History Commons^™

Book Review: David J. Rosner. Catastrophe And Philosophy, John Berteaux

Comparative Civilizations Review

In Chinese, the word “catastrophe” is composed of two characters: 危机 The first character represents danger and the second is the symbol for opportunity, suggesting as my son so aptly put it, “We should never let a ‘good’ disaster go to waste.” In much the same light, philosopher David Rosner’s sensible and probing anthology, Catastrophe and Philosophy, directs us to observe that, “catastrophes are catastrophes not only because they bring widespread death and destruction in their wake, but also because they fundamentally challenge the basic ‘sense making’ feature of the human mind and our need for a meaningful world.” …

End Matter

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Editor's Note, Joseph Drew

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Leonid Grinin. Macrohistory And Globalization, Stephen T. Satkiewicz

Comparative Civilizations Review

The Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin is once quoted as saying, “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” There should be a parallel statement about how some books state extraordinarily little in multiple pages, but others speak volumes in mere sentences. A good example of the latter would be Macrohistory and Globalization by another Russian: Leonid Grinin.

Do All Roads Lead To Rome? Exploring The Underlying Logics Of Similar Policies And Practices Of Recruiting Barbarian Soldiers In Roman And Early Chinese Empires, Pengfei Su

Comparative Civilizations Review

There are many similarities between various aspects of the Roman and early Chinese empires, which have been the focus of much academic discussion. A wide range of comparative studies have been carried out and resulted in the publication of numerous research papers. Scholars have been using different approaches focusing upon different areas to address this very broad comparative topic. Detailed analyses were made to compare the two empires in respect to their coinage and monetary systems, state revenue and expenditures, elite formation and social class advancement, and executive decision-making processes, just to mention a few. In a broader context, the …

The Human Search For A Sense Of Wholeness, Ross R. Maxwell

Comparative Civilizations Review

How can we characterize a civilization? From an economic point of view, a civilization consists of a system of interacting fulltime interdependent specialized occupations. From a cultural point of view, on the other hand, a civilization consists of what Ben Nelson, the late president of the International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations (1971-1977), called a civilizational complex, a structure that developed from the blending of multiple cultures.

Full Issue

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Rutger Bregman. Humankind: A Hopeful History, John Bertreaux

Comparative Civilizations Review

Do crises bring out the best or the worst in people? Are humans inclined to be evil, or are they more likely to be good, to do the right thing? Is civilization simply a thin veneer that is easily scratched away? From Church Father St. Augustine (354-430) to French theologian, pastor, and reformer John Calvin (1509-1564), we are depicted, if not as totally depraved and evil, at least, as the bearers of original sin. While perusing Rutger Bregman’s hopeful history, I happened upon a newspaper article announcing an exhibition of drawings and prints of Francisco Goya (1746-1828), at the Metropolitan …

Editor's Note, Joseph Drew, Editor-In-Chief

Comparative Civilizations Review

It has always seemed somewhat ironic that the International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations has never agreed on the exact definition of the single word arguably most central to its mission: “civilization”.

The Deep Seer And The Four Tests, Ross R. Maxwell

Comparative Civilizations Review

At last, he knew his true name. When he was young, he wandered, unsure of himself. He knew he was a generalist — not satisfied with mastering only one thing. He wanted to explore. He wanted to fill in blanks in his mental map of the world. He was good at science, and he understood concepts quickly, but he rarely stuck around long enough to gain real expertise in a field. His curiosity was ravenous, always seeking new realms to explore.

The World System, Regional Systems, And The Limitations Of Historical Urban Population Datasets, Karl E. Ryavec

Comparative Civilizations Review

This study presents a method for mapping and comparing the regional extents of historical city-based economies at the global scale by integrating the World-Systems Theory of Immanuel Wallerstein with the Regional Systems Theory of G. W. Skinner. The approach taken here focuses on mapping urban cores and their rural peripheries based on available disaggregated urban population estimates for 1741 cities according to six main historical periods from ca. 3700 BCE to 1900 CE. As a result, a spatial history of some regional-scale changes wrought by increasing modes of capitalism in the Modern and Industrial periods may be compared with earlier …

One Book—Two Authors—Whose Ideas?, Leland Conley Barrows

Comparative Civilizations Review

This short essay attempts to answer some questions that came to my mind regarding the authorship and the origin of ideas developed in De la Sénégambie française (Paris: Librairie de Firmin Didot Frères, Fils et Cie., 1855) by Frédéric Carrère and Paul Holle, two notables of mid-nineteenth century Saint-Louis, Senegal. I had been commissioned to prepare an analysis of the attitudes towards Islam of the authors for Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History 1500-1900, a multi-volume series of bibliographical studies under preparation by the Department of Theology and Religion of the University of Birmingham in England being published, volume by …

Front Matter

Quidditas

No abstract provided.

