bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Calvitron Automated Hair Transplant System in Alopecia Treatment: A Case Report
Authors: Yang Chin‐Chiang
Published: July 2009

The surgical treatment of alopecia is essentially based on minigraft and micrograft techniques in which grafts are inserted into a slit or punch recipient site. To facilitate the transplantation of large numbers of these small grafts, the Calvitron automated hair transplant system has been developed. We report a case of Norwood type V alopecia who received three sessions of hair transplantation (400‐500 grafts per session) over 18 months with satisfactory results. During surgery, with one technician operating the machine, one surgeon and an assistant took 3.5 to 4 hours per session to accomplish the whole procedure from harvesting the grafts to implantation and closure of the donor scalp wound. This new automated minigraft and micrograft transplant technique is significantly timesaving for large numbers of grafts per session without altering the aesthetic results. It offers a good choice for hair replacement surgery to save manpower and cost. The use of the Calvitron automated hair transplant system proved to be a practical and effective approach to hair transplantation in this case.
Splenic Abscesses: Review of 29 Cases
Authors: Chiang I‐Shun , Lin Tzeng‐Jih , Chiang I‐Chan , Tsai Mee‐Sun
Published: July 2009

Splenic abscess is an unusual and potentially life‐threatening disease. Due to the nonspecific clinical picture, it remains a diagnostic challenge. Splenic abscess should be suspected in febrile patients with left upper quadrant tenderness and leukocytosis, and diagnosis confirmed based mostly on imaging studies, microbiologic and/or pathologic evidence, or by response to antibiotic or antifungal treatment. We present 29 cases of splenic abscess treated in our hospital from 1990 to 2001. There were 18 male patients (62%) and 11 female patients (38%). Ages ranged from 4 to 85 years, with a median of 44 years. There were five pediatric patients (17%) and 24 adults (83%). The most common associated condition was leukemia. Most patients were immunocompromised (72%). The more common signs and symptoms were fever (90%), chills (41%), abdominal pain (31%), and leukocytosis (38%). Ultrasonography of the abdominal cavity was positive in 27 cases (93%); computerized tomography or magnetic resonance imaging was used in 26 patients (90%) and was positive in all patients. The abscess was solitary in 21 cases (72%) and multiple in eight cases (28%). Positive blood cultures were found in only seven patients (24%). According to the literature, the treatment of choice is still splenectomy, but in our study, the success rate of 75% with antibiotics alone indicates that antibiotic therapy should be considered an important alternative treatment modality in patients not suitable for percutaneous drainage and splenectomy.
Eyelid Tumors in Southern Taiwan: A 5‐Year Survey from a Medical University
Authors: Chang Cheng‐Hsien , Chang Sheng‐Ming , Lai Yu‐Hung , Huang Jason , Su Ming‐Yang , Wang Hwei‐Zu , Liu Yi‐Tseng
Published: July 2009

This retrospective case analysis investigated the epidemiology of eyelid tumors in a subtropical area. The study assessed the proportion of all eyelid tumors that were malignancies, the accuracy of diagnosis, and surgical results. We retrospectively collected all cases of eyelid tumors in the Department of Ophthalmology, Kaohsiung Medical University, Taiwan, between January 1994 and December 1998. Among the 144 cases collected, about half of the tumors were located in the upper eyelids and the other half in the lower eyelids. Nearly 50% of cases underwent tumor resection with eyelid reconstruction. When followed up to April 1999, 97% of patients were satisfied with the surgical results. There were 18 cases (12.5%) of malignant tumors, including 14 basal cell carcinomas, three sebaceous carcinomas, and one squamous cell carcinoma. Before surgery, two malignancies were presumed to be benign tumors while another two were thought to be different malignant tumors. The benign tumors included 38 nevi, 15 squamous papillomas, 13 cysts, 11 verrucae, 10 seborrheic keratoses, four hemangiomas, and others. All tumors that were thought to be malignancies were treated using complete resection with margin monitoring by frozen section. At the end of follow‐up, no recurrence was noted. More than 10% of cases of eyelid tumors in this subtropical teaching hospital were malignant. All surgeons should be alert to this phenomenon when they operate on an eyelid tumor. The best policy is to send all specimens for pathologic examination.
Carbon Dioxide Angiography in Lower Limbs: A Prospective Comparative Study With Selective Iodinated Contrast Angiography
Authors: Ho Cheng‐Feng , Chern Ming‐Sheng , Wu Mei‐Han , Wu Hsiu‐Mei , Lin Wei‐Chan , Chang Cheng‐Yeng , Chen Margaret Chia‐Mei , Chou Ting‐Ywan
Published: July 2009

