England's interwar suburban landscapes: myth and reality

An investigation of suburbs created by private enterprise in interwar England reveals that their development was more problematic, and their physical characteristics were more diverse, than has been widely assumed. Differences between initial proposals for the development of an area and the reality that eventually emerged on the ground were widespread. Though architectural styles, building types and road patterns were generally distinct from those of the period before World War I, they varied considerably both within and between cities. Two main types of process affecting the landscape can be recognized. The first is systemic change, exemplified by the practically universal adoption, during the course of the 1920s, of the garden-suburb ethos and the creation of markedly different landscapes from those that existed previously. The second is adaptive change, involving adjustments, usually piecemeal, before, during and after developments, but conforming to the dominant period characteristics of the layouts; for example, reductions in plot sizes associated with increases in land values. Though conceptually fairly distinct, the two types of change may not in practice be separable.     

The making of a monster: the historical image of William Rufus

Few writers, medieval or modern, have had much good to write about William Rufus, the second Norman king of England (1087–1100). Beginning in the twelfth century, chroniclers and historians have portrayed William as a cruel, grasping, and sacriligious ruler. This study traces the development of this unflattering historical image from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries and notes that the religious convictions which encouraged medieval churchmen to condemn Rufus were offset in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by a more political and anti-catholic approach to his reign. Beginning in the eighteenth century, however, historians abandoned this more flattering portrayal and returned once again to the evil image concocted by the monastic chroniclers.     

The making of a monster: the historical image of William Rufus

Few writers, medieval or modern, have had much good to write about William Rufus, the second Norman king of England (1087–1100). Beginning in the twelfth century, chroniclers and historians have portrayed William as a cruel, grasping, and sacriligious ruler. This study traces the development of this unflattering historical image from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries and notes that the religious convictions which encouraged medieval churchmen to condemn Rufus were offset in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by a more political and anti-catholic approach to his reign. Beginning in the eighteenth century, however, historians abandoned this more flattering portrayal and returned once again to the evil image concocted by the monastic chroniclers.     

Sexual conflict in myth and reality: The Navajo case

Father Berard Haile, O.F.M. Women Versus Men: A Conflict of Navajo Emergence. The Curly Tó Aheedíinii Version. Karl Luckert, Editor. Navajo Orthography by Irvy W. Goossen. (viii + 118 pp.) Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press 1981. $14.95 cloth, $9.95 paper.     

Between myth and reality: the euro crisis and the downfall of Silvio Berlusconi

In mid-November 2011, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi tendered his formal resignation to President Giorgio Napolitano. It was a humiliating ‘political exit’ for the controversial Italian leader who had been the dominant figure in Italian politics since the mid-1990s. With Italy in the throes of an unprecedented financial crisis, Berlusconi’s squabbling centre-right coalition had appeared increasingly incapable of dealing with the economic emergency engulfing the country. To restore credibility, Napolitano appointed Mario Monti who quickly put together an emergency government. Since then, the downfall of Italy’s longest-serving post-war prime minister has generated a good deal of controversy. Allegations that Berlusconi was pushed out of power by a cabal of domestic and international detractors have been rife both inside and outside Italy. But how plausible are these claims? Was Berlusconi brought down by a conspiracy orchestrated by Napolitano and instigated by Italy’s EU partners? This article will address these questions and, to do so, it will chart the dramatic events that led to his downfall and examine the international and domestic contexts in which these events took place.     

Roland Barthes: Phenomenon and myth

Brown, A., Roland Barthes: The Figures of Writing (Oxford, Clarendon, 1992), 303pp., £35.00. ISBN 0 198 15171 3

Moriarty, M. Roland Barthes (Cambridge, Polity, 1991), 255pp., £10.95. ISBN 0 745 60456 0     

Rufus W. Peckham and the Pursuit of Economic Freedom

It is striking that Rufus W. Peckham has received so little scholarly attention and remains without a biography. He was, of course, the author of Lochner v. New York (1905), ¹ one of the most famous and contested decisions in the history of the Supreme Court. Moreover, Peckham wrote important opinions dealing with contractual freedom, anti‐trust law, eminent domain, dormant commerce power, and the Eleventh Amendment. Indeed, Owen M. Fiss maintains that Peckham and David J. Brewer were intellectual leaders of the Fuller Court, “influential within the dominant coalition and the source of the ideas that gave the Court its sweep and direction.” Even when they did not prevail, Fiss observed, Peckham and Brewer “set the terms for the debate.” ²     

Byzantine-Muslim conspiracies against the crusades: history and myth

This article examines Latin allegations of Byzantine-Muslim conspiracies against the crusades in the course of the twelfth century, the charges surviving in various chronicles, reports and letters. While their sensational elements have been noted, the Latin accounts portraying Byzantine rulers as allies of the ‘infidels’ against the crusades and the crusader states have generally been taken more or less at face value by modern scholars. A closer examination discloses how these allegations of Byzantine-Muslim collusion were based on rumour, which mainly evolved and flourished among the rank and file of the crusader armies. They eventually found their way into the chronicles, having become more outlandish in transmission. The functions they fulfilled ranged from creating a scapegoat for the failures of the Crusade of 1101 and Second Crusade, to interpretation and explanation, or rather misinterpretation, in the case of the Third Crusade. Despite the fact that, in general, these theories do not seem to have appealed to Latin emperors, kings, and nobles, paradoxically it was a noble of the Fourth Crusade, Baldwin IX of Flanders, together with his clerical advisers, who finally exploited them in May and June 1204 in order to justify the Latin conquest of Christian Constantinople.     

The demographic transition: model and reality

Observed exponential population growth curves are short-term parts of a logistic or S-curve in demography or a product-cycle curve in technology. All human populations have the ability to adjust their rates of growth, a fact recognized by the demographic transition model. The acceleration of world population growth that began after 1650 and became conspicuous after 1850 was largely confined to industrialized countries of European culture until after World War II, when the S-curve passed the inflection point. Many signs indicate that the decline in growth rates may become striking in the 1980s or 1990s. The demographic transition agrees with the logistic curve, and since the ultimate carrying capacity of the Earth is limited, represents an intelligent adaptation. The industrial countries with the longest statistical records, such as Sweden and Finland, evidence early efforts to control fertility. The demographic transition in Sweden lasted from 1815 to 1930 and occurred without government interference. A question for postindustrial western society is whether birth rates will be adjusted to the rising death rates expected as the population ages. Birth and death rates in most formulations of the demographic transition model are typical of Western Europe at the start of the transition process but are much too low for most countries of the world. Japan's demographic transition and that of several other Asian countries have occurred much more rapidly than those of Western Europe and have demonstrated not only that the demographic transition model was applicable but that the time span could be shortened by a factor of about 10 when government policy was substituted for spontaneous development. The Indian experience however shows that the shortening of the transition cannot be imposed from above. The demographic transition is well on its way in most of Asia and Latin America, but Africa and the Muslim countries of Asia have so far done little to restrain their high fertility. It may be concluded that the actual form of the demographic transition is influenced by the point of departure and by how and when it takes place.