New World States and Empires: Politics, Religion, and Urbanism

The past decade has seen a veritable explosion in archaeological research on complex societies in Latin America. In 1993, Smith published an overview of research to that date; this article is one of two bringing that summary up to the present. Our first article, New World states and empires: Economic and social organization (Smith and Schreiber, 2005), dealt with issues regarding economic and social organization. The present article tackles political organization and dynamics, religion, urbanism, and settlement patterns. We also review recent research in the context of various theoretical perspectives, some traditional, some more contemporary, including approaches to history and process, cultural evolution, agency-based models, linguistic prehistory, migration theory, and the relationship between environmental change and cultural events. Our discussion blends empirical findings, methodological advances, and theoretical perspectives.     

New World States and Empires: Economic and Social Organization

We take a critical perspective in discussing recent publications on the archaeological study of the ancient state-level societies of Latin America. For some topics, such as intensive agriculture and exchange, data are far ahead of theory, whereas for others (e.g., gender and ethnicity), theory has outstripped data. Craft production, a topic that has achieved a good balance of data and theory, is one of the success stories of recent Latin American archaeology. After a discussion of sources of data, we review these and other topics (e.g., consumption patterns, household studies, social organization) in terms of both data and theory. In a second review article, we cover the topics of politics, religion, urbanism, and the processes of change.     

From Darkness into Light: Race,Population, and Environmental Advocacy

Environmentalists and environmental organizations in the USA have long identified population growth as a key threat to environmental sustainability at local and global scales. The neo‐Malthusian logics they invoke embed racialized images and categories in defining population “problems”, yet increasingly social justice language is invoked in population debates as a “solution” in the context of international development. This article explores the historical and contemporary characterizations of race as a central component of population–environment advocacy. It focuses on locations of race narratives in both the conceptualizations of population growth as an environmental problem, and family planning as a global solution. Through a critical analysis of the “population justice” framework, I argue that new discursive approaches attempt to reposition population work as socially just, while eliding critical analyses of race.     

Gender,Generation, and Race in American Shipyards in the Second World War

Stephen Peter Rosen. War and Human Nature. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 3005. Pp. 211. $29.95 (US). Reviewed by John A. Lynn

Marshall Sahlins. Apologies to Thucydides: Understanding History as Culture and Vice Versa. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2004. Pp. xii, 334. $30.00 (US). Reviewed by K. R. Howe

Joachim Latacz. Troy and Homer: Towards a Solution of an Old Mystery, trans. Kevin Windle and Rosh Ireland. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Pp.xvii, 342. $96.00 (CDN). Reviewed by Anthony Snodgrass

Angelos Chaniotis. War in the Hellenistic World: A Social and Cultural History.Oxford and Maiden, MA: Blackwell, 2005. Pp. xxiii, 308. $27.95 (US). Reviewed by Stanley M. Burstein

S. A. M. Adshead. Tang China: The Rise of the East in World History. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Pp. xvii, 233. $24.95 (US)i paper. Reviewed by Richard von Glahn

Nancy Bisaha.Creating East and West: Renaissance Humanists and the Ottoman Turks. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004; dist. Toronto: Scholarly Book Services. Pp. 309. $59.95 (US). Reviewed by Jerry Brotton

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Paul Douglas Lockhart. Frederik II and the Protestant Cause: Denmark's Role in the Wars of Religion, 1559–1596. Leiden: Brill, 2004. Pp. xxii, 350. €99.00. Reviewed by Robert I. Frost

Ulinka Rublack. Reformation Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. xiv, 208. $2.99 (US), paper. Reviewed by R. Po-Chia Hsia

Daniel V. Botsman. Punishment and Power in the Making of Modern Japan. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2005. Pp. xiv, 319. $35.00 (US). Reviewed by F. G. Notehelfer

Matthew Glozier. Marshal Schomberg, 1615–1690: “The Ablest Soldier of His Age”. International Soldiering and the Formation of State Armies in Seventeenth-Century Europe. Brighton and Portland, OR: Sussex Academic Press, 2005. Pp. xxiv, 250. $35.00 (US), paper. Reviewed by David Parrott

