From the Renaissance, dance and sport formed the basis of ‘polite’ and ethical behaviour. Both offered a frame within which social norms could be taught and enacted. Scholarship has often concentrated either on the history and aesthetics of dance or on those of gymnastics but neglected the proximity of both forms to each other. This paper focuses on one particular narrative: the intertwining of dance and gymnastics as utopian projects in the arousal of nationalism and creation of a new ‘German’ body. From Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, who sketched the first national and patriotic movement system in Die deutsche Turnkunst 1816, to dance master Franz Anton Roller, gymnastics teacher Adolf Spiess, and dance gurus Rudolf von Laban and Mary Wigman, it will demonstrate how the distinction between dance and gymnastics was constantly re-negotiated; and it argues that twentieth-century Modern Dance developed out of nineteenth-century Turnen and gymnastics. Dance intended to revolutionise German society physically and aesthetically and incorporated spatial concepts and movement sequences that gymnastics systems had already explored. Through their conceptions of motion in time and space, dance and gymnastics created a modern and revolutionary physical practice for the German nation.

The world within which the EU and China have to deal with each other is changing. The unipolar moment is definitely fading and slowly giving way to an international system characterized by multilayered and culturally diversified polarity. This development has far-reaching consequences for the EU–China relationship; the more so since the EU and China have distinctive identities and define their value preferences differently. China is no longer the developing country it once was and is becoming more assertive by the day. Beijing is at the head of the world’s most successful economy and will weigh more and more heavily on global governance.1 Three decades of impressive economic growth have boosted the self-confidence of the Chinese leaders significantly. In Beijing, the notion that China should start taking on an attitude befitting a great power is gaining ground. China is taking up ever more space within various multilateral organizations and is setting up diplomatic activities throughout the globe. Moreover, Beijing has become more active in setting up its own multilateral channels to further its national interests and own norms. China no longer considers itself an outsider that should crawl back into its shell and steer clear of a global political system dominated by the West. All this puts into question the EU’s conditional policy towards China, which is based on the assumption that China can be socialized and persuaded to incorporate Europe’s post-modern values. The way ahead seems to be for Europe to opt for a more pragmatic approach, which takes stock of the changes in the underlying power and identity relations between the EU and China. The analysis of this paper will be developed at three levels. First, it examines the changes in the structure of international politics. To what kind of structure are we evolving and where do China and the EU fit in? Second, it takes a closer look at the respective identities of China and the EU and explicates the major differences between them. Finally, this study appraises the implications of the emerging multilayered and culturally diversified polarity for the further development of the EU–China relationship.

For the Neapolitan jurist and historian Pietro Giannone, the key to the future of the Kingdom of Naples lay in the understanding of the past. But the radical ideas in his Storia del regno di Napoli (1723) and other works cost him his freedom. The paper focuses on the development of the concept of cultural and civil history as a vehicle for change in the age of Giannone and his countryman Giambattista Vico.

Until recently, sports history has largely neglected Eastern Europe. Yet new research has shown that historians need to embrace a perspective from the periphery towards the centre, and reach beyond the paradigms of modernization, Sovietization, and the nation-state if Europe's sporting culture is to be fully understood. Focusing primarily on Poland, this article outlines three features peculiar to the region. First, it stresses the importance of trans-national spaces and networks as well as European sub-regions. Missing out on the initial phase of sport's internationalization due to lack of independence, the development of Polish sport was regionally distinct. Sports flourished in Habsburg-ruled Galicia (in Cracow and Lodz especially) under relatively liberal political authorities, but developed more slowly and under different influences elsewhere. Second, the prominence of rural Galicia, inhabited by traditional groups such as Ukrainian peasants or Chassidic Jews, shows that Polish sport did not evolve in line with modernization and industrialization. The relatively slow diffusion of sport in industrial centres such as Warsaw or Silesia contradicts the paradigm of modernization and the notion of East European backwardness. Third, sport history sheds light on phenomena such as multi-ethnicity, migration, integration or disintegration.

Massive government-financed rescue operations for banking and insurance industries in the United States and in Europe, seeking to contain the financial crisis that culminated in 2008, amounted to ‘the biggest, broadest and fastest government response in history.’1 This ‘great stabilisation,’ as The Economist called it, resulting in ‘quasi’ or ‘shadow nationalization,’2 cast doubt on the notion, fashionable at the height of the neoliberal wave, that the state was essentially on its way out, as many of its tasks and responsibilities were oozing steadily and irreversibly toward the market. The state and, by the same token, the political seemed back – with a vengeance, triggering solemn announcements of ‘the return of the state’ and ‘the end of the ideology of public powerlessness.’3 Observers concurred. ‘Free-market capitalism, globalization, and deregulation’ had been ‘rising across the globe for 30 years,’ yet that era now had ended: ‘Global economic and financial integration are reversing. The role of the state, together with financial and trade protectionism, is ascending.’4 Triggering a perceived ‘paradigm shift towards a more European, a more social state,’ even in the United States and in China, the crisis was seen to herald a move ‘back towards a mixed economy.’5 The question, meanwhile, remained: had the state indeed withdrawn as much during the neoliberal era as is often assumed?

