bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Nineteenth-Century Anthropology and the Measurement of “Mongolian” Skin Color
Authors: Keevak Michael
Published: November 2017

This chapter examines how the “yellow race” became an important focus in nineteenth-century anthropology. More specifically, it considers how the whole notion of skin tone had become inextricably linked to scientifically validated prejudices and normative claims about higher and lower forms of human culture. The chapter first discusses why the term “Mongolian” was selected to represent the people of the Far East and compares it to “Tartar” before exploring how the new field of anthropology became preoccupied with the idea of anatomical quantification, and especially the measurement of skin color using an instrument known as the color top. It shows that the desire to find yellowness in East Asians was so ingrained in the Western imagination that some anthropologists tried to prove that their skin really was yellow.
Yellow Peril
Authors: Keevak Michael
Published: November 2017

This chapter examines how the discourse of yellow not only became ubiquitous in the West, but also migrated into East Asian cultures during the period 1895–1920, giving rise to “the yellow peril”—the notion that East Asians were yellow and perilous. It begins with a historical background on how the Far East came to be seen as a “yellow peril,” a term coined in 1895 and generally credited to Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, specifically in response to Japan's defeat of China at the conclusion of the Sino-Japanese War (also known as “The Yellow War”). The chapter then considers how the Western concept of a “yellow race” was understood in China and Japan before concluding with a discussion of the ways in which yellowness persisted as a potentially dangerous and threatening racial category in the early twentieth century.
Letters from Russia, August 1941 to January 1942
Authors: Arnold Klaus J. , Duffy Eve M.
Published: November 2017

August 12, 1941

We’ve arrived in Warsaw after a quiet and rather comfortable trip. There wasn’t much to see. A thick fog blanketed the landscape. I’ve had a little breakfast and freshened up and am waiting for the command center to open for news of my next assignment. In between fits of sleep I thought about you a great deal. I wonder if [the popular remedy of] sitting in the streetcar helped [start your contractions], or if you’ve gone to see a doctor. […] At around 10 a.m. we’re to move on—via Brest-Litovsk to Minsk. I’ll likely stay in that area. It’s really quite far behind the front, so please don’t worry....
Introduction
Authors: Stasavage David
Published: November 2017

This book examines two distinctive features of European state formation: the invention of the concept of political representation and the development of a system of public credit. Using systematic data on public credit and political representation for thirty-one European states over the period 1250–1750, the book asks whether the presence of an intensive form of representation facilitated access to credit for the former, allowing them to survive and their economies to prosper. It also explores how this joint emergence of credit and representation affected broader trends involving war, state formation, and economic development. The book argues that the presence of an intensive form of representation characterized by an assembly that could monitor and modify expenditures played a key role in facilitating access to credit by European states. The book also discusses the prerogatives and level of activity of representative assemblies in territorial states as compared to city-states.
The Evolution and Importance of Public Credit
Authors: Stasavage David
Published: November 2017

This chapter examines why access to credit was important for European states and provides extensive new evidence on the evolution of public credit across five centuries, from 1250 to 1750. The ability to borrow was critical in medieval and early modern Europe because it allowed states to participate in wars, either defensive or offensive. In order to better understand this fact, the chapter analyzes the movement that took place from compulsory to paid service for soldiers, along with opportunities to finance wars through current taxation. It also explains when states first borrowed long-term and measures the cost of borrowing, focusing on interest rates based on nominal rates at issue when these are available, and based on the fiscal proxy when they are not. The chapter highlights the difference between city-states and territorial states, with the former enjoying an apparent financial advantage that allowed them to begin borrowing earlier and to obtain access to lower-cost finance.
Three City-State Experiences
Authors: Stasavage David
Published: November 2017

This chapter examines public credit and political representation in three European city-states: Cologne, Genoa, and Siena. The goal is to identify the mechanisms at work that determined whether a state had access to credit and at what cost. The chapter considers how public debt was an issue of strong and often violent social conflict within city-states, along with the importance of political control by merchants. The experience of Cologne, Genoa, and Siena shows that there was nothing more effective in ensuring access to credit than being ruled by a merchant oligarchy. Evidence also suggests that when merchant control was challenged, this had negative consequences for access to credit.
Close Encounters
Authors: Gikandi Simon
Published: November 2017

This chapter considers the relationship between the violence of slavery and the culture of conduct within the geography of enslavement itself. It reflects on the status of art and taste in the heart of American slavery. It argues that although members of the American plantocracy in Virginia (William Byrd and Thomas Jefferson, for example) sought to fashion their lives after those of British gentry, they could not separate themselves from the concrete materiality of plantation slavery. How, then, could a culture of taste be cultivated in the presence of a thriving slave economy? At the center of this chapter is the inescapable relation between the planters' striving for high culture and the deployment of violence as a mode of containing what was considered to be the danger of Africa. Africa and Africans enabled the wealth of the planter, but they needed to be exorcized so that white civilization could take hold in the new world.
Debt and Recovery
Authors: Hyman Louis
Published: November 2017

