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Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World
by Roger CrowleyIn 1521, Suleiman the Magnificent, Muslim ruler of the Ottoman Empire at the height of its power, dispatched an invasion fleet to the Christian island of Rhodes. This would prove to be the opening shot in an epic struggle between rival empires and faiths for control of the Mediterranean and the center of the world.In Empires of the Sea, acclaimed historian Roger Crowley has written his most mesmerizing work to date-a thrilling account of this brutal decades-long battle between Christendom and Islam for the soul of Europe, a fast-paced tale of spiraling intensity that ranges from Istanbul to the Gates of Gibraltar and features a cast of extraordinary characters: Barbarossa, "The King of Evil," the pirate who terrified Europe; the risk-taking Emperor Charles V; the Knights of St. John, the last crusading order after the passing of the Templars; the messianic Pope Pius V; and the brilliant Christian admiral Don Juan of Austria. This struggle's brutal climax came between 1565 and 1571, seven years that witnessed a fight to the finish decided in a series of bloody set pieces: the epic siege of Malta, in which a tiny band of Christian defenders defied the might of the Ottoman army; the savage battle for Cyprus; and the apocalyptic last-ditch defense of southern Europe at Lepanto-one of the single most shocking days in world history. At the close of this cataclysmic naval encounter, the carnage was so great that the victors could barely sail away "because of the countless corpses floating in the sea." Lepanto fixed the frontiers of the Mediterranean world that we know today.Roger Crowley conjures up a wild cast of pirates, crusaders, and religious warriors struggling for supremacy and survival in a tale of slavery and galley warfare, desperate bravery and utter brutality, technology and Inca gold. Empires of the Sea is page-turning narrative history at its best-a story of extraordinary color and incident, rich in detail, full of surprises, and backed by a wealth of eyewitness accounts. It provides a crucial context for our own clash of civilizations.
Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present
by Christopher I. BeckwithAn epic account of the rise and fall of the Silk Road empiresThe first complete history of Central Eurasia from ancient times to the present day, Empires of the Silk Road represents a fundamental rethinking of the origins, history, and significance of this major world region. Christopher Beckwith describes the rise and fall of the great Central Eurasian empires, including those of the Scythians, Attila the Hun, the Turks and Tibetans, and Genghis Khan and the Mongols. In addition, he explains why the heartland of Central Eurasia led the world economically, scientifically, and artistically for many centuries despite invasions by Persians, Greeks, Arabs, Chinese, and others. In retelling the story of the Old World from the perspective of Central Eurasia, Beckwith provides a new understanding of the internal and external dynamics of the Central Eurasian states and shows how their people repeatedly revolutionized Eurasian civilization.Beckwith recounts the Indo-Europeans' migration out of Central Eurasia, their mixture with local peoples, and the resulting development of the Graeco-Roman, Persian, Indian, and Chinese civilizations; he details the basis for the thriving economy of premodern Central Eurasia, the economy's disintegration following the region's partition by the Chinese and Russians in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the damaging of Central Eurasian culture by Modernism; and he discusses the significance for world history of the partial reemergence of Central Eurasian nations after the collapse of the Soviet Union.Empires of the Silk Road places Central Eurasia within a world historical framework and demonstrates why the region is central to understanding the history of civilization.
