In Bangladesh, many secularists pursue their political goals through cultural activism. While committed to achieving a secular, progressive, and non-communal society, they often refrain from explicitly articulating their politics due to the sensitivity of their goals. Instead, cultural performances allow them to instantiate and embody a secular ethos with transformative potential, expressed through distinct cultural genres that become recognized as secular aesthetics. While activists consider culture to be a morally superior and ‘purer’ way to promote their political aims than party politics, which they perceive as ‘dirty’ and corrupt, cultural traditions are hardly neutral ground from which to enact secular aspirations. This article explores the ethical struggles that emerge from this position to illuminate what it means to act politically while trying to avoid politics, and why people might choose comparatively elusive forms of political engagement despite their strong commitment to a cause. Attending to less tangible forms of politics encourages us to rethink the role of political messages and visibility in social movements by highlighting the significant role, as well as contradictory implications, of aesthetics, embodiment, and gestures in political action. Conversely, the elusive politics of cultural activism underlines the need to go beyond analysing national discourses to understand the contested nature of secularism in Bangladesh.

This article is about contingency and determination. It identifies three “inflection points”—tipping points or points of no return—in the not-so-longue durée of Soviet history: 1929, 1959, and 1989. The article thus reflects on the collectivization of agriculture and associated brutalities; the promise and limitations of Khrushchev’s reforms as well as the appeal—again, limited—of the Soviet Union to the emerging Third World; and the opportunities presented by perestroika and glasnost to reconfigure relations and purposes of production before the waves of nationalism and neoliberal market madness washed over the Soviet Union.

Among the dilemmas faced by labor, socialist, and other movements of the subaltern classes striving to change society over the past two centuries, three are discussed here: forms of ownership, bureaucracy and “big tent” formulas for both unity of the working class broadly defined, and alliances with movements of independent owners or undefined class status. Examples are drawn from various countries (France, Italy, Britain, the USA, Brazil, Korea) and from international programmatic discussions. Socialists, notably Marxists, shared the radical republican goal of a true democracy of equals, but differed on the extent of collective ownership (state, local, cooperative) needed in the economy, and the definition of privately owned personal goods that insured an individual’s dignity and independence. The rise and contraction of capitalist states with social services (“welfare states”) complicated the issue. Such movements also accumulated experiences with the growth of experts and/or bureaucrats, and the means to limit their privileges and transformation into a caste-type elite. Three environments which generate such phenomena are identified: social-democratic and big labor, post-capitalist states and, more recently, nongovernmental organizations. Finally, the author discusses alliances with broader social forces which include working-class and non-working-class interests, and the management of cross-class ideologies such as certain varieties of nationalism, feminism, environmentalism, and anti-tax movements.

Drawing inspiration from Ian Hacking's claim that new modes of description generate new possibilities for action, this essay explores the impact of changes to the mode of description through the 1901 Census in Ceylon. It begins by exploring the modes of description used in the censuses prior to 1901 to demonstrate that in Ceylon, the census was yet to emerge as the critical tool of colonial governance claimed by dominant scholarship around colonial census taking. This leads to an exploration of how the changes that Sir Ponnambalam Arunachalam, the first Ceylonese Census superintendent, made to the Census Ordinance, Census Manual, and Census Report impacted the function of the census as a mode of description. It then explores the possibilities for action generated by these changes in the mode of description, paying particular attention to the ways in which the census shaped elite, indigenous activism leading to the first major reforms of the colonial governance structure in Ceylon, including the introduction of limited franchise. Thus, Ceylon's 1901 Census affords a unique opportunity to examine the impact that shifts in modes of description have on possibilities for action.

