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Capitalism and Colonies. Jamaica and Saint-Domingue

Two recent books offer new perspectives on the slave system in the Caribbean, with a particular focus on Saint-Domingue. Their primary purpose – the economic development sustained by slavery – leads the authors to very different conclusions.

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Holidays in the #Highlands. The development of mass tourism in the 18th and 19th centuries

Long weighed down by historical prejudice, the Highlands slowly started to attract the public’s interest from the mid-18th century onwards. With the development of mass tourism, public perceptions of the Scottish region gradually improved, fostering its integration within Great Britain.

▻http://www.booksandideas.net/Scottish-Tourism.html
#Ecosse #tourisme #tourisme_de_masse #géographie_culturelle

L’Invention de l’Écosse. Premiers touristes dans les Highlands

Que serait l’Écosse sans #Walter_Scott ? Sous sa plume, l’histoire tourmentée de la région devint #légende. Et ses lochs insondables, ses montagnes battues par les éléments, ses ruines « gothiques », son peuple aux coutumes archaïques l’incarnation d’un passé grandiose. Au XVIIIe siècle, lettrés, curieux, explorateurs et amateurs du premier #romantisme sont ainsi, peu à peu, partis à la découverte des Highlands. En quelques années, cet attrait pour la nature sauvage en a fait la destination la plus prisée des Britanniques. Sur le terrain, on se confronte avec étonnement aux « indigènes », on s’émerveille, on apprend l’art du loisir et du voyage : de nouvelles routes surgissent, de nouvelles auberges, des circuits balisés ; une économie du loisir se met en place. Pour le plus grand profit des habitants. Et du royaume tout entier, qui voit ainsi la pacification de contrées hostiles à la Couronne.

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Michel Chevalier : Visionary of Modern #Europe ? - Books & ideas
▻http://www.booksandideas.net/Michel-Chevalier-Visionary-of-Modern-Europe.html

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Leading 19th century statesman, political economist, architect of the 1860 commercial treaty between France and the United Kingdom, and campaigner for peace between European nations, Michel Chevalier had also been a dominant voice in the Romantic socialism of Saint-Simonianism: the eclectic nature of his thought would lend itself to a particular vision of Europe, forerunner of today’s European Union.

In December 1880 a group of French workers completed the first stage of a colossal engineering project near Sangatte. The building of an underground railway tunnel linking France and Britain, the first Channel Tunnel, had begun. First conceived by a French mining engineer Albert Mathieu-Favier in 1802, this great venture found its leading crusaders after the 1830 Revolution. One of them, a young, ambitious and visionary French mining engineer Michel Chevalier (1806-1879) seized on the idea of a channel tunnel to articulate a new economic and political vision for France, Britain, and Europe. Throughout his life Chevalier laboured to make this vision a reality, and in 1875 he founded La compagnie de chemin de fer sous-marin entre la France et l’Angleterre. Investors on both sides of the channel were transported by Chevalier’s vision and poured money into the company. But his and their faith in the project was dashed when the British military successfully lobbied its government to withdraw its support, fearing the tunnel would be used as an invasion route. In 1883 work on the project was stopped. It would take over a century to reverse that decision.

Heaven for Hull ? - Books & ideas
▻http://www.booksandideas.net/Heaven-for-Hull.html

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Once celebrated as the third British port behind London and Liverpool, Kingston-upon-Hull descended into disrepute with the 1970s economic crisis and has, more or less every year since then, topped the list of Britain’s “crap cities”. The contested choice of Hull as UK City of Culture 2017 has raised high hopes about a possible renaissance. But in the era of austerity and Brexit, there are reasons to question the benefits the City of Culture experience may yield for Hull’s common people.

#urban_matter #royaume_uni #hull

The Real Story of Haiti’s Forests

Changing the narrative around deforestation and charcoal in Haiti. Deforestation and charcoal production are often seen as the principal culprits for the endemic poverty in Haiti. This essay calls for a new narrative. Not only is this picture of Haiti incomplete and inaccurate, it is also counterproductive to the economic development of the country.

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The Psyche of Fascists

The experience of the Second World War prompted the in-depth reform of psychiatry, as social factors were included in the explanation of psychic illnesses. It also served as a justification for the psychiatric and political re-education of political opponents—as Ana Antic shows, based on patient files from a Yugoslav institute.

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What are Philanthropic Organizations Hiding ? - Books & ideas
▻http://www.booksandideas.net/What-are-Philanthropic-Organizations-Hiding.html

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An Interview with Linsey McGoey
by Nicolas Larchet & Marc-Olivier Déplaude , 13 February

Linsey McGoey discusses philanthropic organizations such as the Gates Foundation and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Addressing the problematic aspects of “philanthrocapitalism”, she draws attention to the growing lack of transparency and accountability of those foundations.

sur l’accès aux informations, on ne peut pas dire qu’on nage dans la #transparence que la fondation exige de ceux à qui elle donne de l’argent :

I think we’re facing an upward struggle when it comes to accessing the decision-making dynamics of these institutions, and I think problems of non-transparency are bound to become worse in upcoming years. Therefore, we have to be realistic about the risks ahead. When you look at an organization like the Gates foundation, most of my interviews from this book did not come from staff there. It’s true, I managed to secure two interviews with staff there before my access was shut down. They were both carried out by phone, I never visited the organization, I was never invited to engage in a deep way. But I was able to elicit useful information about other activities by people who were affected by their practices. I did interviews at places like the World Health Organization, Médecins Sans Frontières, a number of different organizations that have both praise and concerns towards the foundation.

#philanthrocapitalisme #fondation_gates

mais il y a toujours moyen de faire pire que Bill Gates :

one of my biggest concerns, for example with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which was established in 2015 by Mark Zuckerberg, is that it’s not a traditional philanthropic organization. It’s a limited-liability company, and as a result of its structural corporate data, it is not subject to the same disclosure regulations that the Gates Foundation faces. We will likely know a lot less about the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative than we do about the Gates Foundation. We will be very much reliant on what they wish the public to know.

History and Comics

What if historians and cartoonists teamed up with each other? For such a partnership to work, one might choose to illustrate “great History.” Or, better yet, one can find inspiration in graphic investigations guided by a reasoning and based on new sources and original questions.

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We Don’t Need Another Hero: Understanding #Digifeminism - An Interview with Angela Washko

In a lively interview, cyberfeminist Angela Washko explains how “digi-feminism” is currently challenging cybersexism and existing conditions of the web; she discusses her past and current video projects and how to fight harassment against cyberactivist on the web. And if you ask her what the political aspect of her work is, she will say “all of it is political”.
▻http://www.booksandideas.net/We-Don-t-Need-Another-Hero-Understanding-Digifeminism.html

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#jeux_video #femmes #forum #wow #Roosh_V #gamergate #harcèlement

Social Mix, Control and Gentrification

Public policies often encourage gentrification in the name of social mix, among other arguments. In urban research, however, this type of discourse is the subject of intense criticism.

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The devils from the Thousand Hills

Although the massacres in Rwanda did not take place in the context of a religious war, religion did play an important role: identifying the #Tutsi with the devil caused violence to spread throughout society.

▻http://www.booksandideas.net/The-devils-from-the-Thousand-Hills.html
#Rwanda #génocide #livre

Unfinished Modernity - Books & ideas

▻http://www.booksandideas.net/Unfinished-Modernity.html

signalé par mail par @isskein et ça m’a l’air fort bien.

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Scattered all over the world are abandoned places, promises of modernity that history, economics or politics have shattered. The Suspended Spaces collective has undertaken to project the gaze of contemporary artists onto these ghostly spaces.