Teaching Premodern Women And Gender, Lucy C. Barnhouse

Quidditas

In her influential History Matters: Patriarchy and the Challenge of Feminism, Judith Bennett asked “Who’s afraid of the distant past?” Fifteen years after this book’s publication, the question remains relevant. Teaching the history of women and gender in the premodern world presents linked pedagogical challenges. Most students enter college with little to no background in premodern history. Many find premodern primary sources, when taught with the same pedagogical scaffolding as modern sources, inaccessible due to real or perceived strangeness. These challenges can be compounded by the challenges of teaching women’s and/or gender history. This roundtable addresses strategies for productive …

The Good, The Bad, And The Violent: Analyzing Beowulf’S Heroic Displacement And Transgressive Violence During The Grendel Quest, Jessie Bonafede

Quidditas

Heroic actions are often associated with altruistic feats of humanitarianism, but in Beowulf, the connection between heroism and performative acts of violence reveal significant complications concerning how the poem codifies violence for social honor. A central conflict arises with the poem’s contrasting presentation of Beowulf’s dominance and physical power before and during the Grendel quest with the relatively low social status he incurs amongst his maternal kin group, the Geats. In this paper, I use anthropological and sociological theories of collective violence and dominance versus prestige hierarchies to rethink how violence interplays with the poem’s treatment of lineage and other …

Contemporary History In Early Tudor English Chronicles: 1485-1553, Barrett L. Beer

Quidditas

English chronicles published between 1485 and 1547 are studied here to determine how they dealt with contemporary history. These chronicles obviously covered the distant past, but many end well before the date of publication. Today contemporary history is of great importance to the public as evidenced by a variety of published works, periodicals, and most recently the internet. An analysis of early Tudor chronicles reveals that while many were indifferent to the recent past, others clearly laid the foundation for a focus on the contemporary era. The recognized authors of the chronicles included in this study are Richard Arnold, John …

What She Said: Recovering Early Modern Women’S Experiences Through Court Records, Jennifer Mcnabb

Quidditas

Much of the fame of early modern England’s church courts today is based on their reputation as “women’s courts.” Because ecclesiastical law allowed women to initiate suit and to be sued in their own names, the courts’ records are full of women’s words. But the task of discovering women’s experiences through these records is a methodologically complex one. Words attributed to women, for example, come to us courtesy of the male church court clerk, whose education and legal experience shaped the written record of legal oral proceedings. And while women filing suit gives the appearance of female agency, it was …

Sir John Cheke, Chamberlain Of The Exchequer, 1552-53, James D. Alsop

Quidditas

The most obscure aspect of Sir John Cheke’s public career is his tenure as a Chamberlain of the English Exchequer. This study confirms that Cheke’s chamberlainship was a sinecure, albeit one of prestige and profit. Attention is also paid to the three rising gentlemen who held office under Cheke: Robert Creswell, Roger Higham, and William Hunwyke.

Full Issue

Quidditas

No abstract provided.

Allen D. Breck Award Winner

Quidditas

The Breck Award recognizes the most distinguished paper given by a junior scholar at the annual conference.

Recipient of the Breck Award for 2021

Jessie Bonafede

University of New Mexico

Humorous Spaces And Serious Magic In William Baldwin’S Beware The Cat, Ashley Jeanette Ecklund

Quidditas

When spaces transform in William Baldwin’s Beware the Cat, the transition is marked with humor, consistently signaling magic to follow. As an amalgamation of folklore, including magic that manifests around, for, and through cats, Baldwin’s work offers adventure, laughter, and danger alike. Some cats are diabolical, worshiping or holding the soul of a witch; however, their wit constitutes a jocular contrast to that of our interior narrator, Maister Streamer, whose quotation above demonstrates a serious misunderstanding of St. Augustine’s beliefs. Though Beware The Cat was published at the start of the early modern period, the folklore it contains speaks …

“There’S Rosemary, That’S For Remembrance:” Suicide Ideation And Portraying Ophelia’S Madness, Ian M. Borden, Sarah Imes Borden

Quidditas

Ophelia’s madness in Hamlet is too often portrayed or understood in a generalized fashion. Historical analysis of the play, as well as historical and recent reviews of Ophelia’s performance show how Ophelia has been considered a character controlled by outside forces, and her madness lacking direction or purpose. Applying the concept of suicide ideation to the character’s actions illuminates both our historical understanding of the character, and provides modern day performers a cohesive and focused model from which to draw.

