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Contents and Summaries No.4 November, 2019
February 15, 2021  

1. LI Jianming, “The Spatio-temporal Structure in the Writing of Global History——On Jürgen Osterhammel's Die Verandlung der Welt: Eine Geschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts”.


2. BAI Jiancai and ZHANG Jianbin, “Reflections on the Study of American Non-governmental Organizations in China”.

The United States has the largest number and variety of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the world. In recent years, scholars in China’s academic circle have paid more and more attention to the research of American NGOs and a number of studies have been done including the overall study, the classification study, the subject study, the case study, and so on. Though great achievements have been achieved, many weaknesses in research have been exposed, especially in the study of NGOs in the Cold War. It is of great academic, practical and social value to strengthen the study of American NGOs’ activities, its relationship with the government and influence on the East-West Cold War and itself during the Cold War period.


3. Gwilym Dodd, “ Blood, Brains and Bay-Windows: The Use of English in Fifteenth-Century Parliamentary Petition”.

In the considerable body of scholarship which now exists on the emergence of English as a language of formal record and governmental process in the fifteenth century, the questions of why writers opted to use English and what impact their use of English made to the tone and function of records has received surprisingly little attention. Scholars for the most part adopt either one or the other of two contrasting points of view: that is, they either see English as a language that was entirely compatible and equal to the languages it replaced (mostly French, but sometimes Latin), or they ascribe to English qualities and characteristics which made it quite distinctive from the more established languages of record. Depending on which of these alternative viewpoints is taken, the choice of English, over French or Latin, either made little difference to how ideas and meaning were conveyed, or was vital in reconstituting purpose and impact. In this discussion my aim is to find a solution to this scholarly impasse. I consider how petitions written in English differed from petitions written in French (the traditional language of petitioning). I conclude that while for a great many petitions, the choice of French or English made little difference, for those petitions which complained about violence or persecution, the use of English had a clear and recordable impact on the tone of the complaint. This is because the use of English allowed petitioners to develop the rhetoric of their complaint, to add personal details and to use a broader range of colorful and descriptive vocabulary – in ways not usually found in French-language petitions. I suggest that these characteristics do not indicate that French was any less versatile than English, but that using English allowed petitioners to have a greater creative input into the how their petition was written, and for especially notorious crimes, this allowed them to tailor the language to fit more closely the interests and values of the mainly English-speaking authorities within parliament who passed judgements on their complaints.


4. FENG Jinpeng, “The Responsibilities of the Rich: On the Liturgies of the Athenian Polis”.

Liturgies of classical Athens was a system specially set up for the rich, which involved aspects such as religious festivals, sports competitions, engineering construction and military equipment. It was a product of the establishment of the Athenian democracy, reflected the characteristic of the integration of citizen and state in Athens and the rich group’ s democratic identity. To a certain extent, its establishment and implementation promoted the strength of Athens, the development of democratic system, social harmony and stability, and the cultural prosperity. But at the same time, it also had negative effects, damaging the Athenian democracy, making Athenian democratic politics oligarchical to some extent, leading to invisible political corruption, and contributing to the deterioration of civic spirit, and became an important cause for the decline of Athenian democracy.


5.ZHANG Xunshi, “The Aristocracy and the British Agricultural Technology Innovation in the 18th Century”.

Since the 18th century, Britain had made progress in agricultural technological innovation under the active promotion of the aristocratic elites. With the strong thought of emphasizing agriculture, the aristocracy improved the efficiency of agricultural production for its high economic benefits. They were keen on studying agricultural technology, participating in the improvement of growing crops, livestock’s breeds and experiments on ground fertility. Aristocrats provided funds and lands for agricultural technological innovation, which improved the mode of production and the efficiency of agricultural production.


6. NI Zhengchun and XU Nuo, “ The Paradox of Freedom: the Colonial Plunder of Four Western European Countries in the Early Modern Period”.

From the 15th century to the 18th century, advocating human freedom and equality became the social thought in Western Europe. However, whether Portugal and Spain or Netherlands and Britain massacred and enslaved the colonial people in a barbaric way during the expansion of foreign colonies. Colonists established a new type of slavery in America by traffic in African blacks. Slavery in America is dominated by black slaves and guaranteed by law. Racism is the basis of new slavery and has a relatively broad foundation in European society. In the early 19th century, Britain took the lead in abolishing the slave trade, but the European people suffered from racism deeply.


7. ZHU Junyi, “On the Real Relationship between Charles Martel and the Church”.

There was a subtle and complex relation between Charles Martel and the Church, although he had a certain religious spirit of piety, he still put the actual political interest before religious emotion.  It highlighted the subtle relationship in treating the problem of Boniface missionary and aiding the Church of Rome against the Lombards’ invasions. For the needs of suppressing opponents and consolidating the domination, Charles Martel dismissed some bishops within a certain scope from the local church, leading to the change of the ownership of the Church’ s property. The Church’ s denunciation of Charlie Matt’ s behaviors accordingly came more than a century after his death, which was related to the social reality of the time.


8.WU Dan, “Sino-Us Negotiations on the Funding of Chinese Technicians’ Training under the Lend-Lease Act, 1944-1945”.

After the outbreak of the Pacific War, the Sino-US Lend-Lease Act officially established a lend-lease relationship between the Republic of China and the United States. In 1943, based on long-term considerations, the National Government asked the United States to use the funds of the Lend-Lease Act to train 1,200 technicians for China. The United States expressed its preliminary consent, and then China and the United States had been negotiating for months on implementation details. Since the Lend-Lease Act aimed at war assistance, and the National Government was thoughtless and eager for success, in the end there were only 800 people going to the United States for training, which partially realized China’ s wish.


9.WENG Jiawei, “A New Interpretation on the Writing Purposes of the Historia Regum Britanniae”.

The book Historia Regum Britanniae was written by Geoffrey of Monmouth in the 1230s and mainly deals with the history of the Bretons and the prophecies of Merlin. Historians have long debated the purposes of its composition. A Careful scrutiny of its texts and its writing contexts shows that the main purpose of it should be to embellish the history of England and explain the disastrous consequences of the civil war through the narration of British history and Merlin’s prophecies, and to call on the Anglo-Norman aristocrats to stop the civil war and reach a settlement.

   

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