We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
To save content items to your account,
please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies.
If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account.
Find out more about saving content to .
To save content items to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected]
is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings
on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part
of your Kindle email address below.
Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations.
‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi.
‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Men from business are overrepresented in local politics in the United States. The authors propose a theory of gendered occupations and ambition: the jobs people hold-and the gender composition of those jobs-shape political ambition and candidate success. They test their theory using data on gender and jobs, candidacy and electoral outcomes from thousands of elections in California, and experimental data on voter attitudes. They find that occupational gendered segregation is a powerful source of women's underrepresentation in politics. Women from feminine careers run for office far less than men. Offices also shape ambition, candidates with feminine occupations run for school board, not mayor or sheriff. In turn, people see the offices that women run for as feminine and less prestigious. This Element provides a rich picture of the pipeline to office and the ways it favours men. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Artificial womb technology is approaching over the scientific horizon. Recent proof-of-principle experiments using foetal animals have prompted a new surge of bioethical interest in the topic: scholars have asked what ectogenesis would mean for individuals, family, oppressed groups, and society at large; how we can or should regulate the technology; and whose interests motivate ectogenic research. However, a full investigation of the bioethics of ectogenesis must ask, 'how do we get there?' This Element places the research and development process itself under the microscope and explores the bioethical issues raised by human subject trials of ectogenic prototypes. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
This Element reconsiders what the focus of digital literary mapping should be for a subject like English Literature, what digital tools should be employed and to what interpretative ends. How we can harness the digital to find new ways of understanding spatial meaning in the Humanities? Section 1 provides a brief overview of the relationship between literature, geography and cartography and the emergence of literary mapping, providing a critique of current digital methods and making the case for new approaches. The second section turns to Russian theorist Mikhail Bakhtin and explores the potential of the 'chronotope' for literature as a way of structuring digital literary maps that provides a solution to the complexities of mapping time as well as space. Sections 3 and 4 then exemplify the method by applying it first to realist novels by Dickens and Hardy then the multiple states of J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Equality is a global factor of prosperity in democratic societies. In this Element, thirty years of newspapers and magazines form the basis of an intersectional study on how different social actors are described in Czechia. A bird's eye perspective points to the news being very white male-oriented, but when scrutinising further, some results differ from previous studies, giving insights on linguistic othering and stratification that may be a threat to equality. The methodology can be used for most languages with a sufficient amount of digitised, annotated and available texts. Since more and more text is being gathered to form datasets large enough to answer any question we might have, this Element helps uncover why we should be careful about which conclusions to draw if the words put into the data are not adapted to the relevant register and context. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Infrared spectroscopy is the study of the interaction between infrared radiation and matter. Its application to the characterization of archaeological sedimentary contexts has produced invaluable insights into the archaeological record and past human activities. This Element aims at providing a practical guide to infrared spectroscopy of archaeological sediments and their contents taken as a dynamic system, in which the different components observed today are the result of multiple formation processes that took place over long timescales. After laying out the history and fundamentals of the discipline, the author proposes a step-by-step methodological framework, both in the field and the laboratory, and guides the reader in the interpretation of infrared spectra of the main components of archaeological sediments with the aid of selected case studies. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
The use of differential equations on graphs as a framework for the mathematical analysis of images emerged about fifteen years ago and since then it has burgeoned, and with applications also to machine learning. The authors have written a bird's eye view of theoretical developments that will enable newcomers to quickly get a flavour of key results and ideas. Additionally, they provide an substantial bibliography which will point readers to where fuller details and other directions can be explored. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.
Over the past decades, archaeological exploration of southern China has shattered the image of primitive indigenous people and their pristine environments. It is known, for example, that East Asia's largest settlements and hydraulic infrastructures in the third millennium BCE were located in the Yangzi valley, as were some of the most sophisticated metallurgical centers of the following millennium. If southern East Asia was not a backward periphery of the Central Plains, then what created the power asymmetry that made possible 'China's march toward the Tropics'? What did becoming 'Chinese' practically mean for the local populations south of the Yangzi? Why did some of them decide to do so, and what were the alternatives? This Element focuses on the specific ways people in southern East Asia mastered their environment through two forms of cooperation: centralized and intensive, ultimately represented by the states, and decentralized and extensive, exemplified by interaction networks.
