bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Writing memory: intertextuality and intra-textuality
Authors: Hodgson Katharine
Published: February 2012

This chapter explores the web of intra-textual allusion that connects the most diverse of Berggol′ts's works. The intensely self-referential nature of her writing, particularly after the Second World War, suggests that the poet's creative response to contradictions she could not resolve was to embark on a continuing and open-ended process of self-refashioning, striving towards but never achieving wholeness. Berggol′ts's writing on the Leningrad siege is situated within the context of her work as a whole, rather than being analysed in isolation. This close study of the work of a single author will, it is hoped, provoke readers whose interests include Russian poetry, the literary history of the Soviet period, other ‘official’ writers in the Stalin era, and women's writing into reassessing the cultural heritage of an era that can seem remote and impenetrable.
The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, Volume I: A Memoir of the Era of A. H. M. Jones
Authors: Martindale J. R.
Published: February 2012

The Prosopography was very much A. H. M Jones's project. He raised and managed the finances; he organized accommodation and generally exercised control, though with a loose rein. Already in 1966 he was planning to bring one of his former pupils, Dr Mustapha Abbadi, over to Cambridge to work for the Prosopography. However, the death of Jones came as a devastating blow. That it was all sorted out so quickly and efficiently was due in very large part to Moses Finley and the British Academy, which adopted the Prosopography as one of its major research projects, as well as to the goodwill towards Jones and the project among many leading scholars.
Orthodoxy and Heresy in the Seventh Century: Prosopographical Observations on Monotheletism
Authors: Brandes Wolfram
Published: February 2012

In traditional ecclesiastical history, heresy was understood as dissent from the beliefs of the majority on the part of a minority which was organized as a church and had developed a defined system of doctrinal tenets. Today, heresy is seen as the result of a process of marginalization or in terms of the historical failure of a particular religious movement or teaching, Movements or creeds that were later termed heretical could hold sway over long periods of time, and thus themselves set the standards of orthodoxy for their period. The discussion suggests that the so-called disputes over Monenergism and Monotheletism were primarily conducted in writing, and are above all to be seen in the context of the rivalry between Rome, with its claim to primacy, and Constantinople. Only in a very restricted sense could one attribute a real political or social importance to the phenomenon.
Romans and Foreigners
Authors: Chrysos Evangelos
Published: February 2012

It seems that a serious approach to the status of foreigners and the Byzantines'attitude towards them should now begin with a proper definition drawn from other disciplines, such as sociology and social anthropology. this chapter tries to estimate the political and legal dimensions of Romanness (Romanitas) in the meaning of citizenship vs. the status of the non-Roman in his relationship towards the empire. But since Romanitas is not only a political and legal but in particular a social and cultural reality, and since the levels are not always clearly distinguished, the discussion also refers to what form is the social and cultural identity of Roman vs. foreigner.
: British Approaches to Politics
Authors: Hayward Jack
Published: February 2012

This volume deals with the intellectual response of academics in Britain to the political challenges of the twentieth century. The distinctive identity of the British approach to the modern study of politics was formed during the latter part of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, at a time when the fledgling social sciences were differentiating into separate disciplines. Part of this book traces some of the vicissitudes of this process by which the specifically academic study of politics parted company from its subject matter and from other disciplines. If the syndrome of approaches that coexisted within nascent British political science is to acquire some semblance of cultural coherence, this chapter contrasts it with others – notably those of the United States and France – because ‘on the recognition of difference depends the significance of the assertion of identity’.
: A British School of International Relations
Authors: Dunne Tim
Published: February 2012

After considering the vexed question of whether it is possible to speak of a collective identity shared by scholars working in Britain, this chapter examines the debate surrounding the birth of international relations in the aftermath of the First World War. It discusses the arguments mobilized by E. H. Carr against the so-called idealists. This leads into a discussion of the evolution of a distinctive voice in British international relations that sought to overcome the realist–idealist dualism which defined what has become known as the first ‘great debate’. The conclusion briefly considers how far contemporary thinking on international relations builds on this attempt to set out an agenda that was both different from politics as traditionally conceived, and different from international relations as pursued in the United States.
The Federal Executive: Bureaucratic Fusion versus Governmental Bifurcation
Authors: Goetz Klaus H.
Published: February 2012

The federal ministerial executive is a dual institution, which combines the attributes of a government and an administration. This chapter investigates how European integration has affected this dual nature. It suggests that these two qualities of the executive have been affected in a differential way. On the administrative side, progressive integration has, indeed, been associated with growing ‘multi-level fusion’, through which the ministerial administration becomes part of a closely interconnected multi-level system. By contrast, the governmental dimension of the executive is characterized by growing bifurcation. Government takes place at two levels – the European and the domestic – but institutional linkage between the two levels is limited and some of the defining features of German government, notably the defining tenets of party government, coalition government, and parliamentary government, show few signs of Europeanization.
Interest Groups: Opportunity Structures and Governance Capacity
Authors: Eising Rainer
Published: February 2012