Empires of the Sky: Zeppelins, Airplanes, and Two Men's Epic Duel to Rule the World
by Alexander RoseThe Golden Age of Aviation is brought to life in this story of the giant Zeppelin airships that once roamed the sky—a story that ended with the fiery destruction of the Hindenburg.&“[An] exhilarating history of the dawn of modern air travel.&”—Publishers Weekly At the dawn of the twentieth century, when human flight was still considered an impossibility, Germany&’s Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin vied with the Wright Brothers to build the world&’s first successful flying machine. As the Wrights labored to invent the airplane, Zeppelin fathered the remarkable airship, sparking a bitter rivalry between the two types of aircraft and their innovators that would last for decades, in the quest to control one of humanity&’s most inspiring achievements. And it was the airship—not the airplane—that led the way. In the glittery 1920s, the count&’s brilliant protégé, Hugo Eckener, achieved undreamed-of feats of daring and skill, including the extraordinary Round-the-World voyage of the Graf Zeppelin. At a time when America&’s airplanes—rickety deathtraps held together by glue, screws, and luck—could barely make it from New York to Washington, D.C., Eckener&’s airships serenely traversed oceans without a single crash, fatality, or injury. What Charles Lindbergh almost died doing—crossing the Atlantic in 1927—Eckener had effortlessly accomplished three years before the Spirit of St. Louis even took off. Even as the Nazis sought to exploit Zeppelins for their own nefarious purposes, Eckener built his masterwork, the behemoth Hindenburg—a marvel of design and engineering. Determined to forge an airline empire under the new flagship, Eckener met his match in Juan Trippe, the ruthlessly ambitious king of Pan American Airways, who believed his fleet of next-generation planes would vanquish Eckener&’s coming airship armada. It was a fight only one man—and one technology—could win. Countering each other&’s moves on the global chessboard, each seeking to wrest the advantage from his rival, the struggle for mastery of the air was a clash not only of technologies but of business, diplomacy, politics, personalities, and the two men&’s vastly different dreams of the future. Empires of the Sky is the sweeping, untold tale of the duel that transfixed the world and helped create our modern age.
Empires of the Steppes: A History of the Nomadic Tribes Who Shaped Civilization
by Kenneth W. HarlA narrative history of how Attila, Genghis Khan and the so-called barbarians of the steppes shaped world civilization. The barbarian nomads of the Eurasian steppes have played a decisive role in world history, but their achievements have gone largely unnoticed. These nomadic tribes have produced some of the world&’s greatest conquerors: Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, among others. Their deeds still resonate today. Indeed, these nomads built long-lasting empires, facilitated the first global trade of the Silk Road and disseminated religions, technology, knowledge and goods of every description that enriched and changed the lives of so many across Europe, China and the Middle East. From a single region emerged a great many peoples—the Huns, the Mongols, the Magyars, the Turks, the Xiongnu, the Scythians, the Goths—all of whom went on to profoundly and irrevocably shape the modern world. In this new, comprehensive history, Professor Kenneth W. Harl vividly re-creates the lives and world of these often-forgotten peoples from their beginnings to the early modern age. Their brutal struggle to survive on the steppes bred a resilient, pragmatic people ever ready to learn from their more advanced neighbors. In warfare, they dominated the battlefield for over fifteen hundred years. Under charismatic rulers, they could topple empires and win their own.
Empires of the Weak: The Real Story of European Expansion and the Creation of the New World Order
by Jason SharmanHow the rise of the West was a temporary exception to the predominant world orderWhat accounts for the rise of the state, the creation of the first global system, and the dominance of the West? The conventional answer asserts that superior technology, tactics, and institutions forged by Darwinian military competition gave Europeans a decisive advantage in war over other civilizations from 1500 onward. In contrast, Empires of the Weak argues that Europeans actually had no general military superiority in the early modern era. J. C. Sharman shows instead that European expansion from the late fifteenth to the late eighteenth centuries is better explained by deference to strong Asian and African polities, disease in the Americas, and maritime supremacy earned by default because local land-oriented polities were largely indifferent to war and trade at sea.Europeans were overawed by the mighty Eastern empires of the day, which pioneered key military innovations and were the greatest early modern conquerors. Against the view that the Europeans won for all time, Sharman contends that the imperialism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was a relatively transient and anomalous development in world politics that concluded with Western losses in various insurgencies. If the twenty-first century is to be dominated by non-Western powers like China, this represents a return to the norm for the modern era.Bringing a revisionist perspective to the idea that Europe ruled the world due to military dominance, Empires of the Weak demonstrates that the rise of the West was an exception in the prevailing world order.
Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World
by Nicholas OstlerNicholas Ostler's Empires of the Word is the first history of the world's great tongues, gloriously celebrating the wonder of words that binds communities together and makes possible both the living of a common history and the telling of it. From the uncanny resilience of Chinese through twenty centuries of invasions to the engaging self-regard of Greek and to the struggles that gave birth to the languages of modern Europe, these epic achievements and more are brilliantly explored, as are the fascinating failures of once "universal" languages. A splendid, authoritative, and remarkable work, it demonstrates how the language history of the world eloquently reveals the real character of our planet's diverse peoples and prepares us for a linguistic future full of surprises.
Empires of Trust
by Thomas F. MaddenAn acclaimed historian offers an optimistic view of the future of the United States in the light of Roman history Maybe the end of the American ascendancy is not upon us. Maybe the U.S. will continue to dominate the world for centuries. Now award-winning historian Thomas Madden delivers an optimistic view of our nation's future. Madden shows that the power of the ancient Roman republic and the U.S. was built on trust between allies, not the conquest of enemies. The far-reaching implications of this fact are essential reading for anyone who cares about the challenges we face now and in the years ahead. Packed with stories from Roman history that offer amazingly obvious and explicitly stated parallels to our recent history, Empires of Trust is a narrative pleasure and a hopeful inspiration.
Empires of Vice: The Rise of Opium Prohibition across Southeast Asia (Histories of Economic Life #22)
by Professor Diana S. KimA history of opium's dramatic fall from favor in colonial Southeast AsiaDuring the late nineteenth century, opium was integral to European colonial rule in Southeast Asia. The taxation of opium was a major source of revenue for British and French colonizers, who also derived moral authority from imposing a tax on a peculiar vice of their non-European subjects. Yet between the 1890s and the 1940s, colonial states began to ban opium, upsetting the very foundations of overseas rule—how did this happen? Empires of Vice traces the history of this dramatic reversal, revealing the colonial legacies that set the stage for the region's drug problems today.Diana Kim challenges the conventional wisdom about opium prohibition—that it came about because doctors awoke to the dangers of drug addiction or that it was a response to moral crusaders—uncovering a more complex story deep within the colonial bureaucracy. Drawing on a wealth of archival evidence across Southeast Asia and Europe, she shows how prohibition was made possible by the pivotal contributions of seemingly weak bureaucratic officials. Comparing British and French experiences across today's Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam, Kim examines how the everyday work of local administrators delegitimized the taxing of opium, which in turn made major anti-opium reforms possible.Empires of Vice reveals the inner life of colonial bureaucracy, illuminating how European rulers reconfigured their opium-entangled foundations of governance and shaped Southeast Asia's political economy of illicit drugs and the punitive state.
