New Strategies for an Old Medium: The Weekly Radio Addresses of Reagan and Clinton

Charisma is one of the most common explanations for the success of political leaders in obtaining the support of the mass public. Yet authors employing the concept typically begin their analyses by simply assuming the presence of charisma, foregoing more rigorous analyses, including the consideration of alternative explanations for public appeal. Thus, charisma becomes a post hoc attribution, a residual category of explanation that is difficult to evaluate objectively. This article examines the concept of charisma in the context of the American presidency by testing for its consequences, including presidents obtaining unusually high levels of support, support from unusual sources, or especially intense and committed support, or successfully leading public opinion on matters of public policy. I particularly focus on the best-case tests of John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. Unable to find systematic evidence of some special form of leadership that we might characterize as "charismatic," I conclude that the concept of charisma is neither salvageable analytically nor helpful empirically.     

On the Geography of the Wars Between the Saxons of Northumberland and the Northern Britons,from the Battle of Menao to that of Kaltraez

Abstract

The techniques of spatial analysis are deployed to gain insights into the ways in which smaller churches of the 11th and 12th centuries were designed to be used. A range of plan types is discussed, including churches with one, two and three cells, linear and cross-shaped plans, and ‘round’ churches. The resulting analysis of the forms of buildings is then placed in the historical context of ecclesiastical reform, and it is argued that some of the changes in church layout were designed to separate the clergy from the laity, mirroring their increasing legal and social differentiation. It is also argued that the ways in which clergy used space were similar in all types of church examined, and that they show continuity from early Christian buildings to the late 12th and 13th centuries, when rising belief in the transubstantiation of the Host led to the evolution of new forms of clergy space     

The origin of the four stages theory: A contribution to the history of social evolutionary thought

Ronald L. Meek. Social Science and the Ignoble Savage. New York and London: Cambridge University Press, 1976. v + 249 pp. Index. $17.50.