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As key players in the transatlantic slave trade, the monarchies of Hueda and Dahomey (in modern-day southern Benin) connected themselves to global commodity flows. From the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, imported merchandise fueled practices of conspicuous consumption and ritualized largesse, the performance of which was pivotal in consolidating their rulers' power. Focusing on specific items (tobacco, porcelain) and behavioral practices (smoking, spitting), this article examines how these goods were materially and symbolically integrated into courtly culture and associated with the religious beliefs and ritual practices of Vodun. In order to track recurring aspects of courtly scenography, to compare the signification of bodily practices in different parts of the world, and to identify material links engendered by global trade, it combines microhistorical investigation based on written records with archaeological findings, anthropological observations, and the analysis of visual sources and sculptural artifacts. The essay argues that royal palaces constituted crucial laboratories of aesthetic change and new cultures of elite consumption. In this process, exogenous elements not only enriched the material culture of the palaces, celebrating the monarchs' global splendor; they were also charged with new meanings that inscribed foreign goods and related practices into specifically regional cultural codes.

RésumésActeurs majeurs de la traite transatlantique des esclaves, les royaumes de Hueda et du Dahomey (Sud du Bénin actuel) se sont insérés dans les flux mondiaux de marchandises. Entre lexviie et lexixe siècle, les biens importés y ont alimenté des pratiques de consommation ostentatoire et des attitudes de largesse ritualisée dont les manifestations ont été essentielles à la consolidation de la souveraineté des monarques. En mettant l'accent sur deux marchandises en particulier (le tabac et la porcelaine) ainsi que sur des pratiques comportementales (fumer, cracher), cet article étudie la façon dont ces biens étaient matériellement et symboliquement intégrés à la culture de cour et associés à des croyances religieuses et à des pratiques rituelles du vodun. Il associe une enquête micro-historique reposant sur des sources écrites avec des découvertes archéologiques, des observations anthropologiques et l'analyse de sources visuelles et sculpturales, afin de mettre en évidence des aspects récurrents de la scénographie de cour, de comparer les significations des pratiques corporelles dans différentes régions du monde et d'identifier les liens matériels engendrés par le commerce mondial. L'article montre ainsi que les palais royaux ont été des laboratoires essentiels d'un changement esthétique et de nouvelles cultures de consommation élitiste. Au cours de ce processus, les éléments d'origine étrangère ont non seulement enrichi la culture matérielle des palais, illustrant la splendeur mondiale des monarques, mais ils se sont également chargés de nouvelles significations qui ont intégré ces biens et les pratiques afférentes dans des codes culturels spécifiques à certaines régions.

In anni recenti, l'idea che gli stati nazionali debbano scegliere attivamente le persone a cui concedere accesso legale al proprio territorio e mercato di lavoro ha indotto i governi di vari paesi europei ad adottare nuovi meccanismi selettivi basati su sistemi a punti. Ispirati a modelli nordamericani, questi dispositivi sono stati implementati, o sono attualmente in discussione, nel contesto di dibattiti di portata più generale; dibattiti che, a loro volta, sono permeati da argomenti utilitaristici e caratterizzati da una contrapposizione discorsiva tra migranti "utili", portatori di livelli alti di capitale umano, e migranti poveri, percepiti come "peso" economico. Immagini dicotomiche di questo tipo hanno una lunga tradizione in Europa, com'è dimostrato da un ampio spettro di esempi storici, a partire dalle ordinanze bassomedievali contro i "vagabondi", per arrivare alle politiche mercantiliste volte ad attrarre artigiani specializzati.Tuttavia, tali esempi mettono in luce che il presupposto centrale di questo approccio – l'idea che attraverso un sistema di privilegi legali sia possibile giungere ad una regolazione dei flussi migratori favorevole alla crescita economica – si è per lo più rivelato illusorio, nella misura in cui non tiene conto dell'agency autonoma dei soggetti migranti. Lungi dal rappresentare una soluzione, gli impianti giuridici che contemplano diritti differenziati – variabili a seconda del supposto "valore" che determinati individui incorporerebbero per la "nazione" – tendono a degradare i migranti al rango di "mezzi" e ad innescare una progressiva erosione del concetto di uguaglianza. ; In recent years, the idea that national states should actively chose the persons to whom they confer legal access to their territories and labour markets has lead various European governments to adopt new point-based selection systems, inspired by older North-American models. These policies have been implemented – or are currently discussed – in the context of broader contemporary debates on migration which are strongly informed by utilitarian arguments and by a discursive contraposition of allegedly "useful" migrants, characterised by high levels of human capital, to poor migrants, who tend to be seen as economically "burdensome". Such dichotomous images have a long tradition in Europe, as is shown by a vast array of historical examples, stretching from late-medieval anti-vagrant laws to mercantilist policies aiming at attracting skilled craftsmen. However, these examples equally highlight that the central assumption of these policies – that is the belief that is possible to obtain a growth-enhancing regulation of migratory flows through a system of legal privileges – has mostly proven illusory, as it does not take into account the autonomous agency of migrant actors. Finally, the essay argues that granting different rights to migrants according to the perceived "usefulness" of the latter for the "nation" tends to degrade persons to means and to fuel a gradual erosion of the concept of equality.

