De sacra militia contra iconomachos : civic strategies to counter iconoclasm in the Low Countries (1566)

Although the iconoclastic scare must have been enormous and the actual impact of the attacks of summer and autumn 1566 can hardly be exaggerated, the Beeldenstorm was not as comprehensive as it seemed to contemporaries and subsequent historians. Indeed, a considerable number of important cities in the Habsburg Netherlands actually managed to ward off destruction, but until now their role has hardly been studied. The aim of this article is twofold: first, it seeks to chart the cities in question. Second, it analyses the preventive measures that they took against the violence. In so doing, it nuances the idea of the Beeldenstorm as an all-destructive wave, and provides insights into the dynamics of the Iconoclastic Fury. More specifically, the cliché that the passivity of magistrates was the main reason for all losses seems in need of considerable revision

'The creation of the Monnet Plan, 1945-46: a critical re-evaluation'

Drawing on an extensive range of French archival sources as well as Jean Monnet’s papers, this article challenges several commonly-held views regarding the establishment of the Monnet Plan by re-examining the domestic political context in post-war France. It reveals that the distinctive ‘supra-ministerial’ structure of the Monnet Plan was developed only after, and in direct response to, the October 1945 legislative elections in which the French Communist Party won the most seats and subsequently gained control of France’s main economic ministries. Furthermore, Monnet managed to convince Communist ministers to surrender important powers from their ministries to Monnet’s nascent planning office on false premises, a finding that challenges the usual depiction of Monnet as an open and honest broker

Ferraris, the legend

At the end of the eighteenth century, a large-scale map of the Austrian Netherlands and the Prince-Bishopric of Liege was manufactured, covering more or less the current territory of Belgium. The work for this Carte de Cabinet was carried out by artillerists under the guidance of count Joseph de Ferraris, who was commissioned for the task by the Habsburg government. At the time that the map was designed, no modern legend was included. This paper tries to fill that gap by presenting a legend that was constructed more systematically than any of its predecessors. It is based on the structure of the legend of the Topographic Map of Belgium and the CORINE land cover map, making it an easy-to-use tool for modern researchers. The problems encountered during the development of the legend are described, and the link between the Carte de Cabinet and eighteenth-century French cartography as well as with cartographic manuals is also discussed

The Formative Influence of French Colonialism on the Life and Thought of Malek Bennabi (Malik bn Nabi)

Malek Bennabi (1905–73) fut un intellectuel algérien de premier rang. Cet article étudie l’effet du colonialisme sur sa vie et ses idées. L’étude considère ses livres et offre une comparaison entre Bennabi et Frantz Fanon. Bennabi montre qu’il n’était pas « colonisable » à cause de sa formation et sa conscience historique

The kingdom's two bodies? : corporeal rhetoric and royal authority during the religious wars

The conventional discourse of the body politic assumed a peculiar resonance during the French religious wars due to the unique identification of the king with the well-being of his kingdom. The duality of this relationship was echoed in the language and imagery of corporeal rhetoric which infused the declarations of all sides during the conflict. The combined threat of heresy and civil war, and the shared imperative to defend the unity and integrity of the kingdom, lent a renewed relevance, but also a profound discord, to this rhetoric. While opinions differed about the best means to cure France's ills—the royal policy of pacification being the most controversial of them—monarchical authority was bolstered by the king's undisputed role as head of the body politic and protector of, and physician to, his realm