Seafarers were the first workers to inhabit a truly international labour market, a sector of industry which, throughout the early modern period, drove European economic and imperial expansion, technological and scientific development, and cultural and material exchanges around the world. This volume adopts a comparative perspective, presenting current research about maritime labourers across three centuries, in the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, to understand how seafarers contributed to legal and economic transformation within Europe and across the world. Focusing on the three related themes of legal systems, labouring conditions, and imperial power, these essays explore the dynamic and reciprocal relationship between seafarers' individual and collective agency, and the social and economic frameworks which structured their lives.

The aim of this book is to examine the transformation of the geography of China in the years since the start of China's policy of reform and opening-up in 1978, as seen through the eyes of Chinese geographers. Throughout that period, Chinese geographers have studied these environmental, economic, political and cultural processes closely, drawing on sources that are far from easy to access, and have published their results in Chinese. Much of this research has underpinned the Chinese government's assessment of policies and the policy choices at different levels, yet it is not well known outside of China. This volume deals with aspects of the socio-economic geography of China's transformation including its changing relations with the rest of the world, although it also deals with the impact of China's development path on the country's ecological systems. Each chapter deals with aggregate trends and specific cases to show the ways in which the particular characteristics of China's economic and social order (economic organization, political system and cultural model and values) have shaped and are shaped by its geography.

The people of China and its (widely differing) regions have not all benefited equally from the country's rapid increase in prosperity, and the speed and timing of increases have varied across time and space. However, China has managed to help those left behind to catch up. These outcomes reflect a specific social model embedded in China's cultural and political milieu. Exploring the Chinese Social Model presents new analysis and fresh research on how China deals with unequal development and inequality in the context of its surging economic growth. The book sheds new light on the workings of China's social model, going beyond binary notions of market and state, and considers the new facets of its socialist market economy. In exploring these questions, the authors consider what is special about China and what the Chinese model is all about.

The aim of this book is to examine the transformation of the geography of China in the years since the start of China's policy of reform and opening-up in 1978, as seen through the eyes of Chinese geographers. Throughout that period, Chinese geographers have studied these environmental, economic, political and cultural processes closely, drawing on sources that are far from easy to access, and have published their results in Chinese. Much of this research has underpinned the Chinese government's assessment of policies and the policy choices at different levels, yet it is not well known outside of China. This volume deals with aspects of the socio-economic geography of China's transformation including its changing relations with the rest of the world, although it also deals with the impact of China's development path on the country's ecological systems. Each chapter deals with aggregate trends and specific cases to show the ways in which the particular characteristics of China's economic and social order (economic organization, political system and cultural model and values) have shaped and are shaped by its geography.

This double-disc set offers the first two Renaissance albums in state-of-the-art sound, which is a big help, but there's also a lot more than that -- the producers have augmented the group's self-titled debut album with the single edit of "Island," and the B-side "The Sea," a good piano-driven piece that's a killer showcase for Jane Relf's falsetto, as well as the backup singing of Keith Relf. Much more important is the addition on disc two (devoted mostly to the Illusion album) of the four songs that Keith Relf and Jim McCarty recorded before and after the early history of the group, as a duo. "Shining Where the Sun Has Been" is one of the most charming pieces of sunshine pop ever. The pair of 1970 McCarty-Relf sides (which feature McCarty singing), "All the Fallen Angels" are excellent pieces of spaced out psychedelic folk-pop, and "Prayer for Light" is a bravura Jane Relf showcase. These additions add immeasurably to the appeal of the two albums, and also give us a much better picture of some of what McCarty and Relf were doing beyond the finished first album and the thrown-together second album by the group. The annotation also presents the fullest account yet given of the early history of Renaissance, leading up to the establishment of the group's second incarnation. ~ Bruce Eder