This article highlights the author’s body and its physical experience in labor history, by a focus on their historical implication for the emergence of writings about miners in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth century China. Miners and their workplace entered Chinese textual and pictorial representations at the turn of the twentieth century, as a result of the growing importance of the mining industry, the dissemination of new mining knowledge, and the formation of new social groups. Later in the 1920s, literary movements tied up with the revolutionary agenda under the influence of Marxism brought new conceptualizations of miners’ position in society and their relationship with intellectuals. When authors turned to write about miners in the late 1920s and early 1930s, they chose to legitimize their writing by descending into mine shafts to acquire the experience in the underground mining workplace and to incorporate the bodily experience into their writings. The mining lamp in texts and images from this period provides a prime example to illustrate how the author’s experience in the underground mine was embodied in the author’s and the miner’s corporeal visions and contributed a new way of seeing and representing miners. Drawing upon materials about miners of various genres, this article reveals the formulation of Chinese visual modernity within Chinese social interactions and brings the author’s body into labor history by calling attention to both its material presence in the workplace and its agentic power to inscribe workers.

This article explores three instances of the looping effect by studying colonial resistance in the Moluccas in 1817. It focuses on the relations between Dutch colonial officials and the sultan of Ternate in the North Moluccas, and between Dutch officials and the regents of Ambon in the Central Moluccas. The first instance of the looping effect revolves around how Ambonese regents, who adhered to Calvinism, used Christian principles to contest Dutch rule within the Moluccas. This became evident in 1817 when a revolt broke out against the reestablishment of Dutch rule within the Moluccas. The leaders of this revolt used religious precepts of Calvinism, previously introduced by the Dutch, to argue that the reestablishment of Dutch rule should be rejected. The article continues with a second instance of the looping effect, reconstructing how Ambonese rulers used instructions issued by the colonial state in 1818 to mitigate claims from the colonial government. Finally, a third instance of the looping effect can be perceived in how the sultan of Ternate used contracts, signed with the Dutch colonial state in 1817, to request Dutch military assistance against internal uprisings and thereby increased his authority throughout the region.

This article focuses on an alphabetically ordered collection titled The Lügat of İstanbul Fifty Years Ago, published in 1942 by the prolific Turkish historian and writer Reşad Ekrem Koçu. Despite its rich and lesser-known descriptions and stories of İstanbul’s historical spaces, people, and events in each entry with anecdotes, quotes, and comments, the Lügat has remained relatively unknown. Koçu drew on the memoirs and journalistic essays of Turkish journalist Ahmed Rasim, who vividly captured the essence of the city in his writings during the 1890s. This article examines Koçu’s endeavor to establish a methodology for urban historiography by rearranging and re-animating the depictions of the mundane urban past in a new encyclopedic genre, Lügat, while placing it within the wider framework of urban history literature in İstanbul. Through a critical analysis of the narratives portraying the perils and pleasures of İstanbul in the Lügat, this article illustrates how Koçu’s classifications are intertwined with subjective interpretations rather than rational objectifications.

The essay argues that the idea of the United States as a classless society was never a faithful representation of the U.S. socioeconomic reality, but constituted a myth elaborated since the 1830s by the first generation of U.S. economists to oppose the insubordination of Northern white workers, their mobilization through strikes, their politicization of class, and their critique of wage labor. It was precisely to counter the workers’ discourse, the essay maintains, that the first U.S. economists, most importantly Henry Charles Carey (1793–1879), developed an ideological representation of U.S. society as a classless structure devoid of fixed boundaries, in which industrious individuals could improve their condition through labor and in which social positions reflected a scale of talents and merits. By studying the early writings of Carey, but also of Theodore Sedgwick (1780–1839), Francis Wayland (1796–1865), Henry Vethake (1791–1866), Alonzo Potter (1800–1865), and Francis Lieber (1800–1872), the essay shows how economists used the myth of the classless society to scientifically legitimize the coming of capitalism to the United States, as well as to delegitimize class conflict. This anti-labor reaction, the essay argues, marked the very emergence of political economy in the United States as a science aimed at justifying the order of society through a mystified representation of its power relations, while the myth of the classless society would persist as a fundamental ideological pillar in the legitimation and naturalization of American capitalism.

