Proceedings of the International Conference on Science, Technology and Social Sciences (ICSTSS) 2012
Proceedings of the International Conference on Science, Technology and Social Sciences (ICSTSS) 2012

Author: Azman Kasim

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2014-11-23

Total Pages: 722

ISBN-13: 9812870776

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This biannual conference in Pahang, Malaysia, is a clearing house for many of the latest research findings in a highly multidisciplinary field. The contributions span a host of academic disciplines which are themselves rapidly evolving, making this collection of 90 selected papers an invaluable snapshot of an arena of pure and applied science that produces many versatile innovations. The book covers a multitude of topics ranging from the sciences (pure and applied) to technology (computing and engineering), and on to social science disciplines such as business, education, and linguistics. The papers have been carefully chosen to represent the leading edge of the current research effort, and come from individuals and teams working right around the globe. They are a trusted point of reference for academicians and students intending to pursue higher-order research projects in relevant fields, and form a major contribution to the international exchange of ideas and strategies in the various technological and social science disciplines. It is the sheer scope of this volume that ensures its relevance in a scientific climate with a marked trend towards disciplinary synthesis.

Chaos in the Heavens
Chaos in the Heavens

Author: Jean-Baptiste Fressoz

Publisher: Verso Books

Published: 2024-03-12

Total Pages: 394

ISBN-13: 1839767235

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Nothing could seem more contemporary than climate change. Yet, in Chaos in the Heavens, Jean-Baptiste Fressoz and Fabien Locher show that we have been thinking about and debating the consequences of our actions upon the environment for centuries. The subject was raised wherever history accelerated: by the conquistadors in the New World, by the French revolutionaries of 1789, by the scientists and politicians of the nineteenth century, by the European imperialists in Asia and Africa until the Second World War. Climate change was at the heart of fundamental debates about colonisation, God, the state, nature, and capitalism. From these intellectual and political battles emerged key concepts of contemporary environmental science and policy. For a brief interlude, science and industry instilled in us the reassuring illusion of an impassive climate. But, in the age of global warming, we must, once again, confront the chaos in the heavens.

Embedding Agricultural Commodities
Embedding Agricultural Commodities

Author: Willem van Schendel

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-06-17

Total Pages: 205

ISBN-13: 131714497X

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Over the past 500 years westerners have turned into avid consumers of colonial products and various production systems in the Americas, Africa and Asia have adapted to serve the new markets that opened up in the wake of the "European encounter". The effects of these transformations for the long-term development of these societies are fiercely contested. How can we use historical source material to pinpoint this social change? This volume presents six different examples from countries in which commodities were embedded in existing production systems - tobacco, coffee, sugar and indigo in Indonesia, India and Cuba - to shed light on this key process in human history. To demonstrate the effectiveness of using different types of source material, each contributor presents a micro-study based on a different type of historical source: a diary, a petition, a "mail report", a review, a scientific study and a survey. As a result, the volume offers insights into how historians use their source material to construct narratives about the past and offers introductions to trajectories of agricultural commodity production, as well as much new information about the social struggles surrounding them.

The Sugar Plantation in India and Indonesia
The Sugar Plantation in India and Indonesia

Author: Ulbe Bosma

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2013-10-07

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 1107435307

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European markets almost exclusively relied on Caribbean sugar produced by slave labor until abolitionist campaigns began around 1800. Thereafter, importing Asian sugar and transferring plantation production to Asia became a serious option for the Western world. In this book, Ulbe Bosma details how the British and Dutch introduced the sugar plantation model in Asia and refashioned it over time. Although initial attempts by British planters in India failed, the Dutch colonial administration was far more successful in Java, where it introduced in 1830 a system of forced cultivation that tied local peasant production to industrial manufacturing. A century later, India adopted the Java model in combination with farmers' cooperatives rather than employing coercive measures. Cooperatives did not prevent industrial sugar production from exploiting small farmers and cane cutters, however, and Bosma finds that much of modern sugar production in Asia resembles the abuses of labor by the old plantation systems of the Caribbean.