Faltering Steps Research Articles

BOOK REVIEW: Fa-ti Fan.BRITISH NATURALISTS IN QING CHINA: SCIENCE, EMPIRE, AND CULTURAL ENCOUNTER. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2004.

Reviewed by: British Naturalists in Qing China: Science, Empire, and Cultural Encounter Richard Bellon (bio) British Naturalists in Qing China: Science, Empire, and Cultural Encounter, by Fa-ti Fan; pp. xi + 238. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2004, $49.95, £33.50. Fa-ti Fan pursues two mutually supporting goals in this meticulously researched, clearly written, and historiographically sophisticated examination of British naturalists' experiences in nineteenth-century China. The first is to reevaluate the broader formation of natural history. The second is to examine Britain's wider entanglement in China. By combining these objectives under the rubric of "scientific imperialism," he injects life and wider relevance into his vivid exploration of "the symbiotic, even integral, relationship between scientific and imperialist enterprises" (4). The book has much to offer even to those with no particular interest in natural history. Before the First Opium War (1839–42), British naturalists in China relied almost exclusively on specimens and information acquired in drugstores, food stalls, fish markets, curio shops, and, most importantly, plant nurseries. They had little choice. The British were rarely allowed beyond the port city of Canton. While these restrictions crimped research, naturalists still found a bounty of domesticated animals, zoological curiosities, and cultivated plants to study and assimilate into the body of Western science. Chinese flowers were introduced steadily and enthusiastically into British gardens, despite the extreme difficulties of transporting live plants. Access to specimens and data depended on commerce, for "every aspect of the enterprise—the men, the ships, the [End Page 487] networks, with all their opportunities and limitations—were inextricably linked to the China trade" (39). Defeat in the First Opium War forced the Chinese to open other treaty ports to Westerners and restrictions on travel in the interior diminished during the following decades. Opportunities for natural history expanded with the apparatus of "informal empire." Research depended greatly on part-time naturalists who worked for nonscientific organizations like the British Consular Service and the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs. Henry Hance, for example, became one of the most productive British botanists in China during twenty years as a vice-consul. The scientific activities of men like him— collecting, corresponding, mapping, naming, classifying, describing—might appear from the outside as dusty and largely irrelevant to the vast contemporary currents of diplomacy and trade. In fact, Fan shows, their science represented an aggressive expansion of cognitive and cultural territory that not only mirrored but also reinforced the political and economic interests that they pursued for Britain in their day jobs. The second half of the century also witnessed the fertile intersection of natural history and sinology, frequently pursued without sharp distinction. The sinologist-naturalists routinely treated Chinese works on nature as immature and faltering steps towards real knowledge (much as they would have medieval European herbals and bestiaries), and showed little sympathy for their logic and history. The Chinese did not then have a coherent scholarly tradition equivalent to Western natural history. The modern Chinese terms for botany (zhiwu zue) and natural history (bowu xue) were both mid-nineteenth-century neologisms introduced in translations of Western scientific texts. But they did possess a vast, varied, and rich literature devoted to animals, plants, and minerals. The British found these works invaluable for insight into both natural and human history. Albert Fauvel's identification of a species of alligator new to Western science illustrates this process concisely and effectively. In the 1870s Fauvel drew heavily on Chinese texts to transform tuo (he rendered it Tó) into Alligator sinensis. Along the way, he established the meaning of Chinese characters and traced the alligator's place in the country's life and literature. Fan persuasively argues that something more complex and interesting was happening in such enterprises than simple cultural chauvinism, even if this was an indisputable element. He has little patience with modern scholars who see fundamental cultural incommensurability between China and the West, whether rooted in language, worldviews, or mental categories. "In this view," he protests, "each culture becomes a fixed, rigid structure, and different cultures are seen as mutually exclusive. This viewpoint assumes and essentializes culture rather than explains it. Moreover, it ignores what historical actors actually did and turns...

