History

This is an article laying out the way I defined, on a scientific basis, excellence. This article present 54 distinct paths to becoming excellent all of which paths operate in every traditional field: business, law, medicine, sociology, psychology, art, dance, computing, etc. Over 8000+ people were interviewed and given questionnaires over a 5 year period to produce the data this model came from. 315 people, 5 in each of 63 diverse professions, nominated BOTH who most most excellent in their field and how they attained excellence, then they later nominated 150 people good at each of those 54 bases of excellence. Those 150 times 54 = 8000+ people were given interviews and questionnaires on what capabilities constituted their way of being excellent in their particular field. This article presents the 54 distinct paths to excellence and the overall design of the research. Other articles and books present the component capabilities for each of the 54: the 64 capabilities of highly educated people, 60 models of creativity, 64 steps of becoming a creator, 64 basic functions of all leading and managing, and so on.

"Before my first job teaching in academia (Lecturer in Quality Management at the University of Chicago Grad School of Business, 2 years before my Ph.d) I had a 6 year software career in high school jobs, 6 years at MIT doing artificial intelligence and Wellesley doing creative writing (under Robert Pinsky, Lillian Hellman, WH Auden, and Ray Bradbury), 6 years in an NGO visiting the 2000 richest Americans and setting up mass workshop events, 6 years in Korea-Japan-Taiwan setting of mass workshop events, 6 years getting two Masters and a Phd at the University of Michigan and the Santa Fe Institute.In addition before my Phd I set up Artificial Intelligence Circles programs at GM for EDS, at NV Philips and Thompson Electric Paris for Coopers & Lybrand Consultants, spinning off 3 venture technology businesses while at Xerox PARC. I did all that BEFORE teaching my first class in college at the U of Chicago.So I was supposed to teach---teach what? I found facing my first class of MBAs that I needed to know what excellence was. In books and conversations, everyone had and promoted their own individual view and opinion of it, but no one had defined it scientifically. So I decided to define Excellence scientifically---so I would know what to teach and how to teach. I organized MBAs as research assistants interviewing 8000+ people from 41 nations and 63 professions over a six year period. This article, and the associated book, at youpublsh.com, present the results of all that work---54 different routes to the top of nearly all field. This article presents 54 distinct routes to the top of nearly all fields, found from 8000+ people from 41 nations and 63 professions."

While almost a decade old, Ted Hopf’s observation that the democratic peace is an observation in search of a theory still holds validity. In particular, the mechanisms behind the democratic peace are poorly understood, making it difficult for scholars to provide a compelling explanation. Underappreciated in the existing work is the role of identity and the importance this has for driving the democratic peace. With a focus on developing a dyadic democratic peace mechanism and using a case study approach, this paper utilizes the Copenhagen School’s securitization framework to examine how identity plays out in the U.S. response to the Indian and Iranian nuclear programs. It finds that in fact identity does play an important role in how security policy is constructed. In policy terms, if the democratic peace does rely on identity to trigger the constraining norms that limit the escalation of conflict to violence, it is unlikely the democratic peace can be spread by force and it is possible that states nominally democratic can be excluded from the community of democracies if their behavior or significant other aspects of their perceived identity are at variance with the accepted democratic identity standard.

Cet ouvrage présente une approche originale des textes épigraphiques évoquant les guérisons miraculeuses en Grèce antique. L'union des connaissances d'une philologue spécialiste du grec ancien et d'un médecin paléopathologiste permet de mieux saisir la richesse de ce corpus. Chaque texte est suivi d'une traduction moderne et de commentaires lexicaux et médicaux qui nous plongent directement au cœur des pratiques curatives dans les grands sanctuaires de Grèce comme Epidaure ou Lébèna.
Thérapies divines ou humaines ? Grâce à un diagnostic rétrospectif fiable et pondéré des maladies décrites et grâce à l'étude des soins apportés aux patients qui venaient s'endormir dans les temples d'Asclépios, les auteurs démystifient souvent l'idée de guérisons spontanées par la seule intervention du dieu. Leurs recherches réfutent également les anciennes théories qui faisaient passer tous les malades pour des hypocondriaques ou des « hystériques ».
Intégrant systématiquement les données paléopathologiques les plus récentes, et en les comparant aux données épigraphiques et aux descriptions cliniques fournies par ce choix de textes, cet ensemble permet de reconstituer un tableau relativement fourni et objectif de l’état sanitaire de ces populations mais également des pratiques médico-chirurgicales contemporaines, dans une perspective prudemment synchronique.
Du IVe siècle av. J.-C. au IIIe siècle de notre ère, ce parcours dans des sources textuelles parfois peu exploitées jusqu'à présent est une petite contribution à la compréhension de l'histoire de la médecine, de la religion et de la société.