Causation in Physics demonstrates the importance of causation in the physical world. It details why causal mastery of natural phenomena is an important part of the effective strategies of experimental physicists. It develops three novel arguments for the viewpoint that causation is indispensable to the ontology of some of our best physical theories. All three arguments make much of the successes of experimental physics. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Disagreement is a common feature of a social world. For various reasons, however, we sometimes need to resolve a disagreement into a single set of opinions. This can be achieved by pooling the opinions of individuals that make up the group. In this Element, we provide an opinionated survey on some ways of pooling opinions: linear pooling, multiplicative pooling (including geometric), and pooling through imprecise probabilities. While we give significant attention to the axiomatic approach in evaluating pooling strategies, we also evaluate them in terms of the epistemic and practical goals they might meet. In doing so, we connect opinion pooling to some philosophical problems in social epistemology and the philosophy of action, illuminating different perspectives one might take when figuring out how to pool opinions for a given purpose. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
The viability of small island developing states (SIDS) is threatened by three distinct processes – a backlash against globalisation; rising geopolitical competition between powers; and accelerating climate change – which are pulling at the threads binding the liberal international order together. We suggest that this order has been kinder to SIDS than is often acknowledged because its underpinning norms – sovereign equality, non-interference, and right to development – are inherently permissive and thus provide SIDS with choices rather than imperatives. Their leaders should fight for the continuation and enhancement of that order rather than be seduced by alternatives. We provide a rationale for and examples of policies to achieve this, including reforms to the way ODA is measured, debt restructured, climate finance allocated, and global governance organised. These enhancements represent the most plausible pathway for SIDS in a period of significant global upheaval. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Multispecies Justice (MSJ) is a theory and practice seeking to correct the defects making dominant theories of justice incapable of responding to current and emerging planetary disruptions and extinctions. Multispecies Justice starts with the assumption that justice is not limited to humans but includes all Earth others, and the relationships that enable their functioning and flourishing. This Element describes and imagines a set of institutions, across all scales and in different spheres, that respect, revere, and care for the relationships that make life on Earth possible and allow all natural entities, humans included, to flourish. It draws attention to the prefigurative work happening within societies otherwise dominated by institutions characterised by Multispecies Injustice, demonstrating historical and ongoing practices of MSJ in different contexts. It then sketches speculative possibilities that expand on existing institutional reforms and are more fundamentally transformational. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
'Public engagement with science' is gaining currency as the framing for outreach activities related to science. However, knowledge bearing on the topic is siloed in a variety of disciplines, and public engagement activities often are conducted without support from relevant theory or familiarity with related activities. This first Element in the Public Engagement with Science series sets the stage for the series by delineating the target of investigation, establishing the importance of cross-disciplinary collaboration and community partnerships for effective public engagement with science, examining the roles public engagement with science plays in academic institutions, and providing initial resources about the theory and practice of public engagement with science. Useful to academics who would like to conduct or study public engagement with science, but also to public engagement practitioners as a window into relevant academic knowledge and cultures. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.
This Element has three objectives. First, it highlights the diversity of the nature of Jacobitism in the long eighteenth century by drawing attention to multi-media representations of Jacobitism and also to multi-lingual productions of the Jacobites themselves, including works in Irish Gaelic, Latin, Scots, Scots Gaelic and Welsh. Second, it puts the theoretical perspectives of cultural memory studies and book history in dialogue with each other to examine the process through which specific representations of the Jacobites came to dominate both academic and popular discourse. Finally, it contributes to literary studies by bringing the literature of the Jacobites and Jacobite Studies into the purview of more mainstream scholarship on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literatures, providing a fuller perspective on the cultural landscape of that period and correcting a tendency to ignore or downplay the presence of Jacobitism. This title is also available as Gold Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Mudie's Select Library was a major nineteenth-century literary institution. Substantially larger than its competitors, the library leveraged regional and global distribution networks and close commercial ties with publishers which allowed it to maintain a key position within the British publishing industry. In its heyday, it was widely believed that novelists and publishers were required to conform to aesthetic, moral and formal standards established by Mudie's, or risk the rejection and consequent failure of their books. However, the lack of a comprehensive study of the library's holdings leaves open questions about what the library actually stocked, and to what extent the library could determine a novel's fate. This Element describes a data analysis of a collection of Mudie's catalogues spanning eighty years, in order to reassess understandings of the library's role in the nineteenth-century publishing industry. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Narrative creativity is a new, neuroscience-based approach to innovation, problem solving, and resilience that has proved effective in business executives, scientists, engineers, doctors, and students as young as eight. This Element offers a concise introduction to narrative creativity's theory and practice. It distinguishes narrative creativity from ideation, divergent thinking, design thinking, brainstorming, and other current approaches to cultivating creativity. It traces the biological origins of narrative creativity and explains why narrative creativity will always be mechanically impossible for computer artificial intelligences. It provides practical exercises, developed and tested in hundreds of classrooms and businesses, and validated independently by the US Army, for improving narrative creativity. It explains how narrative creativity contributes to technological innovation, scientific progress, cultural growth, and psychological well-being, and it describes how narrative creativity can be assessed. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
The main principles underpinning measurement for healthcare improvement are outlined in this Element. Although there is no single formula for achieving optimal measurement to support improvement, a fundamental principle is the importance of using multiple measures and approaches to gathering data. Using a single measure falls short in capturing the multifaceted aspects of care across diverse patient populations, as well as all the intended and unintended consequences of improvement interventions within various quality domains. Even within a single domain, improvement efforts can succeed in several ways and go wrong in others. Therefore, a family of measures is usually necessary. Clearly communicating a plausible theory outlining how an intervention will lead to desired outcomes informs decisions about the scope and types of measurement used. Improvement teams must tread carefully to avoid imposing undue burdens on patients, clinicians, or organisations. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
The British women booksellers who built and ran successful businesses before, during, and after the Second World War have largely been forgotten. This Element seeks to reclaim some of these histories from where they lie hidden or obscured in archives, accounts of the book trade of the time, and other sources. Though they were often called 'formidable', this research reveals astonishing impact at local, national, and international levels. Divided into four main sections, the Element first gives a literature review of materials about booksellers, before giving a short context to bookselling, the book trade, and book buyers and readers of the early twentieth century. A third section examines the position of women in society at that time, including how they were viewed as part of the book trade; the final section provides histories of nine women booksellers. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Place has been central to sociolinguistic research from the beginning. How speakers conceptualize and orient to place can influence linguistic productions. Additionally, places can and do have myriad meanings – some strongly contested. Further, place is not static, as people move and the ideologies regarding certain places evolve over time. This Element probes these themes. It begins by reviewing the existing work on language and place within sociolinguistics according to key themes in the literature – place orientation, gentrification, globalization, and commodification, amongst others. Then it introduces key concepts and frameworks for studying place within allied fields such as geography, sociology, architecture, and psychology. Each author then presents a case study of language and place within their respective field sites: rural Appalachia and Greater New Orleans. The authors end by identifying areas for future development of place theory within sociolinguistics. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
This Element examines performance in postmillennial China through the lens of postsocialism. The fragmented ontology of Chinese postsocialism captures the structural contradictions of a political system that supports a neoliberal economy while continuing to promote socialist values. This study explores how the ideological ambivalence and cultural paradoxes that characterise the postsocialist condition are embodied and represented in performance. Focusing on independent practitioners and postdramatic practices, it builds on theorisations of postsocialism as a state of temporal disjunction to propose a tripartite taxonomy structured around past, present, and future temporal regimes. The categories of postsocialist hauntologies, postsocialist realisms, and postsocialist futurities are introduced to investigate performance works that respectively revisit the socialist past, document present realities, and envision future imaginations. The intersection of competing temporalities and their performative manifestations reflects the disjunctive constitution of contemporary China, where past socialist legacies and futurological ambitions coexist within a fractured postsocialist present.
This Element examines philosophical accounts of scientific explanation, particularly those that apply to biology and the life sciences. Two main categories of scientific explanation are examined in detail –causal explanations and non-causal explanations. The first section of this Element provides a brief history and some basics on philosophical accounts of scientific explanation. Section 2 covers causal explanation, first by discussing foundational topics in the area, such as defining causation, causal selection, and reductive explanation. This is followed by an examination of distinct types of causal explanation, including those that appeal to mechanisms pathways, and cascades. The third section covers non-causal, mathematical explanations, which have received significant attention in philosophy of biology and the life sciences. Three main types of non-causal, mathematical explanation are discussed: topological and constraint-based explanation, optimality and efficiency explanations, and minimal model explanations. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.