Trance and psychopathology

Vincent Crapanzano and Vivian Garrison, eds. Case Studies in Spirit Possession. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1977. xvi + 457pp. Figures, tables, notes, references, and index.     

Finding a Place for Possession,Divination, and Trance within the Historical Perspective

In this review article four publications from 2008–2010 are examined to assess the interplay between studies of possession, divination, and trance and historical method. The article avoids discussing the research in these works done from a purely anthropological or ethnographic stance, but focuses on the thematics of historiography. It does so by analysing the framing devices used in the predominantly historical research in the edition edited by Amar Annus and the monograph of Sarah Iles Johnston. Drawing these issues forward to the second set of texts, this article continues by looking at ways in which the seemingly a‐historical phenomena of divination, trance, and possession, can be accounted for historically. The article agrees with many of the commentators in these editions that the prevailing anxiety over the integration of history and divination and other “irregular” phenomena is generated by a narrow and sometimes ineffective scholarly mentality. This article concludes that alternative ways of making history must be considered if religious history seeks to claim an unbiased and less anxious approach to the study of phenomena that have hitherto eluded its processes.     

Irrigation and society

Wittfogel's hydraulic theory of the origin of the state has provided the subject of irrigation and society with a privileged place in archaeology; contemporary literature concerning the social consequences of irrigation development has been neglected by archaeologists. The literature suggests that irrigation technology has as much to do with bureaucratic power as with water. Bureaucratic managementand mismanagement of irrigation technology mediate the outcome of such development projects on the affected populations. This observation challenges theories that posit a linear relationship between population growth and technology. Archaeologists would benefit from applying the insights from the development literature to archaeological analyses of irrigation.     

Knowledge and society

Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann: The Social Construction of Reality, Allan Lane, The Penguin Press, London, 1967, 249 pp. S8.50. Also (1967) as Anchor Paperback $1.25.     

Culture and international society

This article investigates a hypothesis drawn from Martin Wight, that a society of states lacking a shared culture, as a result of expansion beyond its original base, will be unstable. This instability hypothesis has been influential in how the English School has presented the history of the expansion of European international society to a global scale. The article starts by offering two models of how a global international society could have come about since the late classical era: a multicultural encounter among several expanding civilizations (polycentric), or the takeover of the system by one centre (monocentric). Using these models as a backdrop, two accounts of the expansion story are developed. The Vanguardist account emphasizes the exceptionalism of European culture, posits a 500‐year period of western domination, sees multiculturalism and the decline of western power as problematic, and tends to pessimism about the future of international society. The Syncretist account emphasizes the permanence of cross‐cultural exchange, posits only a 200‐year period of western dominance, sees culture and international society as evolving together, and is not pessimistic about the stability of international society. These two models and two accounts are then used to assess the possible future of international society. The article argues that culture is less of a problem for international society than Wight, and much of the English School, suppose. The evidence for the substantial success of syncretism is strong and provides considerable stability to most of the likely outcomes. The key problem is not culture, but socio‐political structure. How can what North et al. call natural states and open access orders find shared practices and institutions that do not destabilize international society?     

Civil society,political society and politics of disorder in Cambodia

This paper questions under what conditions the social foundation necessary for the construction and sustenance of civil society are present in post-colonial social formations, and the extent to which there has been a need to develop concessionary politics to maintain a project of rule. It utilizes Partha Chatterjee's usage of Gramsci's political society to understand how Cambodia's ILO-led garment factory monitoring regime secures legitimacy not by the participation of worker citizens in the matters of the state, but by claiming to provide for their well being. I argue that the hegemonic project is fraught by virtue of the fact that consent-seeking forms of regulation, which aim to prevent strikes through trade union membership and tripartitism, have reached their limit and spilled over and into a disaggregated, messier terrain of struggles akin to political society. To develop the argument that workers' politics cannot be expressed in state-civil society relations, I present case studies of two forms of protest. The first form is distinguished by mass faintings, which I characterize as ‘visceral protest’ against the terms of workers' insertion into industrial capitalism. The second is large-scale, worker-led strikes that signal a ‘politics of social disorder’ is emerging, characterized by extra-legal, disruptive, and sometimes violent protest. The paper calls for a re-politicization of labor, and research attuned to workers' ambitions that cannot be reduced to a stable location or sphere within state-civil society relations.     