"A Faltering Step in a Basically Right Direction": Richard Rodgers and All Points West

"A Faltering Step in a Basically Right Direction": Richard Rodgers and All Points West

A Prophet without Honour: Karl Jaspers in Germany, 1945—48

Of all the intellectuals in Germany clamouring for positions of leadership after the second world war and there were many Karl Jaspers was perhaps the most favourably situated. A celebrated professor of philosophy in Heidelberg before the war, Jaspers had been an opponent and victim of the nazis during the twelve-year Third Reich. Unlike other well-known German intellectuals, including his philosophical comrade-in-arms Martin Heidegger, he had refused to compromise with the nazi regime. Indeed, according to his former student Golo Mann, Jaspers 'had not spoken or, so long as he was still allowed, published a single word that might have been interpreted as support for tyranny'.1 Moreover, Jaspers, in contradistinction to exiles such as Thomas Mann, could not be accused of abandoning his country in its hour of need: thus he was one of the few German intellectuals who could hope to use his moral authority to speak to and for Germany. Given this opportunity, Jaspers was prepared to help Germany take the first faltering steps toward cultural and political renewal. For a brief period between 1945 and 1948 he became the most recognized and the most important intellectual in the western zones of occupation. Assessing Jaspers' influence in postwar Germany has, however, proved difficult, in large part because of the controversy surrounding his discussion of the guilt question and his emigration to Basel in 1948. Especially after his emigration, many of Jaspers' contemporaries in Germany saw him as irrelevant to developments in the Federal Republic of Germany, even though subsequent discussion would suggest that the categories he pioneered remained appropriate and fruitful. By the 1960s and 1970s he had become the object of condescension, scorn and neglect in Germany. Although his reputation as an intellectual has recently begun to recover, some critics have continued to find his influence deleterious to subsequent German cultural and political history. But too often such assessments have lost sight of context, of what could reasonably be expected in the circumstances. This article recreates the openness and drama of the immediate postwar situation first and then evaluates Jaspers' effectiveness at meeting the shortand longer-term challenges in postwar Germany.

Walking a Policy Tightrope: Balancing Educational Opportunity and Criminal Justice in Federal Student Financial Aid

The 1998 reauthorization of the Higher Education Act of 1965 included a provision that reverses the long-standing federal policy of increasing access to higher education. The Drug-Free Student Aid Provision denies federal financial aid to any individual who admits to having been convicted of the possession or the sale of controlled substances. The criminalization of certain offenses and the exclusion of others seem to be accompanied by an unstated racial and socioeconomic bias. The fact that people of color and individuals of a lower socioeconomic status are more likely to be convicted of the possession and sale of controlled substances means that the adoption of this public policy will disallow college access to the very individuals who benefit the most from it. I'll walk the tightrope that's been stretched for me, and though a wrinkled forehead, perplexed why, will accompany me, I'll delicately step along. For if I stop to sigh at the earth-propped stride of others, I will fall. I must balance high without a parasol to tide a faltering step, without a net below, without a balance stick to guide. (Danner, 1997, p. 87) Many American students from economically limited and urban minority communities are at risk of losing access to student financial aid. A long-ignored provision in the 1998 Amendments of the Higher Education Act of 1965 states that: A student who has been convicted of any offense under any federal or state law involving the possession or sale of a controlled substance shall not be able to receive any grant, loan, or work assistance under this title during a period beginning on the date of such conviction. ( 484, 111) This law most dramatically affects individuals who are prosecuted for drug offensesthe poor and racial minorities. Ironically, this plank of the Higher Education Amendments serves to delimit educational opportunity and access to the coagulated population in greatest need of the liberating and transforming power of higher education. The Drug-Free Student Aid Provision is an unusually complex entanglement of federal criminal policy and educational finance practices. These two disparate conceptual and practical arenas combine to create a significant threat to educational opportunity. This policy-in-practice can be analogized by the image of a tightrope. Many students who may be impacted by this policy walk the tightrope of social discrimination, neighborhood climate, and low expectations. Likewise, the marriage of educational privilege (like the voting privilege) to criminal punishment serves as a thinly plaited tightrope that may not be able to sustain the original aims or intents of either. Walk with us as we analyze this further; but step carefully. #35: IT'S A THIN LINE BETWEEN OPPORTUNITY AND DENIAL No matter how noble the intent, there are some public policies that simply fail to demonstrate the tenets of reason or logic. The 1998 Higher Education Amendments contain such a policy. Encased in this apparently benign public law is a policy that prohibits individuals from accessing federal student aid if they have ever been convicted of possessing or selling illegal drugs. The intent of the policy was to dissuade students and other citizens from engaging in the use or trade of illicit drugs while receiving aid. The reality of the program is that it removes access to one of this nation's primary mechanisms of social mobility from those individuals who may be using higher education as a means to escape the cyclical dynamic of drugs and its concomitant companions-race, poverty, and disadvantage. There is a drug distribution strategem that has centered on poor and urban communities; this is not to suggest that wealthy and suburban communities are drug-free zones (Inciardi, 1993). Hence, the new provision disproportionately impacts a segment of society that requires federal financial aid as a means of accessing higher education. The 1998 version of the Higher Education Amendments begins a reversal of the federal government's policy on increasing access to higher education. …

