Gigantic Project Research Articles

Combating Illicit Trade in Cultural Objects in the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (State Museums in Berlin): Policies in Acquisitions and Loans and Research of Provenance

In March 2018 the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preußischer Kulturbesitz (State Museums in Berlin) received a significant bequest from the estate of art historian Barbara Göpel (1922-2017), consisting of two paintings, 46 drawings, and 52 prints by Max Beckmann (1884-1950) and one painting by Hans Purrmann (1880-1966). This bequest represents an important addition to the collection of classical modernist works in the Nationalgalerie (National Gallery) and the Kupferstichkabinett (Museum of Prints and Drawings). In 1937 – during the time of National Socialism – the Nationalgalerie lost 505 artefacts as a result of the confiscation of “degenerate art”, among them eight works of Beckmann, who was in those times classified as a “degenerate artist”. But from whom did the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin receive this bequest? And is it generally important to ask from whom a museum receives an artefact? Where did the artworks come from? Is their provenance “clean” in the sense of the 1998 Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art? Is it legitimate to make a distinction between the person of the collector/estate and the works of art? These are some of the – legal but also moral – questions a museum must address before accepting any cultural object that belonged to a collector who was actively working for a gigantic project like the “Führermuseum Linz”. Or should rejection of the bequest be considered?

Community Wellbeing Under China-Pakistan Economic Corridor: Role of Social, Economic, Cultural, and Educational Factors in Improving Residents' Quality of Life.

This present article explores the effects of cultural value, economic prosperity, and community mental wellbeing through multi-sectoral infrastructure growth projects under the Belt and Road Initiative. The implications of the social exchange theory are applied to observe the support of the local community for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). This study explores the CPEC initiative, it’s direct social, cultural, economic development, and risk of environmental factors that affect residents’ lives and the local community’s wellbeing. CPEC is a multibillion-dollar project to uplift economic growth and free trade between Pakistan, China, and other regional stakeholders. Although CPEC is still in its initial phases with partial startups, policymakers and government officials claim this mega project as a “game-changer” in the region, mainly for Pakistan and China. This gigantic project offers the significant potential to generate business slews and employment opportunities with international outreach. Due to the term’s newness, numerous studies have recently explored the macro and microeconomic benefits of the CPEC initiatives; still, these projects are theoretical. The existing literature insufficiently explored how helpful CPEC would be to a specific group and how residents perceive its advantages. This study fills in the literature gaps and explores the likely advantageous potential of the CPEC for the regional states. The study applied a convenient sampling technique for the data collection process. It used a mixed-method approach to gain scientific results, with a standardized questionnaire survey of 459 people (300 men and 159 women) from five major cities of Pakistan. The study results designate that residents believe that CPEC infrastructure projects will significantly improve residents’ life quality through more job openings and community poverty reduction. Still, they raised their concerns regarding environmental protection issues in the region. The findings specified that residents had an optimistic approach to better educational productivity by adopting environment-oriented policies. Policymakers should establish new CPEC study centers in different areas, and investors should be encouraged to participate in the industrial sector. Officials can overwhelm community worries about environmental degradation. Government officials in both countries can utilize the findings to raise public awareness about CPEC’s social, economic, cultural, mental wellbeing, and ecological implications.

Gotthard Base Tunnel : World's Longest Railway Mountain Tunnel

Switzerland was suffering from serious traffic problem and so it proposed a gigantic project. Over 35 miles long tunnel would cut through the heart of the Swiss Alps. Redirecting the rush and traffic of Europe not over the Alps but under the Alps. To do this, miners had to punch their way through the hardest rock on this planet. For this a TBM was required, each 3 stories high and larger than 4 football fields, working continuously for 6 years. This project was very dangerous and outrageously expensive at a price tag of $10 billion.

Efficiency Enhancement of Solar Thermal Power Systems Introduction of Secondary Brayton Cycle with Supercritical CO2/C2H6

An improvement of supercritical carbon dioxide Brayton cycle with regeneration coupled with a (carbon dioxide/ethane) shielded as a second cycle before starting the cooling phase in a solar tower installation was carried out. The power block unit in the cycle, as mentioned above designed to produce 160 MWe in the Ouarzazate region, where a gigantic solar project conducted in Morocco with a design point DNI evaluated as 823 W/m2. So, the aim to compare the performance of the s-ethane against the s-CO2, operating in the secondary cycle, two critical parameters studied are, the first one is the effect of turbine inlet temperature on net power. And the second one is the effect of secondary Brayton cycle pressure on the system efficiency. The cycle efficiency, founded to be 58% at high turbine inlet temperature by including an aided s-ethane cycle. The research work is in progress. In perspectives, specific other possible configurations and other trans-critical fluids will address in the secondary Brayton cycle.

