From the Atlantic to the Bug,from the Arctic to the Tigris? The Transformation of the EU and NATO

Both the European Union and NATO are now committed in principle to substantial enlargement. It remains doubtful, however, how far member governments are making a success of further enlargement, let alone thinking through its strategic implications. Yet the process of dual enlargement will define the future security, political and economic structures of the European region. During the past year west European governments have extended promises of eventual membership to the western Balkan states and to Turkey; while the future positions of Ukraine, Russia, the Caucasus states and the southern Mediterranean associates all raise delicate policy issues. Hard choices remain to be made about the adaptation of these organizations to eastern enlargement, and about the management of relations with the near neighbours who will remain outside.     

An Informational Right to the City? Code,Content, Control,and the Urbanization of Information

Henri Lefebvre talked of the “right to the city” alongside a right to information. As the urban environment becomes increasingly layered by abstract digital representation, Lefebvre's broader theory warrants application to the digital age. Through considering what is entailed by the urbanization of information, this paper examines the problems and implications of any “informational right to the city”. In directing Tony Benn's five questions of power towards Google, arguably the world's most powerful mediator of information, this paper exposes processes that occur when geographic information is mediated by powerful digital monopolies. We argue that Google currently occupies a dominant share of any informational right to the city. In the spirit of Benn's final question—“How do we get rid of you?”—the paper seeks to apply post‐political theory in exploring a path to the possibility of more just information geographies.     

Utilizing U–Pb CA-TIMS dating to calibrate the Middle to Late Jurassic spore-pollen zonation of the Surat Basin,Australia to the geological time-scale

Wainman, C.C., Hannaford, C., Mantle, D. & McCabe, P.J., April.2018. Utilizing U–Pb CA-TIMS dating to calibrate the Middle to Late Jurassic spore-pollen zonation of the Surat Basin, Australia to the geological time-scale. Alcheringa XX, xx-xx.

Spore-pollen palynostratigraphy is commonly used to subdivide and correlate Jurassic continental successions in eastern Australia and thus aid the construction of geological models for the petroleum and coal industries. However, the current spore-pollen framework has only been tenuously calibrated to the geological time-scale. Age determinations are reliant on indirect correlations of ammonite and dinoflagellate assemblages from New Zealand, the North West Shelf of Australia and Southeast Asia to the standard European stages. New uranium-lead chemical abrasion thermal ionization mass spectrometry (U–Pb CA-TIMS) dates from 19 tuff beds in the Middle–Upper Jurassic Injune Creek Group of the Surat Basin enables regional spore-pollen palynostratigraphic zones to be precisely dated for the first time. These results show the base of the APJ4.2 and APJ4.3 subzones are similar in age to previous estimates (Middle Jurassic, Bathonian) from indirect palynostratigraphic correlation. However, the base of the APJ5 Zone and the APJ6.1 Subzone may be somewhat younger than previously estimated, possibly by as much as 2.5 and 4.2 Myrs, respectively. The continued utilization of U–Pb CA-TIMS dates will further refine the absolute ages of these zones, improve the inter- and intra-basinal correlation of Middle–Upper Jurassic strata in eastern Australian basins and greatly enhance intercontinental correlations.

Carmine Christopher Wainman [carmine.wainman@adelaide.edu.au] and Peter James McCabe [peter.mccabe@adelaide,edu.au] Australian School of Petroleum, University of Adelaide, SA, 5005, Australia; Carey Hannaford [carey.hannaford@mgpalaeo.com.au] and Daniel Mantle [dan.mantle@mgpalaeo.com.au] MGPalaeo Pty Ltd, 5 Arvida Street, Malaga, WA, 6090, WA, Australia.     

Extinction is the Dream of Modern Powers: Bearing Witness to the Return to Life of the Sinixt Peoples?

The Arrow Lakes Band was the only form of legal recognition ever made available to the Sinixt nation by Canada before they were declared extinct. The Oatscott reserve and the state were cartographies that both summoned and willed away the Sinixt. I attempt a “politics of witnessing” of recent Sinixt activities as they push back against these colonial enframings and displacements. I then contextualize biopower within settler society to chart the production of the state through a cultural economy of racialization and erasure, and through a clearing of the land based on more explicit imaginative geographies. The declaration of the extinction of the Sinixt illustrates Indian reserves less as a disciplinary and more a sovereign technology. And yet it is quintessentially modern owing to the absence of instrumental violence. Finally, the limitations of witnessing and the space Indigenous peoples make for alliances are examined.     

