A Treaty too Far? Britain, France, and Concorde, 1961-1964

The 1964 Labour government inherited a substantial balance-of-paymentsdeficit. In an effort to deal with the attendant economic crisis,the government sought to cancel a number of costly, high-prestigeprojects, including the Franco-British supersonic airliner Concorde.When the possible ramifications of this were considered, however,it was discovered that the agreement covering the aircraft wasnot commercial but carried the full force of an internationaltreaty. The clear implication of this was that a withdrawingparty could be subject to heavy financial penalties. Cancellation,therefore, it was argued, was likely to cost even more thancontinuing with the project would. The question remains as tohow such a remarkable situation had come about. This articleanalyses the negotiations between Britain and France concerningConcorde, particularly in the early 1960s, which eventuallyled to the signing of the treaty in 1962. It examines the political,technological, and economic imperatives which underpinned thenegotiations and the relationships between the two governmentsand their respective aviation industries. It also considersthe motives of both the British and French governments in theprocess, and concludes that in each case that the technologicaland political motives overrode economic considerations.     

Alternative Ways of Financing Production

Based upon the work of C. H. Douglas, this paper explores the role of debt in the economy. In the 1920s Douglas observed the workings of financial mechanisms within the real economy, noting that they could be modified to achieve a socially and ecologically sustainable economics of sufficiency (see Hutchinson and Burkitt 1997; Hutchinson 1998). Douglas' exploration of the role of debt (loan credit) in the economy accords well with Veblen's institutional analysis (Veblen 1990), while his writing reverberates with Veblenian terminology. As an economist, Douglas is both intuitive and eclectic, and, as Mehta (1983) observes, ‘no writer in economics has made his thought so opaque to the reader.’ Nevertheless, Douglas' rejection by orthodoxy was due in no small measure to the impracticality of tailoring his theoretical observations within the constraints of neo-classical general free market equilibrium theory. Although they gave rise to a widespread popular movement, Douglas' proposals for debt-free finance of production could not be accommodated within economic orthodoxy.     

Metastatic carcinoma in a leper skeleton from a Medieval cemetery in Chichester England

Both leprosy and metastatic cancer are well documented in the literature on human skeletal palaeopathology. The manifestation of both pathological conditions in a single archaeological skeleton has not been reported. A case from a Medieval site in Chichester, England exhibits bone lesions and patterns of skeletal involvement indicative of both these diseases. Evidence of leprosy is largely restricted to the lower tibiae, fibulae and the bones of the feet. Fine destructive foci and reactive fibre bone associated with metastatic cancer are distributed in many of the remaining areas of the skeleton. There is minimal overlap in the areas of the skeleton involved in the two pathological processes.     

The ‘Little Palaces’ of St James's: Ladies,Lords, and Political Association under the later Stuarts

Clubs, coffee houses, and taverns, the most widely studied sites of political gathering in later Stuart London, largely excluded women. This essay argues that places of ‘intermixed conversation’ which existed alongside them should also be taken into account, and considers several examples of regular, semi-private assemblies, chiefly hosted by elite women (including duchesse de Mazarin, Lady Pulteney, and Barbara Villiers, Lady Fitzhardinge) and frequented by both sexes for the overt purpose of card playing, which were also significant places of political association at this period.     

We Need a Loud and Fractious Poor

This article explores the political consequences of four decades of consistent humiliation of the poor by the most authoritative voices in the land, and offers insights into ways that new movements are creating spaces for poor people’s political voices to surface and become relevant again. Our specific concern is the challenge that the current humiliation regime poses to those who seek to revive radical, disruptive and fractious anti-poverty activism and politics. By humiliation regime, we mean a form of political violence that maltreats those classified popularly and politically as “the poor” by treating them as undeserving of citizenship, rights, public goods or resources, and, importantly, that seeks to delegitimate them as political actors. Our article demonstrates the historical importance of authoritative voices in inspiring political unrest involving poor and working people, charts the depoliticising effects of poverty politics and governance since the 1980s, and highlights the new political possibilities that are surfacing now not just to defeat the very dangerous political forms of Trumpism and the new white nationalism but that seek as well to create something that looks like justice, freedom and equality. We insist on the importance of loud and fractious poor people’s politics and call on scholars to direct attention to the incipient political potentialities of poor people today.     

Pure wax: A one man script

Donald N. Levine. Greater Ethiopia: The Evolution of a Multiethnic Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974. xv+ 229 pp. Maps, tables, charts, appendix, bibliography, and index. $12.50 (cloth).