In this farewell speech on the occasion of his retirement as Professor of Comparative Constitutional Law at Maastricht University, given in March 2022, Aalt Willem Heringa discusses the too often ignored role of courts as interpreters of statutes. The courts, by checking the (constitutional) quality of statutes, contribute to the rule of law and parliamentary democracy.

Independent courts may add to the confidence in a constitutional and parliamentary system as a whole, by being in a position...

How did citizens in Bruges create a home? What did an ordinary domestic interior look like in the sixteenth century? And more importantly: how does one study the domestic culture of bygone times by analysing documents such as probate inventories? These questions seem straightforward, yet few endeavours are more challenging than reconstructing a sixteenth-century domestic reality from written sources. This book takes full advantage of the inventory and convincingly frames household objects in ...

What is your opinion? Is it acceptable to touch a colleague during a conversation? Or for a company to ask employees without children to not take days off during school holidays? Could one ask a colleague with tattoos on his arms to not wear short sleeved clothing?

Everyone has the right to a safe workplace. But what that means exactly is different for everyone. What behaviour do you think is really unacceptable? On the basis of 100 situations, discuss (unacceptable) behaviour in the workpla...

Using the method of prison tourism, this book is guided by the question: ‘What are the South African prisons of today for?’ i.e. ‘What purposes do they serve?’ It gives an account of the author’s attempts to be the eyes and ears for a public who may never see the inside of South Africa’s prisons. Intimately sharing her experiences in these spaces, Lin van Schalkwyk focuses on the stories that are told by the people she encounters and places it alongside her own unfolding inner nar...

Statistics is more topical than ever. Numerous decisions depend on statistical considerations: just think of the Corona crisis or decisions about approving new drugs or other products. If researchers announce they have proved some fact using statistical tests, can we then always be sure that their claim is correct? How, and more importantly why, does statistics work? What can we expect from statistics and what not? 'Fact or Fluke?' is not a textbook that explains statistical tests to the read...

This book discusses the lithic technology of the neighboring sites of Ruien and Kerkhove (Belgium). The Final-Palaeolithic occupation of Ruien took place during the harsh climatic conditions of the Younger Dryas. The Early and Middle Mesolithic hunter-gatherers from Kerkhove on the other hand lived in the temperate and forested environments of the subsequent Early Holocene period. The aim of this work is more precisely to gain a better understanding of how the practice of flintknapping evolve...

Mobilität ist für Formen des sozialen Zusammenlebens grundlegend. Doch welche Rolle spielte räumliche Mobilität in der Vergangenheit? Aus prähistorischen Zeitabschnitten wie etwa dem Neolithikum ist dazu noch immer wenig bekannt. Das gilt auch für die Siedlungsräume des nördlichen Alpenvorlandes. Deren Feuchtbodensiedlungen mit den hervorragend erhaltenen Resten in Seen und Mooren gehören seit 2011 zum UNESCO Welterbe und bieten eine einzigartige Forschungsgrundlage. Die dendrochron...

The world is changing fast. So fast that it is difficult to follow. Every day, we are confronted with thousands of different stimuli, ever-expanding digitalisation and ever more powerful forces of transformation, both at work and in society as a whole. Our increasingly frantic way of living and working demands more and more energy from us and has negative effects on our bodies, our health and our quality of life. Behind the seemingly attractive facade of this life, a deep personal emptiness i...

The words you speak determine the life you live. People who have achieved genuinely effective accomplishments in their lives, may have done so by stretching themselves and producing constructive results. Being able to come to such a state of mind requires you to become less concerned with trivial matters in order to be able to work at another level of thinking. The way in which you see yourself and other makes all the difference. This little booklet of affirmations can help harmonize your int...

Shakespeare's Plays or Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies by William Shakespeare was first published by Jaggard & Blount in London in 1623. What is now called the First Folio was in fact the first collection of plays written by William Shakespeare.

The First Folio is distinguished by an elaborate title page, frontispiece with first-state portrait, complete edition with leaves intact, containing Troilus and Cressida and its prologue, Romeo and Juliet ending on Gg. Roman and italic text types, ...