This study presents an analysis of the interactions observed among the West Polynesia islands of Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, using concepts of regional systems and trade networks. The connections between these island groups in the period between the 1770s and the 1870s are examined in extensive detail. In particular, this analysis takes the theoretical framework of the world-systems approach of Chase-Dunn and Hall and applies a method involving networks of exchange to this region. These networks include the information network, the bulk products network, the political/ military network and the network of prestige valuables. Archival data show the operation and content of these networks and demonstrate that with the influx of European products in the early colonial period, there was an efflorescence of long-distance exchange in this region. This analysis of networks linking the island groups suggest that Fiji, Tonga and Samoa should be viewed as a regional unit instead of three distinct societies for many subjects of investigation.

The Second World War has often been regarded a period of great change for women. Using both print and oral historical sources this paper seeks to detail, measure and understand the changes which were occurring both during and after the war to ideas and attitudes about gender in Trail. British Columbia. Diverse and complex changes are detailed through the memories of both women and men and their children. This paper argues for the importance of inter-generational investigations of change through the use of oral history and illustrates that historical change is often as multi-faceted as the individual experiences of people themselves.

This thesis braids ethnography with political analysis to explore the nature, scope and breadth of Doukhobor sectarianism in order to illuminate the nuances of difference within the Doukhobor community. A major focus of this study is the development and functioning of the Sons of Freedom (Freedomite) branch's terrorism and its effects on the Orthodox and Independent branches as well as majoritarian society, particularly in Saskatchewan and British Columbia. Another important area of discussion concerns the formulation and application of government policy to Freedomite violence and its effects. Finally, the thesis seeks to isolate the complex factors that brought the violence to an end by focusing on three significant historical events: the violent Freedomite attack on a Saskatchewan Independent leader's home in 1936; the BC government's New Denver forced schooling program (1953-1959); and finally, the trial of Orthodox Doukhobor leader John Verigin in 1979. Ultimately, this work offers ideas and approaches for understanding other sectarian conflicts defined by terrorism.

Stories exist throughout S’olh Téméxw, the traditional territory of the Stó:lõ people in the Lower Fraser Valley of British Columbia, of subterranean tunnels connecting disparate locations. These stories, recounted in archival records and by contemporary Stó:lõ community members, provide a gateway into Stó:lõ spiritual connections to place. Through the tunnels, I will explore the complexities of a subterraneous spiritual geography – what is significant about the tunnel stories and what they can say about the way that Stó:lõ people relate to the place world of the valley. Central to this thesis is ideas of imagining and re-imagining space. Through the exploration of the tunnel stories, and the complex and often cross-cultural research relationships that they are recounted in, I hope to show that the connections the tunnels provide can bring distant places, both physical and mental, together in a social imagination. This thesis focuses on the relationships that the tunnel narratives describe – relationships between people and places, researchers and storytellers, physical and metaphysical landscapes, and cultural ways of imagining the space of the valley.

The French Revolution continues to fascinate historians. The political culture which it is said to have spawned has recently become a particularly salient feature in its recent historiography. Many have argued that the discrepancy between the hopes that the Revolution initially generated and the destruction, war, and terror that followed was the inevitable result of this culture. Within this framework, the defeat of the constitutional proposals of the group of moderate politicians known as the Monarchiens has been portrayed as the Revolution’s missed opportunity to avoid the violence of the Terror. Their most important proposals were for a bicameral legislature and strong royal authority. My thesis questions assumptions about the ideological coherence of the five most influential proponents of this model and the inevitability of their defeat. To do this, I will analyze the pre-revolutionary political careers of these men up to the defeat of their proposals in the summer of 1789, and demonstrate that their political proposals were contingent on the political context, often changing drastically to fit the demands of circumstance.

In the years between 1789 and 1792 the shores of what is now British Columbia were opened to European scrutiny by a series of mostly Spanish expeditions. As the coastline was charted and explored by agents of European empires, the Pacific Northwest captured the attention of Europe. In order to carry out these explorations the Spanish relied on what turned out to be an experiment in ‘gentle’ imperialism that depended on the support of the indigenous “colonized”. This thesis examines how the Spanish envisioned their imperial space on the Northwest Coast and particularly how that space was shaped through the exploration of the Salish Sea. A close examination of the Spanish explorations of 1790-91 opens a window on this distinctive Spanish imperialism, on Aboriginal culture and politics in this era, and on the cartographic and cultural mapping of this the centre of gravity of modern British Columbia.

Physiognomy is generally assumed to be, and has been historicized as, the science of judging human character according to the features of the face. However, the type of physiognomy favoured by seventeenth-century English authors was one which adapted the Aristotelian claim that physiognomy be a full-body study. This project explores how physiognomic focus on the entire body – from the forehead, fingers and feet to the breast, belly and back – was shaped by contemporary religious and “scientific” legitimating claims, and how it interacted with the century’s anxieties regarding disorder and the self. The implicit suggestion that few bodies and the souls which helped shape them were perfectly symmetrical and, by extension, virtuous, illustrated human variety and depravity and stressed the need for self subordination. Only through reason and God’s grace, it was argued, could humans moderate the interconnected and essentializing influences of sin, the stars and the humours, and thereby embody the godly values of truth, virtue and harmony. The full-bodied practice of seventeenth-century physiognomy simultaneously emphasized human uniqueness and God’s omnipotence, and was both a part and product of predominant tensions and mentalities.

