Alternative Ways of Financing Production

Based upon the work of C. H. Douglas, this paper explores the role of debt in the economy. In the 1920s Douglas observed the workings of financial mechanisms within the real economy, noting that they could be modified to achieve a socially and ecologically sustainable economics of sufficiency (see Hutchinson and Burkitt 1997; Hutchinson 1998). Douglas' exploration of the role of debt (loan credit) in the economy accords well with Veblen's institutional analysis (Veblen 1990), while his writing reverberates with Veblenian terminology. As an economist, Douglas is both intuitive and eclectic, and, as Mehta (1983) observes, ‘no writer in economics has made his thought so opaque to the reader.’ Nevertheless, Douglas' rejection by orthodoxy was due in no small measure to the impracticality of tailoring his theoretical observations within the constraints of neo-classical general free market equilibrium theory. Although they gave rise to a widespread popular movement, Douglas' proposals for debt-free finance of production could not be accommodated within economic orthodoxy.     

Metastatic carcinoma in a leper skeleton from a Medieval cemetery in Chichester England

Both leprosy and metastatic cancer are well documented in the literature on human skeletal palaeopathology. The manifestation of both pathological conditions in a single archaeological skeleton has not been reported. A case from a Medieval site in Chichester, England exhibits bone lesions and patterns of skeletal involvement indicative of both these diseases. Evidence of leprosy is largely restricted to the lower tibiae, fibulae and the bones of the feet. Fine destructive foci and reactive fibre bone associated with metastatic cancer are distributed in many of the remaining areas of the skeleton. There is minimal overlap in the areas of the skeleton involved in the two pathological processes.     

The ‘Little Palaces’ of St James's: Ladies,Lords, and Political Association under the later Stuarts

Clubs, coffee houses, and taverns, the most widely studied sites of political gathering in later Stuart London, largely excluded women. This essay argues that places of ‘intermixed conversation’ which existed alongside them should also be taken into account, and considers several examples of regular, semi-private assemblies, chiefly hosted by elite women (including duchesse de Mazarin, Lady Pulteney, and Barbara Villiers, Lady Fitzhardinge) and frequented by both sexes for the overt purpose of card playing, which were also significant places of political association at this period.     

Pure wax: A one man script

Donald N. Levine. Greater Ethiopia: The Evolution of a Multiethnic Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974. xv+ 229 pp. Maps, tables, charts, appendix, bibliography, and index. $12.50 (cloth).     

Book Reviews

George, Alexander L., and Juliette L. George. Presidential Personality and Performance. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998. Pp. x, 304. $75.00, hardbound; $25.00, softbound.

Epstein, David, and Sharyn O'Halloran. Delegating Powers: A Transaction Cost Politics Approach to Policy Making Under Separate Powers. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pp. xvi, 320. $59.95, hardbound; $19.95, softbound.

Kahn, Kim Fridkin, and Patrick J. Kenney. The Spectacle of U.S. Senate Campaigns. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999. Pp. xiv, 278. $57.50, hardbound; $18.95, softbound.

Michaels, Judith E. 1997. The President's Call: Executive Leadership from FDR to George Bush. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Pp. x, 348. $50.00, hardbound; $22.95, softbound.

Savage, James D. Funding Science in America: Congress, Universities, and the Politics of the Academic Pork Barrel. New York, Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pp. xiii, 219. $49.95, hardbound.

Stid, Daniel D. The President as Statesman: Woodrow Wilson and the Constitution. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 1998. Pp. xi, 231. $35.00, hardbound.

Steven Shull. American Civil Rights Policy from Truman to Clinton: The Role of Presidential Leadership. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1999. Pp. xv, 294. $64.95, hardbound.

Yalof, David Alistair. Pursuit of Justices: Presidential Politics and the Selection of Supreme Court Nominees. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. Pp. x, 296. $27.95, hardbound.