Notes and News

MAGIC : A SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY. By HUTTON WEBSTER. Stanford University Press, California. 1950. Pp. 524. $ 6.00. Reviewed by E. O. James

SUGGESTIONS CONCERNING CLASSIFICATION, STORAGE, AND LABELLING OF OBJECTS ILLUSTRATING ENGLISH LIFE AND TRADITIONS. British Ethnography Committee. The Royal Anthropological Institute. 1950. Price 2s. 6d. Reviewed by A. T. Lucas.

THE BALLAD TREE. By EVELYN KENDRICK WELLS. The Ronald Press Company, New York, 1950. ix–370pp. $450. Reviewed by Arthur Brown.

FOLK SONGS OF VIRGINIA. By ARTHUR KYLE DAVIS. Duke University Press, 1949. lxiii +389 pp. 30s. Reviewed by Arthur Brown.     

Is the Future of Mobility Electric? Learning from Contested Storylines of Sustainable Mobility in Iceland

Planning for sustainable mobility is a complex and demanding task and the knowledge of how to trade off multiple, often conflicting, goals is not entirely clear. One of the most contentious and confounding issues in the context of urban planning has been, and continues to be, the place of the automobile within the evolving sustainable mobility paradigm. The recent emergence of strong policy and planning support for the introduction of electric vehicles raises thorny questions as to whether or not this development will be complementary to, or conflicting with, other sustainable mobility planning goals, such as the pursuit of compact cities, restrictions on automobiles, promotion of walking and bicycling, and support for public transport. The results of a recent pilot study conducted in the Reykjavik city region suggest that a strategy of provision for electric vehicles on a large scale may represent a continuation of the dominant transport engineering approach, drawing scarce financial and institutional resources away from path-breaking measures such as the efforts to create denser development patterns and promote non-motorized and public forms of transport.     

Review Article: Brigands,Emperors, and Anarchy

PHILIP DE SOUZA. Piracy in the Graeco-Roman World. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pp. x, 276. $59.95 (US); KURT RAAFLAUB and NATHAN ROSENSTEIN, eds. War and Society in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds: Asia, the Mediterranean, Europe, and Mesoamerica. Washington: Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard University, 1999; dist. Cambridge, Mass, and London: Harvard University Press. Pp. viii, 484. $50.00 (US); B. D. HOYOS. Unplanned Wars: The Origins of the First and Second Punic Wars. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1998. Pp. xviii, 326. $80.00 (US). Reviewed by Arthur M. Eckstein     

Synthesis by microbes or chemists? Pharmaceutical research and manufacturing in the antibiotic era

This article presents a case study of the rise of Pfizer as a leading pharmaceutical company, with a focus on changing relationships between manufacturing technology and R&D between the mid 1940s and the mid 1960s. Pfizer first moved into pharmaceuticals through participation in the US government's penicillin effort during World War II. The company had expertise in deep tank, biological fermentation for the production of chemicals that it adapted to the manufacture of penicillin. Having greatly expanded its biological manufacturing capacity to meet state needs, Pfizer adopted an R&D program to find new microbial antibiotics suited to its manufacturing technology after the war ended. Pfizer's successes in this antibiotic era established the firm as a major pharmaceutical company. In looking to larger commercial markets for drugs, Pfizer, like its competitors, pursued medicines for chronic diseases rather than acute infections. For this pursuit, in the 1950s and 1960s, Pfizer transformed itself into a chemistry‐orientated pharmaceutical firm by reorienting its R&D toward chemistry. This led to a growing divergence between R&D and manufacturing and the eventual replacement of biological manufacturing with chemical manufacturing. The article explores the changing trajectories of R&D and manufacturing at Pfizer, their shifting positions within the firm, and the consequences of these changes and shifts for the firm's strategy and organization.     

Recollections of a Part-Time Amateur Neurohistorian

William Thornton, MD, was a polymath who designed the Capitol of the U.S. Capital and the Octagon House, present home of the American Institute of Architecture. He was the founding director of the U.S. Patent Office. His collected papers, which are now preserved at the U.S. Library of Congress, though pruned by the wife who lived almost 40 years after him, are extensive and include comments on science, education, slavery, and politics. His views on sleep and dreaming and his concepts of resuscitation are reviewed as the opinions of an educated man early in the nineteenth century.     

