bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Cultural Evolution in the Digital Age
Authors: Acerbi Alberto
Published: January 2020

From emails to social media, from instant messaging to political memes, the way we produce and transmit culture is radically changing. This book uses, for the first time, cultural evolution theory to analyze how information spreads, and how it affects our behavior in the digital age. Online connectedness and digital media allows access to networks where cultural transmission is possible, increasing both the availability of cultural models (from whom we can copy) and our reach (the number of individuals who can copy from us). This poses new problems, and new opportunities (Chapter 1). A cognitive and evolutionary approach suggests that we are wary learners, and the power of social influence, either online or offline, is often overestimated (Chapter 2). The background developed in the initial chapters into the details of different online phenomena is used: the tendency to copy popular individuals (Chapter 3), popular opinions (Chapter 4), or exchange information only with same-minded individuals (Chapter 5). The spread of online misinformation is then scrutinized at length (Chapter 6), proposing that to understand the phenomenon we need to understand why, generally, some information is more successful in spreading than other. The last two chapters examine how online, digital, transmission is different from other forms of cultural transmission, providing more “fidelity amplifiers” (Chapter 7), and how this could affect future cultural cumulation (Chapter 8). Overall, it is proposed that a “long view” to the current situation, based on a personal perspective of cognitive and evolutionary approaches to culture, suggests that some of the dangers of digital, online, interactions may have been overestimated, and the opportunities still ahead of us are discussed.
A growing network for cultural transmission
Authors: Acerbi Alberto
Published: January 2020

The first chapter discusses how digital media increased, and are still increasing, the network in which cultural transmission can occur. Research inspired by the social brain hypothesis shows that our social networks did not change radically in the last years. The size of our digital social networks (e.g. Facebook, Twitter) is similar to the size of our offline social networks, and some of their characteristics, such as their geographical extension, are also comparable. Nonetheless, it is argued that digital connections, together with our tendency to share information for limited or null gains, made cultural transmission relatively detached from these networks. In cultural evolutionary terms, online digital media increased cultural population sizes, that is, the number of individuals with whom we may exchange information. This hyper-availability together with new opportunities pose new problems related to cultural evolution. One is that, when we can copy from everybody, it may become potentially more difficult to decide from whom we should.
Echo chambers
Authors: Acerbi Alberto
Published: January 2020

In this chapter, the focus is on the phenomenon of online echo chambers, trying an evaluation from the broad perspective of cultural evolution. It has been noted that individuals associate on social media in communities of like-minded people, where they are repeatedly exposed to the same kind of information and, even more importantly, they are not exposed to contrary information. How strong are echo chambers? What are their effects on the flow of online information? Although the formation and existence of echo chambers is consistent with the cognitive and evolutionary approach defended here, individuals are exposed online to a considerable amount of contrary opinions: in fact, against current common sense, to more diverse opinions than what happens in their offline life. As a consequence, the increase of polarization, which many link to a more informationally segregated society, could also have been overestimated, or, in any case, may be due to motifs other than our social media activity.
Conclusion
Authors: Acerbi Alberto
Published: January 2020

The book concludes by mentioning some of the topics that it did not consider, such as concerns about data privacy, monopoly of social media companies, effects of digital media overuse on psychological well-being, or the fact that, for many people, online access is still barely achievable. Despite this, the research discussed in this book, which focuses on the informational aspects of our digital and online lives, suggests there are grounds for cautious optimism. Another problem is mentioned, which is thought to be urgent: the increase of available information also increases differences in how people access and use information, being advantageous for some and disadvantageous for others. How we will face this informational inequality will be a pressing problem in the next years. Finally the main message of the book with respect to cultural evolution theory is summarized: “culture” is not an entity with causal powers, but a property that artefacts, ideas, and behaviors have to a certain degree. Social influence is not blind and automatic, and the reasons why cultural traits become successful are many: cognitive preferences are only one of them.
Introduction
Authors: Heere Cees
Published: January 2020

The formation of the Anglo-Japanese alliance in February 1902 marked an important moment in modern diplomatic history: for the first time in decades, a European power concluded a nominally equal defensive partnership with an Asian state. But the alliance’s crossing of the ‘global colour line’ was politically fraught from the outset, and would become more so as Japan came to pose an ever more explicit challenge to the racial orders on which the British imperial system rested. While Japan came to play a pivotal role in the geostrategic security of the British Empire in Asia, it was simultaneously denounced as a ‘yellow peril’ to British (or ‘Anglo-Saxon’) ascendancy in the Pacific. By examining the Anglo-Japanese relationship along the twinned arcs of empire and race, this book does two things. First, it offers new insight in how Japan’s integration in the international order was complicated by race. Second, it shows how the Japanese ‘question’ came to shape the evolution of the Edwardian British Empire.
‘The Englands of East and West’
Authors: Heere Cees
Published: January 2020

