The Role of Geographers in Work on a Land Cadaster and on an Agricultural Evaluation of Lands

Geographers have been in the forefront of the campaign to institute a full-fledged land cadastre and economic land-evaluation program in the Soviet Union. Although a State Register of Landholdings was adopted in 1955, it is concerned mainly with the distribution of lands among land-holdings and the composition of agricultural lands (crop land, hay meadows, pastures, etc.) within landholdings. A full fledged cadastral and evaluation program would seek to evaluate land in terms of quality and productivity. In view of the interdisciplinary character of the work, geographers are viewed as most suitable participants.     

The Study of a System of Cities of the Soviet Union

Odessa's advantageous economic-geographic situation has played a positive role in all phases of the city's development. It has promoted Odessa's pre-eminent place as a foreign trade center and its function as a key element in the geographical division of labor. The situational advantages of the city should be taken into account in any historical-geographic study and in insuring more rational economic relations between the city and the rest of the Soviet Union.     

The Nation as a Problem: Historians and the "National Question"

How is it that the nation became an object of scholarly research? As this article intends to show, not until what we call the “genealogical view” (which assumes the “natural” and “objective” character of the nation) eroded away could the nation be subjected to critical scrutiny by historians. The starting point and the premise for studies in the field was the revelation of the blind spot in the genealogical view, that is, the discovery of the “modern” and “constructed” character of nations. Historians’ views would thus be intimately tied to the “antigenealogical” perspectives of them. However, this antigenealogical view would eventually reveal its own blind spots. This paper traces the different stages of reflection on the nation, and how the antigenealogical approach would finally be rendered problematic, exposing, in turn, its own internal fissures.     

Rethinking the Historiographical Impulse: The History of Ancient Israel as a Problem

The first part of this paper provides some insights into the problematic nature of the genre “history of ancient Israel”, both in terms of historiography and of historical epistemology. It is argued that the concept “history of ancient Israel” is essentially valid within a particular modern theological or biblical historiographical context. As such, this history of ancient Israel may indeed progress and generate new understandings but is nonetheless seriously limited by its main concern with “biblical Israel”. It is also proposed that in order to overcome these thematic and epistemological historical limitations, a wider history of ancient Palestine or the Southern Levant should be envisioned, into which to understand the epigraphic and archaeological realia of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, together with other contemporary polities in the region, and the later development of biblical traditions and texts. The second part of the paper addresses questions of ethnogenesis, socio-political organization and identity in the light of the previous discussion, setting the stage for an alternative history of Israel and other historical realities in ancient Palestine.     

The Training Of Geographers (on the curriculum of a college department of physical geography)

A Leningrad University physical geographer proposes reforms in the curriculum of his department in an effort to focus required courses more clearly on the needs of physical-geography students. He suggests the elimination of teacher-oriented courses since Soviet universities are designed to train research geographers. Although the required courses on Marxism are viewed as essential to the Soviet educational process, separate courses on atheism and on labor legislation strike the author as superfluous. The 300 class-hours thus saved might then be allotted to special-purpose courses with a direct bearing on physical-geography training. Revisions in several courses are suggested, with greater emphasis on seminar work to train students in independent research.     

The Medieval Colonization of Central Europe as a Problem of World History and Historiography

The author of this article asks two main questions. First, whatwas the nature of the so-called medieval colonization in theeastern half of central Europe? Secondly, which factors decidedthat in the second half of the nineteenth and in the twentiethcentury, during the era of a rising modern nationalism and imperialism,colonization became the—not always conscious—toolof manipulation in the fight for so-called ‘historic rights’in certain territories and the battle for the ‘forgingof nations’. In particular, in German historiography themyth of medieval colonization was born, which had very littlein common with medieval reality. Even German peasants were supposedto have marched East, not in order to seek out better livingconditions, as one Flemish song went, but to subject for Germany‘empty space’ in the barbaric East. At the sametime, the author presents the thesis that several ideas aboutthe topic of medieval colonization developed under the influenceof the colonization of North America, especially in California—contemporaryto many of these German scholars. This found its expressionin the terminology used, in numerous comparisons, and even inthe fundamental suggestion that German law legitimized the Germanclaim for almost the whole of central and eastern Europe. Thebasic conviction among German historians and politicians wasthat these territories should belong to the Empire under thesame conditions as India ‘belonged’ to the English,and Algeria to the French.     

环境对古代都城选择的影响——以汉、唐时期西安地区为例

古代都城的选址与政治经济等诸多要素相关,其中与环境的关系尤为密切,西安作为历代兴盛王朝的都城,在中国都城史上占据着重要地位,本文以汉、唐两代西安地区自然环境和气候变迁为切入点,讨论都城选址与环境之间的关系。     

Maritime History in Mozambique and East Africa: The Urgent Need for the Proper Study and Preservation of Endangered Underwater Cultural Heritage

The East African coast is a rich domain for underwater cultural heritage, whose archaeological remains are only beginning to reveal the extent of indigenous nautical technology, regional and international social contacts, and far-reaching maritime trade routes sailed for millennia. The diversity of remains found under water range from cultures up and down the East African coastline to further afield: from China, points surrounding the Indian Ocean, to the Persian Gulf, Middle East and Europe. In Mozambique, important steps to investigate and preserve this heritage have been taken over the last 20?years by several groups of local scholars in collaboration with international research institutions. However, this heritage, especially that which lies along the northern Mozambique coast, has also been subjected to extensive and serious disturbance by commercially-oriented salvage programs. These salvage activities have not only had a very negative impact on the state of the cultural resources themselves, but have also prevented the access of legitimate scholars to these resources??particularly grave is the intervention at Mozambique Island, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Among the meritorious efforts to mitigate this situation, in Mozambique and world-wide, the 2001 UNESCO Convention for the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage is an outstanding initiative and needs to be ratified by Mozambique and other East African states.     