The Church and the Johannesburg Summit

As we approach, and prepare for, the Johannesburg Summit—Rio plus 10—we need all the wisdom we can muster if the human family is to move, beyond the faltering steps of Rio ‘92, into genuine sustainable living on the earth. Anything less than genuine sustainability, considering our present population, consumption, and technology, will spell catastrophes within this century. The Earth Charter, an interfaith declaration of principles, says ‘Every individual, family, organisation, and community has a vital role to play. The arts, sciences, religions, educational institutions, media, businesses, non-governmental organisations, and governments are all called to offer creative leadership.’ The Earth Charter identifies no one religion, nor religion itself, as the global ‘mother church’, or pre-eminent pillar of earth ethics. Significantly, however, several important contributors to the Charter are Christian. One, Steven Rockefeller, observes, ‘Many of the critical concerns and spiritual ideals affirmed in the document resonate with values that have traditionally been important to Christians.’ The Christian religion has a cosmic dimension, for in Jesus incarnate, God unites himself with all humanity, and therefore with the whole earth community. Rockefeller argues that social ethics extends to the whole earth community. More strikingly still, an American astronaut, and Christian, James Irwin, says, ‘It is more important that Christ walked upon the earth, than that man walked upon the moon.’

Review article. Reason's faltering steps: a review of Jaap C Hage. Reasoning with Rules

Review article. Reason's faltering steps: a review of Jaap C Hage. Reasoning with Rules

Gene therapy takes faltering steps

Gene therapy takes faltering steps

The “Unhappy Consciousness” And Conscious Unhappiness: On Adorno's Critique Of Hegel And The Idea Of An Hegelian Critique Of Adorno

In the early sections of The Difference Between Fichte's and Schelling's System of Philosophy, Hegel offered some advice on how not to write the history of philosophy. In the hands of the collector of philosophical opinions “philosophy is transposed to the plane of information. Information is concerned with alien objects”. But for Hegel a scarcely less inert relation to previous work in philosophy is implied when this work is taken as a series of faltering steps towards the invention of a perfected thought-technique which would spare truth the labour of error. In these circumstances “The preceding philosophical systems would at all times be nothing but practice studies for the big brains”. Research on the Phenomenology of Spirit has occasionally resembled both an aggregation of inert philological objects and a series of intellectual work-outs. But either fate may be preferable to its relegation to the honourable oblivion of Gedankendichtung, “conceptual poetry”. The phrase “Hegel-specialist” has an oxymoronic ring to it; but the separation of faculties which governs this need for experts cannot be wished away. A stuffed replica of the Phenomenology of Spirit, or even a requirement that all philosophers should speak Hegelian, can hardly today provide more than philosophical kitsch. Hegel's philosophical compositions continue mutely to reproach the graceless cerebration sometimes conducted in their name, but they are still worse served by what Hegel referred to as “the conceit that will not argue”. These considerations also apply to the content of interpretations of the Phenomenology itself and of Hegel's thought in general. Some recent readings have emphasized Hegel's Kantian and Fichtean inheritance to the point where it might almost be thought that what is distinctively interesting about Hegel has vanished altogether. But such readings represent a fair response not merely to any idea that Hegel kindly allows us to have back intact the dogmatic metaphysics harshly prohibited by Kant, but also to interpretations which forget that Hegel's critique of epistemology proceeds immanently and epistemologically rather than being shot from a pistol. Discussion of the “unhappy consciousness” might stand as an epitome for these oppositions in Hegel-reception. At one extreme lies Walter Kaufmann's suggestion that “Hegel evidently wanted to get some ideas about medieval Christianity off his chest…”; but deeper and more nuanced readings of the presence of a phenomenology of religious consciousness in this passage are not lacking, above all the monograph by Wahl and Hyppolite's discussion in his commentary.