Empires of Vision: A Reader
by Martin Jay Sumathi RamaswamyEmpires of Vision brings together pieces by some of the most influential scholars working at the intersection of visual culture studies and the history of European imperialism. The essays and excerpts focus on the paintings, maps, geographical surveys, postcards, photographs, and other media that comprise the visual milieu of colonization, struggles for decolonization, and the lingering effects of empire. Taken together, they demonstrate that an appreciation of the role of visual experience is necessary for understanding the functioning of hegemonic imperial power and the ways that the colonized subjects spoke, and looked, back at their imperial rulers. Empires of Vision also makes a vital point about the complexity of image culture in the modern world: We must comprehend how regimes of visuality emerged globally, not only in the metropole but also in relation to the putative margins of a world that increasingly came to question the very distinction between center and periphery.Contributors. Jordanna Bailkin, Roger Benjamin, Daniela Bleichmar, Zeynep Çelik, David Ciarlo, Natasha Eaton, Simon Gikandi, Serge Gruzinski, James L. Hevia, Martin Jay, Brian Larkin, Olu Oguibe, Ricardo Padrón, Christopher Pinney, Sumathi Ramaswamy, Benjamin Schmidt, Terry Smith, Robert Stam, Eric A. Stein, Nicholas Thomas, Krista A. Thompson
Empire's Son, Empire's Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah
by Nile GreenA rollicking story of two literary fabulists who revealed the West’s obsession with a fabricated, exotic East. In the highbrow literary circles of the mid-twentieth century, a father and son spread seductive accounts of a mystical Middle East. Claiming to come from Afghanistan, Ikbal and Idries Shah parlayed their assumed identities into careers full of drama and celebrity, writing dozens of books that influenced the political and cultural elite. Pitching themselves as the authentic voice of the Muslim world, they penned picaresque travelogues and exotic potboilers alongside weighty tomes on Islam and politics. Above all, father and son told Western readers what they wanted to hear: audacious yarns of eastern adventure and harmless Sufi mystics—myths that, as the century wore on and the Taliban seized power, became increasingly detached from reality. Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan follows the Shahs from their origins in colonial India to literary London, wartime Oxford, and counterculture California via the Levant, the League of Nations, and Latin America. Nile Green unravels the conspiracies and pseudonyms, fantastical pasts and self-aggrandizing anecdotes, high stakes and bold schemes that for nearly a century painted the defining portrait of Afghanistan. Ikbal and Idries convinced poets, spies, orientalists, diplomats, occultists, hippies, and even a prime minister that they held the key to understanding the Islamic world. From George Orwell directing Muslim propaganda to Robert Graves translating a fake manuscript of Omar Khayyam and Doris Lessing supporting jihad, Green tells the fascinating tale of how the book world was beguiled by the dream of an Afghan Shangri-La that never existed. Gambling with the currency of cultural authenticity, Ikbal and Idries became master players of the great game of empire and its aftermath. Part detective story, part intellectual folly, Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan reveals the divergence between representation and reality, between what we want to believe and the more complex truth.
Empires to be remembered: Ancient Worlds through Modern Times (Universal- und kulturhistorische Studien. Studies in Universal and Cultural History)
by Michael Gehler Robert RollingerBy applying a comparative approach the volume focuses on a select group of „empires“ which are generally not in the focus of empires studies. They are studied in detail and analyzed due to a strict concept that takes into account real history and reception history as well. Reception history becomes more and more an important element in empire studies although this topic is still often more or less underdeveloped. The volume singles out a series of such “forgotten empires”. It aims to provide a methodologically clearly structured as well as a uniform and consistent approach. It develops a general set of questions that help to compare and distinguish these entities. This way the volume intends to examine and to illuminate empires that are generally ignored by modern scholarship.
Empire's Tracks: Indigenous Nations, Chinese Workers, and the Transcontinental Railroad (American Crossroads #52)
by Manu KarukaEmpire’s Tracks boldly reframes the history of the transcontinental railroad from the perspectives of the Cheyenne, Lakota, and Pawnee Native American tribes, and the Chinese migrants who toiled on its path. In this meticulously researched book, Manu Karuka situates the railroad within the violent global histories of colonialism and capitalism. Through an examination of legislative, military, and business records, Karuka deftly explains the imperial foundations of U.S. political economy. Tracing the shared paths of Indigenous and Asian American histories, this multisited interdisciplinary study connects military occupation to exclusionary border policies, a linked chain spanning the heart of U.S. imperialism. This highly original and beautifully wrought book unveils how the transcontinental railroad laid the tracks of the U.S. Empire.
