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Converting Tribute

He Bian

in Know Your Remedies: Pharmacy and Culture in Early Modern China

This chapter tells a parallel story of the State’s retreat from directly procuring materia medica from localities as tribute, resorting instead to collecting a monetized surtax. Building on rich ... More

This chapter tells a parallel story of the State’s retreat from directly procuring materia medica from localities as tribute, resorting instead to collecting a monetized surtax. Building on rich literature which largely focused on social relations and productivity measured by grain, cloth, and labor, the chapter suggests that it may shed new light on a familiar aspect of Ming history by examining the monetization of tribute medicine. It shows that Ming actors almost always thought through and documented fiscal reform in very concrete terms. Gazetteers of Ming times, such as that of Longqing, were replete with discussions about objects of value: where they were found, how much they were worth, and the specific manners of their deployment in public affairs. Instead of an abstract preference for money, the debates were driven by inherently ethical concerns—and political negotiations—over the distribution of material wealth in official versus nonofficial domains. The ways in which local administrators came to terms with material resources show more complexity than the straightforward account of fiscal reform offered in dynastic histories.Less

Egypt in the Graeco–Roman World: from Ptolemaic Kingdom to Roman Province

Alan K. Bowman

in Regime Change in the Ancient Near East and Egypt: From Sargon of Agade to Saddam Hussein

This chapter examines the changes in Egypt in the Graeco-Roman world during the Hellenistic and Roman periods following the death of Alexander the Great. It explains that these periods highlight ... More

This chapter examines the changes in Egypt in the Graeco-Roman world during the Hellenistic and Roman periods following the death of Alexander the Great. It explains that these periods highlight episodes of military aggression, conquest, and annexation during the struggles of the Successors of Alexander and the Roman takeover of the Hellenistic kingdoms. The analysis of the changes in the role of the elites, the exploitation of the material resources, and the character of the military presence reveal that they are all expressions of the ways in which the coming of Roman rule brought change to Egypt and their effect was cumulative and which had begun before Egypt was annexed and made into a Roman province.Less

Resources Human and Material

Graham Rees and Maria Wakely

in Publishing, Politics, and Culture: The King's Printers in the Reign of James I and VI

This chapter addresses the following questions: How did they run the King's Printing House (KPH), an institution that stood at the summit of the London printing trade in the Jacobean period? How did ... More

This chapter addresses the following questions: How did they run the King's Printing House (KPH), an institution that stood at the summit of the London printing trade in the Jacobean period? How did they run a business that had to be in a position at short notice, and often at its own expense, to satisfy the market or royal demands for the production of everything from a broadside proclamation to a folio church Bible? These questions could be answered by asking a range of subsidiary questions: for instance, how did the KPH acquire type, paper, ink and all the myriad material objects on which the business depended? How did it organize its printing of its products, and their subsequent storage and distribution? The chapter looks further at some of the personnel involved in the KPH, and especially at those who were not immediate members of the Barker, Bill, and Norton families: the compositors, pressmen, correctors, accountants, legal advisors, warehouse keepers, shopkeepers, apprentices, and miscellaneous servants.Less

Exclusion from material resources: poverty and deprivation among older people in Europe

Asghar Zaidi

in From exclusion to inclusion in old age: A global challenge

Having adequate material resources is central to the well-being of people in both developing and industrialised nations. In western industrialised nations, lack of income and an inability to afford ... More

Having adequate material resources is central to the well-being of people in both developing and industrialised nations. In western industrialised nations, lack of income and an inability to afford the types of goods and services that most people in a society have access to or to participate in social activities that are taken for granted typically figure strongly in attempts to operationalise the concept of social exclusion. Drawing on empirical data from EU nations, Asghar Zaidi not only highlights the degree to which older people across Europe are prone to the risk of income poverty, but also examines their capacity to afford key items of expenditure. The chapter shows the substantial variation that exists across European nations in relation to older people's access to material resources, and in particular the extent to which cross-national differences exist arising from the measurement approach adopted.Less