The Impact of Climate Change on an Archaeological Site in the Arctic

Climate change may accelerate the degradation of archaeological sites in the Arctic and lead to a loss of important historical information. This study assesses the current preservation conditions and the processes controlling the physical and chemical stability of the Qajaa kitchen midden in western Greenland. Currently, the site is well protected by low ground temperatures, permafrost and a high water/ice content, keeping the deposits anoxic. Based on 5 years of monitoring data, degradation experiments and model simulation, our results suggest that the combined effects of permafrost thaw, thermal and hydrological erosion and oxygen exposure may lead to substantial loss of archaeological evidence before the end of the 21st century.     

The Role of Geographers in the Study,Mapping, Economic Appraisal,Utilization, Conservation and Renewal of the Natural Resources of the USSR

The paper discusses, mainly from a programmatic point of view, the need for research into the relationships between climate and vegetation. Four lines of research are proposed: (1) the correlation between the distribution of vegetation and climate indices; (2) relationships between the distribution of vegetation and seasonal types of climate; (3) seasonal and annual changes in plant communities related to corresponding changes in the surface layer of the atmosphere and the soil and subsoil; (4) the exchange of matter and energy within an ecological system.     

财政格局与大学“再国立化”——以抗战前中央大学经费问题为例

1921年国立东南大学在南京建校,经费完全由江苏省截留的"国税"承担。1927年南京国民政府成立后,东南大学改组为国立中央大学。与此同时,南京政府对中央与地方财政收支进行重新划分,直接影响中央大学教育经费的来源。各方围绕该校经费的来源和数额问题展开旷日持久的博弈。直到1932年8月,中央大学经费完全由中央财政承担,学校完成教育经费层面上的"再国立化"。抗战前中央大学经费问题的演变,透视出近代中国大学"国立"的政治经济蕴含,以及国民党治下中央与地方关系的新框架中,政治与学术的复杂关系。     

The Problem of Organizing a Food-Supply Base for the Yeniseysk Industrial District

The author examines the possibilities of developing a local food supply for the growing population of the prospective Yeniseysk industrial district of central Siberia. Local conditions are found to be economical for the production of a suburban-truck type of farming, with emphasis on fresh vegetables, potatoes and whole milk, as well as pork, poultry and eggs. Grain production is found to be uneconomical and the district will have to rely on grain shipped from other areas.     

The City as a Focus for Human Capital Migration: Towards a Dynamic Analysis of University Human Capital Contributions

Universities’ contributions to urban development frequently focus on their micro- or macro-scale effects, ignoring the meso-scale effects they have on inter-territorial relationships. Although universities are seen as an essential part of the recipe for successful urban development, there is a lacuna to understanding how they make places and shape urban hierarchies, and this article addresses this question. This article focuses on one university–urban development process, the creation and embedding of highly skilled graduates, to explore what the aggregate effects of universities on places are; it develops a set of indicators to measure graduate attraction and retention as well as the overall composite place effect. The article develops a typology based on these three indicator sets, and tests this using a data set developed from a Polish social media website. It finds that these indicators are a good way of measuring the effects of human capital creation and mobility at the urban scale. The article concludes by arguing that a greater focus is required in studying the roles that universities play in fostering through-flow in places, changing these places’ nature as nodes within wider urban systems and hierarchies, in the context of university–regional development.     

The Specialized Cities of the Gulf Cooperation Council: A Case Study of a Distinct Type of Policy Innovation and Diffusion

This article examines a new phenomenon in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) referred to as specialized cities (SC). These cities, in addition to being new towns, implement innovations in selected policy areas. This article goes beyond describing the spread of SC to answering a broader question: what motivates a GCC country to adopt such policy innovation? After a quantitative overview of the phenomenon, three cases have been selected to cover three main policy areas: energy, health care, and education, in Abu Dhabi Masdar City, Dubai Healthcare City, and Qatar Education City. A preliminary analysis of each of the cases is followed by a comparative approach that aims at discovering similarities and differences, as well as developing the basis for a preliminary analytical model that explains the driving factors behind these innovations. The country adoption of a policy innovation and its diffusion are mainly the results of geographical proximity and similarity, as these proximate countries tend to have similar economic aspects and common social problems that lead to similar policy action effects. Regional competition and positive reputational mechanisms are also particularly strong determinants for diffusion. The findings suggest that in the GCC region a diffusion of the phenomena is occurring, rather than that of a specific type of SC.     

Liberal Education and the Study of Politics in a Catholic University

Abstract

Rousseau seems to exemplify an understanding of the philosophic life in general and the quest for self-knowledge in particular as a solitary enterprise. An examination of the Confessions, however, reveals that Rousseau holds that the most important discoveries about ourselves are made not in solitude, but with others. It is furthermore the case that, for Rousseau, the philosophic quest to truly know oneself entails the public articulation of one's self-understanding as a part of a comprehensive account of human things, a social activity fraught with political implications. Therefore, the problem of self-knowledge in Rousseau's thought should be understood as a social and political problem (albeit not a problem with a political solution). That this is so even for the famously solitary Rousseau tells us something important both about the thought of that philosopher and about the quest for self-knowledge as such.