Book reviews

ATTARD‐MARANINCHI, M.‐F., Le Panier, village corse à Marseille, Autrement, 1997, 157 pp., 89 F., ISSN 0336 5816

CAYROL, R., Médias et démocratie: la derive, Presses de Sciences Po, 1997, 115 pp., 75F., ISBN 2 7246 0710 4

CLERC, D., Dictionnaire des questions économiques et sociales, Editions de l'Atelier, 1997, 315 pp., 85F., ISBN 2 7082 3284 3

C?URÉ, S. et al. (eds), Marcel Cachin: Carnets 1906–1947: Volume IV 1935–47, CNRS, 1997, 1190 pp., no price indicated, ISBN 2 271 05124 X

COOPER, F., Decolonisation and African Society. The Labour Question in French and British Africa, Cambridge University Press, 1996, 677 pp., £55 hbk, ISBN 0 521 56251 1; £19.95 pbk, ISBN 0 521 56600 2

DEBRAY, R., Transmettre, Odile Jacob, 1997, 204 pp., 120F., ISBN 2 7381 0461 4

ELKABBACH, J.‐P., 29 mois et quelques jours, Grasset, 1997, 346 pp., 126F., ISBN 2 246 54341 X

ESTABLET, R., Comment peut‐on être Français? 90 ouvriers turcs racontent, Fayard, 1997, 242 pp., 100F, ISBN 2 213 59962 9

FAURÉ, C. (ed.), Encyclopédic politique et historique des femmes, PUF, 1997, 885 pp., 498F., ISBN 213 048 316X

FILLIEULE, O., Stratégies de la rue, Presses de Sciences Po, 1997, 435 pp., 265F., ISBN 2 7246 0707 4

GAFAITI, H., Les Femmes dans le roman algérien: histoire, discours et texte, L'Harmattan, 1996, 350 pp., 180F., ISBN 2 384 4039 8

GEISSER, V., Ethnicité républicaine. Les élites d'origine maghrébine dans le système politique français, Presses de Sciences Po, 1997, 261 pp., 149F., ISBN 2 7246 0732 5

GRANGE, J., La Philosophie d'Auguste Comte, PUF, 1996, 447 pp., 198F., ISBN 2 1304 7277X

HAUT CONSEIL DE LA FRANCOPHONIE, Etat de la Francophonie dans le monde: données 1995–1996 et 5 études inédites, La Documentation française, 1997, 629 pp., 150F., ISBN 2 11 003683 4

INSEE, La France et ses régions: Edition 1997, INSEE, 1997, 226 pp., 89F., ISBN 2 11 066 505 X

KALYVAS, S., The Rise of Christian Democracy in Europe, Cornell University Press, 1996, 300 pp., £15.95, ISBN 0 8014 3241 3

KNIGHT, D., Barthes and Utopia. Space, Travel, Writing, Clarendon Press, 1997, 287 pp., £35, ISBN 0 19 81 5889 0

KOFMAN, S., Rue Ordener, Rue Labat, University of Nebraska Press, 1996, 85 pp., £11, ISBN 0 8032 7780 6

LEVY, S. (ed.), Surrealism: Surrealist Visuality, Keele University Press, 1996, 173 pp., £35, ISBN 1 8533 1 170 7

LLOYD, M. and THACKER, A. (eds), The Impact of Michel Foucault on the Social Sciences and Humanities, Macmillan, 1997, 186 pp., £42.50 hbk, ISBN 0 333 63126; £15.99 pbk, ISBN 0 333 68432 X

LYNCH, F. M. B. France, and the International Economy, Routledge, 1997, 227pp., £45, ISBN 0 415 142 199

MINISTERE DE LA JUSTICE, Les archives contemporaines de l'administration centrale. Guide de recherches, La Documentation française, 1997, 312 pp., 300F., ISBN 2 11090 299 X

MUXEL, A., Individu et mémoire familiale, Nathan, 1996, 226 pp., 139F., ISBN 2 09 190420 1

NEBOIT‐GUILHOT, R. and DAVY L. (eds), Les Français dans leur environnement, Nathan, 1996, 382 pp., 199F., ISBN 2 09 190369 8

