Paracelsus and Roman censorship – Johannes Faber’s 1616 report in context

This article analyses a central episode in the response of the Catholic bodies of doctrinal control to the emergence of Paracelsianism. More specifically, it discusses the censorial report written in 1616 by the physician Johannes Faber for the Congregation for the Index about the works of Paracelsus. This report was written in a time that Paracelsianism had become increasingly popular, but also a source of fierce debates. The complex context surrounding the report is investigated, with particular attention to the broader social, religious, and scientific aspects as well as the precise historical situation in which it was written. Faber’s report and an English translation are provided in separate appendices.     

Mental maps of global regions: identifying and characterizing “hard” and “soft” regions

ABSTRACT

This article presents the quantitative synthesis of mental maps that identify different types of world regions. It is the result of a large-scale survey conducted in 18 countries, based on a sketch map approach. The number, shape, and extension of these vernacular world regions vary according to countries, cultures, and the personal styles of respondents who drew the maps. However, when we collectively analyze the regions identified by respondents, we observe that the figures of global regions are more or less recurrent. While the most commonly used division of the world is into “continents”, we can identify “hard” and “soft” regions of the world. Whereas a “hard” region, such as Africa, can be recognized relatively unambiguously as a continent, “soft” regions may include numerous regional distinctions such as East Asia, Russia, South East Asia, and the Middle East. Our methodology involves defining a set of characteristics that discriminate between “hard” and “soft” regions (measuring spatial uncertainty and the relative vagueness of limits and fringes), then accounting for the correlation of these areas on the world map.     

Divergence of the Book of Job from Deuteronomic/Priestly Torah: Intertextual Reading between Job and Torah

The book of Job prominently portrays the motif of the pious sufferer and the confrontation between Job’s three friends who claim the retribution principle and Job who witnesses the undermined moral order in reality, and indicates finally Yahweh’s speech which marginalises issues of justice and judgment which Job vehemently called for. On the one hand, these distinct features to some extent may reflect a critical and belittling idea of Deuteronomic Torah, although it does not deny the entire concept of Torah and traditional laws about divine judgment. On the other hand, while it has been argued that the book of Job reflects the Priestly context in the Pentateuch, in a closer examination the author of Job hardly has the creational order, rituals, and ideology that priestly materials in general imply.     

Gender and sexual violence,forced marriages,and primitive accumulation during the Cambodian genocide, 1975–1979

Abstract

Between 1975 and 1979 approximately two million men, women, and children died during the Cambodian genocide. These deaths are attributed to specific administrative policies and practices initiated by the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), all of which were geared toward the basic objective of increasing agricultural production as a means of building socialism. A crucial question regarding these practices was whether the CPK implemented policies designed specifically to destroy the traditional family structure of Cambodia. Drawing on the work of Silvia Federici, this article argues that policies and practices forwarded by the CPK constitute a variation of primitive accumulation; and that transformations of the traditional family structure were conditioned by the overall social organization of production initiated by the CPK. However, a more pressing form of gendered violence is apparent – a mode that pivots on the social ordering of the CPK’s political economy.     

William Tell Militarism: The Swiss Model for Canada’s ‘Citizen Army’

Following Confederation in 1867, Canadians needed to move forward from their dependence on British imperial defence. Canadian militiaman Richard John Wicksteed was first to recommend adopting the model of the Swiss Army, a multi-ethnic, rifle-wielding citizen force powerful enough to ensure Swiss neutrality although surrounded by militaristic European powers. General Officer Commanding Edward Thomas Henry Hutton later proposed the Swiss model for a Canadian ‘National Army,’ echoed by Militia Minister Frederick Borden. In 1917, Colonel William Hamilton Merritt was the final advocate, drawn especially to the notion of equality in Switzerland’s universal military training programme. By this time, however, the Great War had changed concepts of Canada’s military needs from a reliance upon the defence-oriented citizen soldier to a more highly trained, expeditionary military force.     

Book reviews

Paul Cammack, David Pool and William Tordoff, Third World Politics. A Comparative Introduction. Basingstoke: Macmillan Education, 1988. xi+308pp. $22.95

Naomi Chazan, Robert Mortimer, John Ravenhill and Donald Rothchild. Politics and Society in Contemporary Africa. Basingstoke: Macmillan Education, 1988. xi+459pp. $29.95.

Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Verba (eds). The Civic Culture Revisited. Newbury Park: Sage, 1989. 422pp. £39.95 (cloth), £15.75 (paper).

John R. Gibbins (ed). Contemporary Political Culture. Politics in a Postmodern Age. Newbury Park: Sage, 1989. 266pp. £27.50 (cloth), £10.95 (paper).

Kusuma Snitwongse and Sukhumbhand Paribatra (eds). Durable Stability in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1987. xiii+237pp. $S44 (cloth), $S32 (paper).

Lawrence C. Mayer. Redefining Comparative Politics. Promise Versus Performance. Newbury Park: Sage, 1989. 303pp. £29.50 (cloth), £13.95 (paper).

Amin Saikal (ed.). Refugees in the Modern World. Canberra: Department of International Relations, Australian National University, 1989‐ 125 pp. No price given.

W. Michael Reisman and Andrew R. Willard (eds). International Incidents: The Law That Counts in World Politics. Princeton: Princeton Unversity Press, 1988.xii+278 pp. $US35.00 (cloth), $US12.95 (paper).

Samuel B. Payne, The Conduct of War: An Introduction to Modem Warfare. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988. xiv+309 pp. $49.95.