法治理念与建设和谐社会

建设和谐社会是党和人民的历史使命。法律在建设和谐社会中良性运行,需要社会主义法治理念作支撑。以人为本的理念是推进我国法治进步的内在动力。     

Elites and class in Australian society

Broom, L., Jones, F., McDonnell, P. and Williams, T., The Inheritance of Inequality. London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980, pp. 196. NP

Etzioni‐Halevy, E., Political Manipulation and Administrative Power. London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979, pp. 218. $31.50

Field, G. L. and Higley, J. Elitism. London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980, pp. 135. $24.50     

Subjective society and socially constituted selves

Westen, Drew. Self and Society: Narcissism, Collectivism, and the Development of Morals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. xvii + 438 pp. including references and index. $57.50 cloth, $19.95 paper.

White, Geoffrey M., and John Kirkpatrick, eds. Person, Self and Experience: Exploring Pacific Ethnopsychologies. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1985, vii + 433 pp. including chapter references, chapter glossaries, and index. $38.50 cloth.     

Person,role, and society

Charles C. Hughes. Eskimo Boyhood: An Autobiography in Psychosocial Perspective. Lexington, Kentucky: The University of Kentucky Press, 1974. ix + 429 pp. Illustrations and references. $12.75 (cloth).     

民族问题与构建和谐青海

世界上只要存在着民族、存在着多民族国家结构,就会存在着民族问题,这就是一般意义上的民族问题的普遍性。青海在民族构成、自然条件、社会经济、习俗文化、宗教信仰、族际关系等方面具有的特点,决定其民族问题具有一些特殊表现形式。构建和谐青海,就要重视研究和解决民族问题在其中具有的作用及其所产生的影响。     

Women in European culture and society

Summary

Historians of all kinds are beginning to return to temporally expansive studies after decades of aversion and neglect. There are even signs that intellectual historians are returning to the longue durée. What are the reasons for this revival of long-range intellectual history? And how might it be rendered methodologically robust as well as historically compelling? This article proposes a model of transtemporal history, proceeding via serial contextualism to create a history in ideas spanning centuries, even millennia: key examples come from work in progress on ideas of civil war from ancient Rome to the present. The article concludes with brief reflections on the potential impact of the digital humanities on the practice of long-range intellectual history.     

A naturalists' society and its work

EUROPE

A Geography of Europe. By Jean Gottmann. 9 1/4×6 1/4. Pp. x+699. Illustrated. New York : Henry Holt and Co. Inc., 1951. London : George G. Harrap and Co. Ltd. 30s.

The Sea Coast. By J. A. Steers. 8 1/2×6. Pp. xii+276. 52 figs. 10 colour photographs. 24 photographs in black and white. [The New Naturalist, 25.] London : William Collins, Sons and Co. Ltd, 1953. 25s.

The Scottish Economy : A Statistical Account of Scottish Life by Members of the Staff of Glasgow University. Edited by A. K. Cairncross. 9×6. Pp. xvi+320. 17 figs. [Publications of the Department of Social and Economic Research, University of Glasgow. Social and Economic Studies, 2.] Cambridge : The University Press, 1954. 30s.

The Crofting Problem. By Adam Collier. Foreword by A. K. Cairncross. 9×6. Pp. xv+191. 8 illustrations. 4 sketch maps. [Publications of the Department of Social and Economic Research, University of Glasgow. Social and Economic Studies, 1.] Cambridge: University Press, 1953. 25s.

Torridon Highlands. By Brenda G. Macrow. 8 1/2×5 1/2. Pp. xii+212. 25 illustrations. Sketch map. [The Regional Books.] London : Robert Hale Ltd, 1953. 18s.

North‐East Lowlands of Scotland. By John R. Allan. 8 1/2×5 1/2. Pp. x+262. 49 illustrations. Map. [The County Books.] London : Robert Hale Ltd, 1952. 18s.

The Lowlands of Scotland : Glasgow and the North. By Maurice Lindsay. 8 1/2×5 1/2. Pp. xviii+268. 49 illustrations. Map. [The County Books.] London : Robert Hale Ltd, 1953. 18s.

Ayrshire 1745–1950 : A Social and Industrial History of the County. By James Edward Shaw. Foreword by The Rt. Hon. Sir Charles MacAndrew, M.P. 9×5 3/4. Pp. xiii+279. ‘9 plates. [Compiled for the Ayrshire Archaeological and Natural History Society.] Edinburgh and London : Oliver and Boyd, 1953. 12s 6d.

West Durham : A Study of a Problem Area in North Eastern England. By G. H. J. Daysh, J. S. Symonds, and others. 10×6. Pp. x+198. 3 figs. 7 illustrations. 8 maps. Oxford : Basil Blackwell, 1953. 45s.

Sandy Shores in South Lancashire : The Geomorphology of South‐West Lancashire. By R. Kay Gressweix. 8 1/2×5 1/2. Pp. xii+194. 46 figs. 31 illustrations. 23 tables. [Liverpool Studies in Geography.] Liverpool : The University Press of Liverpool, 1953. 30s.