In September 1894, Japan won a series of dramatic victories over its much larger neighbour, Qing China. This demonstration of Japanese military power forced British observers to reassess their relationship with a country that, prior to the 1890s, many had dismissed as an ‘oriental’ curiosity. The late 1890s also saw the intensification of Anglo-Japanese interaction in the Pacific, as Japanese trade and migration came into closer contact with the British settler colonies there. Yet whereas London became increasingly concerned with Japan’s potential role in the East Asian balance of power, its willingness to cooperate with Tokyo (culminating the Anglo-Japanese alliance of 1902) conflicted with the racialized visions of Japanese expansion articulated by actors and commentators across the imperial system. Nowhere was this contradiction more evident than in the establishment of the ‘white Australia’ policy at the same time that Britain was negotiating its treaty with Japan.
A War for Civilization
Authors: Heere Cees
Published: January 2020

The Russo-Japanese War (1904–5) marked a watershed in global history. Victory over Russia secured Japan’s position as the first Asian ‘great power’. But it also raised an acute debate over the meaning and implications of its sudden rise. Some praised the Japanese victory as the triumph of ‘civilization’ over Russian barbarism; others pointed ominously to the effect that the destruction of a ‘white power’ would have on the collective European colonial project in Asia. Policymakers, both in London and its self-governing colonies, were forced to reckon with the implications of Japan’s bid for equality. In the aftermath of the Russo-Japanese War, Britain, Canada, and Australia all took symbolic steps to demonstrate their willingness to recognize Japan as a co-equal member of the international system.
‘The Inalienable Right of the White Man’
Authors: Heere Cees
Published: January 2020

Victory over Russia established Japan as the leading power in East Asia, and inaugurated a period during which its economic and political influence in the region sharply expanded. This chapter explores these shifts in the regional order from the perspective of both British policymakers in London, and from that of the British communities in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and the other ‘treaty ports’ scattered along the China coast. For many, Japan, came to represent a challenge to British hegemony in China that manifested itself on a racial as well as on the commercial or political fronts. The chapter goes on to analyse the efforts of the ‘Shanghailanders’ to mobilize British policy to constrain Japanese power in the region through public campaigns and political manoeuvring. In the process, it demonstrates how treaty port residents articulated their own vision on Britain’s imperial future in Asia.
The Natural Biology of Dietary Ethanol, and its Implications for Primate Evolution
Authors: Dudley Robert
Published: January 2020

Ethanol derives from the fermentation of simple sugars, and fermentative yeasts are common within terrestrial ecosystems. Animals that routinely consume sugar-rich fruits and nectars thus chronically ingest low-level ethanol. The capacity to detect and follow ethanol plumes enables localization of ripe fruits and fermented nectars over long distances (as occurs in fruit flies); psychoactive responses to ethanol among vertebrate frugivores may increase net caloric gain during feeding via the aperitif effect. Paleogenetic reconstruction of enzymes involved in ethanol metabolism suggests sustained exposure of hominids (including the genus Homo) over the last 12 million years to dietary ethanol. Alcohol use by modern humans may thus derive from ancestral sensory biases associating ethanol consumption with nutritional reward (i.e. the ‘drunken monkey’ hypothesis). Detailed measurements of ethanol concentrations within fruit and nectar, together with behavioural, physiological, and genomic comparisons among frugivores and nectarivores, are now necessary to further test this hypothesis.
The Importance of Raffia Palm Wine to Coexisting Humans and Chimpanzees
Authors: Hockings Kimberley J. , Ito Miho , Yamakoshi Gen
Published: January 2020

Local Manon people and wild chimpanzees coexist at Bossou in Guinea, West Africa, and overlap in their use of many resources. Wine from the raffia palm (Raphia hookeri, Arecaceae) is widely consumed and is an integral part of people’s daily lives and ceremonies. It functions as a social lubricant and is a crucial aspect of men’s social relations. Local palm wine harvesters tap wild raffia palms and the sap that collects in plastic containers quickly ferments. Chimpanzees also ingest this alcoholic beverage using elementary technology—a leafy tool. These observations provide important support for molecular data that the last common ancestor of living African apes and modern humans was not averse to ingesting foods containing ethanol. They also demonstrate how understanding human practices are crucial for accurately interpreting chimpanzee behaviour, including ethanol consumption, in shared landscapes.
The Nature of Sweetness
Authors: Daly Lewis
Published: January 2020

