The political future of ASEAN after the Asian crisis

The 1997 Asian financial crisis has been a debilitating experience for the ASEAN countries, with attendant political transformation and economic readjustment. Regional unity has also been affected: ASEAN appears to lack resolve and cohesion as well as the ability to forge common action. While political change has been effected and more open systems are in place, ASEAN countries now seem set to bounce back with renewed vigour and a business-as-usual approach to their economies. However, ASEAN's revitalization into the next century will significantly depend on the region's most important polity, Indonesia, the country most affected by the crisis and now undergoing substantive change.     

Book reviews

Psychological Dimensions of Near Eastern Studies. Edited by L. Carl Brown and Norman Itzkowitz. Princeton, N.J.: The Darwin Press, 1977. 382 pp. $16.95.

The Little Black Fish and Other Modern Persian Stories. By Samad Behrangi. Translated by Mary and Eric Hooglund, with a Biographical‐Historical Essay by Thomas Ricks. Washington, D.C.: Three Continent Press, 1976. 133 pp. $14.00.

Artists for the Shah: Late Sixteenth‐Century Painting at the Imperial Court of Iran. By Anthony Welch. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1976. xvi + 233 pp.

Edebiyat, a Journal of Middle Eastern Literatures, Vol. 1. Edited by William L. Hanaway, Jr. Philadelphia: Middle East Center, University of Pennsylvania, 1976.

An Introduction to Ottoman Poetry. By Walter G. Andrews, Jr. Minneapolis and Chicago: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1976. x + 195 pp.

Development of the Iranian Oil Industry: International and Domestic Aspects. By Fereidun Fesharaki. New York: Praeger; London: Martin Robertson, 1976. 315 pp. $19.50.

Islamic History, a New Interpretation: I. A.D. 600–750 (A.H. 132). By M. A. Shaban. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971 (paperbound edition, 1976). viii + 197 pp.     

Reviews

My Uncle Napoleon, Iraj Pezeshkzad, trans. Dick Davis, Washington, D.C.: Mage Publishers, 1996, 512 pp., $29.95.

Les textes vieil‐avestiques, vol. I: Introduction, text et traduction, Jean Kellens and Eric Pirart, Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 1988, 195 pp.

Reading Nasta^cliq: Persian and Urdu Hands from 1500 to the Present, William L. Hanaway and Brian Spooner, Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Publishers, 1995, 278 pp.

Az Nima ta Ruzagar‐e Ma: Tarikh‐e Adab‐e Farsi‐ye Mo^caser (From Nima to Our Time: History of Contemporary Persian Letters), Yahya Arianpur, Tehran: Zavvar, 1374 (1995), 638 pp. + 48 pp. of photographs, title‐page reprints, etc.

The Green Sea of Heaven: Fifty Ghazals from the Diwan of Hafiz, trans. Elizabeth T. Gray, Jr., with an Introduction by Daryush Shayegan, Ashland, Ore.: White Cloud Press, 1995, x + 170 pp.

The Hafez Poems of Gertrude Bell, with the original Persian on the facing page, Bethesda, Md.: Iranbooks, 1995, 176 pp.

Iran und Turfan: Beiträge Berliner Wissenschaftler, Werner Sunder‐mann zum 60. Geburtstaggewidmet, ed. Christiane Reck and Peter Zieme, Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz, 1995, viii + 296 pp., photographs.

The History of al‐Tabari, vol. XXXIII: Storm and Stress Along the Northern Frontiers of the ^cAbbasid Caliphate, trans. and annot. C. E. Bosworth, Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Series in Near Eastern Studies and Bibliotheca Persica, State University of New York Press, 1991.

Tales of Two Cities, Abbas Milani, Washington, D.C.: Mage, 1996, 263 pp., $24.95.

Avicenna and I: The Journey of Spirits, Manouchehr Parvin, Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Publishers, 1996, 284 pp., $26.95 (cloth).

In A Voice of Their Own: A Collection of Stories by Iranian Women Written since the Revolution of 1979, trans. Franklin Lewis and Farzin Yazdanfar, Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Publishers, 1996, 153 pp.     

The Intersection of Citizenship Status,STEM Education,and Expected Labor Market Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries

Citizenship status influences the impact of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education on the youth labor market participation in the Arabian Gulf. This research examines the relationship between citizenship status, STEM education, and expected labor market participation in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, and examines the intervening effects of information and communication technology (ICT) based instruction, specifically. The 2011 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) provides both labor market expectations and STEM education data from all participating GCC countries, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. Results suggest that ICT‐enhanced STEM education differently influences the human capital development of Gulf national and expatriate youth. For example, GCC nationals do not emphasize STEM education as an avenue for employment, while expatriate youth do. In particular, as Gulf national youths' parents' education level increases, students are less likely to think they need to do well in science to get the job they want. This is indicative of a broader trend in the Gulf nations to rely more on non‐education‐related factors such as family influence or connections for social, economic, and political mobility. In contrast, results also suggest that while STEM education contributes to potential private sector labor market participation among Gulf national youth, expatriate youth are more likely to expect to need or use STEM in the labor market.     

The economic development of West Africa

Almost all documented landslides in Scotland belong to one of four categories: non‐rotational rock slope failures (major rockfalls, translational slides, topples or sags, often in some combination); rotational rock slope failures; debris flows; and translational slides in drift or regolith. Non‐rotational rock slope failures are particularly common on Highland metamorphic rocks, especially schists, and on igneous scarps in the Hebrides and Midland Valley; rotational rock slope failures almost invariably occur in weak sedimentary rocks overlain by resistant igneous rocks; and debris flows are most common on sandy drift or regolith. Former glacial activity has also been of importance in determining landslide distribution. The great majority of rock slope failures are ancient features, but debris flows and small translational slides in drift (both triggered mainly by intensive rainstorms) are much more frequent at present and cause much greater damage, particularly to communications.     

Differentiation between Seizure and Hysteria in a Tenth-Century Persian Text: Hidāyat of al-Akhawayni (d. 983 AD)

Although hysteria is associated largely with the nineteenth century, we find the subject treated in a tenth-century Persian medical text, the Hidayat al-Muta`allemin Fi al-Tibb [A Guide to Medical Learners] by al-Akhawayni Bukhari (d. 983 AD), a prominent physician in the Persian history of medicine. In this article, we discuss al-Akhawayni’s views on seizure and hysteria and his differentiation between the two conditions, and we place it in a historical context.     

Sedimentation rates in the Lake Qattinah using 210Pb and 137Cs as geochronometer

The constant rate of supply (CRS) of excess ²¹⁰Pb model was successfully applied to assess ²¹⁰Pb data of two sediment cores from the lake Qattinah, Syria. Gamma spectrometry was used to determine ¹³⁷Cs and ²¹⁰Pb activity concentrations. The bottom of the cores was ²¹⁰Pb-dated to years 1907 and 1893. The accumulation rates were determined using ²¹⁰Pb method and found to vary similarly in both cores from 0.10 ± 0.01 to 3.78 ± 0.57 kg m^?2 y^?1 during the past century. ¹³⁷Cs was used as an in-dependent chronometer. The two distinct peaks observed on the ¹³⁷Cs record of both cores, corresponding to 1965 and 1986, have allowed a successful validation of the CRS model.