From a world history perspective, the most noticeable trend in the history of the late 19th century was the domination of Europeans over Non­Europeans. This domination took many forms ranging from economic penetration to outright annexation. No area of the globe, however remote from Europe, was free of European merchants, adventurers, explorers or western missionaries. Was colonialism good for either the imperialist or the peoples of the globe who found themselves subjects of one empire or another? A few decades ago, the answer would have been a resounding no. Now, in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the more or less widespread discrediting of Marxist and Leninist analysis, and the end of the Cold War, political scientists and historians seem willing to take a more positive look at Nineteenth Century Imperialism. One noted current historian, Niall Ferguson has argued that the British Empire probably accomplished more positive good for the world than the last generation of historians, poisoned by Marxism, could or would concede. Ferguson has argued that the British Empire was a \" liberal \" empire that upheld international law, kept the seas open and free, and ultimately benefited everyone by ensuring the free flow of trade. In other words, Ferguson would find little reason to contradict the young Winston Churchill's assertion that the aim of British imperialism was to: give peace to warring tribes, to administer justice where all was violence, to strike the chains off the slave, to draw the richness from the soil, to place the earliest seeds of commerce and learning, to increase in whole peoples their capacities for pleasure and diminish their chances of pain. It should come as no surprise that Ferguson regards the United States current position in the world as the natural successor to the British Empire and that the greatest danger the U.S. represents is that the world will not get enough American Imperialism because U.S. leaders often have short attention spans and tend to pull back troops when intervention becomes unpopular. It will be very interesting to check back into the debate on Imperialism about ten years from now and see how Niall Ferguson's point of view has fared! The other great school of thought about Imperialism is, of course, Marxist. For example, Marxist historians like E.J. Hobsbawm argue that if we look at the l9th century as a great competition for the world's wealth and …

The New Imperialism

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Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions

Suitability estimation for urban development using multi-hazard assessment map.

Land degradation is a global issue receiving much attention currently. In order to objectively reveal the research situation of land degradation, bibliometrix and biblioshiny software packages have been used to conduct data mining and quantitative analysis on research papers in the fields of land degradation during 1990–2019 (data update time was 8 April 2019) in the Web of Science core collection database. The results show that: (1) during the past 20 years, the number of papers on land degradation has increased. According to the number of articles, it is divided into four stages: a low-production exploration period, a developmental sprout period, expansion of the promotion period, and a high-yield active period. (2) Land-degradation research covers 93 countries or regions. The top five countries in terms of research volume are China, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Australia. China, the United States, and the United Kingdom are the most important countries for international cooperation in the field of land degradation. However, cooperation between countries is not very close overall. (3) Land degradation, degradation, desertification, remote sensing, soil erosion, and soil degradation are high-frequency keywords in the field of land degradation in recent years. (4) The research hotspots in the field of land degradation mainly focus on research directions such as restoration and reconstruction of land degradation, and sustainable management of land resources. (5) The themes of various periods in the field of land degradation are diversified, and the evolutionary relationship is complex. There are 15 evolutionary paths with regard to dynamic monitoring of land degradation, environmental governance of land degradation, and responses of land degradation to land-use change. Finally, the paper concludes that the research directions on land degradation in future include the process, mechanism, and effect of land degradation, the application of new technologies, new monitoring methods for land degradation, theory enhancement, methods and models of ecological restoration, reconstruction of degraded land, multidisciplinary integrated system research, constructing a policy guarantee system for the reconstruction of degraded land, and strengthening research on land resource engineering.

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A Bibliometric Analysis on Land Degradation: Current Status, Development, and Future Directions

Overview of the geography of the Monte Desert biome (Argentina)

In Latin America, Argentina is second – behind Brazil – in extent of drylands: 55% of its territory. Research on desertification and dryland degradation has a lengthy tradition, being undertaken even prior to the establishment of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. The paper aims to analyse desertification research in Argentina, the disciplines from which its knowledge arises and the topics receiving greater attention. The work focuses on the results from descriptive, bibliometric and social network analyses of a sample of articles on desertification in scientific journals indexed in Web of Science. A visual representation of citation relationships was created considering keywords such as ‘desertification’, ‘dry*land*’, ‘*arid’ and ‘development’, ‘policy’ or ‘economy’ among others, in ‘Argentina’. According to this search, the number of papers per year dealing with desertification in Argentina is only 4·3. National knowledge, usually categorized as traditional knowledge, is barely captured by international databases. The challenge for the scientific community is to make traditional knowledge visible and disseminate the findings. Results demonstrate that desertification research in Argentina is in a great proportion related to studies of soil erosion and soil degradation, and only in a minor proportion to socioeconomic issues. However, desertification problems are the outcome of interactions among physical–biological, socioeconomic and political dimensions, and therefore, the science summoned to analyse them must not only be a science centred on isolated themes but also one resulting from interdisciplinary studies and integrated approaches. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Desertification Research in Argentina