This chapter discusses the New Deal housing policy and the making of national mortgage markets. Though Franklin Roosevelt was sympathetic to housing the poor, his policies aimed, primarily, to grow the economy and reduce unemployment. If this could be accomplished through housing the poor, all the better, but that was a secondary goal to restoring economic growth. Unlike the other housing programs of the New Deal, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) promised and achieved this growth. By 1939, investment in residential housing was nearly back to its 1929 levels. The flood of funds, guaranteed profits, and standardized policies initiated through the FHA changed the way banks operated forever, turning mortgages into nationally traded commodities—and in the process changing the way Americans related to banks and debt.
Re-Placing the state
Authors: Brett Annabel S.
Published: November 2017

This concluding chapter addresses the issue of the place of the city directly, and discusses the broader implications of place in relation to the metaphysics of human agency. As the space of physical movement, or locomotion, place is apparently depoliticized from the outset; for the political depends on the free, which, even if conceived as the voluntary and naturalized, is nevertheless contrasted with the external motion that is blocked by force. However, the casuistry concerning the local motion of citizens shows how the space of the political has to contend with the space of external movement, the same space in which animals move, which resists even as it supplements the voluntary and juridical construction of the state.
First description of the algorithms
Authors: Couveignes Jean-Marc , Edixhoven Bas
Published: November 2017

This chapter provides the first, informal description of the algorithms. It explains how the computation of the Galois representations V attached to modular forms over finite fields should proceed. The essential step is to approximate the minimal polynomial P of (3.1) with sufficient precision so that P itself can be obtained.
Computing complex zeros of polynomials and power series
Authors: Couveignes Jean-Marc
Published: November 2017

The purpose of this chapter is twofold. First, it will prove two theorems (5.3.1 and 5.4.2) about the complexity of computing complex roots of polynomials and zeros of power series. The existence of a deterministic polynomial time algorithm for these purposes plays an important role in this book. More important, it will also explain what it means to compute with real or complex data in polynomial time. The chapter first recalls basic definitions in computational complexity theory, it then deals with the problem of computing square roots. The more general problem of computing complex roots of polynomials is treated thereafter and, finally, the chapter studies the problem of finding zeros of a converging power series.
Polynomials for projective representations of level one forms
Authors: Bosman Johan
Published: November 2017

This chapter explicitly computes mod-ℓ Galois representations attached to modular forms. To be precise, it looks at cases with l ≤ 23, and the modular forms considered will be cusp forms of level 1 and weight up to 22. The chapter presents the result in terms of polynomials associated with the projectivized representations. As an application, it will improve a known result on Lehmer's nonvanishing conjecture for Ramanujan's tau function.
Applying Arakelov theory
Authors: Edixhoven Bas , de Jong Robin
Published: November 2017

This chapter starts applying Arakelov theory in order to derive a bound for the height of the coefficients of the polynomials Pno hexa conversion found as in (8.2.10). It proceeds in a few steps. The first step is to relate the height of the bₗ(Qsubscript x,i) as in the ptrevious chapter to intersection numbers on Xₗ. The second step is to get some control on the difference of the divisors D₀ and Dₓ as in (3.4). Certain intersection numbers concerning this difference are bounded in Theorem 9.2.5, in terms of a number of invariants in the Arakelov theory on modular curves Xₗ. These invariants will then be bounded in terms of l in Chapter 11. The chapter formulates the most important results, Theorem 9.1.3, Theorem 9.2.1, and Theorem 9.2.5, in the context of curves over number fields, that is, outside the context of modular curves.
Computing the residual Galois representations
Authors: Edixhoven Bas
Published: November 2017

This chapter proves the main result on the computation of Galois representations. It provides a detailed description of the algorithm and a rigorous proof of the complexity. It first combines the results of chapters 11 and 12 in order to work out the strategy of Chapter 3. This gives the main result, Theorem 14.1.1: a deterministic polynomial time algorithm, based on computations with complex numbers. The crucial transition from approximations to exact values is done, and the proof of Theorem 14.1.1 is finished later in the chapter. The chapter then replaces the complex computations with the computations over finite fields from Chapter 13, and gives a probabilistic (Las Vegas type) polynomial time variant of the algorithm in Theorem 14.1.1.
The Rise of Sovereign Wealth Funds
Authors: Clark Gordon L. , Dixon Adam D. , Monk Ashby H. B.
Published: November 2017