This chapter looks at continuity and change among German interest groups and patterns of interest intermediation in the context of European integration. In other words, it analyses the Europeanization of interest intermediation. While several analysts regard the degree of fit between the EU and the German mode of interest intermediation as a decisive influence on the responses of these groups to European integration, it is argued that it is mainly organizational capacities that explain interest group strategies in the EU multi-level system. The argument is tested in the following steps. First, the chapter provides an overview of the EU and the German systems of interest groups, of the prevalent modes of interest intermediation, and of associational self-regulation at both levels. Based on survey data of German, British, French, and EU business associations, as well as large firms, the general strategies of German interest groups in the EU are outlined. Next, a cluster analysis serves to distinguish five types of interest groups according to their access to political institutions, their access to information from these institutions, and their political activities during the policy cycle: niche organizations, occasional (national) players, (national) traditionalists, EU players, and multilevel players. The results confirm the implications of the ‘capacity’ hypothesis: in general, the changes in the institutional opportunity structure have not led to a major reshuffling of the domestic power structure or to a transformation of the weakly corporatist mode of interest intermediation in Germany.
Electricity and Telecommunications: Fit for the European Union?
Authors: Bulmer Simon , Dolowitz David , Humphreys Peter , Padgett Stephen
Published: February 2012

This chapter examines the processes and outcomes of Europeanization in the German utilities sectors. Employing an institutionalist perspective, it focuses on interaction between the institutional system of the EU and that of Germany. The chapter argues that adaptation pressures are reduced by Germany's ability to exert ‘soft’ power to ensure that EU policy is congruent with domestic governance. The tempo of EU reform is particularly significant. Incremental legislation in telecommunications permitted Germany to liberalize at its own pace in line with domestic policy style. In electricity, by contrast, the 1996 Directive created more acute adaptation pressures. Thus, in telecommunications Germany was activist in ‘downloading’ EU legislation in line with EU requirements. In electricity, it made considerable use of the zone of discretion in the Directive to minimize the impact on domestic governance. In examining the way in which Germany responds to adaptation pressures, particular attention is given to opportunity structures, veto points, and institutional norms in the domestic policy process. The experience of the electricity reform suggests that adaptation pressures are exacerbated by a highly pluralist institutional regime with numerous veto actors capable of blocking implementation. Moreover, German reluctance to embrace independent, sector-specific regulation suggests the resistance of domestic regulatory norms to the effects of Europeanization.
Social Policy: Transforming Pensions, Challenging Health Care?
Authors: Haverland Markus
Published: February 2012

This chapter analyses the Europeanization of German social policy, focusing on the sectors of old-age pensions and health care. It begins by establishing the specific properties of German social policy from a cross-national perspective. This will be done for the mid-1970s, hence prior to any major potential direct or indirect EU effect. Next, the chapter reviews the potential European, global, and domestic pressures on old-age pension arrangements and health care. It contextualizes social policy development to isolate EU integration as a variable from other factors such as demographic change (‘greying’ of the society), individualization, technological change, German unification, and economic and financial globalization, which may point in similar directions. The major part of the discussion reviews the development of German pension and health care policy over the last decades, and analyses the extent to which these developments can be attributed to EU integration.
Environmental Policy: A Leader State under Pressure?
Authors: Wurzel Rüdiger K. W.
Published: February 2012

This chapter discusses the impact of European integration on German environmental policy. For much of the 1980s, Germany acted as an ‘environmental leader’ state, successfully exporting to the EU level some of its standards, instruments, and regulatory approaches. In consequence, the Europeanization process was largely taken for granted by most domestic environmental policy actors. Overall, the Europeanization of the German environmental policy system has been an incremental and relatively subtle process that began in the 1970s, although its full implications did not become apparent until the 1980s. In the 1990s, Germany lost much of its ‘environmental leader’ status and came under pressure from the EU to reform its environmental policy system. At the beginning of the 21st century, Germany remains an ‘environmental leader’ state that pushes for stringent EU environment policy measures on air pollution control issues in particular. However, it has taken on a defensive position with regard to the EU's recent procedural measures, which have caused considerable domestic adaptational pressures. Overall, the Europeanization process has had a highly variegated effect on German environmental policy. Deeply engrained institutional structures and regulatory styles have been affected to a lesser extent than the substantive policy content.
Digitising Cuneiform Tablets
Authors: Vandecasteele Carlo , Gool Luc Van , Lerberghe Karel Van , Rompay Johan Van , Wambacq Patrick
Published: February 2012