Carla Gardina Pestana. The English Atlantic in an Age of Revolution, 1640–1661. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2004. Pp. xi, 342. $49.95 (US). Reviewed by Luca Codignola

Peter C. Perdue. China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia. Cambridge, MA and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005. Pp. xx, 725. $35.00 (US). Reviewed by John W. Dardess

Kathleen Wilson, ed. A New Imperial History: Culture, Identity, and Modernity in Britain and the Empire, 1660-1840. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. xv, 385. $34-99 (US), paper. Reviewed by J. C. D. Clark

Liam C. Kelley. Beyond the Bronze Pillars: Envoy Poetry and the Sino-Vietnamese Relationship. Honolulu: Association for Asian Studies and University of Hawaii Press, 2005. Pp. xiii, 267. $45.00 (US). Reviewed by Nola Cooke

Andrew Porter.Religion Versus Empire? British Protestant Missionaries and Overseas Expansion, 1700-1914. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2004; dist. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Pp. viii, 373- $29–95 (US), paper. Reviewed by Terence Ranger

P. J. MARSHALL. The Making and Unmaking of Empires: Britain, India, and America, c.1750–1783. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Pp. vi, 398. $90.00 (CDN); Steven Sarson.British America, 1500–1800: Creating Colonies, Imagining an Empire. London: Hodder Arnold, 2005; dist. New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. xix, 332. $45.50 (CDN), paper. Reviewed by Trevor Burnard

C. A. Bayly.The Birth of the Modern World, 1780–1914: Global Connections and Comparisons. Maiden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. Pp. xxiv, 540. $34.95 (US), paper. Reviewed by Kenneth Pomeranz

Robert Galois, ed. A Voyage to the North West Side of America: The Journals of James Colnett, 1786–89. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2004. Pp. xiii, 441. $95.00 (CDN). Reviewed by Ken S. Coates

Bernard Porter.The Absent-Minded Imperialists: Empire, Society, and Culture in Britain. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Pp. xxii, 475. $71.50 (CDN). Reviewed by H. V. Bowen

Stuart Semmel.Napoleon and the British. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004. Pp. xii, 354. $40.00 (US). Reviewed by Neville Thompson

Bruce Mazlish and Akira Iriye, eds. The Global History Reader. London and New York: Roudedge, 2005. Pp. x, 302. $17.99 (US) paper; Geoffrey Jones. Multinationals and Global Capitalism: From the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Pp. xi, 340. $195.00 (CDN), paper. Reviewed by Alfred E. Eckes

Zachary Lockman. Contending Visions of the Middle East: The History and Politics of Orientalism. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. xxi, 308. $30–95 (US), paper. Reviewed by James Jankowski

Gerard Moran. Sending out Ireland's Poor: Assisted Emigration to North America in the Nineteenth Century. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2004; dist. Portland, OR: ISBS. Pp. 252. $55.00 (US). Reviewed by Tyler Anbinder

Erik Gilbert.Dhows and the Colonial Economy of Zanzibar, 1860–1970. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2004. Pp. xiii, 176. $44.95 (US). Reviewed by Laura Fair

Michael R. Auslin. Negotiating with Imperialism: The Unequal Treaties and the Culture of Japanese Diplomacy. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2004. Pp. viii, 263. $45.00 (US). Reviewed by Michael A. Barnhart

Frank J. Merli. The Alabama, British Neutrality, and the American Civil War, ed. David M. Fahey. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2004. Pp. xx, 223. $29.95 (US). Reviewed by Brian Holden Reid

Robert T. Foley. German Strategy and the Path to Verdun: Erich von Falkenhayn and the Development of Attrition, 1870–1916. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. x, 301. $70.00 (US). Reviewed by Holger H. Herwig

Roger Owen. Lord Cromer: Victorian Imperialist, Edwardian Proconsul. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Pp. xxi, 436. $75.00 (CDN), cloth; $45.00 (CDN), paper. Reviewed by Saul Kelly

Theodore Huters. Bringing the World Home: Appropriating the West in Late Qing and Early Republican China. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005. Pp. ix, 370. $55.00 (US). Reviewed by Edward Rhoads

