Comments

This note addresses an emendation in Lucr. 3.295 originally proposed by R. Bentley and endorsed most recently by E.J. Kenney. I argue that the meaning of this and the preceding line has not been fully appreciated even by those commentators who (rightly) retain the MSS reading. To help elucidate the passage, I point to parallels in Philodemus of Gadara's De ira.     

The Tax Threshold: Policy, Principles, and Poverty

In the absence of an independent poverty standard, postwar Britishgovernments have tended to use current, politically determinedsocial security scales (from Unemployment Assistance in the1930s to Income Support today) as their definition of minimallyadequate income levels, commonly known as an ‘officialpoverty line’. A basic principle of taxation since thedays of Adam Smith, however, has been that incomes below theminimum income required for socially defined necessities shouldbe free of tax. The personal tax allowance which determinesthe income tax-paying threshold thus also provides a practicaldefinition of such an official poverty line. Royal Commissionsand official committees since the nineteenth century have endorsedSmith's principle, but it only acquired major political significanceafter the Second World War when income tax began to affect lowearners, particularly after the 1960s when poverty was ‘rediscovered’in the UK. In spite of this potential coincidence of purpose,a review of evidence and interviews with officials shows thatthere has been no co-ordination of policy between the Treasuryand Inland Revenue responsible for determining the level ofthe tax allowances, and the Social Security ministries responsiblefor the minimum benefit scales. The tax threshold has consequentlycontinued to be determined by considerations of political economyand administration and not by the alleviation of poverty. ^* This paper is part of a larger project on concepts of povertyand need in British income maintenance systems, chiefly the‘Assistance’ schemes which ran from 1934 to 1966.I am grateful to the many people who have helped with the project,regrettably too numerous to name here. I am particularly indebtedto Sir Norman Price and Sir Kenneth Stowe, James Meade, DellaNevitt, and). Leonard Nicholson for information on the tax issues,and want to record my thanks to them and to Fran Bennett, JohnHills, Chris Pond, and Adrian Sinfield, and especially RodneyLowe, as well as participants in seminars at the Universitiesof Edinburgh and Essex, and in Budapest, for their advice onthis paper.     

Book Reviews

George, Alexander L., and Juliette L. George. Presidential Personality and Performance. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998. Pp. x, 304. $75.00, hardbound; $25.00, softbound.

Epstein, David, and Sharyn O'Halloran. Delegating Powers: A Transaction Cost Politics Approach to Policy Making Under Separate Powers. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pp. xvi, 320. $59.95, hardbound; $19.95, softbound.

Kahn, Kim Fridkin, and Patrick J. Kenney. The Spectacle of U.S. Senate Campaigns. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999. Pp. xiv, 278. $57.50, hardbound; $18.95, softbound.

Michaels, Judith E. 1997. The President's Call: Executive Leadership from FDR to George Bush. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Pp. x, 348. $50.00, hardbound; $22.95, softbound.

Savage, James D. Funding Science in America: Congress, Universities, and the Politics of the Academic Pork Barrel. New York, Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pp. xiii, 219. $49.95, hardbound.

Stid, Daniel D. The President as Statesman: Woodrow Wilson and the Constitution. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 1998. Pp. xi, 231. $35.00, hardbound.

Steven Shull. American Civil Rights Policy from Truman to Clinton: The Role of Presidential Leadership. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1999. Pp. xv, 294. $64.95, hardbound.

Yalof, David Alistair. Pursuit of Justices: Presidential Politics and the Selection of Supreme Court Nominees. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. Pp. x, 296. $27.95, hardbound.     