This was a prospective comparison of the accuracy and image quality of carbon dioxide digital subtraction angiography (CO2 DSA) and iodinated contrast digital subtraction angiography (ICDSA) in evaluating lower extremity arteries and patient tolerance of the procedures. Selective DSA was performed in 14 Taiwanese patients who were diagnosed with peripheral artery occlusive disease (PAOD). Both contrast materials were administered through mechanical injectors. Post‐processing of the image used pixel shifting. Images of vessels were divided into 22 anatomic segments and evaluated by two experienced radiologists. A four‐point scale was used to classify diseased vessels. Two interpreters rated the CO2 DSA image against the ICDSA image on a three‐point scale. Patient tolerance was assessed from verbal descriptions. Cohen's kappa was used to determine interobserver agreement and descriptive statistics were used to summarize patient experience. Interobserver agreement ranged from fair to excellent, with most being good or excellent. Three patients (21.4%) could not tolerate the whole procedure and nine patients (64.3%) reported discomfort during the CO2 DSA procedure. CO2 DSA image quality was better for the thigh than the distal runoff and pelvic regions. Our results showed that selective CO2 DSA cannot replace ICDSA as a routine diagnostic tool for PAOD because it does not give images of comparative quality.
The Ideas of the Founding Fathers
Authors: Bottomore T. B.
Published: July 2009

The founders of sociology—Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer and Karl Marx—intended to create, each in his own fashion, a universal science of society. Nevertheless, they were above all concerned to explain how the 19th century industrial societies had come into existence, to analyse the ramifying effects of industrialism, to elucidate the connections between economic, political and intellectual changes, and to predict the future development of Western societies. Even in their systematic attempts to classify the types of human society, they inclined towards a simple and radical distinction between the modern Western societies and all others; and gave to the former a privileged position as objects of study. This classification was adopted, with modifications, by many later sociologists, and it plays an important part in the work of Tönnies, Durkheim and others, up to the recent writers who differentiate between ‘modern’ and ‘traditional’ societies, or ‘urban’ and ‘folk’ societies.
Conservatism and Radicalism of the Military
Authors: Andreski Stanislav
Published: July 2009

The majority of European critics of the traditional social order have taken it as self-evident that military officers, by the very nature of their profession, were bound to be conservative, that is to say, always inclined to throw their weight on the side of the established social order and the privileged classes. The idea that an army could become a chief engine of social revolution would seem to them absurd. This opinion was not—and is not—without foundations, yet it cannot claim absolute validity. In the Near East we saw recently social revolution carried out by army officers. In Ancient Rome traditional aristocracy was decimated and despoiled by the soldiers on more than one occasion. This poses the question of the factors which determine whether the influence of the army will be conservative or radical, or even subversive.
Civil-Military Relations in Europe and the United States: A Bibliographical Note
Authors: Howard Michael
Published: July 2009

The interest in civil-military relations which has arisen since the Second World War stems from a wide variety of national experiences; and these have moulded the subject in different ways in different countries.
Closed Social Stratification in India
Authors: Bailey F. G.
Published: July 2009

I can distinguish four separate referents of ‘caste’ in India. I) Caste as varna. There are four (sometimes five) varna (‘colour’) in India, and in order of ranking these are, as everyone knows, Brahmans or priests, Ksattriyas or warriors, Vaisyas or men of commerce, and Sudras who are workmen. These varna are not groups but categories. They are not exhaustive, since some of the population (e.g. such non-Hindus as Muslims or Tribals, and the Untouchables of Hinduism itself) do not fall within the four categories.
Réflexions sur le vocabulaire de la psychanalyse
Authors: Lefèvre-Pontalis J.-B.
Published: July 2009

Le procès du vocabulaire de la psychanalyse reste ouvert: par son hermétisme, son manque de rigueur et de cohérence, sa platitude dogmatique, tout ce qu'il charrie d'un savoir périmé et le peu qu'il transpose d'une expérience immense, variée, éminemment problématique, il serait pour beaucoup dans le malentendu permanent qui règne entre la psychanalyse et d'autres disciplines, entre les psychanalystes eux-mêmes et sans doute dans le secret conseil de chacun d'eux. Les analystes, en un certain sens, font leurs de telles critiques: conscients de ce que tant de leurs termes offrent de foncièrement inadéquat ou d'accidentellement abâtardi, ils ne les utilisent plus qu'entre guillemets dans un comme si redoublé (car déjà Freud n'a cessé d'en souligner le caractère métaphorique). Mais, d'un autre côté ils tiennent à ce langage qu'ils ont reçu en partage: ils savent qu'en y renonçant ils perdraient beaucoup plus que des mots hors d'usage. Aussi paraissentils dans l'hésitation: tantôt l'armature terminologique fait à leurs yeux seulement fonction d'écran, de garde-fou, de rempart obsessionnel pour ceux qu'affolerait en effet une rencontre d'autant plus vertigineuse qu'elle résonne en chacun dans son propre vide; tantôt ils y voient le trésor de leur langue, où ils ne sauraient trop puiser non seulement pour se guider dans une expérience autrement fluide ou chaotique mais pour la constituer dans son champ, son ordre et son déroulement.
Amba und Amerikaner: Bemerkungen zur These der Universalität von Herrschaft
Authors: Dahrendorf Ralf
Published: July 2009

