In this book, entitled "Military Conscription: an economic analysis of the labour component in the armed forces", military conscription is regarded as an eco nomic policy to minimize the cost of labour in the armed forces. The economic cost of conscription becomes clear when we analyse the opportunity costs of conscription. If conscripts were free to choose whether to join the armed forces, many would not under the present day conditions, since for them the costs of conscription far outweighs the benefits. The principle of opportunity costs is always central in the economics of warfare. In this book the analysis begins with an investigation of these oppor tunity costs and then uses the results to analyse the formation of an all-volunteer force, which will in fact be achieved, if everything proceeds according to schedule, by 1998. Chapter one concentrates on the structure of the thesis. One of the cor nerstones is welfare economics. Welfare economics uses a mechanical view of the state. Translated to military conscription this means that the welfare of the conscript is a central point in the analysis of the economic aspects of military conscription. Also important is the fact that the concept of welfare concentrates on scarcity. Due to conscription the aspects of scarcity of labour in the armed forces are very weak, if not absent.
Neither a comprehensive 'life and times' nor a conventional biography, this is an engaging and accessible exploration of rulership and monarchial authority in eighteenth century Russia. Its purpose is to see how Catherine II of Russia conceived of her power and how it was represented to her subjects. Simon Dixon asks essential questions about Catherin'es life and reign, and offers new and stimulating arguments about the Englightenment, the power of the monarch in early modern Europe, and the much-debated role of the "great individual" in history.
Polemon of Laodicea (near modern Denizli, south-west Turkey) was a wealthy Greek aristocrat and a key member of the intellectual movement known as the Second Sophistic. Among his works was the Physiognomy, a manual on how to tell character from appearance, thus enabling its readers to choose friends and avoid enemies on sight. Its formula of detailed instruction and personal reminiscence proved so successful that the book was re-edited in the fourth century by Adamantius in Greek, translated and adapted by an unknown Latin author of the same era, and translated in the early Middle Ages into Syriac and Arabic. The surviving versions of Adamantius, Anonymus Latinus, and the Leiden Arabic more than make up for the loss of the original. The present volume is the work of a team of leading Classicists and Arabists. The main surviving versions in Greek and Latin are translated into English for the first time. The Leiden Arabic translation is authoritatively re-edited and translated, as is a sample of the alternative Arabic Polemon. The texts and translations are introduced by a series of masterly studies that tell the story of the origins, function, and legacy of Polemon's work, a legacy especially rich in Islam. The story of the Physiognomy is the story of how one man's obsession with identifying enemies came to be taken up in the fascinating transmission of Greek thought into Arabic.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A magisterial world history unlike any other that tells the story of humanity through the one thing we all have in common: families • From the author of The Romanovs “Succession meets Game of Thrones.” —The Spectator • “The author brings his cast of dynastic titans, rogues and psychopaths to life...An epic that both entertains and informs.” —The Economist, Best Books of the Year Around 950,000 years ago, a family of five walked along the beach and left behind the oldest family footprints ever discovered. For award-winning historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, these poignant, familiar fossils serve as an inspiration for a new kind of world history, one that is genuinely global, spans all eras and all continents, and focuses on the family ties that connect every one of us. In this epic, ever-surprising book, Montefiore chronicles the world’s great dynasties across human history through palace intrigues, love affairs, and family lives, linking grand themes of war, migration, plague, religion, and technology to the people at the heart of the human drama. It features a cast of extraordinary diversity: in addition to rulers and conquerors, there are priests, charlatans, artists, scientists, tycoons, gangsters, lovers, husbands, wives, and children. There is Hongwu, the beggar who founded the Ming dynasty; Ewuare, the Leopard-King of Benin; Henry Christophe, King of Haiti; Kamehameha, the conqueror of Hawaii; Zenobia, the Arab empress who defied Rome; Lady Murasaki, the first female novelist; Sayyida al-Hurra, the Moroccan pirate-queen. Here too are moderns such as Indira Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher, Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin, and Volodymyr Zelensky. Here are the Caesars, Medicis and Incas, Ottomans and Mughals, Bonapartes, Habsburgs and Zulus, Rothschilds, Rockefellers and Krupps, Churchills, Kennedys, Castros, Nehrus, Pahlavis and Kenyattas, Saudis, Kims and Assads. These powerful families represent the breadth of human endeavor, with bloody succession battles, treacherous conspiracies, and shocking megalomania alongside flourishing culture, moving romances, and enlightened benevolence. A dazzling achievement as spellbinding as fiction, The World captures the whole human story in a single, masterful narrative.
