Journal articles on the topic 'Britain; Imperial influence; Chinese history'

ABSTRACTThis article argues that the restaurant offers a useful site for mapping patterns of transnational and global exchange within late Victorian and Edwardian London. The dramatic expansion of public eating in this period was met in part by foreign-born entrepreneurs, and wait and kitchen staff drawn from a genuinely international labour market. Londoners and visitors to the metropolis were exposed to a variety of new, often hybrid, culinary cultures, which call into question simplistic binaries between Britain and the world beyond. The simultaneous presence in London's restaurant scene of French menus, Indian dishes, Italian cooks, German waiters, and Chinese and American diners reveals the complexity of the relationship between populations and places. London's ‘gastro-cosmopolitan’ culture reveals not merely the extent to which Britain's imperial metropolis was exposed to transnational forces, but that these influences were genuinely global and not confined to Britain's formal empire. London's cosmopolitan dining culture suggests that historians might be advised to move beyond the tropes of danger and anxiety when discussing late nineteenth-century London, and do more to acknowledge a range of responses – attraction and pleasure included – which more accurately reflected the metropolitan experience.

‘An imperial policy is essentially a commercial policy’(Charles Addis, 1905)‘Look at the way we have swindled the Chinese in the case of the Pekin Syndicate and still worse in the case of the Chinese Engineering and Mining Company’(G.E. Morrison, 1906)

Abstract This article examines John Bruce’s vision of the bureaucratic archives of the British state and empire at the end of the eighteenth century. As Historiographer to the East India Company and Keeper of State Papers in the 1790s and early 1800s, Bruce used the archives of corporate and state government as sources of bureaucratic knowledge to justify and plan imperial and domestic policy. In this way, Bruce deployed a strategy of governance by the authority of “state papers,” rooted in early modern political practice, across imperial and domestic government. The demise of Bruce’s influence signaled the waning of this role of the archive as a technology of governance in Britain during the nineteenth century.

For two decades, John James Audubon (1785–1851) travelled widely and frequently while working on his illustrated natural history volumes – still highly prized today for their aesthetic and scientific merit: Birds of America (1827–1838) and Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America (1846–1854). Neither independently wealthy nor employed as a salaried scientist, the artist-naturalist with a flair for marketing financed his projects by selling subscriptions. Successfully marketing Birds to members of the British aristocracy, as well as to organizations and to artistic and intellectual elites, Audubon was reluctant to take Quadrupeds to Britain even though sales there were key to the financial viability of his work. Instead, in 1842 Audubon travelled to Canada (now Ontario and Quebec), the most populous region of British North America. The colony was, he calculated, a viable source of subscribers; however, he was wrong. Moreover, having travelled to British North America previously, he should have expected modest returns. Nonetheless, he was optimistic that this expedition would succeed where those to New Brunswick (1832) and Labrador and Newfoundland (1833) had failed. This paper examines why success eluded Audubon in the colonies, arguing that entrepreneurialism buttressed by patronage – a winning strategy in Britain – failed because there was a vast difference between metropolis and hinterland when it came to supporting the arts and sciences.

Victory over Spain in 1898 provided the United States with the opportunity to pursue the various options that imperial status now offered. Indeed, under the influence of the strategic precepts of an Alfred Thayer Mahan, the messianic expansionism of a Josiah Strong, the extended frontier concept of a Frederick Jackson Turner, and the now seemingly obtainable economic aspirations of a James G. Blaine, North Americans looked to their newly established imperial arena with anticipation and confidence. It would be the adjacent circum-Caribbean region, for the most part, where the United States government would attempt to create the appropriate climate for the attainment of its strategic, economic, and altruistic goals. Acquisition of the Canal Zone in 1903 served in particular to focus U.S. attention on the isthmus. Accordingly, whenever revolutionary violence erupted in Central America, the United States government more often than not took vigorous action to ensure the survival or emergence of governments and factions which were supportive of North American interests.

AbstractThe Japanese Imperial Mint, which began its operation producing gold and silver coins in Osaka in 1871, has come to represent the self-modernisation of Japanese architecture and society more generally, both in its industrial purpose and western classical style. This article focuses on the planning, construction and socio-spatial design of the mint to resituate the project in the context of British imperial expansion. New archival research in both Japan and Britain, enabling close analysis of overlooked drawings and documents, establishes the Japanese Imperial Mint's dependence on the transfer of men, machinery and plans from the former Hong Kong Mint, mediated and managed by the two firms Glover & Co and Jardine Matheson & Co. This article thus not only sheds new light on these two individually important buildings in colonial and imperial history, and the engineers involved, but illuminates the relationship between British colonial architecture and the activities of British merchants at the edge of empire in East Asia in the nineteenth century.

AbstractThis article seeks to gain a clearer understanding of the language, reach, and limits of competing patriotic trade campaigns in the British empire during the 1930s, focusing on efforts to promote the purchase of Indian, Chinese, and ‘British’ products (a term which was used to refer to goods from both the UK and the Dominions). Civil society groups used patriotic-buying campaigns to promote and maintain forms of regionalized integration in response to the partial deglobalization of trade. Supporters of such campaigns sought to develop trade networks based on ethnic ties which could connect across and, in the Chinese case, beyond imperial spaces. However, the hybridity of colonial subjects’ identities impeded each of these efforts to develop patriotic trade networks and meant that the content, character, and popular appeal of trade campaigns shifted between different regions.

This article investigates the existence in early Stuart Britain of a vibrant, conscious, and global imperial inheritance, as well as the meaning and significance of this legacy for British interactions with the wider world in the seventeenth century. It explores the ways in which a new, transnational and colonial approach to a still-stubbornly insular Tudor History unearths over a century of British experimentation from 1485 in Europe, the Isles, the Americas, Africa, and the East, mutually-reinforced by consolidation and identity-formation at home. I examine the tangible, enduring importance of these examples – that is, the continued relevance of ideology and practice forged in sixteenth-century interactions beyond England – to the subsequent development of Britain and its Empire. The New British History, New Imperial History, and Atlantic History have transformed and complicated our understanding of Britain and the connections between Britain and Empire. Yet these turns have had greater success in privileging the seventeenth century, the Isles, and Anglo-America, relegating Britain to latecomer status in the New World and elsewhere while reinforcing dynastic periodization and obscuring an essential basis of Jacobean and later global involvement. This article seeks to cross the historiographic divides between chronological boundaries, between Tudor and Stuart, insular and global, using 1603–1625 as a case study. With interests sparked, sustained, and legitimized by experience, British subjects active in Ireland, Newfoundland, Virginia, and Guiana in the first quarter of the new century carefully deployed, manipulated, even shucked elements of Tudor nation and empire. Continuity in personnel and the survival of popular texts merged with changes wrought by or circa the new dynasty, as Jacobean flatters and critics fashioned history to fit their ends. By recalling Tudor policy, they acknowledged and memorialized an extra-national past, perpetuating certain images, diction, objectives, and regions of interest across 1603 to influence Stuart global engagement. This paper demonstrates that we cannot understand the development of Britain in the transformative seventeenth century and beyond without looking back and overseas.

Her Majesty's birthday was right royally celebrated last evening by His Excellency the Governor on the occasion of the annual birthday ball at government house.‘Royalty’ and ‘Empire’ were, throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. of supreme significance to all the Australian colonies. While each colony was well integrated within the Imperial framework, they remained largely reliant on the economic and geopolitical management of the British Empire. Though different colonial/national identities developed in Australia, the colonies' economic, military and diplomatic dependence on Britain strongly orientated them towards the Queen and ‘home’. Colonial Governors served as the vital link between the colonies and both the Imperial government and the Queen of the British Empire. Appointed by Britain and entrusted with the same rights, powers and privileges as the Queen, the role of Governor was one of great influence and authority.

AbstractThis paper traces the history of the notion of female chastity (zhen) in China from pre-Qin to the mid-imperial era and argues that, prior to the arrival of Buddhism in China, the idea of female “chastity” was concerned not so much with physical virginity as the dutiful fulfillment of wifely obligations as stipulated by the Confucian marriage rites. A woman's chastity was determined by her moral rectitude rather than by her biological condition. The understanding of the physical body as a sacrosanct entity that must be defended against defilement and violation emerged under the influence of Buddhist notions of the uncontaminated body, the pious observance of the Buddhist monastic code, and the performance of religious charity that became popular in early imperial China. Based on a critical analysis of a wide array of Confucian canonical texts, dynastic histories, Indian Buddhist scriptures, biographies of Chinese monks and nuns, the monastic code, and Chinese Buddhist encyclopedias, this paper delineates the gradual process by which the Buddhist concept of the “pure body” became fully assimilated into the indigenous Chinese notion of female “rectitude” and the notion of female chastity finally acquired an ontological identity around the end of the sixth century.

To assess claims about the role of the extended family in late imperial Chinese society, we examine the influence of kin network characteristics on marriage, reproduction, and attainment in Liaoning Province in Northeast China in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. We compare the influences on outcomes of the number and status of different types of kin as well as the seniority of the individual within each type of kin group. We find that the characteristics of kin outside the household did matter for individual outcomes but that patterns of effects were nuanced. While based on our results we concur that kin networks were important units of social and economic organization in late imperial China, we conclude that their role was complex.

As Britain saw it, trade was not the prime motivating force for Russian expansion in east Asia or, put another way, the Russian frontiersmen were not driven by the actual amount of their trade there or its future potentialities. While Russia was primarily concerned with the tea trade over land frontiers, Britain was concerned with the seaborne commerce of China. The customs revenue paid to China in the year 1894 worked out as follows:Judging from the returns of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Organization, British ships carried 83.5% of China's total trade. But Britain's commercial dominance affected her political stance because she wanted to preserve China's stability for most of the second half of the nineteenth century. This was at the root of the political tensions between Britain and Russia which emerged in China after 1860 and especially those which derived from the spate of railway building which took place from 1890 onwards. It would be foolish to deny that intense rivalry did exist in the area from time to time or that detailed observations of the actions of the one were regularly conducted by the other—what we should now call ‘intelligence operations’. But what I shall suggest in this paper is that, despite all the admitted antagonism and suspicion between Britain and Russia in east Asia, Britain regularly made efforts to reach accommodations with Russia in north-east Asia.

