The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries are now seen as a moment when the ‘second’ British Empire arose from the ruins of the ‘first’ one. One witness to, and participant in, the convulsions of the age was Warren Hastings (1732–1818), the first governor-general of Bengal. Hastings’ career in India, his trial in parliament, and his imperial afterlife all have received fulsome attention. Yet his retirement years have been overlooked, owing to the misperception that they were uneventful. This article (...) introduces and presents a series of letters written by Hastings, late in life, to Governor-General Lord Moira. These letters, published here for the first time, show that Hastings remained an astute observer of British Indian politics. They provide a rich account of the ways in which Britain’s Indian empire evolved in the decades around 1800. Moreover, they reveal that one of that empire’s founders expressed a profoundly critical view of its progress. (shrink)

Historians of the sciences have paid great attention to the ways that faith in what has been called the quantitative spirit emerged as a dominant feature of the politics of science, a theme of obvious salience in current epidemiological and climate crises. There are instructive connexions between measurement practices and orientation towards other cultures—as though scientific modernity somehow appeared through the primacy of robust quantification over subaltern, past, and exotic worlds, where merely provisional judgment allegedly still operated. This highly simplistic (...) Orientalist distinction accompanied assumptions that the remote was best understood as the ancient, a viewpoint common at the same late Enlightenment moment as the apparent institutionalisation of the regime of the exact sciences within European polities. Under this regime, precision surveys—the way the state saw—have often been understood as integral for European societies and even more so in colonised territories. This version of what might be called metrological Orientalism can be disoriented through excellent recent scholarship that explores complex entanglements of measurement practices circulating across very different scientific cultures, which shows how precision devices that claimed merely to represent phenomena often helped produce them. Studies of select cases of relations between European practitioners and indigenous experts, in fields such as Egyptian hydraulics or South Pacific surveys, can reveal even more: the role that judgment and exactitude played in forging very different, politically significant versions of the past history of the sciences. These disorientations can aid novel forms of historical understanding of the politics of science. (shrink)

This study investigates the significant relationship between mental health and academic motivation among graduating students. Thus, the study employed a correlational design to determine if there is a significant relationship between mental health and academic motivation among 150 graduating college students. Hence, the Mental Health Inventory 38 (MHI-38) and Academic Motivation Scale (AMS-C28) were employed to measure the study variables. Moreover, statistical analysis reveals that the r coefficient of 0.35 indicates a low positive correlation between the variables. The p-value of (...) 0.00, which is less than 0.05, leads to the decision to reject the null hypothesis. (shrink)

This study investigates the significant relationship between mental health and academic motivation among graduating students. Thus, the study employed a correlational design to determine if there is a significant relationship between mental health and academic motivation among 150 graduating college students. Hence, the Mental Health Inventory 38 (MHI-38) and Academic Motivation Scale (AMS-C28) were employed to measure the study variables. Moreover, statistical analysis reveals that the r coefficient of 0.35 indicates a low positive correlation between the variables. The p-value of (...) 0.00, which is less than 0.05, leads to the decision to reject the null hypothesis. (shrink)

What is hospitality? Who is it addressed to? Hospitality aims at welcoming those who arrive; it demands giving space and time and sharing our own resources with others. In view of the current global migration crisis and in the midst of the social debates and a critique of the failure of affluent countries and Western democracies to respond in solidarity to those in need, this article attempts to re-consider the space for hospitality drawing from the ethical and the political as (...) the two fundamental pillars of social architecture. In an effort to discuss collective grassroots reactions to this general lack of hospitality, I address the Catalan social platform Volem Acollir in their request to the state to open up the borders for the reception of a larger number of migrants. Far from being an individual choice, or an optional political decision, hospitality confronts us with the moral dilemma of the human response to our cultural others. (shrink)

Untranslatability haunts every literary translation. The rewriting that occurs in working out the particularities between each language recalls, from one inscription to the other, the impossible equivalence that the enduring task of translation seeks to carry out. Aren’t the inherent limits of historical representation, between the manifestation of truth and the evidence-based reconstruction of fact, similar to those related to the problem of translation? What to think, then, of cultural manifestations that use translation as a poetics of remembrance and a (...) way of carrying a past event into the present? This essay argues that translation is more than the communication of meaning or the transmission of information.. (shrink)

Translation of Celan’s and Lévinas’ Meridian. On the Topology of Meeting-Through-a-Caesura by Konstantin Sigov.

