Land reforms and territorial integration in post-Tsarist Estonia, 1918–1940

After the declaration of independence in 1918, the Estonian government initiated a number of land reforms within a relatively short period of time. Although the reforms varied in aim, they led to similar outcomes in terms of the status and structure of landed properties. This paper explores, first, how the land reforms transformed a diversity of tenure systems into a coherent property regime, and second, how the reforms related to the political discussion on the proper spatial organization of land rights in Estonia. I argue that an important aim of the reforms was to contribute to the spatial and cultural consolidation of the new nation. The paper places the land reforms in a geopolitical context, proposing that the land reforms served to fend off a number of real and perceived threats to territorial integration. The paper is based on statements by politicians and intellectuals of the time, and on land reform records stored in Estonian State Archive.     

The Maronite Leadership’s Approach toward Syria, 1970–2011: Between Integration,Separation, and Pragmatism

The Maronite–Syria relationship is troublesome, and one can say that the two sides are diametrical opposites. The Maronites, in general, represent the aspiration for an independent Lebanon, while Syria considers Lebanon a part of “Greater Syria” and aspires to annex the Lebanese territories. The Maronite community has consistently resisted these aspirations. However, the Maronite community is not a coherent one, which is reflected in its approach toward Syria. In fact, the Maronite leadership has adopted three different approaches toward Syria: an integrative one that aspires to full cooperation with Syria; a separatist one that strongly considers Lebanon and Syria to be separate states; and a pragmatist one that adheres to intimate or unfriendly ties according to local Lebanese interests. This article introduces the three Maronite approaches and claims that one cannot disassociate these approaches, especially the pragmatist one, from the Syrian policy toward Lebanon, which includes changing alliances according to Syria’s political interests. Moreover, the article suggests that these approaches will remain in place regardless of which Maronite leader supports each one and regardless of who will rule in Syria.     

Pastoralism and politics: reinterpreting contests for territory in Auckland Province, New Zealand, 1853–1864

As colonial frontiers expanded in the nineteenth century, contests over access to land suitable for farming between pastoralists, small farmers and indigenous populations were the inevitable result. In colonial Auckland, this contest was particularly vigorous, firstly because the young settlement's economic survival was at stake, since environmental constraints largely prevented its participation in the lucrative New Zealand wool industry, and secondly, because the economic and military prowess of indigenous Maori meant that settlers had little room to move in. Auckland's wealthy pastoralists pinned their hopes on the occupation of Maori land to the south of Auckland, since this was more suitable for sheep than the settlement's immediate environs, but this required dispossessing the Maori population by force. Initially, this obstacle gave small farmers a political advantage over the pastoralists, but as firstly arable markets, and then plans for small farmers and Maori to rear sheep themselves, all faltered, the pastoralist cause became increasingly difficult for colonial authorities to resist. When these authorities finally turned against the Maori communities south of Auckland, and launched an imperial war against them, the pastoralists successfully lobbied for the lands they most coveted to be confiscated from Maori, an event that radically altered New Zealand's future economic geography.     

Governmentality and power in politically contested space: refugee farming in Hong Kong's New Territories, 1945–1970

A small proportion of Mainland Chinese refugee flows into British Hong Kong following the 1949 Communist Revolution in the People's Republic of China were vegetable farmers, who by the late 1960s engendered a vegetable revolution in New Territories agricultural space. Heterogeneous actors and their differing modalities of power in the late-colonial government possessed an active managerial role in this vegetable revolution anchored in issues of marketing and land tenure. While post-World War Two developmentalist ontologies help explain government intervention in the post-war agricultural economy, this research focuses primarily on the disciplinary techniques deployed within the governance rationalities of the early Cold War period to cultivate pro-government loyalties among a potentially proletarianized, trans-border refugee farming population perceived by colonial authorities as being susceptible to Communist influence. As ‘experimental space’, marketing innovations were a qualified success, but progress in land reform failed because of the local geopolitical context of colonial rule in the contested space of the New Territories.     

