Managing,Valuing, and Protecting Heritage Resources in the Twenty-First Century: Peatland Archaeology,the Ecosystem Services Framework,and the Kyoto Protocol

Abstract

This paper argues that the development of the Ecosystem Services framework, which has recently emerged as an internationally recognized framework for valuing ‘the ‘natural capital’ of ecosystems, presents a number of opportunities for heritage management and the archaeological record, arguing that the inclusion of archaeological and palaeoenvironmental ‘value’ within this framework presents an opportunity to incorporate heritage alongside a range of other critical ‘services’. It presents a short case study focusing on the problems facing the preservation of peatland archaeological sites and deposits in situ alongside developments within peatland conservation and restoration initiatives partly driven by the ability of healthy, functioning peatlands to sequester carbon and hence mitigate climate change. It is argued that this drive towards peatland re-wetting may bring both positive benefits and opportunities for heritage management but also presents a number of practical issues, which now require active engagement from the archaeological community.     

Now You See It: Now You Don't! Issues of Secularity and Secularisation in Publicly Funded Elementary Schools in the Australian Colonies during the Middle Third of the Nineteenth Century

This article opens and ends with reference to two interlinked studies: Charles Taylor's 2007 A Secular Age, and his 2011 Dilemmas and Connections: Selected Essays. These are often magnificent but sometimes flawed works. This article aims to explore the implications and ramifications of Taylor's failure to discuss, in either study, nineteenth‐century provision for secular instruction by government elementary schools in Ireland, Great Britain, and the Australian colonies. What these did or did not mean should have been grist to Taylor's mill, especially since, in these places (and other English‐speaking countries, such as the United States, Canada, and New Zealand) “secular instruction” provisions soon attracted energetic imputations of infidelity and atheism, as well as support. “Secular Instruction” Acts in two Australian colonies (Victoria in 1872, South Australia in 1851 and 1875) are here considered in detail, for these, especially the Victorian, were interpreted by some then and more recently as emphatically secular (in the sense of “Godless”). My argument is that this emphatic secularity, for emphatic it often was, mostly should not be read as “Godless” but as an often Protestant‐inflected statutory expression — of the kind usefully defined — by reference to an ideal type — as “Civic Protestantism.”     

Dabringhaus,Sabine,Geschichte Chinas im 20. Jahrhundert(History of China in the Twentieth Century)

The book under review here,which is a continuation of Sabine Dabringhaus's last book,Geschichte Chinas:1279-1949 (History of China:1279-i949,Munich:Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag,2009),does not aim to simply describe modern China nor to provide a simple list of historical events,rather,it aims to provide an understanding of China in the twentieth century.Dabringhaus ingeniously incorporates this "huge challenge" within a framework that distinguishes ten "distinctive periods" within the time span of the book,and addresses "aspects of continuity," including "the connection of the Chinese system of government to the ideological beliefs of China,its dominating leadership of political elites,and its nationwide bureaucratic control" (p.9).