bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Concept of Constituency
Authors: Rehfeld Andrew
Published: December 2009

In virtually every democratic nation in the world, political representation is defined by where citizens live. In the United States, for example, Congressional Districts are drawn every 10 years as lines on a map. Why do democratic governments define political representation this way? Are territorial electoral constituencies commensurate with basic principles of democratic legitimacy? And why might our commitments to these principles lead us to endorse a radical alternative: randomly assigning citizens to permanent, single-member electoral constituencies that each looks like the nation they collectively represent? Using the case of the founding period of the United States as an illustration, and drawing from classic sources in Western political theory, this book describes the conceptual, historical, and normative features of the electoral constituency. As an institution conceptually separate from the casting of votes, the electoral constituency is little studied. Its historical origins are often incorrectly described. And as a normative matter, the constituency is almost completely ignored. Raising these conceptual, historical and normative issues, the argument culminates with a novel thought experiment of imagining how politics might change under randomized, permanent, national electoral constituencies. By focusing on how citizens are formally defined for the purpose of political representation, The Concept of Constituency thus offers a novel approach to the central problems of political representation, democratic legitimacy, and institutional design.
Passion and Preferences
Authors: Bensel Richard Franklin
Published: December 2009

The 1896 Democratic National Convention simultaneously proposed a radically new trajectory for American industrial expansion, harshly repudiated its own incumbent president, and rudely overturned the party's traditional regional and social hierarchy. The passion that attended these decisions was deeply embedded in the traditional alliances and understandings of the past, in the careers and futures of the party's most prominent leaders and most insignificant ward heelers, and in the personal relations of men who had long served together in the halls of Congress. This passion was continuously on display in the Chicago Coliseum, shaped by the rhythm of parliamentary ritual and the physical architecture of the convention hall. William Jennings Bryan anticipated the moment when pathos would be at its height and chose that moment to give his 'Cross of Gold' address, thus harnessing passion to his personal ambition and winning the presidential nomination.
Sharpening Strategic Intelligence
Authors: Russell Richard L.
Published: December 2009

This book critically examines the weaknesses of American intelligence led by the Central Intelligence Agency in informing presidential decision making on issues of war and peace. It evaluates the CIA's strategic intelligence performance during the Cold War and post-Cold War periods as a foundation for examining the root causes of intelligence failures surrounding the September 11th attacks and assessments of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs in the run up to the Iraq War. The book probes these intelligence failures, which lie in the CIA's poor human intelligence collection and analysis practices. The book argues that none of the post-9/11 intelligence reforms have squarely addressed these root causes of strategic intelligence failure and it recommends measures for redressing these dangerous vulnerabilities in American security.
Urban Protest in Mexico and Brazil
Authors: Bruhn Kathleen
Published: December 2009

Why do social organizations decide to protest instead of working through institutional channels? This book draws hypotheses from three standard models of contentious political action - POS, resource mobilization, and identity - and subjects them to a series of qualitative and quantitative tests. The results have implications for social movement theory, studies of protest, and theories of public policy/agenda setting. The characteristics of movement organizations - type of resources, internal leadership competition, and identity - shape their inherent propensity to protest. Party alliance does not constrain protest, even when the party ally wins power. Instead, protest becomes a key part of organizational maintenance, producing constant incentives to protest that do not reflect changing external conditions. Nevertheless, organizations do respond to changes in the political context, governmental cycles in particular. In the first year of a new government, organizations have strong incentives to protest in order to establish their priority in the policy agenda.
Clan Politics and Regime Transition in Central Asia
Authors: Collins Kathleen
Published: December 2009

This book is a study of the role of clan networks in Central Asia from the early twentieth century through 2004. Exploring the social, economic, and historical roots of clans, and their political role and political transformation in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods, it argues that clans are informal political actors that are critical to understanding politics in this region. The book demonstrates that the Soviet system was far less successful in transforming and controlling Central Asian society, and in its policy of eradicating clan identities, than has often been assumed. In order to understand Central Asian politics and their economies, scholars and policy makers must take into account the powerful role of these informal groups, how they adapt and change over time, and how they may constrain or undermine democratization in this strategic region.
Courts under Constraints
Authors: Helmke Gretchen
Published: December 2009

This study offers a theoretical framework for understanding how institutional instability affects judicial behavior under dictatorship and democracy. In stark contrast to conventional wisdom, the central findings of the book contradict some assumptions that only independent judges rule against the government of the day. Set in the context of Argentina, the study uses the tools of positive political theory to explore the conditions under which courts rule against the government. In addition to shedding light on the dynamics of court-executive relations in Argentina, the study provides general lessons about institutions, instability, and the rule of law. In the process, the study builds a set of connections among diverse bodies of scholarship, including US judicial politics, comparative institutional analysis, positive political theory, and Latin American politics.
Voting for Autocracy
Authors: Magaloni Beatriz
Published: December 2009