Surveying in the Antarctic

A Naturalist in Mid‐Africa. Being an account of a Journey to the Mountains of the Moon and Tanganyika. By G. F. Scott Elliot, M.A., F.L.S., F.E.G.S. Pp. xvi + 413, 49 figs., frontispiece, and 4 maps. 8vo. London: A. D. Innes and Co., 1896. Pp. xiii + 413. Price 16s.

A Breath from the Veldt. By John Guille Millais, F.Z.S. London: Henry Sotheran and Co., 1895. Pp. 236. Price £3, 3s. net.

Peru. Von E. W. Middendorf. III. Band : Das Hochland von Peru. Berlin : Robert Oppenheim (Gustav Schimdt), 1895.

Tafilet. The Narrative of a Journey of Exploration in the Atlas Mountains and the Oases of the North‐West Sahara. By Walter B. Harris, F.E.G.S., author of “A Journey through the Yemen,” “The Land of an African Sultan,” VOL. XII. Q

“Travels in Morocco,” etc. Illustrated by Maurice Romberg from Sketches and Photographs by the Author. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1895. Pages xii + 386. Price 12s.

From Far Formosa: The Island, its People, and Missions. By G. L. Mackay, D.D. Edited by the Rev. J. A. Macdonald. Edinburgh : Oliphant, Anderson, and Ferrier, 1896. 346 pp. Price 7s. 6d.

The Geology and Scenery of Sutherland. By H. M. Cadell, B.Sc., etc. Second edition. Edinburgh : Douglas, 1896. Pp. 104. Price 4s.

The Place‐Names of Fife and Kinross. By W. J. N. Liddall, M.A., Advocate. Edinburgh : W. Green and Sons, 1896. 8vo., pp. xiv. + 58.

Die Liparischen Inseln. Fünftes Heft—Filicuri. Prag : Heinr. Mercy, 1895.

Australien und Ozeanien. Eine allgemeine Landeskunde von Professor Dr. Wilhelm Sievers. Mit 137 Abbildungen im Text, 12 Kartenbeilagen, und 20 Tafeln in Holzschnitt und Farbendruck. Leipzig und Wien. Bibliographisches Institut, 1895. Pp. 521. Price 16 M.

Ritters Geographisch‐Statistisches Lexikon. Achte Auflage: Unter der Redaktion [von Johs. Penzler. Zweiter Band, L‐Z. Leipzig, 1895. 1202 pp.

The Natural History of Plants: their Forms, Growth, Reproduction and Distribution. From the German of Anton Kerner von Marilaun, Professor of Botany in the University of Vienna. Translated and edited by F. W. Oliver, M.A., D.Sc., Quain Professor of Botany in University College, London, with the assistance of Marian Busk, B.Sc., and Mart F. Ewart, B.Sc. With about 2000 original woodcut illustrations and sixteen plates in colours. Vol. i., Biology and Configuration of Plants, pp. xiv. + 777 ; vol. ii., The History of Plants, pp. xiv.+983. London and Glasgow: Blackie and Son, Limited, 1894 and 1895.

Handbook for Travellers in Algeria and Tunis. By Sir R. Lambert Platfair, K.C.M.G. Fifth edition, thoroughly revised. London : John Murray, 1895. Pp. 363. Price 10s. 6d.

Cassell's New Geographical Readers. Fifth Book—Europe. Sixth Book—The British Colonies and Dependencies. Seventh Book—The United States. London, etc. : Cassell and Co., 1895. Prices 1s. 6d., 1s. 6d., 1s. 9d., respectively.

The Statesman's Year‐Book. Statistical and Historical Annual of the States of the World for the Year 1896. Edited by J. Scott Keltie, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society, with the assistance of I. P. A. Renwick, M.A., LL.B. London : Macmillan and Co., 1896. Pp. xxxii+1164.

The Australian Handbook, Shippers’ and Importers’ Directory and Business Guide for 1896. London, Melbourne, etc. : Gordon and Gotch. Pp. 632.

Beobachtungen der Russischen Polarstation an der Lenamündung. 1. Theil. Astronomische und Magnetische Beobachtungen. 1882–4. Bearbeitet von V. Fuss, F. Müller, and K. Jürgens. St. Petersburg : 1895.