Simon Blackburn tackles the major moral questions surrounding birth, death, happiness, desire, and freedom, and considers how we should think about the meaning of life. This new edition highlights the importance of an understanding of approaches to ethics and its foundations, and how this relates to our modern world of eroding trust.
To date, more than a million insect species have been described, with probably at least another 5-8 million species waiting in the wings for a name. Insects are a fascinatingly diverse and beautiful spectrum of animals. They range in size from the tiny parasitic wasp, measuring a mere 139μm, to the aptly named Titan beetle, which can reach lengths of up to 17cm. They can be found on all continents of the world, from the Sahara Desert to the frozen wastes of Antarctica; in caves, under the ground, inside plants, other insects and vertebrates, in rivers, streams, lakes and ponds, in puddles, in the watery interiors of pitcher plants; and in our houses. While no insects live beneath the waves, the intrepid sea skaters skim the surface of some of the world's oceans. This Very Short Introduction explores the extraordinary world of insects. It analyses insect evolution, taxonomy and development, and describes their behaviour, their life styles, and the interactions they have with other insects and other animals. As Simon Leather shows, insects are the bedrock on which human civilisation rests; without them we would almost certainly not exist. Although they can be seen as pests of our crops plants, they are also invaluable for pollinating our flowering plants and are an invaluable link in all land ecosystems. As they face challenges from climate change and pesticides it has never been more important to understand these oft-dismissed creatures. Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
A charmingly personal history of Hapsburg Europe, as lively as it is informative, by the author of Germania For centuries much of Europe and the Holy Roman Empire was in the royal hands of the very peculiar Habsburg family. An unstable mixture of wizards, obsessives, melancholics, bores, musicians and warriors, they saw off—through luck, guile and sheer mulishness—any number of rivals, until finally packing up in 1918. From their principal lairs along the Danube they ruled most of Central Europe and Germany and interfered everywhere—indeed the history of Europe hardly makes sense without the House of Hapsburg. Danubia, Simon Winder's hilarious new book, plunges the reader into a maelstrom of alchemy, royalty, skeletons, jewels, bear-moats, unfortunate marriages and a guinea-pig village. Full of music, piracy, religion and fighting, it is the history of a strange dynasty, and the people they ruled, who spoke many different languages, lived in a vast range of landscapes, believed in rival gods and often showed a marked ingratitude towards their oddball ruler in Vienna. Readers who discovered Simon Winder's storytelling genius and infectious curiosity in Germania will be delighted by the eccentric and fascinating tale of the Habsburgs and their world.
This book meets the growing demand among ophthalmologists, optometrists and orthoptists, in training and in practice, as well as visual neuroscientists, to have a clear, succinct and well-written textbook to objectively cover the subject of ocular and visual physiology. Ocular and visual physiology is a core knowledge component for these disciplines, and yet is often difficult to understand. However, this book clearly conveys the simple elegance of the relationship between structure and function that is the hallmark of understanding the physiology of the eye and visual system. Ocular and Visual Physiology – Clinical Application is essential reading for any one hoping to have a clear understanding of the subject. Students will find it a great resource to pass their exams. Each of the chapters has been independently reviewed and edited by an expert in the field with a clinical or visual scientific academic background. The text is based on the latest publications in peer-reviewed journals that are closely referenced within the body of the text.
The BIRPS Atlas presents the 100 deep seismic reflection profiles collected around the British Isles by the BIRPS Group (BIRPS - British Institutions Reflection Profiling Syndicate) at desk-top scale.
In this book, entitled "Military Conscription: an economic analysis of the labour component in the armed forces", military conscription is regarded as an eco nomic policy to minimize the cost of labour in the armed forces. The economic cost of conscription becomes clear when we analyse the opportunity costs of conscription. If conscripts were free to choose whether to join the armed forces, many would not under the present day conditions, since for them the costs of conscription far outweighs the benefits. The principle of opportunity costs is always central in the economics of warfare. In this book the analysis begins with an investigation of these oppor tunity costs and then uses the results to analyse the formation of an all-volunteer force, which will in fact be achieved, if everything proceeds according to schedule, by 1998. Chapter one concentrates on the structure of the thesis. One of the cor nerstones is welfare economics. Welfare economics uses a mechanical view of the state. Translated to military conscription this means that the welfare of the conscript is a central point in the analysis of the economic aspects of military conscription. Also important is the fact that the concept of welfare concentrates on scarcity. Due to conscription the aspects of scarcity of labour in the armed forces are very weak, if not absent.
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