Cette thèse de maîtrise offre un nouveau regard sur l'histoire de la marine de guerre du Roi-Soleil, au moment où celle-ci était sous l'influence d'un célèbre homme d'État français du nom de Jean-Baptiste Colbert--c'est-à-dire de 1661 à 1683--lui-même secondé par son fils--de 1672 à 1683--le trop souvent sous-estimé marquis de Seignelay. En tentant de faire la lumière sur les principaux éléments qui ont contribué au développement de ladite marine et qui, du même coup, lui ont assuré son succès durant cette période déterminante pour la France de l'Ancien Régime, nous avons découvert que deux réactions fondamentales, encore bien mal identifiées à ce jour, étaient au coeur de cette évolution, soit: les transformations structurelles et les conflits maritimes.

Le but de cette thèse est de comprendre la perception des milieux populaires parisiens par un avocat aisé du Parlement de Paris au XVIIIe siècle, Edmond-Jean-François Barbier (1689-1771). Ce bourgeois parisien a en effet tenu un journal sur les affaires du temps avec une assiduité tout à fait remarquable pendant près de 45 ans (1718-1763). Dans l'état actuel des connaissances, un tel sujet implique plusieurs éléments, soit l'analyse de la perception des pauvres et des couches modestes de Paris telle que Barbier nous la communique à travers son Journal , et une méthode d'analyse systématique applicable à cet ouvrage de plus de 4 000 pages dans l'édition complète. Afin de mieux comprendre la nature de ses propos, il fallait présenter de façon sérieuse l'auteur de ce Journal , car la connaissance de Barbier est restée jusqu'ici entachée de contradictions ou d'erreurs. Il était important de préciser autant que possible le rang social de ce bourgeois, pour mieux connaître sa perception des milieux populaires. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

The Societe de 1789 is used in this dissertation as a case study of the relationship of the Late Enlightenment to liberal monarchists of the early Revolutionary period. The club, founded in January of 1790, was composed of leading intellectuals, financiers, ancien regime bureaucrats and many liberal members of the National Assembly who sought to consolidate the gains of the Revolution in a new constitution which would reflect "political truths" as deduced by Enlightened philosophy. The High Enlightenment did not leave a particular political program or philosophy to be "implemented" by later reformers or revolutionaries. Rather the Enlightenment provided a context in which to debate political issues. The style and language used for the discussion of contemporary politics tells us more about the impact of the Enlightenment than would an attempt to trace ideas back to a "source." Thus, the analysis of the political language of the Societe de 1789 is an important element in determining the degree to which the Enlightenment influenced the club. A considerable portion of this work is devoted to the elaboration of computer-based linguistic methods applied to intellectual and cultural history. The theoretical and methodological issues raised by systematic analysis of textual data are considered in the context of analyzing the impact of Enlightenment and American Revolutionary discourses on the language of 1789. Although these methods may still be considered provisional, preliminary results presented here suggest that further development is warranted. The well-known failure of the Societe de 1789 as a political club to attract support and its failure to consolidate the gains of 1789 and stop the Revolution is also indicative of the relationship of the Late Enlightenment and Revolution. The contradictions of the Enlightenment's failure to develop a systematic political ideology is central to this failure. The Societe de 1789 never lost the Enlightenment fear of the people. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Many participants, observers and later historians have commented on the insufficiency of fire support provided for the disastrous raid on the French channel port of Dieppe in August of 1942. This seemingly facile consensus raises a number of questions: (1) What type of additional fire support was needed? (2) What might the effects of this fire support have been given the technology of the time? and (3) Is the requirement for more firepower the product of retrospective speculation or were there contemporary standards for amphibious operations that would have indicated the need for more fire support? The need for additional naval fire support during the amphibious assault on Dieppe is explored, the most efficient form of fire is identified and the possible effects on the battle are evaluated in this study. The principal conclusions are that the need for more fire support was laid down in prior amphibious doctrine, the means for providing this fire support were available, and the effect of increased heavy gunfire support might have substantially improved the results of the landing component of the raid. The decision and planning process, particularly with respect to naval fire support, seems to strongly indicate a breakdown in rational bureaucratic decision making.

