Book reviews

VIETNAMESE ANTI‐COLONIALISM. David G. Marr. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1972. 0–520–0813–3. xix, 322 pp. $US11.95.

SUKARNO: A POLITICAL BIOGRAPHY. J. D. Legge. Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 1972. 0–7139–0244–2. 431 pp. $10.50.

THOMAS STAMFORD RAFFLES 1781–1826. SCHEMER OR REFORMER? Syed Hussein Alatas. Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1971. 0–207–12282–2. 64 pp. $1.50 hard cover, $1.00 paper.

THE BUDGET AND THE PLAN IN CHINA: CENTRAL‐LOCAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS (A.N.U. Contemporary China Papers, No. 3). Audrey Donnithorne. Canberra, 1972. $1.00.

REPORT FROM PEKING: OBSERVATIONS OF A WESTERN DIPLOMAT ON THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION. D. W. Fokkema. Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1971. 0–207–123497. $4.95.

SIR GEORGE SANSOM AND JAPAN. A MEMOIR. Katherine Sansom. The Diplomatic Press, Tallahassee, Florida, 1972. 183 pp. $US15.00.

ALLIANCE IN DECLINE: A STUDY IN ANGLO‐JAPANESE RELATIONS 1908–23. Ian Nish. Athlone, London, 1972. 0485–13133–1. 424 pp. £7.50 (stg.).

PARTNERS IN PEACE: A STUDY IN INDO‐SOVIET RELATIONS. K. Neelkant. Vikas Publishing House, Delhi, 1972. 7069–0218–1. 192 pp.

INDO‐PAKISTAN RELATIONS (1960–65). Dinesh Chandra Jha. Bharati Bhawan, Patna, 1972. 418 pp. Rs.30.00.

THE LATIN AMERICANS. Victor Alba. Praeger, New York, 1969. 392 pp. $US3.95 paper.

CONSTRAINTS AND ADJUSTMENTS IN BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY. Michael Leifer (ed.). Allen & Unwin, London, 1972. 0–04–327039–5. 210 pp. £2.90 (stg.) paper, £5.00 (stg.) hard cover.

BILLION DOLLAR QUESTIONS: ECONOMIC ISSUES IN AUSTRALIA. J. O. N. Perkins. Sun Books, Melbourne, 1972. 0–7251–0147–4. 199 pp. $2.50 paper.

SECRECY. POLITICAL CENSORSHIP IN AUSTRALIA. Jim Spigelman. Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1972. 0–207–12543–0. 194 pp. $2.50 paper.

NEW ZEALAND AND JAPAN 1900–1941. M. P. Lissington. Government Printer (A. R. Shearer), Wellington, 1972. 206 pp. $NZ5.75.

NEW ZEALAND AND THE UNITED STATES: 1840–1944. M. P. Lissington. A. R. Shearer, Government Printer, Wellington, New Zealand, 1972. 114 pp. $NZ3.00.

SOUTHERN AFRICA IN PERSPECTIVE. ESSAYS IN REGIONAL POLITICS. Christian P. Potholm and Richard Dale (eds.). The Free Press, U.S.A. 1972. xiii, 418 pp. $14.25.

SOUTH AFRICA — SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES. Heribert Adam (ed.). Oxford University Press, London, 1971. 340 pp. $10.90.

THE COMMISSARIAT OF ENLIGHTENMENT. SOVIET ORGANIZATION OF THE ARTS AND EDUCATION UNDER LUNACHARSKY, OCTOBER 1917–1921. Sheila Fitzpatrick. Cambridge University Press, 1970, 521–07919–5. xxii, 380 pp. $13.20.

MILITARY MEN. Ward Just. Michael Joseph, London, 1970. 256 pp. $6.80.

NUKLEARE MITWIRKUNG: DEE BUNDESREPUBLEK DEUTSCHLAND IN DER ATLANTISCHEN ALLIANZ 1954–1970. Dieter Mahncke. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin and New York, 1972. 3–11–0018209. xvi, 274 pp.

WESTEUROPAISCHE VERTEIDIGUNGSKOOPERATION. Karl Carstens and Dieter Mahncke (eds.). Munich, R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1972. 3–486–43731–3. 256 pp.     

