The Emergence of Multiple Sclerosis as a Nosological Category in France, 1838–1868

Neurologists have retold a story about the discovery of multiple sclerosis (MS) in essentially the same form from the 1870s to the present. Upon close analysis this narrative was found to be problematic. Once the nosological category of MS came into existence in 1868, physicians reread the scientific past through this new category and created a linear story. Following generations received this story uncritically, rereading the past through the conceptual lens of their own times. Writers selected the earlier cases, illustrations, and medical writings in the literature for inclusion in the discovery narrative and did not analyze them in their original historical contexts. The author offers an alternative account of the discovery of MS. The creation of the disease category of MS by Charcot in France was the result of several converging factors including a new histopathological technology, a unique relationship between patient and physicians in the clinic, a unique relationship between the clinic and the autopsy room, and a neurological culture emphasizing disease specificity.     

The construction of gender-sensitive peacebuilding in Australia: ‘Advance Australia Fair’

Australia was the first United Nations member state to commit to the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund when it was established in 2006, and it has made annual contributions since then. Australia has also made significant contributions towards enhancing gender equality in peace and security governance, most recently during its 2013–14 term of office on the United Nations Security Council, recognising that gender matters in and to all aspects of peacebuilding activity. This article offers a discourse-theoretical policy analysis of a range of Australian Agency for International Development guidelines and strategies addressing gender and peacebuilding issues, and reads these against the international framework to explore the discursive construction of gender-sensitive peacebuilding in Australia. The authors argue that the representations of peacebuilding in the documents they analyse shape how Australia engages in peacebuilding-related activities and inform how Australia is positioned internationally as a peacebuilding actor.     

The political anatomy of community health policy in Australia, 1972–1982

This article seeks to account for the survival of the 1973–1975 Labor government's new Community Health policy during the conservative coalition government (1975–1983) (which had managed to completely abolish Labor's national Medibank health insurance program). Through extensive interviews with 74 people who were directly involved in the policy process at national, state and local levels, as well as from other sources of information, inquiry is made into the issues and circumstances that were taken into account in the decisions that affected the course of policy from 1972–82. The important political and economic forces included party politics, federal‐state relations, the national economy, the direction of other fiscal and health policies, private and governmental interest groups, administrative nets, and the mass media. The not surprising conclusion is that changes in Community Health policy did not depend on its effectiveness but rather on the balance of political, economic and organizational power of interested groups at particular points in time. Policy‐relevant issues facing the 1983 Labor government are pointed out.     

The Berlin West Africa conference of 1884–85 revisited: A report

The Blackwell Dictionary of Historians edited by John Cannon with R.H.C. Davis, William Doyle and Jack P. Greene. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988. Pp.xiv + 480. £50.00.

Atlas of the British Empire, with Foreword by Norman Stone, edited by C.A. Bayly. Hamlyn Publishing Group/Amazon: London, 1989. Pp.256; illus. £25.00.

The First Imperial Age: European Overseas Expansion c. 1400–1715 by G.V. Scammell. London: Unwin Hyman, 1990. Pp.xix + 281; maps. £30.00 (hardback); £10.95 (paperback).

The History of Architecture in India: From the Dawn of Civilisation to the End of Raj by Christopher Tadgell. London: A.D.T Press, 1990. Pp.IX + 336. £65.00.

Saints, Goddesses and Kings: Muslims and Christians in South Indian Society 1700–1900 by Susan Bayly. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Pp.xv + 504. £40.00.

A Dictionary of Modern Indian History, 1707–1947, by Parshotam Mehra. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1985 (reprinted 1987). Pp.xiii + 823; £25.00.

Navies, Deterrence, and American Independence: Britain and Seapower in the 1760s and 1770s by Nicholas Tracy. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1988. Pp.207. £21.80.

The Imperial Challenge: Quebec and Britain in the Age of the American Revolution by Philip Lawson. Montreal and Kingston: McGill‐Queen's University Press, 1989. Pp.x + 192. £29.65.

History's Anthropology. The Death of William Gooch by Greg Dening. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1988. Pp.xix + 122; maps and illus.

Thomas Clarkson: A Biography by Ellen Gibson Wilson. London: Macmillan, 1989. Pp.xiv + 269. £35.00.

The Caribbean in Europe; Aspects of the West Indian Experience in Britain, France and the Netherlands. Edited by Colin Brock. London: Frank Cass, 1985. Pp.ix + 243. £20.00 (hardback).

The Transformation of Theology, 1830–1890. Positivism and Protestant Thought in Britain and America by Charles D. Cashdollar. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1989. Pp.xii + 489. $35.00.

Social Welfare, 1850–1950: Australia, Argentina and Canada Compared edited by D.C.M. Platt. London: Macmillan, 1989. Pp.xii + 208. £35.00.

Scientist of Empire: Sir Roderick Murchison, Scientific Exploration and Victorian Imperialism by Robert A. Stafford. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Pp.xii + 293. £30.00 (hardback).

Stanley: The Making of an African Explorer by Frank McLynn. London: Constable, 1989. Pp.410; maps and illustrations. £17.95.

Baden‐Powell, by Tim Jeal. London: Hutchinson, 1989. Pp.xxi + 670. £18.95 (hardback).

Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Volume XII: 1891–1900 edited by Francess G. Halpenny and Jean Hamelin. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990. Pp.xxix + 1305. £48.50; $78.00.

The Weary Titan: Britain and the Experience of Relative Decline, 1895–1905 by Aaron L. Friedberg. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1988. Pp.xvii + 321, maps. $14.95 (paperback).