The Campaign for a Free Parliament, 1659–60

The clamour for ‘a free parliament’ in the winter of 1659–60, the most widely articulated public demand since the outbreak of civil war, has not received attention proportionate to its significance. Here the contours and chronology of the movement are reconstructed. Its goal was the summoning of an assembly which, through the restoration of parliamentary representation and the emancipation of the electorate from voting restrictions and military interference, would possess the authority to speak for the nation and secure a national settlement. The outcome was that essential instrument in the peaceful return of the monarchy, the Convention. The term ‘a free parliament’ was a slogan, used for a variety of political ends. Yet it was a unifying phrase which allowed the two parties opposed to the republic, the royalists (who had been denied parliamentary representation in 1642) and the presbyterians (who had been forcibly removed from parliament in 1648) to suspend their differences. The movement also connected national politicians of both parties to intense grievances in the regions. Local sentiment was voiced in a cascade of manifestos, published in the names of counties and towns, which illustrate the hold of parliament on public feeling.     

Conservatives,the Constitution and the Quest for a ‘Representative’ House of Lords, 1911–35*

This article presents a new interpretation of Conservative attitudes towards house of lords' reform in the early 20th century. Coinciding, as it did, with the introduction of universal adult suffrage, the campaign to reform and strengthen the second chamber has traditionally been understood as a reaction against democracy. Conversely, this article, emphasizing the politics rather than policies of reform, argues that many Conservatives sought to establish a legitimate role for a second chamber within the new democratic settlement and that the campaign for reform is, consequently, better understood as a constitutional means of ‘making safe’, rather than resisting, mass democracy. The account sheds new light on how the impulse behind reform was frequently rooted in a commitment to democracy, how reform commanded the support of a wide cross section of the Conservative parliamentary party, and why the reform campaign had folded by the early 1930s. In doing so, it reframes an important episode that helped close the long‐19th‐century tradition of constitutional reform in British politics.     

Pyrite–sulfosalt reactions and semimetal fractionation in the Chinkuashih,Taiwan, copper–gold deposit: a 1 Ma paleo‐fumarole

The mineralized fracture system that underlay paleo‐fumarole field at Chinkuashih, Taiwan has been exposed by copper–gold mining to depths of about 550 m below the paleo‐surface. Its mineralogy and systematic variations in metal and semimetal (Fe, Cu, As, Sb, Bi, Hg, Cd, Sn, Zn, Pb, Se, Te, Au, Ag) concentrations provide insights into the chemical responses of a magmatic‐vapor phase as it expands through fracture arrays to the surface and discharges as fumaroles associated with more extensive solfatara. At Chinkuashih, following initial sealing of the fractures by silica‐alunite alteration, brittle failure reestablished discharge from an underlying reservoir of magmatic vapor. Crystalline pyrite was deposited first in the fractures and was succeeded and replaced by ‘enargite’ (Cu₃(As,Sb)S₄) as sulfosalt encrustations (‘sublimate’) on fracture surfaces and in extensional cracks. Subsequent recrystallization resulted in complex exsolution intergrowths with antimony fractionation to the evolving crystal–vapor interface. Heavy metal fractionation between sulfosalt and vapor enriched the vapor phase in heavy metals that subsequently precipitated as complex Bi–Hg–Sn sulfosalts in discrete areas (paleo‐fumaroles) close to the paleo‐surface in a manner analogous to modern‐day fumaroles on active volcanoes such as Vulcano, Italy. As in similar paleo‐fumaroles (e.g., El Indio, Chile and Lepanto, Philippines), the most characteristic reaction sequence is the partial replacement of the early pyrite by enargite and Fe‐tennantite. It is proposed that this reaction tracks the decrease in the pressure of the underlying magmatic‐vapor reservoir because of the sustained discharge of vapor to the surface.     

Regionalizing global trade patterns, 1981–2001: application of a new method

This paper investigates the establishment of trading regions in the global economy at the national level using a measure of trade intensity and a regional assignment algorithm that generates economically meaningful trading regions. Although there is definite regionalization in the global economy with regard to international trade, there is no evidence of an increase in the concentration of that regionalization over time. The geography of international trade is incredibly dynamic, with change related to political, historical and economic forces. Overall, trading regions have relatively few members and are increasingly a set of geographically close countries.     

