Re-establishing an underground climate appropriate for the conservation of the prehistoric paintings and engravings at Lascaux

Abstract

In an earlier issue (CMAS 1 (3), 191-193), we summarized highlights from new statements of ethical practice for archaeologists produced by the Society for American Archaaeology (SAA), the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) and the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR). We now publish a note about the Society for Historical Archaeology from its President, Dr Glenn Farris. In it he draws attention to a statement of the Society's ethical position that was made in 1989.

Since our publication of the earlier note, the question has been raised as to how effective are ‘statements of ethical practice’ in governing conduct. It should be stressed that acceptance of a professional society's statement on ethics is normally a condition of membership in that society. This is the case in a large number of organizations, both national and international, in the area of archaeology, conservation and museums. There is no doubt that Codes of Ethics have a strong impact on professional conduct in these disciplines.     

Progress and parochialism in urban anthropology

Peter C. W. Gutkind. Urban Anthropology: Perspectives on ‘Third World’ Urbanization and Urbanism. New.York: Barnes and Noble Books (with K. Van Gorcum, The Netherlands), 1974. 262 pp. Tables, references, and indices. $22.50.

Wayne A. Cornelius and Felicity M. Trueblood, eds. Latin American Urban Research, Vol. 4: Anthropological Perspectives on Latin American Urbanization. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1974. 320 pp. Tables, figures, and bibliographies. $17.50.     

The Canadian Rebellion,the American South,and Slavery

ABSTRACT

In the past few decades, thanks in large part to the work of several historians that appears in my edited collection, Revolutions Across Borders: Jacksonian America and the Canadian Rebellion (2019), there is a growing trend to consider the Canadian Rebellion within an American historical and historiographical context. Despite this exciting new research, most studies on the Rebellion and the United States continue to focus on the northern borderland. However, the Canadian Rebellion was a significant event that gained attention all over the United States, including the American South. Similar to the North, the American South was also invested in the outcome of the Rebellion. This was due to one reason: slavery. By specifically focusing on the American South and, more importantly, its influence on American foreign policy during the period, I want to encourage historians to take a more definitive stance; that slavery—just like the Panic of 1837, the Anglo-American rapprochement of thepost-War-of-1812 period, or the fear of British retaliation—played a major role in the United States Government’s official opposition to the Rebellion.     

‘One Chief Letter Office at New-York’: Packet Ships,Imperial Administration,and the Geography of the American Post, 1692–1783

ABSTRACT

The postal system in the American colonies is an understudied arm of the first British Empire. Although outside the main institutions of colonial administration, the post office followed the overall periodisation of imperial affairs, as America waxed and waned in London’s attention. This directly shaped the geography of the post office, because American officials focused on the post’s ability to connect American towns, while British officials emphasised the transatlantic connection of the postal packet ships. The packets, however, were not as important to transatlantic communications as they imagined, which led the American officials to resist when London wanted to make New York City the headquarters of the American post.     

Book reviews

Ruth Oldenziel, Making Technology Masculine: Men, Women, and Modern Machines in America, 1870–1945 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1999), pp. 271

Lars Engwall and Vera Zamagni (eds.), Management Education in Historical Perspective (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1999), pp. Xiii+177

T.R. Gourvish and N. Tiratsoo (eds.), Missionaries and Managers: American Influences on European Management Education, 1945–1960 (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press/St. Martins, 1999), pp. X+165     

The American Palestine Exploration Society and the Survey of Eastern Palestine

Abstract

The Survey of Western Palestine, carried out from 1871 to 1878 by the Palestine Exploration Fund, has become one of the central pieces of scientific research for this region. From its outset, it was conceived as one half of a two-fold project, the other being a survey conducted in the same manner in Transjordan. The Society that was to undertake this, in collaboration with the PEF and their work in Western Palestine, was the American Palestine Exploration Society (APES), founded in 1870. However, by the autumn of 1877, the APES had ceased to exist, and their survey was never widely published. As the first American Society to focus on the Levant as an area of study, the APES is significant, despite its failure to produce a map of lasting value. Many of the founding members went on to be significant players in later, more successful American ventures, notably the American School of Oriental Research. The PEF's archives hold a record of the relationship between the APES in New York, and the PEF in London, and chart the fortunes of the two societies, and their endeavours to map the region east of the Jordan.     

Take me up,I want to go: Captivity,disorientation and affect in the neurosphere

ABSTRACT

Captivity narratives have been a core American genre for centuries. This paper suggests that some American captivity narratives are opening into emergent attempts to articulate social feeling at a moment of precarity. I treat captivity here not just as a narrative, genre or trope but also as an affect. I explore how neurodivergent young people evoke disorientation and captivity on Tumblr as an expression of identity. I show how the bloggers share a feeling with UFO abduction narratives in creating an atmosphere of difference.     