International audience ; During the wars of the early modern age, deaths by disease tended to prevail over deaths in combat. This trend was particularly pronounced in the case of European troops operating in extra-European ecological contexts. As the pioneering works by Philip D. Curtin have shown, on this behalf the nineteenth century was a period of radical change: on the one hand, European empires expanded to Africa and Asia, on the other medical innovation transformed the epidemiological relation between Europe and the rest of the world, resulting in a clear decrease of mortality among European migrants moving to extra-European territories. In this context, the emergence of "tropical medicine" as a scientific field, the development of colonial projects and the reinforcement of military health services were deeply interconnected processes. Medical knowledge constituted a crucial resource for European powers: not only to provide for the health of their troops but also to create favourable conditions for an increasing number of settlers, entrepreneurs and civil servants. Later also improving the health of the native populations became a goal of colonial administrators, who perceived demographic growth as a crucial factor for enhancing the economic profitability of the colonies. Medicine, hygiene and (a certain) Western bodily discipline were celebrated as elements of the civilizing mission and sometimes employed as tools of social disciplining. However, it would be simplistic to interpret the history of colonial health as a unilateral transfer from European metropoles to colonized territories. The knowledge involved in the making of colonial medicine was not exclusively produced in the laboratories of tropical institutes and European hospitals: to a significant extent it was generated through social interactions in the colonies. Military doctors had limited infrastructural, pharmaceutical and human resources and often they had to cope with unknown diseases whose etiology was still an unsolved question. Thus, ...

International audience ; In recent years, the idea that national states should actively chose the persons to whom they confer legal access to their territories and labour markets has lead various European governments to adopt new point-based selection systems, inspired by older North-American models. These policies have been implemented – or are currently discussed – in the context of broader contemporary debates on migration which are strongly informed by utilitarian arguments and by a discursive contraposition of allegedly "useful" migrants, characterised by high levels of human capital, to poor migrants, who tend to be seen as economically "burdensome". Such dichotomous images have a long tradition in Europe, as is shown by a vast array of historical examples, stretching from late-medieval anti-vagrant laws to mercantilist policies aiming at attracting skilled craftsmen. However, these examples equally highlight that the central assumption of these policies – that is the belief that is possible to obtain a growth-enhancing regulation of migratory flows through a system of legal privileges – has mostly proven illusory, as it does not take into account the autonomous agency of migrant actors. Finally, the essay argues that granting different rights to migrants according to the perceived "usefulness" of the latter for the "nation" tends to degrade persons to means and to fuel a gradual erosion of the concept of equality. ; In anni recenti, l'idea che gli stati nazionali debbano scegliere attivamente le persone a cui concedere accesso legale al proprio territorio e mercato di lavoro ha indotto i governi di vari paesi europei ad adottare dei nuovi meccanismi selettivi basati su sistemi a punti. Ispirati a modelli nordamericani, questi dispositivi sono stati implementati – o sono attualmente in discussione – nel contesto di dibattiti di portata più generale: dibattiti che, a loro volta, sono permeati da argomenti utilitaristici e caratterizzati da una contrapposizione discorsiva tra migranti "utili", portatori di ...