This chapter provides an introduction to the formation and development of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) around the world. Its argument is largely about form and function, emphasizing the functions that SWFs provide for nation-states in the context of the global financial system. The purpose here is to classify and explain the rise of SWFs, making links to the relevant literature in the social sciences on institutional innovation and change. It also emphasizes the importance of SWFs as an institutional innovation consistent with and drawing legitimacy from fundamental changes in the global financial system that have prompted governments to seek ways of managing their “place” in a system subject to considerable volatility, risk, and uncertainty.
Insurer of Last Resort: Singapore’s Government Investment Corporation
Authors: Clark Gordon L. , Dixon Adam D. , Monk Ashby H. B.
Published: November 2017

During the financial crisis, a number of East Asian sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) acted as insurers of last resort for their nation-states, underwriting financial stability and social welfare. This chapter explains how and why this role came to pass, arguing that it serves to sustain the legitimacy of the nation-state as well as justify the separation of SWF assets from the public interest in current consumption and spending. Focusing on the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC), it suggests that the prospect of recurrent financial crises was an important prompt for its establishment in 1981, reinforced by the experience of many East Asian countries in the 1997 Asian financial crisis. The chapter explains the formal constitution of the GIC, the mechanisms by which its reserves are returned to the government in crisis, and the role of different sections of the political elite in managing those assets. Referencing the principles of best-practice fund governance and the Santiago Principles underwriting the legitimacy of SWFs, it also considers the governance of the GIC, especially in regard to its investment processes.
Modernity, Imitation, and Performance: The Gulf States’ Funds
Authors: Clark Gordon L. , Dixon Adam D. , Monk Ashby H. B.
Published: November 2017

This chapter first looks at the problems associated with managing resource riches, referencing academic literature that coined the phrase “Dutch disease” (resource wealth may be lost by virtue of institutional incapacity and the adverse effects of unmanaged income flows through the domestic economy). It then turns to the issue of institutional innovation, noting that while a couple of Middle Eastern countries were early adopters of the sovereign wealth fund (SWF) institution, the establishment of such funds was driven in large part by Western interests in the region. Only later, when the flow of funds came to dominate Gulf States' macroeconomic planning and development, did the sudden increase of SWF adoption take place. Hence, the SWF is inherently Western. Nonetheless, the Gulf States appear committed to Western economic norms and institutions, if not Western conceptions of liberal democracy.
Introduction
Authors: Viroli Maurizio
Published: November 2017

This introductory chapter provides a historical sketch of the emergence of Italian liberty. In the republics of the late Middle Ages, in the Risorgimento, and in the struggle against fascism, Italian liberty was the work of religious men and women. Many of them possessed a sincere Christian faith, often quite distant from or in stark contrast with the teaching of the Catholic Church; others did not believe in any revealed religion but instead were believers and apostles—sometimes martyrs—of a religion they called a “religion of duty” or “religion of liberty.” Both the former and the latter people, regardless of the theological content of their convictions, were religious because they lived their lives as a mission—that is, with devotion to the ideal of liberty.
A Religion to Live Free
Authors: Viroli Maurizio
Published: November 2017

This chapter focuses on political writer Machiavelli, who elaborated on both republican religion and the need for a religious reform better than anybody else. In the last pages of The Art of War, which he wrote in order to revive the ancient orders and ancient Italian military virtue, he reveals his conviction that Italy “seems to be born to resurrect dead things, as one could see in poetry, painting, and sculpture.” He harshly criticizes the corruption of the church, accusing the church of Rome of keeping Italy divided, bringing about the death of “all devotion and all religion,” and instilling in the minds of the Italians the especially malign wickedness of those who have no religion.
Masters
Authors: Viroli Maurizio
Published: November 2017

This chapter focuses on the Risorgimento's moral and political leaders: Vincenzo Gioberti, Giuseppe Mazzini, Camillo Benso Count of Cavour, and Giuseppe Garibaldi. Albeit in different ways, all of them lived by a religious conception that regarded Italy's liberty as the fundamental principle of life. They were aware that national emancipation required a religious sentiment. Gioberti, the main advocate of the project of national unification under the aegis of the pope, fought against the religion of idleness in the name of the religion of virtue. Mazzini, the most influential apostle of the religion of the fatherland, taught a theory of political emancipation based on the principle that a people can resurrect themselves only by means of virtue and the “religion of truth”—that is, not by means of Machiavellian devices or Jesuitical reticence. Cavour considered Christian religion a support for the construction of secure liberal institutions, but only if religion emancipated itself from the superstition and profound corruption that rendered it a prop for reactionary regimes.
Regrets and the Quest for New Faiths
Authors: Viroli Maurizio
Published: November 2017