The speed of modern computers can be increased by organizing computations so that memory access patterns correspond more closely to the memory cache-loading patterns implemented in the hardware. Rearranging code and data are each possible. Here we concentrate on automatic rearrangement of data, and examine the belief, common in some technical circles, that modern generational copying garbage collectors (GC) will improve data caching by relocating and compressing data, as a matter of normal processing. Since GC routines tend to be very well-tested and quite robust, if this belief can be confirmed by benchmarks, a GC could be a "free" way of reliably speeding up programs in practice.

This article provides a snapshot of immersive virtual reality (IVR) use for scientific visualization, in the context of the evolution of computing in general and of user interfaces in particular. The main thesis of this article is that IVR has great potential for dealing with the serious problem of exponentially growing scientific datasets. Our ability to produce large datasets both through numerical simulation and through data acquisition via sensors is outrunning our ability to make sense of those datasets. While our idea of ''large'' datasets used to be measured in hundreds of gigabytes, based at least in part on what we could easily store, manipulate, and display in real time, today's science and engineering are producing terabytes and soon even petabytes, both from observation via sensors and as output from numerical simulation. Clearly, visualization by itself will not solve the problem of understanding truly large datasets that would overwhelm both display capacity and the human visual system. We advocate a human-computer partnership that draws on the strengths of each partner, with algorithmic culling and feature-detection used to identify the small fraction of the data that should be visually examined in detail by the human. Our hope is that IVR will be a potent tool to let humans ''see'' patterns, trends, and anomalies in their data well beyond what they can do with conventional 3D desktop displays. r

Examines mundillo, traditional Puerto Rican lacemaking as part of Puerto Rican material culture and considers how it defines gender through its making and use. There is a question of origins yet it has no one point of origin nor single trajectory of development. Based on fieldwork, collections study and oral history, this is part of a larger project on mundillo.

We explore the behavior and reform of the House committee system between the 15th and 17th Congresses, a period of legislative chaos. In examining how the House dealt with the Missouri controversy in the 15th and 16th Congresses, we illustrate how select committees created to assist in drafting legislation could be virtually powerless to influence the agenda in their domains. Our second case, of army retrenchment in the 16th Congress, illustrates how select committees could influence policy outcomes during this era, if they possessed gate keeping powers. Our last section examines the passage of committee reforms in the 17th Congress, arguing that the reforms were a response, at least in part, to the underlying legislative chaos illustrated in our two cases.

An understanding of a vanished age, a period close in time, distant in mores, that nevertheless still shapes our identities, attitudes and practices is achieved through the critical evaluation of four women authors writing for children during the Victorian period. This book provides a critical and biographical exploration of the lives and works of four forgotten, once critically acclaimed, popular and influential British female Victorian children's authors - Hesba Stretton: 1832-1911; Mrs. Molesworth: 1839-1921; 'Brenda' (Georgina Castle Smith): 1845-1934; Flora Louisa Shaw: 1852-1929.

Individual studies of each author analyse and evaluate their contribution to children's and family literature and their socio-political influence in the light of contemporary insights into class, religion, gender and society. The individual stance of these women and their common goal of moral improvement reveal the convolutions and contradictions of the Victorian frame of mind.

The search for an adequate understanding of the New Age phenomenon is fraught with difficulties when examined within the perspectives of sociology of religion which have shed light on religion in modernity.

New Agers cannot be located easily in the secularisation narrative; they move through fluid networks rather than settled collectivities; they assemble personal syncretisms of belief, myth and practice rather than subscribe to codified doctrines and prescribed rituals. New Age is quickly found to be a label that is unacceptable to many of those designated as New Agers.

