Frontier

"In recent years, a number of European countries abolished national border controls in favor of Europe’s external frontiers. In doing so, they challenged long-established conceptions of sovereignty, territoriality, and security in world affairs.

Setting forth a new analytic framework informed by constructivism and pragmatism, Ruben Zaiotti traces the transformation of underlying assumptions and cultural practices guiding European policymakers and postnational Europe, shedding light on current trends characterizing its politics and relations with others. The book also includes a fascinating comparison to developments in North America, where the United States has pursued more restrictive border control strategies since 9/11. As a broad survey of the origins, evolution, and implications of this remarkable development in European integration, Cultures of Border Control will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations and political geography."

This article recounts the judicial innovations that developed in Egypt during the early Abbasid caliphate, through an analysis of qāḍī-s who were the first to adopt a legal practice. The Egyptian legal milieu, which was critically committed to the Medinese school, had some influence in the middle of the 2nd/8th century as far as the Abbasid court, which developed partly its centrality by assimilating provincial models. In return, the attraction of several prominent jurists or qāḍī-s to Bagdad caused the adoption, in Fusṭāṭ, of new judicial practices inspired by Iraqi models. Centralisation of judgeship under al-Manṣūr and his successors, who send in Egypt a series of qāḍī-s trained in Iraq, increased even more the influence of Iraqi practices on the court of Fusṭāṭ. As a paradox, the reinforcement of central authority on the Egyptian judgeship set also in motion a dynamic of local innovations: the designation in Fusṭāṭ of non-Egyptian qāḍī-s caused a reorganisation of the court at the turn of the 3rd/9th century, in particular by the creation of new networks and the setting up of a body of professional witnesses, an institution which spread in other provinces of the caliphate.

"Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to provide a general review and historical context for digitization and interdisciplinary research involving digital surrogates of historical Persian manuscripts in the National Library and Archives of Iran and similarly engaged institutions.

Design/methodology/approach - The paper explores interdisciplinary aspects of Persian art, poetry, science, and philosophy, as revealed in the scrutiny of digitized manuscripts. It explores the enhancement of Persian, Iranian and Islamic cultural heritage research. It discusses benefits and concerns in conceptual contexts of library and information science literature. It references some manuscript digitization projects involving Islamic heritage, including the HARAM online manuscript service of the National Library and Archives of Iran (NLAI). It addresses issues of availability and access in global contexts.

Findings - Manuscript digitization, placed in the context of interdisciplinary research, reveals modern correlations to the interdisciplinary nature of ancient Persian arts and sciences—and to the purpose of digitization—as appropriate to an historical continuum of Persian written literacy and traditional Islamic cultural heritage.

Practical implications - For future contexts of digital global research, research involving many interrelated fields will benefit from use of digital manuscript surrogates. Institutional cooperation will be necessary. The physical conservation of fragile materials also benefits. Historical contexts should be observed, and preserved with the materials.

Originality/value - This paper shows that interdisciplinary research in international universities, libraries, museums, archives, government agencies, and other public institutions uniquely benefits from access to digitized manuscripts. It provides contexts for solving problems of physical manuscript decay and destruction"

This paper focuses on effects of Seljuks in the Middle East from the Battle of Dandanaqan which was fought in 1040 between the army of the Seljuks and the Ghaznavid Empire and to the Battle of Rey which was between Seljuks and Khwarezm Shahs in 1194. It reviews effects of the occupation of Khorasan after the Battle of Dandanaqan in 1040 and Seljuk expansion to the Middle East through the exploratory and interpretive analyses of regional rivalry between Seljuks and the other states in the Middle East such as Abbasids and Fathimids. Firstly, the paper presents a brief historical account of events. Then, it focuses on the questions of why Seljuks expand and move to the Middle East and what were the effects of Seljuks in the region between 1040 and 1194.  Then there will be the analyses of the role of the Seljuks in the Crusades, the relations between Seljuks and other states in the region and the effects of Seljuks on the other states in the Middle East. Finally, it concludes by the narrative of how a non-Arab state became a Middle Eastern power first, then how she became influential in the region.

This article is about the role that the frontier had in the installation of the agrarian capitalism in the River Plate. Throughout a socio-demographic, economic and comparative approach, different strategies and personal and familiar itineraries carried out by various sectors of the rural society, specially the medium and small sized producers-owners, are analized, in the frame of the territorial expansion from the north to the south part of the countryside of Buenos Aires since the end of the 18th century to the middle of the following one. This proccess was one of the factors that helped to the great economical growth that the region had during the time studied, only comparable with some other countries of the american continent.