This 2006 book provides a theory of the logic of survival of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), one of the most resilient autocratic regimes in the twentieth century. An autocratic regime hid behind the facade of elections that were held with clockwise precision. Although their outcome was totally predictable, elections were not hollow rituals. The PRI made millions of ordinary citizens vest their interests in the survival of the autocratic regime. Voters could not simply 'throw the rascals out of office' because their choices were constrained by a series of strategic dilemmas that compelled them to support the autocrats. The book also explores the factors that led to the demise of the PRI. The theory sheds light on the logic of 'electoral autocracies', among the most common type of autocracy, and is the only systematic treatment in the literature today dealing with this form of autocracy.
Corruption, Inequality, and the Rule of Law
Authors: Uslaner Eric M.
Published: December 2009

Corruption flouts rules of fairness and gives some people advantages that others don't have. Corruption is persistent; there is little evidence that countries can escape the curse of corruption easily - or at all. Instead of focusing on institutional reform, in this book Eric M. Uslaner suggests that the roots of corruption lie in economic and legal inequality, low levels of generalized trust (which are not readily changed), and poor policy choices (which may be more likely to change). Economic inequality provides a fertile breeding ground for corruption, which, in turn, leads to further inequalities. Just as corruption is persistent, inequality and trust do not change much over time, according to Uslaner's cross-national aggregate analyses. He argues that high inequality leads to low trust and high corruption, and then to more inequality - an inequality trap - and identifies direct linkages between inequality and trust in surveys of the mass public and elites in transition countries.
The Economics of Karl Marx
Authors: Hollander Samuel
Published: December 2009

Presents an account and technical assessment of Marx's economic analysis in Capital, with particular reference to the transformation and the surplus-value doctrine, the reproduction schemes, the falling real-wage and profit rates, and the trade cycle. The focus is on criticisms that Marx himself might have been expected to face in his day and age. In addition, it offers a chronological study of the evolution of that analysis from the early 1840s through three 'drafts': documents of the late 1840s, the Grundrisse of 1857–1858, and the Economic Manuscripts of 1861–1863. It also provides three studies in application, focusing on Marx's 'evolutionary' orientation in his evaluation of the transition to communism and his rejection of 'egalitarianism' under both capitalist and communist regimes; his evolving perspective on the role of the industrial 'entrepreneur'; and his evolving appreciation of the prospects for welfare reform within capitalism.
Conflict of Laws in a Globalized World
Authors: Gottschalk Eckart , Michaels Ralf , Ruhl Giesela , Hein Jan von
Published: December 2009

This tribute to Professor Arthur von Mehren from the Harvard Law School is a contribution to the evolving transatlantic dialogue on the conflict of laws. It contains ten contributions that discuss the problems conflict of laws is facing in a globalized world. The first five contributions deal with current legal topics in international civil litigation and transatlantic judicial co-operation ranging from the design of judgments conventions to the recently adopted Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements, and from problems involving negative declaratory actions in international disputes to recent transatlantic developments relating to service of process and collective proceedings. The remaining five contributions focus on choice of law in international relationships. They cover comparative and economic dimensions of party autonomy, reflect on discussions in the choice of law relating to intellectual property rights, and critically discuss the applicable law in antitrust law litigation, international arbitration, and actions for punitive damages.
Economic Rights
Authors: Hertel Shareen , Minkler Lanse
Published: December 2009

This edited volume offers scholarship on economic rights by leading scholars in the fields of economics, law, and political science. It analyzes the central features of economic rights: their conceptual, measurement, and policy dimensions. In its introduction, the book provides a conceptualization of economic rights based on a three-pronged definition: the right to a decent standard of living, the right to work, and the right to basic income support for people who cannot work. Subsequent chapters correct existing conceptual mistakes in the literature, provide new measurement techniques with country rankings, and analyze policy implementation at the international, regional, national, and local levels. While it forms a cohesive whole, the book is nevertheless rich in contending perspectives.
Principles and Methods of Law and Economics
Authors: Georgakopoulos Nicholas L.
Published: December 2009

This is an introductory book that targets the reader who has the ambition to apply economic analysis but may be missing a technical introduction to its mathematical techniques or seeks a structured elaboration of its philosophical principles. The book juxtaposes economic analysis with moral philosophy, political theory, egalitarianism, and other methodological principles and then passes to the details of methods such as model-building, derivatives, differential equations, statistical tests, and the use of computer programs.
Federal Taxation in America
Authors: Brownlee W. Elliot
Published: December 2009

