Review Article: International History and the Democratic Peace

JAMES LEE RAY. Democracy and International Conflict: An Evaluation of the Democratic Peace Proposition. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1995. Pp. viii, 243. $39.95 (US);

THOMAS RISSE-KAPPEN. Co-operation among Democracies: The European Influence on US Foreign Policy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995. Pp. x, 250. $35.00 (US);

K. J. HOLSTI. The State, War, and the State of War. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Pp. xiv, 254. $59.95 (US);

SUSAN PETERSON. Crisis Bargaining and the State: The Domestic Politics of International Conflict. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996. Pp. vii, 208. $42.50 (US);

JOHN M. OWEN. Liberal Peace, Liberal War: American Politics and International Security. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997. Pp. 224. $32.50 (US).     

Review Article: Toynbee,McNeill, and the Myth of History

WILLIAM H. MCNEILL. Arnold J. Toynbee: A Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Pp. viii, 346. $24.95 (US); Reviewed by Gordon Martel

C.T. MCINTIRE and MARVIN PERRY, eds. Toynbee: Reappraisals. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989. Pp. viii, 254. $40.00 (CAN). Reviewed by Gordon Martel     

Archaeology and the Bible Revisited: A Review Article

David and Solomon, a new book by Israel Finkelstein and Niels Asher Silberman, through their discussion of Palestinian archaeology's current understanding, proposes to provide evidence to prove the accuracy of Frank Cross's more than 30 year old revision of Martin Noth's theory of a “Deuteronomistic History.” The authors attempt to confirm the history of the redaction of the biblical narratives about Saul, David and Solomon, involving seven distinct oral and four written strata of tradition. Their argument moreover claims the warrant to assert the historicity of each of these legendary kings of Israel. The present article argues to the contrary that the “archaeological evidence” proposed does not support such a redaction history nor establish the historicity of either the biblical figures or their stories, but that the harmony of biblical and archaeological issues is circular and illegitimate by the standards of historical research. It argues, moreover, that the claim of an oral tradition, reflecting original memories of an historical David or Saul is an entirely unnecessary and unlikely explanation for the origins of both the figures and their tales in the stories of 1-2 Samuel and 1 Kings. It moreover argues that the hypothesis of a redaction history in a succession of four cumulative revisions, beginning in the eighth century and completed in the sixth to fourth century, BCE—lacking as it does reference to a readable text—is neither critical nor falsifiable. Finally, Finkelstein and Silberman's book is judged as an unsuccessful attempt to return to the methods of “biblical archaeology” that were legitimately impeached in the mid-1970s.     

Directions in Australian Linguistics: A Review Article

Handbook of Australian Languages by R. M. W. Dixon and B. J. Blake (Eds) Canberra, The Australian National University Press, 1979. Pp. i-xviii and 1–390.     

Review Article: Ancient Warfare

Richard A. Gabriel and Karen S. Metz. From Sumer to Rome: The Military Capabilities of Ancient Armies. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1991. Pp. xxi, 182. $45.00 (us)

Victor Davis Hanson, ed. Hoplites: The Classical Greek Battle Experience. London and New York: Roudledge, 1991. Pp. xvi, 286. $39.95 (us)

W. Kendrick Pritchett. The Greek State at War. Part V. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. Pp. x, 578. $60.00 (us)

Lionel Casson. The Ancient Mariners: Seafarers and Sea Fighters of the Mediterranean in Ancient Times. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991. Pp. xviii, 246. $39.50 (us), cloth; $12.95 (us), paper.     

Review Article: Franco Cunctator

PAUL PRESTON. Franco: A Biography. London: HarperCollins, 1993. Pp. xxi, 1,002. £25.00;

PAUL PRESTON. The Politics of Revenge: Fascism and the Military in Twentieth- Century Spain. London and New York: Routledge, 1990 and 1995 (reprint). Pp. xix, 215. £11.99;

MICHAEL ALPERT. A New International History of the Spanish Civil War. New York: St Martin's Press, 1994. Pp. ix, 209. $45.00 (US);

ENRIQUE MORADIELLOS. La Perfidia de Albión: El Gobierno británico y la guerra civil española. Madrid: Siglo Veintiuno de España Editores, 1996. Pp. xviii, 408. 3,000 ptas.     

BELIEF,LANGUAGE AND EXPERIENCE: A Review Article

Belief, Language, and Experience. By Rodney Needham. Published by Basil Blackwell, Oxford. 1972. Pp. i–xvii, 1–269. Price £3.75 (Eng.)     

The Rainbow Serpent in the Aboriginal Pantheon: A Review Article

The Rainbow Serpent: a chromatic piece. By I. Buchler and K. Maddock (eds). The Hague — Paris, Mouton, 1978. x + 227 pp.     

Review Article: Westward the Course of Empire

ARTHUR POWER DUDDEN. The American Pacific: Prom the Old China Trade to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Pp. xx, 314. $39.50 (CDN)

SUNG-HWA CHEONG. The Politics of Anti-Japanese Sentiment in Korea: Japanese- South Korean Relations under American Occupation, 1945–1952. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1991. Pp. xv, 190. $43.00 (US)

HIDEO IBE. Japan Thrice-Opened: An Analysis of Relations between Japan and the United States. New York: Praeger, 1992. Pp. 294. $49.93 (US)

RICHARD B. FINN. Winners in Peace: MacArthur, Yoshida, and Postwar Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. Pp. xxi, 413. $42.00 (US)

ROBERT P. NEWMAN. Owen Lattimore and the ‘Loss’ of China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. Pp. xvi, 669. $36.00 (US)

H. W. BRANDS. Bound to Empire: The United States and the Philippines. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Pp. xii, 384. $39.50 (CDN)

ODD ARNE WESTAD. Cold War and Revolution: Soviet-American Rivalry and the Origins of the Chinese Civil War, 1944–1946. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993. Pp. x, 260. $16.50 (US).     

Review Article: The Ways of the World

S. E. FINER. The History of Government from the Earliest Times: Volume I: Ancient Monarchies and Empires. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Pp. xvii, 610; Volume II: The Intermediate Ages. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Pp. vii, 613–1,061; Volume III: Empires, Monarchies, and the Modern State. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Pp. vii, 1,065–1,701. $270.00 (CDN), for the three volumes. Reviewed by A. P. Thornton