, have been counted among the decisive forces in history (Park 1928). As the quotation from R. Park's 1928 work demonstrates, sociologists have a rather longstanding interest in migration and its consequences, in "the conflicts and fusions of peoples." The period of relative tranquility between 1925 and 1955 was followed by a marked resurgence of ethnicity and a revitalization of international migrations during the 1960s and 1970s. Neither of these phenomena was confined to the Western Hemisphere or the new countries in Africa and Asia, but included a revival of ethnic mobilization in such nationstates as Great Britain, France, and Spain and the migration of millions of workers from southern Europe to the advanced industrial countries in northern Europe.'
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a course of lectures and small group instruction on American history to some forty students majoring in the subject (and to their faculty) at Moscow University in 1979.
Abstract: This is a strange enterprise and an incautious one. What do we find reasonably to compare in two systems so contradictory to each other's basic premises? Are they not mirror images, opposite in every particular? Even so, while living and teaching at Moscow University in 1979, where during the spring semester it was my task to offer a course of lectures and small group instruction on American history to some forty students majoring in the subject (and to their faculty), comparative reflections were irresistible. 1 Tracing parallels between the two countries is a risky undertaking for someone who is an Americanist and must rely upon the scholarship of others for the Soviet dimension, but what is intended here is an essay of suggestion only.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine an hypothesis about dowry payments in the light of certain evidence from Ireland, and draw attention to some of the deficiencies in Goody's definition and discussion of dowry payment, and offer alternatives to them.
Abstract: In this essay I propose to examine an hypothesis about dowry payments in the light of certain evidence from Ireland. The sources of this evidence are, first, my own data collected during fieldwork in the small community of Beaufort, County Kerry, Ireland, and, second, the work of writers who have studied the question of dowry payment in Ireland, notably Conrad M. Arensberg, Solon T. Kimball, and K. H. Connell. The intent here is to draw attention to some of the deficiencies in Jack Goody's definition and discussion of dowry payments, and to offer alternatives to them. In particular I shall argue that Goody's discussion of dowry is centrally flawed by a discrepancy between the generality of the variables he uses to explain the geographical distribution of the practice, and the specificity of his definition of it. It is the unwarranted detail involved in the latter that leads him to obscure certain crucial variations within dowry systems more broadly defined, and to confuse the issue of the relationship between dowry and bride wealth.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the knowledge that the two basic school levels, the elementary and primary, distributed about indigenous society in two French colonial federations (French West Africa and Indochina) in the period 1918-38 and speculates as to why the content and distribution of that knowledge took the forms they did.
Abstract: The historiography of French colonial educational policy and practice has advanced considerably over the past decade. Not long ago W. Bryant Mum-ford's allegation, “Africans learn to be French,” was taken literally, and most scholars presumed that France, either out of cultural arrogance or blind reflex, brought metropolitan schooling in undiluted form to her colonies. We know better now. Recent studies of education in French West Africa and Indochina have suggested that colonial schools were not only adapted to the colonial context, but taught the students a great deal about their own societies. This article focuses on the knowledge that the two basic school levels, the elementary and primary, distributed about indigenous society in two French colonial federations—French West Africa and Indochina—in the period 1918–38 and speculates as to why the content and distribution of that knowledge took the forms they did. The discussion is based on analysis of texts in use in the primary schools, government curriculum guides, and student school notebooks. It begins with a brief survey of the structure of the educational system and curriculum of the schools as a whole, then proceeds to an analysis of the presentation of indigenous society in the schools.
TL;DR: Green as discussed by the authors argued that there are no "unities of character," that "identities did not prevail," or that Belize was unique, and that comparing does not amount to equating.