This brief survey is the first comprehensive historical overview of the US federal tax systems published since 1967. Its coverage extends from the ratification of the Constitution to the present day. Brownlee describes the five principal stages of federal taxation in relation to the crises that led to their adoption - the formation of the republic, the Civil War, World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II - and discusses the significant modifications during the Reagan presidency. While focusing on federal policy, Brownlee also attends to the related history of state and local taxation. This 'democratic-institutionalist' interpretation is a novel and major contribution to the history of taxation and public finance. Now in a new edition, Brownlee extends his coverage to the present, with a new chapter focusing on the current tax policies of the George W. Bush administration.
Heirs, Kin, and Creditors in Renaissance Florence
Authors: Kuehn Thomas
Published: December 2009

This study, based on Florentine repudiations of inheritance, reveals that inheritance was not simply an automatic process where the recipients were passive, if grateful. In influential European societies of the past, it was in fact a process that continued long after the deceased's death. Heirs also had options: at the least, to reject a burdensome patrimony, but also to manoeuvre property to others and to avoid (at times deceptively, if not fraudulently) the claims of others to portions of the estate. Repudiation was a vestige of Roman law that once again became a viable legal institution with the revival of Roman law in the Middle Ages. Florentines incorporated repudiation into their strategies of adjustment after death, showing that they were not merely passive recipients of what came their way. Further, these strategies fostered family goals, including continuity across the generations.
The Construction of Authority in Ancient Rome and Byzantium
Authors: Takács Sarolta A.
Published: December 2009

In The Construction of Authority in Ancient Rome and Byzantium, Sarolta Takács examines the role of the Roman emperor, who was the single most important law-giving authority in Roman society. Emperors had to embody the qualities or virtues espoused by Rome's ruling classes. Political rhetoric shaped the ancients' reality and played a part in the upkeep of their political structures. Takács isolates a reccurring cultural pattern, a conscious appropriation of symbols and signs (verbal and visual) belonging to the Roman Empire. She shows that many contemporary concepts of 'empire' have Roman precedents, which are reactivations or reuses of well-established ancient patterns. Showing the dialectical interactivity between the constructed past and present, Takács also focuses on the issue of classical legacy through these virtues, which are not simply repeated or adapted cultural patterns, but are tools for the legitimization of political power, authority, and even domination of one nation over another.
Allianz and the German Insurance Business, 1933–1945
Authors: Feldman Gerald D.
Published: December 2009

This history of the internationally prominent insurance corporation Allianz AG in the Nazi era is based largely on new or previously unavailable archival sources. Feldman takes the reader through varied cases of collaboration and conflict with the Nazi regime with fairness and a commitment to informed analysis. He touches on issues of damages in the Pogrom of 1938, insuring facilities used in forced labour camps, and the problems of de-Nazification and restitution. The broader issues examined in this study - cooperation with Nazi policies, the way in which profit, ideology, and opportunism played a role in corporate decision-making, and the question of how Jewish insurance assets were expropriated - are particularly relevant today given the ongoing international debate about restitution for Holocaust survivors. This book joins a growing body of scholarship based on free access to the records of German corporations in the Nazi era.
Design for a New Europe
Authors: Gillingham John
Published: December 2009

How did the process of European integration break down; how can it be repaired? In European Integration, 1950–2003, John Gillingham reviewed the history of the European project and predicted the rejection of the European constitution. Now the world's leading expert on the EU maps out a route to save the Union. The four chapters of this penetrating, fiercely-argued and often witty book subject today's dysfunctional European Union to critical scrutiny in an attempt to show how it is stunting economic growth, sapping the vitality of national governments, and undermining competitiveness. It explains how the attempt to revive the EU by turning it into a champion of research and development will backfire and demonstrates how Europe's great experiment in political and economic union can succeed only if the wave of liberal reform now under way in the historically downtrodden east is allowed to sweep away the prosperous and complacent west.
Environment, Power, and Injustice
Authors: Jacobs Nancy J.
Published: December 2009

This book presents the socio-environmental history of black people around Kuruman, on the edge of the Kalahari in South Africa. Considering successive periods - Tswana agropastoral chiefdoms before colonial contact, the Cape frontier, British colonial rule, Apartheid, and the homeland of Bophuthatswana in the 1980s - Environment, Power and Injustice shows how the human relationship with the environment corresponded to differences of class, gender, and race. While exploring biological, geological, and climatological forces in history, this book argues that the challenges of existence in a semidesert arose more from human injustice than from deficiencies in the natural environment. In fact, powerful people drew strength from and exercised their power over others through the environment. At the same time, the natural world provided marginal peoples with some relief from human injustice.
Plato's Natural Philosophy
Authors: Johansen Thomas Kjeller
Published: December 2009