This book advances our understanding of the so-called New Age phenomenon by analysing accounts of insiders' religious experience and orientations. This approach is brought to bear not only on the study of written documents relating to New Age and its putative antecedents, but on the analysis of in-depth interviews with thirty-five spiritual actors.

Contents: Preface, Introduction; A profile of the respondents: social and spiritual aspects; A profile of the respondents: networking aspects; Keeping New Age at bay; Perennism; The spiritual knowledges; A sociological chart of the age of Aquarius; Neo-paganism and presentist perennism; Three perennist spiritualities; Perennist re-enchantment: the cultural logic of late capitalism and communicative action; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.

25 Focus Asien Nr. 27 "Osttimor -vier Jahre Unabhängigkeit" langfristig auch erhebliche Problempotenziale. Einerseits können die für demokratische Verfassungsstaaten unabdingbaren Oppositionsfunktionen nur unzulänglich erfüllt werden, insbesondere die Regierungskontrollfunktion und die Funktion der Bereitstellung alternativer Politikentwürfe und Personen ist in einer Konstellation wie dem derzeitigen osttimoresischen Parteiensystem nur schwer umsetzbar. Und andererseits fehlen diese Funktionen nicht nur, sie können auch gar nicht eingeübt werden. Das Einüben sowohl von Regierungsverantwortung als auch von Oppositionsarbeit ist aber ganz wesentlich für den Aufbau funktionsfähiger demokratischer Praxis. Bilanz und Ausblick Wie erfolgreich ist nun der Aufbau staatlicher Institutionen in Osttimor? Wie stabil und verlässlich werden von den noch jungen Regierungsorganen jene Leistungen erbracht, welche von einem funktionsfähigen politischen System erwartet werden? Trotz beider oben genannter Schwächen und Gefahrenzonen des politischen Systems bleibt Osttimor ein Erfolgsbeispiel für den Aufbau von Staatlichkeit. Der Rückgang der Gewalt, die trotz der genannten Probleme große Akzeptanz des neuen Staates, der Beginn der Bewältigung der sozialen und wirtschaftlichen Probleme und das im Vergleich zu anderen Staaten Südostasiens verhältnismäßig geringe Ausmaß an Korruption und Amtsmissbrauch zeigen, dass Staatsaufbau mit internationaler Unterstützung auch unter sehr schwierigen Ausgangsbedingungen funktionieren kann. Die eigentlichen Bewährungsproben stehen dem jungen Staat aber noch bevor. Erstens muss sich die Stabilität der politischen Institutionen des Landes zunächst in der ersten regulären Wahl zur Nationalversammlung im Jahr 2007 bewähren. Zweitens bleibt abzuwarten, wie Osttimor die Zeit nach Xanana Gusmão bewältigt und welche anderen integrierenden Persönlichkeiten oder Mechanismen die wichtige integrative Kraft entfalten können, die derzeit vom Präsidenten ausgeübt wird. Drittens muss sich die gesellschaftliche Verankerung von Interessensgruppen und Medien in Osttimor noch weiter festigen, damit den staatlichen Institutionen auch ein nachhaltiges und verlässliches zivilgesellschaftliches Engagement gegenübersteht. Und viertens kann eine junge Demokratie eigentlich erst dann als konsolidiert gelten, wenn sie zumindest einen echten Regierungswechsel in friedlicher Weise vollzogen hat. Dieser steht dem Land noch bevor. Jakob Lempp ist wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am

Latin American cinema has commonly been looked at within a radical framework. From the middle of the twentieth century, filmmakers, journalists and scholars have celebrated a type of filmmaking that contains revolutionary ideals, anti-neocolonial stances and attempts at social reform (Chanan, 1997; Fusco, 1987; Pick, 1993). The peak of this radical filmmaking came about with the emergence of the New Latin American Cinema movement and the concurrent, but more globally orientated, Third Cinema movement in the 1960s and 1970s. Towards the end of the twentieth century these movements began to disperse and there is no longer the sense of a continent-wide radical cinema project. Nevertheless, there are still Latin American filmmaking groups and practitioners, such as CineMujer in Colombia and TV dos Trabalhadores in Brazil, that work towards the same fundamental aims, mainly to empower local communities and work against exploitation and discrimination (Aufderheide, 2002). The focus of this paper is on one such group, the Peruvian based Grupo Chaski; in particular it will focus on the way that Grupo Chaski is currently working to develop a solid infrastructure for cinema exhibition as a means to implement their aims of social reform. This study is the result of personal research undertaken in South America during 2004, 2005 and 2007 and much of the knowledge of Grupo Chaski presented within this paper draws on personal interviews and observations of this group. This paper will also draw on the critical tendencies that emerged through the New Latin American Cinema movement and Third Cinema to frame the way in which Grupo Chaski continues a type of radical cinema practice.

