Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World

March 2012

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Will climate change cause earthquakes?

In Waking the Giant, Bill McGuire argues that now that human activities are driving climate change as rapidly as anything seen in post-glacial times, the sleeping giant beneath our feet is stirring once again. The close of the last Ice Age saw not only a huge temperature hike but also the Earth’s crust bouncing and bending in response to the melting of the great ice sheets and the filling of the ocean basins — dramatic geophysical events that triggered earthquakes, spawned tsunamis, and provoked a series of eruptions from the world’s volcanoes.

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The intellectual foundations of the Occupy Wall Street movement

By Frank J. Vandall
One of the chief attacks on the Occupy Wall Street Movement is that it has no articulated rational basis. It s just a bunch of unwashed neo-hippies who are wasting time, public resources and park-space while not looking for a job. Careful attention to Occupy Wall Street interviews manifests four foundational complaints, however.

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Fellowes and the Titanic

By John Welshman
The latest news for period drama fans is that Julian Fellowes, writer of Downton Abbey, has created a four-part ITV mini-series commemorating the centenary of the Titanic sinking. However, what many viewers may not realise is that there was a real Fellowes on board the ship in 1912.  But rather than being an ancestor of the popular writer, Alfred J. Fellowes was a humble crew member and one of the estimated 1,514 people to perish in the maritime disaster.

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Earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster strike Japan

: This Day in World History
Japan, situated on the Ring of Fire on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, has suffered some major earthquakes over the years. However, nothing before compared to the triple disaster of March 11, 2011: a massive earthquake followed by powerful tsunamis which led to a serious nuclear accident.

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The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster: A look back 100 years

By Marjorie C. Malley
This weekend we remember a tragic, terrifying accident that potentially affected not only Japanese citizens, but the entire planet. Dangerous radioactive substances were released into the atmosphere, making the region around the plant uninhabitable, and contaminating the drinking water and the food chain.

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Robert Sherman, songwriter and storyteller

By Philip Furia
Next to George and Ira Gershwin, the only major fraternal songwriting team in the history of American popular music has been Robert and Richard Sherman. Together, the Sherman brothers wrote songs for such film musicals as Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Tom Sawyer, The Jungle Book, and The Aristocats. Richard Sherman composed the music for their songs, and both he and Robert wrote the lyrics.

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Lavatory and Liberty: The Secret History of the Bathroom Break

By Corey Robin
Inspired by all this libertarian talk, I dug out an old piece of mine from 2002, in the Boston Globe, that talks about a little known fact: many workers in the United States aren’t able to exercise their right to pee on the job—due to lack of government enforcement—and it wasn’t until 1998 (!) that they even got that right, thanks to the federal government. The piece pivots from there to a more general discussion about coercion in the workplace and its history.

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Syria: The Post-Assad Unknowns

By Steven A. Cook
With all the discussion of diplomacy (and its limits) and the robust debate about military action in Syria, the issue that haunts both is the nature of post-Assad Syria. Will Syria end up like Iraq? Like Lebanon of the 1970s-1980s? Both countries have suffered much from sectarian and ethnic differences that politicians have manipulated for their own ends. Or might Syria suffer far worse?

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Rural culture in Victorian England

Lark Rise to Candleford is Flora Thompson’s classic evocation of a vanished world of agricultural customs and rural culture. The trilogy of Lark Rise, Over to Candleford, and Candleford Green tells the story of Flora’s childhood and youth during the 1880s in Lark Rise, in reality Juniper Hill, the hamlet in Oxfordshire where she was born. Through the eyes of Laura, the author’s fictional counterpart, Flora describes the cottages, characters, and way of life of the agricultural labourers and their families with whom she grew up; seasonal celebrations, schooling, church-going, entertainment and story-telling are described in fond and documentary detail.

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Can employment opportunities transform women’s work and family lives?

By Robert Jensen
In many developing countries, women often leave school, marry and start having children at a young age. For example, in India, less than half of girls aged 11-18 are enrolled in school. By age 18, nearly 60 percent of women are married and over a quarter have given birth. These outcomes are powerful indicators of the low social and economic progress of women, and may have consequences for poverty and income growth. It is therefore important to understand what factors can help improve these outcomes.

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International Women’s Day celebrated around the world

This Day in World History
Each year, women and men around the world honor the achievements of women and seek to promote women’s rights by celebrating International Women’s Day. The day’s origin can be traced to the National Woman’s Day staged by the Socialist Party of America from 1909 to 1913. Its goal was to advance the cause of women’s suffrage.

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Story time with the Brothers Grimm… Part Two

Read the second installment of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s Selected Tales: The Water of Life. What happens to the scheming elder princes and their sea-water goblet next? And will the youngest prince live happily ever after with his beautiful princess?

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Monthly Gleanings, February 2012, part 2

By Anatoly Liberman
The Infamous C-Word. This is the letter I received soon after the publication of the post devoted to our (formerly) most unpronounceable word: “…I am writing to ask you if you have run across it [this word] as a nautical term. I am a former sailing ship mariner (a.k.a. “tall ships”) and sailmaker and currently maritime historian/editor for the National Maritime Historical Society.

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Sudoku and the Pace of Mathematics

Among mathematicians, it is always a happy moment when a long-standing problem is suddenly solved. The year 2012 started with such a moment, when an Irish mathematician named Gary McGuire announced a solution to the minimal-clue problem for Sudoku puzzles.

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