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This book argues that eighteenth-century British travel writings about the Arabian Overland Routes to India offered fascinating anecdotes of encounters that allow us to rethink Enlightenment understanding of the meaning of improvement. Travelling among and writing about the inhabitants, government, culture, religion and ruins of Syria and Mesopotamia offered Britons opportunities to pose themselves in their narratives as men of improvement abroad. To that end, travelling appeared in their books as serious attempt to improve their readers’ knowledge about a region that many in Britain saw as decayed, barbaric and primitive. But the various encounters British travellers experienced in the region allowed them to negotiate the impact of excessive materialism on the traditions, morality, religion and landscape of eighteenth-century Britain. At the heart of this book’s understanding of Enlightenment writings about the Levant is the idea that a journey in a region which many considered as a theatre for the arts, sciences and military conquests in the past and decay in the present represents a fraught relationship modern Europeans had with the past, present and future.
In the absence of horses, saddle the dogs. This Arab proverb, suggesting the uncompromising determination of nomads to keep moving, whatever the obstacles, epitomizes also the travelling ethos of many early visitors to the 'exotic East'. The journeys examined here are linked by the light they shed on the experience of travel in Egypt, Greece and the Ottoman Balkans, and the Near East from the 17th to the early 20th century not so much what was seen as how one got there and how one got around once arrived; the vicissitudes and travails, both expected and strange that characterised the passage. The purpose of the trips examined range from religious pilgrimages to diplomatic, commercial and mil...
Belgium has a high level of productivity. However, growth of productivity has declined quite strongly over the past two decades, and more so than in other advanced economies. This is a worrying development, as fewer productivity gains mean less wage growth and a slowdown in improvements to pensions, health care and well-being. This In-Depth Productivity Review of Belgium assesses in detail the drivers of productivity and recommends a 7-Point Action Plan to reignite productivity growth in Belgium.
â ~Broadening Horizons: multidisciplinary approaches to landscape studyâ (TM) presents nine papers on physical landscape research in the Mediterranean and the Near East. Giving prime place to young researchers working in this field, it brings together highly diverse applications ranging from ground survey to semi-automated remote sensing, from cuneiform studies to palynology and from human geography to paradigm re-evaluation. Aimed at a public of both students and scholars with a shared interest in the study of past landscapes, its aims are dual. In presenting ongoing research which applies various techniques available to the student of landscape, it aims to add to the practice of these su...
This book provides an analysis of the legal and policy dimensions of open access to research, education and public sector information with a focus on Nigeria. Kunle shows how open access has evolved across the world and how such initiatives could be implemented in Nigeria and other countries in the developing world. The author argues for a platform where Nigerians are able to freely connect to the ‘global library’, through the open access dual platforms of self-archiving and open access publishing, thereby providing access to knowledge. The importance of connecting local works to the ‘global library’ to increase visibility and impact of such works is also underscored. This book furth...
Irrigation has long been of interest in the study of the past. Many early civilizations were located in river valleys, and irrigation was of great economic importance for many early states because of the key role it played in producing an agricultural surplus, which was the main source of wealth and the basis of political power for the elites who controlled it. Agricultural surplus was also necessary to maintain the very features of statehood, such as urbanism, full-time labor specialization, state institutions, and status hierarchy. Yet, the presence of large-scale or complex irrigation systems does not necessarily mean that they were under centralized control. While some early states organ...
Motion in Maps, Maps in Motion argues that the mapping of stories, movement, and change should not be understood as an innovation of contemporary cartography, but rather as an important aspect of human cartography with a longer history than might be assumed. The authors in this collection reflect upon the main characteristics and evolutions of story and motion mapping, from the figurative news and history maps that were mass-produced in early modern Europe, through the nineteenth- and twentieth-century flow maps that appeared in various atlases, up to the digital and interactive motion and personalized maps that are created today. Rather than presenting a clear and homogeneous history from the past up until the present, this book offers a toolbox for understanding and interpreting the complex interplays and links between narrative, motion, and maps.
This volume presents papers in honour of Tony James Wilkinson, who was Professor of Archaeology at Durham University from 2006 until his death in 2014. Though commemorative in concept, the volume is an assemblage of new research representing emerging agendas and innovative methods in remote sensing and their application in Near Eastern archaeology.
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