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"Theodore Metochites, a distinguished figure in the intellectual and political landscape of the early Palaiologan period (1261-1341), was born in Constantinople in 1270. The On Morals or Concerning Education is an extensive disquisition about the significance and status of cultural education (paideia) in the context of Palaiologan society. The oration might also be seen at least partly as an autobiographical narrative exposing Metochites's inner reflections and anxieties. The On Morals belongs to the genre of the protreptikos, a hortatory speech designed to encourage its readers to study philosophy and attain virtue. With the On Morals Metochites sought to establish himself as a continuator of ancient moral philosophy in late Byzantium"--

Most theorists on international relations agree on recognizing natural resources, economic strength, technological development, political stability, & military strength as the five bases of a state's power. This unanimity is in sharp contrast with the divergences in the operationalizations of the power of states. Most operationalizations use only one or two bases of a state's power & thus are very limited in scope. Therefore, the demand for an operationalization sticking as closely as possible to the unanimity among theorists forces itself on the researcher. An attempt is made to transform the theoretical unanimity into an operational measure. Each power basis represented by partial indicators is listed: (1) natural resources--area, population, production of energy, (2) economic strength--gross national product, energy consumption, monetary stability, (3) technological development--level of alphabetization, number of students in higher education, scientific production & infrastructure, (4) political stability--length of independence, internal stability, & (5) military strength--number of men in the armed forces, conventional weapons, nuclear strength. The operationalization was obtained by granting all five power bases an equal share in the index & by giving an equal weight to the sums of the arithmetical values for fifteen partial indicators & thus, for the five indicators. The nation's power-index, thus obtained, was applied to 110 nation states as they existed at the beginning of the '70s. On this power scale, ratings differ from 29,046 indexpoints of world power (IWM) for the US to 276 IWM for Gambia & even less for a number of the smaller states that could not be investigated. Modified HA.