A Historical Analysis of the Migration, Penetration and Diffusion of the Fulani into the Middle Belt Region of Nigeria

Why is modern society capable of cumulative innovation? In A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy, Joel Mokyr persuasively argues that sustained technological progress stemmed from a change in cultural beliefs. The change occurred gradually during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and was fostered by an intellectual elite that formed a transnational community and adopted new attitudes toward the creation and diffusion of knowledge, setting the foundation for the ethos of modern science. The book is a significant contribution to the growing literature that links culture and economics. This review discusses Mokyr’s historical analysis in relation to the following questions: What is culture and how should we use it in economics? How can culture explain modern economic growth? Will the culture of growth that caused modern prosperity persist in the future? (JEL N00, N13, N33, O30, O52, Z10)

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The Trap of Backwardness: Modernity, Temporality, and the Study of Eastern European Nationalism

Slavic Review ◽

10.2307/3650070 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 64 (1) ◽

pp. 140-164 ◽

Cited By ~ 32

Author(s):

Maria Todorova

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

Eastern Europe ◽

Historical Analysis ◽

Structural Models ◽

Eastern European ◽

Short Term ◽

East European ◽

Sequential Development ◽

Historical Objects ◽

And Diffusion

This article focuses on the discourse of backwardness as an aspect of what has been recognized as the dominant trope in east European historiography undl the end of the twentieth century, namely nationalism. Through a survey of east European historiographies, it demonstrates how different notions of temporality are employed. Eastern Europe as a whole and the particular problem of east European nationalism have been constituted as historical objects of study very much on the pattern of anthropological objects, through structural models of “timeless” theory and method and bracketing out time as a dimension of intercultural study. The article proposes a way to circumvent the trap of origins, which carries backwardness as its corollary, by introducing the idea of relative synchronicity within a longue durée framework. This allows the description of a period in terms of linear consecutive developments but also as a dialogical process without overlooking important aspects of short-term historical analysis involving sequential development, transmission, and diffusion.

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Meridional Circulation, Turbulence, and Diffusion Processes in Stars

International Astronomical Union Colloquium ◽

10.1017/s0252921100080477 ◽

1976 ◽

Vol 32 ◽

pp. 109-116 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

S. Vauclair

Keyword(s):

Convection Zone ◽

Diffusion Processes ◽

Meridional Circulation ◽

Diffusion Time ◽

Work In Progress ◽

First Results ◽

Stellar Envelopes ◽

And Diffusion ◽

Turbulence And Diffusion ◽

Hr Diagram

This paper gives the first results of a work in progress, in collaboration with G. Michaud and G. Vauclair. It is a first attempt to compute the effects of meridional circulation and turbulence on diffusion processes in stellar envelopes. Computations have been made for a 2 Mʘstar, which lies in the Am - δ Scuti region of the HR diagram.Let us recall that in Am stars diffusion cannot occur between the two outer convection zones, contrary to what was assumed by Watson (1970, 1971) and Smith (1971), since they are linked by overshooting (Latour, 1972; Toomre et al., 1975). But diffusion may occur at the bottom of the second convection zone. According to Vauclair et al. (1974), the second convection zone, due to He II ionization, disappears after a time equal to the helium diffusion time, and then diffusion may happen at the bottom of the first convection zone, so that the arguments by Watson and Smith are preserved.

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