Plato's dialogue the Timaeus-Critias presents two connected accounts, that of the story of Atlantis and its defeat by ancient Athens and that of the creation of the cosmos by a divine craftsman. This book offers a unified reading of the dialogue. It tackles a wide range of interpretative and philosophical issues. Topics discussed include the function of the famous Atlantis story, the notion of cosmology as 'myth' and as 'likely', and the role of God in Platonic cosmology. Other areas commented upon are Plato's concepts of 'necessity' and 'teleology', the nature of the 'receptacle', the relationship between the soul and the body, the use of perception in cosmology, and the work's peculiar monologue form. The unifying theme is teleology: Plato's attempt to show the cosmos to be organised for the good. A central lesson which emerges is that the Timaeus is closer to Aristotle's physics than previously thought.
Novels behind Glass
Authors: Miller Andrew H.
Published: December 2009

Drawing on work in critical theory, feminism and social history, this book traces the lines of tension shot through Victorian culture by the fear that the social world was being reduced to a display window behind which people, their actions and their convictions were exhibited for the economic appetites of others. Affecting the most basic elements of Victorian life - the vagaries of desire, the rationalisation of social life, the gendering of subjectivity, the power of nostalgia, the fear of mortality, the cyclical routines of the household - the ambivalence generated by commodity culture organizes the thematic concerns of these novels and the society they represent. Taking the commodity as their point of departure, chapters on Thackeray, Gaskell, Dickens, Eliot, Trollope, and the Great Exhibition of 1851 suggest that Victorian novels provide us with graphic and enduring images of the power of commodities to affect the varied activities and beliefs of individual and social experience.
Drama and Politics in the English Civil War
Authors: Wiseman Susan
Published: December 2009

In 1642 an ordinance closed the theatres of England. Critics and historians have assumed that the edict was to be firm and inviolate. Susan Wiseman challenges this assumption and argues that the period 1640 to 1660 was not a gap in the production and performance of drama nor a blank space between 'Renaissance drama' and the 'Restoration stage'. Rather, throughout the period, writers focused instead on a range of dramas with political perspectives, from republican to royalist. This group included the short pamphlet dramas of the 1640s and the texts produced by the writers of the 1650s, such as William Davenant, Margaret Cavendish and James Shirley. In analysing the diverse forms of dramatic production of the 1640s and 1650s, Wiseman reveals the political and generic diversity produced by the changes in dramatic production, and offers insights into the theatre of the Civil War.
Jane Austen's Art of Memory
Authors: Harris Jocelyn
Published: December 2009

Jane Austen's Art of Memory offers a radical new thesis about Jane Austen's construction of her art. It argues that, with the help of her tenacious memory, she engaged in friendly dialogue with her predecessors, the English writers, a process that the eighteenth century called 'imitation'. Her allusions, far from being random, thicken and complicate her novels in a manner that is poetic rather than mimetic. Difficult critical cruxes resolve when her books are set within her own great tradition which included Locke, Richardson, Milton, Shakespeare, and (unexpectedly) Chaucer, and she is found to be an educated and supremely conscious writer.
Poetry and Jacobite Politics in Eighteenth-Century Britain and Ireland
Authors: Pittock Murray G. H.
Published: December 2009

The aim of this book is to question assumptions about the nature of the Augustan era through an exploration of Jacobite ideology. Taking as its starting point the fundamental ambivalence of the Augustan concept the author studies canonical and non-canonical literature and uncovers the 'four nations' literary history of the period defined in terms of a struggle for control of the language of authority between Jacobite and Hanoverian writers. This struggle is seen to have crystallized Irish and Scottish opposition to the British state. The Jacobite cause generated powerful popular literature and the sources explored include ballads, broadsides and writing in Scots, Irish, Welsh and Gaelic. The author concludes that the literary history we inherit is built on the political outcome of the Revolution of 1688.
Race, Work, and Desire in American Literature, 1860–1930
Authors: Birnbaum Michele
Published: December 2009