This chapter considers Risorgimento patriots' concerns about the future of Italian liberty following national unification. They understood that the new state lacked a civil religion, and that liberal institutions were, as a consequence, fragile. The educational projects inspired by Mazzini were directed against clericalism and the power of the Catholic Church, but they also urged a religious revolution in the name of the ideal of “God and people.” La nuova Europa, a paper associated with the Associazione Democratica Italiana, affirmed in an article in 1862 that it was necessary to go to Rome and remain there in order to bring about a European revolution in the people's consciences capable of achieving the triumph of thought and reason over faith, thereby accomplishing “the next work of the Risorgimento, the Reformation, and Philosophy, inaugurating the divinity of thought in the basilica disencumbered of the Roman God.”
Inner Liberty
Authors: Viroli Maurizio
Published: November 2017

This chapter considers antifascists' search for inner liberty in response to fascism. As fascism accentuated its totalitarian character and tried to infuse its domination into people's consciences, those antifascists who were intellectually more refined directed their research toward the rediscovery of an inner liberty. They were aware of the fact that once fascism became hegemonic, the last glimmer of hope for a political and civil liberation also would die. The philosopher Piero Martinetti (1872—1943) is a prime example of opposition to fascism in the name of human dignity. Starting in 1926, when fascism took on a totalitarian character, he exhorted students to that pride of character that is the distinctive trait of human beings: “[Immanuel] Kant lists among the essential duties of man that of pride, moral pride.” Inner liberty was also the main concern for Adolfo Omodeo (1889–1946), one of the chief protagonists in the search for a religion of liberty during the years of triumphant fascism. He cultivated two broad interlocked themes throughout his life as a scholar: ancient Christianity and the Risorgimento—that is, the two great ideal traditions that inspired the religion of liberty.
Only a God Can Expel a God
Authors: Viroli Maurizio
Published: November 2017

This chapter considers the thoughts of Calamandrei, a Florentine who was a nonbeliever and a nonpracticing Christian as well as a distinguished lawyer. He reached the conclusion that in order to save human and Christian civilization from Nazism and fascism, men needed to rediscover faith in God. Calamandrei's reflections are found in the pages of his diary, which he kept from 1939 to 1945, putting both himself and his relatives at risk, so that some person of goodwill, a few centuries later, could understand how and why a whole civilization had died out. The anguish that filled him during the war years, however, was rooted in an older melancholy, which remained firmly tied to his soul even after the liberation.
The Grounds of Justice
Authors: Risse Mathias
Published: November 2017

This book explores the question of what it is for a distribution to be just globally and proposes a new systematic theory of global justice that it calls pluralist internationalism. Up to now, philosophers have tended to respond to the problem of global justice in one of two ways: that principles of justice either apply only within states or else apply to all human beings. The book defends a view “between” these competing claims, one that improves on both, and introduces a pluralist approach to what it terms the grounds of justice—which offers a comprehensive view of obligations of distributive justice. It also considers two problems that globalization has raised for political philosophy: the problem of justifying the state to outsiders and the problem of justifying the global order to all.
Toward a Contingent Derivation of Human Rights
Authors: Risse Mathias
Published: November 2017

This chapter examines the role that reflection about original ownership can play in political philosophy, with particular emphasis on the interrelationships between collective ownership of the earth, membership rights in the global order, and human rights. It considers a principle associated with collective ownership: the distribution of original resources and spaces of the earth among the global population is just only if everyone's membership rights in the global order are satisfied. Collective ownership leads to a conception of associative rights for whose protection there is a global rather than merely national responsibility. The chapter first explains why certain responsibilities apply at the level of the global order to make its imposition acceptable to co-owners before discussing why such responsibilities correspond to rights of individuals against the global order. It then explores natural ownership rights and introduces the idea of membership in the global order, as well as the corresponding notion of membership rights.
“Imagine There’s No Countries”
Authors: Risse Mathias
Published: November 2017

This chapter offers a sweeping objection to any attempt to argue toward the conclusion that the system of states ought to cease to exist. At the heart of this objection is the claim that John Lennon, in his famous song, is wrong. Lennon not only invites us to imagine a world with no states (“no countries”) or perhaps a single global state (“the world will be as one”), he also tells us that it is easy to imagine such a world. The chapter develops an account of what it is to justify states, first by considering the views of Thomas Hobbes, Immanuel Kant, and John Rawls. It then examines the claim that there might be no moral or rational reconstruction of the existence of states. It concludes by arguing that we ought to make our world of states as good as possible rather than aspire to a different kind of political world.
Time Flows, the Child Plays
Authors: Michalski Krzysztof
Published: November 2017