Jane F. Marceau. A Family Business? The Making of an International Business Elite. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. x+247 pp. $65.00

Kenneth Hoover and Raymond Plant. Conservative Capitalism in Britain and the United States: A Critical Appraisal. London: Routledge, 1989. xvii+341 pp. $98.95.

David Carlton, Britain and the Suez Crisis. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989‐ 174 pp. $27.95.

Michael Dockrill. British Defence Since 1945. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988. 171 pp. $24.95.

Yves Boyer, Pierre Lellouche and John Roper (eds). Franco‐British Defence Co‐operation: A New Entent'e Cordiale?. London: Routledge, 1989‐ 194 pp. $89.95.

Kristian Gerner and Stefan Hedlund. Ideology and Rationality in the Soviet Model. A Legacy for Gorbachev. London and New York: Routledge, 1989. xii+455 pp. $105.00.

Boris Kagarlitsky. The Thinking Reed. Intellectuals and the Soviet State from 1917 to the Present. London: Verso, 1988. x+370 pp. $29.50.

Alan B. Sherr. The Other Side of Arms Control: Soviet Objectives in the Gorbachev Era. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1988. xviii+325 pp. $US42.00.

David Childs, Thomas A. Baylis and Marilyn Rueschemeyer (eds). East Germany in Comparative Perspective. London & New York: Routledge, 1989. xvi+238 pp. $105.00

Tony Judt (ed.). Resistance and Revolution in Mediterranean Europe, 1939 ‐ 1948. London and New York: Routledge, 1989. iv+229 pp. $105.00.

Yoshihara Kunio. The Rise of Ersatz Capitalism in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1988. xiii+297 pp. $24.95.

Chin Kin Wah (ed.), Defense Spending in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. 1987. ix+326pp. $US 20.00.

P.J. Soedjati Djiwandono & Young Mun Choeng (eds). Soldiers and Stability in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. 1988. ix+354 pp. $US22.00.

Greg Lockhart. Nation in Arms: The Origins of the People's Army of Vietnam. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, in association with the Asian Studies Association of Australia, 1989‐ xiv+314pp. $29.95 (cloth), $24.95 (paper).

John Overton. Land and Differentiation in Rural Fiji. Canberra: National Centre for Development Studies, 1989. vii+152 pp. $20.00.

Walter Manshard and William B. Morgan (eds). Agricultural Expansion and Pioneer Settlements in the Humid Tropics. Tokyo: United Nations University, 1988, 305 pp. $US20.00.

Robert H. Bruce (ed). The Modern Indian Navy and the Indian Ocean: Developments and Implications. Perth: Centre for Indian Ocean Regional Studies, Curtin University of Technology/Australian Institute of International Affairs, x+168 pp. $22.50.

Rasul B. Rais. The Indian Ocean and the Superpowers, London: Croom Helm, 1988.215 pp. No price given.

Roy Mottahedeh. The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran, Harmonsworth: Penguin Books, 1987. 418 pp. $22.95.

Max G. Manwaring and Court Prisk (eds). El Salvador at War: An Oral History. Washington D.C.: National Defence College, 1988. liv + 500 pp. No price given.     

HEDONIC PRICES,IDENTIFICATION, AND THE DEMAND FOR PUBLIC SAFETY*

In this paper, we use a two-stage intercity hedonic model to estimate household demand for public safety. This approach is shown to readily address the identification problem inherent in the hedonic model. Data from the 1980 Public Use Microdata Sample are used to estimate a willingness-to-pay function for the public-safety good. Income is found to be the primary determinant of willingness to pay. Indeed, the influence of income outweighs the combined impact of family life-cycle considerations.     

Congo to Kalahari: data and hypotheses about the political economy of the western stream of the Early Iron Age

This paper provides a preliminary account of archaeological research on sites of early pottery-using people in the coastal region of the Congo Republic. The results obtained are compared with observations from Botswana and used to amplify archaeological and lingustic data relevant to the transformations in social and productive forces that occurred across the western part of sub-equatorial Africa during the period when food production, metallurgy and long-distance trade were established. Particular attention is paid to evidence for developing economic and social relations between indigenous foragers and immigrant food producers.

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Résumé Cet article offre les premiers résultats de recherches sur des sites qui emontent du début de l'utilisation de la potiere par des populations habitant la zone côtière de la République du Congo. Les résultats obtenus sont comparés avec des découvertes au Botswana pour developer les données archéologiques et linguistiques se rapportant à la transformation des forces sociales et productives qui se produisent à travers la partie occidentale de l'Afrique subéquatoriale durant la période où apparutent la production de nourrieture, la métallurgie et le commerce à longue distance. L'article s'attache plus particulièrement aux témoins du dévelopment de relations économiques et socials entre les indigènes, pcheurs/chasseurs, et les populations immigrantes de producteurs de nourriture.

     

LA PÉRIODICITÉ DE LA GÉOGRAPHIE LINGUISTIQUE ACTUELLE: ESSAI MÉTHODOLOGIQUE

L'article présente une esquisse de I'impact des migrations sur la géographie linguistique. On constatera que le modèle classique d'une mosaïque linguistique stati- que n'est plus de mise: la situation linguistique du monde est dans un état de flux permanent. La nature pendulaire de bien des migrations modernes laissent supposer qu'il ex/ste des régularités , et notamment des périodicités dans ce flux. Cette hypothèse est testée par une étude de cas réalisée sur la place centrale de la ville de Grenoble en France, L 'existence des régularités postulées est confirmée par, entre autres, une analyse de Fourier. La conclusion soulève la pertinence de ces phénomènes en matière de planification linguistique .