Race, Work and Desire analyses literary representations of work relationships across the colour-line from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. Michele Birnbaum examines inter-racial bonds in fiction and literary correspondence by black and white authors and artists - including Elizabeth Keckley, Frances E. W. Harper, W. D. Howells, Grace King, Kate Chopin, Langston Hughes, Amy Spingarn and Carl Van Vechten - exploring the way servants and employers, doctors and patients, and patrons and artists negotiate their racial differences for artistic and political ends. Situating these relationships in literary and cultural context, Birnbaum argues that the literature reveals the complexity of cross-racial relations in the workplace, which, although often represented as an oasis of racial harmony, is in fact the very site where race politics are most fiercely engaged. This study productively complicates current debates about cross-racial collaboration in American literary and race studies, and will be of interest to scholars in both literary and cultural studies.
Language, Authority, and Indigenous History in the Comentarios reales de los Incas
Authors: Zamora Margarita
Published: December 2009

The Comentarios reales de los incas, a classic of Spanish Renaissance prose narrative, was written by Garcilaso Inca de la Vega, the son of an Inca princess and a Spanish conquistador. It is full of ideological tensions and apparent contradictions as Garcilaso attempts to reconcile a pagan new-world culture with the fervent Christian evangelism of the period of the discovery and conquest of America. This study of the Comentarios is original both in adopting the perspective of discourse analysis and in its interdisciplinary approach. Margarita Zamora examines the rhetorical complexities of the Comentarios, and shows how, in order to present Inca civilization to Europeans, Garcilaso turned to disciplines other than traditional historiography, and in particular to the linguistic strategies of humanist philology and hermeneutics. Professor Zamora reveals how Garcilaso's views of the Incas were shaped by the dual nature of his background, by his commitment to humanism and Christianity, by the expectations he had of his readers, and by the discursive practices of his time.
Baudelaire and Schizoanalysis
Authors: Holland Eugene W.
Published: December 2009

This study of Baudelaire's writings applies the principles of schizoanalysis to literary history and cultural studies. By resituating psychoanalysis in its socio-economic and cultural context, this framework provides an illuminating approach to the poetry and art criticism of the foremost French modernist. Professor Holland's book draws upon and transforms virtually the entire spectrum of recent Baudelaire scholarship and demonstrates the impact of the capitalist market and its attendant authoritarianism (as well as Baudelaire's much-discussed family circumstances) on the psychology and poetics of the writer, who abandoned his romantic idealism in favour of a modernist cynicism that has characterized modern culture ever since.
Iurii Trifonov
Authors: Gillespie David
Published: December 2009

Iurii Trifonov (1925–81) has become well known in the West as a writer of Soviet urban life. This study, first published in 1993, concentrates on his exploration of major events in Russian history (such as the assassination of Tsar Alexander II and the Russian Civil War) and their implications and consequences for his time. David Gillespie traces this interest through all of Trifonov's writings, from his earliest, Stalin prize-winning period to the self-consciously modernist later works, in which Trifonov emphasizes the interconnectedness of human life and history, with the individual as 'the nerve' of history; linking epochs, places, civilizations. Trifonov discerns patterns and analogies in history, and develops a language of hints and allusions with which to combat the repressive censorship of his time.
Formulaic Language and the Lexicon
Authors: Wray Alison
Published: December 2009

A considerable proportion of our everyday language is 'formulaic'. It is predictable in form, idiomatic, and seems to be stored in fixed, or semi-fixed, chunks. This book explores the nature and purposes of formulaic language, and looks for patterns across the research findings from the fields of discourse analysis, first language acquisition, language pathology and applied linguistics. It gradually builds up a unified description and explanation of formulaic language as a linguistic solution to a larger, non-linguistic, problem, the promotion of self. The book culminates in a new model of lexical storage, which accommodates the curiosities of non-native and aphasic speech. Parallel analytic and holistic processing strategies are the proposed mechanism which reconciles, on the one hand, our capacity for understanding and producing novel constructions using grammatical knowledge and small lexical units, and on the other, our use of prefabricated material which, though less flexible, also requires less processing.
Children's Explanations
Authors: Donaldson Morag L.
Published: December 2009

How and when does the ability to give and understand explanations develop? Morag Donaldson directly addresses this question in the present study, providing evidence from a series of imaginative experiments she carried out with 3- to 10-year-olds. In contrast to many earlier accounts, she demonstrates that children can distinguish between cause and effect and among physical, psychological and logical relations well before the age of 7. The study focuses primarily on the linguistic abilities that are needed for explanation, in particular the understanding of because, so, why?, and how do you know?, and it makes a substantial contribution to our understanding of the semantics and pragmatics of causal connectives. However, the study also provides valuable insights into children's related cognitive abilities. Children's Explanations is a book that will be of equal interest to cognitive and developmental psychologists and to psycholinguistics, as well as to researchers in education for whom its topic must be of crucial importance.
The Autonomy Theme in the Church Dogmatics
Authors: Macken John
Published: December 2009

