The Life Sciences, 1900–2000: Analysis and Social Welfare from Mendel and Koch to Biotech and Conservation

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 185-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Manning

Abstract The life sciences underwent a dramatic transformation during the twentieth century, with an expansion in fundamental knowledge of the process of evolution and its molecular basis, through advances in health care that greatly extended human life, and by the combination of these advances to address the problem of conserving the many forms of life threatened by expanding human society. The essay highlights the worldwide emphasis on social welfare in the years 1945–1980 and the expanding role of international collaboration, especially in the International Biological Program and its advances in ecology and the notion of the biosphere, and in the emergence of molecular biology. This was also the era of the Cold War, yet military confrontation had fewer implications for life sciences than for the natural sciences in that era. After 1980, deregulation and neoliberalism weakened programs for social welfare, yet links among the varying strands of life sciences continued to grow, bringing the development of genomics and its many implications, expanding epidemiology to include reliance on social sciences, and deepening ecological studies as the Anthropocene became more and more prevalent. In sum, the experience of the life sciences should make it clear to world historians that scientific advance goes beyond the achievements of brilliant but isolated researchers: those same advances rely substantially on social movements, migration, and the exchange of knowledge across intellectual and physical boundaries.

2021 ◽  

Free Voices in the USSR is a project dedicated to the myriad of independent voices present in the culture of dissent in the Soviet Union in the second half of the twentieth century. Its aim is to offer a conceptual overview of the many forms of dissent by exploring two main thematic areas, the first devoted to “free voices” in the USSR and the second focused on reception in the West. The different manifestations of the USSR’s ‘Second Culture’, which was non-official and independent, spread thanks to the samizdat (the clandestine publication and circulation of texts within the USSR) and the tamizdat (the publication of texts forbidden in the USSR in the West). The reception of non-official forms of expression in the West is explored in the context of the debates arising from the Cold War; the role of the West in engaging with the literary, cultural and artistic challenges to the Soviet regime from within its own borders proved fundamental. Contributions to this website including critical essays, bio-bibliographic entries, archive information and the review and cataloguing of magazines are the result of coordinated research by a group of specialists at an international level.


1982 ◽  
Vol 89 ◽  
pp. 74-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu-ming Shaw

Reverend John Leighton Stuart (1876–1962) served as U.S. ambassador to China from July 1946 until August 1949. In the many discussions of his ambassadorship the one diplomatic mission that has aroused the most speculation and debate was his abortive trip to Beijing, contemplated in June–July 1949, to meet with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. Some students of Sino-American relations have claimed that had this trip been made the misunderstanding and subsequent hostility between the United States and the People's Republic of China in the post-1949 period could have been avoided; therefore, the unmaking of this trip constituted another “lost chance in China” in establishing a working relationship between the two countries. But others have thought that given the realities of the Cold War in 1949 and the internal political constraints existing in each country, no substantial result could have been gained from such a trip. Therefore, the thesis of a “lost chance in China” was more an unfounded speculation than a credible affirmation.


Istoriya ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6 (104)) ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Valery Yungblyud

The article is devoted to the study of various aspects of daily life of the US Embassy in Czechoslovakia in 1945—1948. The author considers the main areas of its work, major problems and difficulties that American diplomats had to overcome being in difficult conditions of the post-war economic recovery and international tension growth. Special attention is paid to the role of Ambassador L. A. Steinhardt, his methods of leadership, interactions with subordinates, with the Czechoslovak authorities and the State Department. This allows to reveal some new aspects of American diplomacy functioning, as well as to identify poorly explored factors that influenced American politics in Central Europe during the years when the Cold War was brewing and tensions between Moscow and Washington were rising. The article is based on unpublished primary sources from the American archives.


1998 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 14-16
Author(s):  
Daniel P. Volman

Studies of U.S. government relations with Africa have generally focused on the role of the executive branch, specifically by examining and analyzing the views and activities of administration officials and the members of executive branch bureaucracies. This is only natural, given the predominant role that the executive branch has historically played in the development and implementation of U.S. policy toward the continent. However, the U.S. Congress has always played an important role in determining U.S. policy toward Africa due to its constitutional authority over the appropriation and authorization of funding for all foreign operations conducted by the executive branch. Furthermore, Congress enacted legislation on several occasions during the Cold War period that directly affected U.S. policy. For example, Congress approved the Clark Amendment prohibiting U.S. intervention in Angola (although it later voted to repeal the amendment) and also passed the 1986 Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, which imposed sanctions on South Africa over the veto of the Reagan administration.


