Abstract: To date, many studies on the Nazi Special Courts have focused on the individuals involved in passing judgement or in the prosecution process in general, as well as on their political significance. For our study, we undertake a re-evaluation and computational ‘upcycling’ of an archive catalogue from the 1970s containing around 10,000 legal cases from the Munich Special Court (1933–1945). Although this was not an entirely new phenomenon–they were originally introduced by the Weimar Republic–, the special courts were unique in that they brought together general criminal law and ‘crimes’ in the form of non-conformity with National Socialist ideology under a single jurisdiction.

Abstract: From the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century, both Great Britain and the United States implemented large-scale child-emigration schemes aimed at relocating so-called «surplus» children—impoverished but considered «of good stock»—from major urban centres to rural households overseas or in the American interior. These programmes emerged from a shared diagnosis: industrial and agricultural economies in metropolitan areas were allegedly unable to absorb growing populations of poor children, who were framed as both a social burden and a latent threat to urban order. Emigration was thus promoted as a form of social reform—an intervention that would simultaneously relieve urban poverty and overcrowding while promising the children a healthier, morally improving environment on the farm.Central to this policy logic was the belief that agricultural labour and rural domesticity would function as vehicles of knowledge acquisition, moral rehabilitation, and civic formation. By learning farm work and rural norms, the children were expected to develop the dispositions necessary for productive adulthood and responsible citizenship, thereby securing redemption from an otherwise bleak urban future. Yet the historical record complicates this narrative of benevolent rescue. Although some children undoubtedly escaped severe deprivation, many migrant youths struggled to adapt to rural life, faced abuse, exploitation or isolation, and carried the consequences of these ruptures into adulthood. Rather than straightforward instruments of uplift, these schemes often reproduced existing inequalities under the guise of paternalistic reform.

Abstract: This article reconceptualizes Cold War intelligence reports as a form of “involuntary ethnography.” Drawing on declassified Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports on the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic (ESSR) from 1947 to 1955, it examines how intelligence gathering practices generated detailed accounts of everyday life under socialism. Produced for strategic and military purposes, these reports nonetheless contain systematic observations of housing conditions, food consumption, clothing, social behavior, and political attitudes. Situating these materials within debates on knowledge production and state surveillance, the article argues that intelligence reports functioned as a hybrid form of social knowledge, positioned between bureaucratic observation and ethnographic description. Focusing on Tartu and wider Estonia, it demonstrates how intelligence archives can be used to reconstruct lived experience under conditions of scarcity, repression, and militarization — among them a divided city in which the open intellectual space of the university and the sealed military space of the Raadi airfield yielded radically different kinds of social knowledge. By foregrounding intelligence as a mode of social observation, the article contributes to Cold War historiography and proposes a new analytical category: intelligence ethnography.

Abstract: Imperialism as a system of exploitation profoundly shaped the natural and human landscapes of colonized regions. This paper examines how the Second World War accelerated imperial transformations in East Africa, focusing on the Tanganyika Groundnut Scheme (1947–1951) as a case of business-imperial collaboration. Set against Britain’s post-war reconstruction needs, the scheme shows how corporate interests, especially Unilever’s, shaped colonial development through industrial agriculture. Drawing on archival research and recent historiography, the article argues that the scheme was not merely a failed agricultural experiment, but a structural expression of business-imperial partnership with lasting environmental and institutional legacies. Its ecological damage and social disruption reflect broader patterns of environmental violence inherent in imperial capitalism. This study contributes to imperial environmental history in two ways: first, by tracing the long-term ecological impacts of post-war industrial development in colonial spaces; second, to show that imperial agro-economic practices were not temporally isolated events, and the effects of even short-lived, failed ventures such as the Tanganyika Groundnut Scheme continued into the post-colonial period.

Abstract: The Deori community represents one of the most ancient indigenous tribal communities of Assam, with a rich cultural heritage spanning over a millennium. This article provides a comprehensive overview of the Deori people, examining their historical origins, social structure, cultural traditions, linguistic heritage, and contemporary challenges. Drawing on ethnographic research, government records, and academic studies, the paper explores how this Sino-Tibetan community has preserved its distinct identity while navigating centuries of political change, from ancient kingdoms to colonial rule to modern democratic governance. The establishment of the Deori Autonomous Council in 2005 marked a significant milestone in the community's political empowerment, though ongoing demands for Sixth Schedule status reflect continuing aspirations for greater autonomy. The article also examines contemporary efforts to document and preserve the Deori language and culture, particularly through recent collaborations with academic institutions such as the reputed universities and IITs, while addressing the challenges of language endangerment, economic development, and cultural preservation in the 21st century.

