Open Access Titles

Examines the history of electricity provision in Africa and the effects of privatization and infrastructure changes in energy transformation, offering a critical window into development politics in African states. No country has managed to develop beyond a subsistence economy without ensuring at least minimum access to electricity for the majority of its population. Yet many sub-Saharan African countries struggle to meet demand. Why is this, and what can be done to reduce energy poverty and further Africa's development? Examining the politics and processes surrounding electricity infrastructure, provision and reform, the author provides an overview of historical andcontemporary debates about access in the sub-continent, and explores the shifting role and influence of national governments and of multilateral agencies in energy reform decisions. He describes a challenging political environment for electricity supply, with African governments becoming increasingly frustrated with the rules and the processes of multilateral donors. Civil society also began to question reform choices, and governments in turn looked to new development partners, such as China, to chart a fresh path of energy transformation.
Drawing on over fifteen years of research on Uganda, which has one of the lowest levels of access to electricity in Africa and has struggled to construct several, large hydroelectric dams on the Nile, Gore argues that there is a critical need to recognize how the changing political and social context in African countries, and globally, has affected the capacity tofulfil national energy goals, minimize energy poverty and transform economies.

Christopher Gore is Associate Professor, Department of Politics and Public Administration, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada.

OA EDITION
This book has been made available as Open Access through the support of the Office of the Dean, Faculty of Arts, Ryerson University; Ryerson International; and the Department of Politics and Public Administration, Ryerson University.

During the early nineteenth century, the harp was transformed into a sophisticated instrument that became as popular as the piano. This was largely the result of the harp's intensive technical, musical and visual upgrading, which gradually led to the transition from the single- to the double-action pedal harp. A major figure in this process was Sébastien Erard (1752-1831), a tireless inventor and prolific manufacturer of harps and pianos operating branches in Paris and London. With the introduction in 1811 of the so-called 'Grecian' model, the first commercially built double-action harp, the Erard firm managed to establish the harp not only as a novel, state-of-the-art instrument, but also as a powerful symbol of luxury, wealth and status.

Drawing upon a wide variety of primary sources, including surviving instruments, archival documents and iconographical evidence, this book provides a comprehensive overview of the development, production and consumption of the Erard Grecian harp in Regency England. The innovative approaches employed by the Erard firm in the manufacture and marketing of harps are measured against competitors but also against the work of leading entrepreneurs in related trades, ranging from the mechanical devices and precision tools of James Watt, Henry Maudslay or Jacques Holtzapffel, through the ornamental pottery of Josiah Wedgwood, to the clocks and watches of George Prior or Abraham-Louis Breguet. In addition, the book examines the omnipresent role of the harp in the education, art, fashion and literature of the Regency era, discussing how the image and perception of the instrument were shaped by groundbreaking advances, such as the Industrial Revolution, Neoclassicism, and the Napoleonic Wars.

Analyses how book-keeping and estate accounting transformed attitudes and practices in farm management over three centuries of European history.

From the eighteenth until well into the twentieth century, an ideal model developed of a farmer as accountant, who would record economic transactions meticulously; tidy book-keeping was regarded as the basis of sound management, and only those who accurately dealt with finances would survive and thrive. It is clear that this happened in both theory and practice, with growing numbers of farmers (men and women) keeping increasingly formalized records of their businesses during this period; a wide range of valuable documentation, originating from large estates, small sharecroppers, tenant and owner-farmers alike, has survived.

Drawing on that rich body of sources, this book examines book-keeping and account practices in farm management across Europe, with case studies ranging from Westphalia and the Rhineland to France and Switzerland, over three centuries. It considers who kept these records and their motivations, how practices changed and developed across the period, and in what ways and to what extent accounts and accounting influenced the development of agriculture. It also examines the role of farmers' own organisations and government in encouraging higher standards of accounting.

The Introduction and chapters 7 and 9 are available as Open Access under the Creative Commons licence CC BY-NC-ND.

Essays on a diverse range of topics, presenting the latest research on themes of gender, religion, warfare, the built environment and chronicle-writing of the period.


This collection brings into dialogue scholarship on social, religious, economic, military and political history, offering exciting new insights into a range of topics, based upon meticulous research into published and unpublished archival records. Two studies reveal the influence of gendered norms and expectations at different ends of the social spectrum, one focussing on peasant women charged with extramarital sex known as leyrwite, the other on the martial achievements and expectations of Edward III. Several essays examine patronage, property investment and the built environment, with actors ranging from the papacy to religious guilds and members of the gentry. Further contributions provide new perspectives on conflict and violence: a re-examination of how the Peasants' Revolt was recorded in the Anonimalle Chronicle, a consideration of how armies were recruited at the time of civil war in 1321-22, and an investigation of the life and career of Henry Crystede, an Englishman fighting in Ireland.

Based on private diaries, correspondence, and unpublished writings, George Rochberg, American Composer, reveals the impact of personal trauma on the creative and intellectual work of a leading postmodern composer.

