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Our understanding of the Holy roman empire has been transformed in the last fifty years. the older, 'Borussian interpretation' dismissed the empire in its last two centuries as moribund and doomed to be supplanted by dynamic, centralizing 'power states' like Prussia. A succession of historians since the 1960s have identified how imperial institutions performed important coordinating functions, repelled external attacks, resolved internal conflicts, and safeguarded an impressive and surprisingly robust range of individual and corporate rights for ordinary inhabitants. More recently, some have suggested this positive reappraisal presents the old empire as a blueprint for the German Federal republic or the european Union. Others prefer to characterize the empire as, at best, only 'partially modernized' and still defective in comparison with most other, especially western european countries.

Abstract
Joseph Rosh ha-Seder was a renowned copyist and Talmud scholar in 12th century Egypt. His personal hand-lists of quotations and notes, found in the Cairo Genizah, serve to reconstruct the outline of many of his literary projects. This article presents an analysis of one such fragment, containing several nonconsecutive Talmud commentaries which may be attributed to the geonic academies in Baghdad. Among the questions raised to guide future research are: To what end did these commentaries serve the compiler? What can be learned from the language of the commentaries (Judeo-Arabic as opposed to Hebrew)? What can this fragment tell us about the proliferation of geonic commentaries over the course of two centuries? What can this fragment tell us of Joseph's own literary capabilities and plans?

This paper draws on the narrative of a Samburu woman, whom we call Sasha, from northern Kenya. She has been living with recto- and vesico-vaginal fistula for more than ten years. Her homeland is characterized by abject poverty, patriarchy and traditional practices involving witchcraft, which is intertwined with the teachings of Christian evangelist missionaries that traverse the last two centuries. Sasha's research interview offered representations of the broader social and political aspects affecting women with vaginal fistula and how this influences their lived experiences. We suggest that this condition is more than a biomedical issue, which we explain through our interpretive feminist analysis of Sasha's story. An African feminist lens enables attention towards the influences of patriarchy, African ethnicities and underdevelopment of the African continent.

The paper dwells on the role of the regional national non-governmental organization in forming of civil society in Russian Federation and their place in the system of regional relationships and political practices in last two centuries. The author analyses citizen's participation in national non-governmental organizations as a result of a possibility of realization of a social and cultural interests and as a mechanism of interaction with government body, educational and cultural institutions ; В статье рассматривается роль региональных национальных общественных организаций в формировании гражданского общества в Российской Федерации. Определяется роль и место национальных общественных организаций в системе региональных связей и политической практике последних двух десятилетий. Участие граждан в национальных общественных объединениях рассматривается как возможность реализации общественных и культурных интересов и как механизм взаимодействия с органами власти, образовательными и культурными учреждениями

Does the enumeration of ethnic, racial, and/or religious categories on national household censuses increase the likelihood of conflict? The authors propose a theory of intergroup relations that emphasizes the conflictual effects of institutionalizing boundaries between social identity groups. The article investigates the relationship between counting and various forms of conflict with an original, global data set that classifies the type of enumeration used in more than one thousand census questionnaires in more than 150 countries spanning more than two centuries. Through a series of cross-national statistical analyses, the authors find a robust association between enumeration of ethnic cleavages on the census and various forms of competition and conflict, including violent ethnic civil war. The plausibility of the theory is further demonstrated through case study analysis of religious conflict in India.

Two centuries of Greek debt crises highlight the pitfalls of relying on external financing. Since its independence in 1829, the Greek government has defaulted four times on its external creditors - with striking historical parallels. Each crisis is preceded by a period of heavy borrowing from foreign private creditors. As repayment difficulties arise, foreign governments step in, help to repay the private creditors, and demand budget cuts and adjustment programs as a condition for the official bailout loans. Political interference from abroad mounts and a prolonged episode of debt overhang and financial autarky follows. We conclude that these cycles of external debt and dependence are a perennial theme of Greek history, as well as in other countries that have been "addicted" to foreign savings.

В статье рассматривается роль региональных национальных общественных организаций в формировании гражданского общества в Российской Федерации. Определяется роль и место национальных общественных организаций в системе региональных связей и политической практике последних двух десятилетий. Участие граждан в национальных общественных объединениях рассматривается как возможность реализации общественных и культурных интересов и как механизм взаимодействия с органами власти, образовательными и культурными учреждениями. ; The paper dwells on the role of the regional national non-governmental organization in forming of civil society in Russian Federation and their place in the system of regional relationships and political practices in last two centuries. The author analyses citizen's participation in national non-governmental organizations as a result of a possibility of realization of a social and cultural interests and as a mechanism of interaction with government body, educational and cultural institutions.