This chapter introduces the images of the grazing cows, the child at play, and the person observing them with envy and emotion. It argues that these images are supposed to confront us with human life, concentrated in the lived moment and simultaneously tearing the past from the future. It is life stretched out from “yesterday” to “tomorrow” and thereby burdened with memory and guilt—and at the same time innocent and oblivious, growing out of time in its every instant: the connection between time and its sickness, eternity. Such a concept of the human condition, the chapter shows, carries far-reaching consequences.
The Flame of Eternity
Authors: Michalski Krzysztof
Published: November 2017

This chapter explores the concept of “passing,” that knowledge that the world as one knows it—and the self with it—will pass away. Moreover, one cannot be freed from the suspicion of unreality that usually accompanies the experience of passing, from the suspicion that this experience is merely the result of (our) limited point of view, while in reality nothing is really passing. In addition, the chapter introduces the metaphor of “fire” which is associated with, among other things, life—here discussed by Hegel, Heidegger, and of course, Nietzsche himself. “Life,” Nietzsche writes in The Gay Science, “means for us constantly transforming all that we are into light and flame.”
Local Elections and the Politics of Small-Scale Democracy
Authors: Oliver J. Eric , Ha Shang E. , Callen Zachary
Published: November 2017

Local government is the hidden leviathan of American politics: it accounts for nearly a tenth of gross domestic product, it collects nearly as much in taxes as the federal government, and its decisions have an enormous impact on Americans' daily lives. Yet political scientists have few explanations for how people vote in local elections, particularly in the smaller cities, towns, and suburbs where most Americans live. Drawing on a wide variety of data sources and case studies, this book offers the first comprehensive analysis of electoral politics in America's municipalities. Arguing that current explanations of voting behavior are ill suited for most local contests, the book puts forward a new theory that highlights the crucial differences between local, state, and national democracies. Being small in size, limited in power, and largely unbiased in distributing their resources, local governments are “managerial democracies” with a distinct style of electoral politics. Instead of hinging on the partisanship, ideology, and group appeals that define national and state elections, local elections are based on the custodial performance of civic-oriented leaders and on their personal connections to voters with similarly deep community ties. Explaining not only the dynamics of local elections, Oliver's findings also upend many long-held assumptions about community power and local governance, including the importance of voter turnout and the possibilities for grassroots political change.
Energy and Industrial Growth
Authors: Paolo Malanima , Kander Astrid , Warde Paul
Published: November 2017

This chapter considers the role that energy played in the industrial growth in nineteenth-century Europe. The economies of Europe grew more rapidly during the nineteenth century than at any previous period in history. This was not simply a consequence of the doubling of the population; per capita income rose as well. Given these facts it is hardly surprising that energy consumption also increased dramatically. Consumption of coal seems to have been a key part of economic growth, as measured by per capita income, and cheap energy was a necessary condition of the industrial revolution. The chapter first considers how coal development blocks contributed to growth in Europe during the period before discussing a number of long-run propositions, such as the strong complementarity between energy and capital. It concludes with an assessment of the link between energy intensity and economic structure.
Major Development Blocks in the Twentieth Century and Their Impacts on Energy
Authors: Paolo Malanima , Kander Astrid , Warde Paul
Published: November 2017

This chapter examines the impact of major development blocks on the diffusion of new energy carriers and energy consumption in twentieth-century Europe. The focus is on the drivers of energy transitions and economic energy efficiency. The second and third industrial revolutions were each distinguished by major development blocks in the fields of energy and communication. In the second industrial revolution, starting around 1870, there were two main development blocks: one centered on the internal combustion engine and oil use (the ICE-Oil block) and another one centered on electricity (the Electricity block). In the third industrial revolution, which took off from the mid-1970s, the development block around information and communication technology (the ICT block) becomes dominant, with the transistor as its macro-innovation. The chapter discusses the functioning of the core macro-innovation of each development block as well as its diffusion in society using the concepts of market suction and market widening.
Summary and Implications For the Future
Authors: Paolo Malanima , Kander Astrid , Warde Paul
Published: November 2017

This chapter summarizes the book's main findings and their implications for the future, reflecting in particular on the limits of growth, peak oil, technology, and prospects for a return to the organic economy. The central part of the book's argument is that pre-industrial Europe faced energy constraints to economic growth, and was set free from these constraints by the adoption of fossil fuels, including coal. It suggests that the transition to fossil fuels was both a necessary condition and an enabling factor leading to modern growth. This concluding chapter presents two tenets that can inform contemporary debates about energy transitions and the future of economic growth. First, societies move on trajectories, but what has happened in the past bears a strong influence on paths taken in the future. Second, we can establish relationships between energy consumption and economic growth, even as the character of these relationships is not stable over time.
Three Views of Human Knowledge
Authors: Sosa Ernest
Published: November 2017

