Grand Stage Research Articles

Unearthing Ecofeminist Echoes in D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers

This article explores D.H. Lawrence’s autobiographical novel, Sons and Lovers (1913), through the lens of ecofeminism, focusing on the intricate emotional relationships between the protagonist, Paul, his mother, Mrs. Morel, and his two lovers, Miriam and Clara. In the context of the Industrial Revolution’s large-scale mechanization, Lawrence’s work sheds light on the profound environmental consequences of this era on the sustenance of modern human. The narrative further suggests that modern humanity has suffered significant suppression and destruction due to the dominance of mechanical civilization, resulting in a pervasive imbalance between humankind and nature, as well as among different societal groups, particularly in gender relations. Lawrence’s astute portrayal places gender relations on the grand stage of industrial civilization, resonating with the plight of both the natural environment and women who endured oppression under anthropocentrism or patriarchy. This paper adopts an intersectional perspective that simultaneously addresses the human-to-nature issue and the male-to-female issue within the framework of ecofeminism. Its primary objective is to illuminate Lawrence’s endeavor to chart a path for modern humanity’s survival. In doing so, Lawrence advocates for a harmonious equilibrium between societal development and the natural world, alongside the principle of gender equality. This approach embodies the essence of ecofeminism and underscores Lawrence’s profound humanistic concerns.

Editorial

This special edition curated by George Bouvier, the chair of the Luxury Plus Summit in 2022, delves into the imperative for the luxury industry to find safe passage through a perfect storm of challenging sociocultural events and shifting consumer behaviour. As the curtains rise one more time on the grand stage of fashion and luxury, contrasting viewpoints on brand purpose emerge, igniting spirited debates between worthy aspirations and the unyielding protection of the bottom line, critiques on brand heritage, social responsibility, environmental sensitivity and the elusive pursuit of consumer trust, weaving a tapestry of thought-provoking notions. With their intellectual finesse, these articles offer tantalizing glimpses into what appears to be the chrysalis phase of a metamorphosing industry, beckoning intrepid scholars and lovers of luxury alike to embark on a fascinating journey into the new unchartered frontiers of luxury.

COVID-19 and science advice on the ‘Grand Stage’: the metadata and linguistic choices in a scientific advisory groups’ meeting minutes

Science advice for governments attracted great scrutiny during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the public spotlight on institutions and individual experts—putting science advice on the ‘Grand Stage’. A review of the academic literature identified transparency, a plurality of expertise, the science and policy ‘boundary’, and consensus whilst addressing uncertainty as key themes. The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) has been the primary provider of coordinated scientific and technical advice to the UK Government during emergencies since 2009. Using the first 89 of SAGE’s meeting minutes (study period: 22 January 2020–13 May 2021), the ‘metadata’ and linguistic choices are analysed to identify how SAGE’s role and protocols are communicated. This includes understanding which experts were regularly taking part in discussions, the role of scientific experts in the science advisory system and their influence on policy choices, and the degree of consensus and uncertainty within this group of experts—all of which relate to the degree of transparency with the public. In addition, a temporal analysis examines how these practices, such as linguistically marking uncertainty, developed over the period studied. Linguistic markers indexing certainty and uncertainty increased, demonstrating a commitment to precise and accurate communication of the science, including ambiguities and the unknown. However, self-references to SAGE decreased over the period studied. The study highlights how linguistic analysis can be a useful approach for developing an understanding of science communication practices and scientific ambiguity. By considering how SAGE presents to those outside the process, the research calls attention to what remains ‘behind the scenes’ and consequently limits the public’s understanding of SAGE’s role in the COVID-19 response.

A grand stage of life.

I sit at my desk, bleary eyed, with the first morning coffee at my side. YouTube lifestyle gurus would be horrified that my morning routine consists not of yoga and meditation, but of drinking a dark Colombian brew while checking e-mails and laboratory results. My e-mail inbox announces a new POEM

MONITORING OF VIBRATIONS FOR THE CONSERVATION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE：THE CASE OF THE SUMMER PALACE IN BEIJING

Abstract. In order to research the influence of the environmental vibration and the protection of the architectural heritage, CMG-5TCDE accelerometer was used to obtain the real-time vibration monitoring data of the Grand Stage in the Garden of Virtuous Harmony in Summer Palace. This paper employs the control variable method and the multivariate statistical analysis, integrating monitoring statistics with wind speed and transportation observation statistics to make interrelated analysis, in order to study the response rules and impact degree of the Grand Stage under the environmental vibration impact. The analyses of the vibration monitoring statistic of the recent two years show that the vibration acceleration of the Grand Stage is below 10mm/s2, which is remarkable related with factors such as visitors flow rate, transportation and weather.