International audience ; In recent years, the idea that national states should actively chose the persons to whom they confer legal access to their territories and labour markets has lead various European governments to adopt new point-based selection systems, inspired by older North-American models. These policies have been implemented – or are currently discussed – in the context of broader contemporary debates on migration which are strongly informed by utilitarian arguments and by a discursive contraposition of allegedly "useful" migrants, characterised by high levels of human capital, to poor migrants, who tend to be seen as economically "burdensome". Such dichotomous images have a long tradition in Europe, as is shown by a vast array of historical examples, stretching from late-medieval anti-vagrant laws to mercantilist policies aiming at attracting skilled craftsmen. However, these examples equally highlight that the central assumption of these policies – that is the belief that is possible to obtain a growth-enhancing regulation of migratory flows through a system of legal privileges – has mostly proven illusory, as it does not take into account the autonomous agency of migrant actors. Finally, the essay argues that granting different rights to migrants according to the perceived "usefulness" of the latter for the "nation" tends to degrade persons to means and to fuel a gradual erosion of the concept of equality. ; In anni recenti, l'idea che gli stati nazionali debbano scegliere attivamente le persone a cui concedere accesso legale al proprio territorio e mercato di lavoro ha indotto i governi di vari paesi europei ad adottare dei nuovi meccanismi selettivi basati su sistemi a punti. Ispirati a modelli nordamericani, questi dispositivi sono stati implementati – o sono attualmente in discussione – nel contesto di dibattiti di portata più generale: dibattiti che, a loro volta, sono permeati da argomenti utilitaristici e caratterizzati da una contrapposizione discorsiva tra migranti "utili", portatori di livelli alti di capitale umano, e migranti poveri, percepiti come "peso" economico. Immagini dicotomiche di questo tipo hanno una lunga tradizione in Europa, com'è dimostrato da un ampio spettro di esempi storici, dalle ordinanze bassomedievali contro i "vagabondi" alle politiche mercantiliste volte ad attrarre artigiani specializzati. In contempo, tuttavia, tali esempi mettono in luce che il presupposto centrale di tale approccio – l'idea che attraverso un sistema di privilegi legali sia possibile giungere ad una regolazione dei flussi migratori favorevole alla crescita economica – si è per lo più rivelato illusorio, nella misura in cui non tiene conto dell'agency autonoma dei soggetti migranti. Lungi dal rappresentare una soluzione, gli impianti giuridici che contemplano diritti differenziati – variabili a seconda del supposto "valore" che determinati soggetti incorporerebbero per la "nazione" – tendono a degradare i migranti al rango di "mezzi" e dunque ad innescare una progressiva erosione del concetto di uguaglianza.

International audience ; During the wars of the early modern age, deaths by disease tended to prevail over deaths in combat. This trend was particularly pronounced in the case of European troops operating in extra-European ecological contexts. As the pioneering works by Philip D. Curtin have shown, on this behalf the nineteenth century was a period of radical change: on the one hand, European empires expanded to Africa and Asia, on the other medical innovation transformed the epidemiological relation between Europe and the rest of the world, resulting in a clear decrease of mortality among European migrants moving to extra-European territories. In this context, the emergence of "tropical medicine" as a scientific field, the development of colonial projects and the reinforcement of military health services were deeply interconnected processes. Medical knowledge constituted a crucial resource for European powers: not only to provide for the health of their troops but also to create favourable conditions for an increasing number of settlers, entrepreneurs and civil servants. Later also improving the health of the native populations became a goal of colonial administrators, who perceived demographic growth as a crucial factor for enhancing the economic profitability of the colonies. Medicine, hygiene and (a certain) Western bodily discipline were celebrated as elements of the civilizing mission and sometimes employed as tools of social disciplining. However, it would be simplistic to interpret the history of colonial health as a unilateral transfer from European metropoles to colonized territories. The knowledge involved in the making of colonial medicine was not exclusively produced in the laboratories of tropical institutes and European hospitals: to a significant extent it was generated through social interactions in the colonies. Military doctors had limited infrastructural, pharmaceutical and human resources and often they had to cope with unknown diseases whose etiology was still an unsolved question. Thus, inter-imperial cooperation, reciprocal transfers between European and non-European actors as well as the (mostly fragmentary but sill significant) appropriation of "native" therapies played a central role in the construction of colonial medicine. On February 6, 2015, a group of scholars from France, Switzerland, Germany and Brazil met at the Château de Vincennes (the seat of the French military archives) to discuss the role of military physicians in European as well as the production and circulation of medical knowledge about tropical diseases during the long 19th century. The contributions to this meeting stretch from the Napoleonic wars in Egypt and the Caribbean to Dutch South-East Asia and the Herero-Nama Wars in German South-West Africa. A special issue of the journal "Histoire, médecine et santé" presenting the results of our work is currently in press. ; Comme l'ont montré les travaux pionniers de Philip D. Curtin, la prépondérance des morts causées par des maladies par rapport aux pertes au combat – une tendance généralisée pendant tous les conflits majeurs de l'époque moderne – fut particulièrement drastique dans le cas des troupes européennes opérant dans des contextes écologiques extra-européens. Le XIXe siècle représente, à ce propos, une période charnière, marquée par l'expansion territoriale des empires coloniaux en Afrique et Asie et, en même temps, par des développements historico-médicaux qui changèrent profondément la relation épidémiologique entre l'Europe et le reste du monde, entrainant une nette hausse des taux de survie parmi les migrants européens en Outre-Mer.L'émergence de la « médecine tropicale » comme discipline scientifique, le développement des projets coloniaux et le renforcement des services sanitaires des forces armées furent, dans ce contexte, des phénomènes profondément interconnectés. Les savoirs médicaux et les institutions sanitaires constituèrent des ressources cruciales pour les puissances européennes : non seulement pour mener des opérations militaires, mais aussi pour permettre l'implantation d'un nombre croissant de colons et administrateurs et, dans un deuxième temps, pour offrir des services sanitaires aux populations colonisées, dont le développement démographique était perçu comme une variable décisive dans la valorisation économique des colonies. Célébrées au niveau propagandiste comme éléments centrales de la « mission civilisatrice », médecine, hygiène et (une certaine) culture corporelle occidentale avaient vocation à être utilisées comme des instruments de discipline sociale.Il serait toutefois simpliste de lire l'histoire de la santé coloniale comme celle d'un transfert unilatéral de savoirs médicaux depuis les métropoles vers les colonies. Ces savoirs n'étaient pas uniquement produits dans les laboratoires des instituts de médecine tropicale et les cliniques européennes : ils étaient souvent générés par les interactions sociales dans les colonies. Dotés de ressources infrastructurelles, pharmaceutiques et humaines limitées, les officiers de santé étaient souvent obligés de faire face à des maladies qu'ils ne connaissaient pas et dont l'étiologie représentait une question irrésolue. Par conséquent les réseaux de coopération inter-impériale, les transferts entre acteurs européens et non-européens ainsi que l'appropriation (pour la plupart fragmentaire, mais néanmoins significative) de savoirs thérapeutiques "indigènes" jouaient un rôle important dans la construction de la médecine coloniale.

