Tracking gristmills in Portugal: retrospection and reflexivity on place,technology, and change

This article discusses changes in Portuguese gristmills driven by wind and water in the context of a personal retrospection on a field project carried out four decades earlier. Into the mid-twentieth century, windmills and two kinds of watermills were still important rural facilities to grind wheat, rye, and maize into flour. By the 1970s, technological change in Portugal had much reduced the number of those still operating; by 2011 most of those mills had ceased. The major exception is the persistence of watermills in the northwestern part of the country where maize cultivation, fondness for maize bread, powerful streams, hamlet settlement, and a conservative frugality converges to keep some mills still working. Nevertheless, they too, can be expected to disappear in the years ahead. Function is one thing; form is another. The Portuguese landscape remains rich in these structures and broadly held sentiment favors their preservation. Reflecting on a past project stimulated thinking about the importance of place in formulating a geographical topic, research as a cultural experience, constraints of fieldwork in the life span of scholars, and the value of critical self-assessment.     

我国实施依法治国方略的历史回顾

依法治国方略的提出,是中国共产党执政方式上的一次重大改革,是中国治国方略上的重大战略选择,是社会主义制度的创新,也是改革开放以来中国政治形态发生的最具历史意义的转型。依法治国符合历史发展规律,是实现国家长治久安、促进民主政治的重要成果。然而,确立依法治国的基本方略,构建社会主义法治国家的目标模式,仅仅是走向法治的起点,真正迈入法治的轨道还要做出更大的努力。