Cash Transfers and the Well‐being of Older People in Brazil

This article provides a comprehensive assessment of the effects of social protection interventions on material and subjective elements of well‐being. Drawing on a longitudinal survey located in two relatively deprived parts of Brazil, it assesses the effects of pensions and other cash transfers on the well‐being of older people and their households. This analysis is located within a dynamic economic and public policy context. The article finds that pension benefits significantly increase per capita income and that this is strongly associated with overall levels of satisfaction with household well‐being. Levels of reported subjective well‐being do not fall as respondents age, and the survey finds high levels of optimism about future well‐being. The positive effects of pension benefits were supported by upgraded health services and by more specific policies such as access to credit on favourable terms. Overall, the authors conclude that a combination of economic growth and effective public policies significantly boosted the well‐being of most households in their survey, and that Brazil can be taken as a model of good practice for other middle‐income countries.     

BOOK REVIEWS

THE NATIVE TRIBES OF SOUTH-EAST AUSTRALIA By A. W. HOWITT, D.Sc Macmillan &; Co. 1904. Reviewed by E. Sidney Hartland.

WEST AFRICAN BELIEFS. Reviewed by A. Lang.

ZWEI JAHRE UNTER DEN KANNIBALEN DER SALOMO-INSELN : Reiseerlebnisse und Schilderunge von Land und Leuten. By CARL RIBBE. 352 pp. 86 figures in the text. 14 plates. 10 diagrams and 3 maps. Dresden-Blasewitz, Elbgau-Buchdruckerei, H. Beyer, 1903. Reviewed by A. C. Haddon.

TRADITIONS OF THE SKIDI PAWNEE. BY GEORGE A. DORSEY (Memoirs of the American Folklore Society, vol. viii.). Boston, 1904, pp. xxvi, 366, with 15 Plates. Reviewed by N. W. Thomas.

A PHONETICAL STUDY OF THE ESKIMO LANGUAGE, BASED ON OBSERVATIONS MADE ON A JOURNEY IN NORTH GREENLAND, 1900–1901. By WILLIAM THALBITZER. Reprint from Meddelelser om Gronland, vol. xxxi. Copenhagen, 1904. Reviewed by E. Sidney Hartland.

SOCIOLOGICAL PAPERS: 1904. With an INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS by JAMES BRYCE. Published for the Sociological Society. Macmillan. 1905. Reviewed by Charlotte S. Burne.

STUDIES IN ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE. By H. M. CHADWICK. Cambridge University Press. Reviewed by F. M. Stenton.

JOURNAL OF THE FOLK-SONG SOCIETY, Vol. I., Pt. 5. Spottiswoode &; Co., 1904. Reviewed by L. M. Eyre.     

La Crise des intellectuels français: aspects historiques et retombées historiographiques

Les intellectuels français ont-ils connu, à la fin du siècle dernier, une crise ? Ce diagnostic vint du milieu intellectuel lui-même, qui, affaibli par la perte de crédibilité des systèmes de pensée associés aux confrontations idéologiques de la guerre froide, voyait dans la montée en puissance d'une culture médiatique de nouveaux leaders d'opinion brouillant les contours de la mouvance culturelle jusque-là essentiellement constituée d'hommes et de femmes venus de la sphère de l'imprimé. D'une certaine façon, le pathos l'a en effet emporté sur le logos, discours construit et analyse argumentée des problèmes posés à une société. A cet égard, la crise des intellectuels est à la fois un reflet et un accélérateur de la crise des démocraties représentatives, dont le fondement était l'examen raisonné et la concurrence raisonnable des possibles et dont le fonctionnement risque d'être parasité par les palpitations successives d'opinions publiques en proie à des émotions liées aux bruits et aux fureurs de la culture médiatique, devenue elle-même, de plus en plus, une culture-monde.     

Death in the sun: the bioarchaeology of an early post-medieval hospital in Gibraltar

SUMMARY: In 2014, during construction work at the ex-Civil Hospital in Gibraltar, excavations led by the Gibraltar Museum revealed a major, previously unknown burial ground containing more than 200 skeletons. We present the historical, archaeological and radiometric dating evidence from the site alongside the results of initial osteological analyses. The data indicate that the burials pertain to an earlier 16th-century Spanish hospice, and therefore stand to offer new insights into the functioning of this early modern hospital and the health and movements of people at a time of incipient globalization.     

Roman agriculture in the conventus Bracaraugustanus (NW Iberia)

A review of archaeobotanical data, together with new, still unpublished data, from Roman sites in conventus Bracaraugustanus suggests the Romanization of the northwest Iberia brought little changes to the agricultural strategies of local communities in indigenous-type settlements. The main crops remain the same as in the Iron Age: Triticum aestivum/durum, Panicum miliaceum, Hordeum vulgare subsp. vulgare, Triticum turgidum subsp. dicoccum and T. aestivum subsp. spelta, Avena and Vicia faba. The first secure reference for the cultivation of Secale cereale in the region comes from a Roman context, suggesting that it was introduced in this period, although it probably remained a minor crop.