What is the VAT? The policies and practices of value added tax on ebooks in Europe

This article addresses reduction of or exemption from value added tax (VAT) as a cultural- and media policy instrument and analyses the VAT policies on ebooks within the European Economic Area. Examining an area of media and policy studies that is largely overlooked, the article is partly an empirical analysis of VAT policies and partly a discussion paper raising issues applicable to other media sectors and of political and societal relevance. Section 1 of the article conceptualises VAT reduction/exemption as a media and cultural policy tool within national and supranational policy frameworks. Section 2 gives a comprehensive overview of the application of VAT on print books and ebooks in Europe and discusses some consequences of the concrete taxation practices. Section 3 reports and discusses initiatives to alter the European VAT policies on digital media and cultural products and services.     

From War 2.0 to quantum war: the superpositionality of global violence

As information networks catalyse local incidents into international crises, as global events appear and disappear on multiple screens at an accelerated pace and as a war of images displaces the image of war, it becomes increasingly difficult to understand the rapidly changing nature of global violence within the confines of security studies. Phase-shifting with each media intervention from states to sub-states, local to global, public to private, organised to chaotic and virtual to real—and back again—global violence superpositions into a quantum war that requires new transdisciplinary, transnational and transmedial approaches.     

《平南传》琐谈

《平南传》问世后被认定为贵州首部历史小说,成书于明代。本文将该书与有关史籍对比,并根据明代职官等制度及有关人物的经历作考证,提出不同意见。又从故事情节及语言文字推测其成书年代,判断文学、史料价值。     

试论态度理论对旅游服务质量的促进作用

旅游业是服务行业,服务态度至关重要。重视态度理论的学习和使用．可给旅游企业的生存和发展带来机会和裨益。     

近代日本中国观的变迁及其东亚强国地位的确立

近代以来,日本首先从文化价值观和国家定位上实现了对中国的价值自立,随后在外交实践上争得与中国平等的国际地位,在对欧美实地考察后逐渐确立起对中国的优越意识,并在对中国试探性的侵略战争中将这种优越意识固定化。依凭其在亚洲独一无二的近代化成果,日本将其近代中国观在甲午战争中付诸实践,两国近千年来的强弱态势由此发生结构性的转变,日本的东亚强国地位得以确立,并最终以君临的姿态把中国纳入其扩张视野。     

Geopolitics,transnational solidarity or diaspora nationalism? The global career of M.N. Roy, 1915–1930

This article examines the global travels and anti-colonial thought of the Indian revolutionary Manabendra Nath Roy. It focuses particularly on his little explored stay in revolutionary Mexico, where he became a founder of the Mexican Communist Party in 1919. Drawing on archival sources from various countries and Roy's own writings, the article situates Roy's exploits somewhere between a global anti-colonialism, transnational solidarity and diasporic nationalism. It explores particularly the possibilities and the limits of an image of Asia and Latin America as regions united in their oppression by imperialism, and warranting shared anti-colonial strategies in the framework of international Communism.     

论焦竑《献征录》的史料价值

《献征录》是明代焦竑编纂的一部记载本朝人物的传记史书,所收人物跨度之大,数量之多,史无前例。该书不仅是《明史》、《国榷》等文献的重要史源之一,而且在纠谬、补阙、辑佚其他明史文献方面也具有可贵的史料价值。但作为一部假一人之力而完成的宏大史著,该书也存在体例不一、内容讹误、传记重复、引文出处不明等不足。     

Are smart cities global cities? A European perspective

Typical of the 1990s, the global cities phenomenon preceded the past decade’s massive spread of smart cities. Yet the question of how the two phenomena currently coincide remains to be considered, as well as an analysis based on viewing smart cities as global cities. An analysis related to the European scenario is developed in this article, aimed at giving a response to the previous considerations. An index is also proposed; concerning the global character of the cities, it considers the ability of the cities to attract Foreign Direct Investments (FDI). Results of the proposed analysis show that in Europe four main scenarios exist. Two regarding positive and negative correlations between the diffusion of global and smart cities, and another two scenarios demonstrate cases in which the two features are not correlated. The first two cases are respectively related to smart cities that are also global cities. The last two cases deal with the presence of different drivers that are not related to smart urban plans, which could, however, drive the attraction of FDI or which could also promote smart actions without the thrust of FDI. Correlation and regression analyses complement the work.     

The Making of Speculative Biodiesel Commodities on the Agroenergy Frontier of the Brazilian Northeast

In this paper, I examine the speculative dimensions of biodiesel production in Northeast Brazil under the National Program for the Production and Use of Biodiesel (PNPB), by focusing on the case of castor oil plant (Ricinus communis) in semi-arid Bahia, a promising flex crop that was said to generate social, environmental and economic benefits, especially for the historically marginalised Northeast peasantry. I argue that speculative practices over castor have relied on state policies and discourses as well as biophysical and biotechnological (im)materialities that are transforming agrarian relations in ways that compromise peasants’ control over their (re)productive systems while promoting the expansion of the agroindustrial frontier. By examining the everyday, performative and place-based character of speculative biodiesel practices and their uneven and contested socioenvironmental implications, this paper contributes to current political ecology debates on the nexus between agroenergy development, nature’s capitalist valuation and rural dispossession.