THE GREAT TANGKA OF TIBETAN ART AND CULTURE OF CHINA SHOWN IN BEJING

WhentheGreatTangkaofTibetanArtandCultureofChinaisshowninBeijingbetweenApril18andJune4,itcreatesahitinthecapitalcityThetangkapaintingscrollmeasures618meterslongand2.5meterswide.The1,500squarematerscroll,thelongestofitskindintheworIdtodayweighssome1,000kg-ThetangAnpaintingscrollcoversthehiStoryCulture,folkIoreandartoftheTibetanrace.IttelIsofthecreationoftheworId,thesourceoftheTib6tanrace,livesofvariousTUbokings,lifeofSakyamuni(founderofBuddhism),sto-riesofTibetanBuddhiStseCts,peoplefa…     

OPENING OF THE EXHIBITION“TREASURE IN THE SNOW-LAND”IN THE MUSEUM OF TIBETAN CULTURE,CHINA TIBETOLOGY RESEARCH CENTER

<正>On March 28th,2010,the 51st anniversary of the emancipation of the million serfs in Tibet,an exhibition on the theme"Treasures in the Snow-land, witnessing Tibetan History and Promoting Tibetan Culture"taking place in the newly built Museum of Tibetan Culture in the China Tibetology Research Center,Beijing.Over 100 leaders,experts and academics from related state departments,the Tibet Autonomous Region,relevant research institutes,     

OUT-MIGRATION FROM MATLAB—A RURAL AREA OF BANGLADESH

Rural landlessness and pauperisation are ongoing processes in Bangladesh, forcing people to migrate to other areas or countries in search of a livelihood. The study estimates levels of and differentials in out-migration of adult Bangladeshis, and examines reasons for migration and place of destination, using longitudinally collected migration data in the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh's (ICDDR,B's) Matlab surveillance area during the periods 1997–1999 and 2006–2008. The out-migration rate increased over time (48 per cent men versus 28 per cent women). Men migrated primarily for economic reasons (73–76 per cent), and women, for familial reasons (77–78 per cent). The younger, educated and well-off were more likely to migrate to urban areas and foreign countries than their older, less educated and poorer peers, who were more likely to migrate to other rural areas. Effective steps are needed to check rural-urban migration, and its numerous adverse consequences.     

A journey – crossing boundaries

ABSTRACT

Dr George L. Mallen writes about his introduction to computer simulation in the early 1960s and his work with Gordon Pask, founder and director of System Research Ltd, a convergence point of cognitive science, computer technology and art. In 1969 Mallen co-founded the Computer Arts Society and helped to organize Event One at the Royal College of Art which brought computers into the art school. In 1969 he formed System Simulation Ltd and in 1970 developed ECOGAME, a system dynamics model of a hypothetical national economy, implemented at the First European Management Forum, the predecessor of the World Management Forum. Some of the ECOGAME technology was also used by Stafford Beer for the government economic decision room he designed and implemented for the Allende government in Chile in 1972–1973.     

GLASS TRADE BEADS FROM THE ENGLISH COLONIAL PERIOD IN THE SOUTHEAST,CA. A.D. 1607–1783

Abstract

The study of glass trade beads has contributed much to our chronological understanding of the colonial period in the Eastern Woodlands of North America. Indeed, this class of artifact has allowed archaeologists to identify and conduct research at important archaeological sites that never appeared in the European historical record. In the Southeast, the best chronological resolution established by current bead chronologies relates either to sixteenth- to mid-seventeenthcentury Spanish-traded bead assemblages or eighteenthcentury French-traded bead assemblages. There is a conspicuous gap, however, in glass bead chronologies associated with the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English-Indian trade in the Southeast. In this paper, I address this gap by characterizing a large sample of trade beads (n = 35,309) found in individual mortuary assemblages recovered from a number of Southeastern Indian sites. This is the first time a regional synthesis of this scale has been conducted for the English colonial period in the Southeast. In order to begin to refine the bead chronology of this period, I also present the results of a quantitative seriation (using a technique known as correspondence analysis) of the same mortuary assemblages. While the results of this exploratory technique represent a preliminary stage in this process, they nevertheless identify a number of temporal trends that can be used to derive occupation date estimates for sites spanning the English colonial period in the Southeast (ca. 1607–1783).     

