Building an Alliance and Building a Bomb

Books reviewed in this article:
Abraham Ben-Zvi, Decade of Transition: Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the Origins of the American-Israeli Alliance
Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb     

Enology Science and Technology Improve an Ancient Art

Abstract

The emerging science of enology is an interdisciplinary synthesis of chemistry, biochemistry, microbiology, engineering and sensory analytical science. Cbemistry analyses grapes, monitors progress of fermentation and assures that the wine is stable and in conformity with legal specifications. Knowledge of the enzymatically mediated reactions of yeasts and bacteria allows control through external conditions, thus yielding berter wines. Their production also demand modern engineering methods and materials. Wine is made to be appreciated with other foods on the basis of its smell and taste, hence sensory analytical methods can control its production. Basically grape growing and winemaking must be a very ancient practical art because it would have required centuries to develop the sophisticated state depicted in the earliest written records of the third millennium B.C. Louis Pasteur provided the scientific basis for understanding enology and since his time enology has gradually moved from a practical art towards the science of enology. It is hard to imagine how wines of the future will be better than those we now enjoy, the finest ever produced. Certain it is, however, that they will be still better.     

Characterization and Joining of an Historical Ferrous Tie-Rod

A ferrous tie rod, which was retrieved from a 17^th century masonry building, has been examined. The chemical composition and the microstructure of the tie-rod are consistent with the technology of the time.

The tie-rod was successfully welded to modern steel profiles, by means of gas metal arc welding, in order to verify if this method could be applied for restoration works. Threading tests were also successfully performed, for the same purpose.

Both the original tie-rod, and the welded specimens were thoroughly characterized with both metallurgical and mechanical methods; moreover, full-scale tensile tests were performed on both welded and threaded samples.     

Cultural democracy: an ecological and capabilities approach

ABSTRACT

In recent years, there has been sustained critique of the conceptual and normative foundations of UK cultural policy – the paternalism of ‘excellence and access’ and the neoliberal logic of ‘creative industries’. Whilst these critiques are well established, there is little work offering alternative foundations. This paper makes a contribution to this task. It does so in three ways. Firstly, by identifying ‘cultural democracy’ as a key discourse offering a counter-formulation of what the aims of cultural policy could and should be, and analysing uses of this term, it highlights the need to more effectively conceptualize cultural opportunity. Secondly, drawing on research with one UK-based initiative, Get Creative, the paper identifies a particularly consequential aspect of cultural opportunity: its ecological nature. Thirdly, it shows that the capabilities approach to human development provides ideas with the potential to help build new conceptual and normative foundations for cultural policy. Proposing a distinctive account of cultural democracy characterized by systemic support for cultural capabilities, the paper concludes by indicating the implications this may have for research, policy and practice.     

Contradictions and Complexities in an Indigenous Medical Service

New awareness of needs and opportunities led to an expansion of medical work in South Pacific territories during the inter-war period. The Rockefeller Foundation's Pacific-based representative Dr Sylvester Lambert perceived an indigenous intermediary medical corps as critical to establishing an economical, appropriate health service, one that would encourage Islanders to accept modern medicine. He focused regional interest in a Central Medical School, which opened in Suva in 1929 to provide a professional four-year course in western medical science for students from the British and New Zealand dependencies. The programme expressed colonial attitudes about indigenous ability and attempted to negotiate proper relations between ‘traditional’ and ‘europeanised’ behaviour. The tensions and complex expectations inherent in the Native Medical Practitioner (NMP) role are graphically demonstrated in the experiences of Fijian NMP Mesulame Taveta, a volunteer to the politically fraught Anglo-French New Hebrides Condominium, 1932–35.     

Visual and aural intellectual histories: an introduction

ABSTRACT

If the subject matter of intellectual history is the study of past thoughts, the intellectual history of the visual arts and music may be characterised as the study of past thoughts as they were expressed visually and aurally. Yet this is not always how an intellectual history of art and music has been practiced. More attention is often paid to verbal texts about art or music, rather than to the visual or the aural per se. If we accept that ideas can have visual and aural, as much as verbal form, then the histories of art and music are significant repositories of thoughts of individuals and networks of individuals (creative artists, patrons, institutions) within a given culture and period. But the ways in which those thoughts are articulated as aural or visual “texts”, and the ways in which they can be accessed by those who seek to understand them, will be specific to each art form, and represent a distinctive kind of intellectual activity in each field.     

Wealth and Well-being in an Ancient Maya Community

Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory - Inequality is an intrinsic element of contemporary societies, with high income disparity impacting everything from life expectancy to violent crime....     

Archaeology and English as an Imperial lingua franca

My brief comment argues that English as a lingua franca of archaeological discourse produces sharp inequalities not only between those who are linguistically unable versus those who are able to participate, even participants are forced into a pattern of valuations in which the Anglo-American preference for theory over other archaeological concerns reigns supreme. The result is a forced co-optation into the ideologically dominant system for any non-western archaeologist who wants her voice to be heard.     

Gender and Text Messaging in an Iranian Context

Focusing on four linguistic domains, purpose/manner of communication, preferring local dialects, politeness, and volume of use, this study aims to explore how gender is reflected in messages produced by Iranian female and male students. A corpus of 2,116 text messages was analyzed. Participants also filled out a questionnaire on how frequently they used text messaging. Results indicated females to be more prolific users of messaging. As far as function is concerned, while texts produced by females were for the most part relational, involving an emotional language, males frequently employed messages for informative-transactional functions which were less wordy and in more authoritative language. In addition, males were more likely than females to employ their local dialect and forms considered less polite.     

Foreign Policy and an American Christian Democratic Party

This article explores the implications of the Judeo-Christian tradition's influence on the United States for the foreign policy of an American Christian Democratic Party. If there were to be such a party in the United States, it would not have to create a new set of ideas and principles out of whole cloth. In fact, an articulation of an American Christian Democratic foreign policy would largely consist of an effort of resourcement, rediscovering and applying anew foundational principles at the core of the American experiment. This article develops this insight in two main foreign policy areas: national security and economic.