Topographies of Difference: Cartography of the City of Naples, 1627–1775

The eclipse of the city view by the geometric plan around 1700 is a well‐documented phenomenon that traditionally has been explained by recourse to a meta‐historical narrative about the progressive triumph of science over art. In actuality, throughout the early modern period the modes of representation available to the cartographer ranged from the geometric to the pictorial, and their employment was predicated on concerns that were more cultural and political than scientific. To show how these concerns contributed to the dramatic shift in the representation of cities which occurred at the outset of the eighteenth century, the content of the languages employed in the most famous early modern view (1627) and the plan of Naples (1775) is analyzed and the ways in which their respective strategies of representation explicitly sought to accommodate or challenge the political status quo are exposed.     

Book reviews

Dynamique de l'espace français et aménagement du territoire. (The Dynamics of French Space and Spatial Planning), Michel Rochefort. Paris: L'Harmattan, 1995, 138 pp, £15.00, ISBN 2 7384 3338 3

Urban Process and Power. Peter Ambrose. London and New York: Routledge, 1994, 245 pp, £12.00 pb, ISBN 1 415 00850 6; £40.00 hb, ISBN 0 415 00850 4

Transport Systems, Policy and Planning: a Geographical Approach. R. Tolley and B. Turton. Harlow: Longman, 1995, xviii + 401 pp, £20.99 pb, ISBN 0 582 00562 0

Transport Policy—Ways into Europe's Future (Strategies and Options for the Future of Europe: Basic Findings 8). K. Button, with contributions by W. Weidenfeld, G. Wolfgang Heinze, H. H. Kill, R. Münch, N. Walter, G. Topmann, H. Holzapfel and K. O. Schallaböck. Gütersloh: Bertelsmann Foundation Publishers, 1994, 227 pp, £9.00, ISBN 3 89204 065 6

The European Challenge: Geography and Development in the European Community. M. Blacksell and A. M. Williams (Eds). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 429 pp, 1994, £45.00 hb, ISBN 0 19 874176 6; £15.95 pb, ISBN 0 19 874177 4     

Book reviews

Shahrgara'i va Shahrnishini dar Iran (bih Inzimam‐i Muqic‐iyyat va Naqsh‐i Tehran). By Mehdi Amani. Tehran: University of Tehran, Institute for Social Studies and Research, 1350/1971. 80 pp. No price indicated.

Migration in Iran: A Quantitative Approach. By Mohammad Hemmasi. Shiraz: Pahlavi University Publications #48, 1974. 144 pp. 150R1s.

The Origins of the ?afawids: ?i^cism, ?ūfism, and the Gulat. By Michel M. Mazzaoui. Wiesbaden: Steiner Verlag, 1972. viii + 85 pp. DM 28.00.

Social and Cultural Selections From Contemporary Persian. With notes, exercises, and an alphabetical word list by Michel M. Mazzaoui and William G. Millward. Delmar New York: Caravan Books, 1973. xi + 128 pp. $7.50.     

From the Ground Up: Agency,Practice, and Community in the Southwestern British Bronze Age

Embodied, sensual, engagements between people, earthly elements, and celestial bodies during focused, periodic acts of ritual construction and artifact deposition in the southwestern British Bronze Age resulted in the remaking of identities, local communities, symbolic/mythical knowledge, and the landscape itself. To appreciate how material culture, time, and space were employed to define the criteria by which people understood themselves and their world necessitates an archaeological focus upon shared practices in particular settings that served to define rules of engagement with the environment based upon shared human perceptions. Agency appears in this encounter as central in the construction and perpetuation of symbolic perception, shared social memory, and community identity.     

St-Germain des-Prés, St Vincent and the martyrs of Cordoba

The Translatio Georgii, Aurelii et Nathaliae , in which Aimoin recounts the journey of Usuard of St-Germain to Cordoba in search of relics, and the use which Usuard made of Spanish material in his Martyrology , reveal many inconsistencies. These are explained, by comparing these texts with Aimoins's Translatio Beati Vincentii and other evidence for St-Germain, as the result of attempts to bolster the monastery's standing with Charles the Bald at a time of political difficulty.     

