Promoting participation—Seeking sustainability: The ITK Dilemma

Moock, Joyce Lewinger and Robert E. Rhoades, eds. Diversity, Farmer Knowledge, and Sustainability. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992. xix + 278 pp. including index. $49.95 cloth; $18.95 paper.

Pottier, Johan, ed. Practising Development: Social Science Perspectives. London: Routledge, 1993. ix + 222 pp. including index. $18.95 paper.

Thurston, H. David. Sustainable Practices for Plant Disease Management in Traditional Farming Systems. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992. xii + 279 pp. including bibliography and indices. $54.50 cloth.     

“A Man of Fashion Never Has Recourse to Proverbs”: Lord Chesterfield's Tilting at Proverbial Windmills

Many scholars have claimed that proverbs largely dropped from polite speech during the eighteenth century in England. Often quoted in this context is Lord Chesterfield's advice to his son that proverbs are merely the "rhetoric of the vulgar man" and "a man of fashion never has recourse to proverbs and vulgar aphorisms." This article challenges the former assumption and shows that Chesterfield himself regularly used proverbs in his letters, and used them to great effect.     

Regionale Energieversorgung Chance für eine zukunftsf?hige Ziel- und Ressourcensteuerung in der Energiewirtschaft

In einem ersten Teil (Hoppenbrock/Moser) werden auf Basis eines entwickelten Systemmodells „Dezentrale Energieversorgung“ ?konomische Prozesse für ein regionales Energiesystem diskutiert, welches im BMU-Forschungsvorhaben „Entwicklungsperspektiven für nachhaltige 100 %-EE-Regionen in Deutschland“ erarbeitet wurde. In einem zweiten Teil (Bonow/George) werden der Begriff „Regionale Energieversorgung“ und seine Leitkriterien hergeleitet. Anschlie?end wird eine den Verfassern des Beitrages geeignet erscheinende „Balanced Scorecard“ vorgestellt – ausgehend von der Vision, dass eine Region in Bezug auf ihre Energieversorgung nachhaltig und wettbewerbsf?hig entwickelt werden kann.     

Erratum to: Analyzing and dating the structure of the Phaistos Disk

This paper offers an analysis and dating of the structure of the “Phaistos Disk”, made from clay, imprinted with undeciphered symbols, grouped in roughly 30 boxes per disk side, and found in the ruins of the Phaistos Palace on the Greek Island of Crete by Luigi Pernier in 1908. The author suggests that the disk side A containing a petal in the center box shows astronomical eclipse information, which belong to a complete Saros cycle beginning −1377 and valid for the Phaistos Palace location only.     

Die Astrologie der Antike

This survey of classical astrology is in three parts: a) a summary of its rich and eventful history from the Babylonians to the Renaissance; b) the methods of calculation which remained the same throughout the period, based on the planets, the zodiac and the “twelve houses”; c) an analysis of astrological thought, which is quite different from any modern approach; providing a rigid interpretation of the universe, it granted confort and security. It presents a curious combination of religion and science: the physics is the one forwarded by the stoïcs, with an equal balance of the four elements, and the microcosmic economy within the soul representing the macrocosmic one; but such a determinism is in contradiction with the Stoics' sense of responsability which presupposes free will.     

Elektrotechnik - Entstehung einer wissenschaftlichen Disziplin1

The scientific institutionalization of electrical engineering took place in the 1880's; however, the science of electricity did not yet furnish proof of its practical efficiency. The founding of chairs in electrical engineering at this time was connected with the rise of heavy current industry, whereas weak current developments, as for instance telegraphy and telephony, played virtually no role. The principal connections of the discipline of electrical engineering shifted in the following years from physics to mechanical engineering, before electrical engineering became an independent discipline. The author gives an account of this development and presents theses for it, as well as shows a research program of the history of electrical engineering between 1880 and the First World War.