Breaking the Bad News: Plans for the Announcement to the Empire of the Death of Elizabeth II and the Proclamation of Her Successor, 1952–67

This article uses recently released official papers to examine British planning for the announcement of the death of Elizabeth II to the Empire/Commonwealth, and for the involvement of Commonwealth representatives in the proclamation of her successor. The planning process was complicated by the complex and varied nature of the relationship between the Crown and different parts of both the colonial Empire and the independent Commonwealth. While the debates generated by this process tended to revolve around relatively minor issues of protocol, they were informed by a much more serious concern: the extent to which the institution of the British monarchy should adapt to meet the needs of the ‘new’ Commonwealth. Those advocating flexibility saw this as essential if the Crown was to continue to have a unifying role within the Commonwealth. Traditionalists, however, feared that reform would weaken the value of the monarchy as the focus of a specifically British national identity.     

René of Anjou,King of Sicily,and the order of the Croissant

Founded in 1448 by René, Duke of Anjou and titular King of Sicily, the Order of the Croissant represents one of many secular orders of chivalry established by late medieval rulers. An examination of the Order's statutes and membership indicates that the Croissant was more than a colourful convocation of knights. As René's personal creation, the Croissant served as a political instrument not only for controlling his vassals, but also for advancing his territorial claims.     

Welcome to Australia? A reappraisal of the Fraser government's approach to refugees, 1975–83

The Fraser government's response to the Indo-Chinese refugee crisis and the presentation, for the first time, of asylum-seekers arriving in Australia by boat is almost universally acclaimed as having been proactive, generous and humanitarian in spirit—the antithesis of both the preceding Whitlam Labor government and subsequent governments, particularly since 2001. Adopting a policy of ‘forward selection’ of refugees from camps in South-East Asia, the Fraser government was able to stem the flow of boats and oversaw the relatively uncontroversial resettlement of nearly 70,000 Indo-Chinese. However, the author argues that this was not the brave and principled course of action for which Fraser and his immigration ministers are regularly fêted, but rather a delayed response that was motivated by fear and desperation rather than pure humanitarian intent. The celebrated outcomes of Fraser's policies belie the self-interested way in which they were constructed and neglect the fact that the government did not act until it was forced. Fraser's policies were neither a departure from the past nor the antithesis of current polices; to the contrary, they were the seeds of the contemporary Australian model of asylum.     

Qajar Ambitions in the Great Game: Notes on the Embassy of ‘Abbas Qoli Khan to the Amir of Bokhara, 1844

Literature on the Great Game presents a strong dichotomy between European aggressors and Oriental victims. However, Qajar Iran possessed its own forgotten imperial project in Central Asia, explored here through an 1844 travelogue published anonymously in Iran as Safarnameh-ye Bokhara. This text, whose author is identified here as Qajar statesman ‘Abbas Qoli Khan, details a diplomatic exchange with the amir of Bokhara over the life and death of Rev. Joseph Wolff and the infamous disappearance of British agents Stoddart and Conolly. Notably, ‘Abbas Qoli Khan pressed Qajar claims to Marv to the amir, utilizing a discourse of historical and cultural unity between Iran and Greater Khorasan, in contrast to that of difference and hierarchy common in Anglo-Russian imperial projects.     

The writings of Ademar of Chabannes,the Peace of 994, and the ‘Terrors of the Year 1000’

The belief that apocalyptic expectations existed at the turn of the first millennium is no longer widely held, even though some recent scholars have suggested they did. This paper seeks to confirm the notion that, at least in the monastic milieu, belief that the Last Judgement was imminent did exist in the decades around the year 1000. To support this argument, this paper will examine the writings of the monk, Ademar of Chabannes. In his work of history and the sermons he wrote near the end of his life, Ademar reveals his own eschatological mentality. His history, it will be argued, contains numerous accounts of prodigies and signs that indicated Ademar and his contemporaries thought that they were living in the Last Days. Ademar's apocalypticism is revealed even more fully in his sermons, which were organised along the lines of salvation history. His account in the sermons of the Peace of God council of 994, which also appears in the history, clearly demonstrates his eschatological sensibility. His record of this council, written over 30 years after the event, it will be argued, is apocalyptic in both form and content. The structure of his account is arranged in the tradition of apocalyptic literature, and the events he records are described in language drawn from the Revelation of John and the book of Isaiah. Ademar also drew on the idea of the refreshment of the saints found in the writings of Jerome and of Bede in his explanation of the events of 994. Ademar's writings, therefore, reveal the existence of apocalyptic expectations at the turn of the first millennium.