ArgumentThis article is based on a detailed survey of three British popular science magazines published during the interwar years. It focuses on the authors who wrote for the magazines, using the information to analyze the ways in which scientists and popular writers contributed to the dissemination of information about science and technology. It shows how the different readerships toward which the magazines were directed determined the proportion of trained scientists who provided material for publication. The most serious magazine,Discovery, featured (...) almost exclusively material written by professional scientists, while the most popular,Armchair Science, favored writers who were not professional scientists, but who probably had some technical knowledge. Another magazine,Conquest, tried to provide a balance between authoritative and popular articles; however, it survived for only a few years. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article proposes a new approach to understanding the interwar work of the philosopher John Macmurray. Because Macmurray stood outside the main currents of twentieth-century British philosophy and cultural critique, scholars have sometimes struggled – as did many of his contemporaries – to assess his significance as a thinker. This article suggests that we can understand much of Macmurray’s work as a sustained exercise in the ‘politics of rationality’. That is, he was attempting to shift public understanding of the (...) nature of reason itself, as part of a broader effort to address the roots of modern social ills. When we approach Macmurray’s work in this way he begins to seem a much less idiosyncratic figure, and we can situate him in the context of broader concerns about an escalating crisis of reason. Moreover, the notion of a politics of rationality helps reframe how we appraise key themes of twentieth-century British intellectual history, allowing us to see Macmurray as part of an important but under appreciated tradition that aimed to integrate the intellectual and emotional aspects of human personality in order to revive and fortify British democracy. (shrink)

This article analyses the production and reception of the natural history film series Secrets of Nature and its sequel Secrets of Life, exploring what these films reveal about the role of cinema in public discourses about science and nature in interwar Britain. The first part of the article introduces the Secrets using an ‘intermedial’ approach, linking the kinds of natural history that they displayed to contemporary trends in interwar popular science, from print publications to zoos. It examines (...) how scientific knowledge was communicated in the series, especially the appeal to everyday experience as a vehicle to engage mass audiences with scientific subjects. The second part examines the Secrets series through the lens of knowledge co-production, detailing how a range of different figures, including academic scientists, nature photographers, producers and teachers, became entangled in making the films. Recovering the term ‘ciné-biology’, it argues that Secrets developed a unique style of filmmaking that generated cultural space for the life sciences in British popular culture. The third part analyses two interwar cinema experiments to explore how audiences, imagined and real, shaped the kinds of natural knowledge characterized by the Secrets films. (shrink)

In this article, I am concerned with the public engagements of Julian Huxley, Lancelot Hogben, and J. B. S. Haldane. I analyze how they used the new insights into the genetics of heredity to argue against any biological foundations for antidemocratic ideologies, be it Nazism, Stalinism, or the British laissez-faire and class system. The most striking fact—considering the abuse of biological knowledge they contested—is that these biologists presented genetics itself as inherently democratic. Arguing from genetics, they developed an understanding of (...) diversity that cuts across divisions of race, class, or gender. Human diversity rightly understood was advantageous for societal progress. Huxley, Hogben, and Haldane did not hold identical political ideals, but they all argued for democratic reforms and increased planning geared toward greater social equality, and they did so under the label of scientific humanism. Huxley took issue with the notion that evolutionary history does not carry any moral lessons for human societies. Rather than being its antithesis, evolution was the basis of human sociality. In fact, the entire future progress of individuals and communities toward a democratic world order needed to be founded on the cosmic principles of evolution—a process that had to be guided by the biological expert with a strong sense of social responsibility. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article explores the effects of scientific governance on personal liberty in interwar Britain through the work and life of German-Jewish demographer Robert René Kuczynski. Kuczynski arrived in Britain as a refugee in 1933 and, within the span of a few years, moved from being a researcher and reader at the London School of Economics to becoming demographic adviser to the Colonial Office. In the service of the British government, Kuczynski realized the first complete demographic survey (...) of the British Empire. Based on extensive primary research at the London School of Economics Archives and the Zentral- und Landesbibliothek Berlin, this article analyses the complex ways in which Kuczynski’s experience as a forced intellectual migrant interacted with – and often contradicted – his scientific work on population and the national and imperial policies that were enabled by it. Doing so, this article points to the inadequacy of merely evaluating personal freedom by means of law and power politics and asks about the hidden constraints in technocratic governance based on scientific knowledge. (shrink)

