Le résumé en français n'a pas été communiqué par l'auteur. / Le résumé en anglais n'a pas été communiqué par l'auteur.

Doktorsafhandling--Historia--Københavns Universitet, 1999. / Bibliogr. p. 263-271.

No description available.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Erlangen, 1912. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [4-5]).

No description available.

published_or_final_version / Chinese Historical Studies / Master / Master of Arts

No description available.

No description available.

The introduction of steam propulsion during the early nineteenth century presented the Royal Navy with two interlinked challenges. In the first, steam propulsion had to overcome the sceptics and the challenges of technical development until it proved a reliable and superior alternative to sail. The second was a challenge to the social infrastructure of the Navy which struggled to integrate increasingly large numbers of engine room personnel into a traditional close knit naval hierarchy dominated by seamen. The engineers’ struggle for commissioned status and equality with the executive branch is well documented, as is the history of the engine room artificers’ branch. By comparison, where naval and historical custom has promoted and celebrated the ideal of the Royal Naval ‘bluejacket’ or seaman, its stokers have become subjects of censure while their story has been largely ignored and corrupted by prejudice and myths. Tradition dictates that stokers are portrayed as coarse, uneducated men with a reputation for being trouble makers. As a result, they were judged to have the worst discipline record on the lower-deck. Because of the physical nature of their work and the filth and detritus from the coal they worked with they were also commonly believed to originate from the lowest classes of contemporary society. Yet without stokers no ship could leave harbour let alone engage the enemy. Every item of machinery and equipment onboard a ship relied on the steam produced by stokers. But far from being seen as equals or given any credit for their endeavours in the miniature hell of the stokehole, stokers became social outcasts. No other branch of men in the Navy has been subjected to such longstanding and deep seated censure. The negative stereotypes which surround stokers continue to perpetuate a disservice to a much overlooked and maligned branch of men. In order to determine the reasons why stokers attracted such negative sympathies this thesis will separate the facts from the myths and offer a new perspective on the men condemned by history as ‘the lowest of the low.’

acase@tulane.edu / Scholarship on premodern ruling elites tends to minimize the complexity of ancient politics and to focus on the decisions of individual kings and their charismatic swaying of entire populations. This dissertation departs from this tendency by investigating the exercise of power by the governments of premodern complex societies, or how ancient politicians organized their institutions. I argue the politics of ancient civilizations may best be studied by focussing on their regime: the political community which coalesced when rulers assembled their allies within the seat of government. This approach emphasizes practices of communication between a ruling body and its political network, as reflected by the exchange of information and goods. Among premodern complex societies ruled by divine kingship, the regime is best described as a royal court, whose architectural institution corresponds to a regal palace. In order to address this anthropological political model, I examine the multi-dimensional archaeological record of the regal palace of La Corona, a small polity of northwest Guatemala that emerged during the Classic Period of Maya civilization (AD 250-950). I rely on an assemblage of complementary datasets – architecture, macro-artifacts, hieroglyphic monuments, micro-artifacts, geochemical elements, and macro-botanical remains – to study how the La Corona royal court exercised political power. I study the last three construction phases of the north section of the La Corona regal palace and their two-century-long occupation to address a set of pragmatic questions. By examining residences, political stages, passageways, administrative space, ancillary buildings, and middens, I seek to understand how Classic Maya politicians relied on economic and ritualized exchanges to effectively manage their regime. In addition, thanks to the rich historical record of La Corona and to a fine-tuned architectural sequence, I explore how the changing historical and geopolitical contexts of this polity transformed its government. Through this rich diachronic empirical case-study, I build upon and contribute to an anthropological archaeology of politics, to ancient political economy, and to Classic Maya historical archaeology. In addition, I wish to highlight why the study of ancient politics may be relevant for us today, and perhaps, our near future. / 1 / Maxime Lamoureux-St-Hilaire