REYNOLDS, S., France between the Wars: Gender and Politics, Routledge, 1996, 280 pp., £16.99, ISBN 0 415 12737 8

RITCHIE, A.C., Media French. A Guide to Contemporary French Idiom, with English Translations, University of Wales Press, 1997, 268 pp., £20, ISBN 0 7083 1399 X

RONCAYOLO, M., Les grammaires d'une ville. Essai sur la genèse des structures urbaines à Marseille, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 1996, 508 pp., 380F., ISBN 2 7132 1195 6

ROUGELET, P.R.G., La machine à scandales, Albin Michel, 1997, 261 pp., 98F., ISBN 2 226 09274 9

SHERINGHAM, M. (ed.), Parisian Fields, Reaktion Books, 1996, 200 pp., £12.95, ISBN 0 948462 85 X

SHLAPENTOKH, D., The French Revolution in Russian Intellectual Life, 1865–1905, Praeger, 1996, 202 pp., £46.50, ISBN 0 275 95573 7

The French Revolution and the Russian Anti‐Democratic Tradition. A, Case, of False Consciousness, Transaction Publishers, 1997, 324 pp., £20.95, ISBN 1 56000 244 1

TERRIER, D., Les deux âges de la proto‐industrie: les tis‐serands du Cambrésis et du Saint‐Qucntinois, 1730–1880, Editions de I'EHESS, 1996, 311 pp., 150F., ISBN 2 7132 1203 0

TOPPIA, J.‐M., Function politique et délit d'ingérence, L'Aube, 1996, 381 pp., no price indicated ISBN 2 87678 270 7

TREMOIS, C.‐M., Les Enfants de la liberté. Le jeune cinéma français des années 90, Seuil, 1997, 282 pp., 120F., ISBN 2 02 032309 5

TUCK, P., The French Wolf and the Siamese Lamb. The French Threat to Siamese Independence, 1858–1907, White Lotus, distributed by Liverpool University Press, 1995 434 pp., £24.95, ISBN 1 879155 44 3

VANDERVORT, B., Victor Griffuelhes and French Syndicalism, 1895–1922, Louisiana State University Press, 1996, 278 pp., $50, ISBN 0 8071 2045 6     

Power and rural landscapes in early medieval Galicia (400–900 ad): towards a re‐incorporation of the archaeology into the historical narrative

This paper aims to bring together hitherto neglected archaeological data about the early medieval landscapes of Galicia (north‐west Spain), in order to understand the social transformations this ‘peripheral’ region underwent between the fifth and the ninth centuries and to frame them in the context of wider European debates. Despite its many limitations, the archaeology reveals that until the middle of the seventh century, the late antique society of Gallaecia experienced a previously unsuspected vitality. At this point a socio‐political fragmentation occurred, which was characterized by the strengthening of local power, until a further change took place with the progressive incorporation of Galicia into the Asturian kingdom in the ninth century.     

Machiavelli's scientific method: a common understanding of his novelty in the sixteenth century

This paper argues that Machiavelli's method, his inductive and comparative use of history and experience for political analysis, and his fashioning of historical-political analysis as ‘science’, played an important and still unrecognised role in his reception in the sixteenth century. It makes the case that Machiavelli's inductive reasoning and stress on historia and experientia offered a model for scientific method that open-minded sixteenth-century scholars, eager to understand, organise and augment human knowledge (scientia), could fit to their own epistemology. By focusing on the question of method—a crucial issue for sixteenth-century contemporaries—the paper offers more than a key to the understanding of Machiavelli's positive reception. It also helps in apprehending the crucial importance of Lucretius to Machiavelli's scholarship; the role of the late Renaissance fascination with historia in his reception; and the breadth of appropriation of his method exactly in the decades when anti-Machiavellianism became official politics all over Europe. These claims are sustained through the cases of Machiavelli's early translators and promulgators; the French legal humanists and historiographers; the Swiss, Italian and French scholars engaging with medicine, Paracelsism and astronomy; the authors of political maxims from all over Europe; and finally Francis Bacon.     