Lost Children of the Empire: The Untold Story of Britain's Child Migrants by Philip Bean and Joy Melville. London: Unwin Hyman, 1989. Pp. ix + 177; illus. £12.95 (hardback).

The History of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, Volume III: The Hongkong Bank between the Wars and the Bank Interned, 1919–45; Return from Grandeur by Frank H.H. King. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Pp.xxxviii + 705; maps and illus. £60.00.

Menzies and Churchill at War by David Day. London: Angus &; Robertson, 1987. Pp.xi + 271. £12.50.

Documents on Australian Foreign Policy 1937–49, Vol. VII: 1944, edited by W.J. Hudson. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1988. Pp.lvi + 749; illus. AS39.95.

Empire and Islam: Punjab and the Making of Pakistan by David Gilmartin. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. Pp.xii + 258. $32.00.

The Expedient Utopian: Bandaranaike and Ceylon by James Manor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Pp.xiii + 338. £30.00.

Britain, the United States, and the End of the Palestine Mandate, 1942–1948 by Ritchie Ovendale. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press for the Royal Historical Society, 1989. Pp.332. £37.50 (hardback).

Palestine and the Arab‐Israeli Conflict by Charles D. Smith. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988. Pp.viii+ 308; maps. £10.99 (paperback).

Hearts and Minds in Guerrilla Warfare: The Malayan Emergency 1948–1960 by Richard Stubbs. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989. Pp.xiv + 286. £25.00.

Britain and the Korean War by Callum MacDonald. Oxford and Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, 1990. Pp.vii + 112; map. £17.50 (hardback); £8.95 (paperback).

The Politics of Africa's Economic Stagnation by Richard Sandbrook with Judith Barker. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Pp.xvi + 180; maps. £17.50 (hardback); £7.95 (paperback).     

‘The Principles of Steam’: Political Transfer and Transformation in Japan, 1868–89

In the first decades of the Meiji period Japan started a deliberate modernization programme of state and society in which foreign models played a very important role. The speed with which foreign ideas concerning a constitution, a national assembly and popular rights were adopted and adapted is astonishing. Perhaps most impressive is the fact that this policy was not simply an elite matter, issued from above, but involved the general public as well. The various drafts of constitutions that have been found in village storehouses show political modernization had a broad social basis. European political history in the nineteenth century shows numerous instances of the rhetorical use of the foreignness of particular political models or ideas. Their foreign background made rejection or opposition easier. In Japan we meet a proud country that embarked on a course in which the adoption—and adaptation—of foreign political ideas and institutions was simply considered the proper thing to do. Japan became a perfect example of how political practices migrated, in the process were transformed in a national context and were used in political rhetoric.

Résumé:?Dans les premières décennies de l'ère Meiji le Japon commença un programme de modernisation de l'état et de la société dans lequel les modèles étrangers jouaient le plus grand rôle. La rapidité avec laquelle les idées étrangères sur la constitution, l'assemblée nationale et le droit surprend encore. Peut-être plus impressionnant encore est le fait que cette politique n'était pas le fait du pouvoir seul mais aussi celle du public dans son ensemble. Des propositions de constitutions ont été trouvées dans des archives villageoises qui démontrent bien le soutien populaire pour la modernisation. L'histoire européenne est aussi riche de nombreux exemples de l'utilisation rhétorique de modèles étrangers, leur origine étrangère facilitant également leur adoption ou le rejet. Dans le cas japonais l'adoption et l'adaptation de modèles étrangers furent plus simplement la chose à faire. Le Japon représente l'exemple ultime de la migration de pratiques politiques transformées par un contexte national.     

The firm as citizen? Social responsibility of business in Australia

A model of corporate citizenship is advanced with the help of research on United Kingdom business responses to mass unemployment. This model suggests the need to review our theories of the firm and to widen assumptions about the political role of business. Australian findings, both of the institutionalisation of social responsibility in some large firms and of the emergence of a new sort of business community organisation, fit the citizenship model. Explanations and implications of the findings are considered.     

‘A monstrous construction'? The state and limited democracy in Australia

Alastair Davidson, The Invisible State: The Formation of the Australian State 1788–1901 (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1991) pp.x + 329. $59.95 ISBN 0 521 36658 5.

Alastair Davidson and Roger D. Spegele (eds.), Rights, Justice and Democracy in Australia (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1991) pp.x + 387. $34.95 ISBN 0 582 87070 4.

Beth Gaze and Melinda Jones (eds.), Law, Liberty and Australian Democracy (Sydney: The Law Book Company, 1990) pp.xxvi + 505. $69.00 ISBN 0 455 20986 3.

Bob Jessop, State Theory: Putting Capitalist States in Their Place (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990) pp.xii + 413. $34.95 ISBN 0 745 60289 4.

Gianfranco Poggi, The State: Its Nature, Development and Prospects (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990) pp.vii + 214. $29.95 ISBN 0 745 60879 5.

Geoffrey de Q. Walker, The Rule of Law: Foundation of Constitutional Democracy (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1988) pp.xxvi + 475. $69.95 ISBN 0 522 84347 6.     

The failure of the Scandinavian defence union, 1948–1949

Knut Kjeldstadli: Jerntid. Fabrikksystem og arbeidere ved Christiania Spigerverk og Kvtemer Brug fra om lag 1880 til 1940. (Iron Age. Manufacturing system and laborers at Christiania iron works and the Kvaxrner factory from 1880 to 1940.) Pax forlag Oslo 1989. ISBN 82–530–1451–1. 594 pp., NKr. 198.