During the 60 years that I have been writing – and speculating – on public law (my first book on medieval criminal law came out in 1954), I have been repeatedly struck by a particular phenomenon to which I would now like to draw attention: that sound ideas and useful innovations eventually – when relentlessly taken to their extreme consequences and pushed along the abstract lines of their inner logic – lead to absurd or even nefarious results, defeating the original intention.

Filippo Bottazzi (1867–1941), university professor of physiology, director of the Neapolitan Zoological Station ‘A. Dohrn’ and commonly credited as ‘the father of Italian biochemistry’, is an interesting case study of a distinctive intellectual risk: oblivion following upon the honours of a successful career. Bottazzi's fundamental work in physiology was distinguished by its close relationship with biological and physical chemistry. The international level of Bottazzi in this disciplinary field was commonly acknowledged, although he was also deeply interested in philosophy and history of life sciences. At the beginning of the twentieth century, together with many other prominent Italian intellectuals, Bottazzi mounted a long-lasting resistance against the prevailing idealistic trends in philosophy. The paper illustrates Bottazzi's contributions to some crucial and, at the time, completely unsettled epistemological questions on biomedical science, such as mechanism versus vitalism and the relation between biological and physical explanation. Within this framework, Bottazzi's historical studies are also considered. Finally, the paper argues for political and ideological reasons behind the silence surrounding Bottazzi after his death, pointing to his scientific commitment to the nutritional politics of the Italian Fascist regime, with its racial implications.

Morality must be resurrected in our societies. It must be a morality whose nature and sources are understood and are in keeping with current reality. Hitherto, morality has been seen as closely related to religion. That religious belief is helpful to many is indisputable, but religious narratives, treated literally, are unacceptable to modern minds, and the supposed nature of God, as discussed by sophisticated theologians, is inaccessible to everyman. Morality, based on an understanding of human nature as shaped by culture, offers hope for the future.

This article argues that the digital ‘revolution’ may turn out to be a true revolution for humanities and social sciences scholars, but not for the reasons usually brought forth in academic debates. Digital humanities is a way of returning to the intellectual fundamentals of the scholarly profession and of deeply changing the notion of academic community as well as that of reward and even authorship. This means not focusing on the new technical possibilities offered by the electronic format, which do not necessarily produce better science, but actually inventing a (new) political economy of social and human sciences. Scholars and academics should reinvent their daily practice in order to make true again the ideal of their profession: understanding societies in order to help them become more human.

Caplan’s The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies1 has been received by rave reviews. These reviews appear to have failed to note that Caplan’s book celebrates the market and denigrates democracy at the very time when markets worldwide have failed and democracies have ridden to the rescue. It thus appears to have been undermined fatally by events that occurred as it was published (and which Caplan artfully omits to mention in the more recent paperback edition). Caplan’s book in fact stands in the long tradition of anti-democratic writings that argue that an elite must rule. An elite of free-market economists. An elite no longer in good odour, since the financial crisis (and the climate crisis) occurred and became starkly evident to all. This Critical Notice also points out that numerous of Caplan’s key claims, such as that individual voters have zero effect on election results, are empirically false.

In the 1930s, as the power of the Nazis grew, many leading German academics and scholars sought refuge in other countries, including. the UK, the USA and many countries in Europe. Some of the refugees were already well known for their achievements, such as Einstein, Fermi, Schoenberg, Bartok, Brecht and Weill. The more established figures had easier access to those countries offering them refuge, whereas others at that time had fewer choices. The Academic Assistance Council in London and the Royal Society played a significant role in helping academic refugees find places in universities and other institutions where they could continue their research. The USA favoured distinguished academics, whereas the UK and other European countries were more open to younger academic refugees, who would subsequently make their name. There was, however, also opposition from various quarters, including State Department officials in the USA and certain British Noble Lords. Without the dedication and determination of many establishment figures on both sides of the Atlantic, the wealth of talent that had until that time been nurtured in Germany would have been lost. This article describes some of the prominent British figures who played such a significant and, as it turned out, life-saving role during this crucial period.