This thesis addresses the self-­perception and self-representation of Spanish America as being modern through an analysis of the 'discourse of degeneration' between the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. My case studies are Argentina, Uruguay and Chile. I analyze the ways in which different groups of intellectuals, often from within the political elites, contributed to the creation of social and cultural representations of the concept of degeneration in order to forge a new paradigm of Spanish America as being modern. The overarching theme that I engage with is the relationship between civilization and degeneration against the backdrop of the more general theory of modernity. Even in the European context, from which most theories are drawn, the highly ambiguous relationship between progress and decadence, whereby the former was often perceived as engendering the latter, forces one to reframe any dichotomic approaches. This ambiguity, I argue, becomes all the more evident in the context of Latin America, where cultural modernism foreshadowed economic modernization. Each of the four chapters deals with a specific theme. The notion of the decadence of the 'Latin race' is addressed in chapter 1 in relation to representations of the immigrant, while chapter 2 looks at the rhetorical incorporation of the 'internal other' to further reinforce modernity discourses in the region. In chapter 3 I analyze the debate around education as a regenerationist force. Finally, the last chapter explores the impact of ideas of degenerate art in the region and the role of arielismo in favouring the development of a new aesthetic project that challenged the late-­nineteenth-­century 'poetics of decadence'. A new idea of Latin America was thus based on the centrality of the notion of 'culture', which would remain essential to identity discourses for most of the twentieth century.

There has been a marked interest over the last decade in understanding the nature of early modern ‘public opinion’. One noticeable feature has been the utilisation of the vast array of cheap print, including pamphlets, ballads and newspapers, to highlight contemporary political interests. This thesis aims to use these resources to look at the popular representation of four key political figures of the early eighteenth century ‘Whig Oligarchy’, Charles 2nd Viscount Townshend, James 1st Earl of Stanhope, Charles 3rd Earl of Sunderland and Sir Robert Walpole. This research project attempts to reassess the importance of these figures in a cultural context and to offer a unique comparative framework, evaluating public concerns over ministerial lives, actions and initiatives. This is not a series of biographical accounts but an analysis of how these statesmen were viewed in different literary forms and imagery, revising the importance of ‘political personality’ to the early eighteenth century consumer. The tendency is often to portray Walpole’s rise to de facto prime minister as a solitary drama with a cast of supporting figures, creating a political history of the early eighteenth century that is often seen in terms of merely pre and post Walpole. This thesis sets Walpole in the milieu of his contemporaries, being just one of several influential figures who rose through the Whig party during the 1700’s and jostled for office during the 1710’s. There is a dearth in the current historiography of studies in ministerial representation, particularly in the period following George I’s accession to the British throne in 1714. This study will provide considerable insight into how early eighteenth century writers and artists perceived their political masters, helping to forge a truly national public profile around them - one that often transcended social and geographical boundaries.

The thesis is concerned with these points: 1) The features of Cromwell's administration. 2) The light they throw on his personality. 3) The place of his rule in the history of administration. The introduction defines the limits set and reviews the sources. A first chapter discusses Cromwell's rise to power, showing that he rose by degrees and as an administrator, his arrival to power being marked by his obtaining an office. Chapter two investigates his chief lay offices (master of the jewels, clerk of the hanaper, chancellor of the exchequer, principal secretary, master of the rolls, lord privy seal), dealing with their functional their importance to Cromwell, and the effect on them of his tenure. His choice of offices is seen to have been determined by a desire to control the financical and secretarial organisations, and these are then discussed. In the former, note is taken of Cromwell's personal treasurership which made him the main disbursing officer for the king's money, of his relations with the chamber machinery whose decline was due to him, and of the agencies established to administer the new revenues. Then come his dealings with the various secretariats: orders which tightened up the organisation of the signet office; a stricter definition of the use of the signet and privy seal in the process of a grant under the great seal, and Cromwell's evasion of his own rules; his personal activities as secretary and lord privy seal; his use of Thomas Wriothesley as "undersecretary" in charge of the clerical departments. The last chapter investigates Cromwell's relations with the council; he is seen to have encouraged conciliar government and himself to have organised the privy council proper as early as 1536. The conclusion attempts to account for the fact that in his administration Cromwell seems to have been guided by contradictory desires (to organise bureaucratically, and to evade bureaucratic organisation in the interests of personal ascendancy), and to assess his place as the founder of modern government in England.