Resumen: En el presente trabajo se analiza el proceso de con-figuracion territorial de Mendoza,Argentina,represen-tativo de otros pertenecientes a tierras secas de AmericaLatina, en el marco de la concepcion de las “nuevasperiferias” asociadas a la reestructuracion de las eco-nomias.La fragmentacion ter ritorial actual seria el pro-ducto de una misma logica que, mientras concentrarecursos, poblacion y poder en una pequena por-cion del territorio —los oasis irrigados—, lo hace acosta del despojo o agotamiento de recursos y grupos * Investigadora del Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas( CONICET ),Instituto de Ciencias Humanas,Sociales y Ambientales ( INCIHUSA ), Labo-ratorio de Desertificacion y Ordenamiento Territorial ( LADYOT ),Instituto Argentinode Investigaciones de las Zonas Aridas ( IADIZA ), Centro Regional de InvestigacionesCientificas y Tecnologicas ( CRICYT ).Con la colaboracion de Maria Eugenia Fusari ySilvia Urbina.Telefono: (54-261)4280080/4288314, direccion postal: Ruiz Leals/n, Parque General San Martin, (5500), Mendoza,Argentina. Correo electronico:emontana@lab.cricyt.edu.ar ** Becaria del

http://www.scielo.org.mx/pdf/regsoc/v17n32/v17n32a1.pdf

Los espacios invisibles: Subordinación, marginalidad y exclusión de los territorios no irrigados en las tierras secas de Mendoza, Argentina

En el ambito internacional –y de la mano de la Convencion Internacional de Naciones Unidas de Lucha contra la Desertificacion y la Sequia (UNCCD por sus siglas en ingles)- se reconoce la importancia de utilizar indicadores y puntos de referencia para aportar cierto rigor en la medicion y comparacion relativas a los procesos de desertificacion. La concrecion de este postulado ha mostrado algunos inconvenientes cuando se abordan las esferas de mayor operatividad, particularmente las de la escala local. Este trabajo busca explorar esas dificultades y propone una metodologia que ha resultado capaz de integrar las dimensiones fisico biologicas a las socioeconomicas y de articular diferentes temporalidades y niveles de agregacion, en un "Modelo Integrado de Evaluacion e Intervencion en el proceso de Lucha contra la Desertificacion". Esta metodologia es ademas participativa y se preocupa por integrar las multiples miradas que se abren sobre este fenomeno.

Desertificación e indicadores: posibilidades de medición integrada de fenómenos complejos

Threads of  water,  bonds  of  blood:  facing  shortage  in  the  desert  of  Lavalle  (Mendoza,  Argentina). This study analyzes the probable relationships between the dynamics of natural resource use and the strategies for location of domestic units across the territory, within rural desert areas that have a boundless environmental offer. How, and in the framework of what strategies, do human groups turn different  portions  of  nature  into  natural  resources?  And  how  do  they  use  and  administer  such  resources  to  ensure  their  own  social reproduction?  To  go  forward  in  this  direction,  a  case  study  (the  desert  of  Lavalle,  Mendoza  province,  Argentina)  is  analyzed  by  using techniques of qualitative in-depth interviews and participating observation. The data presented suggest that in the territories analyzed -rural, on dry soils, affected by desertification and with high poverty indices- the constraints imposed by the environment are overcome, to some extent,  through  a  location  strategy  that  is  closely  related  to  the  production  process  and  is  able  to  maximize  access  to  certain  natural resources and put "in order" the competition for them with neighbours and relatives.

https://www.revistaecosistemas.net/index.php/ecosistemas/article/view/110/107

Hilos de agua, lazos de sangre: enfrentando la escasez en el desierto de Lavalle (Mendoza, Argentina)

Este articulo se propone presentar para su discusion y reflexion una estrategia que vincula desarrollo local y desarrollo rural en tierras secas del centro oeste argentino. La propuesta que se presenta posee rasgos diferenciales que afirman su caracter innovador respecto de las estrategias hasta ahora implementadas tanto por los planes de desarrollo rural como por otras actuaciones destinadas al aprovechamiento de los recursos de un area que ha sido devastada en sus recursos naturales. Se basa en el reconocimiento del potencial existente en el medio rural para el desarrollo desde una optica del desarrollo rural sostenible superadora del enfoque compensatorio y asistencial. Se enmarca en una concepcion de Desarrollo Territorial Rural que tiene el proposito de articular competitiva y sustentablemente un territorio rural a mercados dinamicos. Finalmente se senalan algunas de las lecciones aprendidas y las recomendaciones que emanan de las mismas como ejes de transferencia que permitiran que esta experiencia sea replicada en areas de caracteristicas ecoproductivas semejantes.

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Laura María del Rosario Torres

Papers

Desertification Research in Argentina

Los espacios invisibles: Subordinación, marginalidad y exclusión de los territorios no irrigados en las tierras secas de Mendoza, Argentina

Desertificación e indicadores: posibilidades de medición integrada de fenómenos complejos

Hilos de agua, lazos de sangre: enfrentando la escasez en el desierto de Lavalle (Mendoza, Argentina)

Desarrollo local en el desierto de Lavalle. Estrategia para pequeños productores caprinos (Argentina)