This book is the first Western-language monograph on the study of the Qingshui River manuscripts. By examining over 3,000 contracts and other manuscripts, this book offers constructive insights into the long-standing question of how and why a society in late imperial China could maintain a well-functioning social system with few laws but many contracts, i.e., Hobbesian “words without sword.” Three interrelated questions, what contracts were, how and why they worked, are explained successively. Thus, this book presents a non-stereotypical “contract society” in southwest China, arguing that the social order which provides predictability and regularity for economic prosperity could be formed and maintained through contracts even under the condition of relatively weak influence of governmental and legal authorities. This book benefits readers who are interested in law, society, and history. While presenting the socio-legal landscape of a frontier area in late imperial China for historians, this book provides a novel and empirical interpretation of the supposedly well-known contract device for legal researchers, thereby proposing materials for an integrated theoretical explanatory framework of contracts in general. By employing the innovative theory of blockchain in its key argumentation, the book offers a creative interpretation of historical and social phenomena.

From one of the leading policy experts of our time, an urgent rethinking of how we can better support each other to thrive Whether we realize it or not, all of us participate in the social contract every day through mutual obligations among our family, community, place of work, and fellow citizens. Caring for others, paying taxes, and benefiting from public services define the social contract that supports and binds us together as a society. Today, however, our social contract has been broken by changing gender roles, technology, new models of work, aging, and the perils of climate change. Minouche Shafik takes us through stages of life we all experience—raising children, getting educated, falling ill, working, growing old—and shows how a reordering of our societies is possible. Drawing on evidence and examples from around the world, she shows how every country can provide citizens with the basics to have a decent life and be able to contribute to society. But we owe each other more than this. A more generous and inclusive society would also share more risks collectively and ask everyone to contribute for as long as they can so that everyone can fulfill their potential. What We Owe Each Other identifies the key elements of a better social contract that recognizes our interdependencies, supports and invests more in each other, and expects more of individuals in return. Powerful, hopeful, and thought-provoking, What We Owe Each Other provides practical solutions to current challenges and demonstrates how we can build a better society—together.

This book provides a vivid and informative view of life in traditional groups that are ordered mainly through the informal operation of everyday social relations, based on Colson's field research with North American Indians and with peoples in what is now Zambia.

This book integrates the problem of violence into a larger framework, showing how economic and political behavior are closely linked.

A mouse named Wemberly, who worries about everything, finds that she has a whole list of things to worry about when she faces the first day of nursery school.

Our founding fathers rebelled against England because the American Colonies were not being represented. While at the same time, they enslaved a whole race of people. Our Constitution guarantees us the right to pursue our happiness, but it does not guarantee us the right to obtain our happiness. All of the social ills and terrorism that have taken place in America can be traced back to parenting or the lack thereof.

The Capabilities Approach, as pioneered by Martha C. Nussbaum and others, elevates the enabling of free self-development to a criterion of social justice. In recent years, it has become a widely accepted paradigm in Western development policies, and, currently, it is discussed to which extent this normative framework can be applied to other social areas. This volume presents interdisciplinary papers resulting from discussions that young scholars of different disciplines had with Martha C. Nussbaum during the Unseld Lecture 2010 at the Forum Scientiarum of TÃ?1⁄4bingen University. (Series: Interdisciplinary Research Works at FORUM SCIENTIARUM / Interdisziplinare Forschungsarbeiten am FORUM SCIENTIARUM - Vol. 4)