Unearthing Barrow Island’s Past: The Historical Archaeology of Colonial-Era Exploitation,Northwest Australia

The “modern world” of recent centuries is characterized by colonialism and imperialism, greater instances of cultural encounter and competition, increasing global connectivity, and the enhanced movement of resources and people especially for their labor (Falk 1991; Orser 1996). Northwest Australia provides important insight into these elements of modernity, as a region where the capitalist production of resources for international markets followed British colonization and relied on forms of non-European labor, both Indigenous Australian and Asian. This paper describes Barrow Island in the Northwest Australian maritime desert where archaeological research at recently discovered historic settlements indicates the deliberate translocation of Aboriginal people to the island presumably by white pearlers. The sites provide new information regarding commercial extractive industries, particularly the colonial pearl fisheries and their multicultural and exploitative nature.     

Vagrant,Convict, Cannibal Chief: Abel Magwitch and the Culture of Cannibalism in Great Expectations

Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations opens with a jolt, as Abel Magwitch – an escaped convict – pounces on the narrator and protagonist, Pip. Despite this rather dramatic introduction, and the pivotal role that he goes on to play in the plot, Magwitch has never been given the sustained critical analysis that he warrants. More often than not he has been treated as one of Dickens’s infamous ‘flat’ characters; a kind of ‘pantomime wicked uncle’, in the words of George Orwell. This is a critical legacy that this paper seeks to redress. Seeing Magwitch as an essential element in Dickens’s critique of mid nineteenth-century society, this paper examines Magwitch’s largely ignored peripatetic and homeless past. By contextualizing Magwitch in his role as a vagrant outsider, and then exploring how this marginal position nuances the cannibalistic appetite he displays in the first pages of the novel, I argue that Magwitch’s violence and ‘savagery’ forms a foil for the more sadistic practices of civilized society. In doing so I position Magwitch at the dark heart of Dickens’s social pessimism, and re-evaluate the culture of cannibalism that we see in Great Expectations.     

Understanding Jospin

Protest politics in the French countryside centred on broad criticism of the authority and policies of the EU. The activities of Coordination rurale on the right of French politics in 1992, and Confédération paysanne on the left since the 1980s, reflected rising rural discontent. Syndicats agricoles drew on the anger of farmers who saw agricultural politics focus on decisions by the EU and the French government to allow market priorities to transform the countryside. The often violent reaction to EU-negotiated changes imposed on French agriculture challenged legitimate authority: a sign of rising Euroscepticism in rural areas in the 1990s. The unions did not persuade politicians to accept alternative forms of agriculture but their actions challenged the future of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), further integration and enlargement of the EU.     

Book reviews

D. W. Rawson: Labor in Vain? A survey of the Australian Labor Party, Longmans, Green & Co. Ltd., Croydon, Victoria, 1966, pp. 128, cased $2.75, paperback $1.95.

Ralph Gibson: My Years in the Communist Party, International Bookshop, Melbourne, 1966, pp. 268, $1.75.

Keith McEwan: Once a Jolly Comrade, Jacaranda Press, Brisbane, 1966, pp. 119, $3.25 and $1.95 (paperback).

John Wilkes, ed.: Australian Cities: Chaos or Planned Growth? Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1966, pp. 138, $1.95.

F. B. Smith: The Making of the Second Reform Bill, Melbourne University Press, 1966, pp. 297, $6.00.

H. G. Gelber: Australia. Britain and the E.E.C.—1961 to 1963, Oxford University Press. Melbourne. 1966. pp. 296 + xii, $9.50.

Alan Stoller, ed.: New Faces: Immigration and Family Life in Australia, F. W. Cheshire for the Victorian Family Council, Melbourne, 1966, pp. 195 + x. $3.00.

Ian G. Sharp and Golin M. Tatz, eds.: Aborigines in the Economy: Employment, Wages and Training, Jacaranda Press in association with the Centre for Research into Aboriginal Affairs, Monash University, 1966, pp. 382 + xvi, $4.65.

Sir Solly Zuckerman: Scientists and War: The Impact of Science on Military and Civil Affairs, Hamish Hamilton. London. 1966. pp. 177 + xiii, $3.25.

Gerald E. Caiden: The A.C.P.T.A.—A Study of White Collar Unionism in the Commonwealth of Australia 1885–1922, Occasional Paper No. 2, Department of Political Science, Research School of Social Sciences, A.N.U., Canberra, pp. 371, n.p.

Michael Collins: The Land Boomers, Melbourne University Press, 1966, pp. 247 + viii, $7.50.

Enid Campbell: Parliamentary Privilege in Australia, Melbourne University Press. Melbourne, 1966, pp. 218, $6.00.

Anthony Clunies Ross and Peter King: Australia and Nuclear Weapons: the Case for a Non‐nuclear Region in South East Asia, Sydney University Press, 1966, pp. 111, $2.

Paul W. van der Veur: Search for New Guinea's Boundaries: From Torres Strait to the Pacific, A.N.U. Press, Canberra, 1966, pp. 176 + xii, $6.30. Distributor: Jacaranda Press, Brisbane.

Paul W. van der Veur: Documents and Correspondence on New Guinea's Boun‐daries, A.N.U. Press, Canberra. pp. 210 + x, $3.40. Distributor: Jacaranda Press, Brisbane.

J. P. Sinclair: Behind the Ranges: Patrolting in New Guinea, Melbourne University Press, 1966, pp. 230 + xvii, $4.75.