Ocean of Letters is a remarkable history of imperialism,language, and creolization in the largest African diaspora of theIndian Ocean in the early modern period. Ranging from Madagascar tothe Mascarenes, the Comores, and South Africa, Pier M. Larson shedsnew light on the roles of slavery, emancipation, oceanic travel,Christian missions, and colonial linguistics in the making ofMalagasy-language literacy in the islands of the western IndianOcean. He shows how enslaved and free Malagasy together withcertain European colonists and missionaries promoted the Malagasylanguage, literacy projects and letter writing in the multilingualcolonial societies of the region between the seventeenth andmid-nineteenth centuries. Addressing current debates in the historyof Africa and the African diaspora, slavery, abolition,creolization and the making of modern African literatures, the bookcrosses thematic as well as geo-imperial boundaries and bringsfresh perspectives to Indian Ocean history.

Goran Palm – a well-known Swedish writer and poet – went to workincognito in one of the factories of LM Ericsson. He did this toobtain a better understanding of the life of the manual worker in alarge factory, and to gain from that understanding a more maturepolitical view. Going into a factory and joining a particular workgroup enabled the author to see beyond the monolithic idea of theworking class and to know and appreciate his fellow workers asindividuals. The writing is more literary than scientific, thelanguage is concrete, and portraits, satire and dialogue are mixedto provide a full and lively picture into which the development ofPalm's ideas is inserted. His particular concern is the worker'stendency to regard work as a depressing overture to the leisuretime constantly in his thoughts. This is what Palm means by TheFlight from Work.

In contrast to those who see the 1950s as essentially aconservative period, and who view the 1960s as a time of rapidmoral change, The Permissive Society points to the emergence of aliberalizing impulse during the Truman and Eisenhower years. Thebook shows how, during the 1950s, a traditionalist moral frameworkwas beginning to give way to a less authoritarian approach to moralissues as demonstrated by a more relaxed style of child-rearing,the rising status of women both inside and outside the home, theincreasing reluctance of Americans to regard alcoholism as a sin,loosening sexual attitudes, the increasing influence of modernpsychology, and, correspondingly, the declining influence ofreligion in the personal lives of most Americans.

In this 1996 cultural history which considers thetransformation of south Indian institutions under British colonialrule in the nineteenth century, Pamela Price focuses on the twoformer 'little kingdoms' of Ramnad and Sivaganga which came undercolonial governance as revenue estates. She demonstrates howrivalries among the royal families and major zamindari temples, andthe disintegration of indigenous institutions of rule, contributedto the development of nationalism and identity amongst the peopleof southern Tamil country. The author also shows how religioussymbols and practices going back to the seventeenth century werereformulated and acquired a new significance in the colonialcontext. Arguing for a reappraisal of the relationship of Hinduismto politics, Price finds that these symbols and practices continueto inform popular expectation of political leadership today.

This book examines the history of the colonial conquest of aneglected region of Angola from an alternative perspective. DrClarence-Smith has used advances in Marxist theory to develop amodel of the early colonial period which differs greatly from theestablished historiography of `African resistance'. Although themain focus is on local socio-economic structures, one chapterplaces the region in the wider context of the political economy ofthe partition of Africa, with strong emphasis on the economicmotivations of Portugal. A brief epilogue brings the story inoutline to the end of Portuguese colonialism. The rest of the bookanalyses colonial society and African peasant societies in turn.Capitalist relations of production were generally predominant inlocal colonial society, but slavery persisted into the 1910s andwas followed by a system of forced labour.

In this wide-ranging study, Josephine McDonagh examines theidea of child murder in British culture in the eighteenth andnineteenth centuries. Analysing texts drawn from economics,philosophy, law, medicine as well as from literature, McDonaghhighlights the manifold ways in which child murder echoes andreverberates in a variety of cultural debates and social practices.She places literary works within social, political and culturalcontexts, including debates on luxury, penal reform campaigns,slavery, the treatment of the poor, and birth control. She traces atrajectory from Swift's A Modest Proposal through to the debates onthe New Woman at the turn of the twentieth century by way of Burke,Wordsworth, Wollstonecraft, George Eliot, George Egerton, andThomas Hardy, among others. McDonagh demonstrates the hauntingpersistence of the notion of child murder within British culture ina volume that will be of interest to cultural and literary scholarsalike.