Previous studies have demonstrated that orientation-specific deprivation in early life can lead to neural deficits of spatial vision in certain space, and can even result in meridional amblyopia. Individuals with astigmatism are the optimal and natural models for exploring this asymmetric development of spatial vision in the human visual system. This study aims to assess the contrast sensitivity function and EEG signals along two principal meridians in participants with regular astigmatism when being optimal optical corrected. Twelve participants with astigmatism and (...) thirteen participants with were recruited in the current study. CSFs and spatial sweep visual evoked potentials were measured with vertical and horizontal sinewave gratings along two principal meridians monocularly. Area under log CSF, spatial frequency threshold corresponding to 80% contrast gratings, and CSF acuity were calculated from CSF test. In addition, sVEP amplitudes and thresholds were calculated with the recursive least square method. Participants with astigmatism exhibited marked vertical-horizontal resolution disparities even after they were corrected with optimal optical corrections. CSF tests showed that AULCSF along weak meridian was lower than that along strong meridian in both groups. Significant meridional disparity of CSF acuity was also found in both groups. In addition, the MA group showed larger meridional disparity compared to the AST group. Spatial sVEP thresholds also supported the existence of marked meridional disparity. Our results suggest that meridian-specific partial deprivation in early life might lead to monocularly asymmetric development of spatial vision in the human visual system. In terms of application, we tested the feasibility and reliability of adopting psychophysical and EEG scalings to investigate the asymmetric development of spatial vision related to astigmatism. These paradigms are potentially applicable to reduce and even eliminate the meridional disparity in the primary visual cortex by adopting perceptual learning or other vision-related interventions. (shrink)

Indeed. Nothing. Not the slightest. I act in a void. Paul Celan in a letter to the editor of Tagesspiegel in October 1959 1 Without doubt Martin Heidegger was the most influential and controversial...

This full-color, user-friendly book features simple meridian exercises that combine breathing, movement, stretching, and focused attention to improve overall balance and flexibility. The book identifies specific meridian exercises to alleviate common ailments, including headaches, colds, and the flu, as well as more serious conditions, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and thyroid disorders. Meridian exercise is a technique developed and perfected over the course of thousands of years in the Asian healing arts traditions. This book includes the (...) following features: Low-impact, time-efficient exercises that relieve stress, restore physical health, and rebalance the mind Step-by-step instructions with accompanying photos for dozens of exercises specifically designed for common symptoms Breathing and relaxation techniques to awaken innate healing power and. (shrink)

In recent years, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has grown both in popularity and economic importance. I argue that this success is primarily the result of domestication to the dominant culture of biomedicine and is readily observable in images and metaphors of the body used both in CAM and biomedical discourse. It is suggested that this shared imagery points to a new phase in the relationship between the body and society. The domestication of CAM is further illustrated through processes of (...) dissemination and professionalization. The article concludes by discussing the domestication of CAM as a reflection of an epistemological shift in biomedicine alongside its continued hegemony. (shrink)

The use of collaborative online social media applications as tools of communication is increasing in contemporary society. Correspondingly, a number of contemporary artists are exploring online interaction in their material public art practice, as a new form of documentation, promotion and creative collaboration. Mapping and analysing these new forms of interaction provide a method to determine the scope of their contribution to new artistic knowledge. This paper argues that contemporary public art practice can be cognisant of both physical and virtual (...) contributions as equally active participants in collaboration. It also identifies the convergence between artist and audience in virtual and physical space, and examines how this is affected by certain conditions and models of behaviour, which influence how a new collaborative creative discourse in public art can be constructed. (shrink)