This study attempts to present a comprehensive history of Italian women in science from the Renaissance to the second half of the nineteenth century, when Italian universities welcomed women as students. Most of the women discussed were active in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, at a time when the sciences enjoyed great popularity. Then, some women were members of publicly-funded scientific academies, were university graduates and lecturers at institutes of sciences, and/or universities, and published in learned journals. Since many important women natural philosophers operated during the eighteenth century, there has been a tendency to see their learning in the sciences, degrees, memberships to scientific academies, and lectureships solely as the product of the Enlightenment. However, tradition played a role in their scientific education, in the granting of degrees, memberships and lectureships, and even in the scientific activities some women felt they were entitled to follow. The belief Pope Benedict XIV had that women had played a role at the University of Bologna in past centuries was pivotal in his decision to grant them degrees and positions at the university and its institutions of higher learning in the eighteenth century. Women belonged to publicly-funded academies of sciences in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries because literary and philosophical academies, from which various scientific academies would spring, had not been adverse to welcoming women in their midst. Some women were active in astronomy, botany, medicine, natural philosophy, mathematics, teaching, patronage, and translation during the eighteenth and nineteenth century, as some of their sisters had been during the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Of course, the way women carried out these scientific activities modified in later centuries to reflect the popularity and the development of the sciences, university reforms, censorship of the Copernican system, and social changes. Often families and teachers educated women in science in order to increase their own prestige. Nevertheless, there was a widespread belief amongst Italian men that some women were exceptional, and raised above their sex, and therefore could receive an education at par with men, and go further than the rest of their sex. This attitude on the part of the male elite allowed a few women to continue to be associated with institutions of higher learning in the second half of the nineteenth century, when the sciences became professionalized. Most of the Italian women studied were followers of scientific trends. However, there were some notable exceptions at the local and national level. Some women such as Laura Bassi, Elisabetta Fiorini Mazzanti, Caterina. Scarpellini, Anna Morandi Manzolini, and Maria Gaetana Agnesi carried out some pioneering work in the Italian context.

Après la Seconde guerre, le sens des ternes monde, civilisation, Europe diffère radicalement de ce qu'il était avant la Première; on ne doit donc pas sousestimer l'importance du changement qui a eu lieu dans notre histoire et pour notre histoire, et cette étude se pose pour but d'en relever certains des aspects. Écrivant le plus souvent sur le coup du moment, de l'actualité, des tendances qui règnent, aucun n'a été insensible (comment pouvait-on l'être?) à ce qu'on pourrait nommer par euphémisme les «restructurations de l'histoire». Ils produisent des ouvrages d'un type nouveau, que nous aurons soin de considérer comme des témoignages de première fraîcheur, et non comme bribes d'une vie ou d'une oeuvre entière: nous voulons lire ce qui s'est écrit au moment même des événements, sans la moindre considération 'par après'. L'essai proposé ici--car il s'agit bien d'un essai--se voudra donc un examen de quelques-unes de leurs vues et visions, et partira à la recherche d'une cohérence possible dans les manières dont le Vieux continent a pris conscience, par la voix des intellectuels, de ce qu'on nomme ordinairement les Temps modernes . (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

"The Role of Telecommunications Standards in European Integration" analyses the process of harmonisation for European telecommunications terminal equipment standards from 1958-1996. The M.A. Thesis focuses on Commission legislation dealing with telecommunications standards enacted in the Treaty of Rome up to the Maastricht Treaty with a special focus on the "New Approach to Technical Harmonisation and Standardisation". This thesis also looks at the application of the Low Voltage Directive 73/23/EEC and the Electromagnetic Compatibility Directive 89/336/EEC, and shows in practice, how European integration affected the national transposition of these directives into law and moreover, how the designated standards in these directives were harmonised. The final section assesses the implementation of European harmonised standards under the low voltage directive and electromagnetic compatibility directive into Member State legislation during 1996. And finally, in order to make a contribution to European Integration studies, the role of telecommunication standards is also placed within the framework of political European Integration Theory.

This thesis analyses the impact of the Araucanian revolt of 1598-99 on the southernmost Spanish colonies. In North America, military posts (presidios) were the cutting edge of settlement, and the border between whites and natives separated different economies. In the Southern Cone, however, feral horses and cattle were as important to Spaniards as to Indians, and presidios were conduits draining the wealth of the Andes towards the frontier. The focus of the work is the west-to-east articulation of this border in the seventeenth century. The Great Revolt forced the Crown to establish an army on the Bio Bio. The resources needed, however, provoked recurring political struggle between its agents and Santiago's elite, since both needed access to local products and aspired to use Peru's aid as they wished. The socio-political situation thereby created defined the salient characteristics of this frontier. The conflict was ultimately resolved by creating a corridor which extended frontier activities and characteristics eastward, to Cuyo, Tucuman and the Rio de La Plata. Through this movement, the experience of Santiago was recreated until, eventually, even distant Buenos Aires was transformed into a "frontier society". That change, of course, was peculiarly appropriate for even as the Spanish frontier spread eastward, the Araucanians were driving towards the Atlantic.

Abstract not available.

Abstract not available.