Abstract: This article introduces a tutorial-style implementation of Quantum Link Prediction (QLP) for citation network analysis in historiographical research, with a specific focus on the transnational historiography of Mongol military campaigns. Using a manually curated citation network of Russian and American military treatises from 1875 to 2012, the study applies simulated quantum random walks to identify previously unknown citation pathways. The article is structured to guide researchers through each phase of the QLP workflow, from network preprocessing and quantum circuit construction to result interpretation, making it accessible to scholars in the humanities new to quantum methods. Through this approach, we discover a previously unknown transmission link connecting the Russian and American corpora. This finding not only reshapes the existing citation network but also demonstrates the potential of QLP as an introductory use case for teaching quantum computing to learners in the humanities. To support reproducibility and future adoption the open-source QuantumRandomWalks package was published in conjunction with this paper.

Abstract: Selections for sick and unfit prisoners and their murder through lethal injections or in gas chambers were characteristic of Nazi camps like Auschwitz. This article investigates the start of these murders through the lens of a system of forced labour camps for Eastern Upper Silesian Jews, so-called Schmelt camps, that did not form part of the usual concentration camp system. Their independent status gave Schmelt camps more leeway for experimenting with killing methods and they implemented respective policies to liquidate unfit prisoners several months before the concentration camps. However, they were also supervised by SS physicians from Auschwitz and began to send unfit prisoners to the camp's gas chambers from early 1942. In parallel, they developed despicable killing methods, primarily water-induced murders. These events are contextualized within Giorgio Agamben's concept of 'homo sacer.' The paper demonstrates that Fritz Todt, whose Reich Motorway Company utilized Jewish labour for construction work in Silesia, was a driving force behind Himmler's decision to eliminate 'unproductive' prisoners. It shows how civilian camp leaders collaborated in these crimes. Finally, it delineates the transformation of convalescent camps in Schmelt's system from places of recovery for lightly ill prisoners to killing centres and collection points for Auschwitz transports.

Abstract: The rapid digitization of large source collections in the humanities over the last three decades has comprehensively transformed the discipline: The accessibility of primary sources has improved drastically, the pre-processing of research data has been revolutionized in some areas, and new transdisciplinary approaches have emerged and become possible. However, the theoretical grounding of these developments has not kept pace with the changed realities of the research process in many respects: most critically, the concept of "information" — central to computer science and computational methods — has so far been insufficiently received and theorized within historical methodology. In this contribution, we employ a concept from Science and Technology Studies — Bruno Latour's "circulating reference" — to analyze and render describable the processes of historical research within a digitized research environment. Through three case studies — AI-supported segmentation of Habsburg cadastral maps (1817–1861), computational analysis of the Hof- und Staatsschematismus (1702–1918), and the datafication of the Munich Special Court archive inventory — we demonstrate how and at which specific points historical research benefits from this framework, and what new insights it enables.

Abstract: This study provides a rigorous examination of the early period of Diriyah's political history, spanning from Imam Mohammad ibn Saud taking power in 1727 CE through 1744 CE. The investigation starts with a key issue: even though Diriyah didn't expand much in size during this time, it still built a strong political and social system that helped it become a stable center in the chaotic environment of eighteenth-century Najd. Employing the analytical-historical method within a structuralist framework, the study explores the dialectical relationships among the regional political context, prevailing economic conditions, dominant patterns of political behavior, and the nature of political discourse during the period under examination. The analysis finds that from 1727 to 1744 CE, the emirate went through a calm but sensible founding period, focusing on careful strategies and building internal stability instead of rushing to expand or promote itself as exceptional. The findings affirm that the initial years under Imam Mohammad ibn Saud witnessed gradual institutional development and the progressive refinement of governance mechanisms, with emphasis placed on leveraging local resources and strengthening internal alliances while maintaining the tribal and social equilibria that prevailed across the Najd region. These policies contributed to achieving relative stability and laid the groundwork for the transformative developments that Diriyah would subsequently undergo. The significance of this phase resides in its establishment of a distinct political and administrative frame of reference for Diriyah, which shaped the administration of governance affairs and the formation of the emirate's identity. During this period, Imam Muhammad ibn Saud demonstrated an acute awareness of the necessity of avoiding internecine conflicts and steering clear of reckless expansionist ventures. As a result, looking closely at this time allows us to better understand how the First Saudi State began, highlighting the importance of wise leadership in creating the right political and social environment for the new political entity to form. In summation, the analysis of the first seventeen years of Imam Mohammad ibn Saud's rule constitutes an essential entry point for understanding the trajectory of political transformation in Najd. It shows how power was built and how the emirate's institutions were developed, confirming that choosing stability and taking things slowly were intentional strategies that helped Diriyah face challenges and maintain its history.