This thesis explores the concept of colonial development, as enacted by the Attlee government during the immediate post-war period. It focuses on Africa, reflecting the ‘second colonial occupation’ of the continent during this period, and examines both economic and social welfare development initiatives. Post-war colonial development in the British African territories had two main aims: firstly, to increase the production of raw materials, to aid the reconstruction of the metropole and earn dollars on the international markets; and secondly, to improve the standard of living among colonial populations. This thesis explores the contradictions inherent in these two types of development. It can be seen that, although Britain was largely unsuccessful in this period with economic development programmes in Africa, it had some modest success with colonial social-welfare initiatives. The thesis also examines the extent to which Arthur Creech Jones, Colonial Secretary 1946-1950, shaped colonial policy in Africa based on his Fabian beliefs. It examines how far British colonial policy in this period can be characterised as ‘socialist’, and how far metropolitan and colonial populations were separated by narratives of progress and development in this period. This thesis also argues that colonial development in Africa in this period was shaped, rhetorically, ideologically and pragmatically, by the context of British reconstruction under the Marshall Plan. Colonial development was an arena in which Britain’s relationships with western Europe and the United States (the ‘special relationship’) could be explored, strengthened and sometimes challenged. The incipient Cold War imbued British policy in Africa with specific tensions, particularly relating to American ‘anti-imperialism’ and the threat of Soviet communist expansion across the continent. Colonial development, and the negotiation of such against the pressures exerted by Britain’s international political role, can thus be used as a lens, through which to view British foreign policy under the Attlee government.

One of the major duties performed by the censors of the Roman Republic was that of the lectio senatus, the enrolment of the Senate. As part of this process they were able to expel from that body anyone whom they deemed unequal to the honour of continued membership. Those expelled were termed ‘praeteriti’. While various aspects of this important and at-times controversial process have attracted scholarly attention, a detailed survey has never been attempted. The work is divided into two major parts. Part I comprises four chapters relating to various aspects of the lectio. Chapter 1 sees a close analysis of the term ‘praeteritus’, shedding fresh light on senatorial demographics and turnover – primarily a demonstration of the correctness of the (minority) view that as early as the third century the quaestorship conveyed automatic membership of the Senate to those who held it. It was not a Sullan innovation. In Ch.2 we calculate that during the period under investigation, c.350 members were expelled. When factoring for life expectancy, this translates to a significant mean lifetime risk of expulsion: c.10%. Also, that mean risk was front-loaded, with praetorians and consulars significantly less likely to be expelled than subpraetorian members. In Ch.3 and 4 we discuss the mechanics of the lectio and review legislative and personal responses to expulsion, including the observations that censors were sensible to a number of societal constraints, among them the opinions of outside actors; also, that expulsion was not necessarily an insuperable setback. Part II comprises a single chapter, a catalogue of all known named praeteriti. An Appendix presents all source testimonia that allude to each praeteritus’ expulsion. The chronological range is bookended by the promulgation of the plebiscitum Ovinium (which gave censors the responsibility of performing the lectio) and the final censorship of the functioning Republic.

This thesis explores the ways in which the Victorian Tory politician and novelist Benjamin Disraeli developed his own racial thinking. In response to the anti-Semitism of the period he became convinced that race was the key to understand how society worked. The thesis traces his use of the category of race as a key axis of social difference and how race intersected in his thinking with class, culture, gender and nation and empire. It analyses his development of a one-nation-politics discussing his social criticism and his focus on those who were marginal to the mid-Victorian nation – working-class men, the Irish and women. The thesis demonstrates how in his attempt to integrate the Irish into this unified nation he increasingly came to categorise their militant separatism as the cause of Ireland’s misery. It investigates his conception of the politics of empire and how it was bound together with his one-nation vision and it outlines the ways in which his doctrine of race legitimated his imperial interventions. Drawing on all available sources of Disraeli’s thought, the thesis is a historically embedded discourse analysis that utilizes methods from political history, social and cultural history, biographical approaches and cultural studies. It treats novels, letters and parliamentary speeches as well as other political and social interventions as differently constituted and situated discourses which need to be understood as distinct and sometimes contradictory entities which nevertheless form a whole. Inspired by Hannah Arendt’s discussion of Disraeli as a Jew who fought back this thesis explores the complex ways in which mid-Victorian discourses of identity and belonging were interwoven with discourses of race.