"Bernstein has written an excellent book. It is full of insight, carefully researched, and casts a particular light on Taman culture."—Victor T. King, Borneo Research Bulletin

"Bernstein makes an important contribution to the ethnographic literature of what some may see as a disappearing world of traditional societies located in out-of-the-way places."—Steve Ferzacca, American Ethnologist

"Not only does it present an incisive analysis of a socio-cultural group of which we have little knowledge, [but] it is particularly rich in ethnographic detail ... providing valuable comparative material for Southeast Asian scholars."—Amanda Harris, RIMA

"Bernstein's important book is full of insight, is carefully researched and casts particular light on Taman culture. Bernstein's data are so admirably detailed that they permit us to recast our interpretations in slightly different terms.—ASEASUK News

"Rich in ethnographic detail, it additionally raises issues that transcend the Taman, making it of interest not only to Borneo and Indonesian specialists, but to all, including general readers, who are seriously concerned with shamanism and ritual healing."—Clifford Sather, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies

"Well-written and thought provoking. It will capture the attention of anyone interested in shamanism, comparative religion, and Indonesian anthropology."—David Hicks

"The author has carefully integrated ethnographic detail into a debate about cultural relativism and the advantages of accepting indigenous truth claims and beliefs in local context. The book is empirically strong, ethnographically rich, and written in clear prose. "—Gretchen G. Weix

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This fascinating case study focuses on shamanism and the healing practices of the Taman, a formerly tribal society indigenous to the interior of Borneo. The Taman typically associate illness with an encounter with spirits that both seduce and torment a person in dreams or waking life. Rather than use medicines to counter the effect of these discomforting visitors, the shamans—called baliens—use stones that are said to contain the convergence of wild spirits that have come into being during the initiation ceremony.

Jay Bernstein argues that shamanism continues to flourish not merely because of tradition, but because it meets real needs for therapy that are not otherwise satisfied. He stresses the exchange of objects in shamanic ceremonies and argues for the relevance of psychology and symbolic and social processes in explaining the identity of shamans. Finally, he situates Taman shamanism in the context of the pluralistic medical system of interior Borneo, which includes the traditions of the nearby Malay Muslims and Iban Dayaks.

Written in a style that will engage the interest of both scholars and beginning students, Spirits Captured in Stone is a valuable contribution to contemporary debates in cultural and medical anthropology; the anthropology of religion, as well as magic and ritual; folklore; and Southeast Asian ethnography.

This paper focuses on two conflations which frequently appear within the philosophy of history and other fields concerned with action explanation. The first of these, which I call the Conflating View of Reasons, states that the reasons for which we perform actions are reasons why (those events which are) our actions occur. The second, more general conflation, which I call the Conflating View of Action Explanation, states that whatever explains why an agent performed a certain action explains why (that event which was) her action occurred. Both conflations ignore the fact that there are at least two distinct objects that legitimately qualify as objects of action explanation2. As Jennifer Hornsby (1993) has previous suggested, one thing we might wish to explain is ‘why did A do what she did?’ another is, ‘why did the event of her doing it occur?’

I shall argue that when these two views are combined they give rise to a futile debate about explanation in the philosophies of history and the social sciences, and to an almost identical debate in moral psychology and the philosophy of mind. In so doing, I shall also examine a proposed distinction between explaining a phenomenon, and rendering it intelligible. I conclude by distinguishing between four different objects of historical understanding, each of which is to be understood in the light of the aforementioned distinctions between event and thing done, and explanation and intelligibility.

In this article, the authors reveal the symbolic role of cranes at Neolithic Çatalhöyük, Turkey. Worked bones of the Common Crane (Grus grus) are interpreted as coming from a spread wing used in dances, a ritual practice perhaps connected with the celebration of marriage.

