The Use of Social Science in the Changing Role of the GAO

The profession of the government auditor has been, is, and will continue to be making adjustments in its traditional patterns of work. Society and its needs are changing, government is changing, and professional work in government-in this case auditing-also is changing. This article shows that the U.S. General Accounting Office is learning by experience how to audit government programs having economic and social purposes in order to find out how useful they really are. It reveals the interesting diversity of a GAO auditor's assignments, tells how GAO work is planned, discusses finer points of new auditor disciplines, traces the development of the GAO organization from the days of green eye-shades to auditing by computer, and ends with a glimpse of new directions GAO services to the Congress may be expected to take.     

The Purpose of the Past: Reflections on the Uses of History

Our respondents, North American and British alike, have provided a series of perceptive comments on our essay “A Peripheral Vision”. They are as wide-ranging as they are well argued and provide ample food for thought on the direction of Communist historiography, not only in Britain but in America and beyond. We want to thank all of them for their informed, often argumentative and sometimes critical collaboration, as well as Dan Leab, the editor of American Communist History, who has made this exchange possible.     

Legal Challenges to Presidential Policies on the Use of Military Force

A review of legal challenges to the use of military force, from the Vietnam War era to the Gulf War, demonstrates a judicial unwillingness to constrain presidential policymaking. In most of these cases, the judiciary has ruled the legal challenge nonjusticiable. In the first post-Cold War challenge , Dellums v. Bush, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia issued the equivalent of a declaratory judgment. Arguably, this is the only practical judicial response to the presidential use of force, but it does little more than redirect the policy conflict from the courts to Congress. The rule of law remains a weak reed in efforts to constrain presidential policymaking on the use of military force.     

论巫术信仰的合理性根据

作为一种普遍的社会文化现象,巫术信仰是有其重要的合理性根据的。第一,寻求掌控的心理动机。即人们把巫术作为试图理解和预测我们居住的社会世界以期获得各种酬赏的手段。第二,获得精神慰藉的心理需求。在面对生老病死、天灾人祸等困境时,巫术既可以增强人们战胜困难的信心,又能够给遭受痛苦的人们以精神的安慰。第三,对社会秩序的整合功能。巫术能够满足社会制度的需要．维护社会群体的利益,即巫术具有对社会生活秩序的组织和控制的功能。     

清代陕南土地利用变迁驱动力研究

清代陕西南部地区的土地利用发生了巨大的变化 ,大部分地区由原始林地转变为耕地。影响这一变化 ,或者说导致清代陕南土地利用方式转变的主要驱动力 ,除了人口的机械增长外 ,还有高产作物的引入、优惠的招垦政策和粗放的耕作习俗等。分析并研究导致清代陕南土地利用变化的驱动力 ,对研究历史时期下垫面变化有着十分重要的意义。     

The Purpose of Porphyry's Letter to Marcella

Porphyry's Letter to Marcella was ostensibly written by the Neoplatonic philosopher, while away on a mission on behalf of the Greeks, in order to encourage his wife, Marcella, to continue her study of philosophy during his absence. The precise date of the letter is uncertain. It is here argued that it was intended for public circulation and should be seen in association with Porphyry's anti-Christian polemic. It can be interpreted as a protreptic text intended to convert its readers to true philosophy, and it is suggested that it was directed to those women who might otherwise be attracted to Christianity. Marcella can be said to represent the intended readership of the letter.     

Changing electoral politics: The local level

This article explores contemporary notions of Italian kinship—procreation, the family, biological and social relatedness—as they are shaped by programmes of gamete donation (these are programmes that require the use of third‐party egg and semen to achieve conception). The research was carried out in Italian clinics of assisted conception and presents the views of heterosexual couples suffering from impaired infertility. The overall material reveals the power of kinship as a cultural form.     

The Poetics of the Crocodile: Changing Cultural Perspectives in Ambonwari

ABSTRACT Ambonwari people from the East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea, had a rich repertoire of song‐dances, each of which was associated with specific events and the birth of something new. Together they represented the entire human life cycle as well as the cosmology at large. Visual, verbal and tactile modalities of singing and dancing were tightly interwoven; images and symbols were enacted by the dancers, in their decoration, arrangement, movements and in the whole ceremony and were firmly situated in their landscape. Accordingly, song‐dances were also an important practice in male initiation ritual. The first song‐dance of the ritual was the crocodile song‐dance. This article analyses different transpositions of images and meanings which can be decoded from the dance, from the objects that were part of the initiation rite, and from the parallelism and rich allegory of verses. These transpositions operate at different levels until they converge upon the existential facts of birth and death. In the new millennium and under the influence of a Catholic charismatic movement, however, Ambonwari broke off their relationships with spirits, abandoned the men's houses and stopped talking about male initiation ritual. Along with other traditional song‐dances the crocodile song‐dance has been taken over by the song‐dances of the Holy Spirit. These changes in social and cultural perspectives, which are still taking place, are at the same time products and producers of the changes in their relationship to ‘space’ and ‘time’ which are at the same time changes in visual and auditory perception and expression of their life‐world. All these changes should not be seen merely in some abstract or symbolic terms but as tangible processes generated by people's action.     

莫友芝《黔诗纪略》编纂目的考论

《黔诗纪略》是最为学界重视的黔诗选本.展贵州明代诗歌状况、取名能诗家之制和存文献是该书的三个编纂目的.三个编纂目的共存使《黔诗纪略》诗学批评功能和文献功能兼具.贵州文献散佚严重,莫友芝保留文献意识强烈是"存文献"编纂目的产生的主要原因.从《黔诗纪略》编纂目的的认识情况来看,其"存文献"的编纂目的所产生的影响更大,但《黔诗纪略》其他编纂目的也值得注意.