Die Möglichkeit, soziale Universalien zu finden, übt seit langem schon einen merkwürdigen Reiz auf Soziologen aus. Man hat diesen Universalien viele Namen gegeben. Heute heißen sie in der Regel »funktionale Vorbedingungen von Gesellschaft« (1); im Anschluß an die ältere Tradition und in stärker philosophisch gefärbter, damit auch absichtlich reifizierender Weise könnte man von »Grundbedingungen der Vergesellschaftung« sprechen (2); vielleicht bezeichnet auch das, was Max Weber ohne voile Klarheit »Soziologische Grundbegriffe« nannte, solche Universalien (3) — denn immer geht es dabei um den Versuch, Phänomene zu finden, die zumindest als solche von allem historischen Wandel unberührt bleiben. Der Versuch ist so sinnlos nicht. Er soil ja nicht die Historizität von Gesellschaft leugnen, sondern deren Analyse die richtige Richtung weisen, indem er gewissermaßen das Substrat des Wandels bezeichnet: Die Familie, die soziale Schichtung, die Religion sind (vielleicht) universell; gewandelt haben sich jedoch deren jeweilige Formen, und die Probleme der Forschung liegen in der Untersuchung dieser historischen Formen. Wenn es gelänge, soziale Universalien zu finden, so wären diese gewissermaßen die Pflöcke, an die sich alle historisch variablen Elemente sozialer Strukturen anbinden ließen. Eine der wichtigsten Thesen dieser Art ist nun die, daß alle menschlichen Gesellschaften Strukturen von Macht und Herrschaft kennen. Die Konsequenzen dieser These sind soziologisch wie politisch erheblich. Politisch würden sie die Sinnlosigkeit utopischer Bemühungen begründen; denn es scheint, daß zumindest alle klassischen Utopien Herrschaftslosigkeit als eines ihrer zentralen Konstruktionselemente kennen (4). Die verheerenden Folgen der These für marxistische Gesellschaftstraume liegen ja auf der Hand. Soziologisch ließe sich aus der Universalität von Herrschaft die Notwendigkeit einer ganzen Reihe weiterer Phänomene ableiten. Insbesondere lassen sich — wie mir scheint — sowohl Ungleichheiten sozialer Schichtung als auch soziale Konflikte auf Herrschaft zurückführen (5). Dies sind überdies nur die dramatischsten Folgen der Universalitäts-These.
Réflexions sur la logique des modèles simulés
Authors: Boudon Raymond
Published: July 2009

En principe, les modèles simulés peuvent être considérés comme une extension des modèles mathématiques. Étant donné un ensemble T de propositions verbales, associer à cet ensemble — qu'on peut, si on le désire, appeler théorie — un modèle M, c'est, grosso modo, donner aux propositions de T, si elles ne l'ont pas déjà, une forme telle qu'il soit possible d'en déduire, par un calcul (1), de nouvelles propositions. M peut être obtenu à partir de T de différentes manières, mais essentiellement par trois procédures qu'on peut s'accorder à nommer spécification, simplification et réduction. On appellera spécification l'opération qui consiste à redéfinir une notion ou relation de T de manière à rendre un calcul possible. Ainsi, on sait qu'il est d'usage en économétrie d'assimiler dans les équations de l'offre le prix anticipé au prix de l'année précédente: sans discuter le bien-fondé d'une telle assimilation, il est visible que son principal intérêt réside en ce que, de cette manière, les équations de l'offre et de la demande définissent un système clos, dont on peut prévoir le comportement, si on connaît les conditions initiales et si on peut estimer les paramètres des équations (2). L'opération de simplification consiste à ignorer certaines propositions de manière à rendre un calcul possible. Ainsi, nombre de modèles épidémiologiques appliqués aux phénomènes sociaux ignorent délibérément, comme on le verra dans un exemple analysé plus bas, la distance physique ou sociale entre les individus. L'opération de réduction consiste enfin à associer un modèle non à une théorie, mais seulement à certaines de ses conséquences. Ainsi, de considérations théoriques complexes, dérivées de Durkheim et Mannheim, on peut tirer la proposition que le caractère ordonné de la biographie professionnelle doit être associé à un degré de participation sociale plus élevé: le modèle de l'analyse de variance qu'applique alors Wilensky (3) ne concerne évidemment que cette conséquence et non l'ensemble de propositions dont elle découle, de sorte que, dans ce cas, le modèle permet d'éprouver, non pas T, mais une conséquence de T qui peut aussi bien appartenir à une autre théorie T'.
A Monte Carlo Approach to Diffusion
Authors: Hägerstrand Torsten
Published: July 2009

The nebula-like cluster is a common trait in the spatial picture of man's attributes. Take any atlas showing economic or cultural elements and you will find an endless sequence of spatial distributions which have a concentrated core surrounded by a border zone of outwards decreasing density.

There is nothing such as one single and simple explanation of the “nebula-distribution”. But nevertheless one particular process which creates this type of distribution—temporarily or as an end result—seems to be highly significant: diffusion of techniques and ideas through the network of social contacts.
Social Interaction as a Stochastic Learning Process
Authors: Rainio Kullervo
Published: July 2009

At the same time as the arsenal of tools—for example, highly developed statistical methods—has tremendously increased, research in sociology and social psychology has become more and more fragmented, detailed works bearing hardly any relation to each other, and the lack of a coherent theory that is general but exact enough to be taken seriously in empirical work has been felt more acutely than ever. Is this a paradox?
Trois concepts sociologiques: le projet de référence, le statut social et le bilan individuel
Authors: Karpik Lucien
Published: July 2009