This chapter considers a traditional account of knowledge along with its indirect realist view of perception. On a traditional approach, perceptual knowledge is a special case of “justified true belief plus.” Such justification is alleged to come from the evidence of our senses. The chapter also compares a radically opposed, knowledge-first account, one that claims an important advantage: it is said to make room for reasons that can establish answers to our questions, enabling us to vouch for those answers. There is, however, a further alternative to consider. While better aligned with the tradition, this further alternative, as the chapter describes, still claims the same advantage as the radical knowledge-first approach.
Scoring at Halftime
Authors: Palacios-Huerta Ignacio
Published: November 2017

This chapter is concerned with the idea of scoring at halftime but with a more scientific perspective. It suggests that what happens at halftime in some soccer games scores big in terms of allowing us to test an influential theory in economics: the efficient-markets hypothesis. The theory posits that the stock market processes information so completely and quickly that any relevant news would be incorporated fully into the stock's price before anyone had the chance to act on it. Simply put, unless one knew information that others did not know, no stock should be a better buy than any other. If the theory is correct—that is, if observed changes in stock prices are unpredictable—there is not much we can do to gain an advantage over other traders, except perhaps to try to identify the news that causes stock prices to rise and fall and to understand the size of any likely price jump.
Discrimination: From the Makana Football Association to Europe
Authors: Palacios-Huerta Ignacio
Published: November 2017

This chapter is concerned with taste-based models of discrimination, where the pioneer framework of analysis is the model first formalized in Gary S. Becker's classic The Economics of Discrimination (1957). The Becker model of discrimination differs from almost all other major models of discrimination in that it departs from the standard assumption that firms maximize profits or very nearly so. As long as discrimination persists in equilibrium, prejudiced firms earn lower profits. Similarly, if workers engage in prejudice (e.g., by refusing to work with certain groups of workers) or if consumers do (e.g., boycotting products supplied by those groups), then they forego earnings or pay higher prices because of their prejudice. The evidence in this chapter comes from English league soccer.
Forming Judgment
Authors: Casson Douglas John
Published: November 2017

This chapter argues that Locke's goal in turning to epistemology was not simply to engage in abstract speculation about philosophical difficulties, but to instruct his readers in the proper way to govern their limited faculties and take on the burdens and responsibilities of judgment. Locke's philosophical investigations aim at a type of civic education; he seeks to teach his contemporaries the intellectual virtues of a properly governed mind. Although Locke continues to appeal to the traditional vocabulary of knowledge and opinion, he carefully shifts his readers' attention away from abstract, speculative reasoning and toward the importance of the faculty of judgment, which can attain degrees of probability but not certainty.
Introduction
Authors: Tretkoff Paula
Published: November 2017

This chapter explains that the book deals with quotients of the complex 2-ball yielding finite coverings of the projective plane branched along certain line arrangements. It gives a complete list of the known weighted line arrangements that can produce such ball quotients, and then provides a justification for the existence of the quotients. The Miyaoka-Yau inequality for surfaces of general type, and its analogue for surfaces with an orbifold structure, plays a central role. The book also examines the explicit computation of the proportionality deviation of a complex surface for finite covers of the complex projective plane ramified along certain line arrangements. Candidates for ball quotients among these finite covers arise by choosing weights on the line arrangements such that the proportionality deviation vanishes.
Conclusions and Implications for Global Governance
Authors: Büthe Tim , Mattli Walter
Published: November 2017

This book has explored global private governance by three focal rule-making institutions: the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). It has shown that, in rapidly growing areas of global private regulation, where central state institutions are not directly involved, the representation of domestic regulatory preferences is to a large extent mediated by, or channeled through, domestic governance structures that are also private. This concluding chapter considers the implications of these findings for public policy and for normative debates over global governance more generally. It highlights two key issues: institutional reform to improve the fit between domestic and international institutions, and the questions of legitimacy raised by private rule-making.
White Thin Bone
Authors: Izenberg Oren
Published: November 2017

This chapter examines the philosophical origins and political urgencies of William Butler Yeats's demand for “perfection” and “completeness.” It begins with a discussion of Yeats's conception of extreme and paradoxical theories of poetic agency and why such an excessive account of poetic agency might have appeared necessary in his historical situation. It then considers Yeats's early and abiding commitment to the esoteric roots of symbolism and his late interest in eugenics, both of which addressed the local project of forging a counterfactual identity. It also shows how Yeats's poetry bridges the gap between the perfected Ireland he envisioned and the degraded one he conjured. The chapter concludes with an analysis of Yeats's explicit rebellion, not against his universalist notion of personhood, but against his own will to poetic mastery.
Language Poetry and Collective Life
Authors: Izenberg Oren
Published: November 2017

