Cultural Change and Persistence addresses the complex challenge of pursuing development while safeguarding cherished aspects of deeply-rooted cultural practices and beliefs. Through cases from multipl
Cultural Change and Persistence addresses the complex challenge of pursuing development while safeguarding cherished aspects of deeply-rooted cultural practices and beliefs. Through cases from multipl
The traditional interpretation of the crisis of the Spanish Old Regime is to see it as a revolution carried out by an ascendant bourgeoisie. Professor Cruz challenges this viewpoint by arguing that in Spain, as in the rest of continental Europe, a national bourgeoisie did not exist before the second half of the nineteenth century. Consequently, the model of bourgeois revolution proves inadequate to explain any movement toward modernisation before 1850. Historiography based on the bourgeois revolution theory portrays Spain as an exceptional model whose main feature is the 'failure' produced by the immobility of its ruling class. This work re-examines that understanding, and relocates Spain in the mainstream for industrialisation, urbanisation and democratisation that characterise the history of modern Europe.
Joseph Stalin’s death was a defining event in Soviet history. In its aftermath, the state was forced to reconceive its political, economic, social, and cultural identity. This volume includes new cont
Language Machines questions any easily progressive model of technological change, demonstrating the persistence rather than the obsolescence of language technologies over time, the continuous and comp
This book reinterprets the rise of the natural and social sciences as sources of political authority in modern America. Andrew Jewett demonstrates the remarkable persistence of a belief that the scientific enterprise carried with it a set of ethical values capable of grounding a democratic culture - a political function widely assigned to religion. The book traces the shifting formulations of this belief from the creation of the research universities in the Civil War era to the early Cold War years. It examines hundreds of leading scholars who viewed science not merely as a source of technical knowledge, but also as a resource for fostering cultural change. This vision generated surprisingly nuanced portraits of science in the years before the military-industrial complex and has much to teach us today about the relationship between science and democracy.
In a world of relentless and often violent change, what does it take for a culture to survive? Steven Weitzman addresses this question by exploring the "arts of cultural persistence"--the tactics that
This landmark study of Zengbu, a Cantonese community, is the first comprehensive analysis of a rural Chinese society by foreign anthropologists since the Revolution in 1949. Jack and Sulamith Potter examine the revolutionary experiences of Zengbu's peasant villagers and document the rapid changeover from Maoist to post-Maoist China. In particular, they seek to explain the persistence of the deep structure of Chinese culture through thirty years of revolutionary praxis. The authors assess the continuities and changes in rural China, moving from the traditional social organization and cultural life of the pre-revolutionary period through the series of large-scale efforts to implement planned social change which characterized Maoism - land reform, collectivization, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution. They examine in detail late Maoist society in 1979–80 and go on to describe and analyse the extraordinary changes of the post-Mao years, during which Zengbu was decollectiviz
This landmark study of Zengbu, a Cantonese community, is the first comprehensive analysis of a rural Chinese society by foreign anthropologists since the Revolution in 1949. Jack and Sulamith Potter examine the revolutionary experiences of Zengbu's peasant villagers and document the rapid changeover from Maoist to post-Maoist China. In particular, they seek to explain the persistence of the deep structure of Chinese culture through thirty years of revolutionary praxis. The authors assess the continuities and changes in rural China, moving from the traditional social organization and cultural life of the pre-revolutionary period through the series of large-scale efforts to implement planned social change which characterized Maoism - land reform, collectivization, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution. They examine in detail late Maoist society in 1979–80 and go on to describe and analyse the extraordinary changes of the post-Mao years, during which Zengbu was decollectiviz