In 1850, ‘Assyriology’, or the science of reading and interpreting cuneiform, was created. During this period, historians travelled to the Middle East and spent years copying cuneiform tablets. Now, at the beginning of the third millennium AD, not much has changed. Historians still rely on epigraphy which employs the copying of inscriptions and texts by hand. This method is highly subjective, tedious and time-consuming. As Middle Eastern antiquities departments do not allow the export of these tablets, historians and scholars are faced with the challenge of producing more efficient field methods. This chapter discusses a new method of recording the information taken from cuneiform tablets using digitizing. Digital imaging uses a camera wherein the picture captured is linked to a laptop which runs an image processing algorithm program to obtain the desired results. An enhancement method is then applied to improve the quality of the image. Digitizing cuneiform tablets provides historians a working document with legibility of 90 to 95 per cent. Aside from its relatively efficiency, digital imaging can also allow for the registering of various tablets in one excavation season and can be employed in the digital registration of all sealings such as pottery sherds, and fingerprints on clay vessels.
Interpretation of Ancient Runic Inscriptions by Laser Scanning
Authors: Swantesson Jan O. H. , Gustavson Helmer
Published: February 2012

Traditionally, investigations of runic inscriptions have been conducted in the field by eye, and by feeling the outlines of the runes with fingers. Although photographs have been used to describe runes, they are typically of complementary use. This chapter looks at the interpretation of runic inscriptions through laser scanning. Laser scanning, compared to the old methods of determining runic inscriptions, is more accurate and more efficient. It is specifically important when the interpretation is unclear. This method records the height of surfaces in shades of grey only, hence eliminating disturbances caused by the different colours of the rock. The chapter also discusses how data derived from the measurements of laser scanning can be treated. It provides an account of the application of laser scanning in runic inscriptions in Scandinavia as well as methods that can be used when interpreting runic transcriptions with new techniques.
Italian Terra Sigillata with Appliqué Decoration: Digitising, Visualising, and Web-Publishing
Authors: Kaudelka Eleni Schindler , Fastner Ulrike
Published: February 2012

This chapter presents a draft of a long-standing interdisciplinary project involving photogrammetry and archaeology, in which both sides tried to eliminate the gap between their disciplines. This is the Applikensigillata project which aimed to determine appliqué decorations in Italian terra sigillata. The cooperation of the different disciplines resulted in a substantial extension of the timetable. Although the project was relatively time consuming, it nevertheless provided results that were instrumental to archaeology. The project Italian terra sigillata of Noricum produced archaeological results. It produced correct drawings of the appliqué decorations through photogrammetry; it yielded a general catalogue; it opened a new field of results reflecting quality in both shapes and decorations; it debunked the old-myth of the carter-like organisation of Roman; and it eliminated surviving old catalogues based on the observation of a single piece.
Sibe History and Society
Authors: Harris Rachel
Published: February 2012

This chapter offers a general account of Sibe history and society. It suggests that certain nationalist themes are apparent in the writing of Sibe history in contemporary China, notably a rhetoric of continuity with antiquity and a need to establish a unique ethnic identity. The chapter discusses the origins of the Sibe and the influence of the garrison culture. It describes the conditions of the Sibe under the Manchu, during the Republican period, and under the People's Republic.
Remembering the Rituals: Shamans, Temples and Ancestors
Authors: Harris Rachel
Published: February 2012

This chapter examines the ritual practice of the Sibe people in Çabçal before Liberation. It discusses the double layer of social remembering through contemporary story-telling about the performed practices of the past and highlights the dominance of shamans and rituals in memories of village life. The chapter describes some observations about animated retellings of shaman stories, discussions of the details of ritual practice, and the re-singing of shamanic ritual songs. It suggests that shamanic rituals in the Sibe villages were and are powerful experiences in people's lives, re-lived and constantly embellished in retelling.
Folk Music and the Modern State
Authors: Harris Rachel
Published: February 2012

This chapter examines the changes in Sibe folk music during modern times in China. It traces the brief history of musical reforms and the use of music in social reforms in Çabçal in the twentieth century from the restrictions of the Cultural Revolution to the contemporary soundscape. The chapter considers Sibe shamanic ritual music on the national stage and the state of contemporary shamanic ritual in Çabçal. It argues that although a great deal of energy has been devoted to the reform and control of Sibe folk music in the twentieth century, wider issues of social change brought about by the Chinese Community Party (CCP) have played the decisive role in the changing patterns of musical behaviour and the impoverishment of Sibe folk music over the past few decades.
Postscript
Authors: Harrison S. J.
Published: February 2012