Farming Influence on Physical-Mechanical Properties and Microstructural Characteristics of Backfilled Loess Farmland in Yan’an, China

A gigantic project named Gully Land Consolidation (GLC) was launched in the hill-gully region of the Chinese Loess Plateau in 2011 to cope with land degradation and create new farmlands for cultivation. However, as a particular kind of remolded loess, the newly created and backfilled farmland may bring new engineering and environmental problems because the soil structure was disturbed and destroyed. In this study, current situations and characteristics of GLC are introduced. Test results show that physical-mechanical properties and microstructural characteristics of backfilled loess of one-year and five-year farmland are significantly affected by the Gully Land Consolidation project. Compared to natural loess, the moisture content, density, and internal friction angle of backfilled loess increase. On the contrary, the porosity, plasticity index, particle size index, and cohesion index decrease. Through SEM tests, it is observed that the particles of backfilled loess are rounded, with large pores filled with crushed fine particles, which results in skeleton strength weakness among particles and pores. The pore size distribution (PSD) of the four types of loess (Q3 loess, Q2 loess, one-year farmland, and five-year farmland) was measured using mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) tests, showing that the pore size of Q3 loess is mainly mesopores 4000–20,000 nm in size, accounting for 67.5%. The Q2, five-year, and one-year farmland loess have mainly small pores 100–4000 nm in size, accounting for 52.5%, 51.7%, and 71.7%, respectively. The microscopic analysis shows that backfill action degrades the macropores and mesopores into small pores and micropores, leading to weak connection strength among soil particles, which further affects the physical-mechanical properties of loess. The disturbance of backfilled loess leads to an obvious decrease in cohesion and a slight increase in internal friction compared to natural loess. The farming effect becomes prominent with increased backfill time, while the loess soil moisture content increases gradually. Both the cohesion and internal friction of the backfilled loess soil decrease to different degrees. This study is helpful to investigate sustainable land use in the Chinese Loess Plateau and similar areas.

Hydrodynamics of Canal Istanbul and its impact in the northern Sea of Marmara under extreme conditions

The Bosphorus, located at the junction of Asia and Europe, controls the transports of water, material, and energy between the Black Sea (BS) and the Mediterranean Sea. The Canal Istanbul (CI), planned by Republic of Turkey (TR), is a gigantic project which bisects the current European side of Istanbul, thus forming a secondary waterway parallel to the existing natural channel of the Bosphorus. The environmental impact of this project has been a major concern since the very beginning. To address this concern, a 3D hydrodynamic modeling study is carried out to investigate the impact of CI on the hydrodynamics and salinity of the northern Sea of Marmara (SM) by using the route and cross-section (CS) of canal, which was recently made public by the TR. An extensive set of model calibration is performed in a model where only the Bosphorus Strait links the Black Sea and Marmara Sea. Once the calibration process is completed, the future canal is added into the grid and new simulations are performed to analyze the influence of CI on hydrodynamics and salinities in the SM. It was found that the shallow water depth of CI is the limiting factor constraining the two-layer flow. Thus the vertical current structure of CI appears mostly as one-layer flow from the BS to the SM. One-layer flow from the SM toward the BS is rarely observed. In such cases, strong northerly storms caused water level setup at the SM and set down at the BS. Adding the CI in the model is responsible for a salinity decrease of ~1 ppt in the surface layer of SM. The salinity difference between the two models decreases gradually with the depth and it diminishes at the depth of 25 m.

Neo-colonial Continuities in the Mediterranean Infrastructure Projects of Atlantropa and Desertec

Herman Sörgel’s gigantic project “Atlantropa” is a prominent European project in terms of infrastructure and territory in the first half of the 20th century. It is an example of a modernity that is necessarily believing in progress through technology – as will be shown the first section of this essay, but it is also profitable in that it historically locates Europe’s current energy policy infrastructure projects in Africa, to which the second section of the essay is dedicated. The vision pursued under the name Destertec envisages the large-scale implementation of renewable energy power plants, especially solar thermal power plants in Northern Africa. Both projects share an unshakeable belief in ecomodernist ideas, meaning the solution of socio-economic and ecological challenges through technology (Gall, 2014). Furthermore, argumentation patterns of the 1920s based in colonial ideology of a Pan-Europa or Eurafrica still serve to advertise development programs in the 21st century. The historical perspective with an overview about “Atlantropa” thus serves as a mean to question justifications of recent European energy projects in Northern Africa.