Legg–Calvé–Perthes Disease and unifocal eosinophilic granuloma in a visigoth from the Duratón necropolis (Segovia,Spain)

Individual number 12, exhumed at the Duratón Visigoth necropolis (Segovia, Spain), was found in a supine position inside a simple fossa without adornments. He was a very robust adult (∼50/60 years) male presenting two pathologies, independently originated and both occurring in a particular anatomical area: the right hip. The first one has been diagnosed as Legg–Calvé–Perthes Disease, and it affects the right femur and the coxal. The femoral head has a diameter that is much greater than usual, with a porous articular surface, no fovea capitis and a marked arthritic secondary growth which is inserted in the femoral neck; the coxal shows a pathological acetabulum larger than the left one, and having osseous borders. The second disease, considered a unifocal eosinophilic granuloma, is in the inner face of the right ilium, and practically occupies the whole iliac fossa. The development of the two pathologies and their probable repercussions on the individual's mobility, on the basis of the study of both the pathological and normal pieces recovered, are discussed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reflecting on a Decade of Australian Social Housing Policy: Changes in Supply and Geography, 2001–2011

This paper compares the intent of three Australian social housing policy interventions in the decade to 2011 with outcomes shown in time series data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics Census. The three policy interventions are the supply stimulus that occurred in 2009 with funding to construct almost 20 000 new social housing dwellings by 2012, the push to diversify social housing supply through the transfer of public housing stock to community not‐for‐profit housing providers, and the physical renewal of public housing estates to reduce concentrations of social deprivation. Its aims are threefold: to understand how the supply and geography of social housing dwellings has changed over the past decade; to relate these changes to the objectives of social housing policy in the time period; and to identify issues for the future of social housing in Australia emerging from identified disparities between policy rhetoric and supply reality. The paper employs quantitative analysis of social housing supply for all of Australia and mapping of social housing supply changes in the east‐coast mainland state capital cities. This analysis reveals the overall stagnation of social housing supply in Australia over the previous decade, combined with evidence of stock loss in areas of renewal in some cities.     

The Role of Fire Disturbance on Runoff and Erosion Processes – a Long‐Term Approach,Mt. Carmel Case Study,Israel

The Mediterranean ecosystem of Mt. Carmel, Israel, is subjected to an increasing number of forest fires of various extents and severities. The impacts of forest fires on runoff and erosion are widely documented and include increased peak flows and soil loss until the return of a vegetation cover. Most studies, however, treat fire as a single event, whereas the present study is aimed at exploring the long‐term effects of repeated forest fires on eco‐geomorphic processes. The study integrates the results of plot‐based, detailed analysis of post‐fire runoff and erosion with vegetation recovery analysis, at a temporal‐spatial scale which includes the effect of reburning. Our results indicate that forest fires lead to a significant increase in runoff and sediment yields, particularly during the first two years following the disturbance, up to five orders of magnitude higher than from the adjacent unburnt control plots.     

Functional specialization across space: a case study of the Canadian Electricity Industry, 1971–2001

This article examines the location of functions within the electricity sector in Canada from 1971 to 2001, using a centre‐periphery model. Power generation, distribution and retailing are generally carried out by multiestablishment crown corporations. Location patterns of different functions—management, scientific, production, etc.—are analyzed via the use of occupational groups. The spatial distribution of functions is found to be generally consistent with centre‐periphery relationships, with evidence of a growing functional specialization between large metropolitan and nonmetropolitan locations. However, differences emerge depending on power generation sources: fossil fuels, hydro, nuclear, solar or biomass. The choice of a power generation source has consequences for local economies.     

Pulp Stones Prevalence in a Historical Sample from Radom,Poland (ad 1791–1811)

This paper provides an investigation of pulp stones in a sample drawn from the historical population of Radom, Poland, dating to between ad 1791 and 1811. This study seeks to determine the frequency of pulp stones, and assess the association between pulp stones and sex, age, dental caries, and dental wear. A total of 780 teeth from 121 adult individuals of both sexes (45 females, 76 males) were examined. Analysis was limited to molars. The average age‐at‐death of each individual was estimated. Total wear scores across the molars were calculated for each individual. Pulp stones were identified by a portable dental X‐ray machine. Pulp stones were found in 94 of 121 individuals and in 273 of 780 molars. No statistically significant correlation was found between pulp stones and age‐at‐death (p  = 0.7625) and sex (p  = 0.0915), but a significant relationship was found between pulp stones and dental wear (p  < 0.0001) and dental caries (p  = 0.0016). Our study found that molars affected by highly advanced dental wear were significantly more often accompanied by pulp stones than molars that had experienced limited wear. Similarly, significant correlations were observed for dental caries. It means that pulp stone formation appears to have been contingent upon the irritation of the tooth crown by factors such as forces acting on the tooth crown leading to dental wear or dental caries. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.