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41. Newton and the Counterfeiter: the Unknown Detective Career of the World's Greatest Scientist

Author:
Daniel Wahl
Publication Date:
04-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
Isaac Newton sought "to master all the apparent confusion of the world, to bring order where none was apparent" (p. 5). He had, as Thomas Levenson shows, a "legendary capacity for study"; and for him frequently "sleep was optional" (p. 9). He was absolutely brilliant. Yet "for all his raw intelligence," Levenson says, "Newton's ultimate achievement turned on [the fact that if] something mattered to him, the man pursued it relentlessly." Equally crucial to his ultimate success, Newton was never a purely abstract thinker. He gained his central insight into the concept of force from evidence "known by [the] light of nature." He tested his ideas about gravity and the motion of the moon with data drawn from his own painstaking experiments and the imperfect observations of others. When it came time to analyze the physics of the tides, the landlocked Newton sought out data from travelers the world over (p. 20). By 1695, at the age of 51, Newton had been at "the leading edge of discovery" for almost three decades (p. 104). He had, as Levenson shows, discovered calculus-"the essential tool used to analyze change over time" (p. 14), and he had "presented gravity as the engine of the system of all creation-one that binds the rise and fall of the Thames . . . to all the observed motions of the solar system" (p. 30). And then "an odd message arrived from London . . . on a matter completely outside his usual competence" (p. 105). The letter, sent by Secretary of the Treasury William Lowndes, solicited Newton's opinion on the worsening shortage of silver coins, a matter of national importance. This unexpected correspondence would ultimately lead to Newton becoming warden of the Mint-and, as such, both an industrialist and a criminal investigator. Levenson tells the exciting story that follows in Newton and the Counterfeiter: the Unknown Detective Career of the World's Greatest Scientist. The problem facing England was that from "the late 1680s to the mid-1690s, the supply of [silver] coins-the basic units of exchange for the daily business of the country-shrank year by year." "By 1695," Levenson says, "it was almost impossible to find legal silver in circulation" (p. 109). This led to a standstill in trade, tenants that could not pay rent, many suicides, and a "general sense of terror" that violence would soon erupt (p. 138). . . .
Political Geography:
England

42. Andrew Carnegie: The Richest Man in the World

Author:
Scott Holleran
Publication Date:
12-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
Andrew Carnegie was the quintessential American, the archetypal self-made man. A poor immigrant boy, Carnegie rose to become a titan, advancing key theories of integration in business, producing more steel than all of England,1 creating the first billion-dollar corporation,2 and leaving an indelible legacy of colleges, arts, and libraries. His was an exceptional life and, in his time, he became the world's richest man.
Topic:
Education
Political Geography:
America and England

43. Mark Osborne Humphries and John Maker, eds. Germany's Western Front, 1915: Translations from the German Official History of the Great War, Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2010

Author:
Matt Bucholtz
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
Germany's Western Front, 1915, translated and edited by Mark Osborne Humphries and John Maker, is the second volume in a series of translations of Der Weltkrieg, the official German history of the First World War. Mark Osborne Humphries teaches Canadian and military history at Mount Royal College in Calgary, Alberta and has published several works on the First World War in both Canadian and international journals. John Maker is a PhD Candidate at the University of Ottawa, working on a dissertation entitled ‚Shiner, Shindigs, and Shenanigans: Canadian Soldiers in Britain during the Second World War.‛ Composed of selections from volumes VII, VIII and IX of Der Weltkrieg, Germany's Western Front, 1915 dutifully presents one of the last triumphs of German Wilhelmine era operational level military history. Originally published from 1925 to 1944, Der Weltkrieg stands as the culmination of the von Rankean tradition of ‚wie es eigentlich gewesen” or 'how it actually happened' in the Great German General Staff. Humphries and Maker produced this translated work in an attempt to provide a German counterpart to the narrative of the Great War in English, which has been traditionally, and understandably, dominated by sources from England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States of America. In an ironic post-modern twist, the editors have sought to end the ‚othering‛ of German interpretations by translating the official (one might be tempted to say master narrative) German history of the war into English, and thus simply adding one master narrative to another. Nevertheless, both the foreword by Hew Strachan and the introduction written by the editors do an excellent job of not only situating Der Weltkrieg within the historiography, but also critically examining the creation and creators of the series. Throughout the volume, the editors consistently provide useful footnotes, not only to clarify various points in the text, but also to elaborate on the relationships between the subject matter and the authors of Der Weltkrieg (the most notable example being von Haeften's consistently negative critique of Feldmarschall von Falkenhayn's conduct throughout 1915, which directly stemmed from von Haeften's personal loyalty to his former commanding officer, Helmuth von Moltke the Younger, who was replaced by Falkenhayn). Although the usefulness of Der Weltkrieg is limited by its high level focus (the series does not focus on any military unit smaller than a division and is mainly concerned with the leadership coterie of Germany's war effort), it nevertheless remains an important resource for historians as the series was produced from sources which were destroyed during the Second World War by a wayward British bomber, and thus denied to current researchers. Although this official history was finished during the Nazi era, it remains remarkably free of National Socialist ideological overtones. Most of the politically motivated interpretations in the series are an expression of Imperial or Weimar era internal military intrigues, not those of the Third Reich.
Topic:
Intelligence
Political Geography:
United States, America, Canada, Germany, Australia, England, and New Zealand