The Fable As A Global Genre: Marie De France, Ulrich Bonerius, Don Juan Manuel, And Kalila And Dimna, Albrecht Classen

Quidditas

As much as recent scholarship has tried to develop a new approach toward world or global literature, the essential problem continues that in those efforts simply writers and poets from the various countries and continents are placed side by side without any consideration of inter- and transdisciplinarity, if not shared meaning and critical exchange. Drawing from the tradition of medieval fable literature, however, we face a truly productive approach in recognizing what global literature could really entail since the various writers across the continents addressed, broadly speaking, the same issues and fundamentally agreed on the critical values in all of …

A Complicated Affair Of Twentieth Century Southeast Asia, Nhi Phan

BYU Asian Studies Student Journal

January 7, 2021 marked the 42nd anniversary of the Vietnamese army and allied forces of Cambodian general Hun Sen overthrowing Pol Pot. Although this invasion took a mere two weeks, the consequences lasted for more than ten years with huge losses for both the Vietnamese and Cambodians. After 1975, Indochina has gone through many changes with different regimes; its geography, however, has remained the same. Even though both Vietnam and Cambodia became communist regimes after winning their independence from France in 1975, they experienced different changes in political ideology. The shift in regime also brought along border conflicts between the …

Full Issue

BYU Asian Studies Student Journal

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

The Bridge

No abstract provided.

Beautiful Dannebrog, Nebraska, Christie Jensen Gehringer

The Bridge

In June, a yearly festival is held in Dannebrog, Nebraska, in conjunction with Grundlovsdag (Danish Constitution Day). The festival, which observes Denmark’s independence and honors the town of Dannebrog, named for Denmark’s flag, began in 1987. Dannebrog celebrates its Danish Days, known as Grundlovsfest, every year during the first weekend in June; however, the festival was previously held from the late 1800s through the 1930s when it was called Gorbennad (Dannebrog spelled backwards). Driving down the main street in Dannebrog today one can find an antique store, an ice cream shop, and a bakery, which showcase the town’s Danish …

Danish Cedar Falls, Carrie Eilderts

The Bridge

In 1855, Frederick Petersen’s family became the first Danish immigrants on record to settle in Cedar Falls, Iowa. The Petersens came from the Schleswig area on the Danish/German border, and in 1860, Christian Petersen came to Cedar Falls, also from Schleswig. More Danish families moved to Cedar Falls from Pine River, Wisconsin in 1866, and the next year Danes began arriving directly from their homeland after enduring a long journey by ship and train. By the early 1870s, Danes were settling in Cedar Falls in large numbers. By 1871, three hundred Danes called the city home, making up about ten …

Danes In Kenmare, North Dakota, Bertel Schou

The Bridge

The town of Kenmare, in Denmark Township in the northern part of Ward County, North Dakota, is famous for its Danish windmill, one of only three in the United States (the other two are in Elk Horn, Iowa and Solvang, California). The mill, with its gears of hand-hewn maple, was built eleven miles north of Kenmare by a Danish immigrant named Christian C. Jensen in 1902 and was in daily operation until 1918. It was transported into the center of Kenmare in 1958, restored in 1961, and moved to its current location on downtown Park Square in 1965. It doesn’t …

From Bornholm To Jamestown: C. C. Beck And The Settlement Of Danish Immigrants In Chautauqua County, New York And Warren County, Pennsylvania, John Everett Jones

The Bridge

One of the earliest Danish immigrant settlements in North America was a community in western New York and northwestern Pennsylvania called Jamestown. Marcus P. Jacobsen has been recognized as the first person from Bornholm to settle in the Jamestown area1 in 1855 or 1856, and early on, members of this community came almost exclusively from Bornholm. However, histories have not recognized the importance of Charles C. Beck in the origin of this community. Emigration from Bornholm has been written about by Henning Bender2 this article adds to that research by situating Beck within the larger community of Danish immigrants who …