We can now survey the ruins of a Babelian tower of discourse about cosmopolitanism. We speak of “elite travel lounge,” “Davos,” “banal” as well as of “reflexive,” “really existing,” “patriotic,” and “horizontal” cosmopolitanisms. Here, an attempt is made to extract what is normative and ideal in the concept of cosmopolitanism by foregrounding the epistemic and moral dimensions of this attitude towards the world and other cultures. Kant, in a rather unexpected way, is profiled as the exemplification of what is here (...) called “imperial” cosmopolitanism, which is both blind and dismissive of its own material conditions of possibility. Then, through a discussion of the works of Nussbaum, Appiah, Mignolo, Butler, Benhabib and Beck the author elaborates a version of cosmopolitanism that is grounded, enlightened, and reflexive, which corrects and supersedes Kant’s own Eurocentric cosmopolitanism. We do not live in an age of cosmopolitanism, but in an age of cosmopolitization. Democratic iterations that are jurisgenerative are matched at the global level by cosmopolitan iterations that are both jurisgenerative and affect generating. (shrink)

Abstract“Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response” (ASMR) refers to a sensory‐emotional experience that was first explicitly identified and named within the past two decades in online discussion boards. Since then, there has been mounting psychological and neural evidence of a clustering of properties common to the phenomenon of ASMR, including convergence on the set of stimuli that trigger the experience, the properties of the experience itself, and its downstream effects. Moreover, psychological instruments have begun to be developed and employed in an (...) attempt to measure it. Based on this empirical work, we make the case that despite its nonscientific origins, ASMR is a good candidate for being a real kind in the cognitive sciences. The phenomenon appears to have a robust causal profile and may also have an adaptive evolutionary history. We also argue that a more thorough understanding of the distinctive type of phenomenal experience involved in an ASMR episode can shed light on the functions of consciousness, and ultimately undermine certain “cognitive” theories of consciousness. We conclude that ASMR should be the subject of more extensive scientific investigation, particularly since it may also have the potential for therapeutic applications. (shrink)

(1995). Out of the meridian: John Bird's equatorial sector and the new technology of astronomical measurement. Annals of Science: Vol. 52, No. 5, pp. 431-463.

야율초재는 몽골제국의 중서령(中書令)으로서 초대 대칸이었던 칭기즈칸(成吉思汗, 1162-1227)과 툴루이(拖雷, 1192-1232), 제2대 오고타이(窩濶台, 1185-1241)를 가까운 거리에서 섬기며, 몽골제국의 기틀을 마련한 인물이다. 야율초재는 원대의 대시인으로도 이름이 높다. 유불의 회통이 사상적 기반이다. 야율초재는 유불은 물론 시가, 사장, 천문, 역술, 점복, 의술, 경세 등 모든 방면에서 뛰어난 업적을 남겼다. 그의 학문은 엄격한 화이론에 따른 정통론의 상식에서 벗어난다. 민족의 구분을 넘어서 모두 화합과 번영을 누리는 대일통(大一統) 사상을 견지했으며, 유가의 경세적 이상을 추구하여 조정에 간청했고, 몽골제국이 유교를 통치 수단으로 채택하게 한 막후 인물로 평가받는다. 야율초재는 “화이(華夷)가 하나 되어서 (...) 태평을 함께 누리리라(華夷一統, 共享太平).”라고 말했던 것처럼, 민족의 구분이 없고, 사농공상 등 모든 백성이 함께 누리는 번영의 사회를 꿈꾸었다. 대일통을 위해서 사상의 건강함을 그 무엇보다 중시했다. 야율초재는 틈만 나면 세 명의 대칸에게 주공의 도리를 설파했다고 한다. 동시에 야율초재는 치천하장(治天下匠), 즉 천하가 수월하게 돌아가도록 움직인 장인으로 불린다. 금나라는 멸망하고 원나라가 아직 정식으로 건립되지 않았을 때, 세상은 도탄에 빠져있었다. 여기서 백성을 구해야 한다는 신념을 유일한 정치적 이상으로 삼았다. 『잠연거사문집(湛然居士文集)』은 당시의 역사적 상황을 볼 수 있으며, 한 대가의 사상이 응축되어 있다. 비록 대부분 작품이 시가로 구성되어 있지만, 초기 몽골 황실의 제왕학을 구성하기 위한 기초자료로서 가치가 높다. 이 논문의 제목은 본래 ｢13세기 초반 몽골제국의 제왕학 연구의 기초 작업으로서 야율초재의 『잠연거사문집』의 독서』로 정하고자 했다. 이 글은 13세기 몽골 황실의 제왕학 구성을 위한 예비 연구이다. 앞으로의 연구를 위해서 초석을 다지고자 한다. (shrink)

