Dien Bien Phu—fifty years on

Although 2004 marks the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and the end of France's colonial presence in Indochina, the war seems to have little resonance for the majority in today's France. Official commemorations of the anniversary, though muted in France, mythologise the battle as epic and legendary: the epitome of military honour and heroism. Veterans' memories, however, are evoked in terms of betrayal, abandonment and humiliation. What little debate exists over the war has stalled over the issue of whether the war would have been lost had its opponents not sought to scupper the French effort in Indochina.     

Metis,missionaries and mediaries: One hundred years of Indian‐white relationships

Castile, George Pierre. The Indians of Puget Sound: The Notebooks of Myron Eells. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1986. xix + 470 pp. including illustrations, bibliography, notes, and index. $40.00 cloth.

Peterson, Jacqueline, and Jennifer S. H. Brown, eds. The New Peoples: Being and Becoming Metis in North America. Manitoba Studies in Native History I. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1985. xxii + 266 pp. including illustrations and index. $22.50 cloth.

Iverson, Peter, ed. The Plains Indians of the Twentieth Century. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985. ix + 277 pp. including illustrations, maps, and index. $21.95 cloth, $9.95 paper.

Driben, Paul. We Are Metis: The Ethnography of a Halfbreed Community in Northern Alberta. Immigrant Communities and Ethnic Minorities in the United States and Canada, 2. New York: AMS Press, 1985. xi + 176 pp. including bibliography and index. $32.50 cloth.     

Georges Duby’s Mâconnais after fifty years: reading it then and now

Georges Duby’s La société aux XIe et XIIe siècles dans la région mâconnaise was the foundation stone of the major school of French medieval social history in the last generation. This article reflects on the reasons for its historiographical importance at the time, and especially the narrative of the ‘feudal revolution’ that it is largely responsible for generating. Returning to Duby’s database, the charters of Cluny and of St Vincent of Mâcon, it reconsiders Duby’s portrayal of tenth century society in the Mâconnais and concludes that there is no basis in that evidence for any ‘mutation’ or ‘revolutionary’ social change occurring around the year 1000.     

Biscay and Beyond? Prehistoric Voyaging between Two Finisterres

The Atlantic peninsulas of western Europe present intriguing cultural parallels that reach back into later prehistory. Furthermore, direct evidence of interconnections from the fifth millennium BC is revealed by the movement of specific materials such as Iberian variscite. Brittany and Galicia were key nodes within this potential network of maritime interaction, but debate continues as to the routes that were chosen and the navigational abilities involved. Did early seafarers keep close to the coast and did long journeys involve many intermediate landfalls? Or did crews venture direct crossings of the Bay of Biscay? In the absence of surviving evidence for the kinds of vessel likely to have been used by Neolithic seaborne navigators, modern wind and current data are here used to generate models indicating journey times for small sea‐going craft powered only by oars, following the coastal or the direct route. The results are discussed within the context of selected material flows (jadeitite, variscite, copper, Beakers) and against a background of potentially changing maritime technology.     

Concepts of illness and disease: Two‐way communication

Helman, Cecil. Culture, Health and Illness: An Introduction for Health Professionals. Bristol, London, Boston: Wright‐PSG, 1984. xi + 242 pp. including figures, appendix, references, index. $33.00 cloth, $16.50 paper.

Hudson, Robert P. Disease and Its Control: The Shaping of Modern Thought. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1983. xvii + 259 pp. including abbreviations of journals, appendix, bibliographic notes, index. $29.95 cloth.     

Two notaries and their records in England, 1282–1307

Evidence concerning notaries public in England before 1300 has been limited to indirect contemporary references, some scattered original public instruments, and several truncated copies and summaries of their documents (in episcopal registers, for instance). Even with inferences based upon the foregoing — and John of Bologna's guidebook for fledgling English notaries — since none of their notebooks, registers or rough drafts have survived, next to nothing is known about their practical documentary methodologies and daily routines (certainly in comparison with the continental notariate). However, during 1307 a papal commission sitting in London examined and recorded some of the papers and registers belonging to two notaries who had lived and worked in England from at least 1280 to about 1300: John de Beccles and Hildebrand of Siena. The record of that examination, Vatican MS. Cod. Lat. 4016, provides the earliest detailed look at the thirteenth-century notariate in England that has yet come to light.     