Que l'on considère le champ sociologique et l'on découvre une pluralité de conceptualisations générales. Faut-il ne voir dans cette diversité que la confusion temporaire d'une science en formation ou convient-il de l'interpréter comme une donnée inhérente aux sciences de l'homme? Mais à vouloir répondre directement à cette interrogation, on risque de tenir pour acquis ce qui reste problématique. Rien ne nous assure, en effet, que ces langages instituent des points de vue authentiquement distincts et on ne peut écarter, a priori, la possibilité qu'au terme d'une recherche sur les vocabulaires et leur ordre sous-jacent, on ne découvre l'unité de leur visée du réel. II nous semble done nécessaire, avant d'aborder certains aspects d'une épistémologie des sciences de la culture, de vérifier la spécificité et d'éprouver l'utility de divers schémas conceptuels (i).
The Late Profession of Arms: Ambiguous Goals and Deteriorating Means in Britain
Authors: Abrams Philip
Published: July 2009

These three statements distil the dilemma of the armed forces in Britain—a dilemma compounded of obscure and conflicting goals, a pervasive anxiety as to the nature and viability of military professionalism and internal conflicts and misunderstandings which themselves symbolise a deeper alienation from contemporary British society.
L'esprit humain selon Claude Lévi-Strauss
Authors: Fleischmann Eugène
Published: July 2009

Il convient de justifier en quelques mots ce titre prétentieux qui paraît attribuer à M. Lévi-Strauss des idées franchement philosophiques. A en juger par les résultats, fort instructifs, d'une récente discussion de principes (1), il est pourtant clair qu'il serait prématuré de considérer 1' «anthropologie structurale» comme un courant philosophique moderne (du «non-sens» par exemple), qui chercherait à se frayer un chemin au détriment de courants de pensée existants. La démarche structuraliste se propose plutôt de servir à un regroupement de différentes sciences qui se tenaient jusqu'alors jalousement à l'écart l'une de l'autre, en déployant une compréhension globale et cohérente de l'homme et en s'efforçant autant que possible de transcender les façons propres aux sciences humaines pour les replacer dans le cadre d'une science de la nature. Laissons a cette demarche les limites qu'elle s'est elle-même fixées et gardons-nous de lui faire dire plus qu'elle ne veut. Il n'est pas interdit toutefois de comprendre ces nouveaux principes dans leur signification la plus large, en laissant aux sociologues de métier le soin de vérifier leur efficacité au sein des données empiriques. Examinons done les circonstances dans lesquelles apparaît le terme d' «esprit» et son importance pour les sciences humaines en tant que telles.
The Last Invariant Theorists A sociological study of the collećtive biographies of mathematical specialiśts
Authors: Fisher Charles S.
Published: July 2009

When scientists account for changes in a theory or the theory's position within the world of the science, they usually do so in terms of the intellectual content of the theory. For example, the rise of quantum mechanics is attributed to the fact that quantum mechanics was able to solve problems which the preceding theories could not handle. This represents one way of describing occurrences within science and is a major component of the attitudes which scientists possess about their world. Another manner of viewing the changes which take place in science is that of the sociology of knowledge. From this perspective science is viewed as an activity carried on by the men who create the scientific ideas. The history of science is analyzed in terms of the-scientist-who-does-something-within-aparticular-social-context; that is the ideas are viewed as inseparable from the men who put them forward and the social environment in which they occur (1).
Morocco and the near East: Reflections on some basic differences
Authors: Burke Edmund
Published: July 2009

The comparative sociological study of the countries of the Middle Eastern culture area for the nineteenth century can scarcely be said to have begun. But such studies can do much to help us come to a more precise estimate of the functions which particular institutions might fill, and the weight they could be required to bear in different parts of the Middle East during the critical period of the onset of modernization. It is the purpose of this article to begin to make some of the kinds of distinctions which set off different parts of the Middle East one from another, using the case of late nineteenth century Morocco. It is hoped that the analysis which follows will stimulate the same kind of critical examination of the institutions of other segments of the Middle East culture area. Even if it does not accomplish this objective, such an exercise may be useful if in studying the Moroccan modifications of some of these basic institutions, it can shed light on why Morocco was significantly different and therefore perhaps on the nature of these institutions themselves.
Mafia and peasant rebellion as contrasting factors in Sicilian latifundism
Authors: Blok Anton
Published: July 2009

The origins of the modern Sicilian latifundium go back to the early nineteenth century when feudal land was transformed by law into private property. In what is called the Risorgtmento, a rising rural bourgeoisie gradually replaced the traditional feudal elite by acquiring most of the land that came on the market. Although the peasants had become legally free, they obtained their freedom at the cost of title to the land they held under feudal conditions. The common use rights of gleaning and pasturage, which the peasants exercised on the former fiefs, guaranteed them the fundamental means of living. But arbitrarily excluded by the avid bourgeoisie from a share in the land that should be given out to them as a recompense for the lost use rights, the Sicilian peasants emerged from social servitude only to fall into economic and political dependency. A growing rural proletariat was the necessary concomitant of the partly feudal and partly capitalist enterprise that was the latifundium.
Protestant Ideology and Politics in Ulster
Authors: Wright Frank
Published: July 2009