Within written history, Europe is rich in post-imperial situations. In the twentieth century the dwindling empires of this century, born during European colonial expansion after Columbus, gave rise to new post-imperial conditions with a global impact. Europe is no exception. On other continents, empires have also emerged and faded away: Latin-America with the Mayas and the Aztecs, and, notably, Asia where the Chinese Empire has disappeared and re-emerged at different historical junctures. On their way down, European empires have produced what could be labelled a post-imperial stress syndrome, very much like a PTSD, producing certain defensive ideological configurations of parochialism, xenophobia and nostalgic illusions, binding them to a past they have left, but are still chained to, mentally and ideologically. The fall or fading away of an empire is not just an event with a precise date, but a process, which, inevitably, shows cracks before it actually happens. Such frictions anticipating a future reality can only be caught by imagination. This article will concentrate on two such imaginative post-imperial prefigurations before the fact is generally recognized, both concerning the dissolution of the British Empire. It can be argued that, with Brexit, Britain is still trying to come to terms with its post-imperial reality. One such prefiguration will be seen through the eyes of the centre, J.M. Forster’s A Passage to India (1924), the other from the periphery, Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958).

AbstractThis article examines China’s approach to integrating Korea into Chinese territory in history and its significant influence on the construction of the Chinese Empire and state. It discusses major instances of Chinese integration of Korea before and under the Mongol Empire and reveals that the tributary relationship with Korea that the Ming and Qing dynasties cultivated in the post-Mongol period allowed Korea to maintain a significant degree of independence from China. It points out that the Qing imperial discourse described Korea as a province by combining the Manchu ruling house’s and European Jesuits’ understandings of the Chinese empire. Qing China refrained from colonizing Korea in the nineteenth century primarily because of the post-Mongol shift in its policy toward the country and because of its Confucian ethos. The article further argues that China did not become a modern state until the 1950s, when the Chinese option of provincializing Korea permanently disappeared.

AbstractThe New Zealand Wars of the 1860s have traditionally been associated with the popularity of antagonistic racial discourses and the growing influence of scientific racism. Building upon recent research into the resonance of humanitarian racial discourses in this period, this article reconsiders the experience of Governor Thomas Gore Browne during the Taranaki War, 1860–61. The Taranaki War was a global news event that precipitated fierce debates within both New Zealand and Great Britain over the war's origins and the rights of indigenous Maori. This article reveals how both Browne and his wartime critics defined themselves as the true defenders of Maori rights. This general usage of humanitarian racial discourses was encouraged by perceptions of metropolitan surveillance, New Zealand's prominence within networks of imperial communication, and an onus to administrate Maori with justice.

AbstractThis paper seeks to balance the regional and thematic focus of cholera historiography by examining maritime quarantine in Busan, as it was devised and implemented by Japanese officials and doctors during the pre-colonial period. It also places the relationship between Korea and Japan in the context of relations with China, Russia and Britain. This paper shows that quarantine measures in Busan and other Korean ports reflected the rise of Japanese imperial power and the increasing desire on the part of the Japanese to establish an effective borderline for their regional empire.From 1879 Japan began to impose maritime quarantine in Busan, where Japanese influence was very strong even before the colonial period, though at that time Japan was unable to perform quarantine in its own ports independently due to the objections of Western powers, particularly Britain. Victories in the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars established Japan as a regional power on equal terms with the West, and as the dominant power in Korea and Eastern Asia. With the acquisition of the right to impose quarantine in its homeland, Japan strengthened and extended the range of quarantine from Japan to Korea, China and Russia. Now quarantine screened Japan from potentially harmful agents – pathogenic and political – and its functions diversified further as modernisation and imperial expansion gathered pace. The reliance which Japan placed upon quarantine in maintaining its empire explains why it was increasingly out of step with other powers regarding international sanitary precautions. The Japanese maritime quarantine in Busan during this period therefore shows many aspects of Japan’s ‘national empire’.

The aim of this article is to study the influence of social communications on the formation of relations between students in the intercultural space on the example of the State Higher Educational Institution "Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University" and Kyiv University named after Borys Hrinchenko. Methods: analysis, synthesis, abstraction, modeling, description, observation, comparison, tabular and graphical representation, questionnaires and generalizations. Results: It is determined that countries such as Australia, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand, France and the Netherlands have the highest rates of attracting foreign students to study in higher education institutions. The most international universities in the world are the University of Hong Kong, ETH Zurich, Chinese University of Hong Kong, University of Oxford and Imperial College London, which occupy the first five positions in the World University Rankings 2021. It was found that most often social communication between students belonging to different socio-cultural groups occurs using social media.

Drawing on archival sources in Britain, Singapore, Malaysia, and the United States, this article explores late-colonial anxieties about the influence of Chinese nationalism in Malaya (and especially among students in Chinese-medium schools) in the lead up to self-government in 1957. It demonstrates that the colonial fear of communism in Malaya was not always synonymous with the fear of cultural influence from “new China” and that the “rise of China” in the mid-1950s was viewed as a challenge to colonially sanctioned programs for “Malayanization.” More importantly, in exploring some of the ways in which the colonial state mobilized anti-communist cultural workers from Hong Kong to help counter the perceived threat from China, the article argues that more focus should be placed on the role of colonial agency in shaping “Sinophone” cultural expression in Southeast Asia during this period.

The Great War was indeed a world war. Imperial powers like Great Britain drew on their far-flung empires not only for resources but also for manpower. This essay examines one important (though still inadequately studied) aspect of British wartime exigency, the voluntary and coerced participation of the British Empire's coloured subjects and allies in military operations on the Western Front. With the exception of the Indian Army in the first year of the war, that participation did not include combat. Instead coloured troops, later joined by contract labourers, played major roles behind the lines. From 1916 onwards, well over a quarter million Chinese, Egyptians, Indians, South Africans, West Indians, New Zealand Maoris, Black Canadians, and Pacific Islanders worked the docks, built roads and railways, maintained equipment, produced munitions, dug trenches, and even buried the dead. Only in recent years has the magnitude of their contribution to Allied victory begun to be more fully acknowledged. Yet the greatest impact of British labour policies in France might lie elsewhere entirely. Chinese workers seem likely to have carried the virus that caused the Great Flu pandemic of 1918-19, which may have killed more people around the world than the war itself.

AbstractRobert Hartwell's article published in 1967 in this journal has had an extensive influence in both Chinese and global history. The present article reviews the reception and use made of Hartwell's arguments by secondary sources over the last forty years. It focuses on three aspects: the Song economic revolution; Hartwell's quantitative estimate for iron production; and Hartwell's proposition that coal and iron production and consumption peaked in the Song dynasty, at least on a per capita basis. It argues that a consistent set of estimates are needed for coal and iron development over the last thousand years of imperial Chinese history. En 1967 Robert Hartwell publia un article dans ce journal qui a fortement influencé l'historiographie chinoise et mondiale. Cette contribution passe en revue l'acceptation et l'utilisation des arguments de Hartwell qu'on trouve dans les sources secondaires parues depuis quarante ans. Elle traite surtout de trois aspects de sa thèse, la révolution économique sous les Song; l'estimation quantitative de la production de fer, et la proposition qui veut que la production et la consommation du charbon et du fer par tête furent maximales sous la dynastie Song. La contribution témoigne de la nécessité de disposer d'une série cohérente d'estimations traitant du développement du charbon et du fer durant le dernier millénium de l'histoire de la Chine impériale.

AbstractLowe Kong Meng (Liu Guangming 劉光眀, 1831-1888),1 pre-eminent merchant and community leader of gold-rush Melbourne, was active in Australian politics, self-regarded as a British subject yet engaged with the Qing dynasty and was likely the first overseas Chinese awarded rank in the Chinese imperial service. Victoria’s mid-1880 election was a watershed: the immediate aftermath was the re-introduction of regulations penalising Chinese, after over 15 years of free immigration and no official discrimination. After the election it was claimed that Lowe Kong Meng persuaded Victoria’s Chinese to vote for the government, but was it in his interests to do so? This article examines the nature of Lowe Kong Meng’s engagement in European and Chinese political activity in the colony, as well as the extent of his leadership in Chinese colonial and diasporic life and explores how much he could have used that leadership to influence electoral outcomes. The article also examines how Lowe Kong Meng and the wider Chinese population of the colony brought changing political agendas to Victoria and developed these agendas through their colonial experiences.

AbstractSince the late imperial era, Yellow River floods have endangered the environmental equilibrium of North China, including parts of the Grand Canal. The Republican government’s response to water disasters reflected the influence of global networks and institutions of expertise. By turning to an American company for infrastructure work on the Grand Canal, Chinese government officials placed their faith in global science and finance to renew a domestic symbol of state power. The project failed; nonetheless the efforts to restore the waterways and provide relief reveal the entangled humanitarian, corporate, and educational interests of modern China’s state building and environmental management.

This article outlines the development of the history of the book not only as an academic discipline in its own right but as a field of study of critical, potentially central, importance for the advancement of the humanities in general. The history of the book helps revise the earlier relative marginalisation of cultural vis-à-vis political history. The publication in 1958 of L’apparition du livre by Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin has been followed by a series of multivolume, multi-authored national histories of the book and libraries, first in France, then in Britain, the United States and elsewhere. The history of book is having considerable influence in many areas of historical investigation, such as general history, literary history, the history of science and the history of religion. With the ‘Digital Revolution’, the history of the book is now converging with studies of the other media and, together with the growth of postcolonial/post-imperial studies in general, offers the prospect of a balanced and nuanced approach within the global academy to understanding the world’s media past, present and future.

AbstractA growing literature in IR addresses the historical international politics of East Asia prior to Western influence. However, this literature has taken little note of the role of Eurasian steppe societies and empires in these dynamics. This article offers a corrective, showing that relations between China and the steppe played an important role in regional politics. I argue that Chinese elite conceptions of the steppe as other played an important role in maintaining China’s ontological security. Imperial Chinese elites pursued a deliberate strategy of ‘othering’ steppe societies, presenting them as China’s political-cultural opposite. Doing so both provided a source of stable identity to China and justified their exclusion from the Chinese ‘world order’. Empirically, I proceed in three sections. First, I consider Chinese identity building, framed in terms of ontological security, both under the founding Qin and Han dynasties, and under the later Ming dynasty. Second, I address recent historiography of the steppe, showing Chinese conceptions of it were inaccurate. Third, I address the long history of hybridity between the two regions.