International audience ; Guglielmo Francesco Galletti († 1798) était un imprimeur, éditeur et journaliste originaire du Piémont actif à Paris pendant la Révolution française. Parmi ses clients il comptait Maximilien Robespierre, Pierre-Antoine Antonelle, Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois, Filippo Buonarroti, Edmond Louis Alexis Dubois-Crancé et Charles-Nicolas Osselin. Avec Osselin en novembre 1792 Galletti fonda le "Journal des Lois de la République une et indivisible". Le "Monitore italiano politico e letterario", édité en 1793 à Nice par le jacobin piémontais Giovanni Antonio Ranza, publia régulièrement des articles du « Journal des Lois » en traduction italienne. Dans l'an II Galletti publia aussi le "Journal de la Commune", consacré aux travaux de la première Commune de Paris. Terroriste pendant la Terreur, le « Journal des Lois » devint violemment thermidorien après Thermidor et participa à la campagne de calomnies lancée contre Robespierre et sa « faction anthropophage ». Parmi les rédacteurs du "Journal des Lois" il y avait probablement Joseph Maria Piccini (Giuseppe Maria Piccinni), fils du célèbre compositeur Niccolò Vito Piccinni. Dans l'an III Galletti polémiqua avec "Le Tribun du Peuple" de Babeuf. Avec le début du régime du Directoire le quotidien de Galletti changea son nom, en devenant le "Journal des Lois des deux Conseils et du Directoire de la République française". Après les élections de l'an V, le journal prit le nom de "Le Pacificateur", auquel collaborèrent Dominique-Joseph Garat et Pierre-Louis Ginguené. Les rédacteurs responsables étaient Galletti et Jean-Baptiste Picquenard, ci-devant secrétaire de la commission civile de Sonthonax à Saint-Domingue et futur auteur du roman historique "Adonis, ou Le bon nègre". En collaboration avec Agnelli (éditeur à Lugano) et avec Cougnet (éditeur à Nice), en 1797 Galletti lança un nouveau journal, nommé "L'Italiano imparziale. Gazzetta politica e letteraria" et destiné à diffuser la propagande française dans « Républiques sœurs » d'Italie. Galletti mourut ...

International audience ; This essay examines the geographic origins, the political belongings and the confessional profiles of the members of the two most important mercantile nations of eighteenth-century southern Italy: the French nation and the British factory of Naples. Taking into account their pronounced prosopographic heterogeneity, it shows how legal resources and their social uses played a crucial role in defining the boundaries of such groups.

International audience ; Über den Nutzen und die Kosten der Einwanderung wird in der Öffentlichkeit intensiv debattiert. Solche Diskussionen - und die damit verbundenen dichotomischen Bilder von ökonomisch nützlichen Fachkräften und schädlichen Schmarotzern - gründen auf einer jahrhundertealten diskursiven Tradition. Der Artikel untersucht utilitaristische Argumentionsweisen in Migrationsdebatten und -politiken anhand von spätmittelalterlichen und frühneuzeitlichen Beispielen.

Über den Nutzen und die Kosten der Einwanderung wird in der Öffentlichkeit intensiv debattiert. Solche Diskussionen - und die damit verbundenen dichotomischen Bilder von ökonomisch nützlichen Fachkräften und schädlichen Schmarotzern - gründen auf einer jahrhundertealten diskursiven Tradition. Der Artikel untersucht utilitaristische Argumentionsweisen in Migrationsdebatten und -politiken anhand von spätmittelalterlichen und frühneuzeitlichen Beispielen. ; International audience

International audience ; Über den Nutzen und die Kosten der Einwanderung wird in der Öffentlichkeit intensiv debattiert. Solche Diskussionen - und die damit verbundenen dichotomischen Bilder von ökonomisch nützlichen Fachkräften und schädlichen Schmarotzern - gründen auf einer jahrhundertealten diskursiven Tradition. Der Artikel untersucht utilitaristische Argumentionsweisen in Migrationsdebatten und -politiken anhand von spätmittelalterlichen und frühneuzeitlichen Beispielen.

Hermes, the Leviathan and the Grand Narrative of New Institutional Economics: The Quest for Development in the Eighteenth-Century Kingdom of Naples The scholarly tradition of New Institutional Economics has tended to explain the «rise of the West» and global inequalities through models distinguishing virtuous institutional paths, which grant property rights and the enforcement of contracts, to non-virtuous ones of which Mediterranean absolutist monarchies are considered to be paradigmatic examples. This essay retraces the emergence of this grand narrative, examining its Anglo-centric leanings and its use of the concept of «absolutism ». By reviewing historiographical studies dealing with the question of southern Italy's economic decline during the early modern age, and by investigating the reforms enacted during the eighteenth century in the Kingdom of Naples in order to create economically efficient institutions, it challenges dichotomous images opposing predatory absolutist states to development-enhancing institutional models dominated by merchants and entrepreneurs. Through an archive-based analysis of the reforms of the judicial and the customs system, it argues that economic and political power asymmetries amongst different states deeply affect the attempts at institutional reform within individual states.