Evolution Mechanism of Meandering River Downstream Gigantic Hydraulic Project I: Hydrodynamic Models and Verification

The evolution mechanism of meandering river is one of essential references to predict the evolution disciplines of meandering river. Jingjiang curved reaches are the typical meandering river; more specifically, they are located downstream the gigantic hydraulic project named Three Gorge Project (TGP). Because the incoming water and sediment condition have been changed by the gigantic project, the evolution behavior of Jingjiang curved reaches changes a lot, making the evolution behavior unpredictable. However, traditional two-dimensional (2D) hydrodynamic model could not simulate the transportation characteristics of unbalanced and suspended sediment, leading the predict results of 2D model are far from the measured data. This paper presents a theoretical and numerical approach that explores the evolution mechanism of meandering river downstream gigantic hydraulic project. Firstly, the evolution behavior and evolution disciplines of Jingjiang curved reaches were classified before and after the hydraulic project implement respectively. Secondly, a 2D hydrodynamic model was set up and verified according to the measured data. And then a superior three-dimensional (3D) numerical model, whose boundary conditions were simulated by the results of the 2D numerical model, considering the unbalanced water and sediment transportation properties, was developed and verified by the measured data. Research results show that the 2D model displayed a reasonable accuracy in predicting the water level, branch diversion ratio, and flow velocity; the 3D model displayed a better accuracy in predicting the water lever, vertical flow velocity, longitudinal flow velocity, sediment concentration, and sediment variable quantity. Both 2D and 3D models could be applied to study the evolution mechanism of meandering river; especially the proposed 3D model considering the sediment transport in longitudinal, transverse, and vertical directions will improve the accuracy of behavior prediction and will help decision-making for the river regulation.

The October 1917 Revolution Started Off the Transformation of the World

ABSTRACTThe aim of this article, written especially for the 100th anniversary of the October 1917 Revolution, is certainly not to denigrate this first gigantic socialist project. Humanity owes an enormous debt to the Soviet Union that resulted from this revolution as it was the Red Army, and it alone, that put the Nazi hordes to rout. The support of the Soviet Union to the national liberation struggles of the peoples of Asia and Africa at that time forced the imperialist powers to retreat and to accept a polycentric globalization that was less unequal and more respectful of the sovereignty of nations and of their cultures. However, neither is the objective of this study to be a nostalgic looking back on this historic event. On the contrary, I shall try to identify the mistakes and weaknesses of the original construction and then describe the drift away from it that led to efforts for its reform. And I show how, when these failed and led to the brutal restoration of capitalism, an end was put to this first great wave of humanity’s progress towards socialism.

Two Million Filing Cards: The Empirical-Biographical Method of Semen Vengerov

AbstractAt the approach of the 160th anniversary of the birth of Semen A. Vengerov (1855–1920), one wondered who would wish to mark the event. Born Jewish but a convert to Russian Orthodoxy, Vengerov taught Russian literature at the University of St. Petersburg, becoming best known as a bibliographer. In the 1880s he launched a gigantic project to document the past and present of Russian letters. However, what should have become a comprehensive Critical-Biographical Dictionary of Russian Writers and Scholars remained unfinished at his death, which was hastened by the Revolution. Having published prolifically, Vengerov nonetheless did not complete his life’s work. He did leave an archive containing about two million filing cards next to quantities of material he had collected, such as autobiographical essays by Russian writers. The judgment of posterity regarding the value of this dedicated compiling has been contradictory. For some of his critics, Vengerov’s colossal undertaking ended in deserved failure....

Book Review: Historisch-kritisches Wörterbuch des Marxismus, Band 8/II (Historical-Critical Dictionary of Marxism) by Wolfgang Fritz Haug, Frigga Haug, Peter Jehle and Wolfgang Küttler (eds.)

