Emerging from empire? Decolonisation in the Pacific : proceedings of a workshop at the Australian National University, December 1996

These papers grew out of a workshop in the Division of Pacific and Asian History in the Australian National University in December 1996. A December workshop has become a regular mechanism for assembling Pacific historians, their affines and agnates, without the formality of registration, a secretariat - or much of a budget. Accordingly, we owe a great debt to the participants who came largely at their won expense or funded by their own institutions. We owe an equal debt to Maeve O'Collins and Mary Mortimer, for hosting the parties which allow the networking for which these events are best remembered. (First paragraph of Introduction)

The Defining years: Pacific Islands, 1945-65

This book brings together nine papers from a workshop held at The Australian National University in 2003 that fill a gap in Pacific historiography -- the period from the end of World War II to the advent of decolonization in the 1960s. While the post-war years might not have been as dramatic or colourful as some other periods in Pacific Islands history, they were important in laying the foundation for later developments in the region. These papers cover a wide range of topics, including the practical difficulties of kiap administration in Papua New Guinea, mental health in Fiji, New Zealand-Samoan relations in the 1940s, and the beginnings of elected government in Palau. They offer an alternate view of Pacific Island history in a time of silent but nonetheless significant developments

The Regulation of Mercy. The Royal Pardon Legislation in Late Medieval England and France

In late medieval Europe, the legal power to pardon criminals was one of the most important manifestations of royal sovereignty. From the thirteenth century onwards, the kings of England and France massively granted pardon or remission letters to individuals who petitioned for their mercy, allowing them to escape prosecution and punishment. Yet, the king’s right to pardon was not completely above law, as the English Parliament and the French General Estates repeatedly compelled the monarchs to promulgate a legislation about royal pardon. In reaction to the alleged threats to public order caused by the high number of criminals who escaped punishment, the kings of France and England had to restrain the access to royal mercy. This paper will examine how the politics of pardon led by the French and the English monarchs were debated in Parliament and General Estates, and how such debates resulted in an attempt to regulate the power to pardon. Some of these measures met with mixed success and were not even respected by the monarchs themselves – such as the limitation of the categories of pardonable crimes –, but others helped to make the pardon process a bureaucratic procedure integrated to the course of royal justice. Therefore, although the pardon legislation may be seen as the product of a confrontation between the kings and their representative institutions, it ultimately benefited to the monarchs and the extension of royal justice. Finally, the comparative approach of this paper will show that although the French and English pardon legislations were the products of two very different political, institutional, and legal contexts, the history of the regulation of the power to pardon in England and France followed a similar pattern

Juan Prim, le comité d’Ostende et les relations belgo-espagnoles (1866-1870)

Le but de cet essai est de sortir d’une lecture stato-centrée des relations internationales au 19e siècle, et de démontrer l’importance des acteurs non étatiques et leur influence au sein du système international. C’est dans cette optique que nous avons choisi d’étudier le cas du général Prim et du Comité d’Ostende. Durant le mois d’août 1866, ce comité regroupe une série de figures des partis progressistes et démocrates espagnols en exil, opposés à la reine Isabelle II. Cet essai ne portera pas sur les pérégrinations du général Prim et du Comité d’Ostende en tant que tel, mais sur le rôle et l’impact qu’ils ont pu avoir au sein du système international, comment ils ont été appréhendés par les autres acteurs de celui-ci et notamment les gouvernements belges et espagnols, mais aussi et surtout sur la manière dont ils ont pu influencer les relations diplomatiques belgo-espagnoles.The purpose of this essay is to question the state-centered reading of international relations in the 19th century, and to demonstrate the importance of non-state actors and their influence within the international system. It is in this perspective that we have chosen to study the case of General Prim and the Ostend’s Committee. During the month of August 1866, the committee gathers a series of figures of the Spanish progressive and democrat parties in exile, opposed to Queen Isabella II. This essay will not deal with the peregrinations of General Prim and the Ostend Committee as such, but on the role and impact they may have had in the international system, how they were apprehended by the other actors and in particular the Belgian and Spanish Governments, but also and especially on the way in which they could influence the Belgo-Spanish diplomatic relations

Archeological remains from Oostvleteren (West-Vlaanderen, Belgium, 10th-11th centuries)

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1985, une année charnière dans l’évolution des relations entre la Communauté économique européenne et le Japon ?

Dès l’entrée en vigueur de la politique commerciale commune en 1970, les relations entre la Communauté économique européenne (CEE) et le Japon ont rapidement été marquées par des tensions commerciales croissantes. L’arrivée du Premier ministre Yasuhiro Nakasone en 1982, suivie de celle de Jacques Delors à la présidence de la Commission européenne en 1985, semble favoriser une réorientation des rapports vers un renforcement du dialogue au-delà des questions commerciales. Ainsi, les discours semblent s’adoucir pour passer de la confrontation à la coopération entre les deux parties. Pouvons-nous dès lors observer un véritable tournant dans l'évolution des rapports entre la CEE et le Japon en 1985 ? Cette communication a été présentée à l’occasion d’un atelier doctoral en histoire des relations internationales organisé par l’Universidad Complutense de Madrid les 20 et 21 mai 2021, en collaboration avec Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, l’UCLouvain, l’Università degli Studi di Padova, l’Université de Genève et l’University of Glasgow. Elle s'inscrit dans le cadre d’un projet de recherche doctorale portant sur l’histoire des relations entre le Japon et l'Union européenne de 1985 à 2000, sous la direction du professeur Vincent Dujardin

Adapting and Importing Astronomical Tables in Byzantium (14th-15th centuries)

Greek manuscripts of the late 14th century and the 15th century present various collections of astronomical tables. This brilliant period of the Byzantine astronomy is characterized by a renewed interest in the study and the practical application of Ptolemy’s works. Along with this scientific trend, the Byzantines import a lot of astronomical texts and tables with a foreign background. In addition to Ptolemy’s tables – the "Handy Tables" especially –, that have been widely copied and sometimes modified by Byzantine scholars, manuscripts offer numerous Greek adaptations of Persian, Latin and Jewish tables. In this extensive matter, my purpose is to focus on some rich topics: the "New Tables" of the Byzantine scholar Isaac Argyrus (who flourished in the last third of the 14th century), the Greek adaptation of Jewish astronomical treatises ("Hexapterygon" of Michael Chrysoccoces, about 1435) and the adaptation of Alphonsine tables ("Treatise on Latin Tables" of Demetrius Chrysoloras, 1380)