The Polygamy Question: Missions,Marriage, and Assimilation

Polygamy was a vexed question for missionaries in the Northern Territory of Australia. In the mid twentieth century, Christian missions of various denominations worked with the Australian Commonwealth Government to achieve a policy of assimilating Aboriginal people into white Australian culture. Yet there was little consensus as to how this assimilation policy could or should be applied to Aboriginal marriages. This article demonstrates that the issue of polygamy exposed divisions between church and state as well as among Christian denominations over their understandings of marriage. These differences stemmed from differing spiritual visions of assimilation in Australia. The conflicts over marriage in the Northern Territory, therefore, reveal that assimilation, and settler‐colonialism more broadly, operated on a religious plane as Aboriginal people, missionaries, and bureaucrats engaged in a spiritual contest over what represented a legitimate and acceptable marriage in that land.     

Montaigne,Tocqueville, and the Politics of Skepticism

Abstract

Shakespeare shows how enforceable contract not only undergirds the city of Venice, which makes a multicultural society possible, but its corrosive effects on non-contractual relationships like friendship, love, and marriage. This is evident in the decisions, actions, and relationships of Antonio, Bassanio, Portia, and Jessica. Although Shakespeare concludes the play on a happy note, the conclusion one can reach is that, despite its advantages, regimes based on commerce and contract fail to create the conditions for friendship, love, and marriage to flourish.     

The American Constitutional Order: History,Cases, and Philosophy

Abstract

Williams, Bernard Shame and Necessity Berkeley, CA: University of California Press 254 pp., $25.00, ISBN 0520-080467 Publication Date: 1993

Goldfarb, Jeffrey C. The Cynical Society: The Culture of Politics and the Politics of Culture in American Life Chicago: University of Chicago Press 200 pp., $22.50, ISBN 0-226-30106-0 Publication Date: 1991

Blanchard, Margaret A. Revolutionary Sparks: Freedom of Expression in Modern America New York: Oxford University Press 572 pp., $49.95, ISBN 0-19-505436-9 Publication Date: February 1992

Kaplan, Marshall and Sue O'Brien The Governors and the New Federalism Boulder, CO: Westview 136 pp., $18.95 paper, ISBN 0-8123-8371-4 Publication Date: June 1991

Keith, Bruce E., David B. Magleby, Candice J. Nelson, Elizabeth Orr, Mark C. Westlye, Raymond E. Wolfinger The Myth of the Independent Voter Berkeley, CA: University of California Press 224 pp., ISBN 0-520-03688-3 Publication Date: 1992

Kreml, William P. Losing Balance: The De-Democratization of America Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe 188 pp., $29.95 cloth, ISBN 0-87332-846-9 Publication Date: October 1991

Silbey, Joel H. The American Political Nation, 1838-1893 Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press 348 pp., $35.00, ISBN 0-8047-1878-4 Publication Date: November 1991

Bickers, Kenneth N. and Robert M. Stein Federal Domestic Outlays, 1983-1990: A Data Book Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe 308 pp., $45.00, ISBN: 0-87332-840-X Publication Date: November 1991

Duncan, Phil, ed. Congressional Quarterly's Politics in America 1992: The 102nd Congress Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press 1704 pp., $69.95, ISBN 0-87187-599-3 Publication Date: 1991

Kaufman-Osborn, Timothy V. Politics/Sense/Experience: A Pragmatic Inquiry into the Promise of Democracy Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 327 pp., $21.95, ISBN: 0-8014-2504-2 Publication Date: September 1991

Fishkin, James S. Democracy and Deliberation: New Directions for Democratic Reform New Haven, CT: Yale University Press 133 pp., $17.95, ISBN 0-300-05161-1 Publication Date: February 1992

Crotty, William, ed. Political Participation and American Democracy Westport, CT: Greenwood 248 pp., $47.50, ISBN 0-313-27652-8 Publication Date: October 1991

Hess, Stephen Live from Capitol Hill: Studies of Congress and the Media Washington, DC: Brookings Institution 178 pp., $8.95, ISBN 0-8157-3627-4 Publication Date: 1991

Light, Paul C. The President's Agenda: Domestic Policy Choice from Kennedy to Reagan. Revised Ed. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press 290 pp., $12.95, ISBN 0-8018-4279-4 Publication Date: October 1991

Maveety, Nancy Representation Rights and the Burger Years Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press 257 pp., $34.50, ISBN 0-472-10227-3 Publication Date: 1991

Alexander, Herbert E. and Monica Bauer Financing the 1988 Election Boulder, CO: Westview 160 pp., $49.95, ISBN 0-8133-8268-8 Publication Date: July 1991

Rimmerman, Craig A. Presidency by Plebiscite: The Reagan-Bush Era in Institutional Perspective Boulder, CO: Westview 164 pp., $45.00, ISBN 0-8133-8333-1 Publication Date: March 1993

