Hichem Karoui

By Milton Gustafson

On December 13, 1952, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were transferred to the National Archives. Joining the Bill of Rights, which had been in the Archives’ care since 1938, they became collectively known as the Charters of Freedom, the most precious documents in our heritage. Two days later, at 10:15 a.m., on Monday, December 15, 1952 (Bill of Rights Day), the formal enshrining ceremony was held, presided over by Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson, and with President Harry Truman and other dignitaries in attendance. Continue reading December 13th: Travels of the Charters of Freedom

Matthew Lloyd Adams

Abstract Poland, recreated after the armistice of 1918, was confronted at its rebirth with four very severe challenges: welding together the separate sections of the dissected country, which for many decades had been under the rule of Prussia-Germany, Austria and Russia; creating a functioning administration and military force for the country; ensuring the recovery of agriculture, which, during World War I, had seriously declined; and restarting industries destroyed or closed during foreign military occupation. Even under the valuable leadership of the first Prime Minister of the new Polish Republic Ignacy Paderewski and Marshal Jozef Pilsudski, the Poles could not accomplish the goal of rebuilding a strong Poland without outside help. The American Relief Administration (ARA), founded and led by Herbert Hoover, offered their help. The ARA, with its food aid and provision of economic assistance and expertise, played an important role in bringing about stability in the newly independent state of Poland. This paper examines the many steps Herbert Hoover had to take to arrange food relief in Poland and will outline the organization of the ARA, including the establishment of the Polish relief organization and the introduction of young Polish-American women, called the Grey Samaritans, into the field.

Continue reading Herbert Hoover and the Organization of the American Relief Effort in Poland (1919-1923)

Suraiya N. Faroqhi

Volume 3 traces the history of the later Ottoman Empire from the death of Mehmed III in 1603 to the proclamation of the Tanzimat, the administrative reconstruction of the Ottoman state, in 1839. Thiswas a period of alternating stability and instabilitywhen trade between the empire and Europe flourished and, wartime apart, merchants and pilgrims could travel in relative security. However, despite the emphasis on the sultan’s role as defender of the faithful and of social order, tensions did exist between the ruling elite in Istanbul and their subjects in the provinces, not least Continue reading The Cambridge History of Turkey

History

*     Milestones in Recent Czech History (1938-1989)

*     Coming to Terms With the 20th Century Totalitarian Past

Introduction

*     Inception and International Cooperation of the Institute and Archive

*     Highlights of Institute Activities

*     Formation and Priorities of the Security Services Archive Continue reading Behind the Iron Curtain

The international conference European Conscience and Communism, held on June 2-3, 2008, was organized by the Committee on Education, Science, Culture, Human Rights and Petitions of the Senate, Parliament of the Czech Republic; its organizers were Martin Mejstřík, Senator, and Jana Hybášková, Member of the European Parliament.

During the course of the conference, Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes Director, Pavel Žáček, and First Deputy Director, Miroslav Lehký, both made presentations, the texts of which are included in the attached proceedings.

Continue reading European Conscience and Communism

The Origins of the British Secularist Movement 1791-1866

Edward Royle

Victorian Britain was a Christian country. That is, its laws and institutions, supported by the courts and public opinion, aided by a variety of Churches and sects, upheld and declared the Christian religion. The whole tone of Victorian middle-class life was religious, and the Churches enjoyed a great period of prosperity and success. But contemporaries were well aware that the foundations of religion in society were precarious: intellectual doubt threatened the very basis of biblical Christianity on the one hand, and mass infidelity among the lower orders disturbed and challenged pious consciences on the other.
The growth of industrial society in the nineteenth century, with its increasingly urban, class-conscious and secular outlook, was the background to the development of an all-out radical attack on the political and religious establishment of the country. The origins of this establishment can be traced to the Restoration, when the political and religious clock had been put back in an effort on the part of the governing class to suppress the memory and achievements of the Commonwealth period. Continue reading Victorian Infidels

A Survey of the Intellectual Background of the Present Age

John Herman Randall, Jr

WHAT the following pages attempt was stated in the Foreword to the first edition: “This book aims, by entering sympathetically into the spirit of the past, to make the thought of the present more intelligible. Covering so vast a field, it can of course lay little claim to originality; but it does rest, so far as possible, upon a first-hand acquaintance with the words of those who have expressed the intellectual currents -of their times. This explains the abundance of quotation, in which the men of the past themselves give voice to their beliefs; for it has seemed best to try to look at the development of thought with the eyes of those who participated in it.” Continue reading The Making of the Modern Mind

A Paraphrase
Mohandas K. Gandhi

Introduction
People in the West generally hold that the whole duty of man is to promote the happiness if the majority of mankind, and happiness is supposed to mean only physical happiness and economic prosperity. If the laws of morality city are broken in the conquest of this happiness, it does not matter very much. Again, as the object sought to be attained is the happiness of the majority, Westerners do not think there is any harm if this is secured by sacrificing a minority. The consequences of this line of thinking are writ large on the face of Europe. This exclusive search for physical and economic well-being prosecuted in disregard of morality is contrary to divine law, as some wise men in the West have shown. One of these was John Ruskin who contends in Unto This Last that men can be happy only if they obey the moral law.
We in India are very much given nowadays to an imitation of the West. It is necessary to imitate the virtues of the West, but there is no doubt that Western standards are often bad, and every one will agree that we should shun all evil things.
The Indians in South Africa are reduced to a sorry plight. We go abroad in order to make money, and in trying to get rich quick, we lose sight of morality and forget that God will judge all our acts. Self-interest absorbs our energies and paralyzes our power of discrimination between good and evil. Continue reading Ghandi: Unto This Last

BY THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY

I PURPOSE to write the history of England from the accession of King James the Second down to a time which is within the memory of men still living. I shall recount the errors which, in a few months, alienated a loyal gentry and priesthood from the House of Stuart. I shall trace the course of that revolution which terminated the long struggle between our sovereigns and their parliaments, and bound up together the rights of the people and the title of the reigning dynasty. I shall relate how the new settlement was, during many troubled years, successfully defended against foreign and domestic enemies; how, under that settlement, the authority of law and the security of property were found to be compatible with a liberty of discussion and of individual action never before known; how, from the auspicious union of order and freedom, sprang a prosperity of which the annals of human affairs had furnished no example; how our country, from a state of ignominious vassalage, rapidly rose to the place of umpire among European powers; how her opulence and her martial glory grew together; how, by wise and resolute good faith, was gradually established a public credit fruitful of marvels which to the statesmen of any former age would have seemed incredible; how a gigantic commerce gave birth to a maritime power, compared with which every other maritime power, ancient or modern, sinks into insignificance; Continue reading History of England from James II

HOW GOVERNMENT IN THE ANCIENT WORLD TRIED TO DEAL WITH MODERN PROBLEMS
B Y H. J. HASKELL

To prevent any misconception let me say at the outset that this book is neither a criticism nor a defence of the New Deal. It is an attempt to provide an objective survey of instances of government intervention in the ancient world. Many of these were so like
experiments tried in the United States in recent years that they may fairly be classed as New Deal measures.
I have tried to show what these experiments were, why they were tried, and how they worked. Making allowance for the differences between ancient and modern society, I have ventured to call attention to certain warning signals from the past. Continue reading The New Deal in Old Rome