Environments of Empire

The age of European high imperialism was characterized by the movement of plants and animals on a historically unprecedented scale. The human migrants who colonized territories around the world brought a variety of other species with them, from the crops and livestock they hoped to propagate, to the parasites, invasive plants, and pests they carried unawares, producing a host of unintended consequences that reshaped landscapes around the world. While the majority of histories about the dynamics of these transfers have concentrated on the British Empire, these nine case studies--focused on the Ottoman, French, Dutch, German, and British empires--seek to advance a historical analysis that is comparative, transnational, and interdisciplinary to understand the causes, consequences, and networks of biological exchange and ecological change resulting from imperialism.

2013 ◽  
pp. 4-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Mau

The paper deals with the trends in the world and Russian economies towards development of a new post-crisis system, including technological and structural transformation. Three main scenarios of Russian economic development (conservative, innovation and acceleration) are discussed basing on historical analysis of Russian economic performance since 1970-s when oil boom started. On this basis key challenges of economic policy in 2013 are discussed.


Author(s):  
Karen J. Alter

In 1989, when the Cold War ended, there were six permanent international courts. Today there are more than two dozen that have collectively issued over thirty-seven thousand binding legal rulings. This book charts the developments and trends in the creation and role of international courts, and explains how the delegation of authority to international judicial institutions influences global and domestic politics. The book presents an in-depth look at the scope and powers of international courts operating around the world. Focusing on dispute resolution, enforcement, administrative review, and constitutional review, the book argues that international courts alter politics by providing legal, symbolic, and leverage resources that shift the political balance in favor of domestic and international actors who prefer policies more consistent with international law objectives. International courts name violations of the law and perhaps specify remedies. The book explains how this limited power—the power to speak the law—translates into political influence, and it considers eighteen case studies, showing how international courts change state behavior. The case studies, spanning issue areas and regions of the world, collectively elucidate the political factors that often intervene to limit whether or not international courts are invoked and whether international judges dare to demand significant changes in state practices.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 93-100
Author(s):  
Gisa Jähnichen

The Sri Lankan Ministry of National Coexistence, Dialogue, and Official Languages published the work “People of Sri Lanka” in 2017. In this comprehensive publication, 21 invited Sri Lankan scholars introduced 19 different people’s groups to public readers in English, mainly targeted at a growing number of foreign visitors in need of understanding the cultural diversity Sri Lanka has to offer. This paper will observe the presentation of these different groups of people, the role music and allied arts play in this context. Considering the non-scholarly design of the publication, a discussion of the role of music and allied arts has to be supplemented through additional analyses based on sources mentioned by the 21 participating scholars and their fragmented application of available knowledge. In result, this paper might help improve the way facts about groups of people, the way of grouping people, and the way of presenting these groupings are displayed to the world beyond South Asia. This fieldwork and literature guided investigation should also lead to suggestions for ethical principles in teaching and presenting of culturally different music practices within Sri Lanka, thus adding an example for other case studies.


Mediaevistik ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 320-322
Author(s):  
Robert E. Bjork

During the logocentric Middle Ages, etymology and wordplay helped exegetes, philosophers, theologians, and poets understand the world and the world’s relationship to the divine. The case studies presented in this useful and fascinating collection of essays demonstrate how.


Author(s):  
Patricia O'Brien

This is a biography of Ta’isi O. F. Nelson, the Sāmoan nationalist leader who fought New Zealand, the British Empire and the League of Nations between the world wars. It is a richly layered history that weaves a personal and Pacific history with one that illuminates the global crisis of empire after World War One. Ta’isi’s story weaves Sweden with deep histories of Sāmoa that in the late nineteenth century became deeply inflected with colonial machinations of Germany, Britain, New Zealand and the U. S.. After Sāmoa was made a mandate of the League of Nations in 1921, the workings and aspirations of that newly minted form of world government came to bear on the island nation and Ta’isi and his fellow Sāmoan tested the League’s powers through their relentless non-violent campaign for justice. Ta’isi was Sāmoa’s leading businessman who was blamed for the on-going agitation in Sāmoa; for his trouble he was subjected to two periods of exile, humiliation and a concerted campaign intent on his financial ruin. Using many new sources, this book tells Ta’isi’s untold story, providing fresh and intriguing new aspects to the global story of indigenous resistance in the twentieth century.


