Ernst Von Research Articles

The Slow Death of Royal Dresden

Dresden never really recovered from the effects of the Seven Years and Napoleonic Wars, although in the nineteenth century it managed to recapture some of its eminence as a Residenz or royal court. This was to some degree the result of architects understanding the very special qualities of the city’s location on a bend in the River Elbe, but even more it was caused by two men: Gottfried Semper and Richard Wagner. Semper added to the profile of the city, chiefly by his designs for the court theatre and the picture gallery, while Wagner, as court conductor, revived the glorious days af Hasse and Weber, and it was in Dresden that he created some of his best known operas. Both Semper and Wagner were caught up in the revolutions of 1848 and 1849 and forced to flee once the Kings of Saxony were re-established in the city. Politically, Dresden went even deeper into decline after siding with Austria in the Austrian-Prussian War of 1866. It was lifted out of mediocrity by the success of the opera house under Ernst von Schuch and by a flowering of the arts on the eve of the First World War — most notably by the Expressionist group called ‘Die Brücke.

The History of Middle Cranial Fossa Approach to the Cerebellopontine Angle

To investigate the historical origins of the current middle fossa (MF) approach to the cerebellopontine angle (CPA). A review of more than 30 original articles from the 1880 s to the early 1960s that document the evolution of the MF approach. Historically important journal articles and book chapters in various languages were supplemented by interviews with surgeons instrumental in the adaptation of this method to modern microsurgical neurotology. The inspiration for the current MF approach could be traced back to the late 19th century extradural subtemporal surgeries for the trigeminal neuralgia performed by Krause and Hartley and the contemporary surgeries performed by Ernst von Bergmenn for treatment of otogenic temporal bone infections. The first case of MF approach to CPA for vestibular nerve section was reported by RH Parry in 1904. In the mid-20th century, otologists found numerous applications for this approach, which gained popularity at the hands of William House. Although his initial MF operations aimed to decompress the internal auditory canal for cochlear otosclerosis, House soon realized the versatility of this approach and performed his first MF acoustic neuroma surgery in 1961. The current MF approach has its roots in operations for trigeminal neuralgia and otologic surgeries for palliation of temporal bone infections performed in the late 19th century. The earliest reported MF approach to the CPA dates back to 1904 and its application to microsurgical exposure of the internal auditory canal to the late 1950s.

Zwei Leerlaufbeobachtungen im Freien

Zeitschrift für TierpsychologieVolume 9, Issue 1 p. 120-121 Zwei Leerlaufbeobachtungen im Freien Ernst von Lehmann, Search for more papers by this author Ernst von Lehmann, Search for more papers by this author First published: January‐December 1952 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1439-0310.1952.tb01650.xCitations: 1AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onEmailFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article.Citing Literature Volume9, Issue1January‐December 1952Pages 120-121 RelatedInformation

Langenbeck’s Archives: the international journal of the German Society of Surgery