Book reviews

Book reviewed in this article: International Relations theory Bounding power: republican security theory from the polis to the global village. By Daniel Deudney. The price of peace: just war in the twenty‐first century. Edited by Charles Reed and David Ryall. The sovereignty paradox: the norms and politics of international statebuilding. By Dominik Zaum. Human rights and ethics Bitter chocolate: investigating the dark side of the world's most seductive sweet. By Carol Off. International law and organization Global justice: the politics of war crimes trials. By Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu. Human security and the UN: a critical history. By S. Neil MacFarlane and Yuen Foong Khong. From Pablo to Osama: trafficking and terrorist networks, government bureaucracies and competitive adaptation. By Michael Kenney. Foreign policy Between ally and partner: Korea‐China relations and the United States. By Jae Ho Chung. Conflict, security and armed forces Peacekeeping and the international system. By Norrie MacQueen. International organizations and peace enforcement: the politics of international legitimacy. By Katharina P. Coleman. The risk society at war: terror, technology and strategy in the twenty‐first century. By Mikkel Vedby Rasmussen. Asymmetric warfare: threat and response in the twenty‐first century. By Rod Thornton. Political economy, economics and development The bottom billion: why the poorest countries are failing and what can be done about it. By Paul Collier. Bad Samaritans: rich nations, poor policies and the threat to the developing world. By Ha‐Joon Chang. All politics is global: explaining international regulatory regimes. By Daniel W. Drezner. Does foreign aid really work? By Roger C. Riddell. Energy and environment The international politics of genetically modified food: diplomacy, trade and law. Edited by Robert Falkner. History Dark side of the moon: the magnifi cent madness of the American lunar quest. By Gerard DeGroot. Europe The foundations of Europe: European integration ideas in France, Germany and Britain in the 1950s. By Thomas Hörber. Russia and Eurasia Russian foreign policy in the twenty‐first century and the shadow of the past. Edited by Robert Legvold. Chechnya: the case for independence. By Tony Wood. Middle East and North Africa Hizbullah: a short history. By Augustus Richard Norton. Failing peace: Gaza and the Palestinian–Israeli conflict. By Sara Roy. The Iraq crisis and world order: structural, institutional and normative challenges. Edited by Ramesh Thakur and Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu. Hamas: unwritten chapters. By Azzam Tamimi. Everyday jihad: the rise of militant Islam among Palestinians in Lebanon. By Bernard Rougier. Translated by Pascale Ghazaleh. Sub‐Saharan Africa You must set forth at dawn: a memoir. By Wole Soyinka. Asia and Pacific Fortifying Pakistan: the role of US internal security assistance. By C. Christine Fair and Peter Chalk. Perfect hostage: a life of Aung San Suu Kyi. By Justin Wintle. Rising star: China's new security diplomacy. By Bates Gill. China's security interests in the twenty‐first century. By Russell Ong. The minimum means of reprisal: China's search for security in the nuclear age. By Jeffrey Lewis. North America Imperial life in the emerald city. By Rajiv Chandrasekaran. Rumsfeld: an American disaster. By Andrew Cockburn. Seeing the elephant: the US role in global security. By Hans Binnendijk and Richard L. Kugler. Latin America and Caribbean Democracy after Pinochet: politics, parties and elections in Chile. By Alan Angell.     

Book reviews

Book reviewed in this articles: International Relations theory Constructing global civil society: morality and power in international relations. By David Chandler. International ethics The ethics and politics of asylum: liberal democracy and the response to refugees. By Matthew J. Gibney. Bait and switch? Human rights and American foreign policy. By Julie A. Mertus. International law and organization The United States and the rule of law in international affairs. By John F. Murphy. Conflict, security and armed forces Arguing about war. By Michael Walzer. Border and territorial disputes of the world. 4th edn. Edited by Peter Calvert. Politics, democracy and social affairs British foreign secretaries since 1974. Edited by Kevin Theakston. The new mandarins: how British foreign policy works. By John Dickie. Silvio Berlusconi: television, power and patrimony. By Paul Ginsborg. Thaksin: the business of politics in Thailand. By Pasuk Phongpaichit and Chris Baker. Ethnicity and cultural politics Globalised Islam: the search for a new ummah. By Olivier Roy. International and national political economy, economics and development The economics of innocent fraud: truth for our time. By J. K. Galbraith. Why globalization works: the case for the global market. By Martin Wolf. Global production networking and technological change in East Asia. Edited by Shahid Yusuf, M. Anjum Altaf and Kaoru Nabeshima. Locating global advantage: industry dynamics in the international economy. Edited by Martin Kenney with Richard Florida. Energy and environment The green state: rethinking democracy and sovereignty. By Robyn Eckersley. History Think tanks and power in foreign policy: a comparative study of the role and influence of the Council on Foreign Relations and Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1939–1945. By Inderjeet Parmar. A ‘special relationship’? Harold Wilson, Lyndon B. Johnson and Anglo‐American relations ‘at the summit’, 1964–68. By Jonathan Colman. The flawed architect: Henry Kissinger and American foreign policy. By Jussi Hanhimäki. The first domino: international decision making during the Hungarian Crisis of 1956. By Johanna Granville. Britain, Kenya and the Cold War: imperial defence, colonial security and decolonisation. By David Percox. Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 coup in Iran. Edited by Mark J. Gasiorowski and Malcolm Byrne. Britain and the confrontation with Indonesia, 1960–1966. By David Easter. Europe Easier fatherland: Germany and the twenty‐first century. By Steve Crawshaw. The European dream: how Europe's vision of the future is quietly eclipsing the American dream. By Jeremy Rifkin. EU development cooperation: from model to symbol. Edited by Karin Arts and Anna K. Dickson. Russia and the former Soviet republics Vladimir Putin and the new world order: looking east, looking west? By J. L. Black. Russian crossroads: toward the new millennium. By Yevgeny Primakov. Middle East and North Africa What we owe Iraq: war and the ethics of nation building. By Noah Feldman. The missing peace: the inside story of the fight for Middle East peace. By Dennis Ross. The war for Muslim minds: Islam and the West. By Gilles Kepel. Contending visions of the Middle East: the history and politics of orientalism. By Zachary Lockman. Modern Iran: roots and results of revolution. By Nikki R. Keddie. Inventing Iraq: the failure of nation building and a history denied. By Toby Dodge. Asia and Pacific The international relations of Northeast Asia. Edited by Samuel S. Kim. Holding China together: diversity and national integration in the post‐Deng era. Edited by Barry J. Naughton and Dali L. Yang. Japan's security agenda: military, economic, and environmental dimensions. By Christopher W. Hughes. North America More equal than others: America from Nixon to the new century. By Godfrey Hodgson. Hegemony or survival: America's quest for global dominance. By Noam Chomsky. The decline of American power: the US in a chaotic world. By Immanuel Wallerstein. Latin America and Caribbean Reforming Brazil. Edited by Mauricio A. Font and Anthony Peter Spanakos. The last colonial massacre: Latin America in the Cold War. By Greg Grandin.     