Wolfgang Fritz Haug, Frigga Haug, Peter Jehle and Wolfgang Kuttler (eds.) Historisch-kritisches Worterbuch des Marxismus, Band 8/11 (Historical-Critical Dictionary of Marxism), Berliner Institut fur kritische Theorie, InkriT, Argument-Verlag Hamburg, 2015; 888 pp: 9783886194414, 98 [euro] This review needs to be embedded as a brief reference to the whole project of which this particular volume is just a component part. The Historical-Critical Dictionary of Marxism was founded in 1983, commemorating 100 years from Karl Marx's death. The first volume, edited by Wolfgang Fritz Haug, was published in 1994 and, according to the preface of the present volume, it may take another 20 years to accomplish the planned 15 volumes. The dictionary is now published under the editorial team of Wolfgang Fritz Haug, Frigga Haug, Peter Jehle and Wolfgang Kuttler. The project is based at the Berliner Institut fur kritische Theorie (InkriT), founded in 1996 as a scientific institution at the Freie Universitat Berlin. Since Volume 6, each number has consisted of two books, so we may expect the whole series to encompass 25 books of about 1,000 pages. More than 800 scholars are cooperating in this gigantic and ambitious project. A clue to the inspiration and fundamental concept of this dictionary, or rather encyclopaedia, can be found in the entry on 'Marxismus' by Wolfgang Fritz Haug in the present volume. It reflects on the final stage of Comecon state socialism as a social formation claiming to have implemented the principles of Marx's legacy after the Soviet Revolution. In Germany, a young generation of eminent scholars, having embraced communism or socialism under the auspices of Karl Marx as a movement of liberation from fascist capitalism, started rethinking their political background after the collapse of the students' revolt and the 'reform' programme of the GDR under Erich Honecker. Wolfgang Fritz Haug and Frigga Haug, the best known figures among the founders of the Dictionary, typically represent the generation which embarked on this 'historical-critical' rethink of Marx's legacy and its diverse ramifications. The most recent Volume 8/II, published in 2015, covers 75 entries between 'links/ rechts (left/right) and ' Maschinensturmer' (machine-breakers), almost all of them written by different authors, sometimes more than one, but with no less than seven entries by Wolfgang Fritz Haug alone. Most striking at a first glance is the wide scope and variety of subjects. Besides core issues of Marxism, such as 'Linkssozialismus (left socialism), 'Lohnarbeit' (wage labour), 'Lucacs-Schule', 'Luxemburgismus, 'Marxismus etc., entries under 'Luxus, 'Machiavellismus, 'Marchen (fairy tales), 'Marktfrauen (market-women) etc. are much less obvious. This diversity corresponds with the wide range of theoretical approaches represented by the individual authors, from, on the one hand, adhering to strict orthodoxy, such as Michael Kradtke on 'Lohnform (wage form), to, on the other, contributions in which Marx is neither quoted nor even mentioned, such as Ruth May on 'Marktfrauen. Each entry is written as an essay in its own right, with its own often very extensive bibliography and references to other entries. The whole book consists of 888 pages, not accounting for the extensive appendices. The longest entry I found by Wolfgang Fritz Haug on' Marxistsein/Marxistinsein (male/female being a Marxist) covered 62 pages, whilst the average length of the entries is about 12 pages. …

Black Sea files

Black Sea Files is a territorial research on the Caspian oil geography: the world?s oldest oil extraction zone. The overall focus of the two-year video exploration is the spatial and social transformations introduced by the gigantic infrastructure project. Passing through the Southern Caucasus and Turkey, the newly built pipeline pumps large amounts of new Caspian crude oil from Azerbaijan to the world market. In record time, the representation of the region has changed from that of a politically unsettled and impoverished post-Soviet periphery hosting a million displaced people, to a space where energy and capital flow at a rate that is remarkable even by world standards. In the wider picture, the oil pipeline is the first materialization of a larger European plan to expand access to Caspian oil reserves, moving even further into post-Cold War territories. A veritable Super-Silk Highway is the long-term vision behind it, and it will encompass a fully integrated transportation and communication network linking Europe with Central Asia. The pipeline is a geo-strategic project of some political impact, not only for the powerful players in the region, but also for a great number of locals: farmers, oil workers, migrants, and prostitutes. These are the subjects that populate the video, turning the corridor into a complex human geography. While migration and displacement are a major historical experience in this part of the world between the Caucasus and Turkey, it is crucial to conceive of migration not as a singular phenomenon but one among many strands of interaction between regional and national spaces. In this instance, the video looks at the movement of people in relation to flows of resources, capital, information, and images. What is at stake here is not only a matter of oil, land and power, but also a centralizing practice of image making that needs to be dispersed to include the many sidelines and secondary landscapes in the extended geography of Caspian oil.