This chapter sums up the key findings of this study on the musical history of the Sibe people in Xinjiang, China. It provides evidence to show that in spite of their reputation as a people who have kept themselves aloof and kept their ancient traditions alive, Sibe culture in general and music culture in particular is distinguished by a high degree of syncretism and rapid change. The chapter also argues that though the contexts of music and the media through which it is disseminated are changing rapidly and radically, certain underlying themes in the discussion of music remain constant as modernity takes root in the region.
Popular Piety and Political Identity in Mexico's Cristero Rebellion
Authors: Butler Matthew
Published: February 2012

This book provides a new interpretation of the cristero war (1926–29), which divided Mexico's peasantry into rival camps loyal to the Catholic Church (cristero) or the Revolution (agrarista). It puts religion at the heart of our understanding of the revolt by showing how peasant allegiances often resulted from genuinely popular cultural and religious antagonisms. The book challenges the assumption that Mexican peasants in the 1920s shared religious outlooks and that their behaviour was mainly driven by political and material factors. Focusing on the state of Michoacán in western-central Mexico, it seeks to integrate both cultural and structural lines of inquiry. First charting the uneven character of Michoacán's historical formation in the late colonial period and the nineteenth century, the book shows how the emergence of distinct agrarian regimes and political cultures was later associated with varying popular responses to post-revolutionary state formation in the areas of educational and agrarian reform. At the same time, it is argued that these structural trends were accompanied by increasingly clear divergences in popular religious cultures, including lay attitudes to the clergy, patterns of religious devotion and deviancy, levels of sacramental participation, and commitment to militant ‘social’ Catholicism. As peasants in different communities developed distinct parish identities, so the institutional conflict between Church and state acquired diverse meanings and provoked violently contradictory popular responses. Thus the fires of revolt burned all the more fiercely because they inflamed a countryside that — then as now — was deeply divided in matters of faith.
James Cochran Stevenson Runciman 1903–2000
Authors: Bryer Anthony
Published: February 2012

James Cochran Stevenson Runciman (SR) lived a long life, which may be brought to order by identifying four overlapping phases. In the first, SR, went up from Eton (where as a Colleger he transferred from Classics to History) to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1921 at the age of eighteen, graduating (double first) in 1924, where he was fellow (1927–38, honorary fellow from 1965) and University lecturer (1932–8). His grandfather's death in 1938 allowed SR to choose to become an ‘independent scholar’, a second phase which never ended. But a third phase supervened from 1940–7, SR's more fruitful equivalent of Edward Gibbon's service with the Hampshire Militia in 1759–62. It was a period of independence and maturity away from home. The British Academy's election of SR to its fellowship in 1957 marks the beginning of a fourth phase. It came after the conclusion of SR's greatest uncommissioned work, A History of the Crusades, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1951–4).
John Denis Sargan 1924–1996
Authors: Hendry David F.
Published: February 2012

Denis Sargan was the leading British econometrician of his generation, playing a central role in establishing the technical basis for modern time-series econometric analysis. In a distinguished career spanning more than forty years as a teacher, researcher, and practitioner, particularly during the period that he was Professor of Econometrics at the LSE, Denis transformed both the role of econometrics in the analysis of macroeconomic time series, and the teaching of econometrics.
Frances Amelia Yates 1899–1981
Authors: Trapp J. B.
Published: February 2012

When Frances Yates was elected to the Fellowship in July 1967 her qualities as intellectual historian, long appreciated internationally but within a restricted circle, had begun to be recognised as widely as they deserved. This was in large part the result of the two books she had recently published. Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition of 1964 and The Art of Memory of 1966 were then the latest in a series of studies notable for adventurous argument and scope of learning. Though they had been long maturing, the rate at which they had finally been produced and had followed each other into print was remarkable; Bruno had actually been written in well under a year and Memory in about the same time. Remarkable also is that she was already in her sixty-fifth year when the first was published and in her sixty-seventh when the second appeared. Both have had a lasting effect on the study of the European Renaissance.
Yorkshire Writers
Authors: Hanna Ralph
Published: February 2012

This lecture discusses the selective procedures that underlie a narrow range of later fourteenth-century Yorkshire books. It follows up a typically elliptical discussion from Ian Doyle's Cambridge dissertation, and supplements it with the unique unpublished portion of Doyle's famous 1967 Lycell Lectures.
Elegies of Form in Bishop, Plath, Stevenson
Authors: Leighton Angela
Published: February 2012

This lecture discusses form, which is a term that has multiform meanings and is contradictory. It looks at the sense of form found in the works of Sylvia Plath, Elizabeth Bishop, and Anne Stevenson. Form is not simply as a matter of formal technique, but as an object in a tradition that goes back to Victorian aestheticism's playful commodifications of its own formal pleasures. It states that the sense of elegy may be greater or lesser, depending on the poem.
Early Judaism
Authors: Goodman Martin
Published: February 2012

