bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Dancing Greek Letters
Authors: Prins Yopie
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines why and how women became especially interested in the Euripidean tragedy The Bacchae and tried to make Greek letters dance, figuratively and literally. It shows how women resorted to dancing letters—the simultaneous subject and object of rhythmic movement—to mobilize Ladies' Greek in new directions at the turn of the twentieth century and beyond, toward an experience of kinesthesia. It also looks at Jane Harrison as a “modern maenad” whose ideas about Dionysiac ritual developed during her years at Newnham College, as well as the pedagogical setting of Bryn Mawr College, where students were initiated into a “cult of Greek” under the leadership of M. Carey Tomas. Finally, it discusses a student production of The Bacchae for the fiftieth anniversary of Bryn Mawr, suggesting that the choreography of this performance can be read as a transformation of ancient Greek into dancing letters.
Scattering of Surface Gravity Waves by Islands, Reefs, and Barriers
Authors: Adam John A.
Published: May 2018

This chapter focuses on the scattering of surface gravity waves by islands, reefs, and barriers. Surface gravity waves that propagate from the deep ocean to coastal regions may be strongly amplified by reflection, refraction, diffraction, and shoaling due to variation in water depth. Analytical solutions provide an attractive approach to studies on wave scattering, but they are obtainable for only special topographies and simple governing equations. The chapter considers long surface gravity waves (linear shallow water waves) such that the depth of the water is much greater than the vertical free surface displacement and the wavelength is much larger than the depth. The fluid equations are derived directly for the present context. The discussion covers trapped waves, the scattering or S-matrix, submerged circular islands, edge waves on a sloping beach, one-dimensional edge waves on a constant slope, and wave amplication by a sloping beach.
Diffraction of Plane Electromagnetic Waves by a Cylinder
Authors: Adam John A.
Published: May 2018

This chapter discusses the mathematics underlying the diffraction of plane electromagnetic waves by a cylinder. Radio signals may undergo diffraction. A signal that encounters an obstacle tends to travel around it, suggesting that a signal may be received from a transmitter even though it may be “shaded” by a large object between them. This phenomenon is best explained by the Huygen's principle, according to which each point on a spherical wave front can be interpreted as a source of a secondary wave front. The chapter first examines electric polarization by considering normally incident plane waves incident on the cylinder (parallel to the z-axis of the cylinder) before turning to classical diffraction, Huygen's principle, and the Kirchhoff-Huygens diffraction integral. It also shows the derivation of the generalized Airy diffraction pattern.
Measuring Preferences and Choices
Authors: Rosenthal Gil G.
Published: May 2018

Studies of mating outcomes range from behavioral observations of social affiliation in the wild, to laboratory experiments where individual choosers and courters are paired in isolation. However, mating outcomes do not tell us much about mating preferences. In order to understand what is going on inside the heads and bodies of choosers, we need to measure not only the mate choices of choosers—how choosers discriminate among actual mates—but also the underlying preferences: choosers' internal representation of courter traits. This chapter begins by discussing how mating outcomes are measured. It then presents a conceptual framework for thinking about how preferences are structured, followed by a discussion of the options for empirically measuring mating preferences and the pitfalls associated with each approach.
The First Steps in Mate Choice
Authors: Rosenthal Gil G.
Published: May 2018

This chapter focuses on the importance of sensation and sensory modality in shaping mate choice, drawing on the substantial literature on the sensory ecology of mate choice. It outlines the important common features of all sensory systems. All of these common features can be used to explain chooser features downstream of sensation, through perception to the motor output of behavior. These shared features are what is most important in terms of our understanding of mate choice, but what draws our attention about mate choice is the diversity of ways in which it is accomplished. The chapter focuses on the particulars of how sensory systems work in each of the principal modalities. It concludes by addressing the relationship between sensitivity, sensory constraints, and mating preference.
Beyond the Periphery
Authors: Rosenthal Gil G.
Published: May 2018

Mate choice involves both the processing of complex information within sensory modalities, and the integration of information across modalities. This chapter discusses behavioral and evolutionary-genetic studies of chooser preferences for multiple courter traits in the light of the psychological literature on multimodal and multitrait perception. It expands on three general points. First, choosers attend to many different aspects of courter phenotypes, especially when we hold all else constant. Second, manipulating more than one variable shows that preferences interact non-additively; in other words, the attractiveness of one trait is dependent on another trait. Third, chooser preferences and courter traits do not map on to each other neatly in multivariate space.
From Preferences to Choices
Authors: Rosenthal Gil G.
Published: May 2018