Abstract: The preceding article by William A. Green does not make clear the basis upon which he criticizes my October 1981 comparison of Belize and the British sugar colonies. He begins by saying that the "phenomena compared must possess important and comprehensive unities of character" and writes later that "it is the presence of similar people performing similar functions under similar circumstances that renders comparative analysis valuable. These identities did not prevail between Belize and the British sugar colonies." Belize, he writes, had a "unique system of domination" (his emphasis). Is the problem, then, that there are no "unities of character," that "identities did not prevail," or that Belize was "unique"? Every case is unique, surely, yet comparisons are made in social, as in natural, science between selected common factors which appear under similar, but not identical, conditions. There exists a range between John Stuart Mill's formulae called The Method of Agreement, in which one compares two situations which differ in every respect save one, and The Method of Difference, in which one compares two situations which are alike except in one respect, but Green seems to think only the latter is acceptable. I agree with Stanislav Andreski, who emphasizes "that comparing does not amount to equating, and that there are no logical reasons why a comparison should be focused on resemblances rather than differences."' Consider, for example, a classic of comparative analysis of two nineteenth-century Caribbean societies in which there are striking contrasts of situation but which reveal "certain significant similarities of process": Sidney Mintz's "Labor and Sugar in Puerto Rico and in Jamaica, 1800-1850."2 That is the kind of broad comparative history with which I associate my study of the control of land and labor in the British West Indies after 1838.
TL;DR: This article argued that the colonized busily construe and misconstrue the colonizers and their social practices, manipulating both to their own advantage, leading to a "working misunderstanding".
Abstract: Neither the unremitting imposition of alien ways nor the faithful preservation of local ones, colonialism proceeds by the melding of imperial practices with indigenous social forms, creating new arrangements that look like old ones. Moreover, colonialism is an intersubjective, interpractical relationship; as a growing number of historical and anthropological studies have shown, the natives are unlikely to be passive receivers of imposed forms. However difficult their circumstances, the colonized busily construe and misconstrue the colonizers and their social practices, manipulating both to their own advantage. What follows is a “working misunderstanding.”
TL;DR: The authors argued that brokers in China's presocialist society were an integral part of a feudal system in which landlords and the state dominated the peasant/worker economy, preventing the flowering of the “capitalist sprouts” shooting forth from China's towns and villages.
Abstract: Brokers or middlemen have been called a key element in preindustrial economic development, facilitating the exchange of goods within the domestic economy and opening rural production systems to foreign markets. Though Chinese society historically boasted a vigorous brokerage system, many studies of Chinese brokers have viewed them as obstacles to the development of entrepreneurship and capitalist transformation. China's brokers were limited, it is argued, by larger structural constraints—the bonds of custom and community, a preindustrial mode of production, a particular form of state organization and ideology—that inhibited entrepreneurial activities. This view is best reflected in the writings of Marxist historians who claim that brokers in China's presocialist society were an integral part of a feudal system in which landlords and the state dominated the peasant/worker economy, preventing the flowering of the “capitalist sprouts” shooting forth from China's towns and villages.
TL;DR: In the early 1920s, the Japanese labor unrest was marked by a scattering of large and heavily capitalized enterprises which, as their size and number increased between 1890 and 1920, became the scene of labor unrest.
Abstract: From its beginning Japanese industry was marked by a scattering of large and heavily capitalized enterprises which, as their size and number increased between 1890 and 1920, became the scene of labor unrest. In historical accounts of this early period of labor relations, workers are strangely shadowy figures, considering their centrality. They come into focus mainly at moments of crisis when they are seen to be overcoming their past, increasing their consciousness both of rights and of the need for organization and class solidarity. This developing consciousness issued at last in a sudden growth of unions between 1918 and the mid-1920s. Even before this time, however, because of fear of unions and government intervention and the need to reduce the amount of labor turnover, management had begun efforts to bring workers under greater psychological control. These efforts were now intensified, and the measures adopted—welfare services, greater security of employment, semiannual bonuses, separation pay, regular raises, factory committees—aided by a stagnant economy and unemployment throughout the 1920s, were spectacularly successful. By the early 1930s the unions were everywhere in retreat from large enterprises. The victory over worker consciousness seemed won and in fact held until 1945, when, in the aftermath of national defeat, the struggle was renewed.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present case studies carried out in Argentina and in Ecuador are used to illustrate arguments relating to problems of demographic behavior, which can be useful in the process of identifying unsolved problems unraised questions and considered contexts.