In a deeply divided society such as Northern Ireland, where two religious communities coexist in relative physical and spiritual isolation from one another: yet where both communities are highly preoccupied with the presence of each other, one community's ‘knowledge’ of the other is comprised very largely of indirect experience and socialized teachings, rather than of first hand experience. The ideologies of one community are therefore relatively ‘autonomous’, in the sense that they are partially immune to empirical tests in day to day life. Ideology tends to structure experience rather than the other way round.
Symbols, Song, Dance and Features of Articulation Is religion an extreme form of traditional authority?
Authors: Bloch Maurice
Published: July 2009

Recent studies of symbols in ritual share two features. First, they isolate symbols from the ritualprocess; second, they interpret symbols as units containing meaning. In this paper I want to argue thatsymbols in ritual cannot be understood without a prior study of the nature of the communication medium of ritual in which they are embedded, in particular singing and dancing, and that once this has been done we find that symbols cannot any more be understood as units of meaning simply on the Saussurian signifier/signified model, however subtly this model is handled. Such varied writers as Bettelheim (1954) and Turner (1959) are to my mind examples of writers ultimately using this model for the study of meaning in ritual.
Peter Rabbit and the Grundriße
Authors: Rosa  , Parkin Charley
Published: July 2009

There Can be no such thing as an innocent reading of the Tale of Peter Rabbit. As that most percipient analyst of the later manuscripts, Enid Blyton, puts it: “We must pose this work the question of the specificity of its object, its relation to its object. The only reading of Peter Rabbit which speaks to us through the congealed layers of the past-becoming-present is a symptomatic reading—a reading in which we listen attentively to Beatrix Potter's silences”.
Récit, analyse, interprétation, explication: critique de quelques problèmes de la connaissance historique
Authors: Aron Raymond
Published: July 2009

Le livre que j'ai intitulé République impériale, les États-Unis dans le monde 1945–1972 appartient au genre de l'histoire diplomatique. Pour la première fois, au lieu de spéculer sur la connaissance historique, j'en affrontais, à titre personnel, les difficultés. Inévitablement, je me suis, à chaque instant, interrogé sur la nature des démarches auxquelles m'incitait ou m'obligeait mon projet: rendre intelligible la conduite, durant un quart de siècle, de l'État dominant du système interétatique.
On the Rationality of Institutions in Modern Life
Authors: Luckmann Thomas
Published: July 2009

Ever since that time we have witnessed disturbances and we cannot but look forward with dread to even greater ones that we shall have to suffer for these and other reasons. An outbreak of violence is to be expected between our Empire and Hungary […] From Poland come news of lamentable discord between three brothers, the territorial princes. We hear of continuous battle among powerful lords in Lorraine. In our own country [i.e., Bavaria] the confusion of minds has become so abominable that robbery and arson throw everything into disorder not only on the ordinary days of the year but even on days of fasting and penitence, in utter disregard of divine and human law. So heavily are we burdened by the memory of past, the onslaught of present and the fear of future vicissitudes that we are fain to yield to the sentence of death which is our lot from the beginning and to tire of life.
La logique de la frustration relative
Authors: Boudon Raymond
Published: July 2009

Lesnotions de frustration relative (relative deprivation) et de groupe de référence constituent a elles deux un ensemble conceptuel dont le succès est dû sans doute à ce qu'il permet, à l'aide de propositions de bon sens, de rendre compte d'observations paradoxales. Comme le note Runciman, les deux notions sont issues d'un truisme familier: à savoir que «les attitudes, aspirations et frustrations, dependent largement du cadre de référence dans lequel elles sont conçues » (“ that people's attitudes, aspirations and grievances largely depend on the frame of reference within which they are conceived”) (I). L'observation montre en effet qu'il est dans la plupart des cas impossible de comprendre pourquoi un individu A éprouve par exemple de l'envie à l'égard de B mais non de C si on ne connaît pas le « cadre de référence » (“ the frame of reference”) de A: comment expliquer que A envie la 504 de son voisin de droite mais non la Jaguar de sonvoisin de gauche, si on ne sait pas que A peut espérer se hausser au niveau de son voisin de droite mais non a celui de son voisin de gauche ? Utilisons l'excellente définition que propose Runciman de la notion de frustration relative: éfinition stricte est difficile. Mais on peut grossièrement dire que A est relativement frustré de x si (I) il n'a pas x, (II) il voit une personne ou plusieurs autres personnes, incluant eventuellement lui-même dans le passé ou dansl'avenir, comme ayant x (quece soit, ou doive ou non être en fait le cas), (III) il désire x, et (iv) perçoit comme plausible l'éventualité d'en disposer. Dire qu'il possède x peut naturellement vouloir dire qu'il est exempt ou indemne de y »(2).
The Disconnection between Power and Rank as a Process: An outline of the development of kingdoms in Central Madagascar
Authors: Bloch Maurice
Published: July 2009

