Author: Neil Safier File Type: pdf Prior to 1735, South America was terra incognita to many Europeans.But that year, the Paris Academy of Sciences sent a mission to the Spanish American province of Quito (in present-day Ecuador) to study the curvature of the earth at the Equator. Equipped with quadrants and telescopes, the missions participants referred to the transfer of scientific knowledge from Europe to the Andes as a sacred fire passing mysteriously through European astronomical instruments to observers in South America.By taking an innovative interdisciplinary look at the traces of this expedition, Measuring the New World examines the transatlantic flow of knowledge from West to East. Through ephemeral monuments and geographical maps, this book explores how the social and cultural worlds of South America contributed to the production of European scientific knowledge during the Enlightenment. Neil Safier uses the notebooks of traveling philosophers, as well as specimens from the expedition, to place this particular scientific endeavor in the larger context of early modern print culture and the emerging intellectual category of scientist as author.ReviewA deft, thoughtful examination of what happened to European Enlightenment science in an American setting, and of how South America was depicted in Europe as a result of this exploration. What makes Safiers book stand out . . . is the way in which he masterfully expands the range of sites, practices and participants. This is not the story of an expedition, but rather a study of the stories the expedition yielded through words and images.Daniela Bleichmar, American Scientist(Daniela Bleichmar American Scientist )Engaging and illuminating. . . . The book is indispensable reading for anyone interested in fresh interdisciplinary approaches to the science and intellectual history of this era.(Barbara E. Mundy Journal of Interdisciplinary History )Measuring the New World beautifully dissects the social and material practices that comprise what Safier calls transatlantic scientific commemorations. We are fortunate that the University of Chicago Press has produced a book with some 20 color plates and nearly 60 figures that wonderfully illustrate and illuminate Safiers sophisticated arguments. We are indebted to Safier for helping enlighten scholars of both Europe and the Americas on the role of the New World in the construction of modern science and the European Enlightenment.(Marshall C. Eakin The Americas )Safiers engaging and significant book is several narratives in one. It is an important contribution to recent historiographical revisionism centring around geographical readings of (the) Enlightenment. . . .This is an account, finely told throughout, of mapping in the field, of mapping as an uncertain form of topographic depiction and measurementand of ethnographic classification, since later commentators sought to fix Amerindians as native others even as they were dependent upon them as guides and informantsand of the ways in which eighteenth-century mapmakers had to reconcile different epistemological standards in order to make distant worlds portable in map form. Safiers book is an important addition to case studies in the social and technical history of Enlightenment mapping as a process that had less to do with the unproblematic extension of European certainty and more with the contingencies of geography, locally, nationally and as networks of transnational exchange and interaction.(Charles Withers Imago Mundi )This is a well-written book, and Safier displays remarkable skill in analyzing manuscripts and printed works in many languages. A meticulous reader, the author is perhaps best at picking apart and cross-referencing widely scattered narratives, letters, commentaries . . . . [Measuring the New World] helps restore the value of Ibero-American Enlightenment science.(Kris Lane Colonial Latin American Historical Review )Safiers meticulous narratives create an impression of the fragility of the networks by which natural knowledge was built in the early modern period. . . . [His] book calls into question the notion that the sciences worked through rigid and efficient systems integrated with the structures of imperial power. . . . He shows how--when we follow objects, people, and texts in their unpredictable peregrinations--we can tell a much more interesting story.(Jan Golinski Journal of Modern History )[This] breakthrough study reconstructs this important historical moment and reminds readers that cartography consisted not only of projection on maps. . . . In uncovering this human agency, Safier provides scholars in history, literature, and cartography with many new directions upon which to embark in the study of the European Enlightenment and its legacies througout the transatlantic world.(Jonathan Carlyon American Historical Review )Measuring the New World offers a refreshing perspective on some of the hidden layers of knowledge production and truth-making in mid-eighteenth-century France and Spain. Neil Safiers study is a tour de force. . . . A valuable ontribution to the understanding of Enlightenment science in a broader, but intimate sense and the geographies of reading and writing in particular.(Jorn Seemann H-Net )A magnificent example of the new science history, informed by cultural and social history and literary theory, and in which great men have to share space with the many more humble people, male and female, European and indigenous, who played a central role in the production of scientific knowledge in the early modern era.(Terrae Incognitae ) About the AuthorNeil Safier is associate professor of history at the University of British Columbia.

Author: Neil Brenner File Type: pdf

Author: Jonathan Alpeyrie File Type: epub Discover a gripping and harrowing tale of war and torture from the man who lived it in this powerful memoir by the celebrated war journalist who not only documented over a dozen conflict zones worldwide but was also captured and held hostage by Syrian rebels in 2013.Capturing history was Jonathan Alpeyries job but he never expected to become a news story himself. For a decade, the FrenchAmerican photojournalist had weaved in and out of over a dozen conflict zones. He photographed civilians being chased out of their homes, military trucks roving over bullettorn battlefields, and too many bodies to count. But on April 29, 2013, during his third assignment to Syria, Alpeyrie was betrayed by his fixer and handed over to a band of Syrian rebels. For eightyone days he was bound, blindfolded, and beaten. Not too far away, President Bashar alAssads forces and those in opposition continued their bitter and bloody civil war. Over the course of his captivity, Alpeyrie kept his spirits up and strove to see, without his camera lenses, the humanity in his captors. He took part in their activities, taught them how to swim, prayed with them, and tried learning their language and culture. He also discovered a dormant faith within himself, one that strengthened him throughout the ordeal. The Shattered Lens is the firsthand account of a photojournalist who has always answered the next adrenalinepumping assignment. Yet, during his headlinemaking kidnapping, he was left to consider the value and risks of his career, ponder the violent conflicts he had seen, and put the historical events over which we have no control into perspective.

Author: Wolfram Kaiser File Type: pdf Major study of the role of European Christian democratic parties in the making of the European Union. It radically re-conceptualises European integration in long-term historical perspective as the outcome of partisan competition of political ideologies and parties and their guiding ideas for the future of Europe. Wolfram Kaiser takes a comparative approach to political Catholicism in the nineteenth century, Catholic parties in interwar Europe and Christian democratic parties in postwar Europe and studies these parties cross-border contacts and co-ordination of policy-making. He shows how well networked party elites ensured that the origins of European Union were predominately Christian democratic, with considerable repercussions for the present-day EU. The elites succeeded by intensifying their cross-border communication and coordinating their political tactics and policy making in government. This is a major contribution to the new transnational history of Europe and the history of European integration. **Review Kaisers book is a detailed scholarly analysis of European Christian democracy from its 19th-century inception to recent times. Recommended. -Choice Kaisers survey impresses for its analytical incisiveness and chronological and geographic scope. -Central European History Kaisers book is a milestone on the road to demonstrating how the European Union was built precisely through the networking of transnational actors such as Christian Democratic parties. -Stefan Berger, The International History Review ...Kaiser has written an important book for scholars of European integration and European politics in the twentieth century. -Robert Mark Spaulding, H-German ...a landmark contribution to contemporary European history. -Holger Nehring, Journal of Cold War Studies Book Description A radical study of the role of European Christian democratic parties in the making of the European Union. It re-conceptualises European integration in long-term historical perspective as the outcome of the partisan competition of political ideologies and parties and their guiding ideas for the future of Europe.