'The Russian Empire and the Steppe. An Exchange of Views'

Two contrasting reviews of Willard Sunderland, Taming the Wild Field:Colonization and Empire on the Russian Steppe (Ithaca, NY & London: Cornell University Press, 2004), by Pavel Rykin & Igor Grachev, and by Alexander Morrison.

This article argues that Russia's Empire in Central Asia is best understood in comparison with the other Western Colonial Empires of the nineteenth century, specifically Britain's Indian Empire. It examines nineteenth-century Russian travellers' accounts of British India, and the `Asianist' tradition which argued that Russians had a greater affinity with Asian peoples than other Europeans, and that the nature of their empire was consequently different. In the case of Turkestan it rejects this assumption on the basis of research in Russian and Uzbek archives, and of the differing views expressed in books and journals by Russian military officers and imperial administrators of the day.

"There is a persistent myth to the effect that Norway is and always has been the odd one out in the sphere of Nordic furniture design. But irrespective of what we ourselves might think, it is a fact that when it comes to international fame, Norwegian pioneers such as Alf Sture from Hiort & Østlyngen lose out as against the Dane Arne Jacobsen of Fritz Hansens Eftf., the Swede Bruno Mathsson from Dux / Bruno Mathsson International, and the Finn Alvar Aalto from Artek.
A trivial, but nevertheless striking illustration of this is to be found by leafing through the ”furniture bible”, 1000 chairs by Charlotte & Peter Field. Represented in it are 21 Danish designers, two Swedes, four Finns, but no Norwegians.  Another example is the website www.scandinaviandesign.com, which in its review of design-intensive undertakings in the North has not included a single Norwegian producer.
However, against the background of such observations, can we really authenticate the myth of Norway’s junior status? Are internationally famous designers, products and producers the only valid parameters when evaluating a nation’s achievements in the field of design? Starting out from this kind of assertion, we risk creating a skewed, perhaps also slightly erroneous impression of the situation. Is it not at least as interesting to study products that have found their way into a host of homes as it is to keep up with what has been bought by museums? On the basis of such a hypothesis we are well equipped to dismiss old myths relating to design history.
Products, producers and designers most often achieve fame in the world of design by appealing to critics, design magazines and museums’ purchasing committees. But design is about much more than elite design. What can be termed mainstream design usually tells us more about real social, cultural and aesthetic trends in the population at large. By applying such a cultural historical approach, the time is perhaps ripe for a revaluation of a few ”truths” concerning Norwegian design.
"

"This article addresses an epistemological problem best described
as the insufficiently scrutinising use of ism-suffixed terms
as categorising and analytic tools in the fields of architectural and
design history. It seeks to explore the enigmatic nature of isms
and proposes methodological frameworks for their reading
and interpretation."

"All over 'Greater China', from the People's Republic, to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore, governments have turned shown increasing tolerance for language diversity, especially for Mandarin-dialect bilingualism.  Language tolerance offers a remarkably effective medium for political reconciliation.  The People's Republic has carefully refrained from a rigid, official language policy, both to show itself more tolerant than British Hong Kong, or Taiwan; and with full knowledge that any demand that Hong Kong or Taiwan sign a language accord would force bitter debate and icy refusal.  At the same time unofficial forces, especially the increasing pride in local culture and the economic boom on the southern coast, push toward dialect bilingualism more effectively than policy ever could.  Ironically, reconciliation is being negotiated not through the Mandarin of Beijing, but on the borders, via the previously denigrated southern dialects, Cantonese, Min, and Hakka.

"

One of my most-cited and most requested articles, this work, published in _The Pomegranate_ , traces the origins and development of the legend of Aradia, one of the most important figures in the modern Witchcraft revival.  Before being included by Charles Leland in his eponymous book, Aradia was associated with enchantment and night-time flights in medieval European folklore.

The purpose of this volume is to bring together a set of chapters that investigate the communication practices through which Chinese societies are creating their civil foundations for the next millennium. Civic Discourse, Civil Society, and Chinese Communities, reflects both the emphasis on analyzing specific discursive practices in particular Chinese societies and on understanding the role that discursive practices play in the development of civil society more generally.