And now: The drug plant of the future

Pharmaceutical R&D, generally viewed as a grand stage for advanced technologies, is living up to its reputation these days. It’s got new machines for genomic analysis, technology for precisely editing genes, and all the software necessary to manage the data these things produce. Cloud computing and modeling engines enhanced by machine-learning algorithms have already caught on in pharmaceutical labs such that researchers and their information technology system suppliers say the sector is closing in on a vision of the lab of the future—one based on digital connectivity and focused on bringing breakthrough drugs into the world. Manufacturing drugs and getting them to patients, however, involves a completely different landscape of technology, somewhat less flashy but arguably more important given the dire need to avoid something that happens every day in research: failure. “When people go to a pharmacy, they expect the drug to be at the pharmacy,” says John Baldoni,

Aesthetics of Affects

(Yubraj Aryal interviewed Charles Altieri on Aesthetics of Affects. Mr Aryal is focusing on what can affect tell us about expression of value, judgment, subjectivity and aesthetic experience itself in literature.) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Y. A.: You wrote on your homepage also recently wrote a book on the affects and that shapes my thinking on most topics. But I am in transition. I have been teaching Shakespeare and Hegel and will teach the epic because I want a stage on which to figure out what I can say about affect in literature. What kind of transition are you talking about? Does this transition signal the change in your position of theory of meaning in interpretation of literature? What is that grand stage, which allows you to say something in literature, which was not possible before? C. A.: I felt I was in transition in many respects. I had written all I had to say about feeling and about mood. I did not feel I had anything original to say about other affective states. And I was dismayed that the position setting emotion against subjectivity seemed to dominate literary theory while philosophers did not even mention my book in their bibliographies. I also knew that what I was writing on Wallace Stevens was probably pretty good, but after that I thought I would have nothing new to say about Modernism and Modernist writers. This is the negative side. Positively I wanted to teach Shakespeare and the epic because any literary theory seems to me to have to fully appreciate the many aspects of such work. And it, along with my continuing fascination with Wittgenstein, has considerably transformed my thinking. The most important change is that I want to talk about values and valuing rather than affect per se. Much of affect theory can be focused on how we make valuations, since value seems to me to depend on feeling plus a reflection that wants the feeling to continue or appreciates where it is leading. My dream is to reconsider formalist claims as in fact claims about invitations to perform acts of valuing. Then formalism is not an instrument for securing autonomy but rather an education in distinctive possibilities for aligning our senses of value with what occurs as we read. And the patterns in our valuings tend to produce an actual orientation toward what we take as significant values worth fighting for and adapting in general contexts. Also reading those texts makes me think about how almost all literary theory seeks ways of talking about the worldliness of the text. We argue really only about to what degree this worldliness can or should be based distinctively on modes of reading and engaging the work that we can teach as literary and so shared by texts from different historical epochs. For me this worldliness is captured best by theories of expression, that is theories trying to explain how self-consciousness can take overt responsibility for what had been inchoate senses of who one is that become articulate in the process of writing. I do not equate self-consciousness with individual characters or authors but it is a property of the sources of energy and direction that seem to thrive on increasing levels of articulation that the text can take on. Expressive self-consciousness is more capacious than any empirical self in part because it takes in part the role of force demanding emotional investment and projecting possible futures for what is given in the text. No one can read far in Shakespeare or in the epic without having to face the roles of grief and mourning in literary experience. But also no one can read far in those works without also feeling the need to be able to talk about how these works also try to contextualize such grief as a condition of seeking through art more capacious forms of self-consciousness that are oriented toward collective modes of awareness. I find Hegel obviously our greatest thinker about what expression involves. …

Hamlet in England, Hamlet in Exile: What’s Hecuba to him, or Kupenga to them?

At the end of 2010, while London audiences flocked to see ‘a Hamlet for our age’ in Nicholas Hytner’s modern dress production (a catalogue of modern-dress ‘innovations’: media-savvy dictators, busy apparatchiks, surveillance, rioting, silenced dissidents, suited extras with conspicuous earpieces, all assembled on the National Theatre’s grand stage) a smaller audience gathered at London’s Oval Theatre to watch Kupenga Kwa Hamlet (The Madness of Hamlet), an eighty-minute two-man version after the ‘bad quarto’, performed in English and Shona. The production, which was warmly received in its first run, raises a number of questions touching the themes of this issue: questions about exile and expatriation, as well as xenophilia – in the international theatre’s embrace of foreigners (xenos) who tend to be guests, performing between two worlds.