Abstract: Perfumery is often described as an art, yet it rests on well-defined technological foundations involving extraction chemistry, carrier systems, and sensory performance. In such domains, nomenclature is not merely descriptive; it structures scientific classification, market organisation, and cultural memory. In contemporary India, the term “attar/ittar” has undergone pronounced semantic degradation. Once associated with a specific natural, oil-based fragrance technology, it is now applied indiscriminately to chemically and technologically incompatible products. This loss of predictive meaning has weakened consumer trust, obscured artisanal legitimacy, and compromised scholarly and regulatory clarity. This paper reconstructs the historical trajectory of fragrance-oil technology to explain how this degradation occurred. Drawing on archaeology, history of science, and perfumery chemistry, it traces early Indian aromatic practices, subsequent scholarly refinement in Persia and the Arab world, westward transmission to Europe through medieval translation networks, and the later divergence that produced alcohol-based perfumery as a parallel technological architecture rather than a linear evolution. It further shows that the term “attar” re-entered India during the Persianate and Mughal period as a prestigious lexical label rather than as a marker of technological origin, and that colonial disruption subsequently severed the term from institutional standards, accelerating semantic collapse within India. Against this background, the paper argues that terminological renewal is necessary in the Indian context. It proposes JWALE as a contemporary category name to denote natural Indian fragrance oils produced through traditional vapour-mediated technologies, ideally exemplified by the deg–bhapka hydro-distillation system. Derived from the Indic root jval (“to glow”), the term encodes the defining behavioural characteristics of such fragrances: gradual release, skin-proximal presence, and persistence. By restoring semantic precision, the proposal seeks to support scientific clarity, truthful market signalling, artisanal protection, and future standard-setting, without contesting the legitimacy of oil-based perfumery traditions in other cultural contexts.

Abstract: History attempts to make sense of disparate information trying to create a discourse that lays a series of events with crisp cause-effect relationships in a sequence. Epochal shifts, such as the change from Antiquity to Middle Ages, are especially complex since they involve a large number of economic, political and even religious factors which occur over long periods and that might overlap and interact through reciprocal feedback mechanisms, making this cause-effects sequence difficult to establish. In this research we adopt a data-driven and well-established methodology to identify, with quantifiable statistical precision, the moment when this shift happened, and from there arrive at its possible causes. We will use historical coin hoard data to find out whether such a shift is detected in a peripheral part of the Roman Empire, the Iberian Peninsula. To do so, we will apply different changepoint analysis methods to a time series of trade links created from that data, and conduct a retrospective analysis based on that result, analyzing the structure of the trade networks before and after the link. Thus, we progress from identifying when the shift happened to identifying where it took place, which in turn allows us to get to investigate why it happened; namely, historical events that could have caused it. This methodology can be used to analyze epochal changes in several steps using time-stamped network data, possibly finding disregarded causes or cause-effect links that could have been overlooked by qualitative methods; in this case, we have applied it to a dataset of coin hoards either found in the Iberian Peninsula or including coins minted there, finding a changepoint in the early 5th century, which, through network analysis, has been linked to a loss of trade with the area of Britain.

Abstract: Fish and shellfish are nutritionally important foods, yet consumption in many high-income countries remains low and concentrated on a narrow set of environmentally costly species. In the United Kingdom, fish consumption is dominated by a small group of fish—the so-called “Big Five”—which is often treated as an inevitable outcome of supply, convenience and ingrained consumer preferences. However, little empirical evidence exists on how and when such preferences emerged, or whether present-day patterns reflect historical continuity or cultural loss. This limits our ability to interpret current consumer behaviour and to design socially and culturally grounded interventions aimed at diversifying fish consumption. Here, I use published recipes sourced from a British domestic magazine, as a consumer-facing archive, to reconstruct long-term shifts in the cultural visibility of fish. While not a measure of consumption, popular media is widely understood to reflect and reinforce prevailing cultural norms, in this case, assumptions about which fish species were considered available and familiar to domestic cooks. I analyse 1,192 fish and shellfish recipes published between 1923 and 2025, documenting changes in species prominence, diversity, and composition. Sixty-six species were recorded, yet representation became increasingly concentrated over time. From the 1970s onwards, the ‘Big Five’ accounted for more than 60% of all species mentions, coinciding with a statistically significant decline in diversity of species representation and a marked restructuring of species composition. Flatfish, herring, and oysters—once culturally prominent—declined substantially, while salmon, prawns, and tuna became entrenched. Although species richness declined only weakly, diversity fell significantly, indicating increasing homogenisation rather than simple loss of species. These findings demonstrate that contemporary UK fish preferences are historically contingent, shaped by interacting changes in supply, trade, policy, and cultural norms, rather than fixed consumer tastes. By linking supply-side transformations to domestic food cultures, this study reveals how ecological and market changes becomes normalised in everyday consumption. More broadly, it shows how historical perspectives derived from cultural sources can inform strategies to diversify diets, revive under-utilised species, and align future seafood consumption with health and environmental sustainability goals.