AppleScript is a scripting language and environment for the Mac OS. Originally conceived in 1989, AppleScript allows end-users to automate complex tasks and customize Mac OS applications. To automate tasks, AppleScript provides standard programming language features (control flow, variables, data structures) and sends Apple Events to invoke application behavior. Apple Events is a variation on standard remote procedure calls in which messages can identify their arguments by queries that are interpreted by the remote application. This approach avoids the need for remote object pointers or proxies and reduces the number of communication round-trips, which are expensive in high-latency environments like the early Macintosh OS. To customize an application that uses Apple-Script's Open Scripting Architecture, users attach scripts to application objects; these scripts can then intercept and modify application behavior.

The increasing gap in performance between processors and main memory has made effective instructions prefetching techniques more important than ever. A major deficiency of existing prefetching methods is that most of them require an extra port to I-cache. A recent study by shows that this factor alone explains why most modern microprocessors do not use such hardware-based I-cache prefetch schemes. The contribution of this paper is two-fold. First we present a method that does not require an extra port to I-cache. Second, the performance improvement for our method is greater than the best competing method BHGP even disregarding the improvement from not having an extra port.

The increasing gap in performance between processors and main memory has made effective instructions prefetching techniques more important than ever. A major deficiency of existing prefetching methods is that most of them require an extra port to I-cache. A recent study by shows that this factor alone explains why most modern microprocessors do not use such I-cache hardware-based I-cache prefetch schemes. The contribution of this paper is two-fold. First we present a method that does not require an extra port to I-cache.

This note contains information about job search for DPhil graduates. The first -and longest --part is devoted to the American job market, a large organized clearing house that meets once a year. The second part covers the European market. The emphasis is on academic and research jobs, although useful information is also provided on nonresearch jobs in the internet section. A list of Oxford resources appears at the end, as well as references to journal articles on the job market for economists and the ranking of various departments.

I wrote this article in response to a polemical debate between Niall Ferguson and Priyamvada Gopal in the pages of the Guardian in 2006. I had hoped that it might be published in the comment pages, but no such luck... It deals with the unjustified assumptions which parties on both sides of this debate make about the omnipotence of Imperial Rule.

This article proposes that the post-communist transition in Poland can profitaby be understood through the concept of the transnationalization of the state. It argues that change in Eastern and Central Europe has predominately been explained as a domestic process with few attempts made to contextualize the changes taking place in the region as part of neoliberal globalization. Therefore it explores the restructuring of the Polish state since 1989 by connecting concrete instances of policy to broader historical processes, social structures and political economy through the process of the transnationalization of the state. Rather than a loss of power or withdrawal of the state, setting transition as part of a wider transnationalization process reveals the subtleties of the restructuring of state apparatuses and hierarchies in the relationship between state and capital. The article reflects this by investigating the role adopted by the Polish state in representing the interests of a nascent bourgeoisie as they are increasingly penetrated by transnational capital and the impact of administration through the transnationalization of the state.

This paper develops a critical international political economy analysis of the processes that we commonly understand as globalization and their application in the development of Poland's transition from state socialism. It does so by tracing the rise of social forces shaped by the restructuring of social relations of production and the form of state in Poland. The paper argues that a series of important social shifts occurred to move Poland towards a neoliberal strategy of capitalist accumulation with the failure of state-socialism as a development project and the uncoupling of the social basis of Communist Party hegemony. It is social forces most intimately associated with transnational capital, irrespective of their party or social position, that are most successful in the struggle over competing reform strategies. These strategies eventually coalesce through material and ideological changes associated with a new openness to transnationalized circuits of capital.

"Russian Rule in Samarkand uses a comparative approach to examine the structures, personnel, and ideologies of Russian imperialism in Turkestan, taking Samarkand and the surrounding region as a case-study. The creation of a colonial administration in Central Asia presented Russia with similar problems to those faced by the British in India, but different approaches to governance meant that the two regimes often stood in stark contrast to one another.

