Search

The article presents abstracts on topics related to history and planning including attitudes towards menstruation in Elizabethan England, sexual fantasy in modern America, and feminism.

It is widely believed that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are increasing overall vulnerability to climate-related disasters, and that, consequently, policies aimed at cutting off these emissions are urgently needed. But a broader perspective on climate vulnerability suggests that the most important factors influencing susceptibility to climate-related threats are not climatologic, but political and economic. The dramatic degree to which industrial development under capitalism has reduced the risk of harm from severe climate events in the industrialized world is significantly under-appreciated in the climate debate. Consequently, so too is the degree to which green climate and energy policies would undermine the protection that industrial capitalism affords-by interfering with individual freedoms, distorting market forces, and impeding continued industrial development and economic growth. The effect of such policies would, ironically, be a worsening of overall vulnerability to climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents abstracts of several studies on environment and planning. "Explaining the Growth of British Multiple Retailing During the Golden Age," by Carlo Morelli; "Cities in the Shade: Urban Geography and the Uses of Noir," by Matthew Farish; "Geographers and the Tennessee Valley Authority," by Ronald Reed Boyce.

This paper explains the divergence among countries in level of development in terms of primary and secondary uneven development, both resulting from the process of accumulation. Primary uneven development arises because of the more dynamic expansion of capitalist countries relatively to countries in which capitalism is incipient, This difference is inherent in the social relations of capital. Secondary uneven development occurs within the group of predominantly capitalist countries, due to competition and adoption of technical innovations within the social relations of capital. The former generates divergence; the latter exhibits a cyclical pattern of convergence and divergence, with convergence the long term tendency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on peripheral capitalist societies which (a) acquired their political independence relatively early and had already in the 19th century adopted parliamentary forms of political representation; (b) experienced a considerable degree of capitalist industrialization during the inter-war and post-war periods. A fundamental dimension for understanding the structure and functioning of political institutions in the above societies has to do, not only with the mode of expansion and structure of industrial capitalism but also with its timing: with the fact that in all these formations the transition from oligarchic to broader forms of political representation precedes rather than follows their industrialization. Three distinct forms of transition are identified: urban populism from above (the Latin American Southern Cone pattern), peasant populism from below (the pattern in interwar Northern Balkan societies) and political inclusion through a transformation of clientelistic networks (the Greek pattern). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main argument to be developed in this article is that such phenomena as war, vandalism and urban 'terrorism' are not isolated events, but reflect the values and beliefs embedded in the deep institutional structure of advanced industrial societies. It will be argued that in such societies, however politically patterned, there is a universal, and virtually unequivocal, acceptance of economic growth and expansion as the prime objective to be pursued. As such economic expansion depends on advances in scientific and technological knowledge the control and manipulation of nature is given full legitimacy. This attitude towards nature is seen as a central feature of the industrial culture as a whole and reflects the dominance of material over other human values. And it is the asymmetry between these value systems which predisposes the industrial culture to violence and instability: in short it gives ideological support to the use of violence in the resolution of problems, whether these be of a political, social or economic nature.
It will be contended that there is a clear need to go beyond the traditional marxist analysis of capitalism in order to show how the institutional structure of advanced industrial societies plays a part both in stimulating and reproducing the ideology of violence notwithstanding considerable differences in the political arrangements in such societies. It follows from this that what is required is a broad theory of industrialization, rather than specifically of capitalism. As Illich argues,. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay assesses the usefulness of Max Weber's sociology, particularly his writings on China, for the analysis of East Asian industrialisation. Many scholars writing about modern Asia criticise Weber's views on the relation between Confucian values and the development of capitalism. This essay suggests that many of these critics misinterpret Weber's writing on China. Acknowledging that Weber made errors in interpreting China, the authors, nonetheless, argue that Weber's perspective is most valuable in analysing Asian economic development because of the institutional approach he developed. Weber's institutional approach is outlined and briefly applied in a comparison of Japanese and Chinese industrialisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the role of state on the industrialization of Venezuela. It is characterized by private capital and the state's relation, which is contrary to capitalism. In the middle of 1920's and 1940's, the industrial capital in the country is established followed by an economic development plan focused on the industrial sector. The state policies started with democratic three-year period, decade of authoritarian, and modifying state apparatuses to adapt them to industrial growth. Furthermore, the country's capitalist project is characterized by strengthening of the state's economic role because of its weakness in original private accession.