Ronald Aylmer Fisher is today remembered as a giant of twentieth-century statistics, genetics and evolutionary theory. Alongside his influential scientific contributions, he was also, throughout the interwar years, a prominent figure within Britain's eugenics movement. This essay provides a close examination of his eugenical ideas and activities, focusing particularly upon his energetic advocacy of family allowances, which he hoped would boost eugenic births within the more ‘desirable’ middle and upper classes. Fisher's proposals, which were grounded in his distinctive (...) explanation for the decay of civilizations throughout human history, enjoyed support from some influential figures in Britain's Eugenics Society and beyond. The ultimate failure of his campaign, though, highlights tensions both between the eugenics and family allowances movements, and within the eugenics movement itself. I show how these social and political movements represented a crucial but heretofore overlooked context for the reception of Fisher's evolutionary masterwork of 1930, The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection, with its notorious closing chapters on the causes and cures of national and racial decline. (shrink)

The pathologist David Stark Murray was a founder and leading member of the Socialist Medical Association , an organization affiliated to the Labour Party and instrumental in shaping its health policy in the period up to 1945. Murray played a prominent role in the SMA as a member of its Executive Committee and as Editor of its journal MedicineToday and Tomorrow. This article examines Murray's popular writings about science during the interwar period, focusing on his emphasis on the relationship (...) between, on the one hand, scientific knowledge and scientific method; and, on the other, a socialized health service and a socialist society. (shrink)

Offering a radical reassessment of 1930s British literature, this volume questions the temporal limits of the literary decade, and broadens the scope of queer literary studies to consider literary-historical responses to a variety of behaviours encompassed by the term ‘queer’ in its many senses. Whilst it is informed by the history of sexuality in twentieth-century Europe, it is also profoundly concerned with what Christopher Isherwood termed ‘the market value of the Odd.’ Drawing, for its methodology, on the work of Raymond (...) Williams, it traces the impact of the Great War on the development of language, examining the use of ten ‘keywords’ in the prose of Christopher Isherwood, Evelyn Waugh and Patrick Hamilton, and that of their respective literary milieux, in order to establish how queer lives and modern sub-cultural identities were forged collaboratively within the fictional realm. By utilizing contemporary perspectives on performativity in conjunction with detailed close readings it repositions these authors as self-conscious agents actively producing their own queer masculinities through calculated acts of linguistic transgression. (shrink)

The maternal deprivation hypothesis was arguably the most discussed debate in midcentury psychiatry. Combined with the gender ideology prevalent in America and Britain, it solidified the idea that the mother-child relationship had formative influence on personality development. This essay explores the formation of this hypothesis by situating its knowledge claims against an institutional innovation set to prevent juvenile delinquency and promote mental hygiene, the establishment of child guidance clinics on both sides of the Atlantic in the late 1920s. It (...) then tracks the development of investigative agendas by child guidance practitioners, examining the practices they adopted to construct psychological knowledge claims in conformity with preventive objectives and positivist standards. Shifting the historiographical focus toward the clinical scenes in which psychological assertions were made, the essay examines how investigators sought to determine the “pathogenic” influence of early parental environment by way of estimating its emotional qualities. It argues that it was this positivist-determinist effort to achieve preventive goals that foregrounded the role of the mother in the etiology of personality disturbance and marked the knowledge field that came to be called the maternal deprivation debate. (shrink)

This book concentrates on the five biggest recessions in the twentieth century. It focuses on the UK, but makes numerous comparisons to recessions in other countries. Two major recessions are identified in the interwar period; three more in the years 1973-1995. The main conclusion reached is that major recessions reflect abrupt fallings off in demand not supply, and can be explained by identifiable demand shocks. The concluding chapter offers advice on how to avoid future severe recessions: a combination of (...) prudent policy-making beforehand and special measures in the downturn and recovery. (shrink)

This book concentrates on the five biggest recessions in the twentieth century. It focuses on the UK, but makes numerous comparisons to recessions in other countries. Two major recessions are identified in the interwar period; three more in the years 1973-1995. The main conclusion reached is that major recessions reflect abrupt fallings off in demand not supply, and can be explained by identifiable demand shocks. The concluding chapter offers advice on how to avoid future severe recessions: a combination of (...) prudent policy-making beforehand and special measures in the downturn and recovery. (shrink)