Abstract: This paper publishes 735,000 historical passenger entries from the German North Sea port of Bremen, created between 1830 and 1939, and now structured, enriched, and processed into a research-ready database. It provides an overview of the original archival documents and their datafication, beginning with a historical account of why the passenger lists were created and which information they recorded. Building on extensive prior work—largely carried out by family researchers—the lists were transcribed manually and first made available online in 2003. To enhance their analytical value, we computationally post-processed these data through: (1) data cleaning, especially addressing spelling variants and transcription errors; (2) data normalisation, including conversion into standardised formats; and (3) data augmentation by adding identifiers, geographic information, and multiple classifications. Finally, we discuss limitations of the resulting dataset as well as its analytical potential.

Abstract: In recent years, numerous studies have been carried out on the landscape of the 5th-15th centuries in Catalonia. When studying settlement, we will assess research on the morphogenesis of villages and highlight differences across regions. We will also see the characteristics of the hamlets of the Early Middle Ages and those of the Pyrenean lands. Farmsteads, which were made up of a house and some land that depended on it, were a fundamental element of the landscape of many regions of Catalonia. To understand the characteristics of the agricultural areas, we will be interested in the concentric shapes or coaxial strips. Furthermore, to understand the landscape of the regions of Lleida and Tortosa, we must understand the transformations that occurred in the Islamic era and the diffusion of ditches and irrigated spaces. Likewise, we will examine the relationship we discover between the coombs and the first medieval settlements and necropolises. It is also important to determine when and why the terraces were built. This study will address the evolution of the landscape throughout Catalonia, with special emphasis on the most recent contributions relating to the regions of Barcelona and Lleida.

Abstract: The nationalization of De Javasche Bank (DJB) into Bank Indonesia (BI) via Law No. 11 of 1953 was fundamental to establishing Indonesia's monetary sovereignty. This study argues that the success of this high-stakes political decision was critically dependent on the micro-level administrative competence realized at strategically vital regional nodes. Focusing on the DJB Surabaya branch—the principal clearing center for Eastern Java—we utilize a qualitative historical methodology employing both macro-level institutional reports and localized archival sources to trace the implementation process. Our analysis posits that the swift and non-disruptive integration of the branch was a defining expression of professional patriotism, where national dedication was channeled into bureaucratic efficiency rather than military action. This success was executed through three synchronized strategic maneuvers: (1) Physical Asset Securitization and Symbolic Repurposing (securing reserves and rebranding the colonial structure); (2) Systemic Operational Continuity (seamlessly maintaining the regional credit clearing mechanism); and crucially, (3) Rapid Human Resource Decolonization (accelerated promotion and technical training of indigenous staff). The Surabaya case provides empirical validation of the newly independent Republic’s state capacity to manage complex central banking operations, underscoring the vital, yet often overlooked, role of regional administrative elites in post-colonial state-building.

Abstract: The De Javasche Bank (DJB) Cultural Heritage Building in Surabaya represents a crucial transition from the colonial financial system to national economic sovereignty through nationalization into Bank Indonesia (BI). This site serves a dual purpose as a historical artifact and an educational medium to foster a spirit of nationalism. Specifically, this relates to the Second and Third Principles of Pancasila. This article analyzes the disparity (gap) between the museum's expected educational function and the level of internalization of Pancasila values among young visitors. The research method uses a descriptive qualitative approach based on case studies. Data collection was achieved through direct observation and in-depth interviews with museum staff and visitors. The results show that the historical narrative of DJB-BI effectively describes the struggle for economic sovereignty. However, there is a disruption in the motivation for visits among students, where visits are dominated by academic demands (extrinsic motivation) rather than national awareness (intrinsic motivation). This phenomenon indicates a weakening of the essence of the Third Principle (Indonesian Unity) in the context of collective historical appreciation. The proposed strategic solutions include strengthening interactive and reflective educational programs (living history, project-based assignments) and multisectoral collaboration between museums and educational institutions. This synergy is crucial to restoring the museum's function as a space for ideological and moral character building in order to strengthen nationalism in the digital age.

