Band 301, Heft 1

The article is directed at a comparison of the relationship between Christians and Muslims in Italy and on the Iberian Peninsula in the 9th century. Different constellations are analysed against the background of the academic discourses concerning the creation of Europe, the question of the nature of the cultural encounter (a peaceful coexistence compared to the clash of cultures) as well as the potential for violence in monotheistic religions. The interpretation of the Italicmaterial, which the „papal” sources are crucial for, reveals that the patterns of confrontation were in many cases less influenced by religion than by the state. Also pragmatic action by tribute and protection money as well as conflicts with the neighbouring communities like Naples or Amalfi should be included in confrontation. On the other hand, the living conditions of the Christians under Muslim rule on the Iberian Peninsula with regard to internal structures (in renunciation of the essentialistic definition of the „Mozarabs“) also turned out to be more complex. The conceptions in the small Christian empires of the North seemed to be decisive to shape images of the cooperation and the conflict on the Iberian Peninsula. The comparison of the notions, the internal differentiations within the Christian groups, the pragmatic action and the only vaguely, rather polemically characterized perception of religious ideas of the others results in several similarities but also differences mentioned above (for example concerning conceptions of the crusades). Both the role of the papacy in Italy and the different political conditions of both spaces can be regarded – among others – as their reason.

How can one determine the relation between brief periods of social unrest and long-term change for the disciplines working with the historical method? Using the key term „Aufruhr“ (riot/violent unrest), this article attempts to shift the focus of historical analysis away from teleological concepts, such as revolution, towards an analysis of the inherent logic (Ger. Eigenlogik) of short-term processes. The word „Aufruhr“ contains a moral as well as a temporal judgment. In German and other languages it implies that a specific course of action is illegal or illegitimate. Furthermore, in history and in the social sciences „Aufruhr“ primarily denotes pre-modern phenomena. This linguistic convention (re)produces the conviction that pre-modern periods are fundamentally different from modern periods of history and reinforces an orientation towards given models of periodization. In contrast to this, the authors try to approach those phenomena, which are later to be analyzed using the term „Aufruhr“, by describing them on an empirical level, beyond the constraints of established periodic and spatial categories. In order to achieve this, the article introduces three cases of historical riots from different periods. Two city riots in the High and Late Middle Ages are followed by an example from the industrial Ruhr valley of the 1920s. Based on these examples, the essay further develops five analytically distinct properties of „Aufruhr“ in order to make the concept applicable in heuristically inspired research. The characteristics of riots are: group character and social context, relation to the public sphere, violence, spatial and temporal contraction and finally, social complexity and contingency. Even though these characteristics remain tied to the specifics of time and place, they nevertheless allow for a comparative perspective on „Aufruhr“ as a ubiquitous phenomenon of all societies in various periods and locations. Thus, „Aufruhr“ creates history in two ways, as it happens and as social unrest generates new questions about the past.

According to a widespread belief, Upton Sinclair’s novel „The Jungle“ (1906) about the working and hygienic conditions in the Chicago stockyards was responsible for the new food regulation in the United States during the Progressive Era. This article tries to determine the precise role that the knowledge of the slaughtering processes played or could play for the passage of the Meat Inspection and the Pure Food and Drugs Acts. During the scandal and the debates in Congress many actors with various resources claimed to have authoritative knowledge about the conditions in the stockyards. The truth about the stockyards was journalistically disclosed, scientifically determined, or juridically justified. Claims were based on personal observation, scientific expertise or the judgment of trustworthy individuals. Quite explicitly, participants discussed the heterogeneous truth claims and the importance of knowledge for policy making. How could truth claims be redeemed or translated from one discursive context to the other? How important was the knowledge about the stockyards for food regulation and the establishment of trust in foodstuffs? After briefly summarizing how knowledge about the quality of food and, above all, meat changed in the 19th Century, the article tries to answer these questions by scrutinizing the debates concerning „The Jungle“ and food regulation in 1906. Analyzing the communication of truth and the production of knowledge, it examines the relationship between knowledge and politics as well as between visual evidence, scientific expertise, and trust in the quality of food around 1900 and beyond.

The People’s Republic of China was traditionally in accordance with its policy of „one China“ for a reunification of the two German States. It vacillated in this policy, when the Federal Republic, after the brutal massacre of the movement for democracy on the Tian’anmen on June 4, 1989, joined in the economic sanctions of the West while the leadership of the GDR – partly as a warning against its own opposition movement – supported the actions of the Communist Party of China. The Foreign Office of the Federal Republic tried to maintain the links with China by talks on the level of ambassadors and carrying on some projects of German help for development. By such and other political signals it hoped to prevent an isolation of China and a renunciation of China’s policy of economic reform and opening to the outside world, pursued since the end of the Nineteen-Seventies. The Foreign Office was also decisively motivated by its wish to prevent an unwanted interference of the world power China into the process of German unification. The policy of the Foreign Office was helped by the fact that after the collapse of the rule of the SED the movement for citizen’s rights in the DDR strongly supported the opponents of the Chinese regime in and outside of China and thus was not considered a possible partner in a Chinese policy against German unification.