Children’s access to economic and material resources

Tess Ridge

in Childhood poverty and social exclusion: From a child's perspective

This chapter explores the financial and material aspects of children's lives. It focuses on children's accounts of their opportunities to access material and economic resources, and looks at some of ... More

This chapter explores the financial and material aspects of children's lives. It focuses on children's accounts of their opportunities to access material and economic resources, and looks at some of the socioeconomic issues that are raised by children. The discussion is concerned with three key areas: access to pocket money, engagement in employment, and the importance of transport.Less

Varieties of Activism in Three Countries

Sarah S. Stroup

in Borders among Activists: International NGOs in the United States, Britain, and France

This chapter studies the differences among the national charitable sectors in the United States, Britain, and France, arguing that both regulative material pressures and constitutive normative ... More

This chapter studies the differences among the national charitable sectors in the United States, Britain, and France, arguing that both regulative material pressures and constitutive normative pressures are important for understanding an organization's environment. It presents four dimensions of the charitable sector in each country: the regulatory environment, the political opportunity structure, material resources, and the way in which social networks locate international charities within society. These four dimensions are both product and producer of different logics of appropriateness for charities. Thus, “doing good” for others has fundamentally different meanings in the United States, Britain, and France—meanings that internationally oriented charities carry with them when they move around the globe.Less

Preventing Bioweapons Developments: Policy Implications

Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley

in Barriers to Bioweapons: The Challenges of Expertise and Organization for Weapons Development

This concluding chapter claims that the book's case studies offer an interesting gradation of variables and illustrate the importance of analyzing their effects as they interact to achieve a ... More

This concluding chapter claims that the book's case studies offer an interesting gradation of variables and illustrate the importance of analyzing their effects as they interact to achieve a realistic assessment of a program's outcome. More importantly, the case studies underscore the difficulty of producing working bioweapons. The fragility and unpredictability of microorganisms require that state and nonstate actors implement meticulous organization, management, and sustained coordination. Working to achieve bioweapons, therefore, is not a straightforward input and output process, in which access to material resources automatically produces the desired outcome. It is instead a sustenance challenge, which requires solving a complex set of social and technical problems.Less

Peace for Whom and on Whose Terms?

Trevor Pinch

in The One Culture?: A Conversation about Science

Most controversies in the natural sciences are brought to a close in a comparatively short period of time with a clear victor. Most debates in the humanities and social sciences are seldom resolved ... More

Most controversies in the natural sciences are brought to a close in a comparatively short period of time with a clear victor. Most debates in the humanities and social sciences are seldom resolved so quickly and easily. “Free Will proclaimed as victor over Determinism at philosophy conference!” is not a headline one will find. In scientific controversies scientists seem too good at closing them down. Why this is so is, of course, itself a matter of dispute. For those in science studies such debates are settled by the presence of an effective community—a core set—within which a combination of rhetorical, cognitive, material, and social resources are brought to bear. For scientists it is more the case that the “truth will out,” sometimes by means of a few crucial experiments in tandem with irresistible theoretical arguments.Less

Queen of the Sciences

in When Physics Became King

This book is an attempt to provide an engaging and accessible cultural history of nineteenth-century physics that brings together the significant developments in understanding in that field. The book ... More

This book is an attempt to provide an engaging and accessible cultural history of nineteenth-century physics that brings together the significant developments in understanding in that field. The book also looks at its cultural connections over the last few decades. Each chapter of the book focuses on a particular theme in the nineteenth-century history of physics and follow it through the century. There are some very clear themes running through all the chapters. The first thing that should be clear is that the main business of physics—the thorough investigation of nature and the effort to understand nature's workings as the outcome of universal physical laws—was crucially dependent on a range of cultural and material resources. In particular, the book investigates the cultural and material resources that went into constructing the ether. Another thread running through the book is the importance of institution building in establishing physics as a discipline. It is hoped that this book will provide at least some indication of just how important the history of physics is as a part of understanding the historical development of our own modern industrial and consumer culture.Less