"Religion" and Christian Conversionin African History: A New Model

This article reviews recent scholarship on African religion and argues that, while much has been accomplished, historians have inherited a problematic view of the processes that they have investigated. They have unknowingly adopted evangelical ideas, in the form of written words and concepts that they wrongly assume have maintained consistent meanings down through the decades. Because missionaries' translations have been taken in this way as accurate guides for understanding what gave rise to them, much of Africa's intellectual history appears religious. The article focuses on the example of tui-qua, a term used by Khoikhoi and translated as "God," and suggests a model for understanding evangelism and conversion that does not rely on the supposed ubiquity of religion. It is argued that missionaries used Christian notions to accommodate the falsity of analogous practices, which although often unrelated in their original setting, together became a single entity (religion) as a result.     

构建和谐社会与中国社会学的历史使命

对于中国的社会学来说,和谐社会并不是一个陌生的概念,而是他们一直持续追求的目标和现实理想,研究和谐社会形成的条件和机制是贯穿中国社会学始终的学术主题。今天,党和政府明确提出了构建和谐社会的历史任务．为和谐社会的建设提供理论支持,既是社会学的优势所在,也是历史赋予中国社会学的重大任务。社会学应该为此贡献自己的力量,同时抓住这个难得的机遇,提高自身的学术水平。     

Countering Violent Extremism in Indonesia: Bringing Back the Jihadists

While Indonesia’s efforts at countering violent extremism have enjoyed some successes, a section of its Islamist community remains committed to militant jihadism. The return from overseas of hundreds of militants linked to ISIS means that there is now a greater need than ever for interventions to prevent radicalisation – and for programs to reintegrate militants back into society. Drawing on 20 selected interviews with former jihadists, this article asks how successful official efforts have been at disengaging those convicted under Indonesia’s Anti-Terrorism Law from violent extremism. A significant minority remain welded to a militant mindset: “committed jihadists” who are likely to reoffend. Some former jihadists have “disengaged provisionally” but remain vulnerable: they have only disengaged for tactical or practical reasons. Yet some have also begun to disengage emotionally. While they may not disavow completely the use of force, these “provisionally deradicalised” activists have moved closer to that minority of interviewees who are “fully deradicalised”. Using this four-part typology of the pathways by which some militant jihadists have disengaged but others have not, this article finds that disengagement is a gradual process shaped by social networks. Consequently, it is suggested that a variety of methods be used to promote disengagement both before and after inmates leave prison.     