Abstract: Case studies carried out in Argentina and in Ecuador are used to illustrate arguments relating to problems of demographic behavior. Although the original research was not cast in strictly demographic terms many of the empirical findings and qualitative observations can be used in discussing problems concerning demographic behavior. The 1st part of the discussion presents findings of a number of historians concerned with the question of population growth in the process of capitalist industrialization in Europe. This study should be seen as an exercise in analogy rather than a systematic comparison of the process of industrialization in Europe and Latin America. Analogies can be useful in the process of identifying unsolved problems unraised questions and considered contexts. During the protoindustrialization period in Europe the typical peasant family controlled fertility to maintain a balance between land and labor. This did not occur with the proletarian families. The Latin American cases can be seen as a replication of such a pattern: the Argentinian peasants changing from uncontrolled to controlled fertility and the Ecuadorian semipeasants or semiproletarians continuing in an uncontrolled process. Yet the contexts are quite dissimilar. In the case of the Argentinian farmers the possibility of capital accumulation related to the cotton boom and the systematic use of rural proletarians during harvesting generated a new situation for the expansion of the domestic economy. This was not the case for the majority of European peasants during the 16th and 18th centuries. Thus a general model of a domestic economy based on uncontrolled fertility cannot be accepted. The Argentinian case shows that a domestic economy can transform demographic patterns when the economic and ideological contexts of reproduction are changing. If one accepts the hypothesis that 1 crucial motive for having children is associated with their value to their parents it is necessary to discuss both the economic and the social and cognitive dimensions. In Ecuador with small subsistence plots and a low rate of industrializaton in the cities the peasants must mulitply to exploit a variety of employment opportunities but without any assurance that jobs for all of them will be available. This behavior is consistent with the cognitive dimensions.
TL;DR: The authors discuss not only Marx's political theory but also Marx's relationship to the tradition of political theory, or more precisely to a particular view of that tradition, and demonstrate that these are not separable, but are interrelated subjects, such that a discussion of the one implicitly restates a discussion on the other.
Abstract: The title of this essay is intentionally ambiguous because both sets of issues I propose to consider may conveniently be placed under its heading. I wish to discuss not only Marx's political theory, but also Marx's relationship to the tradition of political theory—or, more precisely, to a particular view of that tradition. Of course, as I shall attempt to demonstrate, these are not separable, but are interrelated subjects, such that a discussion of the one implicitly restates a discussion of the other.
TL;DR: In the years after the Napoleonic Wars, King Frederick William III resolved to take decisive action. as mentioned in this paper, with the three-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation in mind, he proclaimed the intention to merge the Reformed and Lutheran churches of Prussia, and proceeded actively to involve himself in framing a common agenda for the doctrine of the new church.
Abstract: Beginning in 1613, when the Prussian royal family converted to Calvinism while the vast majority of its subjects remained part of the state-regulated Lutheran church, the Hohenzollern kings found themselves living with an anomalous religious situation. Royal discontent with this circumstance had always existed, but efforts to bring about a change failed until, in the years after the Napoleonic Wars, Frederick William III resolved to take decisive action. A pious man and conscientious theologian, the king was deeply troubled by the continuing existence among large numbers of his subjects of rationalism and religious indifferentism, legacies of the Enlightenment. Moreover, reflecting on the defeat of Prussia by the French in 1806, he was also committed to national regeneration, which seemed blocked not only by the lack of religiosity he perceived, but by the disunity inherent in the religious gulf which separated Reformed monarch and Lutheran subject. In 1817, with the three-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation in mind, he proclaimed the intention to merge the Reformed and Lutheran churches of Prussia, and proceeded actively to involve himself in framing a common agenda for the doctrine of the new church. Serving God and the state in one bold stroke, the king was doubtless proud of the decision, and the large majority of his Lutheran subjects and their pastors unquestioningly accepted it.
TL;DR: The development of world-systems theory enables us to explain human migration without resorting to the theoretically barren lists of push-pull factors and personal motivations that characterize previous studies.
Abstract: The development of world-systems theory enables us to explain human migration without resorting to the theoretically barren lists of “push-pull” factors and personal motivations that characterize previous studies. Although individuals still make private decisions to move, the patterned movement of groups is better understood as an essential component in a global economic order with shifting demands for labor. National migration policies can also be interpreted within this global context. Since migration plays a central role in moving workers to regions where their labor is needed, governmental legislation regulating these movements has reflected capitalists' needs for a free labor force. It is with this in mind that Aristide Zolberg summarizes the behavior of one nation-state in the world-system as “an element in the interest-calculus of others.”
TL;DR: This article has had a long incubation. Three stimuli operating in different ways over a period of time account for its genesis: my exposure to anthropological writings on the Bible, my field work research in Israel, and my teaching of social anthropology in Swansea.
