Many, many comparisons have been drawn in recent years between the current rise of (right-wing) populism and the financial crisis of 2008 that shook and continues to shake Europe to its core, and the tumultuous and horrifying events of the 1930s, which in the end resulted in the Second World War. A number of recent studies which (partially) focus on this decade carry ominous titles like To Hell and Back, The Age of Catastrophe and The Triumph of the Dark. Referred to by some historians as the second Thirty Years’ War, the period from the First World War to the end of the Second still continues to draw much academic and indeed public attention. In many cases, Germany deservedly plays a central role in the analysis, either in the form of the Kaiserreich or the ill-fated Weimar Republic and, of course, Nazi Germany. The five books under review here discuss European history between 1914 and 1950 in general, and that of Germany in particular, in this period. What do these books tell us about Europe’s and Germany’s path in the first half of the twentieth century, and what new insights do they provide? https://doi.org/10.1177/0265691418777981 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martijn-lak-71793013/
MULTIFILE
The revolutionary dimension of technological developments is all too often placed in the foreground, painting a picture of a future we can hardly imagine, let alone perceive. This book emphasises the evolutionary dimension of developments, and how we take small steps. How certain underlying, invariable aspects survive hype after hype, and have their own rhythm or longue durée. It is the search for where change meets inertia. Progression is a balance between the familiar and the unfamiliar. The essays bundled in this book have as a leitmotiv this attention to how progression is a matter of locating the small steps we can take and the invariables that lie beneath developments that stimulate or hinder certain big steps forward. It concentrates on the zone of proximal development, to use the term of Vygotsky. This collection of essays represents a personal view of the area where psychology, media, technology, and culture meet in the context of technological and social developments. These crossroads are addressed through topics such as digital identities, interactive media, the museum visitor in a digital world, and growing up in a digital society.
MULTIFILE
In this chapter, the focus is on arithmetic which for the Netherlands as a trading nation is a crucial part of the mathematics curriculum.The chapter goes back to the roots of arithmetic education in the sixteenth century and compares it with the current approach to teaching arithmetic. In the sixteenth century, in the Netherlands, the traditional arithmetic method using coins on a counting board was replaced by written arithmetic with Hindu–Arabic numbers. Many manuscripts and books written in the vernacular teach this new method to future merchants, money changers, bankers, bookkeepers, etcetera. These students wanted to learn recipes to solve the arithmetical problems of their future profession. The books offer standard algorithms and many practical exercises. Much attention was paid to memorising rules and recipes, tables of multiplication and other number relations. It seems likely that the sixteenth century craftsmen became skilful reckoners within their profession and that was sufficient. They did not need mathematical insight to solve new problems. Five centuries later we want to teach our students mathematical skills to survive in a computerised and globalised society. They also need knowledge about number relations and arithmetical rules, but they have to learn to apply this knowledge flexibly and meaningfully to solve new problems, to mathematise situations, and to evaluate, interpret and check output of computers and calculators. The twenty-first century needs problem solvers, but to acquire the skills of a good problem solver a firm knowledge base—comparable with that of the sixteenth century reckoner—is still necessary.
LINK