AbstractNumerous scholars have emphasized the “centrality” of Inner Asia to furthering our understanding of global, or cross-cultural phenomena, and the role of such phenomena in the preservation, modification, and transmission of historical experience. Yet the research has almost exclusively been carried out by specialists in Chinese civilization, and as one moves further away from the Chinese sphere of influence the notion of Eurasia as an integrated socio-political unit of historical analysis becomes more problematic. Here I attempt to bridge the western and eastern edges of the great steppe by focusing on a specific aspect of Inner Asian political culture—the phenomenon of shared sovereignty between military-based ruling dynasties and their urban constituencies—in the principalities of Rus' and the oases of Transoxiana, between the ninth and twelfth centuries. I propose that the dual administrative structure that developed in the two regions was an autochthonic, Eurasian state-formation, distinct from the city-state and imperial models, which emerged as a result of what Joseph Fletcher identified as “horizontal continuities.”

Recognizing the 150th Anniversary of the foundation of the Geological Survey of Canada as an apt moment to assess and explore the historical context of the Survey, this paper examines the founding of the Survey, the role of William Logan as the first Director and the manner in which he shaped the structure and vocabulary of Canadian geology. The examination uses the concept of Metropolis and Hinterland pioneered by J. M. S. Careless to contextualize Canadian History. Great Britain and the United States were metropolises for the Canadian hinterland. Great Britain was a model of imperial science and possessed a working consensus on doing geology that provided a framework for Logan and the Geological Survey. The United States, a less developed metropolis asserting its independence from British influence, offered a model of public geology in its Geological Surveys and a vocabulary of local nomenclature applicable to the Canadian rocks. Emulating both metropolises, Logan borrowed from each in a dynamic interaction as he worked to develop a distinctive response to Canadian social and scientific needs. Often uncomfortably aware of both metropolises and their mutual antagonisms, Logan had to carefully pursue his work in a setting of tension and opportunity, while creating a functioning Canadian Survey and a sophisticated Canadian geology.

This title has been used before, but usually with reference just to the conquest of Hong Kong by Japan in 1941, and here the battle for the territory is covered in a mere 20 pages. The main subject matter is indeed the Japanese occupation, but the title may be taken to have double reference because it is Snow's thesis that it was this brief period of less than four years that led inexorably to the handover of Hong Kong in 1997. He argues that the loss of Britain's imperial prestige was exacerbated and set in concrete by the clear message of post-1945 history that it was the Chinese who were the driving power behind Hong Kong and her development. Too weak (sometimes too insensitive) to take full economic advantage from events, the British presided over “an astonishing explosion of wealth. But in the process their own role had become so exiguous that it no longer really mattered, was indeed barely noticeable . . .“ This may be rather too harsh a judgement on the British (who in their ‘second innings’ hung on for more than half a century after all) but Snow is surely right in tracing the beginning of the distant end to the Japanese conquest which drew a line under received truths and cleared the way for the emergence of new attitudes on all sides.The political history of the pre-invasion period from the late 1930s, of the occupation itself, and of the immediate years after British resumption of control in August 1945 is nicely pieced together from a wide variety of sources, and Snow has tried hard to draw on Chinese, Japanese and Eurasian writings as well as on the much greater wealth of British accounts, both official and private. In this striving after balance he has had only limited success, the result still being an Anglocentric history, though certainly not entirely an Anglophile one. The problem is not of his making, but reflects the relatively sparse and unsystematic nature of sources available at present in Chinese especially.

AbstractThis essay examines the minzu identification in Yunnan (1950s–1980s). First of all, it will introduce the terms of ethnicity and minzu as used by the Chinese. It will then examine the minzu identification in Yunnan with a general overview, followed by a critique on the complexity of classification, which looks especially at the many previously ignored roles including local governments, ethnic groups, ethnic elites, ethnic masses and contingency in the process. The essay argues that classifications varied case by case, without any consistent or standard criteria. Furthermore, it also discusses the application of Soviet influence on the project, particularly the definition of four-common raised by Stalin. While arguing that there was little Soviet influence on the result of classification, the essay intends to historicize the project to illustrate the historical continuity and development in terms of ethnic and frontier managements between imperial and modern China.

Studies of foreign countries often depend on the lure of the image of an unknown market. The lure of the China market led King George III to send his emissary, Lord MacCartney, to China to meet Emperor Jianlung in 1793 and to give the Emperor a letter as well as an enormous collection of gifts. The purpose of this envoy to China was to convince the Emperor to ease restrictions on trade between Great Britain and China. In 1816, in the chronicles of Emperor Jiaqing, foreign countries were categorized in two ways: tributary countries and trading countries. By tributary country is meant a country, usually a smaller and less-advanced country, which pays loyal respect and is compliant and in return is given many rare and precious gifts, and is thus bestowed a position in what is considered as the Pax Sinica (Latin for Chinese Peace). By trading country is meant a country which is devoid of the meaning in the Pax Sinica in Chinese understanding. England was categorized as a tributary country, whereas in English history England was portrayed as one of the Western countries which tried to open the country and ports, thereby expanding its commercial ties. According to the Jiaqing huidian (imperial chronicles) England, Korea, and Vietnam are categorized as tributary countries, whereas France, the Netherlands, and Japan are categorized as a trading countries. During most of the Qing period (1644–1911), Japan adopted the system of trading with foreign countries whereby the Tokugawa central government monopolized external commerce, which traded only with Dutch and Chinese merchants. In 1949, the People's Republic of China was proclaimed to change the content of history. Instead of tributary-networked Pax Sinica, Western and later Japanese imperialism and colonialism started the destruction of the Pax Sinica which was replaced by Western hegemony spearheaded by England.

Decolonization influenced the rise of environmental activism and thought in Australia and South Africa in ways that have been overlooked by national histories of environmentalism and imperial histories of decolonization. Australia and South Africa’s political and cultural movement away from Britain and the Commonwealth during the 1960s is one important factor explaining why people in both countries created more, and more important, public indigenous botanic gardens than anywhere else in the world during that decade. Effective decolonization from Britain also influenced the rise of indigenous gardening and the growing popularity of native gardens at a critical period in gardening and environmental history. Most facets of contemporary gardening—using plants indigenous to the site or region, planting drought-tolerant species, and seeing gardens as sites to help conserve regional and national flora—can be dated to the 1960s and 1970s. The interpretation advanced here adds to historical research tracing how the former Commonwealth settler colonies experienced effective decolonization in the same era. This article expands the focus of research on decolonization to include environmentalism. The interpretation of the article also augments national environmental histories that have hitherto downplayed the influence of decolonization on the rise of environmentalism. Putting decolonization into the history of the rise of environmental thought and action sheds light on why people in contemporary Australia and South Africa are so passionate about protecting indigenous flora and fauna, and so worried about threats posed by non-native invasive species.

The purpose of the study is to determine how the development of the tourism business of Thomas Cook and Son in the Nile Valley influenced the perception and assessment of contemporaries of the British presence in Egypt at the end of the 19th century. The relevance of the analyzed problem lies in the fact that the study of the history of tourism in the era of New imperialism allows us to supplement our understanding of the representations of the empire and private busi-ness and their mutual influence. It is substantiated that, according to the views of contemporaries, the activities of the company contributed to the creation of conditions for the economic develop-ment of Egypt, opened these territories to the world, providing free movement along the Nile, and contributed to the spread of the English language, making this country more “civilized” in the eyes of Europeans. We conclude that, at the same time, the handbooks of the company broadcasted the achievements of the imperial policy of Great Britain, reinforcing the idea of the positive conse-quences of the British occupation for Egypt. It is concluded that the commercial success of private business became a visible manifestation of the success of the England’s civilizing mission. The research materials can be used to further study the relationship between the development of mass tourism and the colonial policy of Great Britain.

Abstract This paper sheds light on a little-known text written by a very well-known figure, Kibi no Makibi (693–775). During the Nara Period (710–794) and with the advent of kentôshi, the Japanese embassies to the Tang, he went to China twice (717–735 and 752–753), first as a student, then as a vice-ambassador. Kibi no Makibi is presumably responsible for bringing back a vast amount of Chinese books to Japan and his influence in shaping the burgeoning Imperial University (Daigakuryô) makes him one of the most important intellectual figures of his time. The examined text, the fragmentary Shikyô-ruijû (Private Teachings Arranged by Topic) written in kanbun (literary sinitic), is the longest extant text by its author, and it is translated and annotated here with a critical discussion regarding its authenticity. It has not received much scholarly attention, although it is probably one of the first texts on education in the history of Japan and the first to-date instance of the genre of « house teachings » (kakun).

The literary heritage of Alexander Pushkin is well known to a wide range of readers. A line in a letter to Count A. Benckendorff, written in January 1830 and in which Pushkin asks permission to let him go to China, attracts attention. The purpose of the article is to try to find out what reasons prompted Pushkin to make such a request. It is essential to understand the age during which the poet lived. The fascination with Chinese culture came to Russia from France, which significantly impacted Russia’s life in the 18th–19th centuries. Chinese goods, the so-called Chinese rarities, began to appear in Russia even during Peter I’s reign, who often gave orders to buy them for the St. Petersburg Kunstkamera. Exotic things from China were delivered to St. Petersburg by caravans from Beijing through Siberia and the Urals or by sea on ships of the East India Company through Western Europe. Empress Catherine II set the fashion for interiors in the Chinese style: the Chinese Palace (1762–1768) appeared in Oranienbaum; Chinese buildings, the largest complex of buildings in the Chinese style, appeared in Tsarskoe Selo. There, in Tsarskoe Selo, in 1811, Emperor Alexander I established the Imperial Lyceum, in which Alexander Pushkin studied, and where, undoubtedly, the poet’s first encounter with the Middle Kingdom occurred. At this time, Russian periodicals also paid much attention to China. In them, articles about the trade of Europeans in China, about porcelain and silk factories, as well as about the wisdom of Chinese rulers and moral instructions for posterity began to be published. Pushkin read a lot and could not have been unaware of these publications. The acquaintance of Pushkin with monk Father Iakinf (N. Bichurin), an outstanding Russian sinologist, had a significant influence on the poet. Father Iakinf was appointed the Head of the ecclesiastic mission in Beijing in 1807 and lived there until 1821. As the examination of Pushkin’s library shows, the poet had Bichurin’s books about China. Also, he read Jean-Baptiste Du Halde’s book The General History of China in the Russian translation known at that time. As the study shows, Pushkin was interested in China and was going to visit it; however, fate had its own plans.