This chapter examines the logic behind Bob Perelman's wish to produce an account of poetry as an enterprise deeply involved in manifesting the possibility of social life, or in producing confidence in the ground of social life. Focusing on Language poetry, the movement Perelman represents, the chapter discusses the disparity between imagined and actual forms of collectivity that arises from two contradictory commitments that Perelman's story allegorizes: a commitment to a radical concept of freedom on the one hand, and to a repressive hypothesis of cultural determinism on the other. It also analyzes the theory and practice of collaboration in the book Leningrad and relates it the account of the person implicit in the generative linguistics deplored by the Language poets. Finally, it considers how the Language poets' appeal to grammaticality regrounds personhood.
We Are Reading
Authors: Izenberg Oren
Published: November 2017

In this concluding chapter, the author makes a sort of experiment in imagining his argument about the history of poetry as a prescription for reading rather than writing. The author addresses the two concerns he has raised in this book: to think about the nature or structure of collective intentions, and to offer a defense of a kind of intense and deliberated inattention to poems. The discussion is partly autobiographical, taking the author's own use and abuse of poetry as a case study. The author reflects on how he sought to read a poem, A. R. Ammons's Tape for the Turn of the Year with another person, but at a distance—“together apart.” He explains how reading poems together may promote an attitude of indifference toward the specificity of any poem in the greater interest of solidarity with other persons. He also proposes an alternative to models of poetic community built around conversation, interpretation, or translation.
Bacalao
Authors: Grafe Regina
Published: November 2017

This chapter uses bacalao instead of grain in understanding market integration and its link with the political economy, analyzing the emerging cod trade in more detail and contextualizing the cod market within the frame of the new Atlantic trades. These were transoceanic in origin, and they brought about a new, global economy; but they also transformed in their course the domestic economies and societies of Europe. The rise of these transoceanic goods to staple commodities in European countries has offered historians a unique opportunity to investigate the emergence of the early stages of a “consumer culture” in Europe and the expansion of markets that accompanied it.
Segregation or Choice?
Authors: Botticini Maristella , Eckstein Zvi
Published: November 2017

This chapter assesses the argument that both their exclusion from craft and merchant guilds and usury bans on Christians segregated European Jews into moneylending during the Middle Ages. Already during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, moneylending was the occupation par excellence of the Jews in England, France, and Germany and one of the main professions of the Jews in the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, and other locations in western Europe. Based on the historical information and the economic theory presented in earlier chapters, the chapter advances an alternative explanation that is consistent with the salient features that mark the history of the Jews: the Jews in medieval Europe voluntarily entered and later specialized in moneylending because they had the key assets for being successful players in credit markets—capital, networking, literacy and numeracy, and contract-enforcement institutions.
Physics of Galaxy Evolution
Authors: Loeb Abraham , Furlanetto Steven R.
Published: November 2017

This chapter examines galaxies in some detail from a largely theoretical perspective. Along the way, one must bear in mind that, although the described progression of events in this chapter is plausible, at this time it is only a conjecture in the minds of theorists that has not yet been confirmed by observational data. This chapter therefore focuses only on the physics that drive these interstellar objects, showing how the earliest dwarf galaxies eventually merged and made bigger galaxies. A present-day galaxy like our own Milky Way was constructed over cosmic history by the assembly of a million building blocks in the form of the first dwarf galaxies.
The Lyman-α‎ Line as a Probe of the Early Universe
Authors: Loeb Abraham , Furlanetto Steven R.
Published: November 2017

This chapter investigates a number of specific observational probes of the high-redshift Universe. It examines the Lyman-α‎ line, an extraordinarily rich and useful—albeit complex—probe of both galaxies and the intergalactic medium (IGM). As established in the previous chapter, young star-forming galaxies can produce very bright Lyman-α‎ emissions. Although the radiative transfer of these photons through their host galaxies is typically very complex, a good starting point is a simple model in which a fraction of stellar ionizing photons are absorbed within their source galaxy, forming embedded H II regions. The resulting protons and electrons then recombine, producing Lyman-α‎ photons. Assuming ionization equilibrium, the rate of these recombinations must equal the rate at which ionizing photons are produced.
What Is It about Planet Earth?
Authors: Canfield Donald Eugene
Published: November 2017