TheComplex ranking systems of South Asia and Polynesia offer a special challenge and a special trap to the anthropologist or historian attempting to explain their development. He will inevitably trace the political and economic development of the state and link those to the appearance of new types of power groups and new structures of stratification. The danger lies in identifying and correlating directly the actors' concept of stratification, the distinctions and associations made in the emic system with interest groups identified by analyses of the political or economic structures. This may be done consciously or by implication by translating actors' category terms by words such as ‘nobility’, ‘ruling class’, ‘bourgeoisie’. This is likely to lead to gross ethnocentric assumptions and obscure the specific nature of the ethnographic example. The danger of such an approach has been demonstrated well by Dumont and Pocock for the most complex and the most famous of such hierarchical systems. They point out how the Indian caste system does not fit either in structural form or in ideological content models borrowed from feudal or class systems. Indeed such comparisons obscure the essentially religious aspect of Hindu ideology contained in the scheme (Dumont and Pocock 1958, Dumont 1966). Similar criticisms would also be pertinent to the way the hierarchical systems of Central Madagascar have been analyzed and for very similar reasons.
The Judging of Nations: Some comments on the assessment of regimes in the New States
Authors: Geertz Clifford
Published: July 2009

LikeProphecies, revolutions restart time, and the distance between l'An I and l'An X is greater than any other decade in history. After that, or a little bit more, things seem to slow down, not because less happens but because less happens for the first time. The ‘infinite grandeur of beginnings’ fades, a certain possibility disappears from things. Attempts may be made to prolong the excitements of setting out. Pillars are erected in squares, purification movements launched in schools, guerilla styles imitated in offices. But all this soon becomes parody, the sort of thing V.S. Naipaul memorializes, as the ordinariness of life reasserts itself. This is where the New States are now, and their study as well, and it is an awkward point for both.
Collective Oath Compurgation in Anglo-Saxon England and African states
Authors: Shack William A.
Published: July 2009

Social historians and historians of jurisprudence have, on occasion, drawn attention to the close resemblances between Anglo-Saxon society at the time when it is said to have been dominated by kinship relationships and the large kingdom states in Africa. The truth of the matter is not so easily come by, however, since the content of pre-medieval social relationships linking persons of different station was inadequately recorded by early writers. The faulty character of early records becomes evident in the area of jurisprudence, especially whenever attempts are made to assess the extent to which kinbased social relationships invaded the legal principles in Anglo-Saxon society in matters of dispute and settlement. This notwithstanding, it seems an instructive sociological task to reconsider comparatively with African state societies, wherever possible, certain of those legal ideas that allegedly formed the basis for judicial decision-making in early English courts before the introduction of trial by jury. The interpretation of these early ideas, set against the background of rights, duties, and obligations that obtained between persons of set status, should define more clearly than before whatever general agreement exists between these legal principles and those that obtain in African state societies. A more ambitious treatment of the subject than is attempted in this essay would extend beyond Anglo-Saxon society. But, because of the faulty character of early records, I limit this literary exercise to the period before William the Conqueror crossed the Channel.
Religion, Political Action and Legitimate Domination in Shiʿite Iran: fourteenth to eighteenth centuriesa.d.
Authors: Arjomand Said Amir
Published: July 2009

The power and prestige of the Persian religious élite, the ‘ulamā’, during the Qājār period (1795–1926), and their political importance, in contrast to the relative political feebleness of the ‘ulamā’ of Sunni Islam in modern times, has attracted the attention of students of Persian history and politics.
Wissenschaftliche Entwicklung und Evolutionstheorie
Authors: Halfmann Jost
Published: July 2009

Die wissenschaftstheoretische Interpretation von Wissenschaft war lange dadurch charakterisiert, daß wissenschaftliche Entwicklung sich zwar in der Zeit, aber nicht in der Geschichte abspielte. Wissenschaftliche Objekterkenntnis ist — diesem Bild gemäß — auf die langwierige Forschungsarbeit verwiesen, die sich dem Wissenschaftsziel, wahre und umfassende Erkenntnis, muhsam annahert; der Zeithorizont wird in dem Bekenntnis, «that we stand on the shouldeis of giants» gewürdigt. Auch der forschungslogische und methodologische Apparat der Wissenschaft ist im Verlaufe wissenschaftlicher Entwicklung nicht der gleiche geblieben. Aber dennoch wurde die Frage, ob Wissenschaft eine Geschichte hat, nicht zum Thema der Wissenschaftstheorie gemacht.
The Ultimate Withdrawal: suicide among the Sara Nar
Authors: Brown Ellen Patterson
Published: July 2009

Despite Durkheim's powerful argument that suicide is caused by social forces only (Durkheim 1966), recent studies have viewed suicide as resulting from a combination of psychological and environmental factors, as springing from the suicide's personality conjoined with his immediate social setting. ‘Suicide is both a personal and a social act’ (Reynolds and Farberow 1976: 33). Social forces alone cannot explain why only a few people commit suicide nor can psychological factors by themselves provide the necessary set of conditions for individual suicides. Certain syndromes are widespread: illness, loneliness, bereavement, shame lead to suicide in many parts of the world. But each society's structure and institutions determine the environmental setting and constellations involved in suicide. How does the society regard illness? Who will be lonely? In what relationships is loss most sharply felt? What constitutes shame? Social forces define the various trouble spots and categories and groups of people most at risk in the society. Their interplay with psychological factors outlines who will commit suicide.
Is religion important in Belgium?
Authors: Fox Renèe C.
Published: July 2009

‘Religion is no longer important in Belgium!’, they declared. Wherever I travelled in Belgium over the course of 1976–1977, the year of my sabbatical leave from an American university, and my eighteenth consecutive year of fieldwork in Belgian society, friends, colleagues, and informants announced this.

