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How did a rural and agrarian English society transform itself into a mercantile and maritime state? What role was played by war and the need for military security? How did geographical ideas inform the construction of English – and then British – political identities? Focusing upon the deployment of geographical imagery and arguments for political purposes, Jonathan Scott's ambitious and interdisciplinary study traces the development of the idea of Britain as an island nation, state and then empire from 1500 to 1800, through literature, philosophy, history, geography and travel writing. One argument advanced in the process concerns the maritime origins, nature and consequences of the English revolution. This is the first general study to examine changing geographical languages in early modern British politics, in an imperial, European and global context. Offering a new perspective on the nature of early modern Britain, it will be essential reading for students and scholars of the period.

Hale provides a tour of our buildings and our social history, examines the principles that animate beautiful buildings, and offers hope for recapturing the lost magic of architecture.

"Bibliographical notes": p. [467]-477.

Several analytical procedures can be used to place dollar values on the benefits of policies that reduce mortality. This report examines the sensitivity of such measures to age, time, and information effects. It derives benefits measures from a formal model of individual lifetime consumption decisions and applies them to several cases of policy interest. The author derives a number of policy recommendations from the research reported here: (1) base benefits assessments on full lifetable comparisons; (2) reexamine clinical and laboratory data in a way that permits economically meaningful risk assessment; (3) undertake ancillary studies of individual risk preference and time consistency; (4) avoid the use of human-capital or value-of-life measures whenever possible; and (5) take careful account of the timing and distribution of information when choosing policy options and measuring benefits.