Empire’s Twin: U.S. Anti-imperialism from the Founding Era to the Age of Terrorism
by Jay Sexton Ian TyrrellAcross the course of American history, imperialism and anti-imperialism have been awkwardly paired as influences on the politics, culture, and diplomacy of the United States. The Declaration of Independence, after all, is an anti-imperial document, cataloguing the sins of the metropolitan government against the colonies. With the Revolution, and again in 1812, the nation stood against the most powerful empire in the world and declared itself independent. As noted by Ian Tyrrell and Jay Sexton, however, American "anti-imperialism was clearly selective, geographically, racially, and constitutionally." Empire's Twin broadens our conception of anti-imperialist actors, ideas, and actions; it charts this story across the range of American history, from the Revolution to our own era; and it opens up the transnational and global dimensions of American anti-imperialism. By tracking the diverse manifestations of American anti-imperialism, this book highlights the different ways in which historians can approach it in their research and teaching. The contributors cover a wide range of subjects, including the discourse of anti-imperialism in the Early Republic and Civil War, anti-imperialist actions in the U.S. during the Mexican Revolution, the anti-imperial dimensions of early U.S. encounters in the Middle East, and the transnational nature of anti-imperialist public sentiment during the Cold War and beyond. Contributors: Laura Belmonte, Oklahoma State University; Robert Buzzanco, University of Houston; Julian Go, Boston University; Alan Knight, University of Oxford; Ussama Makdisi, Rice University; Erez Manela, Harvard University; Peter Onuf, Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies, Monticello, and University of Virginia; Jeffrey Ostler, University of Oregon; Patricia Schechter, Portland State University; Jay Sexton, University of Oxford; Ian Tyrrell, University of New South Wales
Empire's Violent End: Comparing Dutch, British, and French Wars of Decolonization, 1945–1962
by Thijs Brocades Zaalberg Bart LuttikhuisIn Empire's Violent End, Thijs Brocades Zaalberg and Bart Luttikhuis, along with expert contributors, present comparative research focused specifically on excessive violence in Indonesia, Algeria, Vietnam, Malaysia, Kenya, and other areas during the wars of decolonization. In the last two decades, there have been heated public and scholarly debates in France, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands on the violent end of empire. Nevertheless, the broader comparative investigations into colonial counterinsurgency tend to leave atrocities such as torture, execution, and rape in the margins. The editors describe how such comparisons mostly focus on the differences by engaging in "guilt ranking." Moreover, the dramas that have unfolded in Algeria and Kenya tend to overshadow similar violent events in Indonesia, the very first nation to declare independence directly after World War II. Empire's Violent End is the first book to place the Dutch-Indonesian case at the heart of a comparison with focused, thematic analysis on a diverse range of topics to demonstrate that despite variation in scale, combat intensity, and international dynamics, there were more similarities than differences in the ways colonial powers used extreme forms of violence. By delving into the causes and nature of the abuse, Brocades Zaalberg and Luttikhuis conclude that all cases involved some form of institutionalized impunity, which enabled the type of situation in which the forces in the service of the colonial rulers were able to use extreme violence.
Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism
by Greg GrandinIn a brilliant excavation of long-obscured history, Empire's Workshop shows how Latin America has functioned as a proving ground for American strategies and tactics overseas.
Empireworld: How British Imperialism Shaped the Globe
by Sathnam SangheraBestselling author and journalist Sathnam Sanghera explores the global legacy of the British Empire, and the ways it continues to influence economics, politics, and culture around the world. 2.6 billion people are inhabitants of former British colonies. The empire's influence upon the quarter of the planet it occupied, and its gravitational influence upon the world outside it, has been profound: from the spread of Christianity by missionaries to the shaping international law. Even today, 1 in 3 people drive on the left hand side of the road, an artifact of the British empire. Yet Britain's idea of its imperial history and the world's experience of it are two very different things. Following in the footsteps of his bestselling book Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain, Empireworld explores the ways in which British Empire has come to shape the modern world Sanghera visits Barbados, where he uncovers how Caribbean nations are still struggling to emerge from the disadvantages sown by transatlantic slavery. He examines how large charities--like Save the Children and the World Bank--still see the world through the imperial eyes of their colonial founders, and how the political instability of nations, such as Nigeria, for instance, can be traced back to tensions seeded in their colonial foundations. And from the British Empire's role in the transportation of 12.5 million Africans during the Atlantic slave trade, to the 35 million Indians who died due to famine caused by British policy, the British Empire, as Sanghera reveals, was responsible for some of the largest demographic changes in human history. Economic, legal and political systems across the world continue to function along the lines originally drawn by the British Empire, and cultural, sexual, psychological, linguistic, demographic, and educational norms originally established by imperial Britons continue to shape our lives. British Empire may have peaked a century ago, and it may have been mostly dismantled by 1997, but in this major new work, Sathnam Sanghera ultimately shows how the largest empire in world history still exerts influence over planet Earth in all sorts of silent and unsilent ways.
