“Biblical” bronze coins: new insights into their timing and attribution using copper and lead isotopes

Ancient Judaean bronze coins are important for reconstructing the timing of events, for their cultural information, and for understanding alliances in the Eastern Mediterranean as Roman influence replaced the Hellenic Empires. Isotopic analyses of metals important in archaeology have become increasingly routine using multiple collector–inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry. A relatively nondestructive acid swab method for the isotopic analysis of lead (Pb) and copper (Cu) in bronze is described and tested for various isotopic sampling biases. The method is used to examine changes over time in fiduciary metal sources in the Levant during the first centuries bce and ce. The metal sources, timing, and attribution of Judaean “widow's mites” (ca. 80–40?bce) and the bronze coins of Roman governors Valerius Gratus and Pontius Pilate under Tiberius (14–37?ce) are used to illustrate how changes in the isotopes of Pb (widow's mites) and Cu (Roman governors) can be used to elucidate the compositional chronology of archaeological bronzes from this region and period.     

Research NotePork-Barrelling in Australian Politics: A Reconsideration of Leigh

This research note replicates Leigh's (2008) analysis of pork-barrelling in Australian politics and tests the validity of his findings using geographic techniques. Distributive politics is integral to nearly all theories of legislative politics because it is fundamental to the connection between legislators and constituents, and can be used to facilitate coalition-building. This note addresses an aspect of pork-barrelling that has been overlooked in most previous scholarship. It argues that distributive politics is, at its core, a geographic, constituency-centred process. It is therefore essential to reconsider the conventional models and take geography into account in both substantive and statistical terms. To that end, we replicate several of Leigh's results using a relatively new technique, Geographically Weighted Regression, and reveal substantial spatial heterogeneity in the coefficients. Our findings highlight the importance of political geography and have important implications for studies of legislative politics and elections.

本文重复了李（2008）对澳大利亚政治分肥拨款的分析,用地理学技术检测了其发现有效性。分配政治内在于几乎所有的立法政治理论,因为它是立法者与选民之间联系的基础,有利于联盟的构建。本文探讨了分肥拨款被以往学术研究所忽略的一个方面。作者认为,分配政治其核心是一个地理的、以选区为中心的过程。因此有必要重新检讨固有的模式,切实而且从统计的意义上采纳地理的视角。我们使用了一种相对新近的技术,即地理加权回归分析来重复李的几个成果,发现空间同质系数很高。我们的发现突出了政治地理的重要性,对于立法政治以及选举的研究有参考意义。     

Urban Regeneration and Socio-economic Sustainability: A Role for Established Small Food Outlets

In recent years, the challenges of urban regeneration and sustainability have been brought together in discourses concerning the re-shaping of inner-city districts of large cities. Currently, sustainable development in regeneration policies is mostly dominated by the environmental dimension and qualities of the built environment, with some focus on the more easily quantifiable aspects of social and economic dimensions. There is, however, limited discussion about integrating socio-economic aspects of sustainable regeneration in the literature. This paper presents a critical exploration of the role of the existing small business base in facilitating more sustainable urban re-development from a socio-economic standpoint. Indigenous food outlets in Birmingham's Eastside district—a re-development initiative branded as exemplar of sustainable urban development—are used to illustrate the role of small businesses in the day-to-day life of districts undergoing regeneration. The paper reflects on challenges and benefits from retaining and supporting established businesses throughout the re-development process and concludes with some reflections on lessons learnt from the case study. It argues that planners, policy-makers and developers should accord greater attention to the role of established businesses to foster urban districts that strive towards integrating aspects of socio-economic sustainability.     

Book reviews

CHINA

ZHIYUE BO. Chinese Provincial Leaders: economic Performance and Political Mobility since 1949. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2002. 183 pp. Appendix, bibliography, index. US$74.95, hardcover.

KIRK A. DENTON. The Problematic of Self in Modern Chinese Literature: Hu Feng and Lu Ling. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998. 324 pp. A$90.00, hardcover.

ROSS GARNAUT and LIGANG SONG (eds). China 2002: WTO Entry and World Recession. Canberra: Asia Pacific Press, 2002. x, 192 pp. Bibliography. A$35.00/US$30.00, paper.

NEIL C. HUGHES. China's Economic Challenge: smashing the Iron Rice Bowl. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2002. xv, 235 pp. Photographs, map, index. US$24.95, paper.

P. R. KUMARASWAMY (ed). China and the Middle East: the Quest for Influence. New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1999. 228 pp. Rs425, hardcover.

ROBERT H. SHARF. Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism: a Reading of the Treasure Store Treatise. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002. 414 pp. US$47.00, hardcover.

STEPHEN UHALLEY, JR. and XIAOXIN WU (eds). China and Christianity: burdened Past, Hopeful Future. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2001. 520 pp. Illustration, table, notes, bibliography, glossary, index. $79.95, hardcover.

ANN BARROTT WICKS (ed). Children in Chinese Art. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002. 216 pp. Illustrations (colour and b/w), glossary of Chinese characters. US$51.00, hardcover.

YONGJIN ZHANG and GREG AUSTIN (eds). Power and Responsibility in Chinese Foreign Policy. Canberra: Asia Pacific Press, 2001. 293 pp. Index. A$36.00/US$32.00, paper.

JAPAN AND KOREA

DAVID BELL. Chushingura and the Floating World: the Representation of Kanadehon Chushingura in Ukiyo‐e Prints. Richmond: Japan Library, 2001. 170 pp. 41 b/w plates, synopsis, list of principal characters and roles, glossary, bibliography, dustjacket. US$48.00, hardcover.