The so-called War on Terror has given rise to a virulent discourse that demonizes all those who allegedly seek to do harm and kill Americans. A veritable bestiary of demonic and bestial creatures has been thus ensembled, constituting what one cannot but call an “imperial bestiary.” Here we do not so much consider the contents of this imperial bestiary, as much as seek to analyze its grammar, that is, the way it operates on certain moral assumptions that have (...) very pernicious moral consequences. Reconstructing the work of some recent critical philosophers, a possible way to dismantle all bestiaries, whether imperial or colonial, is elaborated. The work of Mary Midgley, Jacques Derrida and Donna Haraway are brought together to develop what has been here called a politics beyond monsters, beasts, roguish animals, and infesting vermin that must be at best domesticated, and at worst exterminated. (shrink)

The so-called War on Terror has given rise to a virulent discourse that demonizes all those who allegedly seek to do harm and kill Americans. A veritable bestiary of demonic and bestial creatures has been thus ensembled, constituting what one cannot but call an “imperial bestiary.” Here we do not so much consider the contents of this imperial bestiary, as much as seek to analyze its grammar, that is, the way it operates on certain moral assumptions that have (...) very pernicious moral consequences. Reconstructing the work of some recent critical philosophers, a possible way to dismantle all bestiaries, whether imperial or colonial, is elaborated. The work of Mary Midgley, Jacques Derrida and Donna Haraway are brought together to develop what has been here called a politics beyond monsters, beasts, roguish animals, and infesting vermin that must be at best domesticated, and at worst exterminated. (shrink)

This article sheds new light on late-19th-century debates about the organization of knowledge through its emphasis on German orientalism and comparative linguistics. Centering on Friedrich Carl Andreas’ (1846–1930) controversial reconstruction of the Avestan language and its sacred literary corpus, I highlight a shift from the history of texts to an engagement with ‘living’ language in the decades around 1900. Andreas is shown to have inherited aspects of two schools, which collectively defined the landscape of 19th-century philological research – one traditional (...) and the other comparative. The long-standing struggle between these schools demonstrates that ‘the humanities’ were no monolithic foil to the rise of natural sciences during the second half of the 19thcentury. Instead, I argue that alternative conceptual frameworks were cultivated within German philology – concepts that were taken up in broader disciplinary debates, though they were not narrowly the products of them. (shrink)

Imperial Plato presents new translations of three introductions to Plato's thought from the second half of the second century CE: the Introduction to Plato by Albinus of Smyrna, Dissertation 11 of Maximus of Tyre, and On Plato and his Teaching by Apuleius of Madaurus. These three presentations of Plato's ideas--one a Greek dialectic introduction with a suggested reading order for Plato's dialogues, another a Greek speech in the sophistic style of the time, and one a lengthy doxological study in (...) Latin--are examples by three distinct authors using divergent methods of the assorted ways in which Plato and Platonism were understood and discussed during the revival of Hellenism and Greek Philosophy, and the period of the Roman Empire often referred to as the Second Sophistic. (shrink)

"Large-format photo study and narratives record journeys along the 100th Meridian from the Canadian to the Mexican borders. Explores life and communities along the vertical line that denotes the nation's geographic center and the shift in annual rainfallto less than twenty inches per year"--Provided by publisher.