Extraction and Legitimacy

Sumit Ganguly and William R. Thompson

in Ascending India and Its State Capacity: Extraction, Violence, and Legitimacy

This chapter discusses extraction and legitimacy. Extraction is about the state's ability to acquire the resources it needs to carry out its designed tasks. Whereas extraction tends to focus on ... More

This chapter discusses extraction and legitimacy. Extraction is about the state's ability to acquire the resources it needs to carry out its designed tasks. Whereas extraction tends to focus on material resources, legitimacy is an attitudinal resource for the state. The more legitimacy a state possess, presumably, the easier it is to call on its population for support. If the state must allocate all or most of its resources to simply staying in power by brute force, there is also less left to allocate to other problems. Ample attitudinal support therefore reduces the costs of state maintenance. Not surprisingly, India's extraction capacity is not well developed. More unusual is India's high scores on legitimacy, which so far are not deteriorating greatly. While India no doubt benefits from fairly consistent democratic institutions, Indian scores on this criterion put it among far more affluent states.Less

Just Expectations: Family Caregivers, Practical Identities, and Social Justice in the Provision of Health Care

James Lindemann Nelson

in Medicine and Social Justice: Essays on the Distribution of Health Care

This chapter considers the importance of increasing both respect and material resources for individuals who assume non-professional caregiving roles. There is every reason to believe that relying ... More

This chapter considers the importance of increasing both respect and material resources for individuals who assume non-professional caregiving roles. There is every reason to believe that relying more heavily on family caregivers will continue to be an attractive tactic. Increasingly complex forms of medical technologies are being more or less adapted to home use, and spouses, parents, and children remain inexpensive compared to registered nurses or respiratory technicians. The use of advanced technologies can now be directed and monitored remotely via “telemedicine.” The chapter looks at the kinds of vulnerabilities that families develop when responsibility for ill or disabled family members falls on them and argues that communities have a duty of distributive justice to deploy resources for the support of families with these special needs. It suggests that this obligation is at least as strong a requirement of social justice as the requirement for providing health care itself.Less

Does Science Studies Undermine Science? Wittgenstein, Turing, and Polanyi as Precursors for Science Studies and the Science Wars

Trevor Pinch

in The One Culture?: A Conversation about Science

The “science wars” refers to a debate raging within the academy and without over the status of fields like science and technology studies and cultural studies of science and technology. The debate ... More

The “science wars” refers to a debate raging within the academy and without over the status of fields like science and technology studies and cultural studies of science and technology. The debate has largely been initiated by natural scientists who have written books and made public statements critical of science studies and what they take to be some of its central ideas. The idea of the two cultures was made famous by C. P. Snow in the 1950s. It has come to refer to the separate self-contained cultures of the humanities and of the natural sciences. The two cultures were held to be largely ignorant of each other. What is perhaps surprising is why the two cultures have been able to coexist peacefully for so long. Aside from one or two skirmishes, such as that between Wittgenstein and Turing, the science wars are more the exception than the rule. It is important to note that radical disjunctions in our cultural sensibilities and practices need not necessarily lead to clashes. As long as each culture can flourish, receive ample material resources and symbolic legitimation, there need be little reason for dissent.Less

Conclusion: Moral Politics and the Quest for a Language of Right

Caroline Shaw

in Britannia's Embrace: Modern Humanitarianism and the Imperial Origins of Refugee Relief

This conclusion highlights three key themes of the book’s argument. The nineteenth-century British imperial refuge underlines the power of moral politics in British national and imperial projects. ... More

This conclusion highlights three key themes of the book’s argument. The nineteenth-century British imperial refuge underlines the power of moral politics in British national and imperial projects. The fortunes of imperial refuge accentuate the mutually dependent relationship between narratives of humanitarian commitment and material resources. Finally, humanitarian activism and legal guarantees can be at odds. These difficult dynamics, laid bare in the history of British refuge in the long nineteenth century, have continued into the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries.Less