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This chapter addresses the domain of the professional, taking seriously the notion that the professional is personal, in addition to being social, political, and ethical. The chapter traces the development of modern professional classes, particularly as they implicate individual and collective moral practice. In certain ways, formal professions have the capacity to elevate moral practice and create barriers to ethical visions. This chapter considers the various sides of professional life, takes a second look at its ethical claims, and exposes some of the problems with what we usually think of as an unmitigated positive force in society; that is, professionalism. As part of this evaluation, the chapter probes issues of professional style and examines the categories into which individuals and whole segments of society are divided. The chapter concludes with a call to reconsider the meaning of “career.”

A defining characteristic of the Middle Woodland period is the prevalence of craft goods of stone, bone, shell, and metal, which originated frequently from exotic sources and were often fashioned into non-utilitarian, symbolically-charged products. In the processual heyday, archaeologists devoted considerable attention on the perceived control of the production and exchange of these exotic goods and what it may say about the political and economic power of elites, and, by extension, their societies. In this chapter, the authors suggest that this emphasis on the political- and ritual-economic contexts for craft production may obscure an important point: specifically, that crafting was rooted in the everyday rhythms of domestic life, by which the authors mean the networks of relationships with other people and other objects. Reviewing the archaeological record for two large Middle Woodland populations and ceremonial centers – Kolomoki in southwestern Georgia and Crystal River in west-central Florida (Figure 9.1) – the authors argue that a low level of craft production was common to domestic contexts.

This chapter considers the evolution of the world economy in a long-term historical perspective. In 1820, Asia, Africa and Latin America accounted for almost three-fourths of world population and around two-thirds of world income. The dramatic transformation of the world economy began thereafter, as geographical divides in the world turned into economic divides. The rise of ‘The West’ was concentrated in Western Europe and North America. The decline and fall of ‘The Rest’ was concentrated in Asia, much of it attributable to China and India. The Great Divergence in per capita incomes between ‘The West’ and ‘The Rest’ led to the Great Specialization, in which the former produced manufactured goods while the latter produced primary commodities. The outcome of this process was the decline and fall of Asia and a retrogression of Africa, even if Latin America fared better, so that, by 1950, the divide between rich countries and poor countries was enormous.

During the final decades of the eighteenth century, Enlightenment efforts at comprehensive mastery gave way to different uses of system—to delimited and dedicated systems and to the dispersing of systems into other forms, including the specialized essays of the modern disciplines. Their “travel” filled the world in new ways. This transition highlights our differences from Enlightenment. For Smith, who based his master SYSTEMS on “sentiments” as probable behaviors, true knowledge was useful knowledge that worked in the world to change that world. For us knowledge is knowledge because it is true. The end-of-century proliferation of systems and of print made inclusive master SYSTEMS unsustainable. Late eighteenth-century Britain is a laboratory for studying the consequences of this proliferation: instead of becoming parts of master SYSTEMS, systems were inserted into other forms. This shifted the organization of knowledge from every kind being a branch of philosophy, moral or natural, into the specialized and professionalized disciplines of modernity. This “travel” of system into other forms—embedded systems—was exemplified by Mathus’s Population “essay,” and in works, also published in 1798, by William Wordsworth and Mary Hays. Systems embedded in other forms and stretched to accommodate more things meant system proliferated into every aspect of everyday life.

This chapter considers the development of the British university sector in the period between the wars. Focusing on the activities of the Universities’ Bureau and on the interwar Congresses, it argues that it was not a local and democratized conception of the British nation that animated British universities in this period, but rather an expansive and affective one that stretched out to include the Dominions. Offering familiarity in times of uncertainty, this broad national framing was a means by which the Bureau and its member universities reproduced in the 1920s and 1930s the structures and orientations that had shaped British and settler academia since the 1880s.

Why, despite often-alleged origins in antiquity, did neurology in Britain endeavour for so long to become a formally recognised specialty within general medicine? To answer this question, this introduction follows a complicated story, one involving individuals, institutions, and ideas all located in the complex, shifting social and cultural ferment of nineteenth and twentieth century Britain.

Who were the neurologists? Were there any noteworthy developments in their work in the post-1960s? Were they able to maintain their integrative identity with the rise of specialised medicine? Did the neurologists’ unique path to specialisation leave a marked legacy in historiography of neurology? And finally, how might the neurologists’ integrative identity have contributed to the rise of a postmodern culture preoccupied with the brain and the nerves? To begin to answer these questions, it is necessary first to mention a few important trends about neurology and to explore how neurologists’ tendencies to possess and aggrandise an integrative perspective left them with a marked legacy of ambivalence towards specialised knowledge. In turn, that ambivalence created opportunities for workers in other arenas to engage in the construction of the neuroculture that became so evident in the post-1990s.

Chapter one begins with an examination of the social and medical programs for disabled adults in Imperial Germany and outlines how the introduction of social insurance in the 1880s divided Germany’s disabled population. Next, it traces how this division fostered the development of different—and sometimes competing—medical professionals for each disabled population: worker, accident victim, or child. Next, the chapter outlines how the war changed this by offering orthopaedists an opportunity to prove their usefulness to the war-time state. It continues with an examination of the treatment innovations developed in the first two years of the war—such as War Orthopaedics—while also pointing out how orthopaedists edged out their medical competitors. In demonstrating their medical expertise, orthopaedists carved out their own specialized sphere of medicine and distanced themselves from their competitors. These treatment innovations stemmed not just from a desire to heal the soldier, but also by a desire to protect the state’s financial interests. By returning the disabled soldier to work, orthopaedists were hoping to prevent the national welfare systems from becoming over-burdened while also making themselves invaluable to the war-time state.

Chapter two examines the changes in artificial limb technology and the expansion of orthopaedic authority into this aspect of disability care. Before the war, prosthetic limbs had concentrated on either masking disability by replicating the appearance of the human arm or by facilitating small everyday movements. However, sending the disabled back to work meant reconstructing their bodies in ways which would facilitate heavy labor or specialized tasks. As the casualties mounted, orthopaedists positioned themselves as experts not only in the medical treatment of the disabled, but also in the design and distribution of artificial limbs. They gradually enlisted engineers and “scientists of work” into their mission to develop limbs and devices which more closely replicated the functions—not the form--of the human body.

Nepenthes is a genus of 130-160 species, almost half of which were described after 2001. The recent, rapid increase in species descriptions has been driven by application of a less rigorous species concept by botanists, taxonomic inflation, and discoveries of new taxa during explorations of remote parts of Southeast Asia. Many recently published species descriptions of Nepenthes are based entirely upon qualitative morphological information and are not supported by adequate research. Accordingly, the status of many Nepenthes taxa is contested. Evolution within the genus is not well understood, because nuclear and maternally inherited plastid genomes cannot resolve relationships between many species, particularly those that evolved recently through introgression or reticulate evolution. Improvement in our understanding of the systematics and evolution of Nepenthes requires the adoption of ‘best practice’ collection and preservation methods, and the application of quantitative analytical methods for morphological, genetic, and ecological information.