A Scientific Survey of Merseyside. Edited by Wilfred Smith, 9 1/2×7 1/4. Pp. xv+299. 62 figs. 16 plates. 2 folding maps. [Published for the British Association.] Liverpool: The University Press of Liverpool, 1953. 21s.

Green Gold and Granite : A Background to Finland. By Wendy Hall. 8 1/2×5 1/2. Pp. 190. 12 illustrations. Sketch map. London : Max Parrish and Co. Ltd, 1953. 175s 6d.

Germany: A General and Regional Geography. By Robert E. Dickinson. 9×6. Pp. xxiv+700. 121 figs. 32 illustrations. [Advanced Geographies.] London: Methuen and Co. Ltd, 1953. 50s.

Paris. By André George. 9×6 1/2. Pp.239. Heliogravures. [Les Beaux Pays.] London : Nicholas Kaye Ltd, 1952. 21s.

Another Spain. By Churton Fairman. 8 1/2×5 1/2. Pp. 202. 49 plates. London : Museum Press Ltd, 1952. 18s.

ASIA

Secret Tibet. By Fosco Maraeini. Translated from the Italian by Eric Mosbacher. Introduction by Bernard Berenson. 9 1/2×6 3/4. Pp. 251. Frontispiece. 60 plates. Sketch map. London : Hutchinson and Co. Ltd, 1952. 30s.

Seven Tears in Tibet. By Heinrich Harrer. Translated from the German by Richard Graves. Introduction by Peter Fleming. 8 1/2×5 1/2. Pp. xv+288. Frontispiece. 25 illustrations. Sketch map. London : Rupert Hart‐Davis Ltd, 1953. 16s.

AFRICA

Ethiopia and Eritrea : The Last Phase of the Reunion Struggle, 1941–1952. By E. Sylvia Pankhurst and Richard K. P. Pankhurst, B.Sc. (ECON.), Ph.d. Foreword by Lady Pethick‐Lawrence of Peaslake. 8 1/2×5 1/2. Pp. 360. 4 figs. Frontispiece. 52 plates. Woodford Green : Lalibela House, 1953. 18s.

Kalahari Sand. By Frank Debenham, O.B.E., M.A., D.Sc. 8 1/2×5 1/2. Pp. 189. 16 photographs. Sketches. 5 sketch maps. London : G. Bell and Sons Ltd, 1953. 15s.

AMERICA

Southampton Island. By J. Brian Bird. 9 3/4×6 1/2. Pp. viii+84. 19 figs. 8 plates. [Department of Mines and Technical Surveys, Geographical Branch Memoir 1.] Ottawa: Queen's Printer and Controller of Stationery, 1953. $0.50.

The Florida of the Inca. By Garcilaso de la Vega. Translated and edited by John Grier Varner and Jeannette Johnson Varner. 9 1/2×6. Pp. xlviii +656. Drawings and decorative end‐paper map, by Reese Brandt. Edinburgh : Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd, 1951. 30s.

GEODESY

Geodesy. By Brigadier G. Bomford, O.B.E., M.A.,D.Sc., F.R.I.C.S. 9 1/2×6. Pp. xiv+452. 165 figs. Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1952. 50s.

CARTOGRAPHY

Decorative Printed Maps of the 15th to 18th Centuries. A revised edition of ‘Old Decorative Maps and Charts’, by A. L. Humphreys. By R. A. Skelton, F.S.A. 12 1/2×10. Pp. vii+80. 84 plates, including 12 in colour. London : Staples Press Ltd, 1952. 73s 6d.

Maps and Their Makers : An Introduction to the History of Cartography. By G. R. Crone, M.A. 7 1/4×4 3/4. Pp. 181. 7 figs. London: Hutchinson's University Library, 1953. 8s 6d.

The Look of Maps : An Examination of Cartographic Design. By Arthur H. Robinson. 9 1/2×6. Pp. x+105. 3 figs. Madison : University of Wisconsin Press, 1952. $2.75.

GEOMORPHOLOGY

Morphological Analysis of Land Forms : A Contribution to Physical Geology. By Walther Penck. Translated by Hella Czech, Ph.D., and Katharine Cumming Boswell, B.A., M.Sc. 8 3/4×5 5/8. Pp. xiv+429. 21 figs. 12 plates. London : Macmillan and Co. Ltd, 1953. 42s.

CLIMATOLOGY

Climatology. By A. Austin Miller, D.Sc. 8 1/2×5 1/2. Pp. x+318. 82 figs. [Advanced Geographies.] London : Methuen and Co. Ltd. New York : E. P. Dutton and Co. Inc. Eighth edition, 1953. 21s.