This chapter focuses on mate sampling and on how choosers decide among sampled mates. The thinking in this regard has largely focused on the fitness consequences for courters and choosers. For courters, how does mate sampling affect choosiness and therefore variance in courter fitness, and how do courters exploit sampling and decision mechanisms? For choosers, how does fitness depend on different putative sampling schemes and decision algorithms? Much of this literature flows back to an influential paper that explored the fitness consequences of several hypothetical sampling schemes. The chapter describes what we know about the heuristic rules that animals use to evaluate finite pools of courters, and about the cognitive constraints underlying mate assessment and comparisons among mates.
Mate Choice During and After Mating
Authors: Rosenthal Gil G.
Published: May 2018

Just as choosers need to sample multiple courters to exercise premating choice, they also need to mate with multiple courters (i.e., be promiscuous) in order to exercise cryptic choice. This chapter focuses on peri-and postmating choice, starting with intimate interactions when individuals are mating or about to mate, and continuing through differential fertilization and treatment of offspring. At this point, choosers have made a decision to mate with a courter, but can still exercise choice in a multiplicity of ways that are important to their fitness and dispositive to courter reproductive success. The chapter highlights a selection of studies showing evidence for cryptic choice and that reinforce the point that most of mate choice is hidden from view.
Variation in Preferences and Choices: General Considerations
Authors: Rosenthal Gil G.
Published: May 2018

This chapter provides an overview of variation in mating preferences, focusing on the repeatability of mate choice. Variation in mate choice and mating preferences can arise from differences within and between individuals in any of the mechanisms used to sense, perceive, and evaluate courter signals before, during, and after mating, and in the mechanisms they use to sample and choose among mates. Preferences frequently covary with traits not directly involved with mate choice. These patterns of covariation, among preferences and between preferences and other traits, may arise either from properties internal to choosers, like shared underlying mechanisms or statistically associated genetic underpinnings, or from correlations among environmental and social variables that shape preferences. These correlations represent an important constraint on the directions in which preferences can evolve.
Origins and Histories of Mating Preferences
Authors: Rosenthal Gil G.
Published: May 2018

This chapter describes how mating preferences can arise in a context unrelated to mating. It discusses biases and how these can occur at every pre-, peri-, and postmating stage of mate choice. Biases presumably vary among and within individuals, and in response to social and environmental cues, as much as expressed preferences do. A slight bias in a few choosers can kick-start runaway coevolution of traits and preferences. Biases can also be very permissive, which means that there are many routes for them to respond to courters. Until choosers have preferences, natural selection cannot act on choosers based on their mating preferences. Once courters have co-opted a preexisting mechanism in choosers that favors some mates over others, selection can start acting on choosers.
Dynamic Evolution of Preferences, Strategies, and Traits
Authors: Rosenthal Gil G.
Published: May 2018

This chapter reviews the theoretical and empirical literature concerning the co-evolution of chooser preferences and courter traits. It begins by summarizing the simplest scenario for coevolution between traits and preferences. It then reviews the evidence for genetic covariance between traits and preference. The remainder of the chapter discusses adaptive coevolution, mode of transmission and preference-trait coevolution, the limits of indirect selection, compatibility and epistasis, mate choice as an agent of trait evolution, population-level consequences of mate choice, and coevolution of multiple traits and preferences. It suggests that the contribution of good genes, and additive indirect benefits more generally, may be quite small relative to other forms of selection on preference.
Mate Choice and Human Exceptionalism
Authors: Rosenthal Gil G.
Published: May 2018

This chapter presents a biological perspective on the diversity and complexity of human mate choice. Mating preferences can change very rapidly owing to the fact that they depend on a large reservoir of standing genetic variations whose effects can be modified and reversed by environmental and social inputs. In contemporary global society, rapid technological and societal changes means that individual mating preferences have an unprecedented potential to be revealed and expressed as choices, some with reproductive consequences. Individuals now have more agency than they ever have in human history, with a greater opportunity than ever to sample potential mates. The social and evolutionary consequences are sure to be fascinating.
Conclusions: A Mate-Choice View of the World
Authors: Rosenthal Gil G.
Published: May 2018