生之意志的最后温存——论岜沙苗寨的生命教育

在地球某个角落,生活在林荫中的一群人用他们的行动和习俗演绎着对神的虔诚,对祖先的眷念及对生命的特殊理解。他们被称为中国最后一个枪族部落,大树的民族。他们过着大部分中国人所向往的桃源生活,享受着现代人已久违的那份清淡与宁静。这就是至今仍信仰着人树同体的贵州从江县岜沙苗人。     

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma: a review of its causes and its diagnosis in skeletal material

Smoky fires in small, poorly ventilated structures have been cited as a risk factor for nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) since the 1920s (Dobson, 1924 ). Furthermore, based on five cited cases of ancient NPC, it has been proposed that NPC was a common condition with a wide geographical distribution in ancient populations (Wells, 1964a , b ). Both interpretations have continued to appear in the literature (Ortner, 2003 ), but recently, Aufderheide & Rodríguez‐Martín ( 1998 ) have argued that the number of cases of NPC is inflated due to ‘diagnostic imprecision’. This paper reviews medical advances that in the last few decades have shed considerable light on risk factors for NPC, and also reviews criteria for diagnosing NPC. Based on these data, a reexamination of the five cited cases of ancient NPC suggests that only one case may be NPC, and the prevalence and distribution of this disease may have been more variable than originally thought. Furthermore, a better understanding of the aetiology of NPC and criteria for diagnosis may allow for more precise research designs for studying ancient populations. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Pyrophany on Mount Horeb: The Burning Bush

The burning bush is one of the most well-known and im-portant miracles in the Pentateuch. Numerous natural explanations have been offered in the literature and a few new ones have been added here, for the bush that burned but was not consumed. Some examples include hallucinogenic drugs, an active volcano, optical illusions, natural gas leak, subterranean fire, St. Elmo’s fire, a bush with red berries or flowers, and a bush that emitted flammable vapors. They have been broadly categorized here based on explanations involving the man Moses, events that might have occurred at the location (Mount Horeb), and explanations involving the bush itself. Those explanations are reviewed here from the perspective of a combustion engineer. The conclusion is that the best explanation for the burning bush is that it was supernatural.     

Immigration and Refugee Crises in Fourth-Century Greece: An Athenian Perspective

Abstract

The fourth-century B.C. was a period during which a large number of Greek cities were affected by civil wars, military conquests, and destruction, with the displacement of large numbers of men, women and children as a result. This has implications for the modern debate on Athenian attitudes to immigration, which normally focuses on just two groups of free non-citizens: adult, able-bodied men who moved to Athens voluntarily to take advantage of the city’s economic opportunities and (more recently) on the free non-citizen population who had come to Athens as slaves and who stayed on after their manumission. This article argues that refugees were likely to have constituted a considerable component of the migration to Athens during certain troubled periods in the course of the fourth century. This means that the size of Athens’s immigrant population was likely to have fluctuated considerably, that many of the refugees would have been destitute, that women and children (sometimes unaccompanied by adult male relatives) may have made up an even greater proportion of the non-citizen population than normally assumed, and, thus, that a considerable number of these immigrants would not have been able to contribute substantially to Athens’s grain trade or military. The implications of this for our assessment of the Athenian motives for admitting groups of refugees are discussed, and it is argued that the requirement that all male and all unaccompanied female immigrants had to find an Athenian sponsor and pay a special metic tax may have constituted a certain level of control over immigrant numbers.     

Hatching Feminisms: Czech Feminist Aspirations in the 1990s

This article explores a range of conversations in Czech that have been undertaken by popular and intellectual Czech feminists since 1989. These have attempted to ‘explain the usefulness of feminist thinking’ to frequently reticent Czech audiences. It examines feminists' claim that feminism and feminist social criticism have an important role to play in making a new social order in which what they describe as women's values and cultures would have a central place. It explores the often maternalist strategies that intellectuals have devised for working through the pall of ambivalence that surrounds feminism in the Czech Republic, and it examines how an enthusiastic defence of local feminisms and the desire to highlight intransigent attitudes towards the remaking of gender identities have become important hallmarks of contemporary Czech feminisms.     

Sustaining the Forests: The Community-based Approach in South and South-East Asia

The concept of sustainability emphasizes four basic principles when applied to rural communities: that basic needs must be met; that resources should be subject to local control; that local communities must have a decisive voice in planning; and that they should represent themselves through their own institutions. These principles have been notionally accepted by development planners and conservationists at all levels. Yet, throughout the tropical forest belt, they are being systematically overridden by international and national policies and development programmes, leading to increasing poverty, social conflict and rapid deforestation. Traditional knowledge and systems of land use have proved far more environmentally appropriate, resilient and complex than initially supposed by outsiders. Forest peoples have successfully opposed many socially and environmentally destructive development schemes proposed for their lands. However, these societies are not resisting all change: population increase and the internal dynamic for development have also created social and environmental problems. A review of community-based initiatives in South and South-East Asia shows that in some countries, positive initiatives have been taken by local and national governments to promote a community-based approach. Notable successes have been achieved but many other initiatives have failed. The examples show that, besides the four principles noted above, environmentally successful management also depends on innovative political organization at the community level.     