George Rochberg, American Composer, is the first comprehensive study devoted to tracing and putting into a rich cultural context the career of George Rochberg, widely acknowledged as one of the most prominent musical postmodernists. Drawing from unpublished materials including diaries, letters, sketches, and personal papers, the book traces the impact of two specific personal traumas--Rochberg's service as an infantryman in World War II and the premature death of his son--on his work as a leading composer, college educator, and public intellectual.

The book significantly expands our understanding of Rochberg's creative work by reconstructing and examining the earliest seeds of his aesthetic thinking--which took root while he served in Patton's Third Army--and following their development through his mature compositional period into the final stages of his long career. It argues that Rochberg's military service was a transformative life experience for the young humanist, one that crucially shaped his worldview and influenced his artistic creativity for the next sixty years. As such it reveals personal trauma and aesthetic recovery to be the basis of Rochberg's postwar ideas about humanism, musical quotation, and neotonality.

Amy Lynn Wlodarski is associate professor of music at Dickinson College.

Support for this publication was provided by the Howard Hanson Institute for American Music at the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester.

Presenting a range of ethnographic case studies from around the globe, this edited collection offers new ways of thinking about the interconnectivity of gender, place, and emotion in musical performance.

While ethnomusicologists and anthropologists have long recognized the theoretical connections between gender, place, and emotion in musical performance, these concepts are seldom analyzed together. Performing Gender, Place, and Emotion in Music is the first book-length study to examine the interweaving of these three concepts from a cross-cultural perspective. Contributors show how a theoretical focus one dimension implicates the others, creating anexus of performative engagement. This process is examined across different regions around the globe, through two key questions: How are aesthetic, emotional, and imagined relations between performers and places embodied musically? And in what ways is this performance of emotion gendered across quotidian, ritual, and staged events?
Through ethnographic case studies, the volume explores issues of emplacement, embodiment, and emotion in three parts: landscape and emotion; memory and attachment; and nationalism and indigeneity. Part I focuses on emplaced sentiments in Australasia through Vietnamese spirit possession, Balinese dance, and land rights in Aboriginal performance. Part II addresses memories of Aboriginal choral singing, belonging in Bavarian music-making, and gender-performativity in Polish song. Part III evaluates emotion and fandom around a Korean singer in Japan, and Sámi interconnectivities in traditional and modern musical practices. Beverley Diamond provides a thought-provoking commentary in the afterword.

Contributors: Beverley Diamond, Fiona Magowan, Jonathan McIntosh, Barley Norton, Tina K. Ramnarine, Muriel Swijghuisen Reigersberg, Sara R. Walmsley-Pledl, Louise Wrazen, Christine Yano.

Fiona Magowan is Professor of Anthropology at Queen's University, Belfast.
Louise Wrazen is Associate Professor of Music at York University.

Chapter 9 is available as Open Access under the Creative Commons license CC-BY. The open access version of this publication was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.

Globalized Peripheries examines the commodity flows and financial ties within Central and Eastern Europe in order to situate these regions as important contributors to Atlantic trade networks.

The early modern Atlantic world, with its flows of bullion, of free and unfree labourers, of colonial produce and of manufactures from Europe and Asia, with mercantile networks and rent-seeking capital, has to date been described almost entirely as the preserve of the Western sea powers. More recent scholarship has rediscovered the dense entanglements with Central and Eastern Europe. Globalized Peripheries goes further by looking beyond slavery and American plantations. Contributions look at the trading practices and networks of merchants established in Central and Eastern Europe, investigate commodity flows between these regions and the Atlantic world, and explore the production of export commodities, two-way migration as well as financial ties. The volume uncovers new economic and financial connections between Prussia, the Habsburg Empire, Russia, as well as northern and western Germany with the Atlantic world. Its period coverage connects the end of the early modern world with the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Chapter 10 is available as Open Access under the Creative Commons license CC-BY-NC-ND. The open access version of this publication was funded by the European University Viadrina.

An exploration of the major conflicts and historic events that shaped the current Israeli health care system. In this follow-up to her 2002 book, The Workers' Health Fund in Eretz, Israel: Kupat Holim, 1911-1937, historian Shifra Shvarts investigates the political and social forces that influenced Israel's health care system and policy during the early years of state building. Among the struggles Shvarts explores in this penetrating study are the debate over immigration health policy and the Law of Return, enacted in 1950; the battles over universal healthcare between the Workers' Health Fund and the Israeli government led by prime minister Ben Gurion; the urgent organization of military medical services during wartime; and the contested establishment of renown civilian medical facilities.
These early conflicts have had far-reaching implications that continue to be felt throughout Israeli society. While many European countries successfully established unified, state-run health care systems, Israel's political rivalries and social turbulence gave rise to a mélange of "sick funds," large and small, public and private, that influence and complicate the delivery of health care to this day. Health and Zionism: The Israeli HealthCare System, 1948-1960, sheds light on the major conflicts, leaders, and historic events that shaped the current Israeli health care system, and has relevance to developing health care systems worldwide.