This concluding chapter provides suggestions toward a synthetic theory of mate choice. It argues that mating decisions are a primary driver of individual fitness. The regularities that emerge around mate choice are of the sobering kind, where the Dionysian exuberance of preferences and ornamentation is checked by Apollonian concerns of fecundity and survivorship. Our intuition, however, tells us that desire is complicated and strange and unpredictable, and this intuition holds true broadly across sexually reproducing organisms. These properties of mate choice are built into the system, from the initial arbitrariness of how traits and preferences originate to the coevolutionary dynamics that drive them in unexpected directions. The seriousness of mate choice, then, is overlain with a mischievous streak that can generate gratuitous beauty and complexity.
Jeremy Bentham’s Dream
Authors: Schultz Bart
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines Jeremy Bentham's doctrine of utilitarianism and the principle of “the greatest happiness of the greatest number.” Bentham is known for his radical critique of society, which aimed to test the usefulness of existing institutions, practices and beliefs against an objective evaluative standard, as well as his advocacy of law reform and his utilitarian justification for democracy. The chapter considers Bentham's views on subjects ranging from happiness and pleasure to social reform, “theory of fictions,” and sex and sexuality. It also discusses some of Bentham's writings, including Analysis of the Influence of Natural Religion on the Temporal Happiness of Mankind (published under the pseudonym Philip Beauchamp), Chrestomathia, Defense of Economy against the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, and An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Finally, the chapter looks at Bentham's proposals for reform of the Poor Laws and his influence on the Poor Law Amendment Act.
Epilogue
Authors: Schultz Bart
Published: May 2018

This book has explored some of the doubts and possibilities for different readings of the classical utilitarians, both positive and negative. It has shown how William Godwin, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Henry Sidgwick, and others were forever engaged in tackling both the reasons—or the pleasures and pains—and the persons together, instead of separating them, in often breathtaking visions of a future of maximally happy beings who had through education and personal growth achieved their utilitarian potential. It has also discussed how utilitarianism had become more entangled in imperialistic politics at precisely the point when it lost its foundational philosophical confidence, when it was forced to confront the incoherence of its own accounts of such fundamental notions as happiness, reason, pleasure, and pain.
Groups Acting on Trees
Authors: Margalit Dan
Published: May 2018

This chapter considers groups acting on trees. It examines which groups act on which spaces and, if a group does act on a space, what it says about the group. These spaces are called trees—that is, connected graphs without cycles. A group action on a tree is free if no nontrivial element of the group preserves any vertex or any edge of the tree. The chapter first presents the theorem stating that: If a group G acts freely on a tree, then G is a free group. The condition that G is free is equivalent to the condition that G acts freely on a tree. The discussion then turns to the Farey tree and shows how to construct the Farey complex using the Farey graph. The chapter concludes by describing free and non-free actions on trees. Exercises and research projects are included.
Free Groups and Folding
Authors: Clay Matt
Published: May 2018

This chapter studies subgroups of free groups using the combinatorics of graphs and a simple operation called folding. It introduces a topological model for free groups and uses this model to show the rank of the free group H and whether every finitely generated nontrivial normal subgroup of a free group has finite index. The edge paths and the fundamental group of a graph are discussed, along with subgroups via graphs. The chapter also considers five applications of folding: the Nielsen–Schreier Subgroup theorem, the membership problem, index, normality, and residual finiteness. A group G is residually finite if for every nontrivial element g of G there is a normal subgroup N of finite index in G so that g is not in N. Exercises and research projects are included.
The Ping-Pong Lemma
Authors: Mangahas Johanna
Published: May 2018

This chapter considers an identifying feature of free groups: their ability to play ping-pong. In mathematics, you may encounter a group without immediately knowing which group it is. Fortunately, you can tell a group by how it acts. That is, a good group action (for example, action by isometries on a metric space) can reveal a lot about the group itself. This theme occupies a central place in geometric group theory. The ping-pong lemma, also dubbed Schottky lemma or Klein's criterion, gives a set of circumstances for identifying whether a group is a free group. The chapter first presents the statement, proof, and first examples using ping-pong before discussing ping-pong with Möbius transformations and hyperbolic geometry. Exercises and research projects are included.
Quasi-isometries
Authors: Margalit Dan , Thomas Anne
Published: May 2018

This chapter considers the notion of quasi-isometry, also known as “coarse isometry.” A whole suite of important algebraic and geometric properties is preserved by quasi-isometries. Quasi-isometry can be applied to the algebraic structure of groups. A sample result, which shows that quasi-isometries can have powerful algebraic consequences, is a theorem of Gromov. Along the way to this theorem, the chapter proves the Milnor–Schwarz lemma, sometimes referred to as the fundamental lemma of geometric group theory. After describing Cayley graphs as well as path metrics and word metrics for integers, the chapter explores the bi-Lipschitz equivalence of word metrics, quasi-isometric equivalence of Cayley graphs, quasi-isometries between groups and spaces, and quasi-isometric rigidity. The discussion includes exercises and research projects.
Ends of Groups
Authors: Koban Nic , Meier John
Published: May 2018