WHO SUFFERED FROM THE CRISIS OF HISTORICISM? A DUTCH EXAMPLE

Was the crisis of historicism an exclusively German affair? Or was it a “narrowly academic crisis,” as is sometimes assumed? Answering both questions in the negative, this paper argues that crises of historicism affected not merely intellectual elites, but even working‐class people, not only in Germany, but also in the Netherlands. With an elaborated case study, the article shows that Dutch “neo‐Calvinist” Protestants from the 1930s onward experienced their own crisis of historicism. For a variety of reasons, this religious subgroup came to experience a collapse of its “historicist” worldview. Following recent German scholarship, the paper argues that this historicism was not a matter of Rankean historical methods, but of “historical identifications,” or modes of identity formation in which historical narratives played crucial roles. Based on this Dutch case study, then, the article develops two arguments. In a quantitative mode, it argues that more and different people suffered from the crisis of historicism than is usually assumed. In addition, it offers a qualitative argument: that the crisis was located especially among groups that derived their identity from “historical identifications.” Those who suffered most from the crisis of historicism were those who understood themselves as embedded in narratives that connected past, present, and future in such a way as to offer identity in historical terms.     

Shared rivers and conflict – A reconsideration

Neomalthusians have regularly predicted "water wars" while cornucopians have argued that there is no inherent water scarcity and liberal institutionalists have seen cooperation as a more likely outcome of competition for limited water resources than violent conflict. Three earlier studies have found a positive statistical relationship between shared rivers and low-level interstate conflict. Based on a more comprehensive dataset, an improved model of conflict, and a more appropriate control for geographical opportunity, we argue that these results are spurious and that we cannot establish a conflict-inducing effect of shared rivers over and beyond contiguity itself. In fact, the new dataset presented here makes it clear that nearly all neighbors in the international system share at least one river. This calls for a different approach to investigating interaction in shared river basins. This notwithstanding, freshwater and other shared resources may still provide a mechanism to explain why contiguity is robustly associated with conflict, so the water-conflict scenario cannot be dismissed. Indeed, our results show that among river-sharing states, basins with an upstream/downstream configuration increase the risk of conflict. The article finally discusses how river interaction should be further investigated based on these results and what new data are needed to enable such research.     

A COPY OF MUL.APIN FROM A PRIVATE LIBRARY AT ASHUR(VAT 9429)

Extensive excavations at the site of Ashur allowed Olaf Pedersén to reconstruct, to a considerable level of detail, the many archives and libraries in official and private collections that existed at ancient Ashur through the middle     

‘NOBLESSE DE ROBE’ IN A CLASSLESS SOCIETY

This article deals with the effect of ownership and control of land on women's remarriages in early modern Western Norway. Marrying a tenant widow gave her new husband the right to tenure. On freeholder farms the eldest son, according to Norwegian odelsrett and åseterett, had the right to inherit the farm. When land-seeking youngsters obtained tenure by marrying tenant widows, these widows became highly attractive marriage partners, in contrast to widows of freeholder peasants where no secure position could be obtained for the new husband. Legal succession rights thus highly restricted the decisions of freeholder peasants' widows. Tenant widows had a wider range of choices closely linked to their control over land and land transfer. They were not mere passive marriage objects. In an open tenant land market widows could choose between running their farm by hired labour or with assistance from their children, they could remarry and thus acquire male labour in their household or they might benefit from giving up their tenure. Their decisions to a considerable degree influenced succession patterns on Norwegian tenant farms in the early modern period.     

A PROBE INTO THE NO.1 MONASTERY IN TIBER

SummerinShannanfea-tUresemeraldmountains,Icrystalclearwater,greentrCesandaDleasantlivinRenvironment.Inducedbyallofthis,Irecentlypaidavisittotheprefecture.onceIwasthere,IfoundIwasveryattractedbytheSamyeMonasterytheNo.lancientmonastCryinTibet.COLLECTlONOFTHREETREA-SURES.TheSamyeMonasteryislocated38kInawayfromZetangTown(thesiteoftheShannanAdmin-istrativePrefecture),inChanangCounty.ItliesatthesouthernfootoftheHaburiMountainonthenorthernbankoftheYarungZangboRiver.Thelocationis…     

DORJE SHUGDEN PRACTITIONERS' SEGREGATION BY THE DALAI LAMA——A REPORT FROM ROME

<正>December 17,2014I,as a stonemason from Tibet,for the first time,am visiting the ancient city of Rome,Italy known for thousands of massive,impressive marble and granite stone structures.We saw the Vatican,the Basilica and then to the Coliseum and many others.The stone work and art here with     

FROM KARLO-LIBKNEKHTOVSK AND NEW YORK TO PROPOYSK AND RASTYAPINO?: HOW PLACE NAMES ARE CHANGING IN THE FORMER USSR

In a paper submitted directly to Post-Soviet Geography, the author presents as thorough a list of place name changes as possible for the former USSR for the period 1985 to mid-1992. The situation is assessed with respect to the former union republics, nationality-based lower-order administrative territorial units, oblasts and krays, and major cities and urban settlements. The list appears to represent the most thorough and authoritative compilation of its kind yet published in the West, given the absence of any official body now empowered with the approval and registration of place name changes across the entire geographic space of the former USSR.