In 2010, the German Society of Surgery is celebrating the 150th anniversary of publishing the journal “Langenbeck’s Archiv”. In February 1860, Bernhard von Langenbeck, Professor of Surgery and Ophthalmology and Chairman of the Department of Surgery, Berlin, in cooperation with Th. Billroth, Zurich, and G. Gurlt, Berlin, founded the journal “Archiv fur Klinische Chirurgie”. In the second half of the nineteenth century, German surgeons contributed immensely to the evolution of surgical practice. In the last 150 years, major developments in surgery were published in 395 volumes of “Archiv fur Klinische Chirurgie” mirroring the development of surgery in Germany and the world. Therefore, Ernst von Bergmann, Langenbeck’s successor at the University Hospital in Berlin found the perfect words to describe his predecessor as well as the journal: “He was the right man in the right place at the right time”. Langenbeck’s Archiv was founded at the right time. It was developed over time—150 years—by the right men. Under the leadership of Th. Billroth, Zurich/Wien, Archiv fur Klinische Chirurgie was positioned from the beginning as an international surgical journal with contributions from international surgeons: Austria and Switzerland, Sweden, Netherlands, Russia, Japan, United States, and France. Its exceptional success and continuity has been driven by the editors, many of them world-famous surgeons, opinion leaders, and outstanding researchers. Since the foundation of the German Society of Surgery, 1872, the journal reflects the evolution of surgical specialties in Germany. Ever since its first issue results of experimental surgery have been published and still remain a main topic of the journal until now. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the main focus of the published manuscripts had been abdominal surgery, trauma and orthopedic surgery, thyroid surgery, and urogenital surgery. Today, the major topics at the annual meeting of the German Society of Surgery and in Langenbeck’s Archives of Surgery, as well, are minimal invasive surgery in various specialities. For orthopedic and trauma, reconstructive and vascular surgery and other specialized journals have sprung to existence. Since 1998, Langenbeck’s Archives has been published in English with contributions by surgeons of the German Society of Surgery and others. With the decision to change to a journal published in English Langenbeck’s Archives of Surgery has grown into an international, highly ranked journal. The German Society of Surgery continues to be, since 1872, the basis for contributions of German surgeons to the journal. Along with his renowned predecessors Ferdinand Sauerbruch, K.H. Bauer, Fritz Linder, Martin Allgower, and Michael Trede, the current editor in chief Hans Beger strongly contributed to this achievement. Our Society wishes to acknowledge these achievements by Hans Beger, the co-editors, the editorial board, and the publishers, to name only a few and therefore we would like to express our gratitude. The success of a scientific journal could not be documented better than by its 150th anniversary, especially in a time when scientific publications disappear as fast as they appeared. What does one ask for under these circumstances? For scientific contributions of high standards, about which one can repeat, what has been said about the eloquence of its founding father, Bernhard von Langenbeck: In seltener Weise anmutend, fesselnd und eindrucksvoll. “Strangely appealing, compelling and impressive”: Langenbeck’s Archives of Surgery—Ad multos annos! R. Gradinger DGCH, Munich, Germany

Recensão a] Factor Five: Transforming the Global Economy through 80% Improvements in Resource Productivity Ernst von Weizsäcker, Karlson ‘Charlie’ Hargroves, Michael H. Smith, Cheryl Desha e Peter Stasinopoulos

Recensão a] Factor Five: Transforming the Global Economy through 80% Improvements in Resource Productivity Ernst von Weizsäcker, Karlson ‘Charlie’ Hargroves, Michael H. Smith, Cheryl Desha e Peter Stasinopoulos

Bacterial infection prevention after hematopoietic cell transplantation

School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA; Haematology Program, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, USA; Center for Hematology, Oncology and Radiotherapy, Klinikum Ernst von Bergmann, Potsdam, Germany; Hopital Saint-Louis, Paris, France; Division of Infectious Disease, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo, NY, USA; Pediatric Infectious Disease, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA; Department of Hematology and Oncology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA and Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

A hybrid form: The second movement of ernst von Dohnányi’s String Quartet in A major (Op. 7)

The form of the second movement of the String Quartet in A major, Op. 7 is original not only in Dohnányi’s oeuvre but in music history in general, as well. This new musical idea is a fusion of two traditional forms: a variation and a ternary form. The theme of the movement is followed by four variations, but at the end of the second one there is an unexpected break: a contrasting Trio-like section comes in between and the flow of variations continues only after it finishes. This unique structure is analysed in detail for the first time in present study. Relying on analyses of Dohnányi’s compositions, this study traces similar formal characteristics in other works of the composer too. Finally, the article provides with an example for this hybrid form in one of its three closest relatives: the second movement of the Piano Quintet in Eb minor, Op. 26.

Rethinking Polanyi’s Concept of Tacit Knowledge: From Personal Knowing to Imagined Institutions

Half a century after Michael Polanyi conceptualised ‘the tacit component’ in personal knowing, management studies has reinvented ‘tacit knowledge’—albeit in ways that squander the advantages of Polanyi’s insights and ignore his faith in ‘spiritual reality’. While tacit knowing challenged the absurdities of sheer objectivity, expressed in a ‘perfect language’, it fused rational knowing, based on personal experience, with mystical speculation about an un-experienced ‘external reality’. Faith alone saved Polanyi’s model from solipsism. But Ernst von Glasersfeld’s radical constructivism provides scope to rethink personal tacit knowing with regard to ‘other people’ and the intersubjectively viable construction of ‘experiential reality’. By separating tacit knowing from Polanyi’s metaphysical realism and drawing on Benedict Anderson’s concept of ‘imagined communities’, it is possible to conceptualise ‘imagined institutions’ as the tacit dimension of power that shapes human interaction. Whereas Douglass North claimed institutions could be reduced to rules, imagined institutions are known in ways we cannot tell.