This article’s subject is the theory and practice of ‘regional survey’, the method of social and environmental study associated with Scottish thinker Patrick Geddes (1854–1932). Despite being overlooked or dismissed in most accounts of early 20th-century social science, regional survey had a wide influence on the development of the nascent disciplines of anthropology, sociology, and human geography. Emerging from late 19th-century field biology, the regional survey came to typify a methodological moment in the natural and social sciences that favoured the (...) holistic analysis of geographically delimited areas. By the interwar period, the kinds of projects that went under its name can clearly be seen as forerunners of the post-Second World War tradition of community studies. Additionally, in its self-presentation as a civic, participatory exercise, the regional survey can be read as a form of popular autoethnography that contrasts with other, more familiar social-scientific ventures in the first half of the 20th century, and defies the dichotomy between ‘gentlemanly’ and ‘technical’ modes of social science. As a result, this article argues, the regional survey provides an alternative point of departure for thinking about the origins and development of the modern social sciences in Britain. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAnalysing the contents of magazines published with the stated intention of conveying information about science and technology to the public provides a mechanism for evaluation what counted as ‘popular science’. This article presents numerical surveys of the contents of three magazines published in inter-war Britain and offers an evaluation of the results. The problem of defining relevant topic-categories is addressed, both direct and indirect strategies being employed to ensure that the topics correspond to what the editors and publishers took (...) to be the principal areas of science and technology of interest to their readers. Analysis of the results of the surveys reveals different editorial policies depending on the backgrounds of the publishers and their anticipated readerships. The strong focus of the two most populist magazines on applied science and ‘hobbyist’ topics such as natural history, radio and motoring is noted and contrasted with the very limited coverage of theoretical science. In conclusion, a survey of changes in the contents over the periods of publication is used to identify trends in the coverage of science during this period. (shrink)

This paper analyses the rise of synthetic nitrogen in Great Britain and its empire, from the First World War to the aftermath of the Second World War. Rather than focus solely on technological innovations and consumption statistics, it seeks to explain how nitrogen was a central element in the expansion of a form of agricultural governance, which needed simplified, stable, and seemingly universal input/output formulae. In the first half of the twentieth century, nitrogen was thus gradually constructed as a (...) global indicator of development, as it was particularly adapted to scientific and political regimes increasingly relying upon abstraction and quantification. Yet, the history of nitrogenous fertilizers in the interwar years also shows that this cannot be reduced to a simple story of triumphant modernity, as their development and globalization was imperfect, unstable, accompanied by resistance and the resilience or emergence of other models. Rather than assuming an all-powerful “state” project, the paper thus seeks to recover the multiplicity of actors, and attempts to account for the rise of nitrogenous fertilizers; not just as the progressive application of a technological breakthrough, but as a difficult process embedded in technological, financial, and military constraints, corporate strategies, political imperatives, and the changing institutional framework of agricultural research. (shrink)

While the British Empire conventionally is recognized as a source of research subjects and objects in anthropology, and a site where anthropological expertise might inform public administration, the settler-colonial affiliations and experiences of many leading physical anthropologists could also directly shape theories of human variation, both physical and cultural. Antipodean anthropologists like Grafton Elliot Smith were pre-adapted to diffusionist models that explained cultural achievement in terms of the migration, contact and mixing of peoples. Trained in comparative methods, these fractious cosmopolitans (...) also favoured a dynamic human biology, often emphasizing the heterogeneity and environmental plasticity of body form and function, and viewing fixed, static racial typologies and hierarchies sceptically. By following leading representatives of empire anatomy and physical anthropology, such as Elliot Smith and Frederic Wood Jones, around the globe, it is possible to recover the colonial entanglements and biases of interwar British anthropology, moving beyond a simple inventory of imperial sources, and crediting human biology and social anthropology not just as colonial sciences but as the sciences of itinerant colonials. (shrink)

This article examines how British philosophers of the 1930s grappled with the relationship between reason, emotion, and democratic citizenship in the context of a perceived “crisis of democracy” in Europe. Focusing especially on Bertrand Russell, Susan Stebbing, and John Macmurray, it argues that philosophers working from diverse philosophical perspectives shared a sense that the crisis of democracy was simultaneously a crisis of reason and one of emotion. They tended to frame this crisis in terms of three interrelated concerns: first, as (...) a problem of balancing or integrating reason and emotion; second, as a problem of the relationship between emotions and democratic citizenship; and third, as a problem of how to properly train or educate the emotions. Significantly, British philosophers addressed these issues most directly in writings for a non-professional audience, as they sought to translate their professional expertise into popular works that might rejuvenate democratic citizenship. This historical episode is a reminder of how philosophers were deeply engaged in the cultural politics of the interwar period and is a telling example of how personalist concerns were central to philosophy even as the “analytic revolution” was gathering steam. (shrink)

In “Autobiography as Mystery: Father Brown and the Case of G.K. Chesterton,” Chene Heady argues that G.K. Chesterton’s Autobiography (1936) complicates common scholarly assumptions about both genre and literary authorship. The popular Edwardian writer G.K. Chesterton produced an improbably vast and diffuse literary oeuvre. Chesterton’s scholarly advocates have typically defending him by redefining him in more specialized and more manageable terms; he becomes either the sage-like nonfiction writer who wrote Orthodoxy or the mystery writer who invented Father Brown. However, Chesterton (...) himself derided the cult of the expert, and mocked the tendency towards literary specialization as elitist. In his Autobiography, he refuses basic genre distinctions by insisting that the work should be read as a detective novel; the work’s climax reverses the relationship between creator and creation, as Father Brown solves the mystery of G.K Chesterton. By making this structural equation between autobiography and mystery, Chesterton asserts the fundamental identity between these hermeneutical enterprises. The Autobiography ultimately posits a fundamental equivalence between all the cultural practices by which we find meaning in the world around us, a premise that serves both to justify Chesterton’s eclectic model of authorship and to enable him to hope for cultural unity in deeply divided interwar Britain. (shrink)

The interwar years in Britain are regularly referred to by historians and literary commentators as the Golden Age of detective fiction. This article focuses on the Collins imprint the Crime Club, established in 1930. It assesses the significance of this imprint in the context of the Golden Age, with a focus on its commercial animus, drawing on theories about class-based markets and the commercialization of print culture. The article examines the marketing methods used by the Crime Club to (...) promote its titles, such as newsletters and card games, and takes into consideration the arguments of 1930s literary critics. It aims to show that detective fiction had a significant role in the commercialization of print culture during the 1930s and that its success heavily relied upon the support of a middle-class readership. (shrink)

