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Nutrition, as a science, is poorly understood, both professionally and publicly. The confusion that surrounds this science makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to formulate public health policy, which creates opportunities for political manipulation and control. Nutrition, for a century or more, has been variously described as a summation of the physiological and biochemical properties of individual nutrients in food rather than the whole food itself. This infers that isolated nutrients in supplements will function in the same way as nutrients in food. It also infers that removing or minimizing “undesirable” nutrients from food will make the food more healthful. This arises from the highly reductionist way that we focus on individual nutrients minus their natural context, both the context within the foods of which they are a part and the context within biological systems where they function. The shortcomings of this belief system may be illustrated by hugely costly mistakes made in the past, even more than a century ago, that corrupt current practices. Such mistakes have become so embedded in the contemporary narrative on nutritional science, both fundamentally and practically, that we fail to recognize the damage they continue to cause.

Alternatively, when nutritional effects are considered more within their natural contexts, that is, more wholistically, then it helps to explain, for example, the remarkable ability of nutrition, as provided by a whole food plant-based diet, to prevent even to cure varied types of cardiovascular disease. Furthermore, the breadth of this nutritional effect for a wide variety of illnesses and diseases suggests that nutrition, properly provided by a whole food plant-based diet, is more efficacious than a combination of all the contemporary pills and procedures combined. It also suggests that genetic determinism is not the explanation for disease that is widely advanced. And finally, among still more consequences, there are many societal outcomes that can be substantially mitigated, including the escalating cost of health care and the dangerously increasing array of destructive practices that damage the environment. Many of the momentous health, economic, environmental and sociopolitical problems currently faced may be traced to a misunderstanding of the effects of food and nutrition. The task therefore is how to bring this message to the attention of a public who for too long have gradually adopted flawed food production and healthcare systems that are on the verge of collapse, threatening the collapse of entire societies as we know them. More specifically, a public and professional dialog on the meaning of nutrition, especially its wholistic properties, is desperately needed, especially in medical schools where nutrition as a science is almost totally ignored.

Perhaps I should begin with a little discussion of how I got involved with Austria to begin with. This will also include the rather bizarre way I got into economics. I was a student in the University of Chicago law school and they required all such students to take a one-quarter course in economics under Henry Simons, one of the founders of the Chicago school. He was a proponent of the view that depressions were caused by deflation. I found myself in complete agreement, and still am.

The purpose of this essay is twofold: (i) identification of the shared premises of the structuration and morphogenesis theories which have remained indifferent to or openly at odds with each other, while highlighting at the same time the specific elements of these two models which are better elaborated in one than the other; and (ii) demonstration of the benefits of social theory testing on the eventful historical analysis.

I first comparatively examine the main premises and guiding concepts of the two models in question, point out their basic affinities, and note different emphases. Next, different components and phases of the (re)constitution over time of societal structure(s) and human agency posited by the structuration/morphogenesis model are illustrated and “tested” through the historical account of the initiation and spread of migration of Polish peasants to America at the turn of the twentieth century and the subsequent impact of this movement on the sender and receiver societies.

First, the demonstration of a close theoretical affinity of the structuration and morphogenesis models which provides the grounds for an intellectual exchange between their proponents. Second, derived from the historical analysis of Poles’ migration process, the identification of specific concepts informing the structuration/morphogenesis model which need further refinement. The third, most general finding-qua-contribution is a demonstration of the benefit for social theorizing from the historical, that is, time- and place-sensitive conceptualization and analysis of the examined phenomena.

Based on ethnographic data and a textual analysis, this chapter highlights the process of “therapization” of Buddhism in Western countries, with a specific emphasis on Tibetan Buddhism in France. Referring to the paradigm of “political economy of health”, as developed in recent medical anthropology, it attempts to explore the relationships between two concepts – economics and health – that had previously been considered separately, in the context of Western Buddhism. Further, this chapter's aim is to expose a potential application of theoretical economic models in an anthropological approach of Buddhist diffusion and appropriation in the West.

Chicago economists have pursued and applied the logic of price theory in any direction and as far it will go. This is their hallmark and their genius. The adoption of any principle, however, implies the selection of a correlative opportunity cost, a rule as fundamental as any other in price theory. The opportunity cost consists, in part, of the alternative accounts of the operation of the economy and economic policy-making, and in part, the coherence, conditions, and limits of Chicago's doctrines of theory and policy.

Drawing on empirical research which incorporated biographical interviews with two older male perpetrators, this chapter develops theoretical conceptualisations of the histories, experiences and motives of these men. Four key areas are highlighted, which will be subject to closer scrutiny in relation to extant literature: (i) gender, particularly notions of masculinity, power and entitlement; (ii) attitudes relating to the use of violence both within intimate relationships and generally (iii) critical junctures in the life course which triggered attempts to desist; and (iv) an exploration of maturation and completion of treatment programmes in relation to their use of violence, future risks and efforts towards desistance.