This chapter discusses the work that has been done on Judaism from 200 BCE to c.500 CE. It determines that the current study of early Judaism focuses more on its explanation and has more awareness of the possible extent of variety. The chapter shows that classical scholars have played a major role in placing the Jewish evidence properly into the context of the Greek and Roman world.
The Reformation
Authors: Collinson Patrick
Published: February 2012

This chapter discusses the Reformation and introduces Leopold von Ranke, who started several scholarly endeavours years before the British Academy was founded. Theology during the Reformation and several Reformation studies are examined in the chapter. It also takes note of several theological and social–cultural approaches that are used all throughout.
Archaeology and the Origins of Modern Humans: European and African Perspectives
Authors: Mellars Paul
Published: February 2012

This chapter outlines the archaeological evidence for the relative recency and abruptness of appearance of artefacts associated with the creativity of modern humans. It compares the archaeological evidence associated with the appearance of anatomically modern humans in Europe and Africa. In Europe, there is a rapid appearance of new behavioural elements that are often seen to represent a ‘revolution’ in behavioural and perhaps cognitive terms, centred on c.43–35,000 years before present (BP). In Africa, new behavioural elements seem to appear in a more gradual, mosaic fashion but show many of the distinctive features of European Upper Palaeolithic culture by at least 70–80,000 (BP), including seemingly explicit evidence for fully symbolic expression. The central problem remains that of assessing how far these well-documented changes in the archaeological record reflect not only major shifts in behavioural patterns, but also underlying shifts in the cognitive capacities for behaviour, including increasing complexity in the structure of language.
Is there a Feminine Genius?*
Authors: Kristeva Julia
Published: February 2012

This chapter presents the text of a lecture on feminine genius. It highlights the achievements of Hannah Arendt, Melanie Klein, and Colette in their respective fields. It defines the concept of feminine genius and describes the similarities and differences of these three women. It also comments on the sexual, social and political liberation of women and their entry into various political and intellectual domains in the twentieth century.
Classical Athenian Democracy and Democracy Today: Culture, Knowledge, Power
Authors: Ober Josiah
Published: February 2012

This chapter presents the text of a lecture on the growing popularity of Greek democracy as a topic in school and university curricula. It argues that that the modern penchant for reading the meaning of democracy through the lens of the authoritative institutions of government has had a substantial impact on the way ancient Greek democracy has been understood. It suggests that the study of the ancient Athenian democracy should be conducted with a cultural/ideological approach rather than a constitutional approach.
An Irish Perspective
Authors: Cathal G. Ó Háinle
Published: February 2012

This chapter comments on Keith Robbins' lecture on the history of Ireland, Scotland and Wales. It criticizes Robbins' failure to include a discussion on the Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Welsh language and literature. It argues that well before the economic and political Europeanisation of Ireland took place, writers in Irish had sought and succeeded in Europeanising literature in Irish. It also contends that throughout the twentieth century Ireland has not seen itself as a country suffering the deprivation of being ‘not England’.
Forms of Social Solidarity in Russia and the Soviet Union
Authors: Hosking Geoffrey
Published: February 2012

Traditional interpretations of Russian society rest on a contrast between Russian authoritarianism and the liberties of Western societies. According to these interpretations, Russia right up to the twentieth century was a ‘patrimonial monarchy’ in which there was no distinction between sovereignty and ownership, so that the tsar's subjects were literally his slaves. There is no denying the highly authoritarian nature of the Russian state, and, in its twentieth-century hypostasis, its unique capacity to penetrate and affect the lives of ordinary people. But the image of slavery is overdone and partly misleading. At the base of the Russian power structure throughout the tsarist centuries was the village commune. The basic concept underlying the functioning of the village commune was krugovaya poruka, literally ‘circular surety’, but perhaps better translated as ‘joint responsibility’. This chapter discusses forms of social solidarity in Russia and the Soviet Union, focusing on the enterprise and the communal apartment as twin arenas of the daily lives of the majority of the country's townspeople.
Trust, Confidence, and Social Capital in Poland: A Historical Perspective
Authors: Kochanowicz Jacek
Published: February 2012

Sociologists and other social scientists have attempted to explain differences in economic success and in democratic performance by invoking trust and the related concept of social capital. This chapter examines how historical experience has shaped patterns of trust in Poland in order to see in what ways these patterns affect the process of post-Communist transformation in Poland today. It argues that it is the pre-Communist, indeed even the pre-industrial, past that influences the present situation in Poland, just as much as does the more recent communist experience. In particular, the chapter highlights the extent to which the change from communism to post-communism differs from other types of modernization processes. It also presents a historical interpretation of specific forms of trust and their dependence on social organization, as well as face-to-face relations and the relations between individuals and large-scale abstract systems, and, more specifically, the state. Finally, the chapter discusses the level of trust among family members, friends, and close acquaintances.
Trust in Building Multicultural Democratic Societies: Estonia, Moldova, and Kazakhstan
Authors: Dressler Wanda
Published: February 2012