Reedition of papers in English spanning from 1986 to 2009 /// Historical background -- An imposed legacy -- Twentieth century contemporaneity -- Appendix: The philosophy of teaching legal philosophy in Hungary /// HISTORICAL BACKGROUND -- PHILOSOPHY OF LAW IN CENTRAL & EASTERN EUROPE: A SKETCH OF HISTORY [1999] 11–21 // PHILOSOPHISING ON LAW IN THE TURMOIL OF COMMUNIST TAKEOVER IN HUNGARY (TWO PORTRAITS, INTERWAR AND POSTWAR: JULIUS MOÓR & ISTVÁN LOSONCZY) [2001–2002] 23–39: Julius Moór 23 / István Losonczy 29 (...) // ON THE SURVIVAL OF ILMAR TAMMELO’S LETTER AND MANUSCRIPT ADDRESSED TO PROFESSOR MOÓR [2009] 41–44 // PROFESSIONAL DISTRESS AND SCARCITY: ALEXANDER HORVÁTH AND THE LEGACY OF NATURAL LAW IN HUNGARY [2005] 45–50 // HUNGARIAN LEGAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE 20TH CENTURY [2011] 51–72: I. The Pre-war Period [1. Bódog (Felix) Somló (1871–1920) 52] / II. The Inter-war Period [2. Gyula (Julius) Moór (1888–1950) 54 / 3. Barna Horváth (1896–1973) 55 / 4. József Szabó (1909–1992) 57 / 5. István Bibó (1911–1979) 58 / 6. Tibor Vas (1911–1983) 59 / 7. István Losonczy (1918–1980) 60] III. The Post-war Period (Communism) 61 [8. Imre Szabó (1912–1991) 62 / 9. Vilmos Peschka (1929–2006) 63 / 10. Kálmán Kulcsár (1928–2010) 65] IV. Contemporary Trends and Perspectives 66 [11. Csaba Varga (b. 1941) 66 / 12. András Sajó (b. 1949) 69 / 13. Béla Pokol (b. 1950) 70] V. Our Understanding of the Law Today 71 --- AN IMPOSED LEGACY -- LOOKING BACK [1999] 75–94: 1. On Ideologies and Marxism in general 75 / 2. Life of an Intellectual in Communism 79 / 3. On Marxism and its Socialist Cultivation in Particular 82 / 4. Legal Philosophising [4.1. Approaches to Law 87 / 4.2. Arriving at a Legal Ontology 91] 5. Conclusion 94 // LEGAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE MARXISM OF SOCIALISM: HUNGARIAN OVERVIEW IN AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE [2003] 95–151: I. Development and Balance of Marxist Philosophising on Law in Hungary [1. Preliminaries (until 1948) 96 / 2. Stalinism (from the Soviet Occupation on) {a) Liquidation of the »Residues« 98 / b) Soviet-type Uniformisation [Gleichschaltung] 99 / c) Denial of the Past, with a Dual Effect 99 / d) »Socialist Legality«, Drawn from the Progressive Past of Western Europe 103 / e) Search for the Germs of Scholarly Evolution 103} 3. Institutionalisation Accompanied by Relaxation (from the 1960s) [a) Epigonism Becoming the Scholarly Ideal 104 / b) Stalinism in a Critical Self-perspective 105 / c) Disciples Diversified Launching their own Trends 107 / d) Comparatism 110 / e) (Re)discovery of the Western Legal Philosophy as a Competitor 112 / f) A Leading Mediatory Role within the »Socialist World Order« 114} 4. Disintegration (in the 1980s) {a) Attempt at Laying New Foundations for Marxism with Epigonism Exhausted 115 / b) Competitive Trends Becoming Exclusive 115 / c) Western Legal Philosophy Acknowledged as a Fellow-traveller within the Socialist Orbit Proper 116 / d) Hungarian Legal Theory Transforming into a National Corpus 118 / e) The Practical Promotion of Some Balance 119} 5. End-game for a Substitute State Religion (in the 1990s) 120] II. Marxist Legal Philosophising in an International Perspective [Ad 1: To the Preliminaries 122 / Ad 2: To Stalinism 124 / Ad 3: To Institutionalisation Accompanied by Relaxation {a) Late Separation from Vishinskiy’s Theory 125 / b) From Ideological Self-closure to an Apparently Scholarly Openness 127 / c) From Political Ideology to Genuine Scholarship 130 / d) International Recognition of Socialist Jurisprudence as an Independent Trend 135 / e) Together with Western Trends 137} Ad 4: To Disintegration {a) Loss of Attraction as Mere Epigonism 139 / b) Exclusivity of Competing Trends 139 / c) Fellowship with »Bourgeois« Trends 140 / d) An own Trend, Internationally Recognised 141 / e) A yet Progressive Role 142} Ad 5: To the Present state 143] III. A Temporary Balance 145 // AUTONOMY AND INSTRUMENTALITY OF LAW IN A SUPERSTRUCTURAL PERSPECTIVE [1986] 151–175: 1. The Strange Fate of Concepts 151 / I. A Relational Category 2. Basis and Superstructure: The Genuine Meaning 154 / 3. Exerting Social Influence as a Conceptual Minimum 156 / 4. Relationships within the Prevailing Totality 158 / 5. Attempts at Interpretation in Hungary 159 / 6. The Lukácsian Stand 162 / 7. Lukács’s Recognitions 168 / 8. Some Criticism 169 / II. The Law’s Understanding 171 / 9. Law Interpreted as Superstructure 171 / 10. Conclusions Drawn for the Law’s Understanding 173 // LEGAL THEORY IN TRANSITION (A PREFACE FROM HUNGARY) [2000] 177–186 // DEVELOPMENT OF THEORETICAL LEGAL THOUGHT IN HUNGARY AT THE TURN OF THE MILLENNIUM [2006] 187–215: 1. International Environment 188 / 2. The Situation in Hungary 190 / 3. Outlook I: The Historical-comparative Study of Legal Cultures and of the Lawyerly Way of Thinking 203 / 4. Outlook II: The Paradigmatic Enigma of the Transition to Rule of Law 207 / 5. Incongruity in Practice 213 / 6. Perspectives 214 --- TWENTIETH CENTURY CONTEMPORANEITY -- CHANGE OF PARADIGMS IN LEGAL RECONSTRUCTION: CARL SCHMITT AND THE TEMPTATION TO FINALLY REACH A SYNTHESIS [2002] 219–234: 1. Dangers of Intellectualism 219 / 2. Schmitt in Facts 221 / 3. Schmitt and Kelsen 222 / 4. On Bordering Conditions 226 / 5. With Kelsen in Transubstantiation 230 / 6. Polarisation as the Path of Theoretical Development 232 // KELSENIAN DOCUMENTS IN HUNGARY: CHAPTERS ON CONTACTS, INCLUDING THE GENESIS OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY [2006] 235–243: 1. Preludes 235 / 2. The Search for Moór’s Bequeath 235 / 3. Moór’s Collegiality 238 / 4. Bibó as a Disciple Translating 241 // THE »HART-PHENOMENON« [2002] 245–267: I. The Hart-miracle 246 [1. The Scene of Britain at the Time 247 / 2. The Personal Career 250 / 3. The Opus’ Career 252 / 4. Verbal Sociologism 255 / 5. Growing into the British Pattern 259] II. The Hart-phenomenon 260 [6. Origination of a Strange Orthodoxy 261 / 7. Mastering Periods of the 20th Century 263 / 8. Raising the Issue of Reception in Hungary 365] // LITERATURE? A SUBSTITUTE FOR LEGAL PHILOSOPHY? [2007] 269–287: 1. The Enigma of Law and its Study 269 / 2. “Law and Literature” 271 / 3. Varieties of “Law and Literature” 274 / 4. The German Study of Artistic Representations 280 / 5. Some Literary Reconsiderations 285 / 6. Conclusion 287 --- APPENDIX -- THE PHILOSOPHY OF TEACHING LEGAL PHILOSOPHY IN HUNGARY [2007] 291–320: I. Why and How to Philosophise in Law? 291 / II. The State of Teaching Legal Philosophy 294 / III. The Philosophy of Teaching Legal Philosophy 296 / IV. Programme at the Catholic University of Hungary 300 [1. Graduate Studies 300 {a) Basic Subjects 301 / b) Facultative Seminars 305 / c) Closing Subjects 309 / d) Written Memoranda and the Thesis 312} 2. Postgraduate Studies 313 / 3. Conclusion 317] V. Perspectives 318 /// Index of Subjects 321 / Index of Normative Materials 328 / Index of Names 329 . (shrink)