Hybrid Outcomes of Payments for Ecosystem Services Policies in Vietnam: Between Theory and Practice

Vietnam has had a national Payments for Forest Environmental Services (PFES) policy in place since 2010, which transfers money for forest protection from water and energy users to households who live in upland watersheds. However, despite a loose resemblance to general Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) principles, implementation in Vietnam differs strongly from a theoretical ideal, and has a number of unique features, including: strong state involvement in transactions; no use of markets to set payments; poor definition and monitoring of ecosystem services; and the adoption of non-conditional incentives that strongly resemble livelihood subsidies for poor rural areas. The form that PES takes in Vietnam has been shaped by institutional histories of forest management that have envisioned a strong role for the state and for financial transfers to the rural uplands. At the same time, PES has also been influenced by active engagement and agency of central and local government actors, and local payment recipients, and key areas in which they have impacted PES design include shared governance and more equitable benefit distribution models. These institutional priorities and local values that have shaped PES policy and implementation in Vietnam have led to a hybrid model, full of contradictions and compromises, that neither fits a classical definition nor resembles neoliberal conservation outcomes, and whose success is difficult to judge.     

Wheels of Time: Some Aspects of Entanglement Theory and the Secondary Products Revolution

This paper responds to that aspect of Andrew Sherratt??s writings that argued for building specifically archaeological theory. In describing a theory of entanglement, I have focused on the archaeological sensitivity to the complexities and practical interlacings of material things. The theory argues that human?Cthing entanglement comes about as a result of the dialectic between dependence (the reliance of humans and things on each other) and dependency (a constraining and limiting need of humans for things). Andrew??s discussion of the role of the wheel in his Secondary Products Revolution is a good example of how humans and things have become entangled so that, over the long term, we have been channeled down particular evolutionary pathways.     

Modernity and its Discontents: On the Durability of Nationalism in the Arab Middle East

Abstract. Because many area experts studying the Arab Middle East commonly credit assumptions about nationalism that have, for the most part, been abandoned by their colleagues working in other parts of the globe, they assert that nationalist sentiment in the region has declined, either as a result of a series of political shocks or as the result of competition from other ideologies (such as Islamism). However, popular forms of nationalism not only have strong roots in the region, they have been continually reinforced over time. As a result, the current popular support for Islamism cannot be taken as a sign that nationalist sentiments are on the decline, particularly in light of the fact that Islamic movements share with nationalism a number of significant attributes.     

A new protocol to differentiate trampling marks from butchery cut marks

Microscopic signatures have previously been used to emphasize the similarities of butchery and trampling marks. The experimental background applied to differentiate both types of marks has been rather limited and authors have sometimes reached conflicting conclusions. This is partly due to methodological reasons: some authors have used very high magnification to examine microscopic features, whereas others have relied on more reduced magnification. Likewise, some experiments have exposed bones to trampling for reduced periods (minutes) whereas others have used longer time periods (hours). The present study stresses that the use of a scanning electronic microscope is not practical for identifying the impact of butchery and trampling marks in complete bone assemblages. It also emphasizes that previous studies have not addressed all the possible variables that could potentially be used to discriminate these marks, nor have they quantified the morphological patterns of each type of mark. Here we present a multivariate analysis of more than a dozen variables and show that butchery and trampling marks have very distinctive microscopic morphology. We advocate the use of a low magnification approach (≤40×), which can enable the analysis of complete assemblages using either hand lenses or binocular lenses. We also show the morphological criteria that differentiate butchery cut marks made with simple and retouched tools. We show that whereas complete discrimination of marks is impossible due to some degree of overlap, the list of criteria derived through multivariate analyses can be confidently used to correctly differentiate butchery and trampling marks in more than 90% of cases.     

Regulating the global infrastructure of film labor exploitation

Confronted by media globalization, many governments have expressed concern about the productive capacity of domestic screen media institutions that are aiming to sustain the allegiances of resident populations. Policymakers are furthermore aware that creative labor is now widely perceived as a resource worth cultivating for its perceived benefits as a catalyst to economic innovation and productivity. In fear of being left behind, countries with even modest resources have fashioned a range of subsidies, tax breaks, and other enticements that have facilitated the emergence of a global production infrastructure that favors producers and media conglomerates at the expense of screen media workers. This mounting crisis of creative labor calls for a critical reassessment of the fundamental rationales behind these film policies and encourages speculation about new directions for cultural activism. Drawing inspiration from environmental studies, this essay advances the concept of stewardship as a geographically scalable approach to the challenges of media globalization.