This chapter focuses on the ends of a group. It first constructs a group action on the Cantor set and creates a free group from bijections of the Cantor set before showing how the idea of trying to understand what is happening at infinity for an infinite group is captured by the phrase “the ends of a group.” It then explores the notion of ends in the context of infinite graphs and presents examples that provide some insight into the number of ends of groups. It also looks at semidirect products and demonstrates how to calculate the number of ends of the braid groups before moving beyond the process of counting the ends of a group, taking into account the ends of the 4-valent tree. The discussion includes exercises and research projects.
Asymptotic Dimension
Authors: Bell Greg
Published: May 2018

This chapter considers the notion of asymptotic dimension. It first provides an overview of asymptotic dimension before explaining the asymptotic dimensions of free abelian and nonabelian groups, free groups, groups, integers, metric spaces, and products. It then looks at the large-scale geometry of a Cayley graph of a finitely generated group, along with the topological notion of dimension and the large-scale notion of dimension. It also analyzes three typical questions that are asked about asymptotic dimension before concluding with some other examples of groups where something is known about their asymptotic dimension, such as braid groups, Artin groups, surface groups, hyperbolic groups, Coxeter groups, Thompson's group, and wreath product. The discussion includes exercises and research projects.
Coxeter Groups
Authors: Piggott Adam
Published: May 2018

This chapter considers Coxeter groups and how to find a space on which a group acts by building a space using combinatorics from the group. It first describes groups generated by reflections, focusing on Euclidean spaces and showing that some natural, beautiful, and important subsets of Euclidean spaces have symmetric groups that are discrete and are generated by reflections. It then explores discrete groups generated by reflections, beginning with irreducible finite groups generated by reflections followed by infinite reflection groups. It also looks at relations in finite groups generated by reflections before concluding with an analysis of special subgroups of the Coxeter group and how to construct a geometric space for a Coxeter group. The discussion includes exercises and research projects.
Lamplighter Groups
Authors: Taback Jennifer
Published: May 2018

This chapter deals with lamplighter groups. Imagine an infinite main street lined with evenly spaced lamp posts in a rural town. In mathematical terms, the infinite main street may be envisioned as a copy of the integer points on the number line, with a bulb placed at every integer. An element of the lamplighter group consists of two parts: a finite set of integers, corresponding to the bulbs illuminated by the lamplighter, and a single integer denoting the position of the lamplighter. The chapter first considers the generators and relators of a lamplighter group before computing the word lengths of elements of the group. It also describes the dead end elements of the lamplighter group and some geometric properties of its Cayley graph. The discussion includes exercises and research projects.
Braids
Authors: Abrams Aaron
Published: May 2018

This chapter deals with mathematical braids, an idealized abstraction of the familiar hair and bread braids. In a mathematical braid, the “strings” remain separate at the ends rather than being fused together. Furthermore, a mathematical braid can have any number of braided strings and the braiding can occur in any pattern. This chapter gives different ways to think about mathematical braids and some of the basic theorems about them. It also describes several ways that braids relate to other parts of mathematics and science such as robotics, knot theory, and hyperplane arrangements. After providing an overview of some group theory relating to braids, the chapter considers configuration spaces that connect braid groups and topology as well as the concept of punctured disks. Finally, it presents an experiment for braiding the hair by first making a ponytail and then doing the braiding. The discussion includes exercises and research projects.
The Structure of Creativity
Authors: Childress Clayton
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines how Jarrettsville came to be, and how even its title was eventually derived, by tracing the social life of artistic creation within it. Between 1998 and 2004, Cornelia Nixon was working on a novel titled Martha's Version, the story of Jarrettsville based entirely from Martha Jane Cairnes's first-person perspective. Nixon was sixteen years old on a cross-country flight when her mother first told her the family story that would become her inspiration for writing Jarrettsville. The chapter first narrates the true events that Nixon fictionalized in Jarrettsville before discussing her education, writing style, and literary influences; her family and personal life as raw materials for the novel; and the research process for Jarrettsville. It also considers how the practice of writing is influenced by things such as background experiences and training, and the field of creation by social interactions. Finally, it explains how Jarrettsville came to be called Jarrettsville.
Reading Life into Novels
Authors: Childress Clayton
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines how readers read their lives into Jarrettsville as the novel transitioned from the field of production to the field of reception. To read one's life into a novel means to make sense of it using the tools that one possesses. For different readers the same novel can effectively be different novels. Some readers, for example, loved Jarrettsville whereas others did not. For some, it was about love and loss; for others, it was about fear and violence. The chapter first analyzes Cornelia Nixon's intentions for Jarrettsville before discussing readers' interpretations of the novel. In particular, it explores how the character of Richard Cairnes was seen by book groups. It shows that Southern book groups most often held the complex interpretation of both holding Richard responsible for the outcome of the story while also being sympathetic to him as a character.
Theoretical Underpinnings: Stellar Oscillations
Authors: Basu Sarbani , Chaplin William J.
Published: May 2018