Author(s):  
Anthea Roberts ◽  
Martti Koskenniemi

Is International Law International? takes the reader on a sweeping tour of the international legal academy to reveal some of the patterns of difference, dominance, and disruption that belie international law’s claim to universality. Both revealing and challenging, confronting and engaging, this book is a must-read for any international lawyer, particularly in a world of shifting geopolitical power. Pulling back the curtain on the “divisible college of international lawyers,” the author shows how international lawyers in different states, regions, and geopolitical groupings are often subject to differences in their incoming influences and outgoing spheres of influence in ways that affect how they understand and approach international law, including with respect to contemporary controversies like Crimea and the South China Sea. Using case studies and visual representations, the author demonstrates how actors and materials from some states and groups have come to dominate certain transnational flows and forums in ways that make them disproportionately influential in constructing the “international”—a point which holds true for Western actors, materials, and approaches in general, and Anglo-American ones in particular. But these patterns are set for disruption. As the world moves past an era of Western dominance and toward greater multipolarity, it is imperative for international lawyers to understand the perspectives of those coming from diverse backgrounds. By taking readers on a comparative tour of different international law academies and textbooks, the author encourages international lawyers to see the world through others’ eyes—an approach that is pressing in a world of rising nationalism.


Author(s):  
Susanna Braund ◽  
Zara Martirosova Torlone

The introduction describes the broad landscape of translation of Virgil from both the theoretical and the practical perspectives. It then explains the genesis of the volume and indicates how the individual chapters, each one of which is summarized, fit into the complex tapestry of Virgilian translation activity through the centuries and across the world. The volume editors indicate points of connection between the chapters in order to render the whole greater than the sum of its parts. Braund and Torlone emphasize that a project such as this could look like a (rather large) collection of case studies; they therefore consider it important to extrapolate larger phenomena from the specifics presented here


Author(s):  
Tina K. Ramnarine

This Introduction outlines various examples of ensemble performance to highlight diverse practices in the world of orchestras. It poses a fundamental question: What is an orchestra? It raises issues around collective creativity and social agency, which provide thematic foci in relation to a diversity of orchestral practices. Discussion on the conceptual aspects of adopting global perspectives on orchestras highlights comparison as a mode of theorization. The relevance of a comparative approach lies in its capacity to draw together diverse ethnographic case-studies. The Introduction thus provides a framework for reading this volume and it points out some of the conceptual connections between its chapters.


Author(s):  
Bram Stoker

‘It was butcher work...the horrid screeching as the stake drove home; the plunging of writhing form, and lips of bloody foam.’ Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic shocker introduced Count Dracula to the world, an ancient creature bent on bringing his contagion to London, the very heart of the British Empire. Only a handful of men and women stand between Dracula and his long-cherished goal, but they are vulnerable and weak against the cunning and supernatural powers of the Count and his legions. As the horrifying story unfolds in the diaries and letters of young Jonathan Harker, Lucy, Mina, and Dr Seward, Dracula will be victorious unless his nemesis Professor Van Helsing can persuade them that monsters still lurk in the era of electric light. The most famous of all vampire stories, Dracula is a mirror of its age, its underlying themes of race, religion, science, superstition, and sexuality never far from the surface. A compelling read, rattling along at break-neck speed, it is a modern classic. This new edition includes Stoker's companion piece, ‘Dracula's Guest’.


Recycling ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Godfrey

With changing consumption patterns, growing populations and increased urbanisation, developing countries face significant challenges with regards to waste management. Waste plastic is a particularly problematic one, with single-use plastic leaking into the environment, including the marine environment, at an unprecedented rate. Around the world, countries are taking action to minimise these impacts, including banning single-use plastics; changing petroleum-based plastics to alternative bio-benign products such as paper, glass or biodegradable plastics; and improving waste collection systems to ensure that all waste is appropriately collected and reprocessed or safely disposed. However, these “solutions” are often met with resistance, from business, government or civil society, due to the intended and unintended consequences, leaving many questioning the most appropriate solution to reducing the leakage. This paper argues that there is no one single solution to addressing the leakage of plastic into the environment, but that the solution is likely to be a combination of the three approaches, based on local considerations.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document