This dissertation examines the salvific and therapeutic practices of medieval Chinese Daoist organisations. Drawing on the most detailed ethnographic record of medical treatment in early medieval China, the Zhen’gao 真誥 [Declarations of the Perfected], this study examines the work of Yang Xi and the Xus of Jiankang, early members of the Shangqing (Highest Clarity) School. It argues that many of the family’s activities were ultimately concerned with promoting health and curing disease: from tomb-quelling, to divination, to reports on the affairs of deceased relatives. Three main practices form the foci of the analysis: an account of how acupuncture, massage and drugs were entangled with notions of salvation, and how related therapeutic concepts shaped some of the ultimate goals of Shangqing practice. The two research questions addressed are a) how did Shangqing practices function to both cure disease and to grant salvation, and what implications does this question have for modern histories that address religion and medicine as discrete enterprises? By situating the formation of the Shangqing repertoire within the broader context of the religio-medical market, this study maintains that therapeutic competition had formative effects on Chinese religions generally. The artificial and modern division of Medicine and Religion emerge as modern categories with limited value for texturing a history of the healing arts of medieval China. In place of this epistemological cast, this study suggests attention to practice repertoires and the formation of thought-styles as a methodology. Comparing ‘religious’ and ‘medical’ actors in this way allows the uneven contours of local social, geographic and epidemiological conditions to more readily be taken into account in the formation of sectarian identities.

No description available.

It is commonly accepted nowadays that ancient Aegean culture included many elements that were not indigenous. But scholars still question the importance of these for the development of the region. I contend that such scepticism is mistaken. Ideas about the ancient Aegean’s cultural independence are founded in the history of research in this field, and could be countered by more detailed studies of specific cultural elements. The following issues should be addressed: the likelihood of an indigenous development of elements; reasons for transmission and the process of embedment; the process of transmission. These issues I discuss in the introduction. Next, a case study follows on the connection between the appearances of the ‘Kingship in Heaven’-theme in the Hittite Song of Going Forth (‘Song of Kumarbi’) and the Hesiodic Theogony. I explain these by proposing a specific scenario. An analysis of the song shows that it focused on the storm-god more than is commonly assumed. Subsequently, the variant of the theme in the Theogony and its similarities with that of the song are described. Various elements of the theme that appear similarly in the Theogony and the song probably originated outside the Aegean. Their inclusion together implies that the composer of the Theogony knew of a version of the entire song. I suggest that he intended to create a pan-Hellenic genealogical system, and considered this text particularly fit as a framework to structure his poem with. The song was Hurrian originally, and probably connected to kingship legitimisation. This was also its use in the Hittite and Neo-Hittite kingdoms. Intra- Anatolian interaction from ca. 1200-650 BCE is surveyed. The Phrygians probably adopted the song from the Neo-Hittites, perhaps again in the context of kingship rituals. After 750 BCE, the song reached the Aegean, where, soon afterwards, it was used for the Theogony.

For most of the nineteenth-century, the Brazilian liberal elites found in the ‘modernity’ of the European Enlightenment all that they considered best at the time. Britain and France, in particular, provided them with the paradigms of a modern civilisation. This thesis, however, challenges and complements this view by demonstrating that as early as the 1860s the United States began to emerge as a new model of civilisation in the Brazilian debate about modernisation. The general picture portrayed by the historiography of nineteenth-century Brazil is still today inclined to overlook the meaningful place that U.S. society had from as early as the 1860s in the Brazilian imagination regarding the concept of a modern society. This thesis shows how the images of the United States were a pivotal source of political and cultural inspiration for the political and intellectual elites of the second half of the nineteenth century concerned with the modernisation of Brazil. Drawing primarily on parliamentary debates, newspaper articles, diplomatic correspondence, books, student journals and textual and pictorial advertisements in newspapers, this dissertation analyses four different dimensions of the Brazilian representations of the United States. They are: the abolition of slavery, political and civil freedoms, democratic access to scientific and applied education, and democratic access to goods of consumption. These four themes together reveal the centrality of the relationship between the idea of modern civilisation and the United States in the imagination of the Brazilian liberal elites. The chronological framework of this research covers the period between the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865) and the Spanish- American War (1898). These were crucial decades in the development of U.S. power and a period when images of the United States began to circulate far more widely than hitherto in Brazil. Even though this study shows that positive and negative representations of the U.S. society coexisted, clashed and changed in the courte durée, the general tendency, however, was an overall shift from negative to positive images of the United States. ‘Americanisation’ is one of the theoretical concepts around which this study is framed. However, this thesis adds complexity to this term by showing that Brazilians themselves were active agents in the process of disseminating the (North-)‘American’ model of society in Brazil.