The Paradox at the Heart of American Conservatism

Abstract

This essay considers the state of American conservatism focusing initially on social and political institutions and concluding with a few comments on conservatism as an intellectual movement. A paradox is described as lying at the heart of American conservatism: the economic policies supported by conservatives promote economic conditions that are the main causes of the social problems conservatives lament most loudly.     

‘Personifying the coloured community’: Sonny Leon and the ambiguities of the politics of co-option and resistance in the apartheid state

Abstract

The traditional focus regarding the Angolan Civil War, 1974–1976, has been on the nature of Soviet and Cuban involvement, the American response to communist activities, and South Africa's invasion. A point often mentioned, but rarely elaborated upon in the literature, is the degree to which the United States of America (USA) encouraged South Africa to intervene in the Angolan conflict. This paper investigates the extent and nature of American collusion with South Africa in the civil war, and the degree of complicity of senior American officials. The paper argues that on balance, the evidence suggests that senior elements of the United States executive branch, covertly and informally, colluded with South Africa. South African politicians overestimated the depth and extent of American support for its intervention, and when the USA ceased its assistance, they felt betrayed by Kissinger.     

The Cyprus question, 1949-1952: British attitude,American reactions and Greek dilemmas

Abstract

The present study is an attempt to construe the position of Britain and the US as well as Greek reactions with regard to the Cyprus question at a stage which preceded its internationalisation and the concurrent deterioration of Anglo-Greek and Greek-Turkish relations. There is a voluminous bibliography on the problem, which has developed into one of the major international entanglements of our time. Most works on the Cyprus question, in the form of either general scholarly works or memoirs, devote very little space to the 1949-1952 period – when they do not overlook it entirely. A notable exception is Angelos Vlachos' Deka hronia Kypriako (Ten Years of Cyprus Question) which mainly examines the attitude of the Greek government and the Greek-Cypriot Ethnarchy towards the question of Enosis. Francois Crouzet's Le Conflict de Chypre, 1946-1959, on the other hand, published in 1973, offers a rather limited insight of the question at its early stage given the absence of relevant primary sources at that time. The present paper, however, is primarily based on British and American diplomatic records. Whereas, though, the relevant British Cabinet and Foreign Office documents are in their vast majority open to research, a great number of US State Department documents on Cyprus remained classified in early 1987, when this research was conducted. To be specific, for 1950, one classified document corresponded to two declassified, while for the following year the ratio increased to three against two, with an even number of classified and declassified papers for 1952. Yet, the author believes that a fairly precise picture of British and American attitudes on the question can be drawn on the basis of the material available. Greek reactions are also examined and interpreted to the extent that British and American diplomatic records as well as Greek secondary sources permit.     

Prophetic Perfectionism: The Afterlives of Nat Turner and John Brown

ABSTRACT

Recent fiction, film, art, and scholarship on nineteenth-century American abolitionists Nat Turner and John Brown shed light on the politics of their prophetic religion. Both men led violent rebellions against slavery for which they were executed. Prophetic perfectionism drove Turner and Brown but tended to fade in works about them. Exceptions to this pattern of reception include Jacob Lawrence's John Brown series (1941), Nate Parker's film The Birth of a Nation (2016), and Ted Smith's book Weird John Brown: Divine Violence and the Limits of Ethics (2014). This essay situates Turner's and Brown's prophetic perfectionism and their reception in the context of contemporary political theologies and aesthetics of religion and race.     

Nationalizing international relief: Romanian responses to American aid for children in the Great War era

ABSTRACT

This article examines the interactions between American humanitarian agendas and initiatives and domestic efforts for child relief in Romania in the aftermath of the Great War. While focusing on the presence of the European Children’s Fund (ECF) in post-war Romania, the article traces the domestic organization of relief, the Romanian elites’ turn to American humanitarian assistance, and their active responses to this external aid on behalf of war-suffering children. The article argues that Romanian leadership of child welfare initiatives nationalized American humanitarian aid by integrating ECF’s institutional efforts into domestically established philanthropic associations. This nationalization was sustained in three key ways: (1) American humanitarians’ own engagement of local channels in aid diffusion; (2) the growing network of national associations of child welfare in post-war Romania; (3) the competing political agendas of both donors and recipients. The case of Romanian responses to American aid for children, and its eventual domestic institutionalization, challenges the seemingly unequal relationship between Western donors and East-Central European recipients during a period of post-war reconstruction and sociopolitical transformation. It sheds light on the transnational dimension of the humanitarian process, driven by the dual agency of foreign humanitarians and domestic interlocutors in the country of aid reception.     

