Australian Anthropologists and Political Action 1925–19601

Gray, Geoffrey 2007. A Cautious Silence: the politics of Australian anthropology. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press. Pp: ix + 293. AUD $39.95 paper.     

The Baha'i Faith: Distribution Statistics, 1925–1949

A survey of Baha'i global distribution statistics from the time of their first appearance in 1925 up to 1949. No official data for actual Baha'i populations was published at that time, and we have to rely on lists of local Baha'i councils (“spiritual assemblies”) and of places where Baha'is resided to get some sense of Baha'i distribution dynamics. Even this limited data enable us to describe a pattern of overall growth, from a presence in twenty‐nine countries and territories in 1925 to ninety‐two in 1949, from at least 573 localities worldwide in which Baha'is resided in 1928 to 2,315 by 1949, and 102 local spiritual assemblies in 1928 to 595 in 1949. Regional differences in distribution are discussed. The data shows a significant increase in distribution during this period but there is no evidence for any major corresponding increase in Baha'i numbers, such as began to occur from the mid‐1950s onwards.     

International Affairs and ‘the nuclear age’, 1946–2013

The article reflects on the distinguished record of publication, in around 130 articles over nearly seventy years, on nuclear politics in International Affairs. Although constituting a small drop in the torrent of writings on nuclear matters since 1945, it can fairly be regarded as the most significant contribution to nuclear discourse by any journal outside the United States. The articles published in International Affairs have covered a wide range of issues including nuclear deterrence and strategy, arms control, non‐proliferation and disarmament, and the policies—and drivers of policy—of countries, in particular the UK and US. Authors have included P. M. S. Blackett, Wyn Bowen, Alastair Buchan, Hedley Bull, Pierre Hassner, Michael Howard, Rebecca Johnson, Michael MccGwire, Michael Quinlan, Nick Ritchie, John Simpson and David Yost. The discussion concludes with Ian Smart's article of 1975 in which he contemplates the nature of the ‘nuclear age’ and its persistence or passing, and comments on governments’ ‘fatuous’ attachment of prestige value to nuclear weapons.     

Red Vienna and municipal socialism in Tel Aviv 1925–1928

Urban development and the formation of urban social landscapes are not simply the outcome of market forces and localised political decisions. Social ideologies constituted major factors in city development and the formation of urban society in both Vienna and Tel-Aviv. The model of municipal socialism practiced in Vienna, based on an egalitarian, progressive, allocation of municipal services, left a deep impression in Vienna's urban landscape. The duplication of this model in Tel-Aviv of the 1920s resulted from an attempt at viewing the city in Palestine as being part of the formation of the pioneering settlement map. The application of the model to Tel-Aviv was not overtly successful, partly because of the lack of support shown by the Mandate Administration and legal system for Palestine's workers, and partly because of the weakness of the worker's urban movement.