‘Public-spirited men’: economic unionist nationalism in inter-war Scotland

The prolonged economic slump which overshadowed much of the inter-war period encouraged a small number of Clydeside industrialists to intervene with bold plans to restructure and revive the Scottish economy. Key figures like Sir James Lithgow and Lord Weir exploited their business, banking and political connections, in Scotland and in London, to produce a uniquely Scottish response to the inter-war crisis. Championing the existing Union and imperial relationships, they nevertheless articulated a new sense of Scottish exceptionalism. Convinced that any revival in trade was dependent on rationalisation of the heavy industries and an ambitious programme of diversification, Lithgow, Weir and their associates promoted distinctive Scottish solutions. Building on the work of Graeme Morton, the article suggests that what emerged was an economic Unionist Nationalism which built alliances between business and civic Scotland to secure Scottish interests while acknowledging the primacy of Union. The mechanism used to achieve their aims was based upon the associational culture of Scottish business, ‘self-help’ voluntary bodies which carefully steered an independent path, avoiding, where possible, direct state involvement. Yet the depth and persistence of the global depression, and the urgency of the task at hand in Scotland itself, encouraged the business community to moderate its hostility to interventionism and economic planning and engage with new partners. The founding of the Scottish National Development Council in the early 1930s, bringing business and civil society together to help foster economic revival, was a crucial staging post on the journey towards corporatism. Motivated by a mix of public-spiritedness and self-interest, there was, however, a strong defensive element to their actions as the essentially conservative industrialists sought to ward off social, political and economic threats from within Scotland. Their willingness to step forward suggests a traditional sense of patrician responsibility, but there was also an acute awareness of the need to adapt; a progressive quality missing from other actors

The Logic of Spectacle c. 1970

This paper examines the site plan and theme exhibit of the Osaka Expo of 1970, together with a week-long protest staged in the Tower of the Sun, which was the main element of the Theme Exhibit. Attempts to communicate a critical account of contemporary society and so transform the visitor were undercut by the Expo's ability to accommodate diverse interests and investments and to account for almost anything that was exhibited or staged on site. The Expo thus suggests that we need to supplement our understanding of spectacle as communication with an analysis of spectacle as a system

Dark Radiation in Anisotropic LARGE Volume Compactifications

Dark radiation is a compelling extension to $\Lambda$CDM: current experimental results hint at $\Delta N_{\rm eff} \gtrsim 0.5$, which is increased to $\Delta N_{\rm eff} \simeq 1$ if the recent BICEP2 results are included. In recent years dark radiation has been considered in the context of string theory models such as the LARGE Volume Scenario of type IIB string theory, forging a link between present-day cosmological observations and models of physics at the Planck scale. In this paper I consider an extension of the LARGE Volume Scenario in which the bulk volume is stabilised by two moduli instead of one. Consequently, the lightest modulus no longer corresponds to the compactification volume but instead to a transverse direction in the bulk geometry. I focus on scenarios in which sequestering of soft masses is achieved by localising the Standard Model on D3 branes at a singularity. The fraction of dark radiation produced in such models vastly exceeds experimental bounds, ruling out the sequestered LARGE Volume Scenario with two bulk moduli as a model of the early Universe.Comment: 12 pages, no figures; v3 - expanded discussions, clarified terminology, corrected error in equation (3.11); version to be published in JHE

National Museums and Other Cultures in Modern Japan

This article examines the representation of Japan at three national museums in Japan: the Tokyo National Museum, the National Museum of Japanese History and the National Museum of Ethnology. It explores the way in which the museums have displayed difference both within Japan and between Japan and the other countries to which it is compared. The essay examines how this has produced a claim of Japanese uniqueness in the museum, the difficulty museums therefore have in connecting the Japanese past to the present and a number of recent attempts to overcome these problems in the representation of Japan

Martin Heidegger’s Path to an Aesthetic ετηος

Martin Heidegger is infamous for his rejection of the validity of Ethics as a philosophical endeavour and moreover, for his aesthetic formulation of ετηος. In this paper I will attempt to trace the path of Heidegger’s thought from his early engagement with Aristotle and Religion, through pre-Socratic thinking, to the formulation of ετηος as an authentic dwelling in the truth of being revealed by the poet

Getting Districtwide Results

How a district's central office can actively support and nurture excellence in instructional leadership, teaching and learning at the school level. Based on experiences of Edmonton Public Schools

Heideggerian Marxism

An extended review of the English collection of Marcuse's essays and interviews on Heidegger that addresses the philosophical basis of a synthesis of Marx and Heidegger