As an important part of African historiography，South African historiography once became a school of its own with its unique research vision and methodology. After the abolition of the apartheid system，the drastic political and economic changes in the new South Africa caused a shift in historical and cultural studies. The issues of race and class that had long been disputed in the past became complicated or irrelevant with the emergence of other social issues. While continuing its traditions of liberalism and radical social history，the new South African historiography has been gradually exploring new areas such as new cultural history，environmental history，gender history，and leisure history，with slightly refined perspectives and methods. At present，the development of South African historiography is also facing many practical challenges such as the long absence of black historians，the stagnation of historical education and the impact of postmodern thoughts.

（GU Nianmao）

The 1892 cholera epidemic in Hamburg was caused mainly by the municipal government’s concealment of the disease. The intrusion of the foreign disease，urban pollution，and bad living conditions all contributed to the outbreak of the epidemic. Pressed by public opinions，the municipal government adopted a series of remedial measures which not only effectively eliminated the epidemic，but also reformed the sanitary and quarantine inspection of the port and developed the urban public hygiene. Public opinions played a key role in the process. By and large，the discussions on the government’s obligations touched upon the social structure and political institutions of Hamburg. The new “Prussianization”of the medical system and epidemic prevention system reflected the institutional transformation of the German empire.

In the spring of 1918，the Spanish influenza spread to Japan，infecting about 24 million people and killing 390 thousand. Facing sudden public health incidents caused by the new infectious disease，the central government of Japan did not pay attention to it at first，and then adopted policies such as wearing masks，mouthwash disinfection，vaccination，and awakening people’s “self-defense”. However，due to slow treatment，the effect was not obvious. In accordance with the central government’s instructions，the local governments and social organizations took measures such as exhorting the people，fighting against mask speculators，restricting social gatherings，dispatching itinerant medical teams，and encouraging self-protection. These measures successfully maintained social stability. Central guidance，local implementation and national mobilization were the basic modes of dealing with public health emergencies in modern Japan. They reflected the centralization of the Japanese political power and its discipline on people’s body.

（CUI Caizhou）

Law played an important role in the smog management in Britain. Since the 1960s，new types of smog，mainly car exhaust and photochemical smog，had become increasingly serious in Britain. In response to the new smog pollution，the British government promulgated the Clean Air Act of 1993，trying to deal with the smog problem by legal means. During the introduction of the Act，the British Parliament debated issues such as the smog control rights of the central and local government，standards of automobile exhaust emission. These debates involved the Labor Party and the Conservative Party，and centered around the redistribution of interests which led to games among different groups. After the Act was passed，the UK's sulfur dioxide，automobile exhaust and other pollutants were significantly reduced，thus the smog problem basically solved. Britain has become a clean country. The UK's smog management has provided a useful precedent for China's smog control.

In the past 40 years，almost all researches on Zhu Xi's ethical and moral education have talked about Zhu Xi's theory of human nature. The representative writers include Qian Mu，Zhang Liwen，Chen Lai，Chen Rongjie，Zhang Shancheng，Zhou Dechang，Li Xin，Lu Meisong，etc.. Chen Lai's exposition is profound and academic，but he fails to make a comprehensive and systematic study on Zhu Xi's theory of human nature. On the basis of previous studies，this paper reviews Zhu Xi's incisive analysis of the former sages' discussions on human nature，and how he elaborates the theory on individual defects and different aspects of life.

（WANG Meng）

During the late Qing dynasty，many general world history works were introduced into China. There was a difference between the books translated before 1900 and those after it. Before 1900，the publications were mainly translated by western missionaries，but after 1900，most of them were translated by Chinese scholars. The former ones were characterized by theologies and Eurocentrism. Chinese scholars intended to make a change through adding comments，incorporating more historical materials and adjusting structures of the original versions. The translation and introduction of general world history works in the late Qing dynasty had greatly expanded the Chinese understanding of the world history and the global geography.

（YANG Yang）

The Hakka women studies by Missionary E. J. Eitel aimed at clarifying the relationship between Hakka women and Hakka culture. In order to achieve this goal，he selected customs，songs，and religions to do his study. He found that Hakka women were not only bearers of peculiar Hakka customs，but also creators of Hakka songs and participants in Hakka religions. On the one hand，the studies triggered subsequent Hakka women studies done by other missionaries. On the other hand，they were more comprehensive and detailed than those contemporary Hakka women studies conducted by Hakka intellectuals. This paper tries to emphasize his academic contribution.

Privileging Urban revolution was the important experience of Soviet Union’s October Revolution and the basic principle of the early activities of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). As the largest city and the most populous area of proletariats in modern China，Shanghai was key to CCP’s urban activities.From the founding of the Communist Party in 1921 to the first armed uprising of Shanghai workers in October 1926，the struggle strategy of the Party in Shanghai experienced a transformation. It shifted from focusing on revolutionary propaganda and workers' movement to armed struggles. The "strike of Shanghai Japanese cotton mill workers in February" in early 1925 was a landmark of this transformation. After the incident，the Communist Party embarked on armed struggle，which was resulted from the Party’s deeper understanding of the domestic situation and the change of guiding ideology of the Bolshevik and the Communist International.