The problem of human freedom before God echoes through the conflicts of western theology since Augustine and Pelagius and has posed an acute question to theologians for the past 200 years. Karl Barth, perhaps the greatest Protestant theologian of the twentieth century, faced not only the question of autonomy but also the theological answers that liberals had attempted to provide to it. His dissatisfaction with their answers led him to start a theological counter-revolution, which was thought to adopt a negative answer to the question of autonomy. In this careful study Fater Macken shows that a major re-interpretation of Barth's thought in this regard took place since 1968, and that - far from being an opponent of human freedom in relation to God - Barth is now thought to have proposed a positive account of human autonomy as his theology developed. Dr Macken demonstrates that Barth was neither fundamentalist nor conservative, but a creative and original thinker. This notable book, written by a Roman Catholic theologian, provides a comprehensive and useful guide to the 'new wave' of German Barth interpretation.
Luke's Portrait of Paul
Authors: Lentz, Jr John Clayton
Published: December 2009

The purpose of this book is to seek a fuller understanding of how the characterisation of Paul in Acts would have been perceived by those who first read or heard the Lucan narrative. As the author makes clear, the careful reader of Acts should be amazed at the way St Paul is portrayed therein. Dr Lentz demonstrates, through a careful examination of particular texts, the great improbability that a Jew of strict Pharisaic background would have held, let alone been proud of, Roman citizenship and citizenship of the city of Tarsus. By investigating the social and legal expectations of the first century, the author shows that Paul is seen to be deferred to in matters of legal minutiae by those in positions of authority. He is given high social status and abundant moral virtue in order to attract to Christianity the high-ranking citizen who would recognise in Paul the classical cardinal virtues.
Jewish Communities in Asia Minor
Authors: Trebilco Paul R.
Published: December 2009

Scholarly assessment of Jewish communities in the Hellenistic and Graeco-Roman Diaspora has, in the past, been dominated by our knowledge of the large and influential communities in Rome and Alexandria. This book brings together the evidence for significant Jewish communities in another part of the Diaspora, namely Asia Minor. By collating archaeological, epigraphic, classical, New Testament and patristic sources, the book provides an invaluable and coherent description of the life of Jewish communities in Asia Minor, and so gives a more complete picture than was previously available of Jewish life at the time. By describing the strength, vitality and diversity of Jewish life in Asia Minor, the author is able to point to the retention of their Jewish identity by these communities, despite their close relations with the wider pagan society in which they lived. A degree of integration did not, therefore, mean the abandonment of an active attachment to Jewish tradition. The survey the book provides thus contributes to our understanding of the New Testament and of early Christianity.
Nirvana and Other Buddhist Felicities
Authors: Collins Steven
Published: December 2009

This book presents an answer to the question: what is nirvana? Part I distinguishes between systematic and narrative thought in the Pali texts of Theravada Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia, arguing that nirvana produces closure in both, and setting nirvana in the wider category of Buddhist Felicities. Part II explores other Buddhist utopias (both eu-topias, 'good places', and ou-topias, 'no-places'), and relates Buddhist utopianism to studies of European and American utopian writing. The book ends with a close reading of the Vessantara Jataka, which highlights the conflict between the ascetic quest for closure and ultimate felicity, and the ongoing demands of ordinary life and society. Steven Collins discusses these issues in relation to textuality, world history and ideology in premodern civilizations, aiming to contribute to an alternate vision of Buddhist history, which can hold both the inside and the outside of texts together.
The New Public
Authors: Mayhew Leon H.
Published: December 2009

Professional specialists, using market research and promotional campaigns, have come to dominate public communication. The modern public of the Enlightenment, based on free discussion, has, in Leon Mayhew's terms, been replaced by a 'New Public,' subject to mass persuasion through systematic advertising, lobbying, and other forms of media manipulation. Mayhew examines this sociological development in terms of discourse and social influence, offering an original theory which bridges Talcott Parsons and Jurgen Habermas. Most importantly, he shows how the rhetorical techniques of the professional communicators are designed to avoid having to defend their claims, thereby precluding meaningful discussion of public issues. As a result, institutions providing forums for good-faith, two-way discourse no longer exist, community through communication cannot be achieved, and the social order is unstable.
Religion and Custom in a Muslim Society
Authors: Holy Ladislav
Published: December 2009

Among the Berti of Northern Darfur (Sudan), as among many Muslim societies, the formal religious practices are predominantly the concern of men, while local, unorthodox customary rituals are performed mainly by women. It is usual to dismiss such local, popular practices as pre-Islamic survivals, but Professor Holy shows that the customary rituals constitute an integral part of the religious system of the Berti. Carefully analysing the symbolic statements made in Berti rituals, Professor Holy demonstrates that the distinction between the two classes of rituals is an expression of the gender relationships characteristic of the society. He also examines the social distribution of knowledge about Islam, and explains the role of the religious schools in sustaining religious ideas. The work is not only an ethnographic study of ritual, belief and gender in an African society. It also makes a significant contribution to current anthropological discussion of the interpretation and meaning of rituals and symbols.
Explanations, Accounts, and Illusions
Authors: McClure John
Published: December 2009