44. Economic Development and Growth: A Survey

Author:
Meir Kohn
Publication Date:
08-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The most basic challenge for economics is to understand the nature and causes of economic progress. But what exactly is to be explained? What are the facts? One very striking fact is historical—the rapid acceleration in the rate of economic progress since the early 1800s. Another is geographical—the huge differences in levels of economic progress in different parts of the world today. The questions virtually ask themselves. Why did economic progress accelerate? Why is it not universal? On the whole, these two questions have been addressed by two different specialized fields within economics. Economic history has addressed the question of change over time, and development economics has addressed the question of contemporary differences across countries.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
England

45. Economic Development and Growth: A Survey

Author:
Meir Kohn
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The most basic challenge for economics is to understand the nature and causes of economic progress. But what exactly is to be explained? What are the facts? One very striking fact is historical—the rapid acceleration in the rate of economic progress since the early 1800s. Another is geographical—the huge differences in levels of economic progress in different parts of the world today. The questions virtually ask themselves. Why did economic progress accelerate? Why is it not universal? On the whole, these two questions have been addressed by two different specialized fields within economics. Economic history has addressed the question of change over time, and development economics has addressed the question of contemporary differences across countries.
Topic:
Economics and War
Political Geography:
England

46. The Rise of English: The Language of Globalization in China and the European Union

Author:
Anne Johnson
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
It is everywhere. Some 380 million people speak it as their first language and perhaps two-thirds as many again as their second. A billion are learning it, about a third of the world's population are in some sense exposed to it and by 2050, it is predicted, half the world will be more or less proficient in it. It is the language of globalisation—of international business, politics and diplomacy. It is the language of computers and the Internet. You'll see it on posters in Cote d'Ivoire, you'll hear it in pop songs in Tokyo, you'll read it in official documents in Phnom Penh. Deutsche Welle broadcasts in it. Bjork, an Icelander, sings in it. French business schools teach in it. It is the medium of expression in cabinet meetings in Bolivia. Truly, the tongue spoken back in the 1300s only by the 'low people' of England, as Robert of Gloucester put it at the time, has come a long way. It is now the global language.
Political Geography:
China, Europe, and England

47. It's Only Going to Get Worse

Author:
Lawrence B. Lindsey
Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
America has not had a nationwide housing crash since the 1930s. At one point during that calamity, an estimated 60 percent of all mortgages were in technical default. The rather primitive housing credit system of the time, which relied on five-year balloon mortgages, certainly exacerbated the problem, but the bulk of the problem was related to the general economic downturn. There have been some regional housing crashes that were short and relatively mild, most notably in California, Texas, and New England in the late 1980s and early1990s. Most of those were caused by declines in key local industries: oil in Texas, aerospace and defense in Southern California and Massachusett.
Topic:
Economics and Markets
Political Geography:
United States, California, and England

48. Inventing Human Rights: A History

Author:
Bronwyn Leebaw
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
In the second half of the eighteenth century, epistolary novels became popular in France and England, people began listening to the opera in silence rather than walking around to converse with friends, and efforts were made to prevent theater-goers in Paris from disrupting performances by coordinating their coughing and farting. For Lynn Hunt, these changes in the daily lives of Europeans are intrinsically related to the development of universal human rights. In this rich and beautifully written work, Hunt argues that human rights rely upon our ability to empathize with strangers. The changing habits and experiences of late-eighteenth-century Europe fostered new understandings of individuality and empathy, which would support the expansion of rights.
Topic:
Human Rights
Political Geography:
Europe, Paris, France, and England

49. Global Rebalancing

Author:
John H. Makin
Publication Date:
10-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
The global economic and financial picture is changing rapidly. A review of some of the key elements is in order, as the U.S. economy has slowed rapidly and the Federal Reserve has responded aggressively with rate cuts, while the Bank of England's tough policies pushed one of the United Kingdom's largest mortgage lenders, Northern Rock, to the brink of collapse as a bank run on that suddenly beleaguered institution ensued. Meanwhile, Japan, still the world's second-largest economy—though perhaps the least dynamic of the major ones—slipped into negative growth at a 1.2 percent annual rate in the second quarter after having initially reported growth over 2 percent. The rate-boost-obsessed Bank of Japan finally decided to stop raising rates, and, to add to the complexity of the picture, Japan's relatively new prime minister Shinzo Abe resigned, unable to provide the leadership sorely needed in a nation lacking economic and political direction.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Markets
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, United Kingdom, and England

50. The State of American Cities

Author:
Bruce Katz and Alan Berube
Publication Date:
11-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
This summary report provides an overview of The State of American Cities. It addresses four major questions that are explored in further detail in the topic report: What are the current trends and drivers of change in US cities? What factors measure and explain city success in the U.S? What policies have promoted the success of US cities? What can English cities learn from this? The report argues that whilst the US and England are marked by significant cultural and political differences in their views on cities, the two nations are undergoing similar economic and demographic transitions that pave the way for a useful comparative policy dialogue on urban areas.
Topic:
Civil Society and Economics
Political Geography:
United States, United Kingdom, America, Europe, and England