Jin Jiang . Women Playing Men: Yue Opera and Social Change in Twentieth‐Century Shanghai . Seattle: University of Washington Press. 2009. Pp. xix, 340. Cloth $70.00, paper $30.00.

This book tells the fascinating story of how a fairly obscure subgenre of southern Chinese opera known as Yue became a vital platform for the expression of feminine sentiments in the country's most modern metropolis during a “masculine” age obsessed with themes of war, revolution, and nation-building. Originating in Zhejiang province, Yue was one of many operatic genres that was deeply localized and whose plays focused on the mundane and often tawdry activities of small-town and domestic life rather than the grand stage of national affairs. This style of local opera was bawdy and tended to emphasize sexual encounters and relations in a frank and unadulterated manner. Like other operas of the Qing period, men originally played all roles. Yet by the 1930s, Yue opera had moved to Shanghai, transforming itself from a rural to an urban form of entertainment. Key to this transformation was that Yue opera became a form of operatic culture entirely performed by women.

Empire, imperialism and conceptual history

Hierarchy in world politics has to be discussed by means of specific concepts. Concepts come with specific historical and social baggage. They are defined by their meanings and uses and become powerful in battle with other concepts. The concepts discussed in this article, ‘empire’ and ‘imperialism’, have lately made their return to the grand stage of world politics, most significantly as descriptions, and indeed, self-descriptions of the role and position of the United States. How is this return possible? What does it mean? To answer these questions we draw on the long-standing scientific discipline and method of conceptual history, or Begriffsgeschichte, in the way it has been theorised and practised by the German historian and theorist of history Reinhart Koselleck. In a second step, we discuss how this way of writing the history of social and political concepts has been challenged by other approaches, most importantly by the Cambridge intellectual historian Quentin Skinner. At the hands of Koselleck and Skinner conceptual history contributes to opening our eyes to the historical specificity of the uses and meanings of concepts in particular contexts, in a long historical perspective ranging from the Ancient Romans to the Bush administration.

Using taxonomically unbiased criteria to prioritize resource allocation for oceanic island species conservation

Oceanic islands have been the grand stage of documented extinctions. In view of limited resources, efficient prioritization is crucial to avoid the extinction of taxa. This work lists the top 100 management priority species for the European archipelagos of the Macaronesian region (Azores, Madeira and the Canary Islands), taking into account both their protection priority and their management feasibility. Bryophytes, vascular plants, molluscs, arthropods and vertebrates were scored by species experts following two sets of criteria: (i) protection priority, including ecological value, singularity, public institutions’ management responsibilities and social value; (ii) management feasibility, including threats knowledge and control feasibility, external socio-economical support for management and biological recovery potential. Environmental managers weighted the same criteria according to their management importance. Final species scores were determined by the combination of both species valuation and criteria weighting. Vascular plants dominate the Top 100 list, followed by arthropods and vertebrates. The majority of listed taxa are endemic to one archipelago or even to a single island. The management feasibility criteria did not dictate that all taxa must be eminently endangered, as for most of the species it should be relatively easy to control threats. The main advantages of this process are the independent participation of scientists and conservation managers, the inclusion of criteria on both protection priority and management feasibility and the taxonomically unbiased nature of the process. This study provides a potentially useful biodiversity conservation tool for the Macaronesian archipelagos that could be readily implemented by the respective regional governments in future legislation.

Temporal Logics of Agency

Time is the grand stage where human activities take place (rational or otherwise). And the view of a branching temporal universe, or tree of possible events, with our actual history linearly advancing through it, is a widely shared cultural idea, not confined to Academia (cf. Borges brilliant 1941 essayEl Jardin de senderos que se bifurcan). Even though logic is often considered a study of timeless propositions, temporal languages and logics over tree structures have a long tradition. Philosophers have studied temporal structure and temporal reasoning since the 1950s, from the ‘tense logic’ of Prior (1967) to the ‘STIT’ system of Belnap et al. (2001). Moreover, starting from 1970s, computer scientists have joined in, and developed many further flavours of temporal logic, with major strands such as Pnueli on program correctness (Manna and Pnueli 1991), Emerson and Clarke on process specification and verification (Emerson and Clarke 1980, 1982), Reiter on the situation calculus in AI (Reiter 2001), and Thomas on the automata-theoretic foundations of computing (Thomas 1990). In addition, the pure firstand second-order logic of tree-like structures, starting from Rabin’s classic decidability result (Rabin 1969), provides deeper background (cf. Gradel et al. (2002)). The chapter by Hodkinson and Reynolds on ‘Temporal Logic’ in the Handbook of Modal Logic (Hodkinson and Reynolds 2006) brings together many of these trends in one mathematical narrative. But the field of reasoning in, and about, time can be mapped out in many further ways: Van Benthems chapter ‘Temporal Logic’ in the

