Book reviews

Persian Poetry in Kashmir, 1339–1846: An Introduction. .By G. L. Tikku. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1971. x + 321 pp.

Iran unter Karim Han (1752–1779). By Parwis Radjabi Tabrizi. Göttingen (doctoral dissertation submitted to Georg‐August University), 1970. 205 pp.

Die Zand‐Dynastie. By Mehdi Roschanzamir. Hamburg: Hart‐mut Lüdke Verlag, 1970 (Geistes‐ und Sozialwissenschaft‐liche Dissertationen 8). x + 229 pp., map.

The Successors of Genghis Khan. By Rashid al‐Din Tabib. Translated by John Andrew Boyle. New York: Columbia University Press, 1971. xi + 372 pp., map.     

Book reviews

Analysing Polycentrism—An Extended Review

J. D. B. Miller and T. H. Rigby, eds.: The Disintegrating Monolith — Pluralist Trends in the Communist World, Australian National University, Canberra, 1965, pp. 264 + xiii, $6.

I.W.W. Advice to Shearers: “Give the warm weather and the blow flies a chance.”

I. Turner: Industrial Labour and Politics, Australian National University, Canberra, 1965, pp. 272, $5.25.     

Mass violence,trauma, and their children

This article concerns the social construction of collective memory particularly with regard to the social remembering of mass violence and trauma. How do individual memories of mass violence which are often idiosyncratic, nonverbal, and embodied coalesce and crystallize into coherent narratives shared by a group. The books reviewed here demonstrate that there are both discursive means of remembering and non-discursive means of remembering. Social memories can take narrative and textual form or they can take performative and ritual form. How does the non-discursive interact with the discursive and do these interactions depend upon varying social, political, and cultural circumstances? An encompassing theoretical issue is addressed in this literature concerning the adequacy of sociological and anthropological models in the elucidation of trauma memory vs. psychological models which place emphasis on the individual. Subsumed within this question is an inquiry into the adequacies and inadequacies of Western clinical models, such as the PTSD model, in explaining trauma due to mass violence, and the opposition frequently noted among survivors between silence and verbalization. Numerous ethnographic examples are considered in this article but particular attention is paid to the Nazi, Cambodian, and Rwandan genocides.     

Partnership Networks for Urban Development: How Structure is Shaped by Risk

In delivering public policy, governments worldwide increasingly partner with diverse sets of stakeholders. This spreads commercial risk, but particularly where agendas diverge, introduces new risks related to trust in relationships. The “risk hypothesis” distinguishes between networks for “cooperation” problems, where partners have high individual payoffs for uncooperative behaviors, and “coordination” problems, where partners subscribe to a common goal and uncooperative behaviors are less rewarding. We used mixed‐methods to study networks of local and state government, developers, and consultants that center on joint‐venture partnerships for developing new urban, residential projects. Statistical network methods showed that within the mix of partners involved in development projects, only state governments displayed structural patterns associated with solving “cooperation” problems (rather than coordination). In other words, the patterns of state government interactions showed they are most exposed to risky relationships. In contrast to the state governments’ apparent exposure to risk, qualitative data showed they are not only well trusted but also overall the partnership networks reported very low levels of conflict. By exploring the distribution of “cooperation” and “coordination,” we identified which stakeholders perceived most risk. In our case, how the state governments’ structure interactions in response to risky relationships leads to an overall network characterized by trust.