For decades, presidents of the Association of American Geographers have written insightful columns in the AAG Newsletter. One of the most popular sections of the newsletter, these columns illustrate the changes and consistencies of geography over the past thirty-four years. They offer an insight into the past of the geography discipline and a broader perspective on the future. Previously inaccessible even to most professional geographers, the Presidential Columns will now be available in Presidential Musings from the Meridian: Reflections of (...) the Nature of Geography. (shrink)

In this article, I explore how the twin forces of imperial and entomological power allowed Britain to shape locust research and control across Africa, the Middle East and South Asia from the 1920s to the early 1950s. Imperial power came from the size of the formal and informal empire, and alliances with other colonial powers to tackle a common threat to agriculture and trade. Entomological authority came primarily from the work of Boris Uvarov and his small team of (...) museum and fieldworkers based at the Imperial Bureau of Entomology (IBE), later the Imperial Institute of Entomology (IIE). I begin by discussing how Uvarov's phase theory of the origin of swarming changed the prospects for the control of locust plagues. The imperial gaze and networks of the IBE and IIE were suited to a problem that was transnational and transcontinental. In the 1930s, Britain was drawn into plans for international cooperation on locust organizations that met the needs of science, to give better sharing of knowledge, and the needs for science, to secure the resources for research and control. However, such organizations were only created during the Second World War, when new plagues threatened military operations, as I show in relation to the measures taken to control the red locust and desert locust. In the final section, I follow the fate of the wartime cooperation in initiatives to establish permanent control organizations. It is a story of the decline of British political power in locust affairs as the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and regional agencies took over. My account of British locust research and control reveals a neglected aspect of histories of entomology and imperial/colonial science, especially their international relations and the continuing importance of metropolitan research centres. (shrink)

This contribution argues, first, that pre-national forms of state were not displaced or supplanted by a new, national form. What we call the nation-state was not the successor to imperial or city-states but was itself a form of the European imperial city-states that had driven the expansion of capitalism in previous centuries. It argues, second, that national states emerged only after 1945 and only in a handful of states where, through welfare reforms and market and industry regulation, investment (...) and production were made to serve the expansion and integration of national markets. Third, with the dismantling of Keynesian policies in these states, pre-national (pre-Keynesian) structures are resurfacing. What scholars describe as the emergence of ‘post-national spatialities’ and of ‘global cities’ and city regions represents the resurgence of a durable and historically dominant form of state: the imperial city-state form. The ‘re-scaling’ of nation-states and growing prominence of ‘global cities’ and ‘city regions’ are heralding the end of the brief history of actually existing nation-states and the re-deployment of the imperial city-state model. (shrink)

This article discusses the poem written by Joseph Brodsky shortly after the proclamation of Ukrainian independence in the early 1990s. It compares this poem with other pieces by the same author that deal with the paradigm of “independence vs. imperial unity.” These poems present a difference, which is striking at first glance: Brodsky welcomes Lithuanian independence, while simultaneously denying the same rights to Ukrainians and Aztecs. As for Afghanis … his disdain is even more palpable. The proposed explanation is (...) the concept of “Cultural Empire,” which the poet considers to be the ultimate good. This article briefly mentions the general problem of de-imperializing classical Russian literature in the context of post-colonial studies. (shrink)