Rethinking Michael Polanyi's Realism: From Personal Knowledge to Intersubjectively Viable Communication

Abstract Fifty years after the publication of Michael Polanyi's magnum opus, Personal Knowledge, the fashion for Knowledge Management (KM) has helped to institutionalise a redefinition of his distinction between tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge. But KM's redefinition of Polanyi's argument misrepresents his insights into the process of personal tacit ‘knowing’ and overlooks the implications of his faith in metaphysical ‘being’. This paper explores the significance of Polanyi's original concept of tacit knowledge, together with the consequences of assuming a ‘vertical’ connection between personal knowledge and faith in an unknowable absolute truth. By using faith to protect personal knowledge from the charge of subjectivism, Polanyi precluded the possibility that different people, who interact in different contexts and believe in different things, could develop viable modes of knowing and learning. However, rethinking Polanyi's philosophy with regard to Ernst von Glasersfeld's radical constructivism, which is derived from intersubjectively viable ‘horizontal’ communication, allows the virtues of tacit knowledge to be separated from the complications of metaphysical realism.

Mechanisms of reality and confabulation

“It is only when actions or operations fail that one can speak of contact with the environment”, noted Ernst von Glasersfeld, and it is through the analysis of confabulation, a devastating memory defi cit, that Armin Schnider derives important insights into the workings of memory. The Confabulating Mind: How the Brain Creates Reality is an up-to-date review of the most important aspects of confabulation, ranging from its debated defi nition, aetiology, and anatomical bases, to neuropsychological mechanisms. Broadly, confabulation is the production of false statements after cerebral disease. The fi rst two chapters provide an extraordinarily detailed description of the phenomenology of confabulation in all its variety. Schnider describes his patients and lets neurologists from the early 1900s, who were the fi rst to report on the phenomenon, describe theirs. The result is impressive, with high historical and neuropsychological accuracy. The reader can learn about the fi rst cases and interpretations of confabulation without ever feeling lost in obsolete concepts, which the author translates, when necessary, to the current ones. Confabulation is not a unitary phenomenon, and there is a need for systematisation. Schnider proposes the classifi cation of confl abulation into categories—provoked, momentary, fantastic, and behaviourally spontaneous—to facilitate scientifi c communication. Chapters 3–7 deal with the anatomical basis of confabulation in neurological diseases; the relation between confabulation and related phenomena, such as amnesia, disorientation, and anosognosia; and the description of competing neuropsychological accounts of confabulation. Clinically relevant features, such as assessment and management, are also covered briefl y. A chapter is devoted to disentangling the relation between confabulation and false recognition, which is not specifi c to confabulators, yet patients who confabulate are more susceptible to false recognition than patients who do not, under certain conditions. What those conditions have in common is not yet clear. The reasoning is always clear, concise, and empirically based, with an excellent review of the literature. The last two chapters focus on behaviourally spontaneous confabulation. Patients can act on the basis of confabulatory beliefs, with dramatic consequences. According to the author, confabulation underlies the inability to suppress memory traces that are not relevant to the current reality, which he assimilates to a defi cit in extinction. The results of a series of elegant experiments by Schnider and colleagues with various neuroimaging techniques suggest that the fi ltering of irrelevant memories, and the consequent construction of a representation of reality, are early processes that are supported by the orbitofrontal regions. The theoretical and practical relevance of this book will interest a wide audience, including neurologists, clinicians, students, and researchers.