This chapter is an ethnographic case study of the fermentation of cassava beer among the indigenous Makushi people of southern Guyana. The chapter constitutes the first in-depth anthropological study of parakari, a unique kind of cassava beer fermented via the cultivation of a domesticated species of saprotrophic fungus (Rhizopus sp.). Herein, the author explores Makushi theories and practices of fermentation, and, more broadly, the ways in which alcoholic drinks operate as catalysts for processes of social and cosmic reproduction and transformation in indigenous Amazonia. For the Makushi, as it is argued, the production and consumption of cassava beer is understood as a more-than-human process of person-making, harnessing the vibrant agency of a diversity of vegetal, animal, microbial, and spiritual entities and forces. Fermentation, in this frame, is treated both as a sociotechnical system and an ecosystem.
Chicha as Water
Authors: Rosinger Asher Y. , Bethancourt Hilary J.
Published: January 2020

Since the agricultural revolution, traditional fermented beers served social and dietary functions, including hydration. There are longstanding customs of producing, consuming, and socializing with home-made beers. However, because they are time- and labour-intensive to produce, shifts away from traditional beers often occur with the introduction of market alcohols, which may not fulfil the dietary functions of traditional beers. This paper uses nine years of longitudinal data from 963 Tsimane’ Bolivian forager-horticulturalist adults to examine how the consumption of chicha, a traditional fermented beer, and market alcohol changed during a period of increased market integration from 2002 to 2010. It then uses cross-sectional dietary recall data with 45 adults to estimate chicha contributions to water intake. Our findings suggest that chicha consumption has decreased over time for women but not men. Chicha consumption, while more common, was strongly predictive of market alcohol consumption. Chicha contributed 1 litre to water needs for men and 0.6 litre for women. The increased drive to produce cash crops may not only limit the availability of preferred crops for chicha but also reduce the amount of time available to spend making chicha. Alternatives for making water more palatable, such as adding store-bought water flavouring powders, could further reduce traditional chicha consumption thereby having potential implications on daily social life and ripple effects on nutrition and hydration.
Through the Drinking Glass
Authors: McShane Angela
Published: January 2020

This chapter argues that drinking things are of central importance to our understanding of the long relationship between humans and alcohol. It explores the history of the English man (and woman’s) pint of beer, as an object, a drink, and a measure, from the late-sixteenth to the twenty-first century, to show how the relationships between objects, drinks, and measures have been socially and culturally constructed over time. Drawing upon a wide range of objects, images, and textual sources, and benefiting from the theoretical lenses of material performativity and praxeology, it argues that material insights not only help us to understand the deeper cultural processes at play in the routines and rituals of convivial drinking, but also help us to understand their wider role in social and political change.
National Identity, Pride, and Chauvinism—their Origins and Consequences for Globalization Attitudes
Authors: Huddy Leonie , Ponte Alessandro Del
Published: January 2020

Theorists of liberal nationalism argue that national identities serve as essential glue binding a nation. However, national identities can create tensions among subgroups of co-nationals and breed suspicion of outsiders. This chapter analyses the psychology of national attachments to better understand the effects of national identity, identifying three types of national attachment: chauvinism, pride, and identity. The chapter then investigates their differing origins and consequences, focusing on their effects on support for globalization, such as attitudes towards protectionism and immigration. The chapter finds that national chauvinism undercuts and pride enhances support for globalization, underscoring the diverse political effects of national attachments.
National Attachment—Cohesive, Divisive, or Both?
Authors: Gustavsson Gina
Published: January 2020

A large number of empirical studies of in-group sympathy and helpfulness suggest that the sheer strength of a person’s national attachment should increase her solidarity with her co-nationals. This relationship is likely to be independent of how she conceives the content of that identity and the extent to which she believes her co-nationals share this commitment. The direction of this link, moreover, might look different depending on whether the dimension of national attachment at hand is national identity, national pride, or national chauvinism. The chapter utilizes survey data from the Netherlands (LISS), arguably a more relevant context for liberal nationalists than the more typically studied cases of the USA and Canada. The Dutch demonstrate significant relationships between national attachment and support for egalitarianism, even when controlling for ideology. National identity turns out to be consistently related to more willingness to share resources with our co-nationals, whilst national pride shows a negative link to redistributive solidarity.
Modern Optics Simplified
Authors: Guenther B. D.
Published: January 2020

This textbook is designed for use in a standard physics course on optics at the sophomore level. The book is an attempt to reduce the complexity of coverage found in Modem Optics to allow a student with only elementary calculus to learn the principles of optics and the modern Fourier theory of diffraction and imaging. Examples based on real optics engineering problems are contained in each chapter. Topics covered include aberrations with experimental examples, correction of chromatic aberration, explanation of coherence and the use of interference theory to design an antireflection coating, Fourier transform optics and its application to diffraction and imaging, use of gaussian wave theory, and fiber optics will make the text of interest as a textbook in Electrical and bioengineering as well as Physics. Students who take this course should have completed an introductory physics course and math courses through calculus Need for experience with differential equations is avoided and extensive use of vector theory is avoided by using a one dimensional theory of optics as often as possible. Maxwell’s equations are introduced to determine the properties of a light wave and the boundary conditions are introduced to characterize reflection and refraction. Most discussion is limited to reflection. The book provides an introduction to Fourier transforms. Many pictures, figures, diagrams are used to provide readers a good physical insight of Optics. There are some more difficult topics that could be skipped and they are indicated by boundaries in the text.
Extending the Coalition Life-cycle Approach to Central Eastern Europe—An Introduction
Authors: Muller Wolfgang C. , Bergman Torbjorn , Ilonszki Gabriella
Published: January 2020