For too long, questions of racism and colonialism have not been part of historical sociology’s understanding of modernity. Yet, a new generation of scholars has begun to address this, placing racism and empire at the center of their inquiries. This new generation looks to previously marginalized scholars for guidelines and inspiration. In line with this shift in historical sociology, this paper brings the work of W.E.B. Du Bois and other writers in the Black Radical Tradition to bear on longer-standing analytic and methodological debates: How do these authors allow us to think about theory-building and comparison? What is the goal of explanation? How should we approach archives and sources? Building on these insights, this paper explains how the work of Du Bois and the Black Radical Tradition provides a model for a new historical sociology, and a framework that allows us to see the connections between racism, colonialism, and modernity.

This essay challenges the ethnocentrism of the dominant literature on hikmet-i cedide, or the new philosophy, in the late Ottoman Empire. Hikmet-i cedide was “new” in the sense that it did not confine itself to theological discussions and interpretations of holy books. Instead, it found its source of inspiration in the principles of modern Western philosophy, and especially the philosophy of the Enlightenment and Auguste Comte’s positivism. The dominant literature reduces this hikmet-i cedide to the philosophical writings of Muslim/Turkish intellectuals. Problematizing such ethnocentrism, this essay gives an account of hikmet-i cedide from the perspective of Ottoman–Armenians’ early engagement with positivism and the political philosophy of the Enlightenment. It argues that Armenians’ philosophical discourses in the second half of the nineteenth century were characterized by a belief that the principles of the new philosophy were the sine qua non for national survival in the multi-ethnic and multi-religious context of the Empire. They were also characterized by a commitment to reconciling modern Western philosophy with religious attachments. However, this characterization should not be thought to be confined to so-called “Armenian philosophy” but may be generalized to broader late Ottoman thought.

Elites were pivotal for Latin America’s modernization, yet granular evidence of their industrial entrepreneurship is limited. I study Antioquia, an early center of industrialization, from the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries. Analyzing elite interactions via newfound archival data and exploiting unexpected deaths as exogenous shocks, I find global connectivity—not local—drove industrial entrepreneurship. This suggests diverse resources unavailable in markets but accessible through global connections were crucial in forming industrial ventures. Thus, this paper depicts how social capital shapes elite outcomes.

This article provides a conceptual framework that fills a critical gap at the intersection of Chinese art and cultural history. It focuses on the Yongzheng emperor's ‘Illustrated Inventory of Ancient Playthings’ (Guwantu) and its significance within the context of the collecting and courtly elite culture of the High Qing. Through a comprehensive examination of scroll B/C.8–V&A of the Guwantu itself, as well as the relevant source material, this study elucidates the dynamics that shaped the connections between artist, collector and object in the context of the scroll. Furthermore, this contribution throws light on the multiple entangled relationships that underpinned imperial collecting practices of the period, ultimately offering new insights into the socio-cultural milieu of collectors and connoisseurs in early eighteenth-century China.

The articulations of science and politics in the Cold War in the United States are well studied in histories of American political culture. However, these histories are often given focus and coherence via concepts and understandings taken from political realism and sociological institutionalism, thereby underestimating the transformations in the very idea of political reality that helped form the Cold War era in the United States. This paper launches an investigation of the relationship between speculative fiction and scientific and political discourse during that era to explore how the political culture of the United States came to be structured not only by a certain imagination but also by a particular set of fantasies. Building on the history of war-gaming at the RAND Corporation, the author conducts a close reading of a RAND Corporation report turned popular science publication. This suggests that, during the Cold War, a new standpoint from which to view the political world – the view from outer space – began to organize how the American political project for the globe represented its own modernity to itself. This view, drawn from science fiction but made real in its ethos and its political consequences, projected an understanding of “mankind” as but an infant in the early stages of what would become its interstellar destiny. A baleful consequence of this view was its tendency to free political actors and intellectuals from the urgent problem, identified acutely by Hannah Arendt in her essay “Man’s Conquest of Space,” of creating a world in common on earth.