Review of Politics and Religion in Ancient and Medieval Europe and China, edited by Frederick Hok-ming Cheung and Ming-chiu Lai (original) (raw)
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Trauma and Memory: The case of the Great Famine in the People's Republic of China (1959-1961)
Historiography East and West, 2003
Taking the Great Famine from 1959 to 1961 in the aftermath of the Great Leap Forward as an example, the article presents an inquiry into different aspects of trauma and memory in the context of culture and politics in the PRC. It shows that even in a highly politicized environment like the PRC politics in its capacity to either suppress or instigate public debate about individual or collective memories is not the only, probably not even the most important factor in making individual remembrances about events of traumatic dimensions enter the realm of communicative and possibly cultural memory. Besides psychological factors complicating communication about traumatic experiences cultural particularities have to be taken into account in order to be able to answer the question why the Great Famine could have been the subject of a taboo for such a long time and why it eventually re-emerged at the surface of public debate during the nineteen eighties and nineties. While party historians a...
International Review of Social History, 2016
wage labourers who had no assured entitlements to subsistence. Viswanath, thus, usefully contradicts the commonsensical attribution of a single imperial logic or character to the colonial state, across space and time, even though, she does admit that something like a singular "state effect" did prevail. From the early twentieth century, two important developments reconfigured the scenario. On one hand, Indians began to be nominated for legislative bodies and the eventual entry of untouchable members created a more effective site for continuing the conflicts around caste and labour. On the other hand, the emergence of anti-colonial mass movements made the state keen to keep Panchamas out of the nationalist upsurge and inclined it slightly towards reforms. The colonial state now tilted towards some reform measures in order to keep Panchamas out of the nationalist movements. Unfortunately, Viswanath does not describe the content of this new liberalism, nor how it was transmitted to the colonial officialdom. The new elements introduced by an upper caste dominated nationalism into the earlier dynamic are not particularly well substantiated. These, however, are minor quibbles about an otherwise substantial and excellent work. All four narrative structural elements are closely historicized, and large and small shifts within each of these elements, as well as internal differences and their changing mutual relationships are meticulously tracked. The complicated history is expressed with exemplary lucidity and elegance. Viswanath elaborates and clarifies all the interlocking variables while providing a sparkling account whose crisp narrative elucidates the dense complexity of its plot ingredients. The work puts faces and flesh on long term and intricate historical processes. It retrieves the material dimensions of caste and vividly explains the ways in which they reshaped untouchable lives and struggles.
Politics, Starvation, and Memory: A Critique of Red Famine
Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 2019
Applebaum confidently and mistakenly proclaims that “as a nation,” Ukrainians now know what happened in the last century (367). Yet, in reality, many Ukrainians know only part of what happened—and right now, their government seems determined that they will not learn more but will learn some fresh, nationalist lies, too. Some of the same activists, institutions, and politicians who have stressed the famine—that is, Ukrainians understood most of all as victims—deny and downplay the history of Ukrainian World War II nationalism: that is, a history in which Ukrainians acted as perpetrators too often to be fit subjects for simplified nationalist tales. This convergence is not a Soviet or Russian deception, easily dismissed Cold War style by a knowing cui bono, but a reality that, at this moment, Ukraine is mostly resolutely failing to address. Against this background it is particularly saddening and ironic that in its pursuit of a famine memory that will be useful to the nation, Red Famine misses a key fact—that to do so, it must first escape the continuing, even growing power of the nationalists.
From Famine to Feasts: A case of history repeated
Analyse the socio-political background to the famine or the Celtic Tiger to show if things could have been done to prevent what happened subsequently. The Great Hunger – The effect of immoral and unethical standards and decisions of the British Government and social and political leaders in Ireland which led directly to the decimation of the population