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Displaying results 1331 to 1340 of 2630.
"This sin and scandal": Australia's population debate, 1891-1911 »
Publication date: 1978
'This Sin and Scandal' is a study of the agitated response of some sections of the public to the sharp fall in the birth rate around 1900. Women began to take an initiative in contraception and the size of families decreased dramatically from seven children or more in 1891 to an average of four for women who began childbearing in 1911. After 1890 the birth rate fell by 50 per cent and never recovered and net immigration dried to a trickle. This fall in population growth and the economic depression alarmed some of the established interests in Australia, not only because it affected economic prospects but also because it threatened their moral certainties. Leaders of industry and commerce, doctors and clergy, reacted as if vice were rampant and contraception was ruining the moral fibre of the nation. This book analyses opinions about the peopling of Australia between 1890 and 1911 and assesses the so-called 'evidence' that was available, showing the small relation opinion bore to the evidence. It discusses the 1903 New South Wales Royal Commission on the Decline of the Birth Rate which it shows to have been far more an ideological exercise than a rational inquiry. 'This Sin and Scandal', though an important source of new insight for students of Australian political, social and economic history, will appeal also to the lay reader. It is wittily written with a dry humour and recalls vividly the 'populate or perish' scares of the past - and, to judge from recent political utterances, perhaps of the near future.
Pacific Islanders under German rule: a study in the meaning of colonial resistance »
Publication date: 1978
This is an important book. It captures under one cover the German approach to her Pacific colonies and the Islanders' responses to the Germans. It is the first detailed study of Samoans, Ponapeans and New Guineans under German rule. It is thoroughly researched, well documented, and written in a readable, yet thoroughly scholarly style. It draws on techniques of anthropology and ethno-history, in addition to formal historiographical analysis, to reveal new insights into the nature of Islander resistance to and protest against German imperial rule. It casts aside the old assumptions that colonised peoples always resisted - to the death, if necessary - the coming of white colonisers, and instead argues, convincingly, that the Islanders' responses to the Germans were more subtle, more profound and more dependent upon traditional social structures and leadership than hitherto has been acknowledged. It does not shy away from major blunders by the German colonial administration in the Pacific, yet, at the same time, it acknowledges the remarkable vision and insight into Island cultures shown by some German administrators.
Regional planning in New South Wales and Victoria since 1944 with special reference to the Albury-Wodonga growth centre »
Publication date: 1978
The first part of the book reviews the development of regional planning authorities and policies in New South Wales and Victoria since 1944, with respect to the regional components of statutory planning and policies concerned with decentralisation, regional growth centres, system cities and satellite towns. The involvement of the Commonwealth Government in the field of regional planning is also examined. The second part of the book discusses the Albury- Wodonga growth centre, which was instituted as a joint Commonwealth-State project in 1973. The development of the growth centre is analysed to the end of 1977 and problems facing its future expansion are also discussed.
The economic constitution of federal states »
Publication date: 1978
This book provides a new way of looking at the old problem of the assignment of powers in federal structures. A federal state is, by definition, one in which there exists two or more jurisdictional levels between which authority over domains of public policies has to be assigned. In Canada, for example, the provinces have been given exclusive jurisdiction over education; currency and international trade are assigned to the federal government; and both levels have concurrent authority in agriculture. Furthermore, in Canada, as in all federal states, the assignment of powers changes over time in an almost continuous way. The theory developed in this book suggests that the total amount of resources - defined in the broadest possible way - used up in running the public sector varies with the way powers are assigned to different jurisdictional levels; or, to put it differently, varies with the degree of centralization in the public sector. The absorption of resources for the purpose of running the public sector - to be distinguished from resources absorbed in the supply of the public policies themselves - takes four forms; resources used up by citizens to signal their preferences to governments, or to move from one jurisdiction to another; and those used up by governments to administer themselves, and to co-ordinate their activities. Two basic models are examined. In one, the assignment of powers which uses up the smallest amount of resources is analysed. In the other the assignment which is produced by politicians and bureaucrats operating within the framework of representative governments is studied. The two models are applied to the particular problems posed by redistribution and stabilization powers. A new approach to inter-jurisdictional grants derived from the basic theory is also suggested.
Political participation: a discussion of political rationality »
Publication date: 1978
Published Press Archives http://press.anu.edu.au/node/2807 1885_115142.jpg ANU Press Political participation: a discussion of political rationality Friday, 18 August, 1978 Not available Archive Scholarly Information Services Benn, Stanley
On economic man: an essay on the elements of economic theory »
Publication date: 1978
On Economic Man is a speculative essay upon the adequacy of the traditional assumptions about economic behaviour that underlie the bulk of economic theory and much of the thinking of economists about basic policy issues: the assumptions that men are self-regarding, rational, and well-informed. The author recognises that both in theory and in practice economists require a simplified 'model' of economic psychology, and that this cannot be realistic. But after suggesting, in Part I, the remarkable strength of this account in its deductive uses, he concludes, after surveying its psychological assumptions in detail in Part II, that it is a misleading myth - above all in respect of the accurate information and calculation assumed. Part III tentatively examines what might happen to the subject if better models were constructed after systematic empirical studies. This stimulating and controversial book should be read by every economist. It will arouse both fury and applause.