Until quite recently, Latin American countries widely assumed that legal discrimination against ethno-racial groups was a practice that took place elsewhere but not in the region. Somehow, the articulations between law and racial inequality remained successfully covered for almost two centuries. By tracing how such articulations could be hidden for so long, this article changes the focus on domestic legislation and offers a legal transnational approach for the analysis of the multi-scale intercrossing of racial discourses through law. It aims to elucidate the chronological and epistemic concurrence between different legal projects of racial stratification operating in different world areas and to expose the crucial role that law played in the racialization of society under colonial rule, and the continuities of such role in Latin America until the twentieth century.

The small Greek island of Antikythera has a long history of human exploitation, of which one of the most interesting episodes is represented by a fortified settlement on the north coast of the island that can be plausibly identified as a centre of Hellenistic piratical activity. Hellenistic 'Aegila' has left both impressive standing remains and a range of portable finds that have attracted academic interest for over much of the last two centuries. This paper examines the pottery assemblage from this period recovered during a recent intensive survey over the island's entire extent. We consider the spatial and typological character of this material as well as the implications it has for the Hellenistic community's wider social, economic and political connections.

AbstractThis paper discusses the political history of the Indian princely state of Janjira on the west coast of India. It was ruled by Sidis (Africans) from the early seventeenth century until the merger of princely states immediately after the independence of India in 1947. The Sidi rulers of Janjira were of African origin, having initially entered India as traders and serving in administrative capacities with the medieval Deccan kingdoms. The emphasis of this paper will be on the manner in which the rulers of Janjira were elected by a group of African Sidi chiefs or Sardars from amongst them for almost two centuries, as opposed to relying on hereditary primogeniture as a system of succession, and the implications that such a system had on the history of Janjira.

The attention-grabbing act of planting a national flag of titanium on the seabed beneath the North Pole in 2007 made clear just how serious Russia's geopolitical ambitions in the north are. Several important lines of cultural-historical discourse verify Russia's self-understanding as a "northern" nation. This dimension has often been neglected in favour of cliched comparisons of Russia and Europe. But even Russian concepts of the north are by no means homogenous. In the past two centuries, the north was repeatedly imagined as the place of origin of Russia's national culture and form of government. Simultaneously, there were movements towards disengagement and rejection, in which the autochthonous Slavic element was played off the northern, Scandinavian element, something that was seen as alien. Adapted from the source document.

A distinctive trend developed in 19th and 20th century Europe, which saw the universalisation of principles of state political systems. This tendency expressed itself in proclaiming in the constitutions of individual states and in the practical application by European democracies of the political principles inspired by the ideas of the Enlightenment. Over a period of over two centuries, the constitutions of many countries developed with a similar catalogue of principles of government, in a similar legal form. These principles express the same ideas and political values and aim at developing an identical model of government structure based on liberal-democratic ideals. It is characteristic that during the last decade of the 20th century there was a sudden increase in this tendency and the spreading of those principles to over twenty countries.

Political‐administrative relations became an issue once politicians and administrators came to be considered as distinct actors in the public realm. This happened in the late eighteenth century, and several authors since then explored the nature of this relationship in normative and/or juridical terms. But it took almost two centuries before it became an object of systematic empirical study in a comparative perspective: Aberbach, Putnam, and Rockman (APR 1981). The APR study was the first to use survey methods and to advance empirically based theory. In this article we discuss the intellectual attention for this topic since the early nineteenth century, APR's findings and impact and—given APR's influence upon methods—some intriguing problems with the framework that they developed. Finally we list some potential new avenues of research.

Political-administrative relations became an issue once politicians and administrators came to be considered as distinct actors in the public realm. This happened in the late eighteenth century, and several authors since then explored the nature of this relationship in normative and/or juridical terms. But it took almost two centuries before it became an object of systematic empirical study in a comparative perspective: Aberbach, Putnam, and Rockman (APR 1981). The APR study was the first to use survey methods and to advance empirically based theory. In this article we discuss the intellectual attention for this topic since the early nineteenth century, APR's findings and impact and-given APR's influence upon methods-some intriguing problems with the framework that they developed. Finally we list some potential new avenues of research. Adapted from the source document.