The Music of Mauricio Kagel (review)

The Music of Mauricio Kagel. By Bjorn Heile. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006. [viii, 209 p. ISBN 10: 0-7546- 3523-6; ISBN-13: 978-0-7546-3523-9. $99.95.] Music examples, photos, notes, chronological list of works, select bibliography, indexes. This is the first monograph in English devoted to the music of Mauricio Kagel, a major figure of the European musical avant-garde in the second half of the twentieth century. Born in Buenos Aires in 1931 and self-taught as a composer, Kagel immigrated to Cologne, Germany in 1957 where he received international recognition for his music. Although he possessed a varied compositional palette that included aspects of integral serialism, indeterminancy, and classical electronic music, Kagel focused on visual and theatrical elements in his works as a means to critique modern attitudes toward music. For him, improvisation was a means whereby performers could uncover new sounds and theatrical modes of expression, making musical performance, in essence, a dramatic event. Besides being active as a composer, conductor, lecturer, and professor since 1958, Kagel has been writing and directing television films since 1965, and authoring radio dramas (Horspiele) since 1969. He has garnered numerous awards, honors, and prizes, among which include the Koussevitzky Prize (1965), the Mozart Medaille of Frankfurt (1983), the French Order des arts et des lettres (1995), the Erasmus Prize (1998), Prix Maurice Ravel (1999), Ernst von Siemens Musikpreis (2000), and the Rolf Schock Prize for Music (2005). In this important book, Bjorn Heile examines Kagel's development as a composer and the musical aesthetics driving his work. He notes Kagel's expansion of the conceptual boundaries of music through both an elaborate imagination and a subversive humor bordering on the bizarre. Characteristic of Kagel's style is the absurd combination of strict compositional technique and playful rhetorical gestures involving irony and paradox. Kagel is, in short, a musical satirist who examines the various ways in which society views music, whether as a commercial product, a significant component of a religious experience, or the subject of scholarly expertise. Heile states that The Music of Mauricio Kagel is both a traditional monograph with pieces examined in chronological order as well as a series of essays on different aspects of Kagel's musical style (p. 5). One can either read the book, Heile maintains, from cover to cover as a critical investigation of Kagel's music or use it as a reference work. In the former case, readers will find that Heile has outlined the different elements of Kagel's musical style in an impressive manner, skillfully placing them in their wider critical contexts. In this reviewer's opinion, readers will also react favorably to how Heile has revealed the breadth of Kagel's imagination and the multiple contexts informing his work. After outlining the goals and structure of The Music of Mauricio Kagel in an introduction (In Search of Kagel), Heile reveals the remarkable range of Kagel's creativity in six chapters. In the first (Buenos Aires), the author explores the roots of Kagel's compositional aesthetics-especially his fascination with how musical expression can be achieved through diverse media and extra- musical contexts-by examining the composer's formative years in Buenos Aires. In particular, Heile notes the pivotal influence of Jorge Luis Borges, Kagel's English teacher at the Colegio Libre de Estudios Superiores and a great South American writer in his own right. For Heile, Borges's impact on Kagel can be seen in the latter's preoccupations with labyrinths, encyclopedias, cabbalistic concepts and techniques, and the idea of parallel realities governed by strange rules (p. 11). Chapter 2 (Beginnings in Cologne: Serialism, Aleatory Technique and Electronics), deals with Kagel's early years in Cologne as a devotee of serialism, aleatoric techniques, and electronic music. …

Key contributors: Ernst von Glasersfeld’s radical constructivism

This article reviews the significance of the contributions of Ernst von Glasersfeld to research in science education, especially through his theoretical contributions on radical constructivism. As a field shaper, Glasersfeld’s subversive ideas catalyzed debate in the science education community and fuelled transformation of many facets including research methods, ways of thinking about teaching and learning, curriculum, and science teacher education. Perturbations emanating from the debates on constructivism forged new pathways that led to the development and use of many of the sociocultural frameworks employed by authors in Cultural Studies of Science Education.