This chapter begins by highlighting the three basic ingredients for life: energy, the chemical components that make up cells, and water. It then shows that the availability of each of these is linked by special properties of planet Earth. It concludes that Earth is a pretty terrific place for life. It sits comfortably within the habitable zone of the Sun. In addition, its active tectonics both control the temperature of the surface environment, providing a continuous supply of liquid water, and recycle the basic components required to fuel abundant life. The same tectonics may have also provided optimal conditions for the earliest biosphere.
A Jewish Response to Christian Kabbalah
Authors: Dweck Yaacob
Published: November 2017

This chapter examines Modena's outrage at the appropriation of Kabbalah by Christians, particularly Pico della Mirandola. It looks at Modena's effort to separate Christian Kabbalah from Jewish theology and to redefine Kabbalah as a uniquely Jewish realm of thought. Modena objected to Christian Kabbalah for a variety of reasons similar to his opposition to Jewish Kabbalah: it was a recent innovation, and the attempt to argue for its antiquity defied both reason and textual evidence. In the very same passages, however, Modena objected to Christian Kabbalah for the simple fact that it was Christian. Ultimately, in criticizing Christian Kabbalah as a perversion of a specifically Jewish set of esoteric secrets, Modena adopted a protectionist and proprietary attitude toward a form of knowledge and set of practices he had spent considerable energy criticizing and had otherwise rejected.
History of a Failure
Authors: Dweck Yaacob
Published: November 2017

This epilogue argues that the failure of Ari Nohem was manifold. Modena failed to convince his immediate audience, and by extension the Jewish community of Venice, and by further extension Jewish communities throughout Europe and the Mediterranean, to abandon their embrace of a new Jewish theology that masqueraded under the guise of tradition. This was hardly surprising: no critic, no matter how stinging or how subtle, can convince people to change their beliefs or to abandon their practices. Modena had also failed to convince other scholars and other critics—the very people who might have been most receptive to his argument. To describe Ari Nohem as a failure is neither to indict the book nor to celebrate it. It is an attempt to understand it as a work written by an author constrained by the limits of his own particular moment in history.
The Future of Banking Regulation
Authors: Rochet Jean-Charles
Published: November 2017

This chapter takes a more detailed look at the flaws in the prudential framework that was in place when the crisis erupted and at the required remedies. It begins by discussing the Basel Accords and the breakdown of the Basel prudential regime. It then explains the necessary reforms. It argues that three types of reforms are necessary: (1) a much more powerful and independent banking supervisor; (2) much simpler, and easier to apply, prudential regulation; and (3) the installation of a prompt corrective action regime for the management of crises, including a special resolution regime for systematically important financial institutions.
Gamma-Ray Bursts as Probes of the Universe
Authors: Bloom Joshua S.
Published: November 2017

This chapter focuses on how gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are emerging as unique tools in the study of broad areas of astronomy and physics by virtue of their special properties. The unassailable fact about GRBs that makes them such great probes is that they are fantastically bright and so can be seen to the farthest reaches of the observable Universe. In parallel with the ongoing study of GRB events and progenitors, new lines of inquiry have burgeoned: using GRBs as unique probes of the Universe in ways that are almost completely divorced from the nature of GRBs themselves. Topics discussed include studies of gas, dust, and galaxies; the history of star formation; measuring reionization and the first objects in the universe; neutrinos, gravitational waves, and cosmic rays; quantum gravity and the expansion of the universe; and the future of GRBs.
Moving Targets
Authors: Simpson Stephen J. , Raubenheimer David
Published: November 2017

This chapter studies intake and growth targets. For clarity, earlier chapters have treated intake and growth targets as static points integrated across a particular period in the life of an animal. In reality they are, of course, not static but rather trajectories that move in time. In the short term, the requirements of the animal change as environmental circumstances impose differing demands for nutrients and energy. At a somewhat longer timescale, targets move as the animal passes through the various stages of its life, from early growth and development to maturity, reproduction, and senescence. On an even longer timescale, nutritional traits are subject to natural selection and move as species evolve to exploit new or changing nutritional environments and to adopt differing life-history strategies. Presaging such evolutionary change in gene frequencies within populations are epigenetic effects, whereby the nutritional experiences of parents influence the behavior and metabolism of their offspring without requiring changes in gene frequencies.
Some Conclusions
Authors: Barfield Thomas
Published: November 2017

This chapter explains that Afghanistan's problems during the early twenty-first century can best be understood by examining where they fit past patterns and where they break from them. The prospects for bringing stability to Afghanistan hinge on whether these problems can be rectified in a way that Afghans find acceptable. Both Afghans and foreigners remain tied to visions of what they wish the country to be that its present reality and possible futures have been obscured. The long view of Afghanistan and its history, however, presents possibilities for resolving the country's current problems, but it also presents warnings about how even the best-planned policies can fail.