After the implosion of the Soviet Union, democratization processes in all the post-Soviet republics took their specific paths. This chapter highlights the particular characteristics of these processes, focusing on three examples: Estonia, Moldova, and Kazakhstan. It demonstrates that the concept of trust has different meanings in the democratization processes in each of these republics, whether it refers to trust in political institutions, in inter-ethnic relations, or in interpersonal relations. All these meanings and kinds of trust have contributed to the stabilization of political systems in the post-Soviet republics and to coping successfully with the hard path of democratic transition. This chapter explores how to establish democratic systems and institutional trust in the post-Soviet republics and peacefully manage the demographic and cultural heterogeneity in building a democratic nation. Consequently, this involves the respect of minority rights that conform to the standards of the Helsinki agreements.
The Aftermath of Communism and the Vicissitudes of Public Trust
Authors: Dunn John
Published: February 2012

The disintegration of the Soviet Union, and the collapse of the Soviet model of legitimate political authority throughout Europe, Africa, and mainland Central America, formed the largest single shift in power, ideology, and political organization since the aftermath of World War II. The societies that have now escaped from communism (and who once found themselves imprisoned within it) have a normatively prescribed destination: a political and economic telos, synthesizing representative democracy with the market, which offers an optimal combination of security, prosperity, legitimacy, and collective public decency. In such a transition, a natural history of the forms and distributions of trust and distrust would surely disclose a powerful and insistent deepening, extension, and consolidation of the former, a progressive subsidence of the latter, and an exhilarating net accumulation of social capital. The drama of attempting to foment distrust and labouring to evoke trust (or credulity) goes on all the time and throughout the politics of this state form.
Why Did Class Inequalities in Educational Attainment Remain Unchanged over Much of the Twentieth Century?
Authors: Breen Richard
Published: February 2012

This chapter is concerned with changes in the level of educational attainment in Britain. It discusses and evaluates sociology's contribution to understanding class inequalities in educational attainment. It begins with empirical studies documenting the extent of class inequality in education. It then describes methodological work concerned with measuring class differentials in educational attainment. Finally, it explores possible explanations for the persistence of class inequalities.
Is Failure Inevitable? The Recent Fate of Secondary School Reforms Intended to Alleviate Social Disadvantage
Authors: Gray John
Published: February 2012

This chapter discusses school reforms that have been taking place, with the aim to produce greater equality of educational opportunity. The chapter suggests why they may have been less effective than hoped. It focuses on three areas: the effects of comprehensive reorganisation; the extent of variations in school effectiveness; and the contribution of systemic programmes on educational disadvantage.
Gender and Pay: Some More Equal than Others
Authors: Joshi Heather
Published: February 2012

This chapter focuses on gender differentials in pay. While pay differentials are only one facet of the economic differences between men and women, they are significant and symbolic of the changing gender order during the twentieth century. The chapter examines the gender premium for workers of different levels of education lifecycle, and speculates about the prospects for persistent pay gaps. It begins by discussing the economic, demographic and legislative background in Britain, and this is followed by evidence on the changing relative wages of men and women. It then considers evidence on the sources of differential earning power and examines evidence on reasons why given attributes might be remunerated. Finally, it discusses the factors influencing pay gaps over time and over the lifecycle.
The Social Origins of Depression and the Role of Meaning
Authors: Brown George W.
Published: February 2012

This chapter discusses the role of social factors in ill health, with a particular focus on depression. Major life events increase the risk of most depressive disorders. In a longitudinal study carried out in the early 1980s of 400 mothers in Islington, 1 in 10 developed a depressive disorder within a year, and most of those had a severely threatening life event not long before. This chapter also summarises the three forms of meaning relevant for the aetiology of depression. First, the role-based meanings of severe events relate to traditional anthropological and sociological concerns. Second, the evolutionary-derived meanings show that the experience of humiliation following a severe event is critical in the development of depression. Finally, the memory-linked emotional schemas influence a person's vulnerability to events.
The Proper Study?
Authors: Holmes Richard
Published: February 2012