This book provides a lucid survey of the major viewpoints in social psychology concerning people's self-awareness (or lack of it), their explanations of their own actions, and their cognitive illusions and self-misunderstandings. In this readable but scholarly review, John McClure examines the major approaches to social cognition developed in America and Europe, including the more orthodox models which draw on information-processing and behavioural concepts; and the innovative approaches which draw on hermeneutic models, discourse analysis and, in particular, critical theory. The book provides a clear picture of what social psychology shows about people's awareness of the causes of their own actions. It also describes the nature of the misperceptions and cognitive distortions that underlie psychological disorders, and that contribute to people's failure to achieve their aims.
The Social and Political Thought of Bertrand Russell
Authors: Ironside Philip
Published: December 2009

This pioneering study of Bertrand Russell's social and political thought deals with the years 1896 to 1938, and is the first book to embark on a thorough investigation of the intellectual and cultural context out of which Russell's ideas emerged. Maintaining a sympathetic but critical stance towards Russell's almost innumerable political postures, and focusing in particular on his concern with the intellectual elite, the author renders that thought both plausible and coherent by placing its development against a significant historical background. As well as giving attention to the aspects of Russell's private life which helped determine the direction of his thought, Dr Ironside undertakes an enlightening exploration of the individuals, groups and beliefs by which he was successively influenced. The result is a wide-ranging and highly original view of an important and enduring figure.
Choice and Democratic Order
Authors: Graham B. D.
Published: December 2009

Choice and Democratic Order applies theories of group conflicts within political parties in a discussion of the internal politics of the French Socialist Party (SFIO) from the late 1930s to the 1940s. Having analysed the formal and informal structure of the party in 1937, Professor Graham gives a detailed account of the clash which took place between the leadership and two dissenting groups, the Gauche Revolutionnaire and the Bataille Socialiste, prior to the Royan congress of June 1938. This conflict is compared with that which occurred in the post-war party during 1946, when Guy Mollet led a successful revolt against the party leaders and became General Secretary of the organization after the 38th National Congress. Mollet began with the intention of preserving the existing alliance with the Communists, but as the latter moved into opposition he accepted the necessity of the centre alliance, the so-called 'Third Force' in French politics.
Keynes's Philosophical Development
Authors: Davis John B.
Published: December 2009

In this compelling book, John B. Davis examines the change and development in Keynes's philosophical thinking, from his earliest work through to The General Theory, arguing that Keynes came to believe himself mistaken about a number of his early philosophical concepts. The author begins by looking at the unpublished 'Apostles' papers, written under the influence of the philosopher G. E. Moore. These display the tensions in Keynes's early philosophical views, and outline his philosophical concepts of the time, including the concept of intuition. Davis then shows how Keynes's later philosophy is implicit in the economic argument of The General Theory. He argues that Keynes's philosophy had by this time changed radically, and that he had abandoned the concept of intuition for the concept of convention. The author sees this as being the central idea in The General Theory, and looks at the philosophical nature of this concept of convention in detail.
The Politics of Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa
Authors: Wilson Richard A.
Published: December 2009

The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was set up to deal with the human rights violations of apartheid during the years 1960–1994. However, as Wilson shows, the TRC's restorative justice approach to healing the nation did not always serve the needs of communities at a local level. Based on extended anthropological fieldwork, this book illustrates the impact of the TRC in urban African communities in Johannesburg. While a religious constituency largely embraced the commission's religious-redemptive language of reconciliation, Wilson argues that the TRC had little effect on popular ideas of justice as retribution. This provocative study deepens our understanding of post-apartheid South Africa and the use of human rights discourse. It ends on a call for more cautious and realistic expectations about what human rights institutions can achieve in democratizing countries.
An Educational War on Poverty
Authors: Silver Harold , Silver Pamela
Published: December 2009

This book analyses the parallel, different and related aspects of the discovery of poverty in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the role of education in the American 'war on poverty' from 1964, and in Britain from the appointment of the Plowden committee on primary schools. It examines changes in policy emphases, the relationship between research and policy, and the transatlantic interactions and silences involved. Based on archival and interview material the book offers new insights into the role of the Plowden committee in shifting attention from social class to poverty, and it discusses in both the American and British contexts the concepts and theories involved in the changing fortunes of the educational war on poverty in the 1960s and 1970s. An Educational War on Poverty represents a major contribution to the study of the recent social and educational history of Britain and the United States, and the range and depth of research, will make it an essential reference source for scholars and policy-makers on both sides of the Atlantic.
Bishop and Chapter in Twelfth-Century England
Authors: Crosby Everett U.
Published: December 2009