Can We Make Sense of Knowledge Management’s Tangible Rainbow? A Radical Constructivist Alternative

Abstract Nonaka and Takeuchi’s highly influential account of tacit–explicit knowledge‐conversion in Japan’s knowledge‐creating companies has been instrumental in Knowledge Management’s institutionalisation of Michael Polanyi’s distinction between ‘tacit knowledge’ and ‘explicit knowledge’. But tacit knowledge has been misunderstood and what Nonaka and Takeuchi claim in the name of explicit knowledge does not make sense. Whereas Polanyi was concerned with the discovery of absolute truth about ontological reality, Nonaka and his colleagues insist that truth is ‘in the eye of the beholder’. Yet, Nonaka et al.’s implicit nihilism seems to have gone unnoticed. Many people talk about explicit knowledge as if it existed on a par with scientific knowledge: a tangible commodity that is ‘as real as rocks’. Arguably, Nonaka and Takeuchi have offered a ‘lesson from Japan’ that has distorted Polanyi’s concept of tacit knowing, inspired unwarranted faith in the viability of ‘explicit knowledge’, and ignored the significance of power mediated by ‘high‐context’ communication. This paper uses Ernst von Glasersfeld’s work on radical constructivism to make sense of Polanyi’s insights into tacit knowing without invoking notions of metaphysical truth. With reference to knowing, learning and communicating in Japanese organisations, we suggest that a radical constructivist approach offers a viable alternative to Nonaka and Takeuchi’s knowledge‐conversion model.

Zum 100. Todestag Ernst von Bergmanns

"dear aunt lina. i do not know any big letters yet, but i want to thank you in small letters for the beautiful pens. say hello to grandpa and to everybody. yours truly, ernst." These are the first surviving written words of Ernst von Bergmann. Between them and his last words about his suspected colon cancer on 25 March 1907 ("I diagnosed this 5 years ago, and now it has come to pass.") lie many years in a vigorous life characterised by untiring activity and creativity, self-discipline, and care for patients and his family. They were years of enormous success in surgery and private happiness but also of professional setbacks and tragic family loss. Ernst von Bergmann became a leading German surgeon not only because of his surgical and scientific achievements, particularly in the fields of asepsis and war surgery, but also due to his exemplary character, reliability, engaging personality, and commitment to medical training in various medical societies. Of these, the German Society of Surgery is most indebted to him. After assuming a chair in surgery in 1882, he continued to play a leading role in this society, not least as its five-time president from 1888 to 1890 and in 1896 and 1900. A worthy successor to Bernhard von Langenbeck, he was a full professor at the Berlin University Hospital for 25 years. He also taught at the Medical and Surgical Academy for the Military after being appointed there by Emperor Wilhelm I on 16 November 1882. This position was important to him and corresponded to his patriotic views.