Diplomatic compromises between the United States and Japan during the Nanjing Massacre

ABSTRACT

During its assault on Nanjing, the Japanese Army bombarded and sank the USS Panay, an American gunship, straining the relations between Japan and the United States. During the Nanjing Massacre, to ease tensions with the United States, Japan allowed the staff of the American embassy in Nanjing to make an early return to the city. While investigating allegations that Japanese troops had trespassed on American property and kidnapped and raped a Chinese woman, the American diplomat John M. Allison was struck in the face by a Japanese soldier. The U.S. government exerted pressure on Japan over what was referred to as the “Allison Incident”: under orders from Tokyo, the Japanese occupying force in Nanjing apologized to Allison and placed the officers and soldiers involved in the incident under court-martial. The incident was thereby resolved. However, amidst the furor of the “Allison Incident,” the Chinese woman who had been assaulted was forgotten by both the American and Japanese governments as well as by public opinion. The Japanese soldiers were placed under court-martial not for raping the Chinese woman, but rather for striking an American diplomat. The U.S. government received a great many reports on the atrocities committed by the Japanese Army, but in policy and deed, the American response was limited to safeguarding its national interests in China.     

An Ojibway Artifact Unraveled. The Case of the Bag with the Snake Skin Strap

Abstract

It is rare to come across a work of Native American textile art that is as intriguing for its aesthetic attributes as for the history with which it is associated. Sadly, the reason for this infrequency is not for lack of historical interest, but rather the deplorable deficiency of documentation for most Native American museum artifacts. It was fortuitous then, when I encountered a bag in the collection of the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), Toronto, whose striking appearance is matched with documentation of its extraordinary history with Ojibway Chiefs Maungwudaus and John Tecumseh Henry. Recovering the bag's history required detective work. What follows is the story of emerging clues, surprising discoveries and the insights that they facilitated for the artifact 'detective'.     

Animal bones and human behavior

A.T. Clason, ed. Archaeozoological Studies. New York: American Elsevier (Amsterdam: North‐Holland), 1975. xvi + 477 pp. List of participants, index, figures, tables, and chapter references. English (29 articles), German (16 articles), and French (3 articles). $45.00 cloth.

B.D. Smith. “Middle Mississippi Exploitation of Animal Populations.” Ann Arbor: University of Michigan (Museum of Anthropology) Anthropological Paper no. 57, 1975. xii + 233 pp. List of figures and tables, appendices, bibliography. $4.00 paper.

R.W. Casteel. Fish Remains in Archaeology and Paleo‐environmental Studies. New York: Academic Press, 1976. x +180 pp. References, author and subject indices. $14.80 cloth.

L.R. Binford, ed. For Theory Building in Archaeology: Essays on Faunal Remains, Aquatic Resources, Spatial Analysis, and Systemic Modeling. New York: Academic Press, 1977. xviii + 419 pp. List of contributors, figures, and tables, chapter references, author and subject indices. $24.50 cloth.     

BOOKS RECEIVED

Art Gallaher, Jr. and Harland Padfield, Eds. The Dying Community. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press (School of American Research), 1980. xiv + 305 pp.

Nancy Dorian. Language Death: The Life Cycle of a Scottish Gaelic Dialect. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981. xiv + 206 pp     

A Time to Speak

Abstract

This article explores the significance of resonance as a mode of social causality in response to William Connolly's book, Capitalism and Christianity, American Style. While applauding Connolly's identification of "affinities of spirituality" as effective in forming American politics, it suggests that the character structure of ressentiment that is encountered in right-wing Christianity and politics may be the result of instability. Examining the economic basis for growth and instability in the creation of dollars in the form of debt lacking an underlying guarantee, it suggests that this instability is felt throughout American society in everyday experiences of credit and debt.     

The President the US Needs Next?

Abstract

A New Bottom Line in American society should be the primary focus of America's next president. Institutions (including corporations and governments), social practices, and even personal actions should be judged rational, efficient and productive not only to the extent that they maximize money and power, but also to the extent that they maximize love and caring, ethical and ecological sensitivity and behavior, kindness and generosity, non-violence and peace, and to the extent that they enhance our capacities to respond to other human beings as embodiments of the sacred, and enhance our capacities to respond to the earth and the universe with awe, wonder and radical amazement at the grandeur of creation. Applying this focus to every aspect of American domestic and foreign policy would stimulate a spiritual revolution in American and global consciousness and open the possibility of global solidarity replacing chauvinist nationalism.     

Political Theology as Liberative Theology

ABSTRACT

Challenging the widespread assumption that “political theology” as a discipline began with Carl Schmitt in the 20th century, this essay explores the biblical theme of God’s preferential option for the poor and oppressed first articulated as a modern political theology by Latin American theologians, but organically and independently manifest in US black liberation theology, and First World feminist theologies. At the heart of this movement is a commitment to speak truth to power at the risk of personal loss and even martyrdom.