This essay reinterprets the evolution of the United States between 1783 and 1861 from the perspective of imperial history. The established literature on this period focuses on the national story, and particularly on the struggle to achieve liberty and democracy. Historians of empire, however, routinely distinguish between formal and effective independence and evaluate the often halting progress of ex-colonial states in achieving a substantive transfer of power. Considered from this angle, the dominant themes of the period were the search for viability and development rather than for liberty and democracy. The article illustrates this proposition by re-evaluating the political, economic, and cultural themes that are central to the history of the period. The argument in each case is that the United States remained dependent on Great Britain to an extent that greatly limited her effective independence. The standard controversies of domestic political history, notably the battle between Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian visions of the state, are recast as differing strategies for achieving real and permanent independence. Strategies for achieving economic development made practical politics of competing arguments for protection and free trade, but failed to release the economy from its dependence on the British market and British capital. Attempts to create an independent national identity were compromised by the continuing influence of British culture and by the related notion of Anglo-Saxonism, on which prevailing policies of assimilation relied. In all these respects, the United States was an unexceptional ex-colonial state, and indeed closely followed the trajectory of other colonies of white settlement that were classified as dominions within the British Empire. The United States, however, was a dependent state that failed in 1861, and its struggle for independence had to be renewed after the Civil War.

Abstract This article is not concerned with the history of aesthetics but, rather, is an exercise in intellectual history. “Illustrations of Tributary States” [Zhigong tu 職貢圖] as a type of art reveals a Chinese tradition of artistic representations of foreign emissaries paying tribute at the imperial court. This tradition is usually seen as going back to the “Illustrations of Tributary States,” painted by Emperor Yuan in the Liang dynasty 梁元帝 [r. 552-554] in the first half of the sixth century. This series of paintings not only had a lasting influence on aesthetic history but also gave rise to a highly distinctive intellectual tradition in the development of Chinese thought: images of foreign emissaries were used to convey the Celestial Empire’s sense of pride and self-confidence, with representations of strange customs from foreign countries serving as a foil for the image of China as a radiant universal empire at the center of the world. The tradition of “Illustrations of Tributary States” was still very much alive during the time of the Song dynasty [960-1279], when China had to compete with equally powerful neighboring states, the empire’s territory had been significantly diminished, and the Chinese population had become ethnically more homogeneous. In this article, the “Illustrations of the Tributary States of the Myriad Regions” [Wanfang zhigong tu 萬方職貢圖] attributed to Li Gonglin 李公麟 [ca. 1049-1106] and created during the period between the Xining 熙寧 [1068-1077] and Yuanfeng 元豐 [1078-1085] reigns of the Shenzong emperor 神宗 [r. 1067-1085] of the Song dynasty, is used as a case study for investigating the actual tributary relations between the Northern Song [960-1127] state and its neighboring countries. In doing so, I demonstrate that while certain parts of the “Illustrations of the Tributary States of the Myriad Regions” are historically accurate, a considerable portion of the content is the combined product of historical remembrance and the imagination of empire. In the international environment of the Song empire, China was captivated by the dream of being a universal empire envied by its “barbarian” neighbors. Particularly worth emphasizing is the fact that the artistic tradition of painting “Illustrations of Tributary States” as well as the accompanying idea of China as a universal empire continued well into the Qing [1644-1911] period, reflecting the historical longevity and lasting influence of the traditional conception of the relationship between China and the world.

Introduction. The article publishes and provides a historical legal analysis of one letter by Prince Uday, ruler of Khorchin Khoshun (Horqin Banner) in Inner Mongolia at the end of 19th – first quarter of 20th century, who sent it to Pyotr Stolypin, the Prime-Minister of the Russian Empire, in 1910. This letter is a part of a file kept in the Russian State Historical Archive (St. Petersburg, Russia) in original Mongolian as well as in its Russian translation. As is known, the document was not published before. Goals. The aim of research is to extract from the Uday’s note — the information on the international legal status of Inner Mongolia which is given from the local ruler’s point of view. Results. The results of the research confirm the value of the note as a source, although its author attempted to emphasize his own significance in the eyes of the Russian authorities. Coupled with materials of other contemporaries (Russian and Western diplomats, intelligence officers, missionaries, merchants and scientists) it allows to give an authentic view on the status of Inner Mongolia at the international scene at the edge of 19th – 20th centuries. The utmost interest should be paid to the dynamics of relations of rulers of Inner Mongolia with the Qing imperial authorities that initiated a forced colonization of Mongolian lands through resettlement of Chinese peasant colonists, changes in relations of Manchu administration and Mongol feudal lords with Russian regional authorities and merchants, as well as strengthening of the Japanese influence in the region.

The paper focuses on the initial stage of the formation of the Commonwealth of Australia, and the process of its establishing as an independent State. The international political context for the development of the country, from the period of creation of the Federation to the beginning of the Second World War, is primarily viewed. The Commonwealth’s international position, its place and role in the regional and global geopolitical processes of the early XX century, in particular in the context of its relations with Great Britain, are analyzed. The features of the transformation of British colonial policies on the eve of the First World War are examined. The specifics of the UK system of relations with Australia, as well as other dominions, are being examined. The features of status of the dominions in the British Empire system are shown. The role of the dominions and, in particular, the Commonwealth of Australia in the preparatory process for the First World War, as well as the peculiarities of its participation in hostilities, is analyzed. The significance of the actions of the First World War on the domestic political situation in Australia, as well as its impact on dominions relations with the British Empire, is revealed. The history of the foundation of the Australian-New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) and its participation in imperial forces on the frontline of the First World War is analyzed. The success and failure of its fighters, as well as the role of ANZAC, in the process of formation an Australian political nation are analyzed. The economic, humanitarian and international political consequences of the First World War for the Commonwealth of Australia are examined, as well as the influence of these consequences on the structure of relations between the dominions and the British Empire. The socio-economic situation of the Commonwealth of Australia on the eve of World War II, in particular the impact of the Great depression on the development of the country as a whole and its internal political situation in particular, is analyzed. The ideological, military-strategic and international political prerequisites for Australia’s entry into the Second World War are being considered.

Abstract This article considers the links between land reform and emigration through the figure of Henry Rider Haggard and argues that these two issues were deeply intertwined within British politics. Land reform in Britain is often considered as a domestic issue, but imperial campaigners often presented this in terms of the British empire. Haggard campaigned for twenty years for a greater living link to the land in Britain and the empire and believed that this link had profound effects upon English patriotism, character, and health. The imperial frontier had a spirit that improved English character, an idea that Haggard developed in the 1870s and is evident in much of his fiction. Imperial emigration was presented as a patriotic act that aided imperial defence in Australia from Chinese expansion and in South Africa from indigenous opposition. Population was the only way to bolster and defend the empire. Considering his books, speeches, newspaper reviews, and his work for the Royal Colonial Institute, this article argues that British politics and the land between 1900 and 1920 should be considered in an imperial frame. Existing work has neglected the imperial aspect of land reform, and how it was presented by emigration societies, which many imperialists considered an obvious way of dealing with unemployment and increasing urbanization whilst bolstering Greater Britain.

This essay looks at the question of integrative and disintegrative elements of imperial rule in multiethnic societies and tries to identify lines of continuity between the imperial past and post-imperial realities. What influence did immigration have on the construction of self-image in Britain after the Second World War, and what historical continuities existed, particularly with respect to ethnic policies? Clearly, imperialism deeply unsettled British society, as did the empire unsettle the former colonial world. It is also at this point where the tension between the concepts of Empire, Britishness, and Englishness enter the debate.

Abstract The most totemic nineteenth-century military conflict between Britain and China was the First Opium War; the least memorable, perhaps, was the brief Camphor War of 1868, which broke out twenty-nine years later in Taiwan. As in the First Opium War, the Qing was defeated in the Camphor War as a result of Britain’s clear technological edge over China. Yet this was more than a minor military skirmish: it was an encounter that indicates the eagerness of the Qing to reposition itself in the global arena, both politically and economically. The Camphor War reminds us that the ‘clash of empires’ was very much part of a process of global consumption and commercialisation, which forced the Qing court for the first time to grapple with defending its natural resources and its existing monopoly over an established market. By tracing the social and material history of camphor, we can also see how demand for this commodity set the gears of the Qing, the British and the American empires into motion. The Camphor War was not concerned with a territorial dispute or the opening of a port city; its essential interest lies in revealing how, in the post-Opium age, competition between the Qing Empire and foreign powers could revolve around access to, and control over, a truly global commodity.