How did life on earth originate? Did replication ormetabolism come first in the history of life? In this book, FreemanDyson examines these questions and discusses the two main theoriesthat try to explain how naturally occurring chemicals couldorganize themselves into living creatures. The majority view isthat life began with replicating molecules, the precursors ofmodern genes. The minority belief is that random populations ofmolecules evolved metabolic activities before exact replicationexisted. Dyson analyzes both of these theories with reference torecent important discoveries by geologists and chemists. His mainaim is to stimulate experiments that could help to decide whichtheory is correct. This second edition covers the enormous advancesthat have been made in biology and geology in the past and theimpact they have had on our ideas about how life began. It is aclearly-written, fascinating book that will appeal to anyoneinterested in the origins of life.

In this work the authors present a general theory ofbureaucracy and use it to explain behaviour in large organizationsand to explain what determines efficiency in both governments andbusiness corporations. The theory uses the methods of standardneoclassical economic theory. It relies on two central principles:that members of an organization trade with one another and thatthey compete with one another. Authority, which is the basis forconventional theories of bureaucracy, is given a role, despitereliance on the idea of trade between bureaucracies. It is argued,however, that bureaucracies cannot operate efficiently on the basisof authority alone. Exchange between bureaucrats is hamperedbecause promises are not enforceable. So trust and loyalty betweenmembers of bureaucratic networks play an important part. Theauthors find that vertical networks promote efficiency whilehorizontal ones impede it.

This study of the emergence of machine politics in New YorkCity during the antebellum years sheds light on the origins of asystem that was the characteristic form of government in UnitedStates cities from the mid-nineteenth until well into the twentiethcentury. In contrast to previous explanations that have found theorigins of machine politics in immigrant culture and ethnicconflict, Professor Bridges shows that central elements of thesystem long predated a significant immigrant presence. Her analysisfocuses on two large-scale transformations in the Americanpolitical economy that occurred during these years:industrialization, which reorganized the social order and provokedconflict and change; and the extension of the franchise through theabolition of property barriers, which necessitated theincorporation of 'the many' into political life. It was this uniquecombination of circumstances, the author argues, that provided thecontext for the development of machine politics.

In 2004 the European Union and NATO each added ten new memberstates, most from the post-communist countries of Eastern andCentral Europe. In order to prepare for membership, these countrieshad to make many thousands of institutional and legal adjustments.Indeed, they often tried to modernize in just a few years,implementing practices that evolved over many decades in WesternEurope. This book emphasizes the way that policy elites in Centraland Eastern Europe often 'ordered from the menu' of establishedWestern practices. When did this emulation of Western practicessucceed and when did it result in a fiasco? Professor Jacobyexamines empirical cases in agriculture, regional policy, consumerprotection, health care, civilian control of the military, andmilitary professionalism from Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland,Bulgaria, and the Ukraine. The book addresses debates ininstitutionalist theory, including conditionality, Europeanization,and external influences on democratic and market transitions.

Stowe, Hawthorne, Melville, and Twain: these are just a few ofthe world-class novelists of nineteenth-century America. Thenineteenth-century American novel was a highly fluid form,constantly evolving in response to the turbulent events of theperiod and emerging as a key component in American identity,growth, expansion and the Civil War. Gregg Crane tells the story ofthe American novel from its beginnings in the early republic to theend of the nineteenth century. Treating the famous and many lesswell-known works, Crane discusses the genre's major figures, themesand developments. He analyses the different types of Americanfiction - romance, sentimental fiction, and the realist novel - indetail, while the historical context is explained in relation tohow novelists explored the changing world around them. Thiscomprehensive and stimulating introduction will enhance students'experience of reading and studying the whole canon of Americanfiction.