For the Nationalist government after the anti-Japanese War，it was not easy to punish traitors properly. On the one hand，it was due to the "cooperation" formed by secret alliances with some important members of the puppet government during the anti-Japanese war. On the other hand，it was confronted with the call of the people to punish traitors promptly and severely，which eventually led to the dilemma of the civil administration: being strict would betray the cooperators，while being lenient would be against the will of the people. To some extent，this dilemma affected the Nationalist government's policy of punishing traitors. The ambiguous standards of criminal punishments toward cooperators and the contradictions in dealing with traitors' properties reflected such dilemma; the continuously changing legal provisions and personal interference in punishments led to the decline of government credibility; the illegal acts in the process of receiving traitors' properties and the false accusations against traitors posed a new challenge to the Nationalist government. Dealing with traitors was an important part of the post-war reconstruction. However，the chain reaction caused by the mishandling of traitors made the reconstruction impossible.

（Cui Longhao）

This article traces the tortuous process of the site selection and construction of the Second Automobile Manufacturing Plant，and a series of political disturbances surrounding the site problem. In the early industrial process of the People’s Republic of China，especially in the third-line construction，the location of a factory was extremely vulnerable to changes in different military，political，and economic situations. Although the central government had the power to decide，the feedback from the local society also played an important role in the decision-making process. In political movements，site selection issues often became the focus of disputes among different social groups，profoundly affecting the actual operation of the project and the fate of individuals. Such a state-led industrialization process suffered high institutional costs and great uncertainty. Once its persuasive force and political legitimacy was weakened，there would be more serious fluctuations. Many enterprises in the third-line construction encountered difficulties and internal contradictions at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution，which was the price paid in this unique industrialization process.

After the War in Afghanistan was launched by Great Britain and the United States，the Saddam regime who had been suspected of owning Mass Destruction Weapons and kept refusing to cooperate with the United Nations was locked as a “clear target”. Under the pressure of public denunciations at home and abroad，Blair persuaded Bush，who was not afraid to act unilaterally，to accept multilateralism，thereby opening up the path of solving Iraqi issue through the U.N.. Blair tried to seek international support for the use of force against Iraq legally. The adoption of Resolution 1441 (2002) started the multilateral solution，but since the resolution failed to meet the strategic goal of Great Britain and the United States，the Blair and Bush administrations pushed the Security Council to pass the second proposal to authorize Great Britain and the U.S. to use force against Iraq by proclaiming that Iraq had violated Resolution 1441. This attempt was resisted by most countries represented by France，Germany and Russia. Then the Blair and Bush administrations decided to withdraw the second proposal，which ended the multilateral path. The Blair government turned to its Parliament for support and directly launched the war against Iraq along with the U.S.. The Iraq War was a unilateral act that had not been authorized by the UN Security Council and thus was an illegal war. Great Britain and the U.S. employed the Security Council Resolutions 678 (1990)，687 (1991) and 1441 to endorse their military actions. Overall，their acts damaged the international peace and did harm to global governance.

(WANG Tao，DENG Rongxiu)

Japan’s foreign policy underwent two major changes during the Italo-Ethiopian conflict from 1934 to 1936. The declassified files in the Center for Asian Historical Records in National Archives of Japan show that Japan supported and sympathized with Ethiopia at the initial stage of the conflict. After July 1935，the Japanese attitude became ambiguous and vague. With the occupation of Ethiopia by Italy in May 1936，Japan supported Italy instead. The initial support of Ethiopia was due to the fact that Japan and Ethiopia were both non-Caucasian civilizations and had natural sympathy toward each other. It was also due to Japan’s desire to obtain economic interests in East Africa that it was hostile to Italy. However，after Italy occupied the entire territory of Ethiopia，Japan acknowledged the fact of occupation and tried to defend its own interests by exchanging interests with Italy. In the process，Japan attempted to interpret its changes with idealist diplomatic philosophy. But in fact，its diplomacy was speculative.

(XIE Guorong，XU Yuelong)

In the post-war reconstruction，the American South faced the shortage of freedmen teachers. With the development of normal school education for blacks，more and more blacks became teachers and the shortage of freedmen teachers was alleviated. Different from the north，the southern black teachers had stronger emotional attachments with the black people. They were symbols of the black self-help education movement and played an irreplaceable role in the black education. They were practitioners as well as leaders among the blacks. In a word，the freedmen teachers laid the foundation for the post-war American reconstruction.

（JIA Yan，XU Xianfen）

When Richard Nixon took office in 1969，the U.S needed to compete for hegemony with the Soviet Union in the Middle East. After Henry Kissinger served as the Secretary of State，he proposed the new diplomatic idea of“balance of power”，which stemmed from the European tradition and consisted of two

key elements of “link”and “triangle”. In October 1973，the war broke out between the Arabian countries and Israel. After rounds of negotiations headed by Kissinger，the belligerents signed the peace treaty. This was guided by Kissinger’s new theory and turned the diplomatic idea into reality. But the difference between the diplomatic idea and reality still existed.

The Messina Conference held in June 1955 relaunched the integration of the Western Europe. The Eisenhower administration realized the necessity of integration，and it employed its influence in the field of peaceful use of atomic energy to indirectly promote the establishment of Euratom. After the signing of The Treaty of Rome in March 1957，to reach a cooperative agreement with Euratom became the priority for the U.S. government. The successful launch of a Soviet satellite in October 1957 created a favorable condition for the cooperation between the U.S. and Euratom in the field of peaceful use of atomic energy. Finally，the two sides signed a bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement on November 8，1958 to initiate a joint program of developing power reactors.