Introduction“From every kind of man obedience I expect; I’m the Emperor of Japan.” (“Miyasama,” from Gilbert and Sullivan’s musical The Mikado, 1885)This commentary is facilitated by—surprisingly resilient—oriental stereotypes of an imagined Japan (think of Oscar Wilde’s assertion, in 1889, that Japan was a European invention). During the Victorian era, in Britain, there was a craze for all things oriental, particularly ceramics and “there was a craze for all things Japanese and no middle class drawing room was without its Japanese fan or teapot.“ (V&A Victorian). These pastoral depictions of the ‘oriental life’ included the figures of men and women in oriental garb, with fans, stilt shoes, kimono-like robes, and appropriate headdresses, engaging in garden-based activities, especially tea ceremony variations (Landow). In fact, tea itself, and the idea of a ceremony of serving it, had taken up a central role, even an obsession in middle- and upper-class Victorian life. Similarly, landscapes with wild seas, rugged rocks and stunted pines, wizened monks, pagodas and temples, and particular fauna and flora (cranes and other birds flying through clouds of peonies, cherry blossoms and chrysanthemums) were very popular motifs (see Martin and Koda). Rather than authenticity, these designs heightened the Western-based romantic stereotypes associated with a stylised form of Japanese life, conducted sedately under rule of the Japanese Imperial Court. In reality, prior to the Meiji period (1868–1912), the Emperor was largely removed from everyday concerns, residing as an isolated, holy figure in Kyoto, the traditional capital of Japan. Japan was instead ruled from Edo (modern day Tokyo) led by the Shogun and his generals, according to a strict Confucian influenced code (see Keene). In Japan, as elsewhere, the presence of feudal-style governance includes policies that determine much of everyday life, including restrictions on clothing (Rall 169). The Samurai code was no different, and included a series of protocols that restricted rank, movement, behaviour, and clothing. As Vincent has noted in the case of the ‘lace tax’ in Great Britain, these restrictions were designed to punish those who seek to penetrate the upper classes through their costume (28-30). In Japan, pre-Meiji sumptuary laws, for example, restricted the use of gold, and prohibited the use of a certain shade of red by merchant classes (V&A Kimono).Therefore, in the governance of pre-globalised societies, the importance of clothing and textile is evident; as Jones and Stallybrass comment: We need to understand the antimatedness of clothes, their ability to “pick up” subjects, to mould and shape them both physically and socially—to constitute subjects through their power as material memories […] Clothing is a worn world: a world of social relations put upon the wearer’s body. (2-3, emphasis added)The significant re-imagining of Japanese cultural and national identities are explored here through the cataclysmic impact of Western ideologies on Japanese cultural traditions. There are many ways to examine how indigenous cultures respond to European, British, or American (hereafter Western) influences, particularly in times of conflict (Wilk). Western ideology arrived in Japan after a long period of isolation (during which time Japan’s only contact was with Dutch traders) through the threat of military hostility and war. It is after this outside threat was realised that Japan’s adoption of military and industrial practices begins. The re-imagining of their national identity took many forms, and the inclusion of a Western-style military costuming as a schoolboy uniform became a highly visible indicator of Japan’s mission to protect its sovereign integrity. A brief history of Japan’s rise from a collection of isolated feudal states to a unified military power, in not only the Asian Pacific region but globally, demonstrates the speed at which they adopted the Western mode of warfare. Gunboats on Japan’s ShorelinesJapan was forcefully opened to the West in the 1850s by America under threat of First Name Perry’s ‘gunboat diplomacy’ (Hillsborough 7-8). Following this, Japan underwent a rapid period of modernisation, and an upsurge in nationalism and military expansion that was driven by a desire to catch up to the European powers present in the Pacific. Noted by Ian Ferguson in Civilization: The West and the Rest, Unsure, the Japanese decided […] to copy everything […] Japanese institutions were refashioned on Western models. The army drilled like Germans; the navy sailed like Britons. An American-style system of state elementary and middle schools was also introduced. (221, emphasis added)This was nothing short of a wide-scale reorganisation of Japan’s entire social structure and governance. Under the Emperor Meiji, who wrested power from the Shogunate and reclaimed it for the Imperial head, Japan steamed into an industrial revolution, achieving in a matter of years what had taken Europe over a century.Japan quickly became a major player-elect on the world stage. However, as an island nation, Japan lacked the essentials of both coal and iron with which to fashion not only industrial machinery but also military equipment, the machinery of war. In 1875 Japan forced Korea to open itself to foreign (read: Japanese) trade. In the same treaty, Korea was recognised as a sovereign nation, separate from Qing China (Tucker 1461). The necessity for raw materials then led to the Sino-Japanese War (1894–95), a conflict between Japan and China that marked the emergence of Japan as a major world power. The Korean Peninsula had long been China’s most important client state, but its strategic location adjacent to the Japanese archipelago, and its natural resources of coal and iron, attracted Japan’s interest. Later, the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05), allowed a victorious Japan to force Russia to abandon its expansionist policy in the Far East, becoming the first Asian power in modern times to defeat a European power. The Russo-Japanese War developed out of the rivalry between Russia and Japan for dominance in Korea and Manchuria, again in the struggle for natural resources (Tucker 1534-46).Japan’s victories, together with the county’s drive for resources, meant that Japan could now determine its role within the Asia-Pacific sphere of influence. As Japan’s military, and their adoption of Westernised combat, proved effective in maintaining national integrity, other social institutions also looked to the West (Ferguson 221). In an ironic twist—while Victorian and Continental fashion was busy adopting the exotic, oriental look (Martin and Koda)—the kimono, along with other essentials of Japanese fashions, were rapidly altered (both literally and figuratively) to suit new, warlike ideology. It should be noted that kimono literally means ‘things that you wear’ and which, prior to exposure to Western fashions, signified all worn clothing (Dalby 65-119). “Wearing Things” in Westernised JapanAs Japan modernised during the late 1800s the kimono was positioned as symbolising barbaric, pre-modern, ‘oriental’ Japan. Indeed, on 17 January 1887 the Meiji Empress issued a memorandum on the subject of women’s clothing in Japan: “She [the Empress] believed that western clothes were in fact closer to the dress of women in ancient Japan than the kimonos currently worn and urged that they be adopted as the standard clothes of the reign” (Keene 404). The resemblance between Western skirts and blouses and the simple skirt and separate top that had been worn in ancient times by a people descended from the sun goddess, Amaterasu wo mikami, was used to give authority and cultural authenticity to Japan’s modernisation projects. The Imperial Court, with its newly ennobled European style aristocrats, exchanged kimono silks for Victorian finery, and samurai armour for military pomp and splendour (Figure 1).Figure 1: The Meiji Emperor, Empress and Crown Prince resplendent in European fashions on an outing to Asukayama Park. Illustration: Toyohara Chikanobu, circa 1890.It is argued here that the function of a uniform is to prepare the body for service. Maids and butlers, nurses and courtesans, doctors, policemen, and soldiers are all distinguished by their garb. Prudence Black states: “as a technology, uniforms shape and code the body so they become a unit that belongs to a collective whole” (93). The requirement to discipline bodies through clothing, particularly through uniforms, is well documented (see Craik, Peoples, and Foucault). The need to distinguish enemies from allies on the battlefield requires adherence to a set of defined protocols, as referenced in military fashion compendiums (see Molloy). While the postcolonial adoption of Western-based clothing reflects a new form of subservience (Rall, Kuechler and Miller), in Japan, the indigenous garments were clearly designed in the interests of ideological allegiance. To understand the Japanese sartorial traditions, the kimono itself must be read as providing a strong disciplinary element. The traditional garment is designed to represent an upright and unbending column—where two meters of under bindings are used to discipline the body into shape are then topped with a further four meters of a stiffened silk obi wrapped around the waist and lower chest. To dress formally in such a garment requires helpers (see Dalby). The kimono both constructs and confines the women who wear it, and presses them into their roles as dutiful, upper-class daughters (see Craik). From the 1890s through to the 1930s, when Japan again enters a period of militarism, the myth of the kimono again changes as it is integrated into the build-up towards World War II.Decades later, when Japan re-established itself as a global economic power in the 1970s and 1980s, the kimono was re-authenticated as Japan’s ‘traditional’ garment. This time it was not the myth of a people descended from solar deities that was on display, but that of samurai strength and propriety for men, alongside an exaggerated femininity for women, invoking a powerful vision of Japanese sartorial tradition. This reworking of the kimono was only possible as the garment was already contained within the framework of Confucian family duty. However, in the lead up to World War II, Japanese military advancement demanded of its people soldiers that could win European-style wars. The quickest solution was to copy the military acumen and strategies of global warfare, and the costumes of the soldiery and seamen of Europe, including Great Britain (Ferguson). It was also acknowledged that soldiers were ‘made not born’ so the Japanese educational system was re-vamped to emulate those of its military rivals (McVeigh). It was in the uptake of schoolboy uniforms that this re-imagining of Japanese imperial strength took place.The Japanese Schoolboy UniformCentral to their rapid modernisation, Japan adopted a constitutional system of education that borrowed from American and French models (Tipton 68-69). The government viewed education as a “primary means of developing a sense of nation,” and at its core, was the imperial authorities’ obsession with defining “Japan and Japaneseness” (Tipton 68-69). Numerous reforms eventually saw, after an abolition of fees, nearly 100% attendance by both boys and girls, despite a lingering mind-set that educating women was “a waste of time” (Tipton 68-69). A boys’ uniform based on the French and Prussian military uniforms of the 1860s and 1870s respectively (Kinsella 217), was adopted in 1879 (McVeigh 47). This jacket, initially with Prussian cape and cap, consists of a square body, standing mandarin style collar and a buttoned front. It was through these education reforms, as visually symbolised by the adoption of military style school uniforms, that citizen making, education, and military training became interrelated aspects of Meiji modernisation (Kinsella 217). Known as the gakuran (gaku: to study; ran: meaning both orchid, and a pun on Horanda, meaning Holland, the only Western country with trading relations in pre-Meiji Japan), these jackets were a symbol of education, indicating European knowledge, power and influence and came to reflect all things European in Meiji Japan. By adopting these jackets two objectives were realised:through the magical power of imitation, Japan would, by adopting the clothing of the West, naturally rise in military power; and boys were uniformed to become not only educated as quasi-Europeans, but as fighting soldiers and sons (suns) of the nation.The gakuran jacket was first popularised by state-run schools, however, in the century and a half that the garment has been in use it has come to symbolise young Japanese masculinity as showcased in campus films, anime, manga, computer games, and as fashion is the preeminent garment for boybands and Japanese hipsters.While the gakuran is central to the rise of global militarism in Japan (McVeigh 51-53), the jacket would go on to form the basis of the Sun Yat Sen and Mao Suits as symbols of revolutionary China (see McVeigh). Supposedly, Sun Yat Sen saw the schoolboy jacket in Japan as a utilitarian garment and adopted it with a turn down collar (Cumming et al.). For Sun Yat Sen, the gakuran was the perfect mix of civilian (school boy) and military (the garment’s Prussian heritage) allowing him to walk a middle path between the demands of both. Furthermore, the garment allowed Sun to navigate between Western style suits and old-fashioned Qing dynasty styles (Gerth 116); one was associated with the imperialism of the National Products Movement, while the other represented the corruption of the old dynasty. In this way, the gakuran was further politicised from a national (Japanese) symbol to a global one. While military uniforms have always been political garments, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, as the world was rocked by revolutions and war, civilian clothing also became a means of expressing political ideals (McVeigh 48-49). Note that Mahatma Ghandi’s clothing choices also evolved from wholly Western styles to traditional and emphasised domestic products (Gerth 116).Mao adopted this style circa 1927, further defining the style when he came to power by adding elements from the trousers, tunics, and black cotton shoes worn by peasants. The suit was further codified during the 1960s, reaching its height in the Cultural Revolution. While the gakuran has always been a scholarly black (see Figure 2), subtle differences in the colour palette differentiated the Chinese population—peasants and workers donned indigo blue Mao jackets, while the People’s Liberation Army Soldiers donned khaki green. This limited colour scheme somewhat paradoxically ensured that subtle hierarchical differences were maintained even whilst advocating egalitarian ideals (Davis 522). Both the Sun Yat Sen suit and the Mao jacket represented the rejection of bourgeois (Western) norms that objectified the female form in favour of a uniform society. Neo-Maoism and Mao fever of the early 1990s saw the Mao suit emerge again as a desirable piece of iconic/ironic youth fashion. Figure 2: An example of Gakuran uniform next to the girl’s equivalent on display at Ichikawa Gakuen School (Japan). Photo: Emerald King, 2015.There is a clear and vital link between the influence of the Prussian style Japanese schoolboy uniform on the later creation of the Mao jacket—that of the uniform as an integral piece of worn propaganda (Atkins).For Japan, the rapid deployment of new military and industrial technologies, as well as a sartorial need to present her leaders as modern (read: Western) demanded the adoption of European-style uniforms. The Imperial family had always been removed from Samurai battlefields, so the adoption of Western military costume allowed Japan’s rulers to present a uniform face to other global powers. When Japan found itself in conflict in the Asia Pacific Region, without an organised military, the first requirement was to completely reorganise their system of warfare from a feudal base and to train up national servicemen. Within an American-style compulsory education system, the European-based curriculum included training in mathematics, engineering and military history, as young Britons had for generations begun their education in Greek and Latin, with the study of Ancient Greek and Roman wars (Bantock). It is only in the classroom that ideological change on a mass scale can take place (Reference Please), a lesson not missed by later leaders such as Mao Zedong.ConclusionIn the 1880s, the Japanese leaders established their position in global politics by adopting clothing and practices from the West (Europeans, Britons, and Americans) in order to quickly re-shape their country’s educational system and military establishment. The prevailing military costume from foreign cultures not only disciplined their adopted European bodies, they enforced a new regime through dress (Rall 157-174). For boys, the gakuran symbolised the unity of education and militarism as central to Japanese masculinity. Wearing a uniform, as many authors suggest, furthers compliance (Craik, Nagasawa Kaiser and Hutton, and McVeigh). As conscription became a part of Japanese reality in World War II, the schoolboys just swapped their military-inspired school uniforms for genuine military garments.Re-imagining a Japanese schoolboy uniform from a European military costume might suit ideological purposes (Atkins), but there is more. The gakuran, as a uniform based on a close, but not fitted jacket, was the product of a process of advanced industrialisation in the garment-making industry also taking place in the 1800s:Between 1810 and 1830, technical calibrations invented by tailors working at the very highest level of the craft [in Britain] eventually made it possible for hundreds of suits to be cut up and made in advance [...] and the ready-to-wear idea was put into practice for men’s clothes […] originally for uniforms for the War of 1812. (Hollander 31) In this way, industrialisation became a means to mass production, which furthered militarisation, “the uniform is thus the clothing of the modern disciplinary society” (Black 102). There is a perfect resonance between Japan’s appetite for a modern military and their rise to an industrialised society, and their conquests in Asia Pacific supplied the necessary material resources that made such a rapid deployment possible. The Japanese schoolboy uniform was an integral part of the process of both industrialisation and militarisation, which instilled in the wearer a social role required by modern Japanese society in its rise for global power. Garments are never just clothing, but offer a “world of social relations put upon the wearer’s body” (Jones and Stallybrass 3-4).Today, both the Japanese kimono and the Japanese schoolboy uniform continue to interact with, and interrogate, global fashions as contemporary designers continue to call on the tropes of ‘military chic’ (Tonchi) and Japanese-inspired clothing (Kawamura). References Atkins, Jaqueline. Wearing Propaganda: Textiles on the Home Front in Japan, Britain, and the United States. Princeton: Yale UP, 2005.Bantock, Geoffrey Herman. Culture, Industrialisation and Education. London: Routledge & K. Paul, 1968.Black, Prudence. “The Discipline of Appearance: Military Style and Australian Flight Hostess Uniforms 1930–1964.” Fashion & War in Popular Culture. Ed. Denise N. Rall. Bristol: Intellect/U Chicago P, 2014. 91-106.Craik, Jenifer. Uniforms Exposed: From Conformity to Transgression. 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Abstract Using Western and Chinese archival sources, the following paper explores the military intervention of freelance foreign adventurers, particularly a militia eventually known as the Ever-Victorious Army, in the waning years of the Taiping Rebellion (1860–1864). My goal here is not merely to retell the story of this force, or to reassess its contribution to the subjugation of the Taipings, a question already studied by several historians. Instead, I will analyze the complicated and ever-changing relationship between these adventurers and the powers around them: Qing local authorities, the imperial court in Beijing, and the various foreign countries, especially Great Britain. I argue that the opening for such a force as the Ever-Victorious Army was created by the need of all parties for informal cooperation against the Taiping while maintaining plausible deniability. Once this need had passed, the foreign military adventurers became redundant and could be discarded by their former sponsors.