DNA analysis in charred grains of naked wheat from several archaeological sites in Spain

In the present work we attempt to recover endogenous ancient DNA from cereal grains preserved under different conditions: charred, partially charred and waterlogged. A total of 126 grains from naked wheat and 18 from barley from different sites on the Eastern Iberian Peninsula ranging from the beginning of agriculture in the region to the turn of the Common Era, were studied. Two different extraction protocols were used, a standard phenol–chloroform method and a silica-based DNA extraction procedure implemented for artificially charred seeds. Amplifications were directed to three markers: the large subunit of ribulose 1,5 biphosphate carboxylase (rbcL) and the microsatellite WCT12 in the chloroplast genome and the x and y subunits of the high molecular weight glutenin gene (Glu-1) in the nucleus. The first two were used to assess the preservation status of the samples, while with the third we tried to identify the wheat grains at species level. It was possible to obtain eleven positive amplifications in 8 partially charred seeds but only two amplifications of the Glu-1 gene from a single sample of the Early Bronze age were genome-specific. Different contamination sources were identified and reported. Cloning and alignment of sequenced clones showed a correspondence of the amplified fragment to modern wheat D genome haplotypes. This result suggests that the sample corresponds to hexaploid wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), thus being the first ancient DNA evidence to date for the cultivation of hexaploid wheat in the prehistoric agriculture of the Iberian Peninsula. Moreover, obtained results highlight contamination problems associated to the study of ancient archaeobotanical charred seeds suggest that the combination of a silica-based extraction method together with the amplification of specific targets is a good strategy for recovering endogenous ancient DNA from this kind of material.     

Human soft tissue preservation in the Cova des Pas site (Minorca Bronze Age)

The preservation process of soft tissues in an archeological context is mainly unknown because they occur only in truly exceptional situations. The Cova des Pas is a Bronze Age site in Minorca where the special conditions enabled the preservation of some soft tissues associated with 66 individuals. This finding allows the study of the preservation process that took place by means of the analysis of the histological and chemical characteristics of the tissues. Our results show that the preservation mechanism was the adipocere, because the fatty acids profile shows higher concentration of saturated than unsaturated fatty acids. The evidence indicates that the kind of funerary ritual and the environmental conditions favored this preservation.     

Foes or Allies? Portuguese Colonial Policies towards Islam in Mozambique and Guinea

Drawing its information from documents in Portuguese, French and British archives, this article examines the evolution of Portuguese colonial policies regarding Islam in Guinea and Mozambique. Such policies swayed between an image of the Muslim as foe and a more conciliatory picture, in which Muslims could be presented as potential allies of Portuguese power in the war against nationalist movements. Although the first image prevailed until the end of 1950s and the second one emerged in the mid-1960s as part of the last stage in the colonial wars, ambivalence was their common trait. That ambivalence did not hinder the development of a whole new strategy to address the Muslim communities, based on the ‘psychological’ and ‘sociological’ techniques of counter-insurgency war. The article analyses the transition from governing methods based on the control and repression of colonised Muslims to strategies aimed at co-opting them, sketching a comparison between the results achieved in Guinea and Mozambique.     

Political Science in Mexico: Cold War and Post-Cold War Context

Abstract

Through a critical consideration of recent proposals urging the use of “citizen forums” or “mini-publics” on issues involving science, this article reflects on the challenge posed to democracy and democratic decision making by the intellectual authority of modern science. Though the danger of a descent into technocracy is real and pressing, arguably the most serious challenge to democracy today, these novel “deliberative democratic” institutions are unpromising as a corrective beyond the local level, and may actually exacerbate the problem. The article concludes with a consideration of alternatives.     

Indo-Hispanic Dynamics: From Contact to Colonial Interaction in the Greater Antilles

Indo-Hispanic interaction is an essential issue in the colonial period in the Caribbean, but its study is currently marginalized as an offshoot of pre-Columbian archaeology. This state of affairs denies the indigenous contribution to the past and present ethnocultural composition of the region and privileges a colonial approach in scholarship. This paper reviews important aspects of the history of archaeological research on contact and colonial interaction in the Greater Antilles and its theoretical underpinnings. It also presents two recent archaeological case studies that show different facets of the interaction processes using new methodological approaches: El Cabo, Dominican Republic, with evidence of early contact, and El Chorro de Maíta, Cuba, a context of interethnic interaction under colonial conditions.