This chapter shows how the oscillations of a star are related to its structure. It also describes some of the important properties of stellar oscillations that allow us to use seismic data to determine stellar properties. Stellar oscillations are the response of a star to a mechanical disturbance, and thus the equations of stellar oscillations are derived by perturbing the equations of stellar structure. While a star may be spherically symmetric under equilibrium conditions, it need not retain spherical symmetry when it is perturbed, and as a result one can no longer avoid taking into account the three-dimensional nature of a star.
Drawing Inferences from Average Seismic Parameters
Authors: Basu Sarbani , Chaplin William J.
Published: May 2018

This chapter determines stellar properties from seismic data. It discusses how the average seismic properties discussed in the previous chapters are used in determining the mass and radius of a star. The chapter provides two ways of determining stellar properties: the “direct method” and grid-based modeling. The first method produces a set of model-independent results derived from a set of equations. On the other hand, the grid-based model, which can make up for the shortcomings of the direct method, derives its results from a fairly dense grid of stellar models of different metallicities that cover a wide range of masses and evolutionary stages.
Interpreting Frequencies of Individual Modes: Comparing Frequencies
Authors: Basu Sarbani , Chaplin William J.
Published: May 2018

This chapter discusses different ways in which one can use the frequencies to determine stellar properties. It considers straightforward comparisons of observed frequencies with those of stellar models, as well as the limitations and challenges of such comparisons. Different approaches are used to model stars whose frequencies have been observed. Some methods are similar to what is done if only the nonseismic properties of a star are known. Other methods make use of the fact that the average asteroseismic data give a good indication of the mass and radius of the star being modeled, and so these methods construct models around that mass and radius. Yet other methods involve optimization schemes. However, even the most complex optimization schemes used thus far do not explore the effects of all inputs and parameters that can be varied while constructing stellar models.
Inverting Mode Frequencies
Authors: Basu Sarbani , Chaplin William J.
Published: May 2018

This chapter describes inversion techniques. Inversions of frequencies and frequency splittings of other stars are still in their infancy. However, inversions give model-independent estimates of stellar structure. The problem with comparing frequencies led to the development of inversion techniques that allow us to determine the structure of the Sun directly using solar frequencies almost independently of models. Inversions have since become the mainstay of helioseismic studies for several decades. It is not yet a part of the normal repertoire of asteroseismic analysis techniques, but that is likely to change as more precise and larger numbers of mode frequencies are extracted from asteroseismic data.
Groundwork
Authors: Campbell John L. , Hall John A.
Published: May 2018

This book examines the paradox of vulnerability: small nation-states tend to rise to the challenge of the vulnerabilities that they face so as to become inventive and stronger. Focusing on the experiences of Denmark, Ireland, and Switzerland in managing the 2008 financial crisis, the book shows that perceived state vulnerability gives rise to social partnerships that contribute to the building of thick institutions, leading to cooperation, sacrifice, flexibility, and concerted state action in the national interest. The result is resilience—the ability of countries to adapt effectively to new situations and challenges that arise. Furthermore, perceptions of vulnerability facilitate a sense of national identity, which may evolve into a sense of national solidarity. This chapter explains the vulnerabilities of nations and states, the paradox of vulnerability, the distinction between thick and thin institutions, and precursors to the 2008 financial crisis. An appendix describes the book's research methodology.
Denmark
Authors: Campbell John L. , Hall John A.
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines Denmark's response to the 2008 financial crisis. It first provides an overview of four legacies of Danish history that created modern Denmark: Lutheranism, statism, the solution of the national question, and the construction of layered homogeneity. It considers how the Reformation of 1536 established Lutheranism as the religion of the Danish monarchy and how Denmark made the transition from empire to nation-state. It then explores Denmark's perceptions of vulnerability as it tries to survive within an increasingly competitive international economy. It shows that Denmark in the early 2000s had a political economy blessed with very thick institutions that were expert-oriented and inclusive and that facilitated negotiation, consensus-making, and social partnerships. The chapter also describes the origins of the 2008 financial crisis and Denmark's response to it in the form of six Bank Packages.
Epilogue
Authors: Kumekawa Ian
Published: May 2018

This concluding chapter covers Pigou's death in 1959 as well as his legacy. Today, Pigou's ideas seem more germane than ever, and a renewed understanding of his influence is coming into clearer focus. In an age beset by increasingly arresting predictions of climate change, the external effects of the normal operation of the economy have never been more headlined. For it is widely recognized that the ramifications of pollution extend far beyond those “occupying neighbouring properties.” In this way, much of the world has awakened to the fact that it is, and has been for some time, in a post-Pigovian age.
Introduction
Authors: Sims Christo
Published: May 2018