BIOGEOGRAPHY

The Story of the Oceans. By John Scott Douglas. 8 1/2×5 1/2. Pp. 272. 15 plates. London : Frederick Muller Ltd, 1953. 15s.

Zoogeography of the Sea. By Sven Ekman. Translated from the Swedish by Elizabeth Palmer, Ph.D. 8 1/2×5 1/2. Pp. xiv+417. 121 figs. 598 references. [Text‐Books of Animal Biology.] London: Sidgwick and Jackson Ltd, 1953. 42s.

The Geography of the Flowering Plants. By Ronald Good, M.A., Sc.D. 10×6. Pp. xiv+452. 75 figs. 25 plates. London : Longmans, Green and Co. Ltd. Second edition, 1953. 50s.

Plant Life in the Scottish Highlands : Ecology and Adaptation to their Insect Visitors. By Alexander Edward Holden. 8 1/2×6 1/2. Pp. xv+319. 64 photographs by Robert M. Adam. Edinburgh : Oliver and Boyd Ltd, 1952. 30s.

La Politique des États et leur Géographie. By Jean Gottmann. 9×5 1/2. Pp. xi+228. [Collection ‘Sciences politiques.’] Paris : Librairie Armand Colin, 1952. fr. 670.

BIOGRAPHY

The Coast of Incense : Autobiography 1933–1939. By Freya Stark. 8 3/4×5 5/8. Pp. xiii+287. 51 illustrations. Sketch map by H. W. Hawes. Wood engravings by Reynolds Stone. London : John Murray Ltd, 1953. 25s.

Arabian Adventurer : The Story of Haji Williamson. By Stanton Hope (W. E. Stanton‐Hope, F.R.G.S.). Foreword by A. H. T. Chisholm, C.B.E. 8 1/2×5 1/2. Pp. 335. 23 illustrations. London : Robert Hale Ltd, 1951. 16s.

Francis Younghusband : Explorer and Mystic. By George Seaver, LITT.D. 8 1/2×5 1/2. Pp. xi+391. 13 illustrations. 4 sketch maps by Charmian Longstaff. London: John Murray Ltd, 1952. 25s.

EDUCATIONAL

The Skin of the Earth. By A. Austin Miller, D.Sc. 8 1/2×5 1/2. Pp. ix+198. 67 figs. [Advanced Geographies.] London : Methuen and Co. Ltd, 1953. 21s.

Teach Yourself Archeology. By S. Graham Brade‐Birks. 7×4 1/4. Pp. xii+220. Frontispiece. 120 figs. [The Teach Yourself Books.] London: The English Universities Press, Ltd, 1953. 6s.

Colliery Surveying. By R. McAdam. 8 3/4×5. Pp. vii+146. 81 figs. Edinburgh and London : Oliver and Boyd Ltd, 1953. 12s 6d.

GENERAL

Geography in the Twentieth Century : A Study of Growth, Fields, Techniques, Aims and Trends. Edited by Griffith Taylor. 8 1/2×5 1/2. Pp. xii+661. 57 figs. 15 plates. New York : Philosophical Library Inc. London : Methuen and Co. Ltd. Second edition, 1953. 35s.

Le Razzf e i Popoli della Terra. By Renato Biasutti. 10 1/4×7 1/2. Vol. I. Razze, Popoli e Culture. Collaborators : M. Bartoli, R. Battaglia, R. Corso, G. Genna, P. Graziosi, S. Sergi, C. Tagliavani, G. Vidossi. Pp. xii+723. Frontispiece. 495 figs. 16 colour plates. Vol. II. Europa—Asia. Collaborators: R. Corso, R. Battaglia, M. Muccioli. Pp. 656. 565 figs. 6 colour plates. Torino : Unione Tipografico‐Editrice Torinese. Vol. I. Second edition, 1953. L 7200. Vol. II. Second edition, 1954. L 6500.

American Geography : Inventory and Prospect. Edited by Preston E. James and Clarence F. Jones. 9×6. Pp. xii+590. 33 figs. [Published for the Association of American Geographers.] Syracuse, N.Y. : Syracuse University Press, 1954. $6.

Our World from the Air: An International Survey of Man and his Environment. By E. A. Gutkind. Foreword by G. P. Gooch, C.H. Introduction by Professor E. G. R. Taylor, 11 1/2×10 3/4. Pp. 256. 400 photographs. London: Chatto and Windus, 1952. 63s.