“It may be thought that I am prejudiced. Perhaps I am. I would be ashamed of myself if I were not.” 1 When Mark Twain undertook correspondence for San Francisco’s Alta California on a $1250 trip to Europe and the Holy Land in 1867 he had an established reputation as a humorist and was on the cusp of making the transition from journalist to author. Innocents Abroad, “an unvarnished tale” 2 published in 1869 and sewn together with questionable regard for (...) coherence or thematic consistency, sold thirty-one thousand copies in one year. Only Uncle Tom’s Cabin had done better, as Twain himself noted. What made his work such a success? “This book is the record of a pleasure trip” , Twain declared, yet there had already been innumerable pleasure trips and by more established authors than he. The multiplicity and seemingly contradictory narrative stances in Innocents makes any essentialist reading hard to establish and what one stance purports is as likely and easy to prove as any other. In the main though, two bodies of criticism have prevailed hitherto, one seeing the text as flawed by internal discontinuities, the other perceiving that disjointed narration need not preclude a unified authorial consciousness. It is my contention that Twain most likely wrote with at least five entirely separate purposes in mind, none of which coexisted simultaneously: i. The profit, reputation and contractual fulfilment to be had in writing c. 1500 words to newspapers daily. ii. The demonstrable acquisition of high society vocabulary and cultural regard commended by Mrs. Fairbanks and Olivia Langdom. iii. An arrant attack upon Presbyterianism. iv. A break with the codified genre of travel writing. v. The promotion of Twain as healer of a wounded nation. Point v) has gone largely neglected by critics. Yet Twain’s role as a unifier in post Civil-War society, as projector of national identity abroad for the benefit of domestic patriotism, and as healer of war-torn America is a cornerstone to our understanding Innocents. As shall be seen, shades of mental/national injury coexist in the text, alongside a humorous denigration of foreigners. The resultant implied superiority of America and Americans, notwithstanding Twain’s passing jabs at them and in spite of their bloody internecine conflict, is what I term “imperial therapy.”. (shrink)

The article investigates Eustratius of Constantinople's version of the life and martyrdom of the late sixth-century martyr, Golinduch, in the context of the manipulation of saints' cults and relics by the imperial government under Emperor Maurice. Composed on the eve of Phocas's putsch, Eustratius's Life of Golinduch displays how a rhetoric of saintly intercession on behalf of the 'God-guarded' Christian empire was deployed in order to strengthen the sacredness of imperial authority. Crucially, however, Eustratius's text also reveals how (...) far this vision of the empire's sainted benefactors was contested at Constantinople. The paper argues that this reflects a current of opposition to the ideology of Christian autocracy that had been emerging since the time of Justinian. (shrink)

Roman emperors were at the pinnacle of society. They were supreme commanders of the armies, the highest priests and the ultimate source of law and justice. These three roles were made clear to the inhabitants of the empire from the reign of Augustus onwards through a variety of media. Public ceremonies showed emperors leaving the city for campaigns, and returning in triumph, at sacrifice, or sitting in judgement. Inscriptions likewise indicated the main roles of emperors through titulature or narrative. The (...) military and the religious leadership of emperors were also made abundantly clear through public monuments and on centrally issued coinage. Yet, throughout Roman imperial history these last two types of source material are surprisingly silent on the emperors’ legal role. (shrink)

In the third century AD, under the pressure of plagues, external invasion, rising army costs, and usurpation, the Roman emperors incrementally debased the silver coinage that was produced at their imperial mints and incrementally took over civic mints. The debasement, from 2.7 g of silver to 0.04 g of silver in the equivalent of a denarius from 160–274 ad, was accompanied by worries from emperors, mint-workers, and bankers about the value of the currency; however, the total loss of purchasing (...) power of the Roman coinage from the same era was 50–70 %, far less than would be expected from the change in metallic content, if it were the primary source of value. The currency reform of Aurelian in 274 ad, despite raising metallic values of coins, was followed by at least a 90 % reduction in the purchasing power of the silver coinage from 274–301 ad, the year of Diocletian’s Edict on Maximum Prices, showing a paradoxically inverse relationship between metallic value and purchasing power. Based on this quandary, I argue that the Roman silver coinage of the third century CE became a fiat currency in some respects, deriving its guarantee from imperial iconography and assurances rather than from bullion value. The fiat nature of the silver coinage was largely present in usage as a medium of exchange for those without as much long-term interest in maintaining liquid stores of value; this is indicated by the differential debasement of the denarius and aureus; imperial actions and hoarding practices indicate the extent to which the currency was accepted at nominal value. I examine the reactions of different social groups in order to determine the perceived value of the Roman coinage during this time, and in order to understand the paradoxical collapse in the currency’s value in the late third century. To demonstrate this, I will present the applicable elements of the modern concept of “fiat” to this context through portrayal of emperors and usurpers on coins, use coin hoard data to determine the effect of Gresham’s Law, and examine historical and papyrological accounts of currency reforms. I will also use evidence of the expansion of taxes in kind and the rejection of nominal value by both emperor and subjects to argue that the inflation following Aurelian’s reform resulted from an invalidation of the trust in imperial fiat. (shrink)