I was particularly puzzled by this statement because I had always considered Belgium to be a society deeply imprinted by religion: by its diffuse Catholicism, and its complex reactions to it. Belgians from the whole range of philosophical, political, linguistic, regional, and social-class milieux in which I had worked knew that this was my considered judgment. Yet, on this visit, they seemed intent on showing me that religion was less important to them, and in their society, than I had supposed. The picture that many Belgians painted was of a society where religion had not merely waned, but spontaneously, and with great rapidity, had virtually disappeared. However much this image intrigued me, neither sociological theory, nor my own first-hand observations on previous trips to Belgium made it seem credible.
Landed endowment and sacred food The economy of an Indian temple
Authors: Rösel Jakob
Published: July 2009

I shall deal in this paper with the Jagannath temple of Puri which nowadays constitutes one of the biggest remaining North Indian temple and pilgrimage centers. This town of 60,000 inhabitants still draws approximately one million pilgrims annually from all over India. Puri is situated on the seashore of the Bay of Bengal and is the greatest temple town of Orissa, an Indian province lying adjacent in a westerly direction to the province of Bengal. The present temple was constructed in the eleventh century, and the God's name, Jagannath, which translates as ‘ruler of the world’, spells out well the intent of the founders of the temple, the Ganga, the main dynasty of medieval Orissa. The name was appropriate, because the history of the Gangas shows that they dedicated their kingdom to Jagannath and they only ruled as regents or ministers on behalf of their deity. In the context of the overall Indian high tradition, Jagannath is regarded as the ninth incarnation of Vishnu. The sculpture that is actually worshipped in the temple is singular in the Indian setting. It is the only wooden idol which receives veneration, and in addition, this sculpture is, compared to the conventional blue-stone images of Vishnu, of a particularly crude, quasitotemistic style. This strange, iconographic artifact has never deterred the Oriyas from lavishing a splendid ritual in honour of their Overlord. In the course of thirteen daily main rituals, the God receives three meals, the main lunch consisting of fifty-six different dishes (the temple kitchen houses 270 hearths and ovens); he is dressed and undressed four times a day; and some 10,000 priests organized into 108 different service-groups attend to his needs and desires.
The ‘noble bandit’ and the bandits of the nobles: brigandage and local community in nineteenth-century Andalusia
Authors: Driessen Henk
Published: July 2009

Since Hobsbawm published his Primitive Rebels (1959) and Bandits (1969), the study of organized banditry is slowly moving out of the dusky fringe of history and social science. In the 1970s some interesting regional and biographical studies have come to light. Apart from the encouraging example set by Hobsbawm, this has largely been the result of the increasing rapprochement between history and social science. Ordinary, rural and marginal people are being set on the stage of history. However, detailed comparative local and regional studies are still needed to test Hobsbawm's frame of analysis. Moreover, as he himself admitted, the evidence on which Bandits relies—poems and ballads—is rather ‘tricky’ and needs to be supplemented with other sources.
Patterns of covert politics in post-independence Cyprus
Authors: Cassia Paul Sant
Published: July 2009

If proverbs are sociologically significant the one quoted encapsulates the theme of this paper: the extreme fluidity and uncertainty of post-Independence Greek Cypriot politics; the tension between individual strategies and collective action in Greek culture; secrecy, and the use of violence for political purposes (what Aristotle had called stasis). In this paper I want to examine the patterns of covert politics in Cyprus by tracing the evolution of the cultural phenomenon of omadhes (small secret groups of armed men activated for political purposes), and examining their relationship to political parties. Although there has been some literature on omadhes (Loizos, 1975; Markides 1977) I shall offer a different interpretation to Loizos who sees them merely as ‘action sets’ by showing that they became something more substantial and were strongly influenced by the overall political framework within which they operated; I shall also take a different line to Markides who treats them as an expression of discontent.
Unnecessary revolution: the case of France
Authors: Runciman W. G.
Published: July 2009

For all the controversy that continues to surround the course of events in France between the summoning of the Estates-General and the fall of Brienne in the summer of 1788 and the summoning of the Convention and the fall of the monarchy in the summer of 1792, it is nowhere in dispute that they constituted a revolution— that is, in the definition of theOxford English Dictionary (s.v.III.7), ‘a complete overthrow of the established government in any country or state by those who were previously subject to it’. Indeed, they constituted such an overthrow in a manner and to a degree without precedent. Neither the English Civil War (and still less the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688) nor the War of American Independence are properly comparable with them. In calling the French Revolution ‘unnecessary’, therefore, I am not seeking to minimize either its importance (of which more later) or its novelty. Nor do I maintain that the problems by which theancien régimewas confronted could have been resolved by any scheme of reform which would have preserved intact the existing forms and distribution of power. I mean only that the Revolution was unnecessary in two different senses: first, it only took place as it did because of a wholly unfore-seeable series of coincidences; second, its eventual outcome in terms of the broad difference in social structure between eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century France would have happened in any case. These assertions, moreover, are not—or so I hope to show—as controversial as they may seem: properly stated, both should be equally acceptable to ‘orthodox’ and ‘revisionist’ historians alike.
Genèse et fonctionnement de l'État clientéliste en Côte d'Ivoire
Authors: Sylla Lanciné
Published: July 2009