Shifra Shvarts is Associate Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben Gurion University, Israel, and is author of The Workers' Health Fund in Eretz Israel Kupat Holim, 1911-1937 (University of Rochester Press, 2002).

A groundbreaking analysis of 21st century labour practices in the mining industry and the new scramble for industrial power on the African continent. Since the beginning of the 21st century, African countries with mineral resources have witnessed an unprecedented rise in foreign direct investments and the development of new flexible workforce management practices in the mining industry. But what does this mean for those who actually work in this industry? Based on research in the Congo and Zambia, where a mining boom has led to more than thirty new mining projects in recent years, this book explores the processes of improvisation and adaptation behind the emergence of this neoliberal labour regime. The contributors show how mining projects' labour practices have been mediated, negotiated, or resisted by mine workers, unionists, and human resource managers. They discuss variations in labour practices put in place by new mining projects depending on the type of capital involved, the type of mine being developed, and their location. Finally, the book examines the implications of power dynamics surrounding companies' labour strategies from the broader perspective of the responsibility of trade unions, gender equality, and identity politics.

A critical interpretation of essential Kiganda royal court songs that examines how the meanings of their lyrics enter into dynamic dialogue with contemporary national politics in Uganda.

Lyric interpretation, which Damascus Kafumbe defines as a process of creative renewal that infuses vitality into songs, enables interpreters and analysts to derive a multiplicity of meanings from songs instead of being limited to a single literal narrative. As he and his research collaborators demonstrate throughout Interpreting Court Song in Uganda, the process extends the life of a song by allowing it to generate new versions, meanings, and relevance. Kafumbe examines how lyric interpretation serves to renew the lives of twenty-one songs from the repertoires of royal court musicians of the Kingdom of Buganda, arguing that the meanings of these songs are not singular, static, and monolithic but rather dynamic and multivalent.
Through extensive research within past and present contexts, Kafumbe presents a series of unique perspectives on the ways Kiganda court songs reflect varied kinds of power relations. These meanings, which surface via lyric interpretation, come from daily interactions among citizens and between leaders and subjects. This interpretive process helps illuminate truths and clarify myths about the power dynamics that shape political life in present-day Uganda, highlighting the relevance of court song lyrics to contemporary national contexts. By engaging with the book's wide range of voices, readers will learn to appreciate these songs, their historical and contemporary contexts, and their composer-performers' stories and interpretations more fully.

This book is available as Open Access under the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND.

Examines the career and message paintings of the feminist conceptual artist Jiny Lan, analyzing a cross-section of works that invite literary, historical, socio-political and transcultural interpretations.


Jiny Lan is an avant-garde Chinese artist based in Germany. A founding member of the feminist art collective "Bald Girls," she infuses astute, politically charged, and iconoclastic criticism into her conceptual and visual art. Jiny Lan and the Art of Subversion provides a hermeneutic and critical analysis of Lan's idiosyncratic, provocative, and ingenious artwork. "Subversion" refers not only to her political and cultural subversiveness but also to her iterative technique of reproduction and repainting, which she uses to create a series of genealogically related "sub-versions" of her own paintings.

As an émigré and immigrant artist, Lan is profoundly influenced by both eastern and western cultures and traditions. Her immersive experience and extensive knowledge of two contrasting national histories, cultures, and political systems endows her with a unique intersectional positionality. Her artwork is at once figurative and abstract, realistic and fantastic, chaotic and logical, appropriative and creative. It interrogates serious issues such as censorship, authoritarianism, democracy, human rights, sexism, racism, war, migration, and Covid-19, but in a dynamic and often humorous manner. This book lays a foundation for evaluating Lan as an artist whose work invites discussions about portraiture, power, temporality, space, corporality, and sex.

This book is available as Open Access under the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND.

Kyiv as Regime City charts the resettlement of the Ukrainian capital after Nazi occupation, focusing on the efforts of returning Soviet rulers to regain legitimacy within a Moscow-centered regime still attending to the warfront. Beginning with the Ukrainian Communists' inability to both purge their capital city of "socially dangerous" people and prevent the arrival of "unorganized" evacuees from the rear, this book chronicles how a socially and ethnically diverse milieu of Kyivans reassembled after many years of violence and terror.

While the Ukrainian Communists successfully guarded entry into their privileged, elite ranks and monitored the masses' mood toward their superiors in Moscow, the party failed to conscript a labor force and rebuild housing, leading the Stalin regime to adopt new tactics to legitimize itself among the large Ukrainian and Jewish populations who once again called the city home. Drawing on sources from the once-closed central, regional, and local archives of the former Soviet Union, this study is essential reading for those seeking to understand how the Kremlin reestablished its power in Kyiv, consolidating its regime as the Cold War with the United States began.

Martin J. Blackwell is Visiting Professor of History at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida.