All Ranks Behaved Splendidly: Scottish Unit Histories of the Great War, 1916–1936

Scottish military units were strongly represented among the outpouring of unit histories that followed the Great War. A neglected genre, these works stand as cultural as well as military landmarks, expressing the private grief, but also striving to convey the importance and validity of the recent experience of war. The discussion that follows begins by explaining the aims and motivations behind Scottish unit histories. It then considers the mechanics of their commissioning, publishing and writing, before moving on to analyse the style, structure and key narrative themes of these works. It concludes by asking why, unlike the poetry, novels and personal memoirs which addressed the war, these ‘war books’ failed to become part of the common literary currency through which the Great War was later remembered. The article is accompanied by a comprehensive bibliography of these works.     

On the edge: A tale of skaters and urban governance

The 'problem' of skating has been conflated with a 'problem' with young people in public spaces, reflecting a rise in fear of crime from the mid-twentieth century and referencing more general questions about public space and citizenship. My task in this paper is to highlight some of the tensions between skating and urban governance in Franklin Square, Hobart, the capital city of Tasmania in Australia. This task is indebted to ideas about governance and citizenship advanced by Nikolas Rose; about the proper city as conceived by Michel de Certeau; and about fortress strategies and species of spaces promulgated by Stephen Flusty. Franklin Square functions in two ways in this work. First, its examination encourages consideration of local cases. Second, it can be deployed as a heuristic device through which to explore the edges of public space and citizenship. The essay is intended to make two contributions to social and cultural geography, one enlarging on some well-rehearsed debates about situated and contested socio-spatial relations in what I hope are innovative ways, the other unsettling particular strategies that place skaters 'on the edge' and yet draw them into particular domains of citizenship via specific practices of urban governance.     

Critical artistic interventions into the geopolitical spaces of islands

Something about the apparent romanticism of islands prompts creative reflections such as those comprising visual artworks in the Dis-covery exhibition touring Australia for 2 years from 2011. The exhibition forms the basis for this paper, written by its progenitor and curator—an artist, and its essayist—a cultural geographer. The curatorial premise was that islands and island cultures are at risk from global and multinational forces, as well as from amplified local impacts internal to the limits of their boundaries. In turn, the exhibition's aim was to trouble the layered cultural clichés that represent island conditions especially in terms of the romantic. Participating artists—all of whom have lived on islands—were invited to explore how islands and romanticism are both containers for disparate yet overlapping ideas, among them references to imagination, projected desire, unsatisfied longing, rising tides, exoticism, resource mining, militarism and marginalization. Drawing on conversations with the artists, and on their writings and works, this paper captures insightful reflections about islands, arts and the geopolitical imagination; reveals significant artistic interventions into the geopolitical spaces of islands; and underscores the productive relations that derive from critical and creative engagements between geography and art.     

The Shipwrecks of Xlendi Bay,Gozo, Malta

Xlendi Bay, Gozo, Malta, is a rich underwater site. It was discovered in 1961 by British Navy divers on a training mission. Since then, a significant number of artefacts has been retrieved but not well studied. This paper summarizes a recent detailed study of the archaeological material and describes five amphora types that have not yet been identified. It also takes deep‐water surveys that have recently been conducted by various teams into consideration.     

Agenda-Setting and Policy Results

This paper focuses on three episodes of US. policymaking concerning illicit drugs, one. during the Nixon administration, one during the Carter administration, and the contemporary war on drugs. Drawing upon evidence from drug-related Congressional hearings, the Gallup Poll, counts of relevant articles in the Headers' Guide to Periodical Literature and content analysis of the New York Times Index, the three episodes are characterized as fating one of Cobb, Ross, and Ross's (1976) models of agenda-setting. The paper then considers the linkage between these differences in agenda setting and the very different policy content of each episode. While the Nixon and Carter episodes exemplify the dynamics of "mobilization" and "inside access" agenda setting respectively, the contemporary drug policy episode is anomalous. It suggests the need for an extension of the Cobb, Ross, and Ross typology to incorporate a new, "network" type of agenda setting.