This book examines how a technologically cutting-edge philanthropic intervention—in this case, the attempt to redesign the American school for the twenty-first century—ended up mostly remaking the status quo. It presents a case study of the Downtown School for Design, Media, and Technology in Manhattan, New York City. The Downtown School was launched in 2009 by an expert team of media technology designers, academic specialists, and educational reformers with a single sixth grade class. The school was envisioned as a “school for digital kids,” and it would equitably and engagingly prepare young people for the increasingly interconnected and competitive world and job market of the twenty-first century. The book considers the problems encountered by the Downtown School and what perennial cycles of techno-philanthropism—what it calls disruptive fixations—manage to accomplish—politically and for whom—even as actual interventions often fall far short of their stated objectives.
Pedagogic Fixations
Authors: Sims Christo
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines educational reformers' fixations about pedagogic activity and empirically develops the notion of sanctioned counterpractices. Like spatial fixations, pedagogic fixations occur through problematization and rendering technical processes. However, pedagogic fixations focus on changing persons rather than on spaces per se. They help reformers act, think, and feel as if the activities they are imagining and designing for others are both novel and in the best interest of their recipients. At the same time, pedagogic fixations exclude factors and forces that create various unanticipated problems for reformers as soon as they launch their intervention. The chapter considers the disparity between the limited role of sanctioned counterpractices in the Downtown School for Design, Media, and Technology's everyday routines and yet their prominence in ritualized self-presentations of the project.
Conclusion: The Resilience of Techno-Idealism
Authors: Sims Christo
Published: May 2018

This book has shown that daily life at the Downtown School for Design, Media, and Technology involved a lot of rote and scripted behavior despite the reformers' promise of unprecedented creativity, improvisation, and fun. These reformers believed they were opening the school to the world, but in several highly problematic areas educators and, in particular, privileged parents worked to seal it off. They hoped to appeal to students' inherent interests and overcome social division but ended up with a system that removed many of the most uncomfortable underprivileged. Given that techno-philanthropism routinely falls far short of reformers' stated ideals, the chapter asks how it can be that cycles of disruptive fixation predictably persist. It also considers the beneficiaries of a “failed” cycle of disruptive fixation and how such failure allow participants to repair and maintain their idealism, at least for a while.
Parallel Agrarian Societies
Authors: Olsson Tore C.
Published: May 2018

This chapter sets the stage for the dialogues and exchanges of the 1930s and 1940s with a comparative analysis of social, political, and economic change in the US southern and Mexican countryside between the 1870s and 1920s. It argues that the two shared strikingly similar historical trajectories. During the late nineteenth century, each region was violently thrust into the web of global commerce as railroads, investment capital, bankers, and merchants came to reorder the business of agriculture. While large-scale landholding was hardly unknown on either side of the border, in those decades export-oriented plantations and haciendas further tightened their grasps on the rural landscape. Paying the price were formerly independent smallholders, who were unwillingly pulled into the plantation complex as wage laborers, tenants, and sharecroppers. Simmering resentment among those dispossessed would boil over in two dramatic agrarian revolts: the Mexican Revolution and US Populist movement.
Green Revolutions
Authors: Olsson Tore C.
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines the first decade of the Rockefeller Foundation's Mexican Agricultural Program along three avenues. First, it explores the tempestuous political atmosphere of early 1940s' Mexico to answer a simple question: Why would the Mexican state under Ávila Camacho, in an era of significant nationalistic fervor, partner with a controversial US philanthropy in hoping to resolve the meaning of its agrarian revolution? The second part of the chapter examines how in its first five years, that program—relying on prior experience in the US South—tailored its agricultural research and extension work to the needs of poor ejido farmers in the central plateau surrounding Mexico City. The final part of the chapter looks at the twilight of peasant-friendly development in the face of national and global mandates to prioritize material abundance over the health and stability of the countryside.
Transplanting “El Tenesí”
Authors: Olsson Tore C.
Published: May 2018

This chapter explores the last great exchange of the US–Mexican agrarian dialogue: the Mexican government's enthusiastic embrace of the Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) hydraulic development program after World War II. More than any other New Deal agency, it was the TVA's monumental effort to harness waterpower for social and environmental transformation that most deeply impacted the Mexican countryside. When in 1947 Miguel Alemán made the first Mexican presidential tour of the United States since the revolution's outbreak in 1910, northern Alabama and eastern Tennessee were foremost on his trip agenda. His pilgrimage would engender extensive discussion among Mexican policy makers about the similarities between the southern US and their own tropical south, coming to a climax in the several river valley commissions that Alemán established in 1947 to replicate the TVA's ambiguous success in coastal southern Mexico.
Epilogue
Authors: Olsson Tore C.
Published: May 2018

