Berlin: Town planning under particular conditions

The development of the Berlin conurbation as a unified living and economic area was interrupted for over 40 years. The reshaping of the old and new capital of Germany is not only to be seen under the aspects of continuity or discontinuity, but also in the context of the reinforced tradition of federalism and decentralism in Germany, and of competition with other European cities. The task of the reintegration of three different parts—West Berlin, East Berlin and the surrounding countryside—requires new concepts for the region and the city. Programmes and draft plans for the entire conurbation as well as the rebuilding and redesigning of the old city centre in accordance with both history and the future function are discussed. How and in what period of time the different plans and measures will be realized remains to be seen. In the meantime, well-thought out options for long-term development have to compete with propositions promising strong impulses for quick economic recovery.     

Platon im Arzneibuch und der Heller am Tresen Pharmazie im 16. Jahrhundert zwischen Humanismus,Stadtgesellschaft und Ökonomie

The study focuses on the development of pharmacopoeas during the early modern time. First, the >Nouvo Receptario< of 1499 came out in Florence as the first printed pharmacopoea of a north‐Italian town, edited by the guild of medicins and apothercaries. Following trading routes the idea of >pharmacopoea< arrived in Nuremberg, where the counsil of the town asked the humanist Valerius Cordus to prepare such a book. Printed in 1546, it quickly became the standard in preparing medicines for other towns in southern Germany. At Augsburg, a wealthy and powerful town, the physicians wrote their own pharmacopoea which was printed in 1564. The comparison of the three pharmacopoeas shows that its printing depended on the social stucture and the financial aspects of each town. But even if the apothecaries, the doctors or the mayors were trained in the humanistic tradtion, the materia medica still continued in the arabic tradition, i.e. the old drugs and preparations remained in these pharmacopoeas, probably for financial reasons.     

Western Mediterranean sand deposits as a raw material for Roman glass production

During the Late Roman and Byzantine period, natron glass was made from its raw materials in a limited number of primary production centres in Egypt and Syro-Palestine. For the earlier Hellenistic and Roman period, no primary furnaces have been found and the location of primary production during this era remains unclear. Ancient authors such as Strabo and Pliny the Elder suggest that glassmaking sands were found near the River Belus (Israel), in Egypt, near the mouth of the Volturno River (Italy) and also in Spain and France. However, primary production in the western part of the Mediterranean is not supported by any direct archaeological evidence and possible sand raw materials from these regions have never been evaluated for their suitability to produce glass.     

Global Strategies Compared: Firms,Markets and Regions

This paper explores the disembedding effects of globalization upon regional social ties as proposed in the relevant literature. It then asks questions about the limitations of such disembedding in relation to the prospects for new social movements. The analysis proposed offers an understanding of globalization as a societal, historical process. It shows that firms adopt diverse and distinctive strategies for going global which structure the overall process in question. These developments have organizational and spatial-regional effects which create tensions in the globlization process.