Best, Gary Dean Pride, Prejudice, and Politics: Roosevelt versus Recovery, 1833-1938 New York: Praeger 288 pp., $45.00, ISBN 0-275-93524-8 Publication Date: November 1990

Pacelle, Richard L., Jr. The Transformation of the Supreme Court's Agenda: From the New Deal to the Reagan Administration Boulder, CO: Westview 264 pp., $39.95, ISBN 0-8133-8376-5 Publication Date: December 1991

Wildavsky, Aaron The Beleaguered Presidency New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction 358 pp., $27.50, ISBN 0-88738-401-3 Publication Date: 1991

Robinson, Armstead L. and Patricia Sullivan, eds. New Directions in Civil Rights Studies Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia 238 pp., ISBN 0-8139-1319-5 Publication Date: 1991

Taylor, Bron Raymond Affirmative Action at Work: Law, Politics, and Ethics Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press 254 pp., $14.95, ISBN 0-8229-5453-2 Publication Date: October 1991

Holstein, William J. The Japanese Power Game: What It Means for America New York: Charles Scribner's Sons 339 pp., $22.95, ISBN 0-684-19176-8 Publication Date: 1990

Wolf, Charles, Jr. Linking Economic Policy and Foreign Policy New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction 219 pp., $29.95, ISBN 0-88738-399-8 Publication Date: August 1991

Brady, Linda P. The Politics of Negotiation: America's Dealings with Allies, Adversaries, and Friends Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press 269 pp., $32.50, ISBN 0-8078-1971-9 Publication Date: October 1991

Steiner, Barry H. Bernard Brodie and the Foundations of American Nuclear Strategy Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas 367 pp., $40.00, ISBN 0-7006-0441-3 Publication Date: July 1991

Pach, Chester J., Jr. Arming the Free World: The Origins of the United States Military Assistance Program, 1945-1950 Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press 322 pp., $34.95, ISBN 0-8078-1943-3 Publication Date: March 1991

Saul, Norman E. Distant Friends: The United States &; Russia, 1763-1867 Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas 400 pp., $40.00, ISBN 0-7006-0438-3 Publication Date: April 1991

Pike, Fredrick B. The United States and Latin America: Myths and Stereotypes of Civilization and Nature Austin, TX: University of Texas Press 442 pp., $40.00 cloth, $19.95 paper, ISBN 0-292-78523-2 cloth, ISBN 0-292-78524-0 paper Publication Date: September 1992

Escalona, Roberto Luque The Tiger and the Children: Fidel Castro and the Judgment of History Washington, DC: Freedom House 212 pp., $14.95 paper. ISBN 1-56000-593-9 Publication Date: May 1992

Levine, Daniel H. Popular Voices in Latin American Catholicism Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 403 pp., $18.95, ISBN 0-691-02459-6 Publication Date: July 1992

Johns, Sheridan and Richard Hunt Davis, Jr., eds. Mandela, Tambo, and the African National Congress New York: Oxford University Press 353 pp., $35.00 cloth, $13.95 paper, ISBN 0-19-505783-X cloth, ISBN 0-19-505784-8 paper Publication Date: March 1991

Kortepeter, C. Max, ed. Oil and the Economic Geography of the Middle East and North Africa: Studies by Alexander Melamid Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press 320 pp., $24.95, ISBN 0-87850-075-8 Publication Date: May 1991

Ismael, Tareq Y. and Jacqueline S. Ismael, eds. Politics and Government in the Middle East and North Africa Miami, FL: Florida International University Press 570 pp., $39.95 cloth, $19.95 paper, ISBN 0-8130-1043-4 cloth, ISBN 0-8130-106204 paper Publication Date: July 1991

Gupte, Pranay Mother India: A Political Biography of Indira Gandhi New York: Charles Scribner's Sons 593 pp., $30.00, ISBN 0-684-19296-9 Publication Date: April 1992

Harbeson, John W. and Donald Rothchild, eds. Africa in World Politics Boulder, CO: Westview 341 pp., $57.50 cloth, $19.95 paper, ISBN 0-8133-0972-7 cloth, ISBN 0-8133-0973-5 paper Publication Date: October 1991

Frost, Gerald, ed. Europe in Turmoil: The Struggle for Pluralism. European Defence and Strategic Studies Annual, 1990-91 Westport, CT: Praeger 384 pp., $59.95, ISBN 0-275-94129-9 Publication Date: September 1991

Stares, Paul B. Command Performance: The Neglected Dimension of European Security Washington, DC: Brookings Institution 240 pp., ISBN 0-8157-8111-3 Publication Date: 1991

