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Bayesian Statistics 9

José M. Bernardo, M. J. Bayarri, James O. Berger, A. P. Dawid, David Heckerman, Adrian F. M. Smith, and Mike West (eds)

The Valencia International Meetings on Bayesian Statistics – established in 1979 and held every four years – have been the forum for a definitive overview of current concerns and activities in ... More

The Valencia International Meetings on Bayesian Statistics – established in 1979 and held every four years – have been the forum for a definitive overview of current concerns and activities in Bayesian statistics. These are the edited Proceedings of the Ninth meeting, and contain the invited papers each followed by their discussion and a rejoinder by the author(s). In the tradition of the earlier editions, this encompasses an enormous range of theoretical and applied research, highlighting the breadth, vitality and impact of Bayesian thinking in interdisciplinary research across many fields as well as the corresponding growth and vitality of core theory and methodology. The Valencia 9 invited papers cover a broad range of topics, including foundational and core theoretical issues in statistics, the continued development of new and refined computational methods for complex Bayesian modelling, substantive applications of flexible Bayesian modelling, and new developments in the theory and methodology of graphical modelling. They also describe advances in methodology for specific applied fields, including financial econometrics and portfolio decision making, public policy applications for drug surveillance, studies in the physical and environmental sciences, astronomy and astrophysics, climate change studies, molecular biosciences, statistical genetics or stochastic dynamic networks in systems biology.Less

Spymaster: Dai Li and the Chinese Secret Service

Frederic Wakeman

The most feared man in China, Dai Li, was chief of Chiang Kai-shek's secret service during World War II. This sweeping biography of “China's Himmler”, based on recently opened intelligence archives, ... More

The most feared man in China, Dai Li, was chief of Chiang Kai-shek's secret service during World War II. This sweeping biography of “China's Himmler”, based on recently opened intelligence archives, traces Dai's rise from obscurity as a rural hooligan and Green Gang blood-brother to commander of the paramilitary units of the Blue Shirts and of the dreaded Military Statistics Bureau: the world's largest spy and counterespionage organization of its time. In addition to exposing the inner workings of the secret police, whose death squads, kidnappings, torture, and omnipresent surveillance terrorized critics of the Nationalist regime, Dai Li's personal story opens a unique window on the clandestine history of China's Republican period. This study uncovers the origins of the Cold War in the interactions of Chinese and American special services operatives who cooperated with Dai Li in the resistance to the Japanese invasion in the 1930s and who laid the groundwork for an ongoing alliance against the Communists during the revolution that followed in the 1940s. The book illustrates how the anti-Communist activities Dai Li led altered the balance of power within the Chinese Communist Party, setting the stage for Mao Zedong's rise to supremacy. It reveals a complex and remarkable personality that masked a dark presence in modern China—one that still pervades the secret services on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. The book illuminates a previously little-understood world as it discloses the details of Chinese secret service trade-craft.Less

The Power of a Single Number: A Political History of GDP

Philipp Lepenies

Widely used since the mid-twentieth century, GDP (gross domestic product) has become the world’s most powerful statistical indicator of national development and progress. Practically all governments ... More

Widely used since the mid-twentieth century, GDP (gross domestic product) has become the world’s most powerful statistical indicator of national development and progress. Practically all governments adhere to the idea that GDP growth is a primary economic target, and while criticism of this measure has grown, neither its champions nor its detractors deny its central importance in our political culture. In The Power of a Single Number, Philipp Lepenies recounts the lively history of GDP’s political acceptance—and eventual dominance. Locating the origins of GDP measurements in Renaissance England, Lepenies explores the social and political factors that originally hindered its use. It was not until the early 1900s that an ingenuous lone-wolf economist revived and honed GDP’s statistical approach. These ideas were then extended by John Maynard Keynes, and a more focused study of national income was born. American economists furthered this work by emphasizing GDP’s ties to social well-being, setting the stage for its ascent. GDP finally achieved its singular status during World War II, assuming the importance it retains today. Lepenies’s absorbing account helps us understand the personalities and popular events that propelled GDP to supremacy and clarifies current debates over the wisdom of the number’s rule.Less

Gravity's Ghost and Big Dog: Scientific Discovery and Social Analysis in the Twenty-First Century

Harry Collins

Based in the sociology of scientific knowledge the book describes, in real time, two potential discoveries of gravitational waves, known as the Equinox Event and Big Dog. These were made by the LIGO ... More

Based in the sociology of scientific knowledge the book describes, in real time, two potential discoveries of gravitational waves, known as the Equinox Event and Big Dog. These were made by the LIGO and Virgo detectors. There is additional tension because the signals might have been deliberately injected into the detectors – so called ‘blind injections’. Scientific discovery is shown to depend on many kinds of decisions not normally thought of as belonging to science. The role and nature of statistics is also examined. Wider conclusions are drawn about the moral nature of science and about the methodology of the social sciences, particularly participant observation.Less