The four gospels are a central part of the Christian canon of*ure. In the faith of Christians, this canon constitutes alife-giving witness to who God is and what it means to be trulyhuman. This volume treats the gospels not just as historicalsources, but also as crucial testimony to the life of God madeknown in Jesus Christ. This approach helps to overcome thesometimes damaging split between critical gospel study andquestions of theology, ethics and the life of faith. The essays areby acknowledged experts in a range of theological disciplines. Thefirst section considers what are appropriate ways of reading thegospels given the kinds of texts they are. The second, centralsection covers the contents of the gospels. The third section looksat the impact of the gospels in church and society across historyand up to the present day.

The Discovery of Islands consists of a series of linked essaysin British history, written by one of the world's leadinghistorians of political thought and published over the past threedecades. Its purpose is to present British history as that ofseveral nations interacting with - and sometimes seceding from - animperial state. The commentary presents this history as that of anarchipelago, expanding across oceans to the Antipodes. Both NewZealand history and the author's New Zealand heritage inform thisvision, presenting British history as oceanic and global,complementing (and occasionally criticising) the presentation ofthat history as European. Professor Pocock's interpretation ofBritish history has been hugely influential in recent years, makingThe Discovery of Islands a resource of immense value for historiansof Britain and the world.

This study breaks new ground in investigating candidatebehavior in American electoral campaigns. It centers on a questionof equal importance to citizens and scholars: how can we producebetter political campaigns? First, Simon develops the idea ofdialogue as a standard for evaluating political campaigns. Second,he reveals that candidates' self-interest in winning leads toavoiding dialogue or substantive campaign discourse. Third, thetext demonstrates the beneficial effects produced by the littledialogue that actually occurs and finally, pinpoints the forcesresponsible for these rare occurrences.

For centuries, until the consolidation of modern standard Hindiafter 1900, the Hindi dialect known as Braj Bhāsā enjoyed greatprestige as the vehicle of the Krsna cult literature of northernIndia, as well as for the brilliance of its secular literature.Most of this material was in verse, although since the beginning ofthe last century we have had knowledge of the existence of texts inSanskritized Braj Bhāsā prose, chiefly sectarian chronicles andcommentaries, from a relatively early date. In this, the earliestthorough analysis of a Braj Bhāsā text, Dr McGregor presents one ofthe oldest known Braj Bhāsā prose texts: a Braj commentary on theSanskrit Nīti?ataka of Bhartrhari, originally composed about 1600.His detailed examination of the morphology, phonology and syntax ofits language casts light on the types of language that underlie theBraj Bhāsā used in verse literature, and provide a comparativebasis for further studies of the prose produced in Braj and inother Hindi dialects before the nineteent

The literature of World War II has emerged as an accomplished,moving, and challenging body of work, produced by writers asdifferent as Norman Mailer and Virginia Woolf, Primo Levi andErnest Hemingway, Jean-Paul Sartre and W. H. Auden. This Companionprovides a comprehensive overview of the international literaturesof the war: both those works that recorded or reflected experiencesof the war as it happened, and those that tried to make sense of itafterwards. It surveys the writing produced in the major combatantnations (Britain and the Commonwealth, the USA, Japan, Germany,France, Italy, and the USSR), and explores its common themes. Withits chronology and guide to further reading, it will be aninvaluable source of information and inspiration for students andscholars of modern literature and war studies.

In 1957, Lee Cronbach called on the membership of the AmericanPsychological Association to bring together experimental anddifferential approaches to the study of cognition. The field ofintelligence research is an example of a response to that call, andCognition and Intelligence: Identifying the Mechanisms of Mindinvestigates the progress of this research program in theliterature of the past several decades. With contributions fromformative experts in the field, including Earl Hunt and RobertSternberg, this volume reviews the research on the study ofintelligence from diverse cognitive approaches, from the mostbottom-up to the most top-down. The authors present their findingson the underlying cognitive aspects of intelligence based on theirstudies of neuroscience, reaction time, artificial intelligence,problem solving, metacognition, and development. The booksummarizes and synthesizes the literature reviewed and makesrecommendations for the pursuit of future research in thefield.