This chapter makes the case for studying coalition politics in Central Eastern Europe (CEE). A focus on CEE not only fills a research gap in terms of geographic coverage but also opens up the opportunity of out-of-sample theory testing, mitigating the notorious large-p-small-N problem in coalition research, and extending the theoretical framework by incorporating explanatory factors particularly relevant in CEE countries. Within the coalition life-cycle coalition governance—its central stage between coalition formation and termination—is the stage which constitutes the greatest lacuna in coalition research. The main problem of coalition governance is the multi-party nature of governments, with the coalition parties often having conflicting policy preferences, desiring the same offices as their partners, and competing with each other in the next elections. This constellation may lead to conflict within and between the coalition parties, cabinet instability, and policy stalemate. Coalition builders can contain these dangers by choosing the right partners, dividing the spoils wisely, and by employing various mechanisms to manage intra-party politics and, in particular, inter-party relations (giving credibility to commitments, providing mutual information, and making decisions jointly). The resulting modes of coalition governance take three ideal-typical forms: the Ministerial Government Model, the Coalition Compromise Model, and the Dominant Prime Minister Model. Turning to the coalition-cycle in CEE, the chapter explains how the country chapters are organized, which research questions they ask, and how this relates to the extant literature on CEE coalition politics. The chapter concludes with highlighting some of the books’ main findings.
Czech Republic
Authors: Mansfeldová Zdenka , Lacina Tomáš
Published: January 2020

With only a few exceptions, Czech cabinets have been coalition cabinets. Two essential features of coalition politics in the Czech Republic are unstable majorities and ideological heterogeneity inside governing coalitions. Only very rarely have there been pre-electoral cooperation, and a threshold for alliances in the electoral system has meant a substantial obstacle for smaller parties. There has been no pre-electoral cooperation, such as pre-electoral coalitions with a mutual commitment to form a joint government after the elections. Instead, cabinet-building usually has been a long process, on average much longer than in the other new European Union (EU) member states. The largest parties have relied on cooperation with small centre-right parties. Another critical and typical feature of the Czech coalition formation process are strong presidential interventions. This has been practised by all presidents, starting with Vaclav Havel, continuing with Vaclav Klaus, and the current president Milos Zeman. Coalition agreements, mostly in a written form, have been crucial. Political parties have found it difficult to cooperate without such agreements. In general, the character and composition of the agreements have very much been policy-oriented. However, there have also existed unwritten rules and informal structures which have undermined coalition governance because they have established inequality among formally equal ministers. While originally tilted towards Prime Minister Dominance, because of presidential involvement, the governance system for intra-cabinet relations has become one that alternates between the coalition compromise model and the ministerial government model.
Estonia
Authors: Pettai Vello
Published: January 2020

Since re-emerging as an independent state in 1991, Estonia has had to build up an entirely new constitutional and political system. This has meant that following an initial period of fluidity amongst parties and voters, patterns of politics have slowly begun to consolidate along more predictable lines. In particular, Estonia’s coalition politics have been dominated by centre-right constellations, mainly because of the strong role played as of the mid-1990s by the market-liberal Reform Party. The party has been a pivotal, if not leading force, in all of Estonia’s government coalitions between 1999 and 2016. This has allowed it also to influence greatly patterns of consolidation in coalition governance, namely the professionalization of coalition agreements, the development of coordination mechanisms between coalition partners, and mechanisms of mutual oversight in coalitions. While governments have not succeeded in lasting a full parliamentary term, the re-organizations that have taken place between elections have not generated prolonged crises of governing. The main blockage or weakness in the system was the continued side-lining of the left-leaning Centre Party from playing a direct role in coalition politics. Although the party regularly obtained up to a quarter of the national vote and filled an important place in the party landscape by representing the bulk of minority-Russian voters, it was never considered as a government formateur because of the overbearing style of its founding leader (Edgar Savisaar). It seems that only after he is replaced will a major re-shuffling of Estonia’s coalition landscape be possible.
Lithuania
Authors: Matonyte Irmina
Published: January 2020