This article analyzes the transformation of Lhasa’s Chinese community from the embodiment of an expansionist power in the early eighteenth century to the orphan of a fallen regime after the Qing Empire’s demise in 1911. Throughout the imperial era, this remote Chinese enclave represented Qing authority in Tibet and remained under the metropole’s strong political and social influence. Its members intermarried with the locals and adopted many Tibetan cultural traits. During the years surrounding the 1911 Xinhai Revolution, this community played a significant role in a series of interconnected political and ethnic confrontations that gave birth to the two antagonistic national bodies of Tibet and China. The community’s history and experiences challenge not only the academic assessment that Tibet’s Chinese population had fully assimilated into Tibetan society by the twentieth century but also the widespread image of pre-1951 Lhasa as a harmonious town of peaceful ethnic coexistence.

In recent years historians have revisited the creation of the United Nations (UN) system by highlighting the enduring influence of Empire and recognizing the substantial role of cultural and scientific actors in wartime international diplomacy. The British biochemist Joseph Needham, who participated in the creation of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), was one of them. Yet, if historians have recognized his role as the leading architect of the sciences at UNESCO, they still fall short of engaging with the Chinese and imperial geography of his involvement with UNESCO. During the Second World War, Needham was stationed in war-torn China. As director of the Sino-British Scientific Cooperation Office, Needham not only organized Sino-British scientific cooperation against the Japanese invasion, but his mission inspired his engagement for a reform of international science and fueled an international campaign that led him to become the director of UNESCO’s Natural Science division after the war. By reconstructing his campaign in context, this article seeks to demonstrate how the imperial and transnational scientific networks of the wartime era fostered the creation of a scientific mandate for UNESCO. It situates Needham’s activism and ideas in the context of the Sino-Japanese war, imperial wartime technocracy, and China’s scientific nationalism. In so doing, it reveals a string of forgotten partners from China and the British Empire. Their conception of a reorganized international science and shared belief in modern science and its ideal of universality shaped Needham’s vision for science at UNESCO, while their activism contributed decisively to the success of his campaign. This inquiry hence participates in recent efforts to challenge the existing Eurocentrism corseting the historiography of the UN and expands the historiography of scientific internationalism beyond Europe and North America. Importantly, it also contributes to uncovering the technocratic ties established between Empire and the UN system from its onset.

AbstractThis article tells the intertwined tales of two historical routes that testify to the extensive geographical distance and profound political connections between Tibet and China throughout the modern era. In much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Sichuan Route operated as the transportation artery upon which the Qing empire depended to maintain authority in Kham and Tibet. It was also the site of a rite of passage for frontier functionaries and a meeting ground between imperial agents and the indigenous population. Despite its destruction after the implosion of the Qing in 1911, the histories and memories of the Sichuan Route continued to influence decision-makers in both China and Tibet in the following decades. The Maritime Route, which emerged in the late nineteenth century with the proliferation of steam transportation in Asia, revolutionized the way in which Tibet connected to China and the rest of the world. It also competed with the Sichuan Route and encouraged the Qing to reconfigure its presence in its non-Chinese territories in the southwest. After the empire fell, political tensions continued to evolve around the Maritime Route, which functioned simultaneously as the reluctant choice of Chinese emissaries and a strategic tool that the Lhasa government wielded to curtail China's influence. Through an exploration of the Sichuan Route and the Maritime Route on the levels of experience and representation, this article sketches the two routes’ troubled interconnections with each other and with every twist and turn in Sino-Tibetan relations from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries.