Requiem for AJN’s Place in the Profession

The American Nurses Association's (ANA) recent decision (March 2006) to sever its official ties with the American Journal of Nursing (AJN) saddened me. ANA's previous decision (1996) to sell AJN to the Lippincott Company (Lippincott Williams & Wilkins) for $24,000,0001 horrified me. How much is a birthright worth? There are moments in history when the paths of events, phenomena, and people intersect in such a way as to provide a focus of singular intensity and interest. The 1893 World's Fair in Chicago was such a moment for nursing. As chairman of the Hospital and Medical section of the International Congress of Charities, Dr. John Shaw Billings appointed as chair of the nursing subsection his colleague at Johns Hopkins, Isabel A. Hampton, Superintendent of Nurses and Principal of the Training School for Nurses at Hopkins. In turn, Hampton carefully named the topics to be discussed, appointed the speakers, and arranged the programs for nursing's first professional meeting, and on a grand stage at that. 2 As Lavinia Dock, Hamptons assistant at Hopkins, described it later: In the programme [sic] of this section, of which the arrangement was to her a devoutly serious piece of work, may be found the seedlings of almost all the later lines of growth in the nursing profession in the United States. Nor was it accidentally so, but the result of most earnest thought and divination. Often as she planned to whom certain themes should be given, did she describe the whole possible future that might arise from the ideas she hoped to have brought out.3 Throughout the week, Hampton laid out her plans for the organization and advancement of nursing: I hope that in the course of time we will be able to evolve Alumnae Associations, an American Nurses' Association, and a Superintendent's Convention. . .4 And so it occurred. The superintendents held their first meeting that very week, calling themselves the American Society of Superintendents of Training Schools (which, in 1952, became the National League for Nursing). The alumnae associations had numbered only six before the fair, but once started, the founding of training school alumnae associations moved rapidly.5 When the associations joined together in 1896 to form The Nurses Associated Alumnae of the United States and Canada (incorporated in 1911 as the ANA), Isabel Hampton Robb was elected the first president. Starting a graduate course for nursing instructors (at Teachers College in 1901) and founding a journal to communicate information and events (The American Journal of Nursing m 1900) followed in rapid order. Five different journals for nurses had been published before 1901. The first, The Nightingale, 1886-1891, was edited by a Bellevue graduate who was also a physician. Starting in 1888, The Trained Nurse and Hospital Review (later renamed The Nursing World) appeared monthly for seventy years. Josephine Dolan, in Nursing in Society, described how, in 1889, it combined with the Journal of Practical Nursing and later absorbed, one at a time, The Nightingale, The Nurse, The Nursing World, and The Nursing Record.6 But the AJN was the first journal managed entirely by nurses. …

The Political Economy of Globalization and Possibilities for Regional Economic Development in Africa

KEYWORDS Corruption; development; globalization; good governance; market economy; political economy and privatization ABSTRACT Globalization, as a new concept for the universalisation of capitalism and a market driven strategy for development, has not enhanced socioeconomic development in Africa. The marginalization of Africa in the globalized free market economy in terms of both contributions and benefits, raises some problematic questions - Is Africa globalizing? Can globalization ginger up development in Africa? Beside marginalization from global market benefits, Africa is technologically backward. Economic development powered by industrialization is made difficult for lack of enabling capital and critical infrastructure. Mass poverty, deepened official corruption, pervading intra- state conflicts and civil wars, and lack of focused and people-oriented leadership pose serious barriers to development in the continent. Over-dependence on Western financial institutions for development capital in-flow merely assures and consolidates vertical economic integration and hierarchical relations between Africa and the West in ways absolutely favourable to the latter and promotive of a grand stage of imperialism. Globalization can, therefore, be described in the Marxian parlance, as the highest phase of capitalism. The problematic concerns of the study, therefore, are one, to examine the fundamental motives of the globalization paradigm, Two, evaluating African marginality in the benefits of a globalized market economy. Three, investigating the forces which hamstrung Africa in the globalized race. And four, examining the challenges posed by African marginality, and strategizing on how the region can overcome the risks of, and benefit significantly from, globalization.