Beethoven in the Auction Market: A Twenty-Year Review

Beethoven in the Auction Market: A Twenty-Year Review Patricia Stroh In memory of Ira F. Brilliant (1922–2006) In November 1827, Beethoven's estate containing music autographs, books, furniture, and other personal items sold at auction on behalf of the beneficiary, his nephew Karl. The estate inventory of 252 lots listed seventy sketches and "notebooks" and about 120 other music autographs, none appraised at more than ten florins. The following April, The Harmonicon printed a report on the results of the estate auction with comments on the "uncommon interest" on the part of buyers, some of whom paid "astonishing" prices. However, the lots that excited greatest demand might surprise today's auctioneers. For example, Beethoven's autograph score for the Fifth Symphony sold for only one florin more than its appraised value of five florins. His original score for the Septet, op. 20, however—a work so astoundingly popular during his lifetime that an exasperated Beethoven eventually proclaimed that "I wish it were burned"1 —sold for eighteen florins, or six times its appraisal value. Tobias Haslinger bought the notebooks containing Beethoven's counterpoint studies, appraised at ten florins, for seventy-four florins, by far the highest price paid for any other autograph.2 Thus began an active and sometimes erratic trade in Beethoven manuscripts and other treasures that, in spite of dwindling supplies, continues today. The purpose of this article is to review auction sales of biographical and musical manuscripts, first and early editions, and other Beethoven-related documents and artifacts over a twenty year period (1985–2005). An introductory summary highlights changes in values, repeated sales of the same documents, and discoveries of manuscripts thought to be long missing. Although the major auction houses (Christie's, Sotheby's, and J. A. Stargardt) are the primary vendors of Beethoven rarities, several of the smaller venues are also represented. The appended index of auction sales supplements the list published as "A Ten-Year Review of the [End Page 533] Beethoven Auction Market (1985–1995)" in The Beethoven Journal (vol. 11, no. 1 [Spring 1996]: 26-31). The intention is for libraries and dealers to use these lists to help them assess the rarity and value of their Beethoven collections. Because many manuscripts are in private hands and thus still eligible for future auction sales, these lists do not identify the current location of the materials. When possible, this information is recorded in the Beethoven Auction Database recently mounted on the Web site of the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies ( http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/beethoven [accessed 22 November 2006]). This searchable database is to be updated biannually to keep track of recent sales and identify locations when known. Supply and Demand Throughout the nineteenth century, most Beethoven manuscripts were the property of private collectors who exchanged them through dealers rather than auction. By midcentury some of the major European libraries and archives began building Beethoven collections through donations and purchases. The Royal Library at Berlin took the first step in 1846 by acquiring the collection of Beethoven's notorious secretary, Anton Schindler, who claimed many Beethoven documents prior to the estate sale, including the conversation books. Many of the sketchbooks purchased by Domenico Artaria and other dealers who were present at the estate auction eventually ended up in the Berlin library, mostly through acquisition from private collectors such as Ludwig Landsberg (acquired 1861), Friedrich August Grasnick (1879), and Ernst von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1908). A large collection of letters accumulated by H. C. Bodmer are now in the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn. The Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna became a repository of several major music autographs, some gifts of prominent members such as Johannes Brahms. Other manuscripts are scattered throughout the western world, with significant collections in the national libraries of Great Britain and France, and the Library of Congress in the United States. Still, a large number of Beethoven treasures remain in private hands. The number is difficult to estimate. According to Sieghard Brandenburg, editor of Beethoven...

HISTORY OF THE CUSHING REFLEX

Increasing systolic and pulse pressure with bradycardia and respiratory irregularity are signs of increased intracranial pressure, leading to cerebral herniation and fatal brainstem compression. This phenomenon, the vasopressor response, is generally known as the Cushing reflex based on Harvey Cushing's experimental work in Europe in 1901 and 1902. However, similar experiments had been carried out decades earlier by others, notably Paul Cramer, Ernst von Bergmann, Ernst von Leyden, Georg Althann, Friedrich Jolly, Friedrich Pagenstecher, Henri Duret, Bernard Naunyn, and Julius Schreiber. Cushing initially failed to give credit to the work of these predecessors. Nonetheless, he studied the brain's reaction to compression more carefully than previous researchers and offered an improved explanation of the pathophysiology of the phenomenon named after him.

Constructivist underpinnings in Donald Schön’s theory of reflective practice: echoes of Nelson Goodman

Donald Schön’s theory of reflective practice has garnered unprecedented attention in the field of continuing professional education. In this paper, I examine Schön’s writing on reflective practice and argue that a constructivist orientation is a central, although largely unexplored, underpinning of his work. In particular I consider the work of philosopher Nelson Goodman and suggest that he is a major constructivist influence within Schön’s theory. Secondary constructivist influences such as George Kelly, Jean Piaget and Ernst von Glasersfeld are also highlighted. Given this link, one of the avenues for understanding Schön’s theory of reflective practice may well lie in deepening one’s understanding of constructivist thought.

Max Weber's Articles on German Agriculture and Industry in the "Encyclopedia Americana" (1906/1907) and their Political Context