EYAL BEN‐ARI and JOHN CLAMMER (eds). Japan in Singapore: cultural Occurrences and Cultural Flows. Surrey: Curzon Press, 2000. 238 pp. £40.00, hardcover.

MAHITO ISHIMOTO (ed). Remembering Aizu: the Testament of Shiba Gorō. Translated, with Introduction and Notes, by Teruko Craig. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1999. 158 pp. US$37.00, hardcover; US$19.95, paper.

YASUHIRO NAKASONE. The Making of the New Japan: reclaiming the Political Mainstream (translated and annotated by Lesley Connor). Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 1999. 256 pp. £30.00, hardcover.

HIROSHI SHIMIZU and HITOSHI HIRAKAWA. Japan and Singapore in the World Economy: Japan's Economic Advance into Singapore 1870–1965. London: Routledge, 1999. 268 pp. £60.00, hardcover.

JULIA ADENEY THOMAS. Reconfiguring Modernity: concepts of Nature in Japanese Political Ideology. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. xv, 239 pp. Index. A$37.50, hardcover.

SOUTH, WEST & CENTRAL ASIA

BAABAR (Bat‐Erdene Batbayar). Twentieth Century Mongolia. Cambridge: White Horse Press, 1999. xiv, 448 pp. £50.00, hardcover.

WENDY DONIGER (ed). Splitting the Difference. Gender and Myth in Ancient Greece and India. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1999. xi, 376 pp. Bibliography, index. £38.50, hardcover; £15.50, paper.

DIANA L. ECK. Dar?an: seeing the Divine Image in India, 3rd edition. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998. v, 115 pp. Appendices, bibliography, glossary. US$16.50, paper.

JEFFREY HOPKINS. Emptiness in the Mind‐Only School of Buddhism: dynamic Responses to Dzong‐ka‐ba The Essence of Eloquence: I. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. 542 pp. US$45.00, hardcover.

FAREED KAZMI. The Politics of India's Conventional Cinema: imagining a Universe, Subverting a Multiverse. New Delhi: Sage, 1998. 252 pp. Rs 195.

BURTON WATSON, trans. The Essential Lotus: selections from the Lotus Sutra. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. 195 pp. US$16.95, paper.

SOUTHEAST ASIA

LEONARD BLUSSÉ Bitter Bonds: a Colonial Divorce Drama of the Seventeenth Century. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 2002. x, 194 pp. US$49.95, hardcover; US$22.95, paper.

ERIK COHEN. The Commercialized Crafts of Thailand: hill Tribes and Lowland Villages. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2000. xiii, 316 pp. Photographs, diagrams, tables, notes, bibliography, index. US$39.00, hardcover; US$19.95, paper.

VIRGINIA MATHESON HOOKER. Writing a New Society: social Change through the Novel in Malay. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002. xviii, 492 pp. Notes, select bibliography, index. US$39.00, hardcover.

PETER RIDDELL. Islam and the Malay‐Indonesian World: transmission and Responses. London: C. Hurst and Co., 2001. xix, 349 pp. Maps, tables, index, bibliography. £45.00, hardcover.

GENERAL ASIA

RICHARD J. ELLINGS and AARON L. FRIEDBERG (eds). Strategic Asia: power and Purpose 2001–02. Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2001. 378 pp. US$19.95, paper.

PETER FRANCIS, Jr. Asia's Maritime Bead Trade: 300 B.C. to the Present. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002. 305 pp. A$52.00, hardcover.

DAVID GOLDSWORTHY (ed). Facing North: a century of Australian Engagement with Asia, Volume 1:1901 to the 1970s. Carlton South: Melbourne University Press, 2001. 523 pp. A$59.95, hardcover; A$39.95, paper.

BRIAN MOERAN (ed). Asian Media Productions. Richmond: Curzon Press, 2001. £45.00, hardcover.     

Rhetoric,Narrative, and the Remembrance of Death in ʿAttār's Mosibat-nāmeh

This paper examines the anecdotes of ?Attār’s Mosibat-nāmeh as temporal phenomena from the perspective of a reader moving progressively through the text; it is argued that that these anecdotes do not function primarily as carriers of dogmatic information, but as dynamic rhetorical performances designed to prod their audiences into recommitting to a pious mode of life. First, the article shows how the poem’s frame-tale influences a reader’s experience of the embedded anecdotes by encouraging a sequential mode of consumption and contextualizing the work’s pedagogical aims. Next, it is demonstrated that these anecdotes are bound together through formulae and lexical triggers, producing a paratactic structure reminiscent of oral homiletics. Individual anecdotes aim to unsettle readers’ ossified religious understandings, and together they offer a flexible set of heuristics for pious living. Finally, it is argued that ?Attār’s intended readers were likely familiar with the mystical principles that underlie his poems; he therefore did not use narratives to provide completely new teachings, but rather to persuade his audience to more fully embody those pious principles to which they were already committed.     

Submergence: Precarious Politics in Colombia's Future Port‐City

This article examines popular politics under precarious conditions in the rapidly expanding port‐city of Buenaventura on Colombia's Pacific coast. It begins by identifying the intersecting economic, ecological, and political forces contributing to the precarity of life in Buenaventura's intertidal zone. Focusing on conflicts over land in the waterfront settlements of Bajamar (meaning “low‐tide”), it then describes the efforts of Afro‐Colombian settlers and activists to defend their territories against threats of violence and displacement. In doing so, they must navigate historical legacies of ethno‐racial politics as well as formations of liberal governance and their multicultural and biopolitical logics of vulnerability and protection. The socio‐material conditions of the intertidal zone, and in particular the figure of submergence, are used to illuminate forms of political life in Colombia's future port‐city. The struggles of Afro‐Colombians to contest violent dispossession in Buenaventura reflect the racialized politics of precarity under late liberalism.