By the 1950s, the agrarian crossings of the previous generation were rapidly coming to an end. In both the United States and Mexico, an increasingly restrictive political atmosphere ensured that elites were able to subdue once-vigorous debates about rural inequality and the human impact of agricultural change. This epilogue addresses the shared rural transformations of the twentieth century's latter half. Where country people had once contested their marginalization through political mobilization and alliances with state reformers, in the Cold War era they more often abandoned their small plots, seeking elusive possibilities in urban slums or as wageworkers in the agribusiness sector. As they left their farms, the plantation complex they had long struggled against achieved its nearly total hegemony, but with pesticides and machines replacing sharecroppers and campesinos. In unexpected ways, the US and Mexican countryside during the Cold War saw new convergences.
Show the Animal
Authors: Ocejo Richard E.
Published: May 2018

This chapter illustrates how new whole-animal butcher shops have emerged alongside the rise of the “foodie” movement. In today's age of cultural omnivorousness, when the boundaries surrounding high and low culture have become blurred, savvy consumers look deeper into a food item's provenance, such as who made it, how, and where, and how exactly it got on their plate, to demarcate taste. Restaurateurs and specialty food store owners have adopted terms like “craft,” “artisanal,” “handmade,” “authentic,” “small batch,” and “local” for their products, and the notions of quality that they all imply, as integral business strategies and identities and to signify taste.
A Second Removal?
Authors: Frymer Paul
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines the question of how the nation would eventually respond to the increasing numbers of free blacks as well as the impending end of legalized African slavery. It considers the popularity of black colonization and why this effort at a second removal of a large population was defeated. In particular, it looks at the two-year period in the first congressional session during the Lincoln administration, when the idea of black colonization seemingly had its greatest momentum yet suffered its most resounding defeat. The chapter first provides an overview of colonization schemes in the first two years of the Lincoln administration, Abraham Lincoln's foreign policy adventures, and his Emancipation Proclamation before discussing how the ambitions of American majorities for an all-white nation clashed with the realities of making such an event a reality in the context of a relatively weak American state.
America’s Settler Empire at the End of the Frontier
Authors: Frymer Paul
Published: May 2018

This chapter focuses on the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century, as the nation began to think of an overseas empire with the potential of going beyond the settler model. It first considers the views of Frederick Jackson Turner with regard to the closing of the frontier, as well as those of Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and others who saw this moment as a transition from a settler nation to an empire more similar to those of Europe. This first step at a new empire was largely a failure as national legislators were reluctant to add nonwhite territories in any form. Indeed, Hawai'i is the one territory that eventually joined the United States during this time as a state. The chapter highlights a profound contradiction that Americans have never fully come to terms with: how to proceed with territorial expansion and endorse liberal ideals while maintaining a white settler nation.
Happiness for All?
Authors: Graham Carol
Published: May 2018

The Declaration of Independence states that all people are endowed with certain unalienable rights, and that among these is the pursuit of happiness. But is happiness available equally to everyone in America today? How about elsewhere in the world? This book draws on cutting-edge research linking income inequality with well-being to show how the widening prosperity gap has led to rising inequality in people's beliefs, hopes, and aspirations. For the United States and other developed countries, the high costs of being poor are most evident not in material deprivation but rather in stress, insecurity, and lack of hope. The result is an optimism gap between rich and poor that, if left unchecked, could lead to an increasingly divided society. The book reveals how people who do not believe in their own futures are unlikely to invest in them, and how the consequences can range from job instability and poor education to greater mortality rates, failed marriages, and higher rates of incarceration. The book explains why the least optimistic people in America are poor whites, not poor blacks or Hispanics. This book highlights the importance of well-being measures in identifying and monitoring trends in life satisfaction and optimism—and misery and despair—and demonstrates how hope and happiness can lead to improved economic outcomes.
What Happened to Horatio Alger?
Authors: Graham Carol
Published: May 2018

This chapter highlights the complexity of measuring inequality, both because of its many different facets, each of which can matter differently to different people, and because of the complexity of the metrics used and the different conclusions that can be drawn from the manner in which the metrics are deployed. Nonetheless, it is clear from every metric available that inequality has increased dramatically in the United States—relative both to the past and to most other countries. And while the linkages with trends in opportunity and income mobility are less clear, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that they are important in a number of ways. The available evidence suggests that we are not the Horatio Alger society the United States has long been reputed to be and that there are very large differences in the opportunities and life choices that different socioeconomic and racial cohorts in this country have.
Well-Being, Aspirations, and Outcomes
Authors: Graham Carol
Published: May 2018