Edema and uremia from 1827 to 1905: The first faltering steps of renal pathophysiology

After Richard Bright's studies, both edema and uremia were thought to be due to a renal retention of urinary substances; but if so why were they so rarely associated with each other? To solve this dilemma, a few clinicians turned to physics and chemistry. In 1897, Korànyi measured the freezing point depression (FPD) of the urine during water restriction. He found that in advanced renal disease it was lower than normal, approaching that of plasma, a phenomenon which he named isothenuria. He introduced the concept of renal insufficiency when, whatever the lesions, urinary excretory function does not adapt to the needs of the body. In the same year Achard and Castaigne found that in uremia, the excretion of methylene blue into the urine was delayed. In contrast, the dye was normally excreted in edematous patients with proteinuria. In 1902 Strauss and Widal, using a new steel needle to obtain blood, each studied the chemistry of plasma and performed water, chloride and nitrogen balances. They revealed that in advanced nephritis without edema there was a retention of nitrogen metabolites but not of chloride, whereas in proteinuric edematous patients the blood urea was normal, and there was a retention of chloride and then of water. Physical chemistry and its objective results had been introduced into renal medicine. Modern renal pathophysiology was now launched.

The development of representations: The origins of mental life.

AbstractDevelopmental psychology, like anthropological psychology, has allowed us to see that others, including the young, must be described not merely as failed attempts to achieve modern adult norms but as peoples in their own right. Secondly, it has shown that the structures and processes needed for the explanation of adult minds, specifically symbolic representational systems, cannot be assumed to be present in children. In this paper I examine the notion of representation and its role in cognitive theory. The representational theory of mind simply takes for granted the existence of such representational states and processes as symbol use, belief, meaning and intention. The problem for developmental psychology is to explain the origin and development of such states. A sequence of developments is proposed which would have the effect of reworking the elementary sensorymotor schemata present at birth and which are causal in nature into the propositional representational states which develop in twoto four - year - olds and which operate on the basis of meaning, significance and intentionality. The theory is used to explain a series of intellectual achievements of young children.In her introduction to this symposium Callaghan (this issue) cited the contradictory claims of Wundt and Baldwin as to the relation between developmental theory and general psychological theory, Wundt claiming that development cannot be studied fruitfully without reference to adult norms and Baldwin that adult norms can be understood only in terms of their developmental history. In my view both are right. A theory of adult cognition is required if we are to understand developmental changes as solutions to problems which are more or less universal and which have been solved in particular ways by adults in that culture.Equally important, however, is the significance of developmental theory for theories of adult cognition. Baldwin's claim was that no process can be understood unless we understand how it came to be -- a view which would be hotly contested by structuralists who insist that we distinguish synchronic from diachronic descriptions. That, after all, was what made possible the development of modern semantic theory as opposed to the traditional etymological accounts of word and sentence meaning.Developmental studies make at least two other contributions to general psychology. First, they help free us from our adult ethnocentrism which sees all members of all cultures other than the currently dominant one as faltering steps toward or failed attempts at achieving modern adult norms by insisting that other cultural or age groups be understood on their own terms and in their own rights. That, after all, was the legacy of modern anthropology to cultural studies and it was the legacy of Piaget to developmental studies.But secondly, developmental studies may permit us to critically examine the underlying assumptions about mental functions and to either reject them as unwarranted or, in the best case, provide a basis for justifying them. This is the case for the topic I shall develop, namely, the assumption that the mind is a representational system, a system which operates on the basis of symbols and meanings rather than simply chemical and biological causes. The ProblemA central question in cognitive psychology is how the brain, which is a purely physical - biological causal system, can ever produce or come to be a mental system, one which operates on the basis of meanings, beliefs and intentions. It seems inescapable that we experience the actions of ourselves and others in terms of beliefs, desires and intentions -- mental states -- and yet as scientists we are committed to the view that the brain is a purely causal system. How are we to reconcile these seemingly incommensurable notions?We are all familiar with the traditional alternatives. Abolish the notion of mind as the behaviourists attempted to do and explain behaviour in terms of complex causal states which reflect accumulated patterns of experienced objects and events. …