Móller, Bj$oSrn Common Security and Nonoffensive Defense: A Neorealist Perspective Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner 285 pp., ISBN 1-85728-008-3 Publication Date: 1992

Inkeles, Alex, ed. On Measuring Democracy: Its Consequences and Concomitants New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction 234 pp., $19.95, ISBN 0-88738-881-7 Publication Date: August 1991

Drache, Daniel, ed. Getting on Track: Social Democratic Strategies for Ontario Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press 237 pp., $44.95, ISBN 0-7735-0895-3 Publication Date: February 1992

Lord, Carnes and David O'Connor, eds. Essays on the Foundations of Aristotelian Political Science Berkeley, CA: University of California 255 pp., $45.00, ISBN 0-520-06711-8 Publication Date: August 1991

Wolfson, Robert J. A Formal Lexicon for the Social Sciences Gainesville, FL: Florida Atlantic University Press 159 pp., $29.95, ISBN 0-8130-0978-2 Publication Date: December 1990

Hunt, Robert P. and Kenneth L. Grasso, eds. John Courtney Murray and the American Civil Conversation Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 298 pp., $21.99, ISBN 0-8028-05388 Publication Date: 1992

Grey, Thomas C. The Wallace Stevens Case: Law and the Practice of Poetry Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 155 pp., $24.95, ISBN 0-674-94577-8 Publication Date: August 1991

Baker, C. Edwin Human Liberty and Freedom of Speech New York: Oxford University Press 385 pp., $39.95, ISBN 0-19-505777-5 Publication Date: 1989

Sheldon, Garrett Ward The Political Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press 174 pp., $28.00, ISBN 0-8018-4142-9 Publication Date: July 1991

Post, Robert, ed. Law and the Order of Culture Berkeley, CA: University of California Press 202 pp., $9.95, ISBN 0-520-07337-1 Publication Date: 1991

Walsh, David After Ideology: Recovering the Spiritual Foundations of Freedom Scranton, PA: HarperCollins 296 pp., $29.95. ISBN 0-06-069263-4 Publication Date: 1990

The following correspondence was written in response to Marshall L. DeRosa's article, “The Second Amendment and American Federalism: A View from the States,” published in the Spring 1993 (vol. 22, no. 2) issue of Perspectives on Political Science.     

Once More,The German Question

THOMAS NIPPERDEY. Deutsche Geschichte 1800–1866: Bürgerwelt und Starker Stoat, 3rd. rev. ed. Munich: C.H. Beck, 1985. Pp. 838; HEINRICH LUTZ. Zwischen Habsburg und Preussen: Das Ringen um die Vormacht in Deutschland 1815–1866. Berlin: Siedler, 1985. Pp. 528; H.W. KOCH. A Constitutional History of Germany in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. London and New York: Longman, 1984. Pp. xv, 400. $17.95 (US); WOLF D. GRUNER. Die deutsche Frage: Ein Problem der europäischen Geschichte seit 1800. Munich: C.H. Beck, 1985. Pp. 217. DM 19.80.     

Between Napoleon and Tsar Alexander: The Polish Question at Tilsit, 1807

Abstract

The defeat of Prussia by Napoleon in 1806 and the resulting insurrection in Prussian Poland re-opened the complex ‘Polish Question’. The former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had been wiped off the map only eleven years earlier. The large size and the civic traditions of the Polish ‘political nation’ meant that the three partitioning powers (Austria, Prussia, Russia) were bound to be alarmed by the developments in Prussian Poland. Napoleon’s attitude to the Poles was cautious, but, as the campaign against Russia (Prussia’s new ally) continued into 1807, he authorized the creation of a Polish army and of a quasi-government in Warsaw. The article examines the negotiations over the future of Prussia’s Polish lands held between Napoleon and Tsar Alexander I at Tilsit in June–July 1807. Hard geopolitical considerations influenced the negotiations which eventually produced a compromise solution in the form of a so-called ‘Duchy of Warsaw’ under the King of Saxony. Although the Poles had no direct influence on the negotiations, the Polish military effort on the side of France was an important factor in the outcome of the settlement. The Russians remained deeply wary of the new duchy, especially after its enlargement in 1809. With the collapse of the Napoleonic Empire in 1814–15, Tsar Alexander acquired most of the duchy which was to survive for many years under Russian rule as the so-called ‘Congress’ Kingdom of Poland.     

