Counting the Costs of the Nuclear Age

Stephen L. Schwartz, Atomic audit: the costs and consequences of US nuclear weapons since 1940     

The Unflinching Mr. Smith and the Nuclear Age**

This article focuses on the U.S. diplomat and nuclear arms control negotiator Gerald (Gerry) Coat Smith in order to cast new light on the importance of diplomats in the context of the set of international activities currently labelled as “science diplomacy.” Smith, a lawyer by training, was a key negotiator in many international agreements on post-WW2 atomic energy projects, from those on uranium prospecting and mining, to reactors technologies to later ones on non-proliferation and disarmament. His career in science (nuclear) diplomacy also epitomized the shortcomings of efforts to align other countries’ posture on nuclear affairs to U.S. wishes. In particular, the unswerving diplomat increasingly understood that strong-arm tactics to dissuade other countries from acquiring nuclear weapons would not limit proliferation. Not only did this inform later U.S. diplomacy approaches, but it lent itself to the ascendancy of the new notion of “soft power” as critical to the re-definition of international affairs.     

The Poverty Discourse and the Poor in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka is cited as an exemplary case of direct poverty alleviation because of a long history of social welfare and high values in quality of life indices. Notwithstanding, anti-poverty measures in Sri Lanka founded on the international discourse of poverty and development do not serve the interests of poor people. This discourse begins by locating poor people in a distinct poverty sector and proceeds to examine its characteristics. Several attributes of that discourse make it intellectually incapable of seeing how poverty is socially constructed in a diffused nexus of production relations that extends far beyond the so-called 'poverty sector'. An alternative 'substantive approach to poverty' is presented. The arguments are illustrated using the theme of food production in Sri Lanka.     

Animal Bodies and Ontological Discourse in the Greek Neolithic

The present article tries to assess the ways that animal bodies were represented in the Neolithic of Northern Greece. Contending that representations always have a material presence (be they spoken, depicted or anything else), an attempt is made to sort out how the specificity of this presence constitutes a frame of reference for the deployment of social action. Animal representations seem to be particularly related with certain materials, especially clay, and certain objects, mostly clay vessels. It is suggested that these objects allow animals to be incorporated in social action in a very specific manner, one that is further defined by the contexts of their use.     

河南龙山时代和早期青铜时代考古六十年

河南位于中原腹地,在龙山时代和早期青铜时代,河南的龙山文化和二里头文化在中华文明起源与发展进程中,对以中原为中心的趋势的形成和夏王朝的建立,起着举足轻重的作用。对新中国成立60年来,河南的龙山文化和二里头文化的考古发现和研究成果的回顾和总结,将有利于我们对中华文明形成的机制、动力和规律等问题作持续的新的探索。     

Sheep wool in Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe

This study presents the results of a series of wool measurements from Bronze Age and Iron Age skins and textiles from Hallstatt, and Bronze Age textiles from Scandinavia and the Balkans. A new method of classification that was set up and applied on mostly mineralised Iron Age material has now been applied to a large body of non-mineralised material from the Bronze and Iron Ages. Three types of microscopes were used and their advantages and disadvantages assessed. The results of the investigation cast new light on sheep breeding and fibre processing in prehistoric Europe, and suggest that different sheep breeds existed in Bronze Age Europe.     

Ethnocentricity of the Nationalist Discourse

Abstract. Nationalism is a theory about the nature, purposes, boundaries and the basis of the legitimacy and the unity of the state. It maintains that the state should ideally be constituted as a nation. This means that a nation has a right to form a state of its own, as also that every state should endeavour to become a nation. The nationalist discourse rests on several assumptions, such as that nationalism is a universal phenomenon, that nationalist movements have identical structures, that all nations aim to become independent states, that non-Western nationalism is derivative in nature and that nationalism is an unmitigated evil. The author elucidates the distinctive nature of nationalism and criticises these and related assumptions.