Five Interpolated Romances from the Lancelot Compilation edited by David F. Johnson and Geert H. M. Claassens (review)

DAVID F. JOHNSON and GEERT H. M. CLAASSENS, eds., Five Interpolated Romances from the Lancelot Compilation. KATTY DE BUNDEL and GEERT PALLEMANS, ass't. eds. Arthurian Archives x, Dutch Romances Vol. III. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2003. Pp. 761. ISBN: 0-85991-792-4. $110 / £ 60. What if in 1664 Peter Stuyvesant, the governour of New Netherland, had had full and unrestrained support from the Dutch West Indian Company in his struggle to oppose the seizure of New Amsterdam by the English, and what if he had not antagonized the burghers of the city to the extent that they decided to abandon the use of Dutch with the coming of the new rulers? For one thing, a modern map of the world's major languages might have presented an entirely different picture. In that case also Noam Chomsky would have presented his linguistic theories in, and on the basis of, Dutch. And hundreds of American medievalists would have dedicated their research interests not to Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur, but to the fascinating Middle Dutch compilation often Arthurian texts, known as the Lancelot Compilation, which would then have held the position which it so rightly deserves, in the center of the field where the scholarly debate takes place. But, in spite of what Guillaume de Lorris says about them, we know 'qu'en songes/ n'a se fables non et menconges,' and the Middle Dutch texts have mostly remained at the periphery of Arthurian studies due to the inaccessibilty of the material. But that situation is rapidly changing, thanks to the energetic efforts of David F. Johnson and Geert Claassens. After they had first published new editions with parallel translations of two individual Arthurian romances, the Roman van Walewein by Pennine and Pieter Vostaert (dated to c.1230-60), an original Dutch creation, and the slightly older, French-based Ferguut (Arthurian Archives vi and vu, Dutch Romances Vois 1 and 11. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2000) they apparently felt they were ready to embark on the gigantic project of editing and translating the entire Middle Dutch Lancelot Compilation. The scope of such an enterprise can hardly be overestimated: the so-called Lancelot-codex, in which the text has been preserved (The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek MS 129 A 10) is a three-column manuscript of 480 folio pages, containing 87,296 lines of rhymed couplets, which is only the second part of what must have been a two-volume Middle Dutch translation of the most important Old French Arthurian romances. In its original form the text possibly comprised translations of the three parts of the Old French Lancelot en prose, the Lancelot propre, Queste del Saint Graal and Mort le roi Artu, preceded by Middle Dutch versions of Joseph d'Arimathie and texts from the Merlin cycle. But as if this were not enough, the Dutch compiler/adaptor added no fewer than seven new romances to this collection, two between the Lancelot propre and the Queste del Saint Graal, and another five between the latter and the Mort le rot Artu. The text in the Hague manuscript begins at about the last third of the Lancelot propre, but all the other romances have been preserved in their entirety (for more detailed information on the manuscript, see Bart Besamusca, The Book of Lancelot. The Middle Dutch Lancelot Compilation and the Medieval Tradition of Narrative Cycles. Trans. Thea Summerfield. Arthurian Studies LIII. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2003: pp. 8-14). It goes without saying that scholars have tried to find reasons why the compiler decided to include so many extra texts in his already bulky collection. …

Bang Na Expressway, Bangkok, Thailand - World's Longest Bridge and Largest Precasting Operation

The new $1 billion Bang Na Expressway in Bangkok, Thailand, is not only the longest bridge in the world, but also represents the largest precasting operation ever carried out. The all-precast, prestressed concrete superstructure has a total length of 55 km (34 miles). This gigantic project provides an important link in the transportation system around Bangkok and is expected to play a major role in the commercial development of Southeast Thailand. The design solution was to use precast segmental, span-by-span construction. The box girders were match-cast and post-tensioned in place with dry joints and external longitudinal tendons. This article presents the design-build contract, describes the design features of the bridge, discusses the construction techniques used in the project, and gives the details of the precasting operation.

