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By mid-1947 the division of Europe had acquired clear momentum and definable contours, yet it had not yet fully congealed. The period was a transitional one, moving away from the contexts of the Yalta and Potsdam agreements which anticipated post war great power collaboration in Europe, and moving toward the complete Stalinizatioh of eastern Europe and the concomitant linking of western Europe to an American led economic and security order. Yet despite the recent Soviet backed ouster of Nagy in Hungary in May, some elements of a pan-European fabric remained intact if uncertain The Four Power negotiations over Germany's future were continuing and the allied occupation machinery remained in place. The establishment of the Economic Commission for Europe in May 1947 provided at least an institutional framework for considering recovery problems on a pan-European rather than an east-west basis. And during this pre-Cominform period the east European states appeared to anticipate some independence in foreign affairs, as suggested by the initial expressions of interest by Czechoslovakia and Poland in responding to Secretary of State Marshall's aid initiative.

In the middle of the nineteenth century, the three Southeast Asian societies of Thailand, Burma, and Vietnam were confronted rather suddenly with a large and growing foreign demand for their principal product, rice. Without detailing the development of this demand, we may note that during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, European countries had begun not only to consume large amounts of rice as a cheap dietary staple, but also to make use of it in the brewing industry, as a supplement to wheat in flour products, as a starch for sizing textiles, and as feed for livestock. At the start of the nineteenth century, new milling and processing techniques enabled European consumers to look abroad for their rice needs, and the Indian provinces of Bengal and Madras and portions of the southern United States became major sources of supply. Towards the middle of the century, the Indian Mutiny and the American Civil War disrupted these sources at a time when improvements in transportation were making it possible for European importers to purchase their rice in even more distant areas, primarily Southeast Asia.

The most notable and best publicised achievements of the European Economic Community (EEC) have been in liberalising trade between its member countries. But apart from setting up the 'common market' from which it derives its popular name, the Treaty of Rome gave the Community the duty 'to promote …. an harmonious development of economic activities, a continuous and balanced expansion, an increase in stability, an accelerated raising of the standard of living and closer relations between the Member States belonging to it'. In addition to the elimination of barriers to the passage of goods between members and the establishment of a common agricultural policy and a common basis of trade with the outside world, the Treaty provided specifically for freedom of movement for persons, services and capital, a common transport policy, a system ensuring that competition should not be distorted, procedures for coordinating economic policies and remedying balance of payments disequilibria, the approximation of laws to the extent required for proper functioning of the common market, and a European Social Fund and European Investment Bank.

It is not easy for a European to take a dispassionate stance toward the USA. The waves of idiotic anti-Americanism and the (smaller) waves of undiscriminating glorification have distorted the face of the America seen by many Europeans. My remarks are those of a. European, more particularly of an Austrian from Vienna, a city that decisively stamped the character of a Sigmund Freud and of an Adolf Hitler. Mine is a stance rooted in the experience of critical love which feels itself co-responsible for both the super-strength and the super-weakness of this American dinosaur, this giant baby that, in its relatively brief history, has contributed notably and bloodily to the world's genocide and ecocide; first and foremost in exterminating the Indians and the buffalo. A look into Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (New York, 1970) brings into view abysses, abysses in man, in the beast man (the animal is never bestial). America has added its contribution to the genocidal destruction of peoples and to the desolation of landscapes, just as practiced in Europe for over 2,500 years, ever since the days of the Roman Empire.

The First World War changed the pattern of international relations in East Asia. What had previously been another arena for the European power struggle became the cockpit for two regional forces, Japanese expansionism and incipient Chinese nationalism. The confrontation between the two, which was to last for a quarter of a century, began as a most unequal contest. Great power rivalry had enabled China to balance off her enemies and to maintain her status as a sovereign entity. But with Europe distracted, China was helpless, and Japan had a unique opportunity to pursue an independent expansionist policy. Instead of cooperating with England and the other powers in order to get a fair share of the China spoils, after 1914 Japan could make her bid for the grand prize, exclusive access to China's resources. Thus the European powers' pre-occupation with mutual slaughter exposed China to extreme danger, greater than that which she had faced during the heyday of classical imperialism.1But Japan was not alone in welcoming the European retreat. Japan's opportunity was also Sun Yat-sen's opportunity.

Electronic applications of large-area graphene films require rapid and accurate methods to map their electrical properties. Here we present the first electrical resistance tomography (ERT) measurements on large-area graphene samples, obtained with a dedicated measurement setup and reconstruction software. The outcome of an ERT measurement is a map of the graphene electrical conductivity. The same setup allows to perform van der Pauw (vdP) measurements of the average conductivity. We characterised the electrical conductivity of chemical-vapour deposited graphene samples by performing ERT, vdP and scanning terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (TDS), the last one by means of a commercial instrument. The measurement results are compared and discussed, showing the potential of ERT as an accurate and reliable technique for the electrical characterization of graphene samples. ; The work is part of the European project 'GRACE–Developing electrical characterisation methods for future graphene electronics', code 16NRM01. This project has received funding from the European Metrology Programme for Innovation and Research (EMPIR) programme co-financed by the Participating States and from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

This study investigated what determines successful transatlantic defense policy cooperation and how that cooperation can reduce the military capability gap between the United States and its European NATO allies. It examines the differing defense policies and defense capabilities between the United States and its European NATO allies. Several theories in International Relations were also used as a foundation for the argument that cooperation is needed. The approach to defense policy is very different between the United States and Europe. The strategic vision of the world of both parties differs as well. Policy, doctrine and defense projects are all taken into consideration and analyzed. Based on the results of the analysis of policy and doctrines, the policy recommendation is that there should be more cooperation on defense policy planning, military doctrine and defense projects conducted in the effective fashion of current successful cases. The European NATO members will also need to cooperate on such policy if the military capability gap is to be lessened. ; 2008-12-01 ; M.A. ; Sciences, Department of Political Science ; Masters ; This record was generated from author submitted information.

In the decades of the 1620s and 1630s the Dutch engaged in salt extraction on the island of La Tortuga, Venezuela, erecting a wooden fort, portable cannon emplacements, jetties and semi-industrial solar saltpan production facilities. The relative paucity of the archaeological record juxtaposed with the wealth of detailed documentary data and fieldwork experiences led to the operationalization of the heuristic tool of 'scapes'. A critical construction of these socially alive portions of the island landscape and seascape demonstrates 1) how north-western European conceptions of the cultural control of nature were embodied in Dutch orderliness and industriousness; 2) how the strategy of maximization of extractive practices and minimization of risk was evidenced in the overall ephemerality of structures; and 3) how these structural imperatives were imbricated in the prose of human life and death that was unfolding from one small-scale event to another on this desolate island. ; This research has received funding from European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–13) ERC Grant agreement no. 319209, under the direction of Prof. Dr C. L. Hofman.