The role of nitric oxide in mitochondria. Focus on “Modulation of mitochondrial Ca2+ by nitric oxide in cultured bovine vascular endothelial cells”

nitric oxide (NO) plays an important role in intracellular signaling, and stole the limelight in 1992 by winning science's equivalent of an “Oscar”: Science magazine's “Molecule of the Year.” Subsequently, the importance and versatility of its known roles has expanded. Furthermore, this

History in Journalism and Journalism in History: Anthony Lewis and the Watergate Crisis

History in Journalism and Journalism in History: Anthony Lewis and the Watergate Crisis PNINA LAHAV* Let me plunge right into a Lewis column to convey his marvelous craft in weaving the past into a contemporary moment. This one is from July 8, 1974. The column is about the oral argument before the Supreme Court in the Executive Privilege case, which was to enter the con­ stitutional canon as United States v. Nixon.1 Lewis writes as both eyewitness and commentator. He begins with constitutional history by invoking the legendary case ofMarbury v. Madison-. It seemed at times like a con­ stitutional casebook come to life. Marbury v. Madison was not only cited but, for a moment, debated. What exactly had Chief Justice Marshall done in 1803 when he held that the Supreme Court was the ul­ timate interpreter of the Constitu­ tion? Had [P]resident Jefferson won or lost... ? Lewis then tells us who came to watch and lis­ ten: “College students had lined up overnight to be there for what they were sure would be a remembered moment. There also were H. R. Haldeman and five members ofthe House Ju­ diciary Committee that is conducting the im­ peachment inquiry.”2 This composition gives us a telescopic view of America: representa­ tives of the people, the White House, and the Congress all present in the courtroom. One hears the trumpet heralding a historic moment. Lewis then locates the historic moment in physical space: “The massive Supreme Court building has had its architectural critics; Justice Louis Brandeis, who refused to move into his room when it was finished in 1935, said the Justices would be ‘nine black bee­ tles in the temple of Karnak.’ But today, the courtroom’s monumental friezes and red vel­ vetand ceiling ofred andblue and gold seemed appropriate.” The majestic architecture of the Supreme Court, Lewis implies, is essential for the extraordinary act ofregicide underlyingthe battle for the rule of law. The Justices, he also implies, are not merely “black beetles in the 164 JOURNAL OF SUPREME COURT HISTORY New York Times reporter Anthony Lewis (above) cov­ ered United States v. Nixon, the historic executive privilege case that came before the Supreme Court in 1974. Temple,” but men who hold the President’s fate in their hands. It is appropriate that they de­ liver their monumental decision from a marble palace.3 Lewis offers one more piece ofthe mosaic before filling us in on the legal issues at stake: the style of those on the grand stage, perform­ ing the act ofapplying constitutional law to the facts at hand. The participants, he says, were: informal, sometimes even folksy. The special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, spoke in a soft Texas twang as he urged the Justices to exert their power as ChiefJustice Marshall had. James D. St. Clair, for the President, had a casual airthatremoved any edge from his hard counsel that judicial power stopped at the White House. At this historic moment, when the eyes of the nation—indeed, the world—are on the legal process in Washington, Lewis lets us know that the legal professionals are also ordinary Americans and that they behave accordingly. They are folksy and down-to-earth. In other rDWT PUT UPANY RESISTANCE! JUST KEEPIN STEP' After Nixon extended the principle of executive privilege by refusing to allow his staff to testify before Con­ gressional committees—notably the Watergate Committee—many feared an erosion of Congress's powers at the expense of an increase in presidential powers. HISTORY IN JOURNALISM AND JOURNALISM IN HISTORY 165 James D. St. Clair (second from left), President Nixon’s lawyer, was photographed arriving for a closed session of the House Judiciary Committee on June 4, 1973. St. Clair argued Nixon’s executive privilege case before the Supreme Court four days later. words, Lewis removes mystifying legalese to reveal a human and accessible core to the reader. The motifs of the rule of law and of democracy are thereby subtly connected. Lewis the eyewitness emphasizes the point by quoting another eyewitness: “I thought it would be different,” one person who had never been at a Supreme Court argument remarked afterward. “I thought they would, well, talk Latin or...