Empirical Bayes Methods (Routledge Library Editions: Econometrics #12)
by J. S. Maritz T. LwinOriginally published in 1970; with a second edition in 1989. Empirical Bayes methods use some of the apparatus of the pure Bayes approach, but an actual prior distribution is assumed to generate the data sequence. It can be estimated thus producing empirical Bayes estimates or decision rules. In this second edition, details are provided of the derivation and the performance of empirical Bayes rules for a variety of special models. Attention is given to the problem of assessing the goodness of an empirical Bayes estimator for a given set of prior data. Chapters also focus on alternatives to the empirical Bayes approach and actual applications of empirical Bayes methods.
Empirical Futures: Anthropologists and Historians Engage the Work of Sidney W. Mintz
by George BacaSince the 1950s, anthropologist Sidney W. Mintz has been at the forefront of efforts to integrate the disciplines of anthropology and history. Author ofSweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern Historyand other groundbreaking works, he was one of the first scholars to anticipate and critique "globalization studies. " However, a strong tradition of epistemologically sophisticated and theoretically informed empiricism of the sort advanced by Mintz has yet to become a cornerstone of contemporary anthropological scholarship. This collection of essays by leading anthropologists and historians serves as an intervention that rests on Mintz's rigorously historicist ethnographic work, which has long predicted the methodological crisis in anthropology today. Contributors to this volume build on Mintzean interdisciplinarity to provide productive ways to theorize the everyday life of local groups and communities, nation-states, and regions and the interconnections among them. Consisting of theoretical and case studies of Latin America, North America, the Caribbean, and Papua New Guinea,Empirical Futuresdemonstrates how Mintzean perspectives advance our understanding of the relationship among empirical approaches, the uses of ethnographic and historical data and theory-building, and the study of these from both local and global vantage points. Contributors: George Baca, Goucher College Frederick Cooper, New York University Virginia R. Dominguez, University of Illinois Frederick Errington, Trinity College Deborah Gewertz, Amherst College Juan Giusti-Cordero, University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras Aisha Khan, New York University Samuel MartÍnez, University of Connecticut Stephan PalmiÉ, University of Chicago Jane Schneider, City University of New York Graduate Center Rebecca J. Scott, University of Michigan Since the 1950s, anthropologist Sidney W. Mintz has been at the forefront of efforts to integrate the disciplines of anthropology and history. Author ofSweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern Historyand other groundbreaking works, he was one of the first scholars to anticipate "globalization studies. " Yet a strong tradition of epistemologically sophisticated and theoretically informed empiricism of the sort advanced by Mintz has yet to become a cornerstone of contemporary anthropological scholarship. This collection of essays by leading anthropologists and historians serves as an intervention that rests on Mintz's rigorously historicist ethnographic work, which has long predicted the methodological crisis in anthropology today. Contributors to this volume build on Mintzean interdisciplinarity to provide productive ways to theorize the everyday life of local groups and communities, nation-states, and regions and the interconnections among them. Consisting of theoretical and case studies of Latin America, North America, the Caribbean, and Papua New Guinea,Empirical Futuresdemonstrates how a Mintzean approach advances the study of culture, power, and identity. The contributors are George Baca, Frederick Cooper, Virginia R. Dominguez, Frederick Errington, Deborah Gewertz, Juan Giusti-Cordero, Aisha Khan, Samuel MartÍnez, Stephan PalmiÉ, Jane Schneider, and Rebecca J. Scott. The editors are George Baca, Aisha Khan, and Stephan PalmiÉ. -->