The founding of the Han 漢 dynasty by a man of common birth, Liu Bang 劉邦, precipitated a new awareness that class boundaries had become more fluid than in prior generations. New fashions threatened the established social order as wealthy individuals pretended to status that they had not yet achieved. To respond to these concerns, Jia Yi 賈誼 proposed a new sumptuary code regulating a range of luxury goods from apparel to accessories to ritual wares. This sumptuary system was designed (...) to bolster the authority of the imperial throne and to distinguish members of the Han government and the imperial family from other elites. This essay will present an overview of Jia Yi’s sumptuary code and consider its relationship to earlier theories of ritual reform. It will argue that his system combined Lord Shang’s 商 theory of circumstantial advantage with a new scheme of imperial publicity. The final section of this study assesses the implementation of Jia Yi’s recommendations by using jade as a case study. Based on recent archaeological evidence, I argue that Jia Yi’s ideas about jade in the context of his sumptuary guidelines have a contemporaneity with the revitalization of jade craft in the early Western Han. (shrink)

This review focuses on Pekka Hämäläinen’s characterization and analysis of the Comanche empire as a spatial category in The Comanche Empire and discusses how this work relates to broader discussions about space and power in borderlands and imperial histories. Although empires have long been central actors in borderlands histories, “empire” has not necessarily been a category of spatial organization and analysis and certainly not one used to describe spaces controlled by Native peoples. By contrast, while Hämäläinen emphasizes the (...) class='Hi'>imperial characteristics of the economic, political, and cultural dimensions of Comanche history , he also uses “empire” to characterize Comanche dominance spatially. Hämäläinen helps us to rethink the spatial dynamics that both shaped and were produced by the encounters between Comanches and Spaniards, French, Mexicans, Americans, and other Native peoples in the Great Plains during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. By analyzing how Comanches came to control vast stretches of the southern plains, The Comanche Empire challenges our assumptions about how Native polities and imperial powers thought about territorial claims and how they employed more nuanced spatial strategies to assert their authority, extend their cultural influence, and control trade and resources. (shrink)

An account of the role and the nature of logic in imperial stoic philosophy which challenges the prevailing orthodoxy and presents a novel interpretation of this crucial period of ancient philosophy.

Republicanism and imperialism are typically understood to be located at opposite ends of the political spectrum. In Imperial Republics, Edward G. Andrew challenges the supposed incompatibility of these theories with regard to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century revolutions in England, the United States, and France. Many scholars have noted the influence of the Roman state on the ideology of republican revolutionaries, especially in the model it provided for transforming subordinate subjects into autonomous citizens. Andrew finds an equally important parallel between Rome's (...) expansionary dynamic — in contrast to that of Athens, Sparta, or Carthage — and the imperial rivalries that emerged between the United States, France, and England in the age of revolutions. Imperial Republics is a sophisticated, wide-ranging examination of the intellectual origins of republican movements, and explains why revolutionaries felt the need to 'don the toga' in laying the foundation for their own uprisings. (shrink)

Despite the importance of Ichikawa's writings, this volume is the first by any scholar to outline his critique.

A study of the road to modern problem solving in China, winding between a traditional Confucian style of inquiry and one associated with science.

An Imperial State at War: Britain from 1689 to 1815. Edited by Lawrence Stone (London: Routledge, 1994), 374 pp., £40.00 cloth.

All people edit. We don't call it editing, of course. We call it thinking. Frogs think too. When a frog thinks'food', it looks for a moving dot; in a cage of dead flies, a frog starves to death. When something doesnot fit the category, it is not seen. Humans likewise. "Do you see nothing there?" Hamlet asks; "Nothingat all; yet all that is I see", Gertrude replies, exemplifying our difficulty with seeingthings not valued.[1] The reason for such editing is mental (...) economy; given physiological computationallimits, operating with a limited set of categories and properties avoids cognitive paralysis. (shrink)