Lead Isotope Analysis of Tooth Enamel from a Viking Age Mass Grave in Southern Britain and the Constraints it Places on the Origin of the Individuals

Lead analysis of tooth enamel from individuals recovered from a Viking Age burial pit in southern England provides further evidence for their childhood origins outside Britain. All except one of the men have very low Pb concentrations that exclude anthropogenic Pb exposure. Strontium and oxygen isotope compositions identify a core group of men who have Pb isotope compositions of ²⁰⁸Pb/²⁰⁶Pb = 2.065 ± 0.021 (n = 20, 2SD) that, when compared with data from European soils, appear to exclude a childhood in the Scandinavian countries of Norway, Sweden and Finland, whereas areas of Northern continental Europe cannot be excluded.     

To Rid the Italian Soul of One Dark Blot: Recognising Race in White Christian Religion

This article describes white Christian missionary uses of racial imagery for assimilating early twentieth‐century immigrants into U.S. society. In early twentieth‐century America, white Methodist missionaries sought to convert Italian immigrants from so‐called “pagans” to “one hundred percent Americans” by distancing them from racial darkness. In their attempt to convert the objects of their evangelism, Methodists syncretised secular marketing and metaphorical images and trained their audiences in a racial conversion narrative. In spite of their effort to combat the racial limitations of perceived Italian darkness, missionaries' use of darkness and light metaphors in conversion narratives reinscribed a racial Manichean dualism in their missionary practices and publications.     

Anticipating fatness: childhood, affect and the pre-emptive 'war on obesity'

This paper draws together recent geographical work on fatness, pre-emptive biopolitics, affect and childhood in order to question the spatiotemporalities of obesity policy in the UK. Through analysis of key policy documents and associated media coverage, the paper questions the dystopian production of the future nation in obesity policy; the role of affect in making futures felt as realities which can be acted on in the present; and the role of childhood and children's bodies within such policy. It argues that children are central to the production and pre-emption of obese futures because of the affective potential of childhood and the paradoxical position of children's bodies both as children in the present and adults of the future. The paper concludes by arguing that obesogenic environment theories are fundamentally problematic and that recognition of the temporalities as well as the spatialities of obesity is necessary for a balanced critical geography.     

Strontium and stable isotope evidence for diet and mobility in Roman Gloucester,UK

This paper presents the results of a multi-isotopic (oxygen, strontium, carbon and nitrogen isotopes) investigation of population and dietary diversity in Roman Gloucester, focusing on individuals found in a late 2nd century AD mass burial pit at London Road, and comparing them to those found in the nearby cemetery. There were no statistical differences in isotopic composition between mass grave and cemetery burials, suggesting, in agreement with the osteological evidence, that the mass burial was the result of a catastrophic event, probably an epidemic disease. Strontium and oxygen isotope analysis demonstrated considerable diversity in the origins of the Gloucester population, with evidence for both UK and non-UK individuals. Diet was predominately terrestrial and similar to that of other Romano-British populations. Elevated δ¹³C_dentine ratios in some individuals are correlated with raised δ¹⁸O_p values and are therefore probably due to childhoods spent in warmer climates, rather than dietary variation.     

Book reviews

Australian Politics

J.M. Baxter, M. Emmison and J. Western, Class Analysis and Contemporary Australia (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1991) pp.xiii + 394. $29.95 ISBN 0 7329 0335 1.

Clive Bean, Ian McAllister and John Warhurst (eds.), The Greening of Australian Politics: The 1990 Federal Election (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1990) pp.xvi + 229. $22.99. ISBN 0 582 87031 3.

Peter Cullen, with an introduction by Clem Lloyd, No is Not an Answer: Lobbying for Success (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1991) pp.vii + 166. $19.95 ISBN 0 04 442294 6.

Peter Sekuless, Lobbying Canberra in the Nineties: The Government Relations Game (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1991) pp.vii + 165. $19.95 ISBN 0 04 442303 9.

Hugh V. Emy and Owen E. Hughes, Australian Politics: Realities in Conflict, Second Edition, (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1991) pp.ix + 577. $34.95 ISBN 0 7329 0392 0.

Brian Galligan, J.R. Nethercote and Cliff Walsh (eds.), The Cabinet and Budget Processes (Canberra: ANU, 1990) pp.141. $n.p. ISBN 0 7315 08815.

Adam Jamrozik, Class, Inequality and the State (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1991) pp.xx + 348. $29.95 ISBN 0 7329 0245 2.

Bruce Muirden, The Diggers Who Signed on For More: Australia's Part in the Russian Wars of Intervention, 1918–1919 (Adelaide: Wakefield Press, 1990) pp.115. $14.95 ISBN 1 86254 260 0.

Hugh Smith (ed.), Australia and Peacekeeping (Canberra: Australian Defence Studies Centre, 1990) pp.viii + 137.$10.00 ISBN 0 7317 0129 1.

David Wells, In Defence of the Common Wealth: Reflections on Australian Politics (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1990) pp.126. $14.99. ISBN 0 582 86913 7.