Au moment de leur accession à l'indépendance et au statut d'État légal, les pays africains se sont tous inspirés du modèle occidental d'État-nation unitaire et centralisateur, dans un contexte de profondes divisions sociales donnant libre cours aux particularismes sociaux de toutes sortes, particularismes ethniques, régionaux, religieux, linguistiques, culturels, économiques, démographiques, etc. Posant des obstacles à l'unification nationale, ces profondes divisions du corps social ont fait apparaître des tensions, des conflits, des affrontements et des luttes d'intérêts particularistes qui ont eu, et continuent d'avoir des répercussions sur les conditions d'organisation du nouvel État, sur les modes d'exercice du pouvoir et sur le processus général de développement de la société dans son ensemble.
Religion and the rise of capitalism
Authors: Hall John A.
Published: July 2009

Max Weber'sProblemattkstill retains its power: whydidonly Christian Europe amongst the world civilisations autonomously create an economic dynamism, broadly capitalist in character? This essay gives an answer to this question, but it is one, for the most part, not in the spirit of the great German sociologist. There is, of course, a major academic industry devoted to the interpretation of Weber's work, but it still remains safe to say that Weber's own explanation for the fortuitous rise of the West had to do with ideological options concerning rational economic behaviour which gained particular salience in the fifteenth century despite having been present in embryo for a much longer period.
Communal armed organizations
Authors: Horowitz Dan
Published: July 2009

A permanent threat of an outbreak of communal strife is a common characteristic of societies deeply divided along ethno-national, religious or linguistic lines. In such societies the state apparatus is often devoid of the capacity to maintain monopolistic control of the means for the exercise of organized violence in society. Indeed, there are many indications that conditions in communal-conflict-prone deeply divided societies are conducive to the evolvement of illegal or semi-legal community-based armed organizations (Horowitz 1982).
Pouvoir de l'Êtat, puissance des traditions. L'evolution du manage paysan en Chine de 1949 à 1982
Authors: Thireau Isabelle
Published: July 2009

Le ier octobre 1949, Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) proclame, sur la place Tian An Men, à Pékin, la naissance de la Chine nouvelle. L'une de ses principales revendications est de « transformer cette Chine arrieéreée et ignorante, dominée par une vieille culture, en une Chine avancée et civilisée, animée par une culture nouvelle ». Son action a-t-elle été couronnée de succés ? Trente ansplus tard, quelle est l'ampleur du changement social?
An approach to a study of small shopkeepers and the class structure
Authors: Bechhofer Frank , Elliott Brian
Published: July 2009

For a good many years now the distribution of effort in the field of social stratification has been noticeably biased in the direction of analysis and description of the position of the working class. Much theoretical discussion has revolved around the possible changes that may have taken place in advanced industrial societies as a result of the relative prosperity of the post-war years. Investigators have examined political sympathies and ideologies, consumption patterns, aspirations, and relational patterns of groups within these societies and attempted to relate these to broad structural changes. But, influenced by Marxian writers and their opponents, both theoretical and empirical work has been directed very largely to change as it affects the working class. In consequence we now have a good deal of data on and discussion of sociological problems concerned with the working class, but no comparable corpus of data obtains for other classes nor, in this country at least, has very much attention been given to the identification of theoretical problems relating primarily to these other classes (1).
Images of Groups
Authors: Spencer Martin E.
Published: July 2009

“Last week it became apparent that the Soviet Union had determined to strike back with a diplomatic campaign of remarkably broad dimensions. Moscow's motivation appeared to be one of countering Peking's rising influence and increasing its own wherever possible” (Harrison Salisbury, The New York Times, Sept. 12, 1971).
The Political Orientation of Agrarian Classes: a theory
Authors: Geneletti Carlo
Published: July 2009

Inrecent times sociologists of different intellectual orientation and academic specialization have demonstrated a renewed interest in agrarian matters. If any, because the peasants still constitute a large section of the world population, this interest must be commended. In this paper, I will deal with a subject that is at present rather left aside: the political orientation of agrarian classes: it is a theoretical effort to evaluate the relations existing between landownership and political orientation. I will try to answer this question: ‘Once agrarian classes have been defined according to their access to land, which is their relative political orientation?’
Persistence and Change: the petite bourgeoisie in industrial society
Authors: Bechhofer Frank , Elliott Brian
Published: July 2009

The Petite Bourgeoisie is a stratum that has attrated little academic study. Historians have given it short shrift, the radical scholars dismissing it as the petty bourgeoisie and the aristocratic historians discounting its members as small fry of no significance! And historians are not alone in their neglect, for in economics, political science and sociology there is a similar disdain for those who cannot be cast in the hero's role in any of the major developments of western capitalism. The petite bourgeoisie remains in the wings because to writers of diverse opinions and academic specialisms it has appeared as essentially trivial.