Lytton Strachey in 1918 suggested that English biography had found its true calling as the most delicate and humane of all the branches of the art of writing. Three generations later, the form has expanded, gained a new broad readership, and achieved intellectual authority. Biography has been called the ‘true art of writing’ and a humanist discipline. It has been hailed as the proper study of mankind. While biography was becoming a recognized art of writing, its value and nature remained a contested issue. In the early days, a biography was primarily a maverick and unacademic form of writing. Academia too was not keen to recognize biography, particularly as a literary genre. It has constantly assaulted the form of biography as trivial, exploitative, fictive, and a corrupter of pure texts and of scholarly morals. And more importantly, a biography was deemed as devoid of serious poetics, post-Aristotelian regulations, and subjective. This chapter examines whether biography is an art and discipline that can be taught and evaluates whether life-writing can be a proper subject for an academic course. It examines the possible contents, aims, and benefits if biography was to be considered as a university subject, including the grounds that would claim biography as a genuine humanist discipline.
National Biography and the Arts of Memory: From Thomas Fuller to Colin Matthew
Authors: Donaldson Ian
Published: February 2012

The arts of memory and of biography have always been closely related. For instance, the memoir, which is an act of remembrance, has a double sense: it looks at the past and to the future, selecting from the stream of memories to form an enduring record called memorial by which events and people can be remembered in the years to come. In Restoration England, memoirs and memorials were popular forms when the word ‘biography’ first appeared. During this period there was an intense interest in the chronicling of the lives of those who contributed much to political and religious events. This commemoration of lives, which gained momentum in Restoration England, was an ancient enterprise. Biographies were regarded as durable monuments wherein the idea of remembrance took an important place. This attributed significance made those endowed with powerful memories venerated people. This chapter discusses the remarkable memorialists of the period. It looks at the career of Reverend Dr. Thomas Fuller as a biographer and as an author of many historical works. Fuller exhibited a photographic memory and an inclination to the memorization of long passages. In addition to this technique, he also adopted a rule that assisted memory; he employed the methodical distribution of facts into discrete locations. As for his biographical methods, Fuller considered two factors: the sense of pragmatism, and the sense of piety.
The Biographer as Archaeologist
Authors: Clair William St
Published: February 2012

Numerous literary biographies of famous authors were normally shaped by the quantity and the nature of the surviving primary documentary evidences such as diaries, letters, notes of constructions, and descriptions of the commentaries. These sources not only shaped the nature of the biographies but also the biographical method adopted. This chapter discusses the nature of the biographical evidence. It examines how biographers who regard their work primarily as an historical investigation can deal with the hard and immovable fact that the sources on which they necessarily rely are normally likely to provide an unrepresentative record of the patterns of the lived life.
The Constitution: Its Theory and Interpretation
Authors: Marshall Geoffrey
Published: February 2012

This chapter examines the theory of the British constitution, providing a definition of constitution and describing what theories about the constitution have been held in Britain. It explains that one interpretation of the constitution in Britain is the judicial one, of the large and indeterminate number of statutes and secondary legislation that make up the legal elements in the constitution. The chapter suggests that, in some respects, the conventional rules which regulate certain areas of governmental behaviour have become more crystallised and less debatable in recent years with the promulgation and general acceptance of codes of practice.
The House of Lords
Authors: Walters Rhodri
Published: February 2012

This chapter examines the history of the House of the Lords in Great Britain during the twentieth century. The findings indicate that, in the twentieth century, the House of Lords could no longer vie with the House of Commons to be the forum of the nation, and that it was quite clearly a very different place at the end of the century from the House of the early 1900s. However, it became engaged in different tasks and performed a different role. In addition, the House became largely nominated and plutocratic, as a result of the Life Peerages and House of Lords Acts.
Ministerial Responsibility1
Authors: Woodhouse Diana
Published: February 2012

This chapter examines the changes in ministerial responsibility in Great Britain during the twentieth century. It suggests that the twentieth century saw the decay of imperfect but working conventions, the divisions between policy and operations and accountability and responsibility which may suggest a rationalisation of ministerial responsibility. The chapter explains that, for more than a century, ministerial responsibility has underpinned Britain's constitutional arrangements and the Westminster system of government, andhas provided the rationale for the institutional structure of government and the basis for political relationships.
The Police
Authors: Emsley Clive
Published: February 2012

This chapter examines the changes in police and policing in Great Britain during the twentieth century. It explains that during that time there was a reduction in the number of individual police forces and that this was closely linked with the greater autonomy of senior officers within their jurisdictions. There was also a significant transformation from largely local policing to centrally directed policing as a result of the clarification of the police officer's constitutional role by legal ruling and legislation.
The United Kingdom as a Territorial State
Authors: Hadfield Brigid
Published: February 2012

This chapter examines the changes in the conception of the United Kingdom as a territorial state. It discusses the two major territorial questions relevant to the United Kingdom: the question concerning Ireland and Northern Ireland; and the relationships between the component parts of the United Kingdom, specifically Great Britain. The chapter explains the key aspects of the evolution of the twentieth-century constitution of the United Kingdom.
Gerald Edward Aylmer, 1926–2000
Authors: Thomas Keith
Published: February 2012

