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In modern Russia Peter the Great, according to representative opinion polls, is considered to be the best figure in the entire history of the country, significantly outstripping in popularity even domestic politicians of the 20th-21st centuries. This very high "folk" reputation significantlycontradicts the views of social scientists who see in Peter I not so much a successful national reformer, a "revolutionary on the throne", but a despot unscrupulous in his means, who for centuries to come linked modernization of the country with increased state coercion and heavy wars. However, comparative approach shows that other countries of catching up development pattern in the XVIII-XX centuries followed as a rule not the path of evolutionary reform but that of radical reforms aimed primarily at strengthening the army. Peter's Russia stands out against this background only in that it was the first to choose "modernization for the sake of military victories" and therefore, since the time of Peter I, remained among the "great powers" despite constant socio-economic backwardness. The legitimacy of this choice can be substantiated with the help of a world-systems analysis that emphasizes the great role of national sovereignty for the success of catch-up modernization. In fact, Peter I chose the war with strong Sweden as a main lever of modernization and a way to radically change the "rules of the game" - not only to open direct trade between Russia and Western Europe, but also to include it in the "great powers". The example of Peter the Great's reforms, whichalmost coincided with the Northern War, clearly shows that military mobilization can play the role of a "big push" in a country that is catching up, creating the prerequisites for all other qualitative transformations. At the same time, "modernization for the sake of victories" that took shape under Peter the Great initiated a trend that is dangerous for Russia as a country of catching up development, when its military successes hindered the seemingly unnecessarynational modernization, with military failures stimulating it.

This text considers the notion of miracle in relation to the writings of Shakespeare and Derrida. Royle shows how the word 'miracle' (and cognates including 'miraculous') comes, in the later sixteenth century, to acquire less narrowly religious senses, and how this dehiscence is at play in Shakespeare, especially in the figure of Falstaff, in Henry IV Part One. He explores some of the ways in which the history and development of the 'miraculous' prefigure the emergence of 'the uncanny' some two hundred years later. Particular attention is given to the affinities between the writings of Shakespeare and Cixous that transpire from reading Derrida on the miracle.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Foreword -- PROLOGUE: LOOKING EAST -- PART ONE: THE PLACES -- 1 Japan's Two ""Miracles"" -- 2 Taiwan, Industrial Island -- 3 Korea, Man-Made Miracle -- 4 Singapore, Capitalist Haven -- 5 Hong Kong, Capitalist Paradise -- PART TWO: THE POLICIES -- 6 Where There's A Will -- 7 Diverse Faces of Capitalism -- 8 Conjuring Up Industries -- 9 Upgrading Exports -- 10 Downgrading Imports -- 11 Technological Leapfrogging -- 12 Age of Neo-Development -- PART THREE: THE PROSPECTS -- 13 New Challenges -- 14 Allies Or Rivals -- 15 Asian Spillover

The idea of long-term European dominance is characteristic of most evolutionary theories of human culture and society in the nineteenth century. It was commonly believed that there was a natural progression from Antiquity through Feudalism to Capitalism which could not have taken place elsewhere. Today there are many who still believe that this progression was part of a European miracle that underlay the rise to global supremacy of the West. In this short book Jack Goody systematically dismantles this Eurocentric view of the world. He argues that we need to look, not for a European mirac

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Agriculture has helped fuel the "China miracle." Since 1978, agricultural and food output has soared, Chinese agribusiness firms have become key players in domestic and international markets, and by all accounts, China has been highly successful in overcoming land and resource constraints to feed its population of 1.3 billion people. The country is celebrated for its successes in reducing poverty and hunger over the last 30 years, and more recently, for creating an agrifood system that makes eating "high on the hog" a possibility and reality for many Chinese people. Pork is at the heart of this miracle. A hallmark of the post-1978 agricultural development model is ramping up the production, sale, and consumption of meat. Processed and packaged meats are the fastest growing market segments, reflecting the increasing influence and operation of pork processors, and the more general trend towards processed foods that can be shipped, stored, and sold with a longer shelf-life in super- and hyper-markets. These trends are also reflected in the Shuanghui (now called the WH Group to take on a more international identity) buyout of Smithfield Foods, a move that will increase China's pork supplies, strengthen Shuanghui's brand within China as "safer" meat with higher consumer status because of its US origin, and further generate and shape consumer demand for industrial pork. The Shuanghui-Smithfield deal is a matter of political and economic interest, but also signals a much more basic insight: pork, and the systems and actors that produce it, are central in China's agrifood system with increasingly global inter-linkages and implications. etc. .