Abstract: In the mid-1950s, the world’s space law practitioner, Andrew G. Haley, proposed the concept of Metalaw, the law governing interactions between all beings in the Universe, as he represented the American Rocket Society in the International Astronautical Congress, the single largest gathering of space-faring nations. Haley, with experience in radio communications law dating back to the 1930s, played a pivotal role in addressing the international allocation of radio frequencies in space. Haley was, too, an agile mediator with the Soviet Union and its bloc, acting across various organizations and forums. This article, in contextualizing Haley’s introduction of Metalaw, shows how the onset of the Space Age coincided with the emergence of a contact scenario involving extraterrestrial intelligence enabled by the corresponding techno-scientific capabilities of the time. It demonstrates how extraterrestrial intelligence discursively addressed outer space regulation as a bone of contention between the two geopolitically divided parts, a regulation upon which the US’s global satellite system would depend. The analysis in this article recounts the birth of the Metalaw concept at the intersection of outer space imaginary, law, international organizations, science and technology, diplomacy, the Space Race, the Cold War, and radio astronomy’s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

Abstract: Erasure is not forgetting; it is memory that has lost its path of return. This paper proposes a five-mode typology of structural erasure through Silencing, Reclassification, Compression, Substitution, and Tactical Forgetting as mechanisms by which memory systems fail. Historical erasure is not an incidental lapse in collective memory but a structured process shaped by social, institutional, and cultural gatekeeping. To examine how significant ideas and figures become omitted, the study applies this typology to five distinct cases from different periods and regions. Sophie Germain faced early denial of formal recognition that stifled her mathematical achievements and later reduced them to a token identity. Rosalind Franklin produced critical X-ray data on DNA, yet her work was overshadowed by a narrative that reassigned her contributions to Watson, Crick, and others while limiting her legacy to a single discovery. In Peru, María Elena Moyano was acknowledged only after her assassination; her socialist feminist activism was recast into a depoliticized image of martyrdom. Nwanyeruwa led the 1929 Aba Women’s War in colonial Nigeria, yet her leadership was obscured by British reclassification that renamed a coordinated uprising as a mere riot. Paul Robeson, once a global icon of radical internationalism and civil rights, was reclassified and his wide-ranging legacy compressed into a narrow, sanitized story that mirrored gendered cases where complex contributions were reduced to one attribute. By placing these cases together, the paper shows that modes of erasure overlap, change through time, and reinforce entrenched patriarchal, racial, and ideological hierarchies. Recognizing historical erasure as a systematic, multistage process rather than a series of isolated oversights identifies the points where collective memory becomes distorted or blocked. In doing so, the five-mode typology provides a conceptual framework linking media studies, archival research, and historiography. It offers scholars a concrete tool for corrective action through archival reform, analytical transparency, and historical repair.

Abstract: Non-alignment was officially born at a conference in Brijuni, Croatia (then Yugoslavia) in 1956 and then formalized in Belgrade in 1961. Yet its origins go back to the independence struggle of Indonesia in 1945-49 and especially to diplomacy around the Korean War in 1950-53. During that conflict, United States unilateralism pushed India, Indonesia and Burma (now Myanmar) into forming an Asian bloc aligned for diplomatic purposes in the goal of peace. The search for peace in turn formalized a bloc of Asian states that would initiate the Bandung Asian-African conference of 1955 and finally the Non-Aligned Movement. This article explores the emergence of non-alignment in the alte 1940s and early 1950s as a conscious rejection of both Cold War alignment, and earlier European concepts of neutralism in favour of an “active and independent” non-aligned diplomacy that would lead to the emergence of a bloc of non-aligned states.

Abstract: In 2023 David Barrado Navascués published Cosmography in the Age of Discovery and the Scientific Revolution, arguing among other points that a wave of rationalism that began with Pico della Mirandola’s Disputations Against Astrological Revolution swept astrology out of the universities. This argument is reductive. Instead, the historical record shows that in regions of Europe such as France and England judicial astrology—the form of the discipline used to make predictions—became increasingly associated with riot, unrest, civil war, and perhaps most damning in the eyes of Early Modern intellectuals in these areas, the lower classes. As a result, intellectuals such as Pierre Gassendi and the Fellows of the Royal Society of Science in England adopted a mechanical model of the cosmos that did not require celestial influences. The influence of the latter body was particularly important, as its prestige—and the concomitant prestige of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society—undercut the reputation of astrology, since the journal would accept no astrological paper. These changes in England were in large part the result of the appropriation of astrological forecasting by those who lacked a university degree during the English Civil War (1642-46). Thus, the lapsing of astrology as an academic discipline owed more to social and cultural factors than to any rising tide of scientific rationalism.