Silk and Propaganda — Two Ottoman Silk Flags and the Relief of Vienna, 1683

This article focuses on two Ottoman silk flags and discusses not only their original contexts of production but also traces their biographies until their reception as booty items and their further use after the Siege of Vienna in 1683. Banners and standards were symbolically charged signs used for military organisation. The higher the rank of a flag, the more coveted it was as booty. It was not so much their material value, which was in fact negligible, but rather their symbolic worth that made them so desirable. In their new context in the hands of the enemy they could be used for propaganda purposes, as indeed they were during and after the second siege of Vienna in 1683. This article investigates the trajectories of two flags captured at the siege and a year after its end and explores the intentions behind their use for propaganda purposes. It thus attempts to untangle the political rivalries, imperial vanities and cultural misunderstandings underlying their complex biographies.     

Australian geography: The next 10 years (and beyond)?

Geography: Shaping Australia's Future (2018) provides a ‘strategic plan’ for geography aligned with the national research priorities, as well other key areas where Australian geographers are addressing environmental and societal challenges. To provide context, we first describe the state of geography in Australian universities. We then articulate ways forward for strengthening Australian geography—both within the discipline and how we interact externally. We describe how geography may better contribute to policy agendas, capitalising on our unique perspectives of space, place and the environment, but also highlight how we might improve these contributions through a more unified approach across human and physical geography. Third, we discuss opportunities for geographers to build the reputation of the discipline and ways to advocate for its importance in the wider academy, school curricula and community. We conclude with some preliminary suggestions on how Australian geographers may better engage and contribute to the United Nations Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.     

Widespread diffusion of technical innovations around 300,000 years ago in Europe as a reflection of anthropological and social transformations? New comparative data from the western Mediterranean sites of Orgnac (France) and Cave dall’Olio (Italy)

During MIS (Marine Isotope Stage) 9 and the transition to MIS 8 – around 350–300,000 years ago – some lithic assemblages in Europe reflect marked transformations in technical behavior. These transformations involved the standardization of products and the development of diversified and elaborated débitage methods which are considered to be markers of the transition from the Lower to the Middle Palaeolithic i.e. from Mode 2 to Mode 3. Taking the analysis of the sites of Orgnac 3 (Ardèche, France) and Cave dall’Olio (Emilia Romagna, Italy) as a starting point, this paper discusses the variability of these assemblages in Southern Europe as well as the social and anthropological implications of the emergence of new technical behavior. It also aims to show that common features existed both in Northern and Southern Europe. The development of more complex technical systems on a progressively wider territory and at an increasingly earlier age argues in favor of the hypothesis of a close connection with the process of “Neanderthalisation”, possibly accompanied by the transmission of ideas through extensive social networks.     

A Tale of Two Train Journeys: Lawrence Bragg,C. P. Snow and The ‘Two Cultures’

It was during two train-journey meetings with the physicist William Lawrence Bragg (1890–1971) that both Charles Percy Snow's (1905–1980) civil service career and, if the anecdotal evidence is to be believed, the ‘two cultures’ metaphor originated. The first part of this paper is concerned with the background, consequences and significance of the first of these journeys: Kettering station in 1939. It will address the somewhat hazy record of Snow's wartime work found in existing accounts, and argue that Snow's wartime experience helped shape his characterisation of the scientific side of his ‘two cultures’. The second part of this paper deals with Bragg's intellectual influence on Snow, tracing the former's interest in ‘two cultures’ arguments prior to probable encounters between the two on the Cambridge to London train in the late 1940s and early 1950s, including a historically hazy one in which together they allegedly coined the famous phrase. In examining their early relationship, it becomes clear that Bragg was a key influence and support in Snow's career as an administrator and as a cultural commentator.     

A Tale of Two Poll Books – Wareham 1702 and Dorchester 1705

The politics of Queen Anne's reign are characterised as the rage of party; Whigs and Tories contended over religion, the constitution and the succession, and foreign policy. This struggle was taken to the electorate in five elections during Anne's reign, and these raise a question concerning electors’ motivations, the answer to which remains elusive: were they acting according to principle, or reflecting the electoral interests to which they were subject? This article analyses the two surviving poll books for Dorset elections in the age of Anne, those at Wareham in 1702 and at Dorchester in 1705. It focuses principally on the voting behaviour of those engaged in the towns’ governance structures: corporation members, councils of freemen and local parishes. However, it also considers the behaviour of other categories of voter: politicians, the clergy and non-conformists. The analysis shows how electoral interest was mediated through the towns’ governing institutions and suggests that (at least in these two cases) negotiation between the parties had a greater role in the outcome than has sometimes been suggested. It also demonstrates the limits of the electoral influence of the boroughs’ elites: significant numbers of voters were simply not prepared to be led.