Stephen G. Craft. V. K. Wellington Koo and the Emergence of Modern China. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2004. Pp. xii, 330. $40.00 (US). Reviewed by Stephen R. Mackinnon

Noenoe K. Silva. Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonialism. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 3004. Pp. x, 260. $21.95 (US), paper. Reviewed by William E. H. Tagupa

Anne Perez Hattori. Colonial Dis-ease: US Navy Health Policies and the Chamorros of Guam, 1898–1941. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004. Pp. xiv, 239. $45.00 (US). Reviewed by Roger Dingman

Patricia E. Roy. The Oriental Question: Consolidating a White Man'lar;85.00 (CDN), cloth; $29.95 (CDNK paper. Reviewed by Hilary K. Blair

Maureen Healy. Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire: Total War and Everyday Life in World War I. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. xv, 333. $75.00 (US). Reviewed by C. M. Peniston-Bird

Mona L. Siegel. The Moral Disarmament of France: Education, Pacifism, and Patriotism, 1914–1940. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. xiv, 317. $75.00 (US). Reviewed by Robert J. Young

Thomas Boghardt. Spies of the Kaiser: German Covert Operations in Great Britain during the First World War Era. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Pp. xiv, 224. $69.95 (US)- Reviewed by David Stevenson

Ben Shepherd. War in the Wild East: The German Army and Soviet Partisans. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2004. Pp. vi, 300. $29.95 (US). Reviewed by Mark von Hagen

Yasir Suleiman. A War of Words: Language and Conflict in the Middle East. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. xiii, 270. $70.00 (US), cloth; $27.00 (US), paper. Reviewed by Eliezer Ben-Rafael

Seth Jacobs. America's Miracle Man in Vietnam: Ngo Dinh Diem, Religion, Race, and US Intervention in Southeast Asia, 1950–1957. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2004. Pp. x, 381. $22.95 (US)i paper. Reviewed by Andrew Preston

Wilson P. Dizard, Jr. Inventing Public Diplomacy: The Story of the US Information Agency. Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 2004. Pp. xv, 255. $49–95 (US). Reviewed by Scott Lucas

Gunnar Skogmar. The United States and the Nuclear Dimension of European Integration. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Pp. xi, 331. $65.00 (US). Reviewed by Mervyn O'Driscoll

Philippe Roger. The American Enemy: A Story of French Anti-Americanism, trans. Sharon Bowman. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2005. Pp. xviii, 518. $.35.00 (US). Reviewed by Donald Reid

Christopher Endy. Cold War Holidays: American Tourism in France. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2004; dist. Toronto: SBS. Pp. xii, 286. $32.95 (CDN). Reviewed by Frank Costigliola

David Easter. Britain and the Confrontation with Indonesia, 1960–1966. London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2004. Pp. ix, 257. $65.00 (US). Reviewed by Howard Dick

Richard K. Herrmann and Richard Ned Lebow, eds. Ending the Cold War: Interpretations, Causation, and the Study of International Relations. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Pp. viii, 248. $24.95 (US)? paper. Reviewed by William D.Jackson

James Barber. Mandela's World: The International Dimension of South Africa's Political Revolution, 1990–99. Athens: Ohio University Press and Oxford: James Currey, 2004. Pp. ix, 214. $24.95 (US) paper. Reviewed by Jeremy Seekings

Anthony James Joes. Resisting Rebellion: The History and Politics of Counterinsurgency. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2004. Pp. 351. $35.00 (US). Reviewed by Ian F. W. Beckett

Anne-Marie Slaughter. New World Order. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2004. Pp. xviii, 341. $29.95 (US). Reviewed by Tim Dunne

Ian Clark. Legitimacy in International Society. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Pp. viii, 278. $90.00 (CDN). Reviewed by Ian Hurd

Frederick Cooper. Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005. Pp. xii, 327. $19.95 (US) paper. Reviewed by Dane Kennedy

Jack Goody. Capitalism and Modernity: The Great Debate. Cambridge and Maiden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, Polity Press, 2004. Pp. vii, 200. $21.95 (US), paper. Reviewed by Thomas D. Hall