Since early 1990s, the electoral campaigns in Lithuania take place within the framework of long-term parliamentary party agreements on Euro-Atlantic integration (more specifically, in the context of fear of pernicious geo-political interference from Russia) and free market reforms (or, in other words, eagerness to integrate into the European market and to be part of the euro-zone). The overall distance between parties on the socioeconomic scale is fairly small and, among political elites, the pro-Western consensus is apparent. There are no real outcast parties in Lithuania. The Lithuanian society itself is not ravaged by deep socio-political cleavages and its ethnic, religious, or corporate divides are not sharp. Yet, electoral volatility is high and political parties are numerous. However, governments in Lithuania are relatively stable. The ministerial government model entrenches itself in Lithuania. Since 2000 the increasingly unstable multi-party system necessitates that the coalition governments are based on inter-party bargaining. The tendency is towards ‘oversized’ cabinets and surplus coalitions. As a rule, publicly available coalition agreements resemble rather memorandums of understanding than seriously thought-through documents of partnership for a particular policy agenda. Coalitions in Lithuania accommodate office-seeking parties and politicians. Commitment of the parties to the coalition in question is routinely maintained via the distribution of ministerial portfolios. The coalition management machinery produces personified accommodations, dubious compromises, delays, and postponements as typical modes of conflict resolution. These deficiencies in turn lead to erosion of political accountability, which further breeds frustration and political protest.
Slovenia
Authors: Krašovec Alenka , Krpič Tomaž
Published: January 2020

Under the proportional representation (PR) electoral system in Slovenia, after elections, coalition governments have formed. However, the coalition partners have also adopted a ‘dropping out from government’ strategy between elections, which in some cases has led to minority governments. This has occurred despite a frequent use of several conflict-prevention and conflict-resolution mechanisms. One such mechanism, coalition agreements, are mostly understood in terms of policy agreements. After each election in the period 1992–2000, the leading party, the LDS, signed a coalition agreement with each coalition partner. Since 2013, such coalition agreements include a mechanism of explicitly stating in coalition agreements that certain issues are to be avoided. Regardless, governments termination in majority cases happened due to different (policy or personal) conflicts within the government. Early in the period, government coalitions were ideologically mixed. This was characteristic for governments under LDS leadership from 1992 to 2004, while after the 2004 elections, the governmental coalitions were much more ideologically homogenous. Alternation between like-minded ideological coalitions (centre-left or centre-right) took place. Simultaneously, the main lines of conflict changed. In the 1990s, initially a mostly ideological cleavage between ‘transformed’ and ‘newly established’ political parties was present, while after the 2004 elections, the economic cleavage became more salient. All parliamentary parties, except the Slovenian National Party, have at least briefly participated in governments, while the Democratic Party of Retired Persons have been since the mid-1990s the party with the biggest coalition potential. Since 2011, small parties have received pivotal roles in coalition formation. Generally speaking, participation in the government has not been electorally rewarding for the political parties.
The Self-Proclaimed Economic Wizard
Authors: Bollard Alan
Published: January 2020

Seeking an arms deal, Kung flew to Germany to meet Adolf Hitler. There he also met Hjalmar Schacht, the austere German Reichsbank head. Schacht was a clever banker who became famous for helping stem Germany’s hyper-inflation in the 1920s. As Head of the Reichsbank, he was very influential helping the Nazis fund rearmament in Germany, finding innovative ways to finance purchases, and working out a system of trade barter to avoid economic sanctions. He was a very opinionated man, and following disagreements with Hitler, he was eventually sacked by the Nazis. He soon found himself imprisoned in concentration camps. After the war he was indicted in the Nuremberg Trials for helping the Nazis, but was eventually released.
‘No One in Our Age was Cleverer …’
Authors: Bollard Alan
Published: January 2020

As troops massed on the border, John Maynard Keynes had to hastily cut short a holiday in France. A government advisor, academic, journalist, and polymath, he spent the next few years working on pioneering and highly innovative economic ideas: how to pay for the war, how to apply his ground-breaking ‘General Theory’ to policy, how to avoid repeating the mistakes of Versailles, and how to set up an international clearing exchange at Bretton Woods that would eventually become the IMF. As Germany turned on the Soviet Union, Keynes became very worried about his Russian in-laws caught up in the terrible siege of Leningrad.
The Calculating Iceman
Authors: Bollard Alan
Published: January 2020

The only way through the wartime Leningrad siege was a winter ice road across a lake, monitored by a brilliant young Soviet mathematician. Leonid Kantorovich had been brought up in the chaos of post-Czarist Russia, and during his pioneering career invented linear programming to help Soviet industry become more efficient, then worked out mathematical ways to improve the planning of the whole Soviet economy. But this was dangerous work, as Stalin disapproved of economists and cybernetics, had sent many to the gulags, and was trying to run the economy himself, despite all the practical problems of wartime central planning without prices.
The Peacenik who Helped Bombing Tactics
Authors: Bollard Alan
Published: January 2020