The large oeuvre of Gerald Aylmer, a historian of 17th-century England, can be divided into five main categories. First, there are the occasional studies which were stimulated by the institutions, people and places he encountered. The second category of Gerald's writings stems from his interest in 17th-century radicalism, the aspect of the period with which, like Christopher Hill, he was most warmly in sympathy. Thirdly, there are his general interpretative writings on the 17th century, notably the two text-books, The Struggle for the Constitution and Rebellion or Revolution? Fourthly, there are his essays in comparative history. Although never claiming any expertise outside the history of England, Ireland and colonial America, Gerald was always keen to set his findings into a larger picture. Finally, there is the work for which Gerald Aylmer will be longest remembered, namely his trilogy on 17th-century office-holders.
John Lough, 1913–2000
Authors: Moss Ann
Published: February 2012

John Lough was in very many ways an exemplary member of the British academic establishment. He was a punctilious scholar and industrious researcher, who shared the results of his inquiries with the intellectual community in a prolific series of books and articles. Although he was essentially a man of the written, rather than the spoken, word, he took his duties as teacher very seriously, and also played a prominent part in the governance of Durham University, where most of his career unfolded.
Ian Dalrymple McFarlane, 1915–2002
Authors: Cave Terence
Published: February 2012

Ian Mcfarlane belonged to the generation of scholars whose early careers were interrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War. Drawing on the sense of a new start and a radical break with past habits and prejudices that characterised the post-1945 era, that generation brought about a major renewal of modern languages as a university discipline, ensuring that it would henceforth be regarded as equal in status to other arts subjects. The importance of this task in post-war Europe can hardly be over-estimated, and Ian was certainly conscious of its magnitude. He spent the thirty-eight years of his academic career training the modern linguists of the next generation, many of whom are now themselves leaders in the subject, and he set an example of meticulously thorough yet enlightened scholarship in each of the several distinct areas in which he worked.
John Kieran Barry Moylan Nicholas, 1919–2002
Authors: Birks Peter
Published: February 2012

The Oxford law faculty flourished as never before in the second half of the 20th century. Although his was not the most famous name, Barry Nicholas was the unobtrusive rock on which that success was largely founded. He also embodied the spirit in that time of Brasenose College, of which he became Principal. Even before the Second World War Brasenose could claim to be the strongest law college in the University. As tutor, professor and ultimately Principal, Nicholas developed that strength and ensured that the College produced lawyers who took their study and their calling seriously.
Introduction
Authors: Griffin Emma
Published: February 2012

This introductory chapter discusses the histories of popular recreation in early modern England. It looks at the research previously conducted in this field, which shows that researchers were concerned mostly with the customs and traditions of earlier generations. Various accounts on sports and pastimes of this period are examined in the chapter.
Contemporary poetry and classics
Authors: Taplin Oliver
Published: February 2012

This chapter looks at the here and now and the unselfconscious use of Greek and Latin writers by contemporary British and Irish poets. In 1973 an enterprising garland-maker collected together some 850 translations from The Greek Anthology. Most of the versions by the fifty or so contributors were specially commissioned, and they included some excellent epigrams, some by poets already quite well known, including Fleur Adcock, Tony Harrison, Peter Levi, Edwin Morgan and Peter Porter. This discussion states that this volume marks a transition, from an age when a project like this had been primarily the preserve of scholars, and when classical poetry was predominantly the preserve of the few, to the present age when it has been opened up to a wide range of creative artists.
Discovery, autopsy and progress: Diocletian’s jigsaw puzzles
Authors: Crawford M. H.
Published: February 2012

It is commonplace that historical enquiry evolves as successive generations ask different questions, in a complex interplay between, on the one hand, the intellectual traditions in which individual historians have grown up, the different traditions that they discover, and the world as a whole in which they move; on the other hand, an ever greater body of knowledge and a wider range of historical tools. This chapter explores, by way of the particular example of the edicts of the Emperor Diocletian on maximum prices and on the coinage, the story of the discovery and study of their texts. It examines the impact on historical enquiry both of chance discoveries and of deliberate autopsy.
Recolonising Egypt
Authors: Bowman Alan
Published: February 2012

Egypt as a historical subject has never lacked attention in the field of international political history but it is also almost uniquely fruitful as a source of evidence for little narratives and as a historiographical battlefield. This chapter tries to describe and explain, from an explicitly classical perspective, aspects of the relationship between some ancient and some modem perceptions of Egypt and the role which ‘history in’ and ‘history of’ the classical world has played and continues to play in shaping those perceptions.