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The research examines the role of market expansion and international labor division in the British Industrial Revolution from the perspective of globalization. The research shows that British cotton textile output in pieces grew 275 times from the 1770s to the mid-1850s and documents that such growth would never have happened without a vast overseas market for the supply of raw cotton and the sale of products. The paper argues that the continuous and dramatic expansion of overseas markets allowed the British cotton industry to expand greatly without hitting the ceiling of marginal returns, leading not only to the great expansion of production, but also to technological and institutional innovations, and that international labor division made it possible for the industry to import ample amounts of raw cotton and export large amounts of cotton textiles. In contrast, foreign demand for Chinese cotton textiles increased significantly in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, but accounted for only 0.3% of production capacity, which was too little to lift the law of diminishing marginal returns and to induce either technological or institutional changes. As a result, only Smithian growths could be achieved through optimal resource utilization and specialization in production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article engages with the question of how theorisation of the social construction of childhood can be applied across cultural contexts, taking China and Britain as examples. The paper draws on collaborative dialogue between scholars from the People's Republic of China and Britain, and literatures from both Anglophone and Mandarin sources. It takes forward emergent work on theorising childhood from diverse global perspectives by focusing on the institutionalisation of childhood in these countries, with particular reference to language, conceptualisation and legal frameworks relating to chronological age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China and Britain have contrasting images in the official and unofficial Syrian media. By analysing relevant news stories, this study reveals that China's involvement in the Syrian crisis as covered by the Syrian media is usually limited to governmental affairs, while Britain's involvement covered by the Syrian media, especially the "revolutionary" outlet, figures in a relatively wider range of diverse nongovernmental happenings including activities of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and the media. Most importantly, the study finds that the "revolutionary" outlet Enab Baladi is apt to present Chinese involvement as negative, but presents British involvement as positive, while the government-backed news agency SANA portrays a completely positive image of China and a fundamentally negative image of Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]