The Allies were worried whether the economy of the Soviet Union could survive the war, and in Washington the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) directed a young Russian émigré economist to study the problem: Wassily Leontief’s reports predicted the Soviet economy was stronger than thought, and ultimately he was proved right. Leontief’s big contribution was to invent the input-output methodology, and this was used in economic planning for the US economy. In the war the Americans went further, adapting this technique to map the Axis economy, and identify weak points for targeting their bombing raids in Europe. Ultimately this helped destroy the German economy.
Annex
Authors: Bollard Alan
Published: January 2020

The Annex draws out learnings on the impact of World War II on the major warring economies, draws general conclusions on the burdens that war places on economies, and summarizes wartime policy approaches.
Alienation and Animal Labour
Authors: Bachour Omar
Published: January 2020

An analysis of alienated animal labour has much to contribute to our understanding of the systems of animal oppression under capitalism. However, the humanist model of alienated labour which dominates the current literature, drawn from Marx’s early works, is predicated on a concept of ‘species-being’ that presupposes an untenable dichotomy between humans and animals, leaving no room for animal agency or flourishing, and severely limiting the application, scope, and emancipatory potential of the alienation critique. This chapter attempts to chart a way out of this dilemma by putting forward an ‘appropriative’ rather than ‘humanist’ model of alienated animal labour that allows us to avail ourselves of the rich social and political dimensions of the alienation critique while avoiding the difficulties that attend it. The chapter begins with a general definition of alienation before surveying Marx’s account of alienated labour as well as various attempts to apply his account to animals. It then focuses in particular on the notion of species-being, which underpins Marx’s theory of alienated labour, and argues that its humanist presuppositions preclude any coherent application to animals. The chapter then puts forward an alternative appropriative model of alienated animal labour, and makes the case that this account overcomes the difficulties plaguing the humanist model, giving way to an emancipatory conception of unalienated animal labour.
The Business Enterprise as a Value-Creating Organization
Authors: Lazonick William , Shin Jang-Sup
Published: January 2020

This chapter presents a theoretical perspective—the Theory of Innovative Enterprise—that enables us to understand the evolving relation between value creation and value extraction. The Theory of Innovative Enterprise posits that business enterprises are central to the achievement of stable and equitable economic growth and offers an analytical framework for understanding the processes of value creation and value extraction as prime micro-level determinants of macroeconomic outcomes. Specifically, it analyzes the dynamic interaction of three social conditions of innovative enterprise—strategic control, organizational integration, and financial commitment—in determining both the value-creating capability of a business enterprise—its ability to generate higher-quality products at lower unit costs—and the distribution of value created by the enterprise among participants in the value-creation process. It provides a rigorous and relevant alternative to the prevailing market-based theories of the firm.
Reversing Predatory Value Extraction
Authors: Lazonick William , Shin Jang-Sup
Published: January 2020

This concluding chapter suggests the following changes in the United States’ corporate-governance regime that can get its economy back on the path to sustainable prosperity: (1) rescind SEC Rule 10b-18 and ban open-market stock repurchases; (2) redesign executive pay to incentivize and reward value creation, not value extraction; (3) reconstitute corporate boards of directors to include to include representatives of households as workers, as taxpayers, and as savers as well as households as founders—and exclude the predatory value extractors; (4) reform the corporate tax system so that it returns profits to taxpaying households and funds government spending on infrastructure and knowledge for the next generation of innovative products; (5) redeploy corporate profits and productive capabilities to support collective and cumulative careers, and thus enable widespread upward socioeconomic mobility.
Operational Research and the Nuclear Battlefield
Authors: Moody Simon J.
Published: January 2020

Chapter 5 examines how concepts for nuclear land combat were tested through tangible training regimes and war-games to indoctrinate troops for fighting in a nuclear environment. It argues that Army research groups and training institutions made some headway into the practical challenges of preparing for nuclear ground combat, but the results highlighted the dilemmas inherent in planning for warfare using an untested weapon of unprecedented power. Objective analysis threatened to expose some of the Army’s more fanciful ideas about future war and challenged its faith in its ability to successfully prosecute the surreal mission to which it had been assigned. While the Army claimed the conclusions drawn from its research supported well-established beliefs about the modern operating environment, its critics saw only wishful thinking and the erroneous use of scientific data. The uncomfortable realities exposed by these synthetic representations of nuclear war served only to entrench the Army’s cognitive dissonance.
The Evolution of Nuclear War-Fighting Doctrine
Authors: Moody Simon J.
Published: January 2020