This book is the first detailed examination on a comparative basis of the economic and political relations between the bishops and their cathedral clergy in England during the century and a half after the Conquest. In particular, it is a study of the structure and historical development of the mensal endowments and the redistribution of wealth which led, in the course of time, to the establishment of the chapter as a largely independent body with substantial political power. A description of the constitutional importance of the mensa and its treatment in recent scholarly writing is followed by a discussion of property rights and liberties in the church and the role of the bishop in ecclesiastical and civil government. The core of the book consists of an analysis based on contemporary sources of the episcopal and capitular organisation in each of the ten monastic and seven secular sees.
An Uncounselled King
Authors: Donald Peter
Published: December 2009

The concept of kingship as Charles I understood it was challenged by the Covenanters in a struggle of protest over the government of Scotland. Although many aspects of this episode have received historical attention, Charles's own role has not hitherto been investigated in detail. Using a large body of newly available evidence, Dr Donald here attempts to redress the balance, and in doing so offers a substantially new perspective on the Scottish troubles in the crisis years of 1637–41. This study sheds light on the processes whereby Charles, with counsel and yet often in spite of it, tried to uphold his case.
Family Power in Southern Italy
Authors: Skinner Patricia
Published: December 2009

This 1995 book explores how political power was exerted and family identity expressed in the context of reconstruction of the noble families of the medieval duchies of Gaeta, Amalfi and Naples. Localised forms of power, and the impact of the Norman conquest on southern Italy, are assessed by means of a remarkable collection of charters preserved in the Codex diplomaticus Cajetanus. The duchy of Gaeta, like its neighbours, was ruled as a private family business. An integral part of its ruling family's power was its monopolisation of parts of the duchy's economy, the use of members of the clan to rule local centres. When the family broke up, the duchy fell to outside predators. The three duchies reacted in different ways to the Normans. Gaeta flourished commercially in the twelfth century, and its unique political response to contacts with the cities of northern Italy (especially Genoa) forms the final part of this study.
Numbers and Nationhood
Authors: Patriarca Silvana
Published: December 2009

Numbers and Nationhood, first published in 1996, explores the Italian inflection of a Europe-wide phenomenon in the nineteenth century: the rise of statistics as a mode of representation in society. Silvana Patriarca examines the ideologies which informed the copious statistical literature produced between the 1820s, when statistical publications began to proliferate in the Italian states, and the 1870s, when a unified Italy entered a fully positivistic era. Her innovative study illuminates the relationship between the needs of an emerging nation and the uses to which statistics were put, generating a long-lasting image of Italy which nevertheless accentuated its internal territorial divisions. By examining the power of numerical representations, Numbers and Nationhood provides a fresh reading of the historiography of Risorgimento Italy and of positivism, bringing to the fore issues of science, ideology, and representation.
Stalin, Siberia and the Crisis of the New Economic Policy
Authors: Hughes James
Published: December 2009

This 1991 book makes an important contribution to the evaluation of the origins of Stalinism. Although it is widely acknowledged by Western scholars that the Soviet grain crisis of 1927–8 and Stalin's Siberian tour of January 1928 were crucial factors in the decision to abandon the New Economic Policy (NEP) and return to a more ideologically rigid policy of collectivisation and rapid industrialisation, studies have hitherto concentrated on the role of leading personalities and 'high politics'. In this book, Dr James Hughes presents an in depth examination of the crisis of the NEP from the regional perspective of Siberia and analyses the events and pressures 'from below', at the grassroots level of Soviet society. Using publications of the Siberian party and statistical investigations of the countryside, Dr Hughes offers insights into several largely uncharted features of the Soviet system in these years.
The Decline, Revival and Fall of the British Empire
Authors: Gallagher John
Published: December 2009

Through his teaching in the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, Jack Gallagher was a major influence on a generation of students of empire. His re-interpretation of the nature of British imperialism, most notably in Africa and the Victorians (written with Ronald Robinson) stimulated much debate. His pupil and colleague Anil Seal has edited for this volume a group of Professor Gallagher's major essays: the unpublished Ford Lectures on the British Empire, and related papers on Africa, India and imperialism. The collection will be welcomed by all concerned with the history of empire throughout what Gallagher saw as its decline, its subsequent rise and its eventual administrative fall.