Sites and sanctity: revisiting the cult of murdered and martyred Anglo-Saxon royal saints

The cults of the murdered and martyred royal saints of Anglo-Saxon England have been interpreted as political in origin and this view has received widespread acceptance. This article, which discusses the cults of the kings, Oswald, Oswiu and Edwin of Northumbria, and Edward the Martyr and those of the princes, Kenelm of Mercia and Æthelred and Æthelberht of Kent, puts forward a new interpretation, suggesting that their cults originated in lay and non-élite devotion to the innocent victims of unjust and violent death, before being taken up for political and other purposes. It addresses the problem of popular religion in Anglo-Saxon England and seeks to show how these cults may be used to shed light on the beliefs of the ordinary Anglo-Saxon laity.     

The Politics of Air Bag Safety: A Competition Among Problem Definitions

In light of 121 deaths attributed to air bag deployments, mainly to children and adults of small stature, recent policy debate has focused on modifying current Federal automotive air bag regulations. A problem definition perspective is employed to understand the nature of this debate. Utilizing a content analysis of the official record of one U.S. House and two U. S. Senate hearings, it is argued that four problem definitions characterize the debate over air bag safety: behavioral, regulatory, technological, and corporate greed. Furthermore, it is argued that a problem definition perspective offers a better explanation of recent changes to Federal air bag regulations than do pluralist, elitist, and principal-agent models.     

Reviews

AUSTRALIA IN WORLD AFFAIRS 1961–1965. Gordon Greenwood and Norman Harper (eds.). Melbourne, F. W. Cheshire for the Australian Institute of International Affairs, 1968. Pp. vii + 503. $8.75.

VIETNAM. AN AUSTRALIAN ANALYSIS. Alan Watt. Melbourne, F. W. Cheshire for the Australian Institute of International Affairs, 1968. Pp. 156 + appendix, bibliography and index. $3.50.

LAOS—BUFFER STATE OR BATTLEGROUND. Hugh Toye. London, Oxford University Press, 1968. Pp. xvii + 245. $6.30.

PEACEKEEPING: INTERNATIONAL CHALLENGE AND CANADIAN RESPONSE. Alastair Taylor, David Cox and J. L. Granatstein. Toronto, Canadian Institute of International Affairs, 1968. Pp. 211. $4.50.

INDIAN FOREIGN POLICY IN CAMBODIA, LAOS AND VIETNAM, 1947–64. D. R. Desai. Berkeley, California University Press, 1968. Pp. 336. $10.00.

ASIAN FRONTIERS. STUDIES *IN A CONTINUING PROBLEM. Alastair Lamb. Melbourne, F. W. Cheshire, 1968, for the Australian Institute of International Affairs. Pp. x + 246. $3.50.

THE INDIANIZED STATES OF SOUTHEAST ASIA. G. Coedès. Translated by Susan Brown Cowing. Edited by Walter F. Vella. Canberra, Australian National University Press, 1968. Pp. xxi + 403. $12.00.

POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT IN MODERN JAPAN. Robert E. Ward (ed.). Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1968. Pp. xii + 637. $12.50.

MALAYSIA AND SINGAPORE IN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY. DOCUMENTS AND COMMENTARIES. Peter Boyce. Sydney, Sydney University Press, 1968. Pp. xii + 268. $6.50.

NATO: ISSUES AND PROSPECTS. Harold von Riekhoff. Toronto, Canadian Institute of International Affairs, 1967. Pp. x + 170. $3.50.

SOUTH AFRICA. A STUDY IN CONFLICT. Pierre L. van den Berghe. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1967. Pp. xii + 371. (U.S.)$2.45.

STATE SUCCESSION IN MUNICIPAL LAW AND INTERNATIONAL LAW. D. P. O'Connell. London, Cambridge University Press, 1967. Vol. I, pp. i‐cxi, 1–592, £stg.7.7.0. Vol. II, pp. i‐cxi, 1–430, £stg.6.0.0.     

Freedom and migration in the Leeward Caribbean, 1838–1848

At emancipation in the British Caribbean in 1838, newly freed blacks in larger territories established “reconstituted peasantries” on non-plantation lands. Similar village adaptations were impossible on some smaller islands where planters continued to control all of the islands' lands. In St Kitts and Nevis landless freemen emigrated to Trinidad by the hundreds to establish individual independence and to support kinsmen and friends left behind. Within a decade most migrants from St Kitts and Nevis had returned. They had thus carved out a “migration adaptation” in response to planter oppression at home and livelihood opportunity elsewhere by expanding individual livelihood spaces across the Caribbean Sea. They thereby began to establish extra-island networks of potential labour destinations while at the same time resisting permanent commitments in any one direction except for periodically returning home. Migration and return has persisted as a widespread livelihood strategy among individuals of small Caribbean islands who continue to face economic and ecological uncertainties, conditions similar to those on St Kitts and Nevis at emancipation. Individual adaptability, not group behaviour, has always been important in migration and return in the Lesser Antilles.     

Gendered Spaces of Terror and Assault: The Testimonio of REMHI and the Commission for Historical Clarification in Guatemala

On 25 February 1999, Guatemalans received the much anticipated report of the United Nations-sponsored Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH), Memory of Silence, which detailed wartime atrocities and decades-long American support of the Guatemalan army. This document followed the earlier release of the Catholic church's own REMHI report (Recuperation of Historical Memory Inter-diocesan Project), Guatemala: never again . Using the recently released reports and databases of the CEH and REMHI, we explore the significant use of testimonio as a tool of shared witnessing, collective remembrance, and individual recollection of the special brutality directed against Maya women. Through testimonio, the outcomes of visible and invisible terror and violence in Guatemala are articulated as personal, social and geographic spaces of terror, all of which are gendered and racialised. With the civil war officially over, Maya women of Guatemala see the spaces of terror diminish. Given debates over testimonio, however, the grounds for assault and denial remain fertile.     

L'Édit de Nantes et l'indifférence hollandaise

Did the promulgation of the Edict of Nantes find, in the Netherlands, an echo comparable to the one caused by the revocation of this same Edict, a century later? A first inquiry through documents directly related to events of that period (letters of politicians, pamphlets, synod acts, etc.) do not provide any revealing account of a Dutch interest in the French biconfessionalism settlement. The hypothesis put forward in this paper in order to explain this silence from the Dutch side are based on the stake shifting between France and the Netherlands, at that time, concerning tolerance.