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Contemporary Circumstances (contemporary + circumstance)
Selected AbstractsBaking for the common good: a reassessment of the assize of bread in Medieval England1ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW, Issue 3 2004JAMES DAVIS This article reassesses the structure of the assize of bread and its relevance for bakers and consumers in late medieval England. It has long been thought that the laws governing the manufacture and sale of bread, although adhering to a logical relationship between weight and price, were nevertheless ill-considered in formulation, calculation, and enactment and did not, in reality, provide the stable allowance recommended for bakers. By examining the economic and moral ideology underlying the assize of bread it is possible to demonstrate that legislators were actually employing a rationale that best fitted contemporary circumstances and retail practices. There nevertheless remained one fundamental flaw in its construction, which was to have implications for its enforcement. [source] Social rights and social resistance: opportunism, anarchism and the welfare stateINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIAL WELFARE, Issue 3 2000Hartley Dean This conceptually oriented paper adopts a critical perspective on the question of social rights and asks whether, in contemporary circumstances, claims to social welfare based on rights can provide a meaningful basis for social resistance to poverty or oppression. Past approaches to the question of rights as a means of resistance are characterised as either opportunistic or anarchistic. Opportunistic approaches give rise to ameliorative compromise, anarchistic approaches to nihilistic or inherently hopeless struggle. Nonetheless, it is argued, it is possible to conceptualise rights to social welfare in ways that do not obscure the basis of social exploitation and that do project human need as the basis for social resistance. [source] ,You cannot sell liberty for all the gold there is': promoting good governance in early Renaissance FlorenceRENAISSANCE STUDIES, Issue 2 2010Peter Howard During the Medicean ascendancy in Renaissance Florence, the city's Dominican Archbishop, Sant' Antonino Pierozzi, used the power of the pulpit to ensure that deeds undertaken by citizens were motivated not by self-interest (bonum particulare), but rather by the honour of God and the good of the republic , the common good of all (bonum commune). This article considers a range of texts from which he derived a language to express his particular vision of the city and its governance. I argue that preachers kept the idea of libertas alive in the consciousness of the city's inhabitants by drawing on sets of words that had both historical and contemporary resonance. Indeed, in the case of Florence and Archbishop Antonino, direct verbal borrowings served, at least implicitly, to link particular utterances to a long tradition and to shared ideals originating in the city's past. The article concludes with an examination of his hitherto unrecognized borrowings from the treatise on the cardinal virtues by Henry of Rimini OP, addressed to the citizens of Venice of the late 1290s, and with a reflection on how these words, envisaged for the polity of another time and place, had potency and authority within contemporary circumstances. [source] Older Indigenous Australians: their integral role in culture and communityAUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL ON AGEING, Issue 1 2007Jeni Warburton This review explores the social and cultural roles played by older Indigenous Australians within their communities. In the absence of a body of conventional academic literature on this topic, we used a broad range of sources including stories, articles, videos, and other narratives to present the lived experiences of older Indigenous Australians illustrated in their own words. The intention is to move beyond the usual negative focus of reporting the significant health and social problems experienced by older Indigenous Australians, whilst still recognising that their present-day roles within the society have to be understood against a backdrop of such lifetime disadvantage. The major underlying theme of this review is the crucial roles played by older Indigenous people and how these roles have adapted over time to contemporary circumstances. Roles include kinship relationships, support for the young, transmission of cultural knowledge, as well as the key concept of respect for older people as ,survivors'. [source] Society for Latin American Studies 2004 Plenary Lecture The Return of Cuba to Latin America: The End of Cuban Exceptionalism?BULLETIN OF LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH, Issue 4 2004Miguel Angel Centeno Comparing Cuban history and contemporary circumstances to those in the rest of the region, this article challenges the idea of Cuban exceptionalism. The last four decades have seen Cuba move away from typical Latin American patterns such as economic and geographical inequalities. The Revolution has not been able, however, to reverse a historical dependence on external financing nor has it resolved racial inequities. While the Revolution did establish an unusually effective political apparatus, it did not use this opportunity to nurture democracy. As the social welfare advances of the revolution erode, Cuba resembles the rest of the continent ever more and reflects the central problems facing the region. [source] |