Chapter 6 assesses the evolution of the British Army’s doctrine for tactical nuclear war. It challenges the orthodox narrative of an intellectually stagnant post-war British Army by demonstrating that the service was continually engaged with the development of new doctrine throughout the Cold War. In particular, the chapter draws attention to how formal written doctrine was influenced by two of the Rhine Army’s most coveted, and controversial, commanders: Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery and Field Marshal Sir Nigel Bagnall. It argues that the post-war military thought of Montgomery was much more progressive than has hitherto been described by historians, and that the doctrinal reforms instigated by Bagnall in the 1980s were merely a logical progression of concepts articulated in the 1950s, calling into question the revolutionary nature of the reforms.
Conclusion
Authors: Moody Simon J.
Published: January 2020

This chapter demonstrates that the British Army possessed the intellectual capacity for organizational innovation after 1945. It argues that the officer corps understood the significance of the nuclear revolution and arrived at logical conclusions as to how tactical nuclear weapons might affect land warfare. Its ability to think critically about the challenges posed by nuclear weapons calls into question the traditional narrative of the post-war British Army as an anti-intellectual organization, tied to out-of-date methods and a stagnant military doctrine. The chapter concludes that although the Army played an important role in NATO strategy, it displayed a cognitive dissonance about the logical inconsistencies of nuclear deterrence.
Introduction
Authors: Pooley William G.
Published: January 2020

This chapter situates the book as an intervention in discussions of the history of the body, suggesting that the experiences of the working population have often been absent from discussions of changing bodily cultures, which have instead tended to focus on elite discourses. The chapter suggests that the moorlands of Gascony in south-western France make a particularly powerful example, because of the scale and speed of top-down reforms of the landscape following a national law passed in 1857, which encouraged the forestation of the moorlands. The region also boasts one of the most impressive ethnographic archives, thanks to the work of the folklorist Félix Arnaudin (1844–1921). The chapter finishes with an outline of key methodologies drawn from folklore studies, including the study of performance, variation, and traceability.
Introduction
Authors: Sangiacomo Andrea
Published: January 2020

This book defends two connected claims. First, from an historical point of view, it argues that Spinoza’s moral philosophy evolved significantly over time. In his early writings, Spinoza’s account of ethical progress towards the Supreme Good relies mostly on the epistemic self-sufficiency of the mind. In Spinoza’s mature writings, however, the emphasis shifts significantly towards the mind’s need to rely on appropriate forms of social cooperation with others. Second, from a more philosophical point of view, the book defends a reading of Spinoza’s later thought that offers a new way of understanding the relationship between reason, passions, and social embeddedness. This Introduction presents the theme of the book. It further explains the approach followed throughout the discussion, as well as how the reading proposed here is situated with respect to existing Spinoza scholarship. The Introduction also provides an outline of the contents.
Experiencing the Church in the Book of Visions of the Shepherd of Hermas
Authors: Tagliabue Aldo
Published: January 2020

This chapter uses the Shepherd of Hermas, an apocalyptic text written in the second century CE, to explore how and to what extent ancient Greek narrative is able to convey a special kind of human experience, the experience of the divine. After a brief theoretical introduction it argues first that the so-called Book of Visions, the first section of the Shepherd of Hermas, introduces two different kinds of Church, both the manifest and spiritual Churches, which are respectively characterized by sequential human time and divine timelessness. A narratological analysis of the same section of the text follows. It begins by arguing that the Book of Visions is a text that turns the depiction of the manifest Church into the narrative of Hermas’ lifelong conversion, and through its immersive quality readers are invited to experience the complex temporality of this Church. Then it shows that, within the same narrative, both the downplaying of temporal development and repetitions invite readers to experience the timelessness of the spiritual Church). Finally, it concludes that the downplaying of time and repetitions—both of which are called non-sequential devices—serve as the final proof of the ‘experiential vocation’ of ancient Greek narrative.
World and Words
Authors: Grethlein Jonas
Published: January 2020

This chapter considers the Ethiopica’s piercing reflections on narrative mimesis that can be found in the responses to embedded narrations and other passages. The Ethiopica certainly emphasize the capacity of narrative to enwrap the audience, but at the same time they do not fail to mark the limits to immersion. As parallels in ekphrastic literature and the theory of rhetoric indicate, this play with immersion and reflection bespeaks a broader sensitivity to the complex nature of aesthetic experience in the Imperial Age. Heliodorus also draws our attention to the different perspectives of readers and characters no matter how experiential the narrative is. Embedded audiences highlight the dynamics of narrative economy which privileges readers over characters. Moving from reception to the medium of narrative, one finds implicit reflections on the ontological and epistemological gap between words and the world they represent. The chapter yields the conclusion that Heliodorus artfully entwines immersion and reflection, therefore ironically providing a corrective to the post-structuralist assumptions that have guided some of the most fruitful explorations of the Ethiopica.
Rough Reading
Authors: Purves Alex
Published: January 2020

