Book reviews

Reappraisals in British Imperial History by Ronald Hyam and Ged Martin. Cambridge Commonwealth Series, London: Macmillan, 1975. Pp. x + 234. £10.00.

The Black Loyalists: The Search for a Promised Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone, 1783–1870 by James W. St. G. Walker. Dalhousie African Studies Series. London: Longman and Dalhousie University Press, 1976. Pp. xvi+438. £8.75. Paper £3.50. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1976. $24.00. Paper $10.00.

The Loyal Blacks by Ellen Gibson Wilson. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1976. Pp. xi+463. $7.95.

Bibliography of British History 1789–1851 edited by Lucy M. Brown and Ian R. Christie. Clarendon Press: Oxford University Press. 1977. Pp.xxxi+759. £20.

New South Wales—Autocracy to Parliament 1824–1856. Published by the Legislative Council of the Parliament of New South Wales, Parliament House, Sydney, 1976. Pp. vii + 137. Loose‐leaf edition limited to 300 copies.

Office‐Holders in Modern Britain. Volume VI, Colonial Office Officials compiled by J. C. Sainty. London: University of London, Institute of Historical Research. 1976. x + 52 pp. £4.00.

Indian Society and the Beginnings of Modernisation c. 1830–1850 edited by C. H. Philips and Mary Doreen Wainwright. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1976. Pp. vi+243. £2.50.

Partner in Empire: Dwarkanath Tagore and the Age of Enterprise in Eastern India by Blair B. Kling. University of California Press, 1976. Pp. xii+276. £15.60.

Buddhism in Sinhalese Society 1750–1900: A Study of Religious Revival and Change by Kitsiri Malalgoda. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 1976. Pp. xiii+300. £13.20

Facets of Modern Ceylon History through the Letters of Jeronis Pieris by Michael Roberts. Colombo: Hansa Publishers Limited, 1975. Pp. 108, map, photographs, appendices. (No price is listed ; Distributors, H. W. Cave and Co. Ltd., P. O. Box 25, Colombo, Sri Lanka).

Southeast Asia: A History by Lea E. Williams. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976. Pp. xii+299. £7.50.

A History of Malaysia and Singapore by N. J. Ryan. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1976. Pp. xiv+322. £16.00.

Comparative History of Civilizations in Asia by Edward L. Farmer et al. Reading (Mass.): Addison‐Wesley Publishing Co., 1977. 2 Vols. Pp. xxx+797. £11.20 each.

Dark Companions: The African Contribution to the European Exploration of East Africa by Donald Simpson. London: Paul Elek, 1976. Pp. xi+228. £7.50.

Europäische Kolonialherrschaft 1880–1940 by Rudolf von Albertini, in association with Albert Wirz. Zurich and Freiburg im Breisgau: Atlantis Verlag, 1976. Pp. 528, 20 maps. DM. 54 (hardback), DM. 45 (paperback).

Oil and Empire: British Policy and Mesopotamian Oil 1900–1920 by Marian Kent, London: Macmillan, 1976. Pp. xiii+273. £10.

On Revolt: Strategies of National Liberation by J. Bowyer Bell. Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard U.P., 1976. Pp. xv+272. £11.25.

The Erosion of a Relationship: India and Britain since 1960 by Michael Lipton and John Firn. Oxford University Press for the Royal Institute of International Affairs: London, 1976. Pp. xvi+427. £13.00.     

Review of a research project

Industrialization and Foreign Politics. Some Aspects of Sweden's Economic‐Political Relations with the Great Powers, 1905–1945.     

Application of lipid biomarker analysis to evaluate the function of ‘slab-lined pits’ in Arctic Norway

Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) and bulk carbon isotope determinations have been performed on samples (‘cemented organic residues’, charcoal, sediment and fire-cracked rock) excavated from 12 slab-lined pits from various locations in Arctic Norway to test the premise that these archaeological features were used for the extraction of oil from the blubber of marine mammals, such as seal, whale and walrus. A wide range of lipid compound classes were detected especially in the cemented organic residues and in the charcoal samples. The presence of long-chain unsaturated and isoprenoid fatty acids together with oxidation and thermal alteration products of unsaturated acids such as dicarboxylic acids, dihydroxyfatty acids and ω-(o-alkylphenyl)alkanoic acids suggests that these features were used for marine oil extraction at elevated temperatures. Notably the location of the hydroxyl groups in the dihydroxyfatty acids provides a record of the positional isomer of the precursor fatty acid and allows confirmation that 11-docosenoic (cetoleic) acid, the most abundant C_22:1 isomer in marine oil, was a major component of the original lipid. Further information was provided by the presence of long-chain fatty acyl moieties in surviving triacylglycerols and the presence of cholesterol. A fungal metabolite, mycose (trehalose), was found in all samples apart from a fire-cracked rock and points to microbiological activity in the pits. Bulk isotope analysis conducted on the ‘cemented organic residues’ is consistent with modern reference samples of blubber and oil from seal and whale. These data provide clear analytical evidence of the function of slab-lined pits in the archaeological record and suggest widespread exploitation of marine mammals for producing oil for heating, lighting and myriad other uses in the past.     

Re-examining the Egyptian colonial encounter in Nubia through a compositional,mineralogical, and textural comparison of ceramics

Textural, mineralogical, and X-Ray fluorescence (XRF) analyses are used as a cost effective method to distinguish for the first time ancient Egyptian and Nubian-style ceramics found in Nubia. Textural and mineralogical data suggest that Nubian-style sherds are mixtures of sand, silt, and clay sediment that is generally finer grained and poorer in quartz than is the sediment mixture used to produce Egyptian-style pottery. Chemical data also establish a significant difference in the amount of chemical variation found within each style population, but nonetheless supports a considerable overlap in the possible provenance of both styles. Observations and data obtained during this study indicate that standardized, Egyptian-style manufacturing was introduced into Nubia under colonialism, without substantially altering the diversity of native methods of production.