Empire

This essay demonstrates how key concepts from ecology can be applied within historical analyses in order to gain insights regarding contemporary environmental change. We employ a coupled human and natural systems conceptual framework in a nascent historical analysis of rapid societal and environmental change in colonial New England, where European colonization led to stark and rapid transformations. Introduced diseases reduced indigenous communities to a fraction of their pre-contact levels. European agriculture and associated pest species, deforestation and overharvest of ecologically influential species were among key aspects of the rapid changes in colonial New England. Cross-continental biotic introductions initiated reinforcing feedback loops that accelerated the transition of human and natural systems into novel states. Integrating colonial history and ecology can help identify important interactions between human and natural systems useful for contemporary societies adjusting to environmental change.

"The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) came into being at the end of World War II in 1949. The treaty was signed by twelve members in Washington, DC.  Although not explicit in the treaty, the alliance was a direct response to the perceived threat of the ideology and military power of the Soviet Union. The treaty was designed, in the words of NATO’s first Secretary General Lord Ismay “to keep the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down” (Eden 2000, p.2). The main provision of the treaty was in its Article 5 which stated;
“The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence” (NATO 1949).
Since the Cold War ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the threat that it posed to Western security, there has been much debate as to the explanations for the continued existence and expansion of the alliance. This essay will firstly give an overview of the area of alliances and their characteristics before providing some information about the case of NATO and its continued expansion since its formation. Moving on, the essay will then discuss four different explanations for NATO’s expansion since the end of the Cold War before concluding that the organisational and institutional practices of NATO have had a socialising effect on its staff and the political and military elites of member states who have come to see it as a community of values that needs to live on with a new purpose that is far removed from what the organisation was originally designed for.
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In this paper, I compare and contrast “childhood” in two very different societies in island Southeast Asia:  the Buid of Mindoro, Philippines and the coastal Konjo of South Sulawesi, Indonesia.  I begin with some general observations on commonalities in the use of childhood as a symbol in the Austronesian culture area, and on equally salient differences between the political cultures of Philippine and Indonesian societies due in part to their different historical experiences during the colonial period.  I then deal with the Konjo and Buid cases in turn, approaching childhood as a symbolic construct from three angles.  First, social relations among children as a group are contrasted with those among adults.  I argue that the Buid and Konjo both attach a positive value to the social relations of childhood in contrast to those of adulthood, and that this is common to many other groups in Austronesia.  Second, social relations between children and adults have a potential for symbolizing and for reproducing social hierarchy that is at least as powerful as that between female and male genders.  In this regard, I argue that there is a sharp contrast between the Buid and the Konjo.  Third, symbolic values may be constructed in specialized ritual activities or in the processes of everyday life, with very different implications.  Here again there is a marked contrast between the Konjo and the Buid, closely related to the second point.  The Konjo surround childhood with a great deal of ritual, while the Buid do not.