Recent criticisms of the Rhodes Must Fall (RMF) Oxford campaign have problematized the presence of Black bodies within British higher education by reference to an ideal image of the impartial and discerning academy. In this article, I historically and intellectually contextualize the apprehension, expressed in the debates over RMF Oxford, that an intimate Black presence destabilizes the ethos of higher education. Specifically, I argue that much more than Rhodes’ statue implicates the British academy in the Empire’s southern African interests. I (...) excavate a genealogy of academic debates regarding the effects of an increased proximity of Black presence to empire’s white spaces. These debates were initiated by social anthropologists in the interwar years primarily (albeit not solely) with regards to studies of southern Africa’s urbanizing spaces. What is more, such debates were highly influential to the study of ‘race relations’ in Britain’s postwar era of Commonwealth immigration. Critically, all these debates problematized the cognitive competency of African/Black peoples to inhabit white cultural spaces – including the academy – in ways that were not destabilizing of imperial order. Current campus campaigns such as RMF should not be evaluated against an ideal image of the academy. Rather, they form part of a continued confrontation with the afterlives of academic dispositions that were implicated in the imperial project that Rhodes was integral to. (shrink)

This study surveys the career and political philosophy of Alexander Raven Thomson, one of Sir Oswald Mosley's lieutenants in the British Union of Fascists (BUF), the largest party on the extreme right in Britain in the interwar era. It explores key issues relating to the BUF, such as: What type of society did Thomson and the Blackshirts wish to establish in Britain? Who were some of the major domestic and international intellectual influences on him and the BUF? (...) Was the BUF essentially a homegrown movement or was it, as critics argued, an imitation of Italian and German fascism? What does Thomson's career reveal about the inner politics of the movement? The aim of this article is to provide a better understanding of Thomson, one of the lesser-studied BUF officials, and of the movement to which he devoted his life. (shrink)

This article considers some of the late-Victorian and Edwardian influences on the popular historian, Sir Arthur Bryant in the 20th century. It emphasises Bryant's role in strengthening patriotism and English national identity in the unpropitious circumstances of interwar and postwar Britain. The article examines his conservative cast of mind, one he communicated through best-selling histories and prolific journalism. It emphasises his increasing distance from organised Conservatism after the Second World War and the sympathy he attracted in some quarters (...) of the Labour movement at the end of his life, as well as earlier on. However, it concludes that Bryant is a vital link between the late-19th century ‘moment’ of Englishness and its recent revival among Conservative thinkers, publicists and politicians. (shrink)

The idea that the city is a place of sin and immorality is as old as urban civilization. But what does anti-urban thought mean in societies which are highly urbanized under the conditions of modern industrialism? Furthermore, is anti-urbanism in the interwar period a German völkisch phenomenon––one further stride on Germany's special path? And what does rural revival and the “back-to-the-land” cult mean in Great Britain, the first industrial nation? This article seeks to provide an answer to these (...) questions by exploring anti-urbanist writing between the End of the First World War and 1933 in Germany, and 1939 in Britain. By examining two key themes it aims to show that the clear-cut distinction between German anti-urban radicalisation and the West's coming to terms with urbanisation cannot be maintained. Firstly, attention will be drawn to the ambiguity of perceptions of the city in the writings of “Conservative Revolutionary” authors in the Weimar Republic. In a second step, the British “back-to-the-land” movement, whose advocates developed comprehensive anti-urban third-way theories in the interwar period and were themselves part of a broader popular anti-industrial movement and a rural cult throughout the 1930s, will be examined. (shrink)

The admiration of the Soviet Union amongst Britain's interwar scientific left is well known. This article reveals a parallel story. Focusing on the biologists Julian Huxley and Lancelot Hogben and the scientific journalist J.G. Crowther, I show that a number of scientific thinkers began to look west, to the US. In the mid- to late 1930s and into the 1940s, Huxley, Crowther and Hogben all visited the US and commented favourably on Roosevelt's New Deal, in particular its experimental (...) approach to politics. Huxley was first to appreciate the significance of the experiment; he looked to the Tennessee Valley Authority as a model of democratic planning by persuasion that could also be applied in Britain. Crowther, meanwhile, examined the US through the lens of history of science. In Famous American Men of Science and in lectures at Harvard University, he aimed to shed light on the flaws in the Constitution which were frustrating the New Deal. Finally, Hogben's interest in the US was related to his long-standing opposition to dialectical materialism, and when he finally saw the US at first hand, he regarded it as a model for how to bring about a planned socialist society through peaceful persuasion. (shrink)

Historians of the eugenics movement have long been ambivalent in their examination of the links between British hereditary researchers and Nazi Germany. While there is now a clear consensus that American eugenics provided significant material and ideological support for the Germans, the evidence remains less clear in the British case where comparatively few figures openly supported the Nazi regime and the left-wing critique of eugenics remained particularly strong. After the Second World War British eugenicists had to push back against the (...) accusation that their science was intrinsically dictatorial or totalitarian and, as a result, many of their early perceptions of the Nazis were ignored or rationalised away. Further, historians in recent years have focused more directly on the social reformist elements of eugenics, discussing the links between hereditary science and the birth control and feminist movements in addition to others. While undoubtedly making valuable contributions to the scholarly understanding of the eugenic milieu in the interwar years, these studies have neglected to recontextualize the sentiments of British eugenicists who did indeed view the Nazi government positively in the early years of the 1930s. This article argues that there was a significant, though not numerically sizable, faction in the British eugenics movement, though mostly outside the Eugenics Society itself, in the early 1930s that viewed the Nazi Germany as an admirable state for its implementation of eugenic principles. One of these figures was later interned by his own government for being too closely aligned with the German regime, though he argued that this affinity was driven by the quest for scientific truth rather than politics. Eugenics in Britain thus contained a greater diversity of views toward Germany than scholars have previously assumed, warranting more research into the individuals and organizations harbouring these views. (shrink)