This chapter reviews the nascent research on the linkages between well-being, optimism about the future, and behavioral outcomes of interest in the health, wealth, and social arenas, among others. It discusses the implications of the beliefs and behaviors channel for the children of cohorts with different beliefs and thus for intergenerational patterns in inequality and opportunity. It also discusses the author's new research in progress, which aims to further tease out the direction of causality in the beliefs and behaviors channel, as well as to test the extent to which aspirations can be shifted via interventions as a means to break vicious cycles.
After Adam
Authors: Galbraith John Kenneth
Published: May 2018

This chapter discusses some economic questions during the time of the Greek city-states and the Athenian Empire and later in the age of Rome. The basic industry of both ancient Greece and Rome was agriculture, and the use or consumption of goods was infinitesimal for all but a small governing minority. Aside from the elementary character of economic life in this period, the most important reason that ethical questions were addressed to the exclusion of economic ones in the ancient world was the existence of slavery. The chapter considers the issue of capital, wages, and interest rates in the ancient world, taking into account the ideas of Aristotle on subjects such as money, coinage, and moneymaking, as well as Plato's inclination to communism. It also examines the contribution of the Romans to the history of economic ideas, especially Roman law and private property.
The Merchants and the State
Authors: Galbraith John Kenneth
Published: May 2018

This chapter focuses on the era of the merchants, the time of what is variously called merchant capitalism or mercantilism, a new and expanding world in which markets—and money—were strongly emergent. The mercantilist era lasted for 300 years, from about the middle of the fifteenth century to the middle of the eighteenth. The chapter considers various developments that were reflected in the economic attitudes and policies in the age of the merchants, including the proliferation of trade, the rise of the merchant class, the voyages of discovery to America and the Far East, and the appearance and consolidation of the authority of the modern state. It also discusses the close association between the merchant interest and the national state. Finally, it examines policies such as state intervention on behalf of industry, tariff protection, a policy on the balance of payments, and the emergence of the great modern corporation.
The Great Classical Tradition, 1
Authors: Galbraith John Kenneth
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines the classical tradition in economics that emerged after the death of David Ricardo. Following Ricardo's death, there was some systemic dissent, mainly from French, German, and American scholars, against the great truths emanating from the British economic scene. In addition, there were changes and refinements in the theory of prices and distribution—in how prices, wages, interest, rents and profits are determined. The chapter considers the influential criticism of the founding fathers of the classical system by American, German, and French economists and their claim that the classical system may have been too conveniently British. These economists included Adam Müller and Georg Friedrich List from Germany, Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi and Pierre Joseph Proudhon from France, and Henry Charles Carey from the United States.
American Concerns
Authors: Galbraith John Kenneth
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines the American preoccupation with money. While there was little concern in the United States for the central themes of classical economics or for the Marxian and other forms of criticism against it, there was an intense discussion of various practical economic topics such as tariffs, monopolies, and questions relating to money. The chapter first considers the debate over tariffs and tariff protection in nineteenth-century America involving figures such as Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay, and Henry Carey before discussing issues pertaining to trade, monopolies, trusts, and competition. In particular, it looks at the Sherman Act and other antitrust legislation. It also analyzes the Social Darwinism of Herbert Spencer that provided a defense of the classical ideas in the United States. The chapter concludes with an assessment of the contributions of Henry George and Thorstein Veblen to the debate on classical economics.
The Birth of the Welfare State
Authors: Galbraith John Kenneth
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines the rise of the welfare state in the United States following the Great Depression. It begins with a historical background on the welfare state, tracing its origins to Germany under Count Otto von Bismarck and discussing Britain's social welfare legislation that was passed in 1911. It then considers the views of Arthur C. Pigou, who published his basic work on economics, The Economics of Welfare, in 1920, and a host of factors that sparked the movement toward the welfare state. In particular, it looks at the role of the institutionalists, led by John R. Commons, and the University of Wisconsin as the source of both the ideas and the practical initiative basic to the welfare legislation. Finally, it describes the Social Security Act of 1935 and the business reaction to it.
High Noon
Authors: Galbraith John Kenneth
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines the gains made by the Keynesians after World War II. The war had eliminated unemployment, and advocates of Keynesian economics were still exerting influence in Washington and had found allies in the business world. The underemployment equilibrium would now be deliberately discarded by government in favor of full employment. The chapter first considers the bill proposed by Keynesians in the executive branch and sponsored by four senators to put the economics of John Maynard Keynes firmly and fully into law, and how it revived the debate between those who believe themselves to be saving capitalism and those concerned to save it from its saviors. It then discusses the passage of the Employment Act of 1946 and some developments that had important implications for Keynesianism, including the Input–Output Analysis of Wassily W. Leontief and the econometric or computer models of the economy.