Sail and Steam: Selected Maritime Writings of Yrjö Kaukiainen

This collection provides a tribute to the career of maritime historian Yrjö Kaukiainen, composed upon his retirement from the University of Helsinki. It collects seventeen of his maritime essays ... More

This collection provides a tribute to the career of maritime historian Yrjö Kaukiainen, composed upon his retirement from the University of Helsinki. It collects seventeen of his maritime essays written in English, reprinted in order to celebrate his career and impact on the field of maritime history. The selected essays encompass the following themes: maritime Finland; maritime labour; sail, steam, coal, and canvas; the timber-trade; maritime communication and networks; ship measurement and shipping statistics; the economics of merchant shipping; managerial skills in Finnish merchant fleets; and international freight markets. The collection primarily concerns Finnish shipping, and the maritime relationships between Finland and the wider international community, including the British timber-trade, the wider Baltic timber-trade, and Dutch shipping in relation to the Swedish Navigation Act. The essays are prefaced by three tributes of Kaukiainen’s career, penned by Lars U. Scholl, Merja-Liisa Hinkkanen, and Lewis R. Fischer, respectively. The volume concludes with a bibliography of Kaukiainen’s work on maritime history, in both Swedish and English, from 1981 to 2003.Less

The Rise of the English Shipping Industry in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

Ralph Davis

This volume is a reprint of Ralph Davis’ seminal 1962 book, The Rise of the English Shipping Industry in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. The aim was to examine the economic reasons for the ... More

This volume is a reprint of Ralph Davis’ seminal 1962 book, The Rise of the English Shipping Industry in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. The aim was to examine the economic reasons for the growth of British shipping before the arrival of modern technology, with a particular attention on overseas trade. The study can roughly be divided into two halves. The first is an in-depth exploration the roles within the shipping industry, from shipbuilders and shipowners to seamen and masters, from an economic perspective. The second is a chapter-by-chapter review of British overseas trade with Northern Europe, Southern Europe, the Mediterranean, East India, and America and the West Indies. The final two chapters diverge from the main sections, and focus on the interplay between government, war, and shipping. Davis attaches no extra significance to any particular nation or role, and offers an even-handed approach to maritime history still considered rare in the present day. Costs, profits, voyage estimates, ship-prices, and earnings all come under close and equal scrutiny as Davis seeks to understand the trades and developments in shipping during the period. To conclude, he places the study into a broader historical context and discovers that shipping played a measured but crucial role in the development of industrialisation and English economic development. This edition includes an introduction by the series editor; Davis’ introduction and preface; seventeen analytical chapters; a concluding chapter; two appendices concerning shipping statistics and sources; and a comprehensive index.Less

Merchants and Mariners: Selected Maritime Writings of David M. Williams

Lars U. Scholl

This book presents twelve essays by historian David M. Williams, in order to pay tribute to his career. The essays stretch from 1807 through to the end of the nineteenth century, and address both ... More

This book presents twelve essays by historian David M. Williams, in order to pay tribute to his career. The essays stretch from 1807 through to the end of the nineteenth century, and address both economic and social themes. Topics include maritime trade, deployment of merchant ships, the state regulations concerning shipping, shipwrecks and loss of life, passenger cargoes, slavery, cotton, timber and coffee trades, and the working conditions of seamen over the course of the century. The plight of the maritime labourer is at the core of this collection. The essays primarily focus on British shipping, and firmly places it within an international context. The book is introduced by Lars U. Scholl, followed by two tributes to Williams’ career, one by Peter N. Davies, the other by Lewis R. Fischer. Scholl concludes the volume with a thorough bibliography of Williams’ maritime writings: books, chapters, and articles.Less

Counting Bodies: Population in Colonial American Writing

Molly Farrell

Quantifiable citizenship—in the form of birth certificates, census forms, and immigration quotas—is so ubiquitous that today it appears ahistorical. Yet before the modern colonial era, there was ... More

Quantifiable citizenship—in the form of birth certificates, census forms, and immigration quotas—is so ubiquitous that today it appears ahistorical. Yet before the modern colonial era, there was neither a word for “population” in the sense of numbers of people, nor agreement that monarchs should count their subjects. Much of the work of naturalizing the view that people can be represented as populations took place far outside government institutions and philosophical treatises. It occurred, instead, in the work of colonial writers such as Mary Rowlandson, who found, in the act of counting the “vast numbers” of Indians who held her captive, a way to imagine fixed boundaries between intermingling groups. This book explores the imaginative, personal, and narrative writings that performed the cultural work of normalizing the enumeration of bodies. By repositioning and unearthing a literary prehistory of population science, the book shows that representing individuals as numbers was a central element of colonial projects. Early colonial writings that describe routine, and even intimate, interactions offer a window into the way people wove the quantifiable forms of subjectivity made available by population counts into everyday life. Whether trying to make sense of plantation slavery, frontier warfare, rapid migration, or global commerce, writers framed questions about human relationships across different cultures and generations in terms of population.Less