Sericulture and the Origins of Japanese Industrialization

The opening of the silk trade with the West is one of the best known of all episodes in Japanese economic history. The story, as told in countless school histories and academic texts, goes something like this. At the very time when Matthew Perry and his black ships were breaching Japan's isolation from the rest of the world, the European silk industry was falling victim to a devastating silkworm plague-the pebrine. During the 1850s and early 1860s this disease reduced Italian silk production to little more than half its previous level and French production to a mere fifth of the peak attained in the early 1850s. As a result, Japan was fortuitously presented with ideal conditions for its entry into world trade. Exports of silk and silkworm eggs grew rapidly and provided Japan with its principal source of foreign exchange earnings during the final decade of the Tokugawa period and early part of the Meiji era. This accident of nature, as one historian has called it, therefore played a vital role in helping Japan to take its first faltering steps on the road to industrialization.' Historical accidents, however, are rarely as accidental as they seem, for it is the best-prepared individuals or societies that are best able to take advantage of chance. As Claudio Zanier has pointed out, there were several reasons why European silk producers looked to Japan as their salvation from the consequences of the p6brine.2 For one thing, there was a long-standing attitude of respect for East Asian agricultural and silk-raising techniques, which can be traced back to the Chinese influence on the French Physiocrats of the 18th century. China itself was caught up in the political turmoil of the Taiping Rebellion, so European merchants in the 1850s tended to turn instead to the newly accessible and more politically stable trade ports of Japan.

How to avoid systematic software testing

AbstractThe paper considers some of the reasons advanced by commercial and industrial institutions in order to avoid using analysis and test tools. These insights serve to explain why so few tools are currently in use in such organisations. There is clearly a challenge for the testing community to meet, and this paper is a faltering step towards formulating the goals.

Ballet on British television, 1946–1947: Starting again

Ballet has always had a recognized place in television programming in Britain, not just from the opening of the official BBC television service in November 1936, but from the time of the unofficial experimental service that took its first faltering steps in 1932. It developed from being able to show only soloists, dancing in front of a plain white backcloth on a checkered floor accompanied by a single piano, through duets, trios, small groups with instrumental ensembles and simple scenery, and specially created ballets, to a two-act version of The Sleeping Princess (or Beauty, as it is usually known), featuring sixty dancers from the Vic-Wells Ballet. The service closed down in September 1939, on the eve of the outbreak in Europe of World War II, and remained closed for the duration. Before the war, ballet and television in Britain had developed side by side, but after the close-down, television obviously made no further effective progress, while ballet surged ahead. Until the war, ballet was seen only rarely outside London, but the war played havoc with London theatres and theatregoing so that touring became the order of the day. The Sadler's Wells

The changing expectations of society and the influence thereof on individual and societal decisions regarding foods