Kenneth Wiltshire, Tenterfield Revisited: Reforming Australia's System of Government for 2001 (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1991) pp.47. $9.95 ISBN 0 7022 2349 2.

Comparative and International Politics

Adam Ashforth, The Politics of Official Discourse in Twentieth‐Century South Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990) pp.xiv + 296. $120.00 ISBN 019 827702 4.

Stefano Bartolini and Peter Mair, Identity, Competition and Electoral Availability: The Stabilization of European Electorates, 1885–1985 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) pp.xix + 363. £45.00/$US59.50 ISBN 0 521 38292 0.

Gerard Braunthal, Political Loyalty and Public Service in West Germany (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1990) pp.xvi + 249. $27.50 ISBN 0 87023 707 1.

Grant Evans and Kelvin Rowley, Red Brotherhood At War (revised edition) (London: Verso, 1990) pp.xxii + 322. $29.95 ISBN 0 86091 501 8.

Ron Eyerman and Andrew Jamison, Social Movements: A Cognitive Approach (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991) pp.184. $29.95 ISBN 0 7456 08671.

Brian Head and Elaine McCoy (eds.), Deregulation or Better Regulation? (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1991) pp.vii + 183. $24.95 ISBN 0 7329 0563 X.

Ewan Jamieson, Friend or Ally (Sydney: Permagon Press, 1990) pp.x + 139. $19.95 ISBN 0 08 040081 7.

Boris Kagarlitsky (Translator, Rick Simon), The Dialectic of Change (London and New York: Verso, 1990) pp.xi + 393. $29.95 ISBN 0 86091 973 0.

Samuel Kernell (ed.) Parallel Politics: Economic Policymaking in Japan and the United States (Tokyo: Japan Center for International Exchange, and Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1991) pp.xiii + 390. $US36.95 ISBN 0 8157 4892 2.

Chandran Kukathas, David W. Lovell and William Maley (eds.), The Transition From Socialism: State and Civil Society in the USSR (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1991) pp.viii + 227. $24.99 ISBN 0 582 87046 1.

James Minchin, No Man Is An Island: A Portrait of Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1990). pp.407. $17.95 ISBN 0 04 4000028.

Chris Moore and J.J. Richardson, in association with Jeremy Moon, Local Partnership and the Unemployment Crisis in Britain (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989) pp.163. $n.p. ISBN 0 04 352220 3.

Neil Nevitte and Roger Gibbins, New Elites in Old States: Ideologies in the Anglo‐American Democracies (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1990) pp.xi + 209. $24.95 ISBN 0 19 540803 9.

Philip Norton (ed.), Legislatures (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990) pp.xi + 336. $28.95 ISBN 019 8275811.

Amin Saikal and William Maley, Regime Change in Afghanistan: Foreign Intervention and the Politics of Legitimacy (Bathurst, Australia: Crawford House Press, 1991).pp.viii + 190. $37.50 ISBN 1 86333 029 1.

Alan Tapper, The Family in the Welfare State (Sydney: Allen and Unwin in association with the Australian Institute of Public Policy) pp.x + 284. $17.95 ISBN 0 04 442309.

Elise K.Tipton, The Japanese Police State: Tokko in Interwar Japan (Sydney: Allen & Unwin 1991) pp.vii + 209. $24.95 ISBN 004 442258 X.

Wang Jiye and Terence H. Hull (eds.), Population and Development Planning in China (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1991) pp.xx + 311. $24.95 ISBN 0 04 442323 3.

Political Theory and Methodology

John Dunn: Interpreting Political Responsibility: Essays 1981–1989 (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990), pp. vii + 274. $32.95 ISBN 0 7456 0828 0.

David Held (ed.), Political Theory Today (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991) pp.ix + 360. £12.50 ISBN 0 7456 0856 6.

Fredric Jameson, Late Marxism: Adorno, or, The Persistence of the Dialectic (London: Verso, 1990) pp.x + 270. $29.95 ISBN 0 86091 981 1.

Eugene Kamenka, Bureaucracy (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989) pp.ix + 192. $24.95 ISBN 0 631 14579 6.

Ernesto Laclau, New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time (London: Verso, 1990) pp.xvi + 263. $34.95 ISBN 0–86091–919–6.

Alan Moran, Andrew Chisholm and Michael Porter (eds.), Markets, Resources and the Environment (Sydney: Allen and Unwin in association with National Priorities Project, Tasman Institute, Melbourne, 1991) pp.ix + 290. $19.95 ISBN 1 86373 025 7.

Joseph Raz (ed.), Authority (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990) pp.330. $34.95 ISBN 0 631 15944 4.

Ian Shapiro, Political Criticism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990) pp.xii + 338. $n.p. ISBN 0 520 06672 3.

David West, Authenticity and Empowerment (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990) pp.xv + 198. $n.p. ISBN 0 7450 0516.

Jonathan Wolff, Robert Nozick: Property, Justice and the Minimal State (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991) pp.168. $29.95 ISBN 0 7456 0603 2.