Created in 2007 and based in Paris, Suspended Spaces is a collective that brings together academics, artists and theoreticians around fragile and vulnerable spaces that have been abandoned by modernity. This collective is an organic structure, which calls on international academics and artists from different fields in accordance with the places it is travelling to.

The initial project started on the island of Cyprus, with the discovery of the town of Famagusta, whose Greek-Cypriot inhabitants were forcibly evacuated in 1974, as Turkey was taking control of the North of the island. Varosha, a huge modern district of Famagusta that used to be a touristic sea resort, has been guarded for 40 years by the Turkish army, and now appears in an empty and ghostly form to the gazes of those who manage to get close to it.

The Origins of Mass #Surveillance

By tracing the history of surveillance in Europe and the Soviet bloc, the historian Sophie Cœuré explains the differences between democracies and dictatorships in this area. She also urges us to put things in perspective: We do not (yet) live in a “surveillance society.”

▻http://www.booksandideas.net/The-Origins-of-Mass-Surveillance.html

Should Images of Violence be Shown?

Scenes of lynching, beheadings, corpses… Although easily accessible on the Internet, images of violence are often occulted in the French media. Why are some images shown while others are kept out of circulation? Are some forms of violence unfit to be seen?

▻http://www.booksandideas.net/Should-Images-of-Violence-be-Shown.html

#images #photographie #violence

cc @albertocampiphoto

Living in a Laboratory: #New_Orleans Today

To live in New Orleans after Katrina is to witness the sweeping incursion of neoliberal policy in the guise of redevelopment and “resilience.” Crisis has worked as a lever for gentrification and intensified segregation. A closer look at the city’s development is instructive, for it might very well be the model for urban policies in places as different as New York, Cleveland or Detroit.

▻http://www.booksandideas.net/Living-in-a-Laboratory-New-Orleans-Today.html
#Katrina #résilience
cc @reka

Searching for the Origins of #AIDS

The question of the origin of AIDS has given rise to a wealth of studies. Moving away from conspiracy theories or culturalist readings, Guillaume Lachenal shows that the key issue is retracing the colonial, epidemiological, and sexual context that fostered the propagation of the virus rather than identifying a specific cause.

▻http://www.booksandideas.net/Searching-for-the-Origins-of-AIDS.html
#SIDA #HIV #santé

The #Putin Doctrine

Putin is anti-modern, conservative and expansionist. He is convinced that the Western world in general and Europe in particular are decadent, and advocates a “Russian way”, which he views as an alternative political and social model. Michel Eltchaninoff has analysed this doctrine for us.

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The Origins of the Islamic State

Is the Islamic State a state, as it claims to be? Or does it designate a new form of imperial sovereignty? Matthieu Rey traces the history of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, starting with European colonial rule and the two Gulf wars.

▻http://www.booksandideas.net/The-Origins-of-the-Islamic-State.html
#Etat_islamique #ISIS #EI

Not Quite White? The Lebanese of West Africa - Books & ideas
▻http://www.booksandideas.net/Not-Quite-White-The-Lebanese-of-West-Africa.html

‘Towards the end of his life, the anthropologist Fuad I. Khuri recalled being stopped by an immigration official at Kumasi airport in Ghana. On being asked his nationality, he answered, without a thought, “Lebanese”. The officer then, Khuri recounted, “tilted his head forward, and repeated slowly: ‘Na-tio-na-li-ty?’. When again being told ‘Yes! Le-ba-nese,’ he took a deep breath and said, with a touch of anger, “Sir, I am not asking about your profession!”’

#Liban #émigration #Afrique

The Substance of Modernity. Food and the Alimentary Sciences in Eighteenth-Century France

Emma Spary’s new book #Feeding_France explores the rise of the food expert as public figure from the eighteenth century onwards, considering in particular the life-story of Antoine Parmentier, who introduced the potato into the country. The history of food consumption trends, which remains largely unexplored, tells a tale of persuasion, food crises and controversy.

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