David L. Rousseau. Democracy and War: Institutions, Norms, and the Evolution of International Conflict. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005. Pp. xv, 384. $65.00 (US). Reviewed by Miriam Fendius Elman

Michael Mann. The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. x, 580. $24.00 (US), paper. Reviewed by Milton J. Esman     

Gender,Race, and Rumours: Re-examining the 1943 Race Riots

Focusing on three riots of the World War II era – those of Beaumont (Texas), Detroit, and New York's Harlem – this essay examines the rumours that sparked these disturbances to uncover the gendered ideologies that underlie racial violence. In these rumour narratives, women appear as either rape victims or tortured mothers, while men appear as either depraved rapists or noble protectors. The deployment of these images helped forge a defensive collective identity that facilitated the outbreak of violence. Because racial and gender ideologies were intimately linked, the author argues, race riots must be analysed through the lens of gender in order to be fully understood.     

Femininity, Race and Treachery: How 'Tokyo Rose' Became a Traitor to the United States after the Second World War

Based on archival and printed sources, this article revisits the ordeal of Iva Toguri d'Aquino (1916–2006), the Japanese American woman who became trapped in the myth of 'Tokyo Rose' and was tried for treason in 1949. It retells the tale by weaving together the various narratives of her story and pays particular attention to the ways in which the media constructed her story. The larger purpose is to explore why the federal government and the mainstream media deliberately ignored the other available narratives that explained Toguri's actions as a broadcaster for Radio Tokyo during the war. An analysis of the alternative narratives in conjunction with the stories of other female announcers who were  not  prosecuted ('Manila Rose') or who did not gain the infamy of 'Tokyo Rose' ('Axis Sally') will help us better understand how treason is gendered and orientalised.     

War,Modernity, and Motion in the Edison Films of 1898

This essay examines films created by the Edison Company of the US military campaign in the Caribbean in 1898 and their projection and reception in Vaudeville theaters and other similar venues in the larger urban areas of the US. Through an analysis of these films in regards to their production and reception contexts, it discusses relationships between entertainment, nationalism, and colonialism in this early cinema. Features foregrounding technology, production capacity, tourism, and military campaigns in tropical settings are examined in order to explore the blurred boundaries between journalism and entertainment in the context and how specifically the technology of the incipient cinema shaped these perceptions. The venues, in which they were exhibited, situated these war films within larger variety shows including oddities, acrobats, skits, and musical entertainment, together with technological exhibitions involving devices revered for both their destructive and constructive capabilities. It considers, furthermore, how tourism and the possibilities for travel related to the war shaped entertainment and dialogued with public desires regarding American empire and the roles of the Caribbean and, by relation, Latin America in these scenarios. The essay seeks to underscore, finally, how these films, and the war that they attempt to depict, resonated deeply with a type of audience and a corresponding mode of spectatorship that would come to expect an entertaining dimension in journalism.     

Empires ancient and modern: strength,modernity and power in imperial ideology from the Liberal period to Fascism

This article examines the image of Empire developed in public discourse in Italy during the late Liberal period and Fascism by placing it in the context of representations of the British Empire, with which Italian imperial ambitions were compared. There is a continuity in seeing the British Empire as the expression of industrial and commercial modernity and its resultant strength, but what in the Liberal period was seen as an unparalleled superiority became under Fascism a supremacy acquired in a particular period but now exhibiting signs of decline, which Fascism should contest and surpass. Admiration of the British was mixed with disparagement: key figures expressed a competitive resentment towards Britain and its dominant international position, seeing it as the epitome of ‘modern’ imperial power against which Fascism was destined to be measured. In the 1930s signs of the British Empire's decline were sought, developing the idea in Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire that British domination would also rise and fall, and announcing the replacement of the ‘British order’, founded on commercial modernity and the strength of money and capital, by Fascism's new civilisation, with its authentic heritage of imperial romanità. This competitiveness towards Britain, which historiography has principally seen as a component of foreign policy (as was clear over Ethiopia), has additional significance when seen as an element of political culture that relates to the concept of the State. The autonomy and strength of the State were an important feature of Fascism's self-representation and of its legal culture, and in this light the possession of an empire came to be seen as an essential aspect of statehood and power.