Bridging Positivist and Interpretivist Approaches to Qualitative Methods

The usual juxtaposition of qualitative research against quantitative research makes it easy to miss the fact that qualitative research itself encompasses at least two traditions: positivist and interpretivist. Positivist work seeks to identify qualitative data with propositions that can then be tested or identified in other cases, while interpretive work seeks to combine those data into systems of belief whose manifestations are specific to a case. In this paper, I argue that discovering causal relationships is the province of positivist research, while discovering causal mechanisms is the province of interpretivists. I explain why absolutist claims for one or the other approach are mistaken, and argue that the combination of both makes more sense. Finally, I offer suggestions for combinations of positivist and interpretive work, both at the level of thought experiment and in actual data collection and analysis. Throughout, I draw my examples from recent studies of poverty, a field in which a small but distinguished tradition of qualitative studies of the poor has been joined by a growing body of both positivist and interpretive work.     

Reviews

A Persian Requiem , Simin Daneshvar, trans. Roxane Zand, New York: George Brazillier, Inc., 1992, 279 pp., $12.50.

Epic and Sedition: The Case of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh , Dick Davis, Fayetteville, the University of Arkansas Press, 1992, 222 pp., $30.00.

Modern Capitalism and Islamic Ideology in Iran , Cyrus Bina and Hamid Zangeneh, eds., New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992, 301 pp., incl. bibliography, index, $45.00 (cloth).

Waqf in Central Asia: Four Hundred Years in the History of a Muslim Shrine, 1480–1889 , R. D. McChesney, Princeton University Press, 1991, 319 pp. + Glossary, Bibliography, and Index, $49.50.

Eternal Garden: Mysticism, History, and Politics at a South Asian Sufi Center , Carl W. Ernst, New York: State University of New York Press, 1992, xxxi + 381 pp.

The Warriors of Islam: Iran's Revolutionary Guard , Kenneth Katz‐man, Boulder, San Francisco and London: Westview Press, 1993, 180 pp., Bibliography to page 185, Index to page 192, $42.50.

The Legacy of Medieval Persian Sufism , Leonard Lewisohn, ed., London, New York: Khaniqahi Nimatullahi Publications, 1992, 434 pp.

Les otages américains à Téhéran , Nouchine Yavari‐d'Hellencourt, Paris: La Documentation Francaise, 1992, 128 pp., FF 95.

Entre l'Iran et l'occident: adaptation et assimilation des idées et techniques occidentales en Iran , Yann Richard, ed., Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, 1989, 242 pp.

Zerfall der Staatsmacht Persiens unter Nasir ad‐Din Schah Qa?ar (1848–1896): Einblicke in die Machtsverhältnisse am Teheraner Hof nach den Tagebüchern I'timad as‐Saltanas , Mostafa Edjtehadi, Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1992, Islamkundliche Untersuchungen Bd. 161, 184 pp.

Irangeles: Iranians in Los Angeles , Ron Kelley, Jonathan Friedlander and Anita Colby, eds., with photography by Ron Kelley, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993, 381 pp., incl. index, $35.00 (paper).

Sociology in Iran , Ali Akbar Mahdi and Abdolali Lahsaeizadeh, Bethesda, Md.: Jahan Book Company, Middle Eastern Series N 27, 1992, 141 pp., $8.00.

Education and the Making of Modern Iran , David Menashri, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1992, xvii + 328 pp., bibliography (p. 342), index (p. 352).

The Theology of .al‐'Allama al‐Hilli (d. 726/1325) , Sabine Schmidtke, Islamkundliche Untersuchungen, Band 152 (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1991), 260 pp. + bibliography, indices.

Ay kūtah astinan , ’Ali Akbar Sa'idi Sirjani, Costa Mesa, Calif. and Bethesda, Md.: Mazda Publishers (in association with Iranbooks, Inc.), 1991, 263 pp., no price listed.

From Palace to Prison: Inside the Iranian Revolution , Ehsan Naraghi, trans. from the French by Nilou Mobasser, Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1994, ix + 283 pp.

Whirling Dervishes , Shems Friedlander, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991, 160 pp., hard cover $30.50 paperback $12.95.

The History of al‐Tabari (Ta'rikh al‐rusul wa'l‐muluk), vol. XV: The Crisis of the Early Caliphate: The Reign of ‘Uthman, A.D. 644–656/A.H. 24–35, Muhammad b. Jarir al‐Tabari, trans. and annot. R. Stephen Humphreys, Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1990.cover $39.50, paperback $12.95.

An Ocean Without Shore: Ibn Arabi, the Book, and the Law , Michel Chodkiewicz, Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1993, 184 pp.