This essay examines the working relationship between Charles Darwin and the Edinburgh gardener John Scott that developed in the wake of the publishing of the Origin of Species (1859). As the essay shows, Darwin sought to utilize Scott’s horticultural knowledge and experimental expertise in order to provide some of the specialized botanical evidence that the Origin was not intended to provide. Scott, meanwhile, sought to use Darwin’s patronage and tutelage in order to overcome his modest status as a gardener while making contributions to scientific knowledge. And for an intense two-year period (1862–4), Darwin and Scott’s relationship was productive and mutually beneficial: not only did Scott’s work supplement Darwin’s ongoing botanical research on sexual development and fertility, but also his Primula experiments appeared to provide ‘physiological’ evidence of speciation via selective breeding. What the essay argues, however, is that there were limits to what Scott was able to achieve due in part to his social standing and perceived character that ultimately cast a shadow over his findings.

El objetivo de este artículo es aplicar diferentes metodologías para medir la pobreza absoluta de ingresos en sectores urbanos en Chile entre 1940 y 1992. La perspectiva metodológica combina el food share method de la CEPAL, las mediciones Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (FGT) y la propuesta de Prados de la Escosura. La investigación muestra que: 1) el modelo ISI inicialmente reduce la pobreza, pero se estanca al finalizar la Segunda Guerra Mundial; 2) en los años cincuenta, la crisis opaca los avances de la década anterior; 3) entre 1964 y 1971, la pobreza se reduce drásticamente; 4) durante el gobierno militar (1973-1990), tras superar la crisis inflacionaria de los setenta, la pobreza vuelve a niveles históricos presentes desde la Segunda Guerra Mundial y luego desciende gradualmente desde 1983.

Lorsque l’adjectif « végétarien » apparaît pour la première fois dans un texte publié, en 1842, il est loin d’être considéré comme un néologisme audacieux : dérivé du latin vegetus, il désigne un état de santé physique et mentale, et est utilisé comme alternative à divers autres termes, tels que « abstinent », « pythagoricien » ou « frugivore ». Les « végétariens » du xixe siècle cherchaient à souligner la continuité conceptuelle entre leur choix de s’abstenir de consommer de la viande – ou tout autre produit animal – et la longue tradition des philosophes antiques, tels Porphyre et Plutarque, ainsi que l’imagerie biblique concernant l’alimentation humaine avant la Chute. Cet article examine le milieu intellectuel dans lequel le mot « végétarisme » a été inventé afin d’établir des liens à la fois avec la compréhension contemporaine de ce régime alimentaire et avec les discussions sur l’abstinence de viande avant que ce terme ne commence à être utilisé. Il en résulte une étude de cas sur les intersections entre l’histoire d’un concept et les histoires entremêlées des différents mots qui l’accompagnent. La méthodologie de l’anachronisme contrôlé est présentée comme un outil productif qui permet aux historiens et historiennes (de la philosophie) de détecter les trajectoires conceptuelles tout en préservant la contextualisation, et ainsi de retracer l’histoire d’une idée au milieu des changements terminologiques. Cet article est un plaidoyer en faveur de l’application des anachronismes à la recherche historique, dépassant l’idée selon laquelle les anachronismes sont incompatibles avec le besoin présumé de neutralité de l’histoire.

In the annual presidential address to the American Society of Church History (ASCH), Esther Chung-Kim discusses the pivotal role of pastors, physicians, and lay healers in responding to poverty and illness in early modern Europe. She offers that their involvement shaped both social welfare and medical care. Reflecting the values of biblical examples, both Catholics and Protestants established institutions to support the sick and poor. Promoting practices of care for the sick, religious leaders, pious physicians, and lay healers promoted charity through medicine, in various efforts to expand access to care. Protestant reformers sought to shift responses to illness away from saintly intercession and instead toward direct appeals to God and natural medicine, seen as a divine gift. In some cities, Reformed ordinances mandated medical support for the poor by institutionalizing care during epidemics. The convergence of religious and medical reform, aided by print culture, resulted in Christian thinkers recognizing medicine as a form of God’s providence in nature (thereby encouraging a positive view of medicine), and physicians promoting religious reform in their medical treatises. In the early modern era, Catholics and Protestants both strengthened the link between Christianity and medicine with theological and practical ways to show care and concern for the sick.

This research reconstructs the business dynamics behind the evolution of the European mutual fund industry, which led Luxembourg to become its main international gateway since the 1960s. We analyze this local industry to understand how political and financial élites influence the economic specialization of small states. We argue that a closely-knit community of local professionals and politicians, well-versed in corporate and European legislation, leveraged the Grand Duchy’s small state status within the nascent European Community to become a financial hub specializing in mutual funds within an emerging network of international financial centers. This position was achieved through bifurcation of sovereignty strategies on the basis of two main premises. First, on the systematic acceptance of conflicts of interest within local financial and political leadership, comprising overlapping roles, revolving-doors, and familial ties in business relationships. Second, on regulatory engineering practices, such as the dynamic interpretation of laws, and the strategic planning of directive assimilation to advance Luxembourg’s interests as opposed to its EU counterparts. The analysis uses archival material from nine archival collections and oral history interviews.

The article presents a revised dating of a major late medieval inquisition of heresy, challenging the dating of the records established since the 1880s. The inquisitor Petrus Zwicker’s proceedings against Brandenburgian and Pomeranian Waldensians in Stettin did not take place between November 1392 and March 1394, with an 11-month pause between March 1393 and February 1394, as has been the scholarly consensus up till now. Instead, the prosecution was a continuous process that started in November 1393 and lasted till late March 1394. The article discusses the problems of the established dating that is based on now-outdated information about the inquisitor’s itinerary and an ambiguous 15th-century commentary on the register volume. The internal evidence of the register, such as the way different deponents refer to the same events, strongly points towards an uninterrupted process. The revised timeline for the inquisitions solves several contradictions in interpreting the records and proposes new lines of inquiry. A novel reconstruction of the last Waldensian minister’s visit to Stettin and surroundings is provided in the last section of the article. In general, the article addresses the constant need to re-evaluate established interpretations of premodern sources, including those uncontested in the scholarship.