There is strong evidence that fundamental changes of immense complexity and importance to the future of all are taking place in our society. Many aspects of this new civilization are in conflict, or at least in contradiction, with the traditional industrial society which has characterized the West for the past 300 years, and which had in turn largely absorbed or swept away earlier, simpler civilizations and cultures. This third great transformation of society, termed by Alvin Toffler (198 1) in his provocative book of the same name “The Third Wave,” will almost certainly bring new economic and political systems, altered family styles, and changed patterns of living and employment. It has been called by various authors an electronic age, a technetronic age, postindustrial society, a scientifictechnological revolution, the information society. The indications are that it will be all of these, but much more. Although we see its outlines only as through a glass darkly, one thing seems certain: it will be different from today’s industrial society. That society seems to have carried Western man substantially as far as it can without major change. Whether it be energy supplies and distribution, political institutions, transportation, urban communities, methods of production, or communication, many of our institutions show an increasing obsolescence, a growing inability to cope with the future which rushes toward us. Faced with these realities, we either can try to defend yesterday, a habit dear to the hearts of some politicians, military men, and bureaucrats, or can try to “attune our lives to the rhythms of tomorrow,” as Toffler has so aptly written. And yet, we should not be unduly pessimistic. There are many signs that we may be equal to taking hold of our destiny, of replacing obsolescence with solutions that are clean and bright and novel and humane. To paraphrase Churchill, we have not come this long distance because we are made of sugar candy. It is neither possible, nor indeed appropriate in this presentation, to attempt to outline all of the factors in our emerging new civilization which will have an impact on that miniscule segment of it we label as food safety. Decisions taken in this area will, of course, be profoundly influenced by broader changes in society in general. In part, they will reflect the upheavals, dislocations, and conflicts which characterize any major social revolution, and which we can expect to witness between now and the end of this century. It hardly needs repeating that decisions taken in one part of the giant interconnected web we call society send reverberations throughout the rest of it. All social and political problems are interconnected, and attempts to deal with them in an “orderly” Cartesian way as though they were discrete, self-contained, and in isolation of each other can lead to effects quite different from those desired. A deeper knowledge of and sensitivity to the complexity of society may keep us from repeating past mistakes. We know a great deal about the ecology of pelicans, snail darters, and whales, but human ecology is a science still taking its first faltering steps. Some, but by no means all, of the emerging

EE at work: Discovering the small company: Mark Davis' first job seemed like a faltering step, but redirection led him to surprising discoveries about himself and his job preferences

EE at work: Discovering the small company: Mark Davis' first job seemed like a faltering step, but redirection led him to surprising discoveries about himself and his job preferences

First Western medical student to study in China?

Since 1949 China has experienced sociopolitical change. The first faltering steps, the great leap forward, and the regressive cultural revolution have been followed by the present reconstruction, a period of modernisation in which the country has emerged from isolation. During all this time medicine has developed along its own independent path, taking direction from Mao's teaching that: ^wty,,., i4?rti(i^'; ?/t/1^::-?:. Chinese medicine and T-^?^^^-1 ' 5^ ??Et?E pharmacology are a S^ INNER MONGOLIA --/ ;j?agE=ft^ iT j Y_ -/ -??? y ? treasure-house^ and ^^^JKj PEKii^lj^g^^ efforts should be made :^pr to exploit them and ???^ raise them to a higher

The Proportions of Ghiberti's Saint Stephen: Vitruvius's De Architectura and Alberti's De Statua

Ghiberti's Saint Stephen, commissioned by the Arte della Lana for its tabernacle at Orsanmichele, is the last of three bronze sculptures executed by the artist for the decorative program of the Florentine Oratorio (Fig. 1).1 Although Ghiberti himself praised the statue in his Commentarii as one “fatta con grande diligentia,”2 the Saint Stephen has often been regarded as a faltering step in the artist's career. Recently Krautheimer pointed to it as an example of the artist's unsuccessful solution to the problem of large-scale sculpture,3 and Seymour referred to it as “Ghiberti's homage to the medieval style of the original Trecento marble image which his own displaced.”4