The River Dragon Has Come! (review)

34 China Review International: Vol. 6, No. ?, Spring 1999 Dai Qing [compiler]. The River Dragon Has Come! Edited by John G. Thibodeau and Philip B. Wüliams. Foreword by Audrey Ronning Topping. Translated by Yi Ming. An East Gate Book. Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1998. xxix, 240 pp. Hardcover, isbn 0-7656-0205-9. Since the government of China announced its decision in the late 1980s to build the world's largest dam in the Three Gorges area ofthe Yangzi Valley, much literature has been published on this project—one of the most controversial engineering projects ofthe twentieth century. None ofthe books or articles that have appeared thus far, however, can match the wealth of content and strong unanimity of opinion contained in this volume, compiled by Dai Qing and edited by John G. Thibodeau and Philip B. WiUiams, two internationally known experts on water resources. The book represents a joint effort by eighteen contributors in addition to Dai Qing, including seventeen Chinese. Since the Three Gorges project is still a highly controversial political issue, four ofthe Chinese authors are known here only by their pseudonyms, but the majority—ten altogether—have used their real names, including two professors from Beijing University, two researchers, and two journalists from the Liberation Army News. It is no surprise that so much information on both the positive and negative aspects offhe project can be found here. The Three Gorges Dam will be the largest dam ever built. Its concrete walls, towering 185 meters into the air and stretching two kilometers across, will create a 600-kilometer long reservoir below the city of Chongqing, with a storage capacity of39.3 billion cubic meters ofwater. The dam will require technology of unprecedented sophistication and complexity. It will include 26,680-megawatt turbines, generating 17,680 megawatts of electricity. The generation ofhydroelectric power is the most important reason for this megaproject, as the output of electricity will equal that ofeighteen nuclear power plants once the dam becomes operational. The government claims that the energy produced by the dam's huge turbines will provide about 10 percent of China's electricity, most ofwhich will be used in Sichuan and Hubei, the two densely populated and industrialized provinces on either side of the Three Gorges site. In fact, few such projects in the world are so conveniently located near an area where electric power is so urgently needed. The excellent geographical location was probably the greatest attraction for fhe Chinese government when it made its decision to proceed wifh this gigantic project. ' ' ly It is apparentiy most eager to minimize the use ofcoal for its ever-growing industries and to improve China's infamous reputation as the world's second largest producer of carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide. While Dai Qing has provided a simple table to illustrate these points, however, she and the other contributors to ofHawai'i Press Features 35 this volume have not made a serious attempt to evaluate the dam's positive impact on China's socioeconomic development. The most significant contribution ofthis volume is to provide a historical account of dam construction in the People's Republic. Chapters 2, 3, 8, and 10 are devoted to fhe history ofcatastrophic failures ofdam construction projects over the past fifty years. Shui Fu gives an overview ofdam building since the 1950s and the quality issues for most ofthe eighty thousand dams that have been constructed —on average, China has witnessed the collapse of110 dams per year in the past two decades. Yi Shi provides a vivid description ofthe catastrophe that followed the collapse of fhe Banqiao and Shinantan Dams on fhe Huai River in Henan Province in August 1975—mainly the result offaulty safety specifications by Soviet advisers—and laments that the Chinese leadership has learned few lessons from fhat experience. Mou Mo and Chi Wenmai discuss the lack ofadequate compensation for the 280,000 people who were resettled in the Xin'an River Power Station project in Zhejiang Province during the hasty Great Leap period of 1958-1960. Due to a miscalculation of the water levels in the reservoir, many inhabitants of the region were forced to move twice in the subsequent twenty...

On the Status of the Tannaitic Midrashim

THE PRESENT WORK BY JACOB NEUSNER is part of a gigantic project of redescription of the history of Judaism in Late Antiquity. Since each volume of this project essentially recapitulates the claims of the whole with different emphases, any volume can serve as an introduction to the whole project, and a review of any part is, in effect, an evaluation of the whole. Neusner makes very dramatic and impressive claims for his research on the history of rabbinic thought. He believes that he has shown that

On the Meiji Imprints Microform Project (JMSTC) of Waseda University Library, Japan

A report is given on the gigantic project of preserving by microfilming the total of the bood production of a certain period. The Meiji era (1868-1912) , the time of modernization in the history of Japan, is most suitable for such a project, because it can be defined exactly, because it is of crucial importance for history and because th books of this time are fully threatened by decay, but are still in quite good condition now