Historians of the eugenics movement have long been ambivalent in their examination of the links between British hereditary researchers and Nazi Germany. While there is now a clear consensus that American eugenics provided significant material and ideological support for the Germans, the evidence remains less clear in the British case where comparatively few figures openly supported the Nazi regime and the left-wing critique of eugenics remained particularly strong. After the Second World War British eugenicists had to push back against the (...) accusation that their science was intrinsically dictatorial or totalitarian and, as a result, many of their early perceptions of the Nazis were ignored or rationalised away. Further, historians in recent years have focused more directly on the social reformist elements of eugenics, discussing the links between hereditary science and the birth control and feminist movements in addition to others. While undoubtedly making valuable contributions to the scholarly understanding of the eugenic milieu in the interwar years, these studies have neglected to recontextualize the sentiments of British eugenicists who did indeed view the Nazi government positively in the early years of the 1930s. This article argues that there was a significant, though not numerically sizable, faction in the British eugenics movement, though mostly outside the Eugenics Society itself, in the early 1930s that viewed the Nazi Germany as an admirable state for its implementation of eugenic principles. One of these figures was later interned by his own government for being too closely aligned with the German regime, though he argued that this affinity was driven by the quest for scientific truth rather than politics. Eugenics in Britain thus contained a greater diversity of views toward Germany than scholars have previously assumed, warranting more research into the individuals and organizations harbouring these views. (shrink)

Christopher Dawson identified with sociology, wrote extensively for the original Sociological Review, was a stalwart of the Sociological Society in the interwar years, achieved international recognition as a sociologist, engaged with Karl Mannheim and the Moot, and in the postwar period defended meta-history and the sociologically oriented historical work of people like Marc Bloch. He ultimately became regarded as the greatest Catholic historian of the twentieth century, and became a Harvard Professor and a cult figure for American and European (...) Catholics. This paper describes this remarkable trajectory, his absence from the later self-understanding of British sociology, and his key ideas, including his Bellah-like account of the axial age and his extensive response to Weber’s Protestant Ethic and to the extension of these ideas in Ernst Troetlsch. (shrink)

Evidence favors the nested sets hypothesis, introduced by fuzzy-trace theory (FTT) in the 1990s to explain effects and extended to many tasks, including conjunction fallacy, syllogistic reasoning, and base-rate effects (e.g., Brainerd & Reyna 1990; Reyna 1991; 2004; Reyna & Adam 2003; Reyna & Brainerd 1995). Crucial differences in mechanisms distinguish the FTT and Barbey & Sloman (B&S) accounts, but both contrast with frequency predictions (see Reyna & Brainerd, in press).

As the first President of the Royal Academy of Arts, Joshua Reynolds played a pivotal role in shaping the course of British art in the 18th century. In these discourses, Reynolds reflects on the nature of art, the role of the artist, and the importance of aesthetic education. With insightful commentary on the works of the Old Masters and a wealth of practical advice for aspiring artists, this volume is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of art or (...) art theory. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

John V. Taylor was a missionary statesman, ecumenist, Africanist, onetime General Secretary of the Church Missionary Society, and later Anglican Bishop of Winchester. His work offers a theology and practice of Christian mission which is faithful to scripture while fully facing the facts of the contemporary world at the beginning of the third millennium. Does Christian evangelism promote sectarianism and violence, or can it contribute to harmony and peace in the global village? Can Christians extol the true significance of Jesus (...) Christ without demeaning others? Who is God and how does God's nature shape ours? This book tackles these and other vital issues by giving the first major account of the life and thought of one of the 20th century's greatest religious thinkers. Here is an example and tutor to any thoughtful Christian. Consistently incarnational and sacramental in his approach, Taylor seeks to live out the truths he discovers in his daily ministry as poet, priest and prophet - inviting those around him to share the way of Christ. Taylor is also author of major works such as "The Go-Between God", his book on the Holy Spirit, and "The Christlike God", where he outlines the distinctive Christian insight into God as the patient, generous, self-sacrificing love we see in Jesus. (shrink)