Opening with the background to the political situation in Central Asia and a narrative of Russian conquest itself, the book moves on to analyse official attitudes to Islam and to pre-colonial elites, and the earliest attempts to establish a functioning system of revenue collection. Uncovering the religious and ethnic composition of the military bureaucracy, and the social background, education and training of its personnel, Alexander Morrison assesses the competence of these officers vis-à-vis their Anglo-Indian counterparts. Subsequent chapters look at the role of the so-called 'native administration' in governing the countryside and collecting taxes, the attempt to administer the complex systems of irrigation leading from the Zarafshan and Syr-Darya rivers, and the nature and functions of the Islamic judiciary under colonial rule.

Based on extensive archival research in Russia, India, and Uzbekistan, and containing much rare source material translated from the original Russian, Russian Rule in Samarkand will be of interest to all those interested in the history of the Russian Empire and European Imperialism more generally.


"Evocative [and] thoughtful book." - Jeff Sahadeo, Steppe

"Morrison...has drawn on much additional source material, including some from the Russian and Uzbekistan archives, and has contrived an interesting and detailed picture of features of Russian administration, notably its organisation and personnel, its relations with Islam and its work in the crucial area of irrigation." - M.E Yapp, Times Literary Supplement

"Morrison has achieved a pioneering work. Neither in Russian nor in Western research is there another study which gives such a full and detailed view of Tsarist ruling practices in Central Asia. But even beyond the Tsarist Empire, this book is of significance for its impressive illustration of the limits to which Colonial Rule can be subject." - Ulrich Hofmeister, H-Soz-u-Kult

"This is an engaging and elegantly written examination of Russian rule in Central Asia post-1865...an impressive study." - Nick Walmsley, Central Asian Survey

"Pioneering... This is truly ground-breaking work and provides our understanding of tsarist Central Asia with a new level of detail." - Adeeb Khalid, Slavic Review

"The depth of research, the detailing of complexities of critical fields of colonial control such as administration, irrigation and law, and its comparative approach make this work a significant contribution to the history of Tsarist Central Asia." - Jeff Sahadeo, English Historical Review

"Morrison's work is probably the best account of the Russian administration in the settled parts of Turkestan; it is at least the best I have read so far, because he discusses the general lines of the Russian strategy in some detail. The comparative perspective also helps to explain many specifics of the Russian situation." - Jürgen Paul, Central Asian Survey

"Morrison's work shows an intimate familiarity with British literature on empire, and he has done important archival work in both India and Central Asia. The result is an innovative study on imperial governance concerning aspects as varied as administration, irrigation, law, and religion." - Jeff Sahadeo, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History

"A wonderful book, one which significantly advances our knowledge of tsarist Central Asia, European colonial methods of rule in the late nineteenth century, and the native response... a richly interwoven quilt of a study, where delight is offered as much by the care taken over individual details as in the overall sweep of the whole." - A. G. Marshall, The Slavonic & East European Review

"This work constitutes, through its rigour, its degree of erudition and its novelty, a contribution of high quality to the imperial history of Central Asia which has been developing in recent years." Isabelle Ohayon, Cahiers du Monde Russe

"Alexander Morrison has managed to write a multifaceted account, which impresses both through the strength of his philological expertise and through his solid mastery of the sources." Christian Teichmann, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas"

Globalization is both a dynamic and multi-faceted phenomenon. Foremost, the process is associated with global capitalism and is shorthand for the likes of Nike, Coca Cola, and McDonalds. Secondly, globalization in the political, social, and cultural spheres, as well as the economy, is about global interconnectedness. It is, according to Anthony Giddens, “the stretching of time and place.” From the post-1914 surge in short-term financial flows to lower cost international air travel and to the information and communications technology revolution, ours is a world of growing interdependence. Thirdly, globalization is about global consciousness [of humanity]. In the aggregate, then, it is best seen as a multidimensional set of processes and not one singular event.

While this multi-continental network of interdependence is both increasingly thick and acquiring an institutional velocity, it is hardly universal. On the contrary, globalization varies by region, locality, and issue relevance. While global interconnectedness is on the rise, the world today is increasingly divided into a global class of information “haves” [David Held’s “cosmopolitan elite”] and a localized class of information “have nots.” Globalization is at one and the same time a process of homogenization and fragmentation—Schumpeter’s “creative destruction.” Furthermore, while it does shrink distance, it does not make distance irrelevant. It is a complex process by which both homogenization [i.e., McWorld] and fragmentation [i.e., Jihad] are unfolding simultaneously.