A Toast to the Annals

Editorials1 July 1977A Toast to the AnnalsW. B. SPAULDING, M.D., F.R.C.P.(C), F.A.C.P.W. B. SPAULDING, M.D., F.R.C.P.(C), F.A.C.P.Search for more papers by this authorAuthor, Article, and Disclosure Informationhttps://doi.org/10.7326/0003-4819-87-1-113 SectionsAboutPDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissions ShareFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail ExcerptWe invite the readers of this issue to join in a well-deserved tribute to theAnnals of Internal Medicinein celebration of its golden anniversary. The history of this journal is described elsewhere in these pages; it includes the early, faltering steps taken by the College in trying to establish a journal. Several initial failures were followed, 50 years ago, by the birth of a permanent publication that has grown steadily to its present mature stature. The story of the evolution of the ANNALSrightly emphasizes both the vision and the adaptability of the able editors who insisted on the...

Administrative reform in the federal public service: the first faltering steps

Abstract. This paper is complementary to one by H. L. Laframboise published previously in Canadian Public Administration (14, no. 3, fall 1971, pp. 305–25), ‘Administrative reform in the federal public service: signs of a saturation psychosis.’ Where Laframboise stresses the serious concerns that have arisen on the part of many managers over an accumulation of initiatives in administrative reform and seems generally to be advocating that we slow down the pace of such reform, the position taken here is that in our managerial practices we are very seriously below the level required to handle the enormous and complex demands facing the federal public service and therefore must attend far more energetically to administrative reform, albeit more expertly.The paper identifies four key needs to be met in managing public organizations effectively, and treats each of these in some detail: placing men and women of appropriate managerial mind and bent in managerial positions; identifying, developing and using appropriately the growing range of managerial support specialties; facing up to and countering the insularity that seems to afflict even the best of managers; and assuming a managerial approach suited to the dynamic nature of what Warren Bennis has termed ‘the temporary society.’ The paper concludes with a discussion of managing as a set of paradoxes.Sommaire. Cet article traite du même sujet qu'un autre article que publiait dans I'ADMINISTRATION PUBLIQUE DU CANADA (14, no 3, automne 1971, pp. 303–25) par H. L. Laframboise, intitulé“Administrative reform in the federal public service: signs of a saturation psychosis”. Alors que Laframboise soulignait les préscupations sérieuses de plusieurs administrateus devant le grand nombre d'initiatives en matière de réforme administrative et semblait préconiser de façon générale le ralentissement du rythme de cette réforme, l'on soutient ici que nos méthodes de estion sont bien loin de pouvoir répondre aux exigences nombreuses et compexes de la fonction publique féérale, et que partant, nous devons poursuivre la réforme administrative de façon beaucoup plus dynamique et plus experte.L'article détermine quatre exigences primordiales de la gestion efficace des administrations publiques et traite chacune d'elles en détail:affecter à des postes de gestion des hommes et femmes d'esprit et de tendance idoines; déterminer, établir et employer à bon escient l'éventail de plus en plus vaste des spécialités du soutien administratif; combattre la tendance que semblent avoir les meilleurs de nos gestionnaires de se renfermer dans leur coquille; adopter une méthode de gestion adaptée à la nature dynamique de ce que Warren Bennis appelle “la société temporaire”.L'article se termine en assimilant le processus de gestion à une série de paradoxes.

Economic Transition in Africa

Africa is a vast continent. It embraces nearly one-fourth of the land surface of the earth. The last decade has witnessed a profound transformation of its political landscape. Thirty-four countries have attained their independence. The rest of the continent will soon be governed by its people. The broad sweep of the surge towards independence has belied those predictions of only a decade ago that the political transition to independence in Africa would take a long time. This has already come about. But the continent yet remains mostly ill-fed, ill-clad, ill-housed, and illiterate. The popular pressure to overcome the age-old afflictions of mankind—poverty, disease, and lack of knowledge—is mounting. The new African governments are beginning their first faltering steps towards the economic transition from poverty to relative affluence.