The Urban Order: An Introduction to Cities, Culture, and Power

Book reviewed in this article:
The Golden Age Illusion: Rethinking Postwar Capitalism by MICHAEL J. WEBBER and DAVID L. RIGBY, Guilford Press, New York and London
Climate Change 1995 - The Science of Climate Change: Contribution of Working Group I to the Second Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change edited by J.T. HOUGHTON, L.G. MEIRA FILHO, B.A. CALLANDER, N. HARRIS, A. KATTENBERG, and K. MASKELL, Cambridge University Press,
Climate Change 1995 - Impacts, Adaptations and Mitigation of Climate Change: Scientific-Technical Analyses: Contribution of Working Group II to the Second Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change edited by R.T. WATSON, M.C. ZINYOWERA, and R.H. MOSS
Climate Change 1995 - Economic and Social Dimensions of Climate Change: Contribution of Working Group III to the Second Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change edited by J.P. BRUCE, H. LEE, and E.F. HAITES
'As Their Natural Resources Fail': Native Peoples and the Economic History of Northern Manitoba, 1870–1930 by FRANK TOUGH, UBC Press, Vancouver
Atlas historique du Québec: le pays laurentien au XIX^e siècle - les morphologies de base par SERGE COURVILLE, JEAN-CLAUDE ROBERT et NORMAND SÉGUIN
Gender, Work, and Space by SUSAN HANSON and GERALDINE PRATT, Routledge, London and New York, 1995
The Countryside Ideal: Anglo-American Images of Landscape by Michael Bunce, Routledge, London and New York, 1994     

The Modern State,the Question of Genocide,and Holocaust Scholarship

This review article asks: what defines mass violence in the twentieth century as particularly modern and how does the Holocaust figure in this history? The article compares the work of two path-breaking historians—Mark Levene and Timothy Snyder—while also discussing recent research by other scholars. It argues that the emergence of nation-states, together with technology and scientific knowledge to alter the environment, created the conditions for distinctly modern violence aiming to destroy diversity in societies and the environment. The article examines the relation between genocide, including the Holocaust, and the rise of twentieth-century nation-states. It follows the persistent idea that the Holocaust is unique in a way that establishes a hierarchy of Holocaust/genocide/other mass violence. As Levene argues, the contextualization of the complex set of events and processes called the Holocaust within the violent history of ethno-national and ethno-religious “homogenization” of nation-states challenges this framework. The article then turns to Snyder’s argument that, since Hitler’s worldview of racial struggle over land and food rejected agricultural science, genetic engineering in agriculture is one way to heed the Holocaust’s warning. A discussion of the devastating impact of genetic engineering in agriculture—in the frame of the violent implications of modern “development”—underscores how the destruction of societies perceived as “backward,” particularly indigenous groups in the Global South, follows the destruction of their biodiverse habitats and agriculture to make way for monoculture genetically engineered crops. A focus on case studies of such mass violence and the responses by indigenous groups facilitates, finally, a discussion of the recent turn to microhistories in Holocaust scholarship. These offer another contextualized view: of the societies that faced the assault of nation-states. The article concludes that the complexities on the social level, each rooted in specific circumstances and histories, challenge the analytical value of the general term “Holocaust.”     

《左传》占梦、占星预言与春秋社会

本文对《左传》所载春秋时人的占梦、占星活动进行了剖析。占梦、占星是春秋时期流行于社会上层的重要的预测方式,与国家的政治生活息息相关。这些神秘的预测,尽管不具有科学性,却反映了时人对梦的认识、对天人关系的理解,反映了时人认识世界、把握人生的一种水平。一些有识之士对占梦、占星预测表示怀疑、否定,并且进行有效地抵制,表明当时人们思想认识上的一种进步。     

Conflict,Order, Harmony: The Modern Meaning of the Confucian Tradition

An examination of how a focus on the reading of traditional Confucian texts as a spiritual exercise can enable us to deal productively with modern understandings of the divergences among different ideals of human excellence.An investigation of such ideals has often focused on virtue discourse,but that discourse generates understandable suspicions in many people.A productive approach to these suspicions is to examine both the idea that new virtues (such as spiritual regret) are needed,and the notion that three distinctive modern emphases must play a central role in any contemporary consideration of the relationships among diverse ideals.After considering two kinds of principled opposition to this approach,we turn to Walter Benjamin's exemplary account of the huge gulf between modern and traditional understandings,and the possible aid some texts may offer in bridging it.Focusing on the distinctive operation of specific forms of presentation in the Confucian tradition,we conclude by investigating the idea that reading Confucian texts can be seen even today as an illuminating kind of spiritual exercise.     

The National Question in Africa: Internal Imperatives

In an impassioned plea for political reform in Africa, this essay questions whether the concept of ‘nation-being’ is really applicable to territories ruled by dictatorial regimes. Without democracy, many African ‘nations’ are little more than a gambling space for the opportunism and adventurism of power. Furthermore, as in the concrete case of Nigeria, repression strengthens ethnic identity and encourages separatism. The risks of virulent ethnic conflict in Africa — and elsewhere — might be lessened if regional conferences were called to debate the national question openly, and to redefine (where necessary) both the external boundaries and the internal political realities of conflict-ridden societies.