The Cambridge history of the Second World War

Following on from earlier three‐volume histories of the Cold War and the First World War, Cambridge University Press completes a trilogy with this detailed treatment of the Second World War. Multi‐authored in the Cambridge tradition, the individual chapters cover a wide range of events and topics and the 81 contributors, mainly but not exclusively from the United Kingdom and the United States, include both scholars who have already established a reputation in the subject as well as those who are in the process of doing so. Perhaps the greatest strength of the volumes is the treatment given to what may be loosely referred to as the Pacific War. No one who uses them properly is going to have any doubts about the nature and importance of the struggle between Japan and its opponents between 1937 and 1945, and it is particularly encouraging to note the use of Chinese and Japanese sources by the authors, when so many English‐language books on the subject cite none. The principal weakness of the enterprise is its division into an unnecessarily complicated series of topics, which is not always adhered to by the authors and which often compels the unfortunate reader to skip backwards and forwards, not only within but between volumes. Despite this flaw, however, this remains an important contribution to the history of the Second World War and will need to be consulted by any serious student of the subject for many years to come.     

Public Acceptance of Roof Insulation for New Homes: a Queensland Survey

Thermal insulation is an energy conserving technology widely applicable to the domestic sector, but with comparatively low levels of use in Queensland households. The degree of public acceptance of roof I ceiling insulation was explored through a telephone survey of householders arranging to build a new home. Sixty-eight per cent of householders decided on roof insulation, mainly for reasons of thermal comfort. Non-adopters had reservations primarily associated with the initial cost of insulation or the need for it. Socio-economic characteristics explained few acceptance differentials. The compulsory use of roof insulation in new homes, coupled with an appropriate education campaign, may be the most important promotional strategy.     

Metropolitan Colonisation and the Reinvention of Place: Class Polarisation along the Cessnock‐Pokolbin Fault‐Line

This paper examines the emergence of a sharply delineated socioeconomic and sociocultural fault‐line between Cessnock's former coal towns and the immediately adjacent Hunter Valley Wine Country, centred on Pokolbin. We provide evidence that divergent culturally‐related class identities act as mutually reinforcing constraints on reciprocity between job‐deficit former coal towns and the job‐surplus wine country. We relate this to a consideration of time‐space dimensions in the interdependencies between the class and place identities of Cessnock and Pokolbin. These identities have been influenced by metropolitan colonisation, with the markedly differentiated absorption of these two locales into the enlarged metropolitan population‐work‐welfare‐housing‐leisure agglomeration. Further, we propose that the former coal towns and the wine country can both be seen as place‐specific representations of wider class‐related changes within Australian society. Our interpretations are founded on three current research directions: first, the role of culture as a critical intervening variable in class identities and actions; second, the current flux in class formations, most notably the loss of self‐identity and solidarity in the working class and the emergence of a new middle‐class sector dedicated to self‐realisation and self‐fulfilment; and third, recognition of class formation as a geographical process.