Defining and Contesting Environmental Justice: Socio-natures and the Politics of Scale in the Delta

Abstract:  This article examines a contemporary process intended to "identify a strategy for managing the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta as a sustainable ecosystem that would continue to support environmental and economic functions that are critical to the people of California" ( Delta Vision 2008 , http://deltavision.ca.gov/AboutDeltaVision.shtml ). Environmental injustices in the Delta are exacerbated by connected conflicts between knowledge and power, over the scale at which "environmental justice" and the "Delta" are understood through public policy. The rejection of environmental justice and the socio-natural in the Delta Vision process represents how contemporary policy processes are recreating and reenacting the power/knowledge dynamics that have defined the Delta, placed it on a path to ecological collapse and injected high levels of social and racial injustice in its landscape over the past 150 years. Our article combines an ethnographic and a historical geographical approach that contributes to the literature on environmental justice and scale and links with the literature on water governance and power to advance the task of defining environmental justice from the academic and policy perspectives.     

Capitalist Expansion and the Decline of Common Property Ecosystems in China,Vietnam and India

This article identifies some of the multiple processes of capitalist development through which access to common property resources and their utility for communities are undermined. Three sites in upland Asia demonstrate how patterns of exclusion are mediated by the unique and selective trajectories through which capital expands, resulting in a decline of common property ecosystems. The process is mediated by economic stress, ecological degradation and political processes such as state‐sanctioned enclosure. The first case study from Shaoguan, South China, indicates how rapid capitalist industrialization has depleted the aquatic resource base, undermining the livelihoods of fishing households yet to be absorbed into the urban working class. At the second site, in Phu Yen, Vietnam, capitalist development is limited. However, indirect articulations between capitalism on the lowlands and the peasant economy of the uplands is driving the commercialization of agriculture and fishing and undermining the utility of communal river and lake ecosystems. In the third site, Buxa in West Bengal, India, there is only selective capitalist development, but patterns of resource extraction established during the colonial period and contemporary neoliberal ‘conservation’ agendas have directly excluded communities from forest resources. Restrictions on access oblige them to contribute subsidized labour to local enterprises. The article thus shows how communities which are differentially integrated into the global economy are excluded from natural resources through complex means.     

A saint,an abbot,his documents and her property: power,reform and landholding in the monastery of Homblières under Abbot Berner (949–82)

The monastery of Homblières, after 949, when it was turned from a community of nuns into a reformed Benedictine monastery under the rule of Abbot Berner, left a surprisingly large amount of tenth-century written material, producing both a Vita and a Translatio of Homblières’ patron saint Hunegund, as well as a large collection of charters. These documents allow us crucial insights into how a small monastery managed its possessions and its connections to patrons. This trail permits a closer view of strategies of landholding than can be had with many West Frankish monasteries. This article argues that the community at Homblières acted over several decades to consolidate its lands in specific locations. By producing such extensive documentation of his activities, Berner both solicited further donations for his monastery and protected its existing patrimony from potential threats.     

Communities of Knowledge: Teaching and Learning in Maritime Archaeology

This paper explores the points of contact and divergence between education, training and experience in maritime archaeology. In particular, it is proposed that whilst it is worth developing McGrail’s (Studies in maritime archaeology. British Archaeological Reports, Oxford, 1997) discussion of what should be included when we teach Maritime archaeology, more might be gained from moving beyond individual opinions of instructors. As such, this paper includes an exploration of both my own answers to the questions offered in the call for papers and those of past and present Southampton students. What emerges from this comparison is that by focusing too closely on the specifics of what is (or should be) taught, we miss out on what students actually gain from courses and more broadly what we gain as a community.     

Governance,locality and legal culture: the rise and fall of the Carolingian advocates of Saint-Martin of Tours

This article examines the office of advocate at the abbey of Saint-Martin of Tours. It studies what was regionally distinctive about its emergence there in the late ninth century and suggests a reason for the office’s demise in the early tenth century. In doing so, it draws out the important discursive shifts which were part and parcel of both the setting-up and the fading-away of Carolingian ‘reform’, suggesting that the changes seen in the advocatial office were ones of mentality first and of administrative change only secondarily.