This article investigates the prosthesis of identity through the process of branding. It examines cross-cultural manifestations of this phenomena from sixth millennium BCE Syria to twelfth century Japan and Britain. From the Neolithic Era, humanity has sort to extend their identities using pictorial signs that were characteristically simple. Designed to be distinctive and instantly recognisable, the totemic symbols served to signal the origin of the bearer. Subsequently, the development of branding coincided with periods of increased in mobility both in respect to geography and social strata. This includes fifth millennium Mesopotamia, nineteenth century Britain, and America during the 1920s.There are fewer articles of greater influence on contemporary culture than A Theory of Human Motivation written by Abraham Maslow in 1943. Nearly seventy-five years later, his theories about the societal need for “belongingness” and “esteem” remain a mainstay of advertising campaigns (Maslow). Although the principles are used to sell a broad range of products from shampoo to breakfast cereal they are epitomised by apparel. This is with refence to garments and accessories bearing corporation logos. Whereas other purchased items, imbued with abstract products, are intended for personal consumption the public display of these symbols may be interpreted as a form of signalling. The intention of the wearers is to literally seek the fulfilment of the aforementioned social needs. This article investigates the use of brands as prosthesis.Coats and Crests: Identity Garnered on Garments in the Middle Ages and the Muromachi PeriodA logo, at its most basic, is a pictorial sign. In his essay, The Visual Language, Ernest Gombrich described the principle as reducing images to “distinctive features” (Gombrich 46). They represent a “simplification of code,” the meaning of which we are conditioned to recognise (Gombrich 46). Logos may also be interpreted as a manifestation of totemism. According to anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss, the principle exists in all civilisations and reflects an effort to evoke the power of nature (71-127). Totemism is also a method of population distribution (Levi-Strauss 166).This principle, in a form garnered on garments, is manifested in Mon Kiri. The practice of cutting out family crests evolved into a form of corporate branding in Japan during the Meiji Period (1868-1912) (Christensen 14). During the Muromachi period (1336-1573) the crests provided an integral means of identification on the battlefield (Christensen 13). The adorning of crests on armour was also exercised in Europe during the twelfth century, when the faces of knights were similarly obscured by helmets (Family Crests of Japan 8). Both Mon Kiri and “Coat[s] of Arms” utilised totemic symbols (Family Crests of Japan 8; Elven 14; Christensen 13). The mon for the imperial family (figs. 1 & 2) during the Muromachi Period featured chrysanthemum and paulownia flowers (Goin’ Japaneque). “Coat[s] of Arms” in Britain featured a menagerie of animals including lions (fig. 3), horses and eagles (Elven).The prothesis of identity through garnering symbols on the battlefield provided “safety” through demonstrating “belongingness”. This constituted a conflation of two separate “needs” in the “hierarchy of prepotency” propositioned by Maslow. Fig. 1. The mon symbolising the Imperial Family during the Muromachi Period featured chrysanthemum and paulownia. "Kamon (Japanese Family Crests): Ancient Key to Samurai Culture." Goin' Japaneque! 15 Nov. 2015. 27 July 2019 <http://goinjapanesque.com/05983/>.Fig. 2. An example of the crest being utilised on a garment can be found in this portrait of samurai Oda Nobunaga. "Japan's 12 Most Famous Samurai." All About Japan. 27 Aug. 2018. 27 July 2019 <https://allabout-japan.com/en/article/5818/>.Fig. 3. A detail from the “Index of Subjects of Crests.” Elven, John Peter. The Book of Family Crests: Comprising Nearly Every Family Bearing, Properly Blazoned and Explained, Accompanied by Upwards of Four Thousand Engravings. Henry Washbourne, 1847.The Pursuit of Prestige: Prosthetic Pedigree from the Late Georgian to the Victorian Eras In 1817, the seal engraver to Prince Regent, Alexander Deuchar, described the function of family crests in British Crests: Containing The Crest and Mottos of The Families of Great Britain and Ireland; Together with Those of The Principal Cities and Heraldic Terms as follows: The first approach to civilization is the distinction of ranks. So necessary is this to the welfare and existence of society, that, without it, anarchy and confusion must prevail… In an early stage, heraldic emblems were characteristic of the bearer… Certain ordinances were made, regulating the mode of bearing arms, and who were entitled to bear them. (i-v)The partitioning of social classes in Britain had deteriorated by the time this compendium was published, with displays of “conspicuous consumption” displacing “heraldic emblems” as a primary method of status signalling (Deuchar 2; Han et al. 18). A consumerism born of newfound affluence, and the desire to signify this wealth through luxury goods, was as integral to the Industrial Revolution as technological development. In Rebels against the Future, published in 1996, Kirkpatrick Sale described the phenomenon:A substantial part of the new population, though still a distinct minority, was made modestly affluent, in some places quite wealthy, by privatization of of the countryside and the industrialization of the cities, and by the sorts of commercial and other services that this called forth. The new money stimulated the consumer demand… that allowed a market economy of a scope not known before. (40)This also reflected improvements in the provision of “health, food [and] education” (Maslow; Snow 25-28). With their “physiological needs” accommodated, this ”substantial part” of the population were able to prioritised their “esteem needs” including the pursuit for prestige (Sale 40; Maslow).In Britain during the Middle Ages laws “specified in minute detail” what each class was permitted to wear (Han et al. 15). A groom, for example, was not able to wear clothing that exceeded two marks in value (Han et al. 15). In a distinct departure during the Industrial Era, it was common for the “middling and lower classes” to “ape” the “fashionable vices of their superiors” (Sale 41). Although mon-like labels that were “simplified so as to be conspicuous and instantly recognisable” emerged in Europe during the nineteenth century their application on garments remained discrete up until the early twentieth century (Christensen 13-14; Moore and Reid 24). During the 1920s, the French companies Hermes and Coco Chanel were amongst the clothing manufacturers to pioneer this principle (Chaney; Icon).During the 1860s, Lincolnshire-born Charles Frederick Worth affixed gold stamped labels to the insides of his garments (Polan et al. 9; Press). Operating from Paris, the innovation was consistent with the introduction of trademark laws in France in 1857 (Lopes et al.). He would become known as the “Father of Haute Couture”, creating dresses for royalty and celebrities including Empress Eugene from Constantinople, French actress Sarah Bernhardt and Australian Opera Singer Nellie Melba (Lopes et al.; Krick). The clothing labels proved and ineffective deterrent to counterfeit, and by the 1890s the House of Worth implemented other measures to authenticate their products (Press). The legitimisation of the origin of a product is, arguably, the primary function of branding. This principle is also applicable to subjects. The prothesis of brands, as totemic symbols, assisted consumers to relocate themselves within a new system of population distribution (Levi-Strauss 166). It was one born of commerce as opposed to heraldry.Selling of Self: Conferring Identity from the Neolithic to Modern ErasIn his 1817 compendium on family crests, Deuchar elaborated on heraldry by writing:Ignoble birth was considered as a stain almost indelible… Illustrious parentage, on the other hand, constituted the very basis of honour: it communicated peculiar rights and privileges, to which the meaner born man might not aspire. (v-vi)The Twinings Logo (fig. 4) has remained unchanged since the design was commissioned by the grandson of the company founder Richard Twining in 1787 (Twining). In addition to reflecting the heritage of the family-owned company, the brand indicated the origin of the tea. This became pertinent during the nineteenth century. Plantations began to operate from Assam to Ceylon (Jones 267-269). Amidst the rampant diversification of tea sources in the Victorian era, concerns about the “unhygienic practices” of Chinese producers were proliferated (Wengrow 11). Subsequently, the brand also offered consumers assurance in quality. Fig. 4. The Twinings Logo reproduced from "History of Twinings." Twinings. 24 July 2019 <https://www.twinings.co.uk/about-twinings/history-of-twinings>.The term ‘brand’, adapted from the Norse “brandr”, was introduced into the English language during the sixteenth century (Starcevic 179). At its most literal, it translates as to “burn down” (Starcevic 179). Using hot elements to singe markings onto animals been recorded as early as 2700 BCE in Egypt (Starcevic 182). However, archaeologists concur that the modern principle of branding predates this practice. The implementation of carved seals or stamps to make indelible impressions of handcrafted objects dates back to Prehistoric Mesopotamia (Starcevic 183; Wengrow 13). Similar traditions developed during the Bronze Age in both China and the Indus Valley (Starcevic 185). In all three civilisations branding facilitated both commerce and aspects of Totemism. In the sixth millennium BCE in “Prehistoric” Mesopotamia, referred to as the Halaf period, stone seals were carved to emulate organic form such as animal teeth (Wengrow 13-14). They were used to safeguard objects by “confer[ring] part of the bearer’s personality” (Wengrow 14). They were concurrently applied to secure the contents of vessels containing “exotic goods” used in transactions (Wengrow 15). Worn as amulets (figs. 5 & 6) the seals, and the symbols they produced, were a physical extension of their owners (Wengrow 14).Fig. 5. Recreation of stamp seal amulets from Neolithic Mesopotamia during the sixth millennium BCE. Wengrow, David. "Prehistories of Commodity Branding." Current Anthropology 49.1 (2008): 14.Fig. 6. “Lot 25Y: Rare Syrian Steatite Amulet – Fertility God 5000 BCE.” The Salesroom. 27 July 2019 <https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/artemis-gallery-ancient-art/catalogue-id-srartem10006/lot-a850d229-a303-4bae-b68c-a6130005c48a>. Fig. 7. Recreation of stamp seal designs from Mesopotamia from the late fifth to fourth millennium BCE. Wengrow, David. "Prehistories of Commodity Branding." Current Anthropology 49. 1 (2008): 16.In the following millennia, the seals would increase exponentially in application and aesthetic complexity (fig. 7) to support the development of household cum cottage industries (Wengrow 15). In addition to handcrafts, sealed vessels would transport consumables such as wine, aromatic oils and animal fats (Wengrow 18). The illustrations on the seals included depictions of rituals undertaken by human figures and/or allegories using animals. It can be ascertained that the transition in the Victorian Era from heraldry to commerce, from family to corporation, had precedence. By extension, consumers were able to participate in this process of value attribution using brands as signifiers. The principle remained prevalent during the modern and post-modern eras and can be respectively interpreted using structuralist and post-structuralist theory.Totemism to Simulacrum: The Evolution of Advertising from the Modern to Post-Modern Eras In 2011, Lisa Chaney wrote of the inception of the Coco Chanel logo (fig. 8) in her biography Chanel: An Intimate Life: A crucial element in the signature design of the Chanel No.5 bottle is the small black ‘C’ within a black circle set as the seal at the neck. On the top of the lid are two more ‘C’s, intertwined back to back… from at least 1924, the No5 bottles sported the unmistakable logo… these two ‘C’s referred to Gabrielle, – in other words Coco Chanel herself, and would become the logo for the House of Chanel. Chaney continued by describing Chanel’s fascination of totemic symbols as expressed through her use of tarot cards. She also “surrounded herself with objects ripe with meaning” such as representations of wheat and lions in reference prosperity and to her zodiac symbol ‘Leo’ respectively. Fig. 8. No5 Chanel Perfume, released in 1924, featured a seal-like logo attached to the bottle neck. “No5.” Chanel. 