The Geography of Towns. By Arthur E. Smailes. 7 1/2×4 3/4. Pp. 166. 22 figs. London : Hutchinson's University Library 1953. 8s 6d.

Mountains with a Difference. By Geoffrey Winthrop Young. 8 1/2×5 1/2. Pp. ix+282. 14 illustrations. [The New Alpine Library.] Eyre and Spottiswoode Ltd, 1951. 18s.

ATLASES

Weltatlas : Die Staaten der Erde und ihre Wirtschaft. Edited by Edgar Lehmann. 9 1/2×13. Pp. viii+97 (coloured maps)+63 (gazetteer). Leipzig : VEB Bibliographisches Institut, 1952.

Atlas of the World's Resources. [University of Maryland.] 12 1/2×151/2. Vol. II. The Mineral Resources of the World. By William Van Royen, Oliver Bowles, and Elmer W. Pehrson. Pp. ix+181. 186 figs. New York : Prentice‐Hall Inc., 1952. London : Constable and Co. Ltd, 1953. 70s.     

Religion,society, and culture

Morris, Brian. Anthropological Studies of Religion: An Introductory Text. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. ix + 369 pp. including chapter notes and references, selected bibliography, and index. $42.50 cloth, $12.95 paper.

Webster, Graham. Celtic Religion in Roman Britain. Totowa: Barnes & Noble, 1987. 205 pp. including chapter notes and references, photographs and illustrations, abbreviations, classical sources, selected bibliography, and index. $30.00 cloth.

Weller, Robert P. Unities and Diversities in Chinese Religion. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1987. viii + 215 pp. including appendices, notes, references, and index. $22.50 cloth.     

Sport and society in Italy today

Summary

In ‘Itinerary’ Patrick McCarthy provides an introduction to the four articles that examine the connections between sport, politics, business and contemporary culture in Italy. Noting that mass participation in sport has been closely related to modernization, McCarthy argues that the forms of contemporary mass sport reflect the particular cultural, political and economic conditions of each European society. In Italy these made soccer and cycling the most popular mass sports by 1945.

Patrizia Dogliani’s article ‘Sport and Fascism’ examines the development of mass sport in Italy from the late nineteenth century, showing the critical role played by the Fascist regime, which rapidly expanded public sports facilities while the language of politics and combat permeated the vocabulary of sport in Italy in the 1920s and 1930s. Initially the emphasis was on international competition as a symbol of national virility, but following the success of Germany and the USA in the 1936 Olympics the regime’s search for consensus placed new emphasis on recreational aspects. The institutional and administrative organization of sport established in the 1930s remained in place in Italy, however, until more recendy.

In ‘Itinerary 2’ McCarthy examines the roles of the boxer Carnera from Friuli and the racing driver Tazio Nuvolari as sporting heroes of Mussolini’s Italy and in ‘Itinerary 3’ shows how the struggles between Catholic Italy and Communist Italy were personified in the rivalry between the cyclists Gino Bartali and Fausto Coppi in the post-war period.

In ‘Itinerary 4’ he asks why soccer had by the 1970s overtaken cycling as Italy’s most popular sport. That theme is examined in greater detail by Nicola Porro and Pippa Russo, whose article reconstructs the ‘hybridization of sport, mass media and politics’ in Italy in the 1990s. Its central focus is Silvio Berlusconi, the self-made media tycoon who founded Fininvest in the 1970s, acquired AC Milan in 1986, and by 1994 controlled a media empire that enabled him to found a new political party (Forza Italia) and become Italy’s Prime Minister albeit for less than a year. Porro and Russo examine the ways in which Berlusconi’s roles in the world of the media and professional soccer have changed both Italian politics and Italian sport.

In ‘Itinerary 5’ McCarthy sets the example of Berlusconi in the context of the integration of soccer and mass media, the commercialization and politicization of sport at a global level in the last decade. These issues are developed in greater detail in Emanuela Poli’s article, ‘The revolution in the televised soccer market’, which emphasizes the critical role that has been played by soccer and soccer clubs in the development of the new media empires based on digital pay-per-view TV and the sale of sporting events in the 1990s. This has left control of the sport (in terms of who can watch and when) in the hands of major international communications moguls like Berlusconi and Rupert Murdoch.

‘Itinerary 6’ links the fragmentation of collective myths like the national soccer championships to the decline of the nation state, and surveys the situation of other sports in Italy (the Americas Cup, skiing, rugby football. Formula 1 motor racing and the gymnasium). The latter is the subject of the final article by Roberta Sassatelli on ‘The commercialization of discipline: keep-fit culture and its values’ which explores the social and cultural meanings attached to the growing vogue for fitness clubs and the shaping of the ideal body in contemporary Italy.