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The ratings of ten interest groups, along with party unity and presidential support scores, are analyzed to explore the broader evidence of change and stability in gender difference and women’s impact across the strikingly different environments of the 103rd and 104th Congresses. Although the results suggest that increased descriptive representation will enhance substantive representation of women, these findings of gender difference coexist with evidence that descriptive representation might not necessarily contribute to increased substantive representation of women. Gender differences narrowed in the 104th, primarily due to the influx of a new cohort of Republican women who were in some cases even more conservative than their male colleagues, but also due to ‘conversion’ effects, as veteran Republican women shifted rightward in an institutional environment where the cost of difference increased. With Democratic men on average being more feminist/liberal than Republican women on average, the question is raised whether substantive representation of women would be better served by increasing the proportional presence of Democrats (regardless of gender) or by increasing women’s presence regardless of party.

This book presents a commentary on and an analysis of P. Leiden I 344 recto, which contains the poem variously called The Dialogue of Ipuwer and the Lord of All or The Admonitions (Mahnworte), from the Middle Kingdom of ancient Egypt. The first part of the book comprises an analysis of several literary aspects of the poem, including its unity, compositional date, reception, possible setting, genre, literary style and meaning. It also offers a literary reading of the poem within the context of the cultural and intellectual milieu that produced it. The second part of the book provides a detailed translation, commentary to, and literary reading of, the poem, subdivided into sections that largely follow the divisions within the manuscript. A metrical transliteration is given, broadly following the prosodic principles of Gerhard Fecht, which provide a pragmatic formal mode of analysis. The degree to which these are relevant to the compositional structure of the poem is discussed.

This concluding chapter presents a summary of the main argument of the book, which is that signed languages are in an important sense not unique, that they are merely manifestations of the human language ability, unfamiliar only because language scientists of the time were not familiar with deaf people and their natural languages. It has been proposed that transformation of gesture into language lies at the heart of the origin of language, that just as grammaticization-as-ritualization accounts for the change from lexical to grammatical, it also accounts for the transformation of gesture into language. Ritualization is implicated in the phylogenetic evolution of language from nonlinguistic behaviours, with visible gestures playing a key role.

The German communists who resumed their work in Soviet-occupied eastern Germany in the dying days of World War II were determined to exploit the existing power vacuum and seize — with help from the Soviet Union — the key posts in the new administrations. Their plan was to absorb Germany's proud but weakened Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) into a communist-led Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) and thus win control of the German workers' movement, destroy the power of Germany's upper bourgeoisie through a series of radical economic reforms promoted under the guise of anti-fascism, and win the support of the German middle classes by protecting their interests and rejecting calls for an immediate transition to socialism. This strategy worked well until, in the autumn of 1945, opposition to the communists from Germany's other political parties, which had earlier been non-existent because of the post-war chaos, increased. Still, the founding of the SED was a success for the communists at a time when few things were certain in Germany.

The theory of relativity is unique and is based on very simple ideas. In fact, it has only one fundamental premise and one physical fact. The premise is that the laws of physics must be the same everywhere. It does not matter where we are or how we are moving, the laws must be the same. This is just an article of faith in the unity of nature. The physical fact is that the speed of light in a vacuum is the same no matter what. If the light source is stationary, or moving towards us, or moving away from us, we always measure the same speed. This is counterintuitive, but experiment shows it to be true and it must be accepted. Relativity then follows by inexorable logic. This minimalist foundation is part of the beauty of relativity. The structure of the theory is also so beautiful that it compels belief.

This chapter demonstrates that Athanasius — as desirous of holding to a true monotheism as were others of his day — located the ‘oneness’ demanded by monotheism in the Godhead (or θέ οτης) within which a plurality of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit exists. This view substantially differed from that of Eusebius of Caesarea and was a considerable theological issue at stake in the ‘Arian’ controversy; an issue which affected liturgy, worship, and the very identification of Christianity as a type of monotheism. The chapter begins by inspecting an early argument for the divine unity proffered by Athanasius in the Contra Gentes. It then analyses Athanasius' view of the unity of the ‘Godhead’ (θέ οτης) in Contra Arianos I, II, and III.

This introductory chapter provides two important motivations for the view of truth presented in the book. First, an account of truth that makes sense of both the diversity of our thought and its cognitive unity is needed. Second, an account of truth that allows us to retain truth as an explanatory tool is needed.

The Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe (or European Constitution) provided a plan for deepening European integration with a centralization of power in Brussels. Supporters believed that it offered the promise of greater political, economic, and social unity for Europe in the twenty-first century. French and German government leaders hailed the advent of the treaty as a “moment of destiny” for the continent. While the German government ratified the treaty quickly, it generated serious controversy in France. Voters rejected the treaty in a national referendum on June 1, 2005, dealing a serious blow to progress on European integration.

After the end of the Cold War, many in the West viewed Africa as a testing ground for the solidarist argument that sovereignty was no longer an absolute principle and that the international community could intervene to protect individual from human rights violations. This argument seems particularly challenging in the African context, given the continental leadership’s historic commitment to territorial integrity and non-intervention. However, as the author shows, African leaders from 1945 to 1990 were largely upholding the pluralist international norms of the time. In other words, the case for humanitarian intervention – and the problems posed by the practice – are not region-specific. The early 1990s, during which the United Nations intervened in Somalia, seemed to confirm the solidarist position. However, the failure to intervene in Rwanda in 1994, and the more recent experience of interventions in Sierra Leone, present a more mixed picture. Humanitarian intervention remains a controversial practice because of its coercive means, and its tendency to attribute blame or responsibility in what are often very complex civil conflicts.

This chapter examines 13th century views of ‘simultaneity’ and their implications. It shows that medieval Latin word ‘simul’ (simultaneous) had a wide set of meanings and uses, only some of which were reserved for discussions of temporality. Since 13th century thinkers clearly valued Aristotle’s insights, the tendency was to follow his approach and understanding of temporal simultaneity, defining it in terms of temporal priority and temporal posteriority. While this approach was reductively simple, it also had the consequence of defining out of consideration the set of issues which contemporary thinkers refer to as the question of whether time can be disunified or not. Essential to formulating that question is the possession of a metaphysics and language, which will make it possible to talk of instants which are neither before nor after each other, without that entailing that the instants are temporally simultaneous.