Abstract: This article has had a long incubation. Three stimuli operating in different ways over a period of time account for its genesis: my exposure to anthropological writings on the Bible, my field work research in Israel, and my teaching of social anthropology in Swansea. Education in England, both secular and religious (by the latter I mean attendance at Hebrew classes outside of school from age seven to thirteen, culminating in my bar mitzvah), had exposed me to both the Old and New Testaments but had failed to raise any enthusiasm or interest on my part. Only when I began to study anthropology as an undergraduate did I begin to consider the biblical stories that I had heard in my childhood and youth. One of my first, serendipitous discoveries was Isaac Schapera's paper, "The Sin of Cain" (1955), in which he examines the first case of fratricide recorded in the Bible and postulates why Cain was not punished in the usual manner for engaging in homicide. He argues that precisely because Cain murdered his brother he evaded the usual penalty: he placed his group in the dilemma of compounding the loss of one of its members if it were to practise retaliation, nor could it agree to accept compensation since it would be in the position of accepting from its members and then paying out again to the same members. Into this impasse God enters, truly a deus ex machina, to resolve the problem. Schapera supports his argument by examples derived from ethnographic studies that recorded similar problems of homicide, especially fratricide. The discovery of Schapera's paper did not immediately provoke me into a similar type of analysis. At that time it merely strengthened my view that the Bible should be seen as a document produced under particular cultural and social conditions that could be understood as a sociological rather than as a theological text. So I would say that the seed was sown by Schapera but has taken almost twenty years to germinate. During the course of field work in Israel I visited many places whose names go back to biblical times. For example, the village in which I carried out my first piece of Israeli research was located in the Valley of Ayalon where Earlier versions of this article were read to the Students' Social Anthropology Society of
TL;DR: Davison's The Rise and Fall of Marvellous MelbourneI as discussed by the authors is the most important work to have appeared in this revisionist stream, combining the bricks and mortar approach to the construction of the built form of the city associated with the late H. J. Dyos, with the concerns of social and geographical mobility developed by the American "new urban history" with a peculiarly Australian interest in the cultural transitions of a colonial society.
Abstract: From a concentration on the formative role of rural experience which had long dominated economic and social history there has come a recognition that by the 1890s Australia was one of the most urbanized societies in the world. Graeme Davison's The Rise and Fall of Marvellous MelbourneI is the most important work to have appeared in this revisionist stream. At the same time it is a sophisticated application of comparative methods developed in urban history and sociology on both sides of the Atlantic. Combining the bricks and mortar approach to the construction of the built form of the city associated with the late H. J. Dyos, with the concerns of social and geographical mobility developed by the American "new urban history," it laces these with a peculiarly Australian interest in the cultural transitions of a colonial society. Although apparently eclectic, this approach proves particularly effective in dealing with a "small, derivative but rapidly changing society." A great value of the work is its continual comparative framework. Parallels and contrasts with Chicago, London, and Buenos Aires are employed to develop a model of the distinctive characteristics of Melbourne as a commercial city. The author's most persistent theme is of the social and ideological effects of the transition from colonial entrepot to metropolis by an analysis not only of the changing urban economy, but of the penetration of the mentality of the market through all areas of society. Working in the framework of an urban biography, Davison covers the crucial decade of the 1880s. In the 80s Melbourne was the "Chicago of the South," its population increased by three quarters, and was accompanied by an uncontrolled speculative land boom which built many paper fortunes that crashed spectacularly in the colder economic climate of the 1890s. Davison starts from an account of the economic substructure of this expanding metropolis, the transition from the commercial center of a pastoral and mining hinterland to the "competitive, bureaucratic structures of an authentic metropolis" (p. 16). Heavily influenced by the tradition of Chicago urban sociology-the cul-
TL;DR: In a special number of Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie devoted to the collection of life histories, Frangoise Morin of the Universite de Toulouse asks why French sociologists have only recently discovered the life history as a means of understanding cultures and the researcher's place in the study of them as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In a special number of Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie devoted to the collection of life histories,' Frangoise Morin of the Universite de Toulouse asks why French sociologists have only recently discovered the life history as a means of understanding cultures and the researcher's place in the study of them (Morin 1980: 317). Morin proposes that the use of life histories has been essentially a North American tradition, suggesting that the inherent subjectivity and lack of distance of the researcher from the "object" of study have frightened away French anthropologists and sociologists who have been for the most part in search of structures and objective categories. A recent upsurge of interest in life histories on the part of French social