1,459 words

Marvin Harris on pork taboos in Judaism and Islam

Harris, Marvin. "Pig lovers and pig haters." From Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches. New York, 1974, pp.35-57. The pig has been one of the defining symbols of human food culture. Some religions and populations reject the consumption of pork while others embrace pig consumption.

~8 min read

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1,848 words

Consumer culture and patriarchy in late nineteenth-century America

Female Sexual Subjugation and Domesticity in America The end of the 19th Century brought with it a host of changes which, as driven by technology and spreading urbanization, brought the entire world under the sway of the Industrial Revolution.

~10 min read

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2,235 words

Lyndon Johnson's Texas style and liberal political ideals

Lyndon Baines Johnson was a southern President with a Texas accent. In some ways he exemplified the stereotypical Texan. In seeking a link between his social identity as a Texan and his liberal political views, however, it is difficult to see any strong causal connection.

~12 min read

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1,724 words

Comparative analysis of Elkins and McPherson on slavery

Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life by Stanley Elkins, and Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction by James M. McPherson.

~9 min read

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2,297 words

Garrett Hardin's tragedy of the commons and resource depletion

Down through the ages, societies have made use of common goods and resources for the benefit of all.

~12 min read

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1,806 words

Population growth, resource scarcity, and human-nature conflict

Despite the modern separation from the means of production most people are at least marginally aware of the fact that everything we need to sustain us is provided by the earth. The earth gives us all the objects we need and many we desire and in turn she is changed.

~10 min read

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2,055 words

Tobacco as the least harmful alternative to drugs and alcohol

Nowadays people more and more intensively argue that our present life is significantly different from that of our predecessors, 100 years ago, for example; we hear all the times about the dangers we are continuously exposed to, because of our stressful existence, combined with other harmful factors…

~11 min read

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1,395 words

Women's power to demand legal change in ancient Greece and Rome

Lysistrata by Aristophanes and "Women Demonstrate against the Oppian Law" by Livy. Specifically, it will discuss how Lysistrata and other women had the power to demand change in law and public policy. These pieces were written during times of strife and war in Greece and Rome.

~7 min read

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1,911 words

Jimmy Carter's presidency in secondary source scholarship

Press, 1977. 9-31. This book predicts, using a [then relatively new, since when this book was published in 1977, psychohistory was then less than five years old (see Editor's Foreword)] psycho-historical/biographical approach, that Jimmy Carter would [in truth he did not] lead America into a war by…

~10 min read

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1,336 words

Thomas Nagel's question of animal consciousness and thought

Clearly, humans, in their human form, cannot experience what it is to be a bat or any other animal, because we cannot shed our own forms and take on the characteristics of another species. Yet, these animals do have physical and mental experiences.

~7 min read

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