Forty-Two Degrees South: The Archaeology of Late Pleistocene Tasmania

Over the past 18 years the results of archaeological field research in many parts of Australia have challenged the view of late Pleistocene archaeological unity and homogeneity. Debates are increasingly focused on issues of identifying regional behavioral variability and away from a normalization of Australia's prehistory. Prior notions of cultural transformations from simple (late Pleistocene) to complex (late Holocene) social behaviors, technological homogeneity, and the timing of colonization are being increasingly scrutinized. One such area that has become a spearhead of this challenge is Tasmania, which continues to demonstrate its ability to confront preconceptions about the nature of past human behaviors.     

‘A strong and prosperous condition’ — the geography of state building and social reform in Peter the Great's Russia

The point is often made that the rise of the modern state in Europe provided models which have been influential, if not actually copied, across much of the rest of the world. In Russia during the reign of Peter the Great (1682–1725), not only was the tsar aware of the European experience of state building, but consciously strove to base many of his political and social reforms on European models. Peter aimed at sweeping reform of the Russian state and society in the attempt to bring them into the modern world. The paper argues that the reforms were necessarily geographical, involving an attempt radically to reconstruct the country's economic and social geography. The focus is upon the spatial implications of reform, including the founding and development of the city of St. Petersburg as an experiment in social reconstruction. In the event, Peter's success was only partial, and the end product quite different from the models which had influenced his reforms. It is argued that this relative failure derived not only from the widespread resistance to reform but also from geographical, social and cultural circumstances peculiar to Russia. Greater scholarly sensitivity to the social and cultural contexts in which state building occurs might stimulate more cross-cultural and comparative perspectives and enrich this important area of social theory.     

Public works and municipal government in two Italian capital cities: Comparing technical bureaucracies in Turin and Rome, 1848-88

The article draws a comparison between nineteenth-century Turin and Rome, linking the growth of technical bureaucracies in the municipal institutions of both cities to the local struggles for control over urban space. In both post-1848 Turin and post-1870 Rome, the implementation of new institutional reforms offered local city councils an opportunity to gain more power and autonomy than they had enjoyed in the recent past. The organization and the role of municipal technical services were therefore affected, with quite opposite results, by the conflicts opened with the state about the redefinition of the province of local government     

Political Tourism: Elizabeth Simcoe’s Maps and Views of Canada (1791–1796)

Abstract

Elizabeth Simcoe (1762–1850) travelled from England to Canada in 1791 and returned to her home, Wolford Lodge, in Honiton, Devon, in 1796. She was accompanying her husband, John Graves Simcoe (1752–1806), who had just been appointed Lieutenant Governor of the newly formed province of Upper Canada. Throughout their travels, Elizabeth recorded her Canadian experiences in her diaries and sketchbooks. She drew, corrected and copied maps for her husband. Upon their return to England they offered to the king an album of 32 works and a map, all drawn on birch bark. The map and the album acted as a report to the king of her husband’s political achievements in Canada and her engagement as a cartographer.     

‘Cornerstone of the Commonwealth’: The Press Union and the Preservation of the Penny Cable Rate, 1941–67

The article examines the protracted commitment of the Commonwealth Press Union (formerly the Empire Press Union) to maintaining cheap press rates during the post-war period as a means of promoting information exchange and co-operation among commonwealth countries. In documenting the strenuous efforts of the Press Union, ultimately unsuccessful, to resist calls, from the late 1950s onwards, for increased press cable charges, the article demonstrates that the Press Union's ongoing defence of the commonwealth press rate extended beyond its British leadership to include longstanding member countries, such as Australia, which had traditionally been disadvantaged by distance from London and exorbitant communication charges. Consequently, its protracted defence of the penny cable rate constitutes an important, if neglected, episode in understanding the changing character of commonwealth relations in the critical post-war years.     

Neo-Conservatism and Presidential Nomination Reforms: A Critique

The neo-conservatives fault the post-1968 reforms in presidential nominations because, they argue, increased participation opportunities have weakened political parties and produced unrepresentative candidates who are unable to govern. They favor changes that would enhance the influence of party regulars and professionals because it is asserted that such participation would strengthen parties and encourage the selection of more popular and better qualified nominees. We argue that the critique suffers from several weaknesses: a failure to consider other plausible explanations for the effects attributed to the reforms; the use of inadequate or misleading measures; and the misuse of historical examples. In addition, we find that a key concept in their critique–professionalism– is not clearly defined, and that the several plausible definitions suffer from a variety of logical and analytic shortcomings. Although many political scientists