This chapter argues that reading is portrayed in Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ps.-Demetrius, and Ps.-Longinus as an experiential process dependent upon the smooth or rough quality of both objects and words. It focuses on two material surfaces which recur in ancient descriptions of Homer’s austere method of composition—first wool, which is tangled, unworked, and a mix of the material and ethereal; then stone, whose unhewn surface slows down and burdens the hands of Polyphemus and Sisyphus in the Odyssey. Drawing on the work of both Herder and Shklovsky on aesthetic perception, the chapter argues for an ancient understanding of reading based on a haptic model of contemplation, wherein a word’s weight or texture mimetically and temporally interacts with the events being narrated.
Narrative, Experience, and the Image
Authors: Dietrich Nikolaus
Published: January 2020

This chapter addresses the issue of narrative and experience from the perspective of ancient images, and with a focus on sculpture, a medium which does not seem particularly appropriate for pictorial narrative. As a first step, it discusses this evident lack of congruence between pictorial narrative and sculpture, and show ways in which narrative can, nevertheless, function in sculpture. For this purpose, it introduces a general distinction between two kinds of image-related ‘presence’ with reference to the case of the Knidian Aphrodite. This distinction then serves as a hermeneutical tool in the discussion of the chapter’s main categorical focus, namely the incomplete copies of sculptural groups. The analysis of this phenomenon of the Imperial Era focuses on strategies of involving the viewer in the pictorial narrative and thus reinforcing the immersive power of sculpture. Finally, it discusses the intentional creation of voids within the image, as observed in incomplete copies, in the larger context of the visual culture of the Imperial Era, notably through a parallel with the theatrical medium of pantomime.
Managing Emotions at the League of Nations
Authors: Scaglia Ilaria
Published: January 2020

Emotions constituted a fundamental part of the work of the League of Nations throughout the time of its existence. The League employed emotional rhetoric and images, often embodied and symbolized by the Alps, in order to legitimize itself and its policies. It used feelings to brand itself as capable and noble, to draw associations with positive values such as resilience, purity, and honesty, and to argue for its own feasibility in the post-1919 world. It also took emotions into account while staging international encounters, devoting much energy and resources trying to shape what people felt during the meetings and long-term stays in the Alps organized in this period. The League’s carefully-managed emotional style—which was deliberately based on “nobility,” “dignity,” and “friendship” rather than “force” and “pride”—frustrated many of its supporters while fueling its opponents’ argument that it was inherently weak; at the same time, it led to a set of ideas and practices (e.g. school exchanges to foster “mutual understanding”) that—for better or for worse—still influence many forms of international cooperation to this day.
Introduction
Authors: Vanaik Anish
Published: January 2020

The Introduction points to the absence of a full-fledged treatment of property in South Asian urban centres. In studying three different literatures—on property in South Asia, South Asian economic histories, and urban history—it points to the reasons why each of these bodies of work has ignored urban property. Histories of property have tended to concentrate on the countryside or forests. Economic history has downplayed economic trajectories—such as real estate speculation—that did not culminate in industrialization. Within South Asian urban history, the state (especially through planning), culture, and labour have been the most important foci. Finally, the Introduction locates the theoretical tools for studying property in the Marxist critical geography developed by geographers David Harvey and Neil Smith and the urban theorist Henri Lefebvre.
Representing Commodified Space
Authors: Vanaik Anish
Published: January 2020

Chapter 4 examines ways of representing space as a commodity that played key roles in colonial Delhi: maps, lease deeds, advertisements, and auctions. These representations were related to the buying and selling of real estate in distinct ways. At the same time, they also referred to and relied on each other to give effect to their pronouncements. Two elements ran through these disparate representations: connections between space and time, and the imbrication of state and property market. This chapter argues that the ability to utilize these representations of space to develop narratives about urban space was a critical constituent of state power.
Democratic Parties and Popular Sovereignty
Authors: Wolkenstein Fabio
Published: January 2020

This chapter frames the broader argument of the book by making the case that, under contemporary political conditions, the effective exercise of popular sovereignty—the essence of democratic self-rule—requires internally democratic political parties. While the chapter draws on a range of empirical evidence, its primary guide are theoretical insights that date back to the 1920s and are found in the democratic theory of constitutional lawyer Hans Kelsen. Kelsen remains one of the most clear-sighted and relevant authors when it comes to political parties, and his sober and non-moralistic approach to understanding collective political agency usefully re-orients our thinking about parties to the importance of their internal structure and organization. The chapter reconstructs Kelsen’s position and contrasts it with alternative views of popular sovereignty, arguing that the former is superior given how people today prefer to participate in democratic life and how parties have evolved to be agents of the state.