Unity in the trees: Arbor Day and Republican China, 1915–1927

ABSTRACT

Scholars of modern China have overlooked the role environmental policy played in early Republican efforts to promote both modernization and national unity. Beginning in 1916, the national government in Beijing mandated that each province and county throughout the Chinese nation celebrate “Arbor Day” in order to foster a modern Chinese environmental culture. This change was made in response to global discourses that linked forest cover to a modern nation’s moral and economic health. Arbor Day coincided with the Tomb-Sweeping Festival, a day traditionally reserved for ancestor worship. Due to the vast climatic disparities within China, many governments planted Arbor Day trees under conditions that made it impossible for them to thrive. Nevertheless, officials throughout China continued to celebrate Arbor Day as proof of their loyalty to the government in Beijing. Arbor Day thus served more as an exercise in promoting national unity than in creating a viable reforestation campaign.     

Sub-regional specialization in the Lancashire cotton industry, 1884–1914: a study in organizational and locational change

Locational changes in the Lancashire cotton industry between 1884 and 1914 are re-examined. The concentration of cotton spinning in central and southeast Lancashire and the consolidation of weaving in the northern half of the textile region were caused not only by differential rates of growth in the two sectors but also by the decline of the sub-regionally weaker sector. Single factors such as technological innovation and spatial variations in labour costs are insufficient to account for the deepening segregation of spinning and weaving. Different methods of capital formation led to important changes in the organization of the two sectors. New specialized spinning mills were built by large limited companies in southeast Lancashire whilst in northeast Lancashire a multitude of weaving firms were formed by private entrepreneurs. Throughout the region combined mills declined both relatively and absolutely, but they survived longest in peripheral areas away from the leading centres of expansion and innovation. Divergent processes of sub-regional specialization were related to different labour requirements in the spinning and weaving sectors.     

Doctoral dissertations in human geography from Swedish universities 1884–2015: demographics,formats and productivity

The doctoral dissertation is a key component of postgraduate education that plays an important role for knowledge production and hence the development of a discipline. Swedish human geography currently lacks an overview of dissertations. This article fills this knowledge gap by reporting findings from a unique database covering all doctoral dissertations between 1884 and 2015. The paper focuses on the demographics of the authors (age, gender), the format of the dissertation and explores productivity variations for authors of compilation dissertations. The findings show a notable increase in the number of doctoral dissertations since the late 1960s but a decreasing share of doctoral dissertations in the social sciences since the 1970s. In terms of demographics, we show that while the age of the authors remains relatively stable, the gender-balance has improved considerably. In terms of format, the monograph has rapidly given way to compilation dissertations, which now account for half the number of dissertations. More than 70% of all dissertations are now published in English. Statistical results suggest that the likelihood of completing a compilation dissertation is greater if the doctoral candidate is young and if attending Umeå University. But individual author productivity for compilation dissertations is mainly influenced by unobservables.