2013 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 241-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomasz Inglot

This paper examines international influences of the Western welfare state on social policy ideas, institutions and reforms in the Soviet bloc during the Cold War. It identifies three types of Eastern reactions to or interactions with the West: “condemnation” of various “bourgeois” conceptions of social welfare; “competition” or increased attention to redistribution and social needs of the population stemming from the demonstrable successes of Western welfare states; and “creative learning” or implicit acknowledgment that every industrial society, including the Soviet style centrally planned economies, had to adopt at least some elements of modernized social welfare models or policy originally developed in the West. Paradoxically, first the explicit and later more implicit rejection of the Western welfare state, including the social-democratic and various “third way” models, eventually led to the rise of neoliberal and anti-welfare attitudes among many Eastern social policy reformers during the last decade of communist rule and beyond, after 1989.


2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 361-384
Author(s):  
Ayodele Akenroye

The end of the Cold War witnessed the resurgence of ethnic conflicts in Africa, which necessitated the deployment of peacekeeping missions in many crisis contexts. The risk of HIV transmission increases in post-conflict environments where peacekeepers are at risk of contracting and spreading HIV/AIDS. In response, UN Security Council Resolution 1308 (2000) stressed the need for the UN to incorporate HIV/AIDS prevention awareness skills and advice in its training for peacekeepers. However, troops in peacekeeping missions remain under national command, thus limiting the UN prerogatives. This article discusses the risk of peacekeepers contracting or transmitting HIV/AIDS, as well as the role of peacekeeping missions in controlling the spread of the disease, and offers an account of the steps taken within UN peacekeeping missions and African regional peacekeeping initiatives to tackle the challenges of HIV/AIDS. While HIV/AIDS remains a scourge that could weaken peacekeeping in Africa, it seems that inertia has set in, making it even more difficult to tackle the complexity of this phenomenon.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Rob de Wijk

Abstract: The new Russian military doctrine from 2010, the growing international assertiveness of Russia, and eventually the annexation of the Crimea Peninsula in 2014 have forced the West to rethink deterrence strategies vis a vis Russia. Consequently, the old Cold War concept of deterrence was dusted off and the debate picked up from where it had ended in 1990. This article summarizes the end of the Cold War thinking on deterring aggression against NATO-Europe. It explains why the present Western theoretical foundation of deterrence, which still focuses on strong conventional forces backed up by nuclear weapons, no longer suffices, and argues that the new Russian concept of strategic deterrence requires a complete overhaul of the Western approach. It is not only the security of the Baltic member states of NATO or of transatlantic cables that matter, Europe has to cope with desinformation and destabilization campaigns and has to rethink its energy security strategy. Only together can NATO and EU master these challenges.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 434-456
Author(s):  
Liliane Klein Garcia

Ao observar o sistema unipolar que emergiu do final da Guerra Fria, é marcante o sentimento de insegurança geopolítica gerada pela existência de apenas uma superpotência global e as dúvidas da atuação do Estado soberano nessa conjuntura. Nesse paradigma, Capitão América: Guerra Civil é lançado com uma simbologia contestadora do papel do hegemon no sistema internacional. Com isso, inicialmente é exposto o enredo do filme, seguido das teorias liberal e realista das Relações Internacionais e da semiótica greimasiana. Com isso em vista, é feita a análise dos símbolos do longa-metragem e, por fim, se conclui que os autores do texto tinham como objetivo disseminar uma mensagem de união política entre os americanos.     Abstract: Observing the unipolar system emerging from the closure of the Cold War, is remarkable the sentiment of geopolitical insecurity generated by the existence of only one global superpower and the doubts about the role of the sovereign State in such system. In this paradigm, Captain America: Civil War is released with a contesting symbology about the role of the hegemon in the international system. Therefore, first it is exposed the movie plot, followed by the liberal and realist theories of international relations and the French semiotics. With this in mind, the symbols in the feature are analised and, in conclusion, it is stated that the authors wish to convey a message in bipartisan union amongst the American people. Keywords: International Relations Theory, Semiotics, Captain America.     Recebido em: setembro/2019. Aprovado em: maio/2020.


2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 1169-1170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Jervis

Among the many issues raised by James Lebovic's perceptive review are two that strike me as crucial: the relationships between intelligence and social science and those between intelligence and policymaking. The first itself has two parts, one being how scholars can study intelligence. Both access and methods are difficult. For years, diplomatic historians referred to intelligence as the “hidden dimension” of their subject. Now it is much more open, and Great Britain, generally more secretive than the United States, has just issued the authorized history of MI5 (see Christopher Andrew, Defend the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5, 2009). Since the end of the Cold War, the CIA has released extensive, if incomplete, records, and the bright side (for us) of intelligence failures is that they lead to the release of treasure troves of documents, which can often be supplemented by memoirs and interviews. But even more than in other aspects of foreign policy analysis, we are stuck with evidence that is fragmentary. In this way, we resemble scholars of ancient societies, who forever lament the loss of most of the material they want to study.


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