The Holocaust in historical perspective »
Publication date: 1978
Between 1941 and 1945, the Nazi regime embarked on a deliberate policy of mass murder that resulted in the deaths of nearly six million Jews. What the Nazis attempted was nothing less than the total physical annihilation of the Jewish people. This unprecedented atrocity has come to be known as the Holocaust. In this series of four essays, a distinguished historian brings the central issues of the holocaust to the attention of the general reader. The result is a well-informed, forceful, and eloquent work, a major contribution to Holocaust historiography. The first chapter traces the background of Nazi antisemitism, outlines the actual murder campaign, and poses questions regarding the reaction in the West, especially on the part of American Jewish leadership. The second chapter, "Against Mystification," analyzes the various attempts to obscure what really happened. Bauer critically evaluates the work of historians or pseudo historians who have tried to deny or explain away the Holocaust, as well as those who have attempted to turn it into a mystical experience. Chapter 3 discusses the problem of the "bystander." Bauer examines the variety of responses to the Holocaust on the part of Gentiles in Axis, occupied, Allied, and neutral lands. He attempts to establish some general lines of behavior, while admitting his inability to understand certain responses, such as that of Bulgaria. The fourth chapter, 'The Mission of Joel Brand," deals with the most dramatic rescue attempt made during the war. Bauer argues that the offer to ransom Hungarian Jews was a fa{u00E7}ade for an attempt by the SS to negotiate a separate peace with the Allies. This rigorous historical analysis leads to some far-reaching conclusions in both the historical and ethical realms.
Canberra's embassies »
Publication date: 1978
The sixty-one embassies in Canberra are the national and cultural showplaces of each country represented in the federal capital. They are richly varied in their architecture: traditional Thai, colonial American, simply French and strikingly New Zealand. Many of these embassies, and seventeen in detail, are described and pictured in this book, which gives their locations and a useful map to help the reader find them.
High power high energy pulse production and application: the proceedings of an Australian-US Seminar on Energy Storage, Compression and Switching, SESCAS '77, 15-21 November, 1977 »
Publication date: 1978
Interest has grown rapidly in new methods of storing megajoules of energy and delivering it to loads in times ranging from about one second to less than a millisecond. It is clear that storage by capacitors is reaching the limit of applicability, and new methods are required for powering the next generation of tokamaks, theta pinches, large lasers and pulsed electron and ion beam machines. During the past 25 years, a small but vital group in the Department of Engineering Physics at the Australian National University, has designed and built a homopolar generator to store 500 MJ and capable of discharging in about Is to produce current in excess of IMA at 400V for Is. It has been in operation for 13 years but is still the largest facility of its kind in the world. This record of papers presented at the Seminar held at the ANU provides more details of the Canberra homopolar generator than any other publication. Other papers provide information on fast discharge homopolar machines developed at the University of Texas at Austin, The Westinghouse Corporation, and at the Argonne National Laboratory. Details are also given of the latest operation and methods of switching large dc currents. Other papers deal with the application of these techniques to the powering of large fusion machines.
Landform evolution in Australasia »
Publication date: 1978
A reappraisal of landform evolution in Australasia is both timely and necessary. Over a decade has elapsed since the publication of Landform Studies from Australia and New Guinea edited by J.N. Jennings and J.A. Mabbutt, and since then there have been several important developments in earth sciences with profound repercussions for Australasian geomorphology. Plate tectonic concepts are revitalising our approach to traditional problems in structural and historical geomorphology. The wealth of new data on the absolute age of rocks and sediments in Australia, New Guinea and New Zealand, made possible by scores of radio-carbon, potassium-argon, and uranium-thorium age determinations, is already causing us to question and reject many hitherto unquestioned and seemingly unassailable geomorphic paradigms. In addition, the earlier and necessarily descriptive approach to landscape evolution in Australasia is now yielding pride of place to a new type of field investigation founded upon accurate experimental monitoring of river load, solution rates, beach sediments and hillslope mantles. The seventeen essays in this volume reflect some of the achievements as well as some of the difficulties involved in investigating land- form evolution in Australasia. Part one deals with the age and timing of uplift, the stability of planation surfaces, and the sensitivity of river systems to hydrological change. Parts two to four discuss coastal deposits, chemical denudation, and pediments. Part five on geomorphic models suggests ways of relating process studies to actual landform development. This book will be of interest to geologists, geomorphologists and indeed to any earth scientist concerned to understand how our present landscape has evolved.