A Brave New Language: Orwell's Invention of "Newspeak" in 1984

Unfortunately, we're not there yet. We're only in the year 1986, and our Revolution has not yet been completed. Our final Revolution, as Zamiatine would say, the one which will lead us to the ideal state where nothing else will ever happen. Our society is still at a stage in its history when linguistic difference exists, when Oldspeak, an everyday and ordinary language, coexists with Newspeak, the official language of the Party, of the government of the people, a perfect language, the best of languages. The road leading to this language purified of all heretical thought, in which thought-crime will be quite simply unthinkable, is long and rough. But, inspired by Big Brother's doctrine, a cohort of anonymous and tenacious linguists, champions of language, are laboring relentlessly on a gigantic project of linguistic purification. Their devotion is admirable, and they will more than fulfill the objectives of the project, the tenth edition of the Newspeak dictionary. Shakespeare and Milton have already been translated; Swift, Byron, Dickens, and others will soon follow. And then the Revolution will be complete: no human being will ever again understand the old language, a dead language which dooms man's memory to oblivion. No one will be left to speak, to write, to remember ... except the proletarians. But the proles are not human beings, Syme, the philologist, would add.

The Civil War at Sea: The Blockaders (review)

210CIVIL WA R HISTORY myth" for Lincoln, sums it up—"the man was fine enough to stand every test of history." Robert W. Johannsen University of Illinois The Civil War at Sea: The Blockaders. Vol. I (January, 1861-March, 1862). By Virgil Carrington Jones. ( New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston, I960. Pp. xxvi, 483. $6.00.) In the recent flood of Civil War books, no author has attempted to describe the complete story of the Union and Confederate navies. Now, Virgil Carrington Jones undertakes this ambitious and necessary task. The Civil War at Sea: The Blockaders is the first volume in a projected trilogy. It begins with the provisioning of the Star of the West in January, 1861. and concludes with the often told tale of the Monitor and the Virginia (ex-Merrimack) in March, 1862. Chapters correspond to months and the author compresses into each the naval events, major and minor, which transpired during that period whether in the Atlantic, the Gulf, the Mississippi River, Washington, Richmond , Havana, or London. In the never ending tug-of-war between journalist and scholar as to the relative importance of style, research, and interpretation, The Civil War at Sea is an example of a "popular book" designed for the "general reader" compared to the thoroughly researched opus of the professional historian. On the credit side, the book is fast-paced, generating excitement with each chapter; the battle scenes are excellently handled; the dialogues, duly footnoted, are inserted to give the maximum effect for interesting reading. Unfortunately, like other recent authors, Jones leans heavily upon the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies for evidence, By depending primarily upon this source, which errs not in commission but in omission, Jones presents nothing new and neglects the vital areas of shipbuilding , ordnance, supply and recruiting. Although he inspected some of the manuscript collections relating to the navies in the Library of Congress, National Archives, and the Southern Historical Commission. Jones by no means searched them all and missed significant holdings elsewhere. Had he worked more with manuscripts, he might have presented a fresh interpretation , integrated naval operations with the general course of the war, evaluated the commanders afloat and ashore, and given a much-needed appraisal of the Union blockade. While this reviewer admires Jones's courage to attempt such a gigantic project and heartily applauds his spirited style, seamen who call "a wall," "a bulkhead," might be nettled by such landlubberly expressions as "renting" instead of "chartering" steamboats. James M. Merrill Whittier College ...

Roman Law as Part of Ancient Civilization: Reflections on Leopold Wenger's Last Work

The monumental volume with which we are dealing is the legacy left to his science by a man who will always be counted among the most distinguished and most influential scholars of Roman law and ancient legal history in the first half of the twentieth century. As early as 1902, when he first began to teach Roman law at the University of Graz, Leopold Wenger had conceived a plan of writing a history of the whole legal order of the Romans that would comprise the total of public, procedural, and private institutions in one great unit. He proposed to see his unit in the light of its general political and cultural setting and to interpret it as bringing to its climax and final achievement, under Justinian, the evolution of law and legal thought of all antiquity; antiquity itself he understood as one single historical process interrelating the multitude of peoples and civilizations of the Mediterranean area that grew and declined, succeeded and influenced each other, until they were absorbed into the Roman Empire and were thus enabled to transmit their common heritage to later centuries. Understandably enough, this gigantic project involved more than one scholar could accomplish in one lifetime. Wenger was not able to carry it out. He did, however, succeed in completing, in this detailed description and discussion of the sources, the first instalment, and happily lived to see its publication shortly before his death on September 21, 1953, at the age of seventy-nine.