This monograph uses the latest archaeological results from Mongolia and the surrounding areas of Inner Asia to propose a novel understanding of nomadic statehood, political economy, and the nature of interaction with ancient China. In contrast to the common view of the Eurasian steppe as a dependent periphery of Old World centers, this work views Inner Asia as a locus of enormous influence on neighboring civilizations, primarily through the development and transmission of diverse organizational models, technologies, and socio-political traditions. This work explores the spatial management of political relationships within the pastoral nomadic setting during the first millennium BCE and argues that a culture of mobility, horse-based transport, and long-distance networking promoted a unique variant of statehood. Although states of the eastern steppe were geographically large and hierarchical, these polities also relied on techniques of distributed authority, multiple centers, flexible structures, and ceremonialism to accommodate a largely mobile and dispersed populace. This expertise in “spatial politics” set the stage early on for the expansionistic success of later Asian empires under the Mongols and Manchus. Inner Asia and the Spatial Politics of Empire brings a distinctly anthropological treatment to the prehistory of Mongolia and is the first major work to explore key issues in the archaeology of eastern Eurasia using a comparative framework. The monograph adds significantly to anthropological theory on interaction between states and outlying regions, the emergence of secondary complexity, and the growth of imperial traditions. Based on this approach, the window of Inner Asian prehistory offers a novel opportunity to investigate the varied ways that complex societies grow and the processes articulating adjacent societies in networks of mutual transformation.
Improving the reliability of long-range forecasts of natural disasters, such as severe weather, droughts and floods, in North America, South America, Africa and the Asian/Australasian monsoon regions is of vital importance to the livelihood of millions of people who are affected by these events. In recent years the significance of major short-term climatic variability, and events such as the El Nino/Southern Oscillation in the Pacific, with its worldwide effect on rainfall patterns, has been all to clearly demonstrated. Understanding and predicting the intra-seasonal variability (ISV) of the ocean and atmosphere is crucial to improving long range environmental forecasts and the reliability of climate change projects through climate models. In the second edition of this classic book on the subject, the authors have updated the original chapters, where appropriate, and added a new chapter that includes short subjects representing substantial new development in ISV research since the publication of the first edition.
While statistics indicate that nearly half of all first marriages in America today terminate in divorce, more than three-quarters of these divorces also result in remarriage, producing stepfamilies. Although they have become increasingly common, stepfamilies are still poorly understood, by stepfamily and non-stepfamily members alike. This book looks at the internal and external dynamics of this new family form, taking the reader through a series of case studies and examining characteristic pitfalls and opportunities. The author begins by comparing the basic building block of the stepfamily--the remarried couple--to the first-married couple. In successive chapters the structure of the stepfamily is considered in terms of increasing complexity, from the simplest, in which one of the partners has never married before and has no children, to the most complex "yours and ours" stepfamilies, in which there are children from both previous marriages and the present one. The author probes the conflicts that arise between parents and children and among stepsiblings and explores the different strategies that stepfamilies devise for resolving these tensions. In the later chapters, the sociohistorical origins of today's stepfamilies are traced in terms of changing values and new technologies. Professor Beer argues that stepfamilies are proliferating as a result of attitudes and patterns of behavior that, more than ever, encourage divorce and remarriage. He demonstrates on the basis of large-scale evidence that stepfamilies produce children who are just as well adjusted as children brought up by both biological parents, and that they will turn out to be adults who are almost as socially well adapted as those from conventional families. The author concludes that stepfamilies are types of families in their own right, with foreseeable difficulties and rich rewards.
More than two thousand entries define a variety of words and terms related to eating and foods, describing exotic dishes, cooking techniques, ingredients, and foods.
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