Book reviews

Ralph Pettman (ed.), Moral Claims in World Affairs. Croom Helm, London, 1979, pp. 199. £8.50.

Michael B. Yahuda, China's Role in World Affairs. Croom Helm, London, 1978, pp.300. $29.95.

Rodger Swearingen, The Soviet Union and Postwar Japan: Escalating Challenge and Response. Hoover Institution Press, 1978, pp.340. US$14.95.

Taketsugu Tsurutani, Political Change in Japan: Response to Post‐industrial Challenge. David McKay, New York, 1977, pp. xii+275. US$12.50 (cloth), $6.95 (paper).

D. M. Fenbury, Practice Without Policy: Genesis of Local Government in Papua New Guinea. Development Studies Centre Monograph No. 13, Australian National University, Canberra, 1978, pp. xvi + 318. $9.00.

Ian Hogbin, The Leaders and the Led: Social Control in Wogeo, New Guinea. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1978. pp. xi + 195.

Clive Kessler, Islam and Politics in a Malay State: Kelantan 1838–1969. Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 1978, pp. 274. US $15.00.

Rony Gabbay, Communism and Agrarian Reform in Iraq. Croom Helm, London, 1978, pp. 240. £8.50.

John Dunn (ed), West African States: Failure and Promise. Cambridge University Press, London, 1978, pp. 259. £12.50.

Zdenek Cervenka and Barbara Rogers, The Nuclear Axis: Secret Collaboration between West Germany and South Africa. Julian Friedmann Books, London, 1978, pp. 464. £7.95.

Roger Hill, Political Consultation in Nato. Wellesley Papers 6/1978, Canadian Institute of International Affairs, Toronto, 1978, pp. 143. £3.75.

Lawrence Freedman, Arms Production in the United Kingdom: Problems and Prospects. The Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, 1978, pp. 50. £6.95.

William H. Blanchard, Aggression American Style. Goodyear Publishing Company, Santa Monica, California, 1978 pp.314.

Paul Hasluck, Mucking About: An Autobiography. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1977, pp. 287. $10.99.

J. R. V. Prescott, ed., Australia's Continental Shelf. Nelson for Australian Institute of International Affairs, Melbourne, 1979, pp. 198, $15.00.

P. Hastings and A. Farran, Australia's Resources Future, Thomas Nelson in association with The Australian Institute of International Affairs 1978, pp. 288 + xvi, $14.95.     

Debunking the Myth of Localized Agglomerations: The Development of a Regionalized Service Economy in South-East England

The central argument of this paper is that localized clusters of economic activity, or 'agglomerations', have been overemphasized in economic geography since the mid-1980s. In particular, such analyses are too manufacturing-biased, and place too much weight on the importance of local supply, market and partnership linkages. We will re-emphasize the service-based nature of growth in the core region of the UK economy, and will explore how a broad band of producer service activity is emerging in the Western Arc, owing largely to common locational logics, including back-office decentralization and the new firm-formation process. Such growth is both stimulated and supported by the high demand levels of the regional economy, but evidence suggests that the linkages of such firms extend well beyond the 'local', to cover at least the 'Greater South-East'. Furthermore, the international element in service growth needs to be recognized, as highlighted by the concentration of US foreign direct investment in the software industry along the M4 corridor. When areas outside the South-East are considered (such as Edinburgh, Tyne and Wear, Cheshire), the evidence appears to support Allen's (1992) notion of a 'regionalized mode of service growth' in the South-East.     

Reformulating Identities: British Settlers in Early Nineteenth-Century South Africa

This paper examines the formation of a colonial identity among settlers from the British Isles who were relocated to the eastern frontier of the Cape Colony in 1820. It suggests that material aspirations united certain of the settlers in a political programme, and thus began the erosion of imported class (and other) divisions. However, it argues that their establishment as a capitalist colonial class is an insufficient explanation for their construction of a shared and emotive British settler identity. The settlers modified their inherited discourses of class, race, gender and nationality in order to forge solidarity, and the imperative for solidarity derived not so much from their mutual desire for accumulation, but from a corresponding collective insecurity. Not only were settlers afraid of Khoikhoi labour rebellion and Xhosa reprisals for land loss; they also feared abandonment by a seemingly unsympathetic metropole. Their aggressive capitalist endeavour, and collective fear of its destabilizing consequences, were two sides of the same coin, informing the development of a unifying social identity. The paper goes on to consider the mechanisms through which that identity was sustained, including acts of landscape representation, the textual generation of collective memory and the practice of communally binding, quotidian, gendered routines.     

WORKER DISPLACEMENT AND JOB-SEARCH: A REGIONAL ANALYSIS OF STRUCTURAL IMPEDIMENTS TO REEMPLOYMENT*

ABSTRACT. This study investigates the human, and in turn the regional, consequences of industrial restructuring in the United States. Our methodology presumes that labor market outcomes of displaced workers can provide considerable information on the structural properties of local labor markets, and subsequently upon the capacity of such areas/regions to reemploy additional workers. The examination follows two steps. In the first, a multivariate model of reemployment likelihood is developed and subsequently estimated. Separate equations are obtained for various resons of the country, a disaggregation that permits one to identify how postdisplacement reemployment, and its determinants, vary systematically across space. In the second step, the above estimates are decomposed into two elements, one of which is reflective of regional structural conditions. Based upon this methodology and estimates obtained in the first step, regions of the country are compared as to magnitude of their structural economic problems, and thus as to their capacity to gainfully reemploy additional workers displaced by plant closure or relocation.     

City–suburban electoral polarization in Great Britain, 1950–2001

The degree to which residents of British inner cities and suburbs have diverged in their voting behaviour over the post-war period is analysed in this article. Examining aggregate election results by constituency, it is demonstrated that residents of inner cities and suburbs are indeed polarizing in their electoral choices. OLS regression analysis is conducted using constituency-level data to determine the relevance of intra-urban differences for understanding geographic variation in the vote in relation to those for region, size of conurbation and urban–rural distinctions. Results show that urban place of residence is particularly important for understanding the shifting geography of Conservative support. The implications of this research for electoral change in Britain are discussed.     

British Students at the International Lenin School: The Vindication of a Critique

This paper is a response to the rejoinder by Gidon Cohen andKevin Morgan to a critique of their article on British studentsat the International Lenin School (ILS) in Moscow which appearedin a recent issue of Twentieth Century British History. It developsthe criticism of their data and research methods, and the revisedresults and conclusions they derive from them, while takingissue with their approach to historical argument. It demonstratesthat the presence of ILS graduates in leading positions in theCommunist Party of Great Britain and in the apparatus of theparty did not, as they insist, disappear after 1943, but persistedinto the 1950s.