Empirical Legal Analysis: Assessing the performance of legal institutions (The Economics of Legal Relationships)
by Yun-Chien ChangThis innovative volume explores empirical legal issues around the world. While legal studies have traditionally been worked on and of letters and with a normative bent, in recent years quantitative methods have gained traction by offering a brand new perspective of understanding law. That is, legal scholars have started to crunch numbers, not letters, to tease out the effects of law on the regulated industries, citizens, or judges in reality. In this edited book, authors from leading institutions in the U.S., Europe, and Asia investigate legal issues in South Africa, Argentina, the U.S., Israel, Taiwan, and other countries. Using original data in a variety of statistical tools (from the most basic chi-square analysis to sophisticated two-stage least square regression models), contributors to this book look into the judicial behaviours in Taiwan and Israel, the determinants of constitutional judicial systems in 100 countries, and the effect of appellate court decisions on media competition. In addition, this book breaks new ground in informing important policy debates. Specifically, how long should we incarcerate criminals? Should the medical malpractice liability system be reformed? Do police reduce crime? Why is South Africa’s democratic transition viable? With solid data as evidence, this volume sheds new light on these issues from a road more and more frequently taken—what is known as "empirical legal studies/analysis." This book should be useful to students, practitioners and professors of law, economics and public policy in many countries who seek to understand their legal system from a different, and arguably more scientific, perspective.
An Empirical Study of SOE Corporate Governance Attributes for Emerging Markets
by Giang Hoang Kok Boon OhThis book investigates the institutional characteristics of state-linked firms in Vietnam to draw lessons for investors/MNCs targeting Vietnam and other emerging markets in the region. Vietnam and many other ASEAN countries have gone through a period of privatization and equitization of wholly controlled SOEs, with the State retaining partial ownership in many privatized businesses. This book explains the dynamic relationships between the State, BODs, shareholders, and regulators and their influence on corporate governance and SOE performance. This book differs from other publications in that it extrapolates the findings from our study to a broader context on how the defined internal mechanisms implicate the local economy and global supply chains/markets. This book investigates robust theoretical foundations, and rigorous applied empirical research underpin the role of the State in SOEs. It differs from other studies in terms of qualitative and empirical research to provide the contextual setting to elucidate how to successfully navigate emerging market business with the State as an "owner-participant." This book explains the theoretical constructs of corporate governance in SOEs, applies empirical research methodologies, and draws results to validate inferences to (1) investigate the link between the board of directors and ownership attributes and agency cost levels using Vietnamese listed firms for the period from 2006 to 2013, (2) evaluate the effectiveness of State's corporate initiatives and monitoring through its sovereign wealth fund known as the State Capital Investment Corporation (SCIC), and (3) infer and explain the motivation of the State as a shareholder. This book takes cognizance of Vietnam's idiosyncratic institutional (using its sovereign wealth fund as an investment vehicle and management proxy), economic, regulatory, and corporate environments and the realities for developing an effective and sustainable business model, vis-à-vis the ownership structure, board of directors' composition and corporate governance, for better business performance. While the focus is on Vietnam, the content is also relevant to the role of the State in other emerging markets as a player in shaping the business strategy, model, and direction of SOEs.
Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind: Reading Wilfrid Sellars' Empiricism And The Philosophy Of Mind, Including The Complete Text Of Sellars' Essay (The 1984 Reith lectures #1984.)
by Wilfrid SellarsThe most important work by one of America's greatest twentieth-century philosophers, Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind is both the epitome of Wilfrid Sellars' entire philosophical system and a key document in the history of philosophy. First published in essay form in 1956, it helped bring about a sea change in analytic philosophy. It broke the link, which had bound Russell and Ayer to Locke and Hume--the doctrine of "knowledge by acquaintance." Sellars' attack on the Myth of the Given in Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind was a decisive move in turning analytic philosophy away from the foundationalist motives of the logical empiricists and raised doubts about the very idea of "epistemology." With an introduction by Richard Rorty to situate the work within the history of recent philosophy, and with a study guide by Robert Brandom, this publication of Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind makes a difficult but indisputably significant figure in the development of analytic philosophy clear and comprehensible to anyone who would understand that philosophy or its history.
Empiricism at the Crossroads
by Thomas UebelRather than a monolithic movement of naïve empiricists, the Vienna Circle represented a discussion forum for what were sometimes compatible, sometimes conflicting philosophical approaches to empirical evidence. The Circle's protocol-sentence debate - here reconstructed and analyzed - provides an exceptional vantage point from which to survey the various options and choices of the participants. Author Thomas Uebel mines the diaries, letters, and notes of the group's leading philosophers to show how their ideas emerged from real-world arguments, personal relationships, and historical settings.
Empiricist Devotions: Science, Religion, and Poetry in Early Eighteenth-Century England
by Courtney Weiss SmithFeaturing a moment in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century England before the disciplinary divisions that we inherit today were established, Empiricist Devotions recovers a kind of empiricist thinking in which the techniques and emphases of science, religion, and literature combined and cooperated. This brand of empiricism was committed to particularized scrutiny and epistemological modesty. It was Protestant in its enabling premises and meditative practices. It earnestly affirmed that figurative language provided crucial tools for interpreting the divinely written world. Smith recovers this empiricism in Robert Boyle's analogies, Isaac Newton's metaphors, John Locke's narratives, Joseph Addison's personifications, Daniel Defoe's diction, John Gay's periphrases, and Alexander Pope's descriptive particulars. She thereby demonstrates that "literary" language played a key role in shaping and giving voice to the concerns of eighteenth-century science and religion alike. Empiricist Devotions combines intellectual history with close readings of a wide variety of texts, from sermons, devotional journals, and economic tracts to georgic poems, it-narratives, and microscopy treatises. This prizewinning book has important implications for our understanding of cultural and literary history, as scholars of the period's science have not fully appreciated figurative language's central role in empiricist thought, while scholars of its religion and literature have neglected the serious empiricist commitments motivating richly figurative devotional and poetic texts.Winner of the Walker Cowen Memorial Prize for an Outstanding Work of Scholarship in Eighteenth-Century Studies
Empiricist Theories of Space: Space and Experience in Early Modern Philosophy (Studies in History and Philosophy of Science #54)
by Laura BerchielliThis book explores the notions of space and extension of major early modern empiricist philosophers, especially Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Condillac. While space is a central and challenging issue for early modern empiricists, literature on this topic is sparse. This collection shows the diversity and problematic unity of empiricist views of space. Despite their common attention to the content of sensorial experience and to the analytical method, empiricist theories of space vary widely both in the way of approaching the issue and in the result of their investigation. However, by recasting the questions and examining the conceptual shifts, we see the emergence of a programmatic core, common to what the authors discuss. The introductory chapter describes this variety and its common core. The other contributions provide more specific perspectives on the issue of space within the philosophical literature. This book offers a unique overview of the early modern understanding of these issues, of interest to historians of early modern philosophy, historians and philosophers of science, historians of ideas, and all readers who want to expand their knowledge of the empiricist tradition.
The Empiricists: Locke: Concerning Human Understanding; Berkeley: Principles of Human Knowledge & 3 Dialogues; Hume: Concerning Human Understanding & Concerning Natural Religio
by David Hume John Locke George BerkeleyThis volume includes the major works of the British Empiricists, philosophers who sought to derive all knowledge from experience. All essays are complete except that of Locke, which Professor Richard Taylor of Brown University has skillfully abridged.