25 July 2019 <https://www.chanel.com/us/fragrance/p/120450/n5-parfum-grand-extrait/>.Fig. 9. This illustration of the bottle by Georges Goursat was published in a women’s magazine circa 1920s. “1921 Chanel No5.” Inside Chanel. 26 July 2019 <http://inside.chanel.com/en/timeline/1921_no5>; “La 4éme Fête de l’Histoire Samedi 16 et dimache 17 juin.” Ville de Perigueux. Musée d’art et d’archéologie du Périgord. 28 Mar. 2018. 26 July 2019 <https://www.perigueux-maap.fr/category/archives/page/5/>. This product was considered the “financial basis” of the Chanel “empire” which emerged during the second and third decades of the twentieth century (Tikkanen). Chanel is credited for revolutionising Haute Couture by introducing chic modern designs that emphasised “simplicity and comfort.” This was as opposed to the corseted highly embellished fashion that characterised the Victorian Era (Tikkanen). The lavish designs released by the House of Worth were, in and of themselves, “conspicuous” displays of “consumption” (Veblen 17). In contrast, the prestige and status associated with the “poor girl” look introduced by Chanel was invested in the story of the designer (Tikkanen). A primary example is her marinière or sailor’s blouse with a Breton stripe that epitomised her ascension from café singer to couturier (Tikkanen; Burstein 8). This signifier might have gone unobserved by less discerning consumers of fashion if it were not for branding. Not unlike the Prehistoric Mesopotamians, this iteration of branding is a process which “confer[s]” the “personality” of the designer into the garment (Wengrow 13 -14). The wearer of the garment is, in turn, is imbued by extension. Advertisers in the post-structuralist era embraced Levi-Strauss’s structuralist anthropological theories (Williamson 50). This is with particular reference to “bricolage” or the “preconditioning” of totemic symbols (Williamson 173; Pool 50). Subsequently, advertising creatives cum “bricoleur” employed his principles to imbue the brands with symbolic power. This symbolic capital was, arguably, transferable to the product and, ultimately, to its consumer (Williamson 173).Post-structuralist and semiotician Jean Baudrillard “exhaustively” critiqued brands and the advertising, or simulacrum, that embellished them between the late 1960s and early 1980s (Wengrow 10-11). In Simulacra and Simulation he wrote,it is the reflection of a profound reality; it masks and denatures a profound reality; it masks the absence of a profound reality; it has no relation to any reality whatsoever: it is its own pure simulacrum. (6)The symbolic power of the Chanel brand resonates in the ‘profound reality’ of her story. It is efficiently ‘denatured’ through becoming simplified, conspicuous and instantly recognisable. It is, as a logo, physically juxtaposed as simulacra onto apparel. This simulacrum, in turn, effects the ‘profound reality’ of the consumer. In 1899, economist Thorstein Veblen wrote in The Theory of the Leisure Class:Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods it the means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure… costly entertainments, such as potlatch or the ball, are peculiarly adapted to serve this end… he consumes vicariously for his host at the same time that he is witness to the consumption… he is also made to witness his host’s facility in etiquette. (47)Therefore, according to Veblen, it was the witnessing of “wasteful” consumption that “confers status” as opposed the primary conspicuous act (Han et al. 18). Despite television being in its experimental infancy advertising was at “the height of its powers” during the 1920s (Clark et al. 18; Hill 30). Post-World War I consumers, in America, experienced an unaccustomed level of prosperity and were unsuspecting of the motives of the newly formed advertising agencies (Clark et al. 18). Subsequently, the ‘witnessing’ of consumption could be constructed across a plethora of media from the newly emerged commercial radio to billboards (Hill viii–25). The resulting ‘status’ was ‘conferred’ onto brand logos. Women’s magazines, with a legacy dating back to 1828, were a primary locus (Hill 10).Belonging in a Post-Structuralist WorldIt is significant to note that, in a post-structuralist world, consumers do not exclusively seek upward mobility in their selection of brands. The establishment of counter-culture icon Levi-Strauss and Co. was concurrent to the emergence of both The House of Worth and Coco Chanel. The Bavarian-born Levi Strauss commenced selling apparel in San Francisco in 1853 (Levi’s). Two decades later, in partnership with Nevada born tailor Jacob Davis, he patented the “riveted-for-strength” workwear using blue denim (Levi’s). Although the ontology of ‘jeans’ is contested, references to “Jene Fustyan” date back the sixteenth century (Snyder 139). It involved the combining cotton, wool and linen to create “vestments” for Geonese sailors (Snyder 138). The Two Horse Logo (fig. 10), depicting them unable to pull apart a pair of jeans to symbolise strength, has been in continuous use by Levi Strauss & Co. company since its design in 1886 (Levi’s). Fig. 10. The Two Horse Logo by Levi Strauss & Co. has been in continuous use since 1886. Staff Unzipped. "Two Horses. One Message." Heritage. Levi Strauss & Co. 1 July 2011. 25 July 2019 <https://www.levistrauss.com/2011/07/01/two-horses-many-versions-one-message/>.The “rugged wear” would become the favoured apparel amongst miners at American Gold Rush (Muthu 6). Subsequently, between the 1930s – 1960s Hollywood films cultivated jeans as a symbol of “defiance” from Stage Coach staring John Wayne in 1939 to Rebel without A Cause staring James Dean in 1955 (Muthu 6; Edgar). Consequently, during the 1960s college students protesting in America (fig. 11) against the draft chose the attire to symbolise their solidarity with the working class (Hedarty). Notwithstanding a 1990s fashion revision of denim into a diversity of garments ranging from jackets to skirts, jeans have remained a wardrobe mainstay for the past half century (Hedarty; Muthu 10). Fig. 11. Although the brand label is not visible, jeans as initially introduced to the American Goldfields in the nineteenth century by Levi Strauss & Co. were cultivated as a symbol of defiance from the 1930s – 1960s. It documents an anti-war protest that occurred at the Pentagon in 1967. Cox, Savannah. "The Anti-Vietnam War Movement." ATI. 14 Dec. 2016. 16 July 2019 <https://allthatsinteresting.com/vietnam-war-protests#7>.In 2003, the journal Science published an article “Does Rejection Hurt? An Fmri Study of Social Exclusion” (Eisenberger et al.). The cross-institutional study demonstrated that the neurological reaction to rejection is indistinguishable to physical pain. Whereas during the 1940s Maslow classified the desire for “belonging” as secondary to “physiological needs,” early twenty-first century psychologists would suggest “[social] acceptance is a mechanism for survival” (Weir 50). In Simulacra and Simulation, Jean Baudrillard wrote: Today abstraction is no longer that of the map, the double, the mirror or the concept. Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal… (1)In the intervening thirty-eight years since this document was published the artifice of our interactions has increased exponentially. In order to locate ‘belongness’ in this hyperreality, the identities of the seekers require a level of encoding. Brands, as signifiers, provide a vehicle.Whereas in Prehistoric Mesopotamia carved seals, worn as amulets, were used to extend the identity of a person, in post-digital China WeChat QR codes (fig. 12), stored in mobile phones, are used to facilitate transactions from exchanging contact details to commerce. Like other totems, they provide access to information such as locations, preferences, beliefs, marital status and financial circumstances. These individualised brands are the most recent incarnation of a technology that has developed over the past eight thousand years. The intermediary iteration, emblems affixed to garments, has remained prevalent since the twelfth century. Their continued salience is due to their visibility and, subsequent, accessibility as signifiers. Fig. 12. It may be posited that Wechat QR codes are a form individualised branding. Like other totems, they store information pertaining to the owner’s location, beliefs, preferences, marital status and financial circumstances. “Join Wechat groups using QR code on 2019.” Techwebsites. 26 July 2019 <https://techwebsites.net/join-wechat-group-qr-code/>.Fig. 13. Brands function effectively as signifiers is due to the international distribution of multinational corporations. This is the shopfront of Chanel in Dubai, which offers customers apparel bearing consistent insignia as the Parisian outlet at on Rue Cambon. Customers of Chanel can signify to each other with the confidence that their products will be recognised. “Chanel.” The Dubai Mall. 26 July 2019 <https://thedubaimall.com/en/shop/chanel>.Navigating a post-structuralist world of increasing mobility necessitates a rudimental understanding of these symbols. Whereas in the nineteenth century status was conveyed through consumption and witnessing consumption, from the twentieth century onwards the garnering of brands made this transaction immediate (Veblen 47; Han et al. 18). The bricolage of the brands is constructed by bricoleurs working in any number of contemporary creative fields such as advertising, filmmaking or song writing. They provide a system by which individuals can convey and recognise identities at prima facie. They enable the prosthesis of identity.ReferencesBaudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation. Trans. Sheila Faria Glaser. United States: University of Michigan Press, 1994.Burstein, Jessica. Cold Modernism: Literature, Fashion, Art. United States: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012.Chaney, Lisa. Chanel: An Intimate Life. United Kingdom: Penguin Books Limited, 2011.Christensen, J.A. Cut-Art: An Introduction to Chung-Hua and Kiri-E. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1989. Clark, Eddie M., Timothy C. 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In the mid twentieth century, Britain was experiencing the beginnings of decolonization and heightened nationalistic movements from many of its colonial holdings and protectorate territories. Specifically, in 1952 the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya highlighted colonial desires to be independent and exiled from the Empire. Simultaneously, the case study of the Mau Mau also shows the British government attempting to preserve the spirit of Empire. Continuing to demonstrate their motivations and purpose as the leading global imperial power in Kenya, the British exhibited their self-imposed paternalistic ‘duty’, as civilizing initiatives persisted. Critically analyzing the roles of female Mau Mau members in the rebellion demonstrates the cultural and ideological discrepancies between British and Kenyan conceptions of traditional gender roles and further, how British preconceived notions of gendered stereotypes provided an opportunity for Mau Mau women to exhibit significant political influence and agency that arguably contributed to the end of the rebellion (1956) and the eventual independence of Kenya (1963). Due to the contiguity of the crisis and the limited availability of sources on the Mau Mau, this paper seeks to shed light on the intersection between the perceptions and realities of Metropolitan and Mau Mau gender roles. Though the rebellion was multi-faceted and can be analyzed for a plethora of historical narratives, focusing specifically on the role female Mau Mau members played in the rebellion demonstrates the clashing British and Kikuyu conceptions of gender roles. Studying the Mau Mau women emphasizes the importance of considering women's roles in history as they factor into broader ideologies of race, politics, and culture, while also showing the shift in western historical approaches that are validating oral histories.