One step from the White House: the rise and fall of Senator William F. Knowland

One Step From the White House: The Rise and Fall of Senator William F. Knowland. Gayle B. Montgomery and James W. Johnson with Paul G. Manolis. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. 361 pp. $29.95 hbk. Legendary Republican kingpin William F. Knowland and his once-monolithic Oakland Tribune are the focus of this long-needed biography. Penned by two former Tribune political writers with research help from a former executive editor, One Step From the White House succeeds in casting an objective, nonromanticized, and often-critical eye on the legacy of this publishing scion who became an influential U.S. senator. In the process, the book also weaves a classic narrative of dynastic glory and high tragedy, using American media and Cold War politics as interlocking backdrops on a grand stage The Knowland family's Tribune, along with the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle, formed an axis of journalistic dominance that set California's political agenda and, in turn, America's during the middle decades of the twentieth century. The early careers of Richard Nixon, Earl Warren, and Ronald Reagan were inextricably tied to the goodwill of these newspapers. In Knowland's case, the power of the press also empowered his own agenda of personal political gain. William Knowland was born into privilege and politics. He was the grandson of Joseph R. Knowland, a Southampton, New York, farm worker who moved west and found his fortune in California lumber, shipping, mining, and banking. William's father, Joseph Knowland Jr., was a U.S. Congressman who bought the Tribune in 1915. The young heir had a manifest destiny laid out before him. But his life would not be nearly so tidy as this, as the authors so compellingly demonstrate. In the end, William Knowland was brought down by gambling, drinking, money problems, a troubled marriage to a Las Vegas actress, and, the authors suggest, the inability to control the inner flames that had fueled his big ambitions. Knowland shot himself to death in 1974. There are many scenes in this book that would fascinate historians looking for trivia about the frothy world of mid-century California journalism. Moreover, the book also adds provocative grist to the research mill for those who probe more critically for the links between media and state power. There is a scene, for example, in which an obscure Alameda County prosecutor walks into the Tribune publisher's office to seek advice for his campaign for district attorney. That young lawyer was Earl Warren, who later became governor of California and then chief justice of the United States, aided in no small part by the largesse of publisher J.R. Knowland (William's father) and favorable treatment in the pages of the Tribune. As governor, Warren appointed young William Knowland to a vacated U.S. Senate seat, thus pushing the prodigal son onto the pinnacle of Knowland-family political power and into the pages of history. …

Cultural Brokers and Intercultural Politics: New York-Iroquois Relations, 1664-1701

American colonial history seems almost hopelessly fragmented. Competing analytical perspectives on diverse ethnic groups, regions, colonies, counties, and towns have produced shelves of imaginative studies, but a coherent whole remains elusive. Two of the most fruitful of the various interpretive strategies are the community study, which stresses the minutiae of everyday social interaction, and the American perspective, which sees the continent as a grand stage for the interaction of Indian, European, and African cultures. For all their apparent differences, the community study approach and the North American perspective are intrinsically complementary. The strengths and weaknesses of each -rich detail and narrow vision in the first approach, broad canvas and sweeping generalization in the second-balance those of the other. The operational problem is how to achieve a synthesis, how exactly to connect the local community to wider developments.' Anthropological theorists have been struggling with much the same dilemma in their efforts to integrate traditional ethnological analysis of small communities with a world-systems approach. One promising avenue of inquiry examines links between local political structures and regional and international sources of power, for in local hands frequently lay the fate of both the imperial powers of the modern

The Frontier Exchange Economy of the Lower Mississippi Valley in the Eighteenth Century

I T is an old fact and far from a new observation that the lower Mississippi Valley has been generally relegated to the margins of early American historiography. The region has been borderland territory for historians as it once was for the English colonies of the Atlantic coast, and its people have been largely ignored or casually dismissed as mere bit-players in the drama of American development-colorful, no doubt, but peripheral and unimportant. The historical point of view has been determinatively eastern: our impression of the great West, during the years before it fell under the expanding sovereignty of the United States, is still dominated by images of white explorers, trappers, and traders, and of Indian warriors fighting European imperial wars. The lands along the Mississippi River have remained an amorphous area realizing westward (in Robert Frost's phrase) and waiting to be occupied by Anglo-Americans and their Afro-American slaves. This West, in a word, has been only dimly realized by historians as a place with a history of its own and a people whose tale is worth telling in its own right. This is not to imply that the vast region known in colonial times as Louisiana has been wholly neglected. Such nineteenth-century historians as Francis Parkman and Justin Winsor depicted it as an arena of international contests for empire. But this grand stage upon which great men acted long overshadowed the people who actually shaped society and economy within the region.' Historians based in the Mississippi Valley,