Recently two lengthy entries by Max Weber on German agriculture and industry were discovered in the Encyclopedia Americana of 1906/1907. They appear to be the only articles Weber wrote for a broad anglophone readership, apart from the poorly translated lecture at the Congress of Arts and Science in St. Louis in 1904. As economic experts Hugo Muensterberg, the organizer of the 23 contributions on Germany, chose two leading advocates of imperialist Weltpolitik, Weber and Ernst von Halle, Admiral Tirpitz's propaganda chief for Imperial Germany's ambitious naval expansion. The proximity of Weber's combative but somber 'social imperialism' to Halle's was recognized in the 1920s by the anti-establishment historian Eckart Kehr, but in recent decades has been overlooked in the Weber literature. Pursuing Weltpolitik in a lower key, Weber restates his long-held view, shared by Halle, that the fast growing German Industriestaat should be integrated into the world economy by a policy of moderate tariffs and trade treaties, in opposition to the conservative policies of high tariffs and autarky and, more recently, to Joseph Chamberlain's Imperial tariff movement. Backed by plenty of statistics, his own and Halle's, he enables the reader to compare the agricultural and industrial developments of Germany and the United States and to some extent also those of England and France. Considering American and German trade barriers ultimately surmountable, he warns of increasing Anglo-German tensions. His line of reasoning fitted Muensterberg's overarching cultural agenda, which aimed at a rapprochement between Germany and the United States by promoting Deutschtum and reducing 'Anglo-Saxon hegemony'. The political context of the Americana story involves the prehistory of the First World War.

The Papacy, the Jews, and the Holocaust (review)

The Papacy, the Jews, and the Holocaust. By Frank J. Coppa. (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press. 2006. Pp. xxii, 353. $59.95.) Before venturing into the minefield covered by this book, Coppa notes that of the most influential works the Church and the Holocaust have been produced not by historians and theologians but by dramatists, novelists, journalists, and lawyers. Hence must keep in mind the difference between advocacy and historical scholarship. Coppa deserves credit for writing as historian, albeit-and this is major weakness of the book-one so detached that he is often unwilling to judge between sharply contesting advocates. Herewith an example of his on the one hand-on the other hand methodology. Coppa reports, correctly, that the of Pope Pius XII against the Nazi roundup of Roman Jews in mid-October 1943 was private and discrete. He also gives the reason: because the German Ambassador to the Holy see, Ernst von Weiszacker, who worked behind the scenes to frustrate his superiors' persecution of Jews, warned the Pope that public would put the Jews at even greater danger. Labeling the Pope's policy subtle benevolence (toward whom? Coppa does not tell us), he writes that some observers are convinced that [the Pope's course of action] avoided massive massacre of Roman Jewry. Others discount the papal role in saving Rome's Jews. A footnote refers to the works of Susan Zuccotti.The reader is not informed that her arguments have been decisively refuted by Ronald Rychlak. Though herself historian (unlike many non-historians cited uncritically by Coppa-notably James Carroll, frequent source throughout the book), Zuccotti's work is prime example of what Coppa calls in his Introduction a process of selection that bolsters preconceived interpretative bias. In work heavily dependent secondary sources the failure to distinguish between advocates and honest seekers after truth is major flaw. We all make mistakes. But the number of them in these pages is troubling. Repeated citations of an important article by Martin Rhonheimer all refer to non-existent page numbers. WeE-known contemporary names are garbled (curial Cardinal Jeijia, Archbishop Gunthausn of Seattle). Coppa writes twice about 2600 priests at Vatican II, seemingly unaware that almost all were bishops. He gives version of the prayer for the Jews in the Good Friday liturgy never heard in any church in the English-speaking world. A reference to bishop's protest against Nazi euthanasia fails to identify the prelate in question. …

The Foundations of Radical Constructivism: An Interview with Ernst von Glasersfeld

Constructivism rejects the metaphysical position that “truth”, and thus knowledge in science, can represent an “objective” reality, independent of the knower. It modifies the role of knowledge from “true” representation to functional viability. In this interview, Ernst von Glasersfeld, the leading proponent of Radical Constructivism underlines the inaccessibility of reality, and proposes his view that the function of cognition is adaptive, in the biological sense: the adaptation is the result of the elimination of all that is not adapted. There is no rational way of knowing anything outside the domain of our experience and we construct our world of experiences. In addition to these philosophical claims, the interviewee provides some personal insights; he also gives some suggestions about better teaching and problem solving. These are the aspects of constructivism that have had a major impact on instruction and have modified the manner many of us teach. The process of teaching as linguistic communication, he says, needs to change in a way to involve actively the students in the construction of their knowledge. Because knowledge is not a transferable commodity, learning is mainly identified with the activity of the construction of personal meaning. This interview also provides glimpses on von Glasersfeld’s life.