Most women who desired women in the period 1910-1965 did not have the identity categories “lesbian” and “bisexual” available to them. Even in this linguistic vacuum, however, many were able to explore same-sex relationships, to engage in physical sexual activity with women, and even to form community on the basis of same-sex desire and behaviour. How were they able to understand themselves in relation to the homophobic world in which they lived? This dissertation examines the lives of lesbians and bisexual women in English Canada between 1910 and 1965, focusing particularly on the formation of subjectivity in relation to same-sex desires, relationships with partners and families of origin, sexual practices, and community. An analysis of oral testimonies, of journals, and of love letters shows that particular life events—the first awareness of same-sex attraction, physical exploration of that attraction, the finding of a language with which to describe same-sex desires and relationships, the first important same-sex relationship, and the finding of community—served as turning points in the formation of subjectivity. The story of that journey was later expressed as a linear and essentialist “coming out” narrative in which the individual triumphed over homophobia and ignorance and discovered her true self. That narrative structure is both understandable in the context of essentialist definitions of sexual orientation and a politically necessary one, given the need for a single identity category under which to campaign for legal and social recognition. The two dominant formulations of same-sex relationships between women before 1965—the “romantic friendship” and the “butch-femme relationship”— have obscured and made culturally unintelligible the lives of lower middle-class lesbians and bisexual women who were neither politically active nor fighting publicly for urban lesbian space. This dissertation analyses the lives of this neglected group of women and argues that their subjectivities were constructed not only in relation to sexual attraction, but also in relation to class. Middle-class ideas of respectability and an antagonism to bar culture resulted in the formation of class-specific lesbian subjectivities. This dissertation also suggests that women in same-sex relationships before the allegedly more liberal decades of the late twentieth century may actually have had slightly better relationships with families of origin than would later be the case. Greater adherence to notions of duty and obligation, fewer economic opportunities enabling women to live independently of family, the lack of a publicly available discourse of pathology with which families could define and reject their wayward daughters, and the lack of later notions of “alternative” lesbian families and community meant that many remained rather closer to their families than would lesbians after 1965.

In recent decades considerable progress has been made in elucidating the assumptions and the dynamics of Muscovite court politics, and further scrutiny is attempted in this enquiry into the ruling oligarchy of 1547-1564. Chapters 1 to 3 are devoted to groundwork. In Chapter 1 an introduction to the ruling oligarchy is provided against the background of Muscovy's contemporary government and population. The goal of territorial aggrandisement pursued by Muscovite rulers from Ivan HI favoured "rationalisation" of the central government and reforms of the army's discipline and technology; moreover, the wars of conquest left untouched no element of the population. Tsar Ivan and his exercise of authority were especially strongly affected: the precedents established by earlier rulers encouraged him to consider Muscovy his private votchina. but such an attitude became increasingly anachronistic as the realms expanded and the tasks of governing it grew too complex for any one man. During the Oprichnina he attempted to resolve this contradiction by ruling autocratically; autocratic rule and those circumstances favouring it by 1564 are the dissertation's main theme. Even before 1564 Ivan IV was the central actor in Muscovite politics, and criteria are advanced whereby advisers close enough to qualify for the ruling oligarchy are identified. The mid-sixteenth century, as a prelude to autocracy, was a critical moment in Muscovite politics; the rich and varied historiography is surveyed in Chapter 2. The sources - their authors, dates, and value as historical evidence - are critically assessed in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 to 7 comprise the heart of the dissertation. In Chapters 4 to 6 an attempt is made to identify members of the ruling oligarchy of 1546-1564; their political behaviour and where feasible, their political attitudes are explored. In Chapter 7 the attitudes individual members maintained towards particular reforms envisaged at mid-century are explored. The dissertation's main conclusions are systematically expounded in Chapter 8, and as appropriate, their broader implications for Russian and European history are brought out.

De nombreux tableaux spoliés et pillés par les nazis durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale ont fait l'objet d'une déclaration à l'Office des biens et intérêts privés. La plupart appartenaient à des juifs. Après la guerre, une commission de récupération artistique est mise en place et récupère des œuvres. La France obtient, comme un certain nombre de pays, un retour des œuvres restituées d'État à État. 85 000 demandes sont déposées, 61 233 objets artistiques sont retrouvés, essentiellement en Allemagne et en Autriche. 45 000 sont rendus, mais des tableaux restent orphelins et des propriétaires ne retrouvent pas leur bien. Parmi les œuvres non réclamées, 2 000 sont choisies pour les Musées de France où elles sont gardiennées et 12 000 sont vendues aux enchères. En 1952 s'achève cette phase de restitutions et la RFA prend ensuite en charge ce dossier pour une politique d'indemnisation. Entre 1950 et 1995, cette histoire est totalement oubliée. Après la chute du mur de Berlin (1989), le dossier des pillages artistiques est réouvert. Quel en est le traitement administratif au ministère des Affaires étrangères ? Et son traitement médiatique et politique ? Avec quelles interactions ? Quelles sont les raisons de l'oubli de ces restitutions et indemnisations ? Quelles sont les stratégies de communication des acteurs ? De l'action à l'oubli (1945-1955), de la réminiscence à la lente médiatisation (1955-1969), du silence (1969-1996) à l'ère de la communication (1997-2008), la thèse, qui croise les archives publiques, la presse artistique et généraliste et des entretiens, s'achève avec la mise en place d'une justice tardive franco-française grâce à la Commission Mattéoli (1997) et la nouvelle vague de restitutions et d'indemnisation en application des principes de Washington (1998).