Book reviews

Australian Books

Raymond O'Dea, Principles of Wage Determination in Commonwealth Arbitration, West Publishing Corporation, Sydney, 1969, pp. 300, $9.50.

A. H. Boxer, Experts in Asia: An Inquiry into Australian Technical Assistance, A.N.U. Press, Canberra, 1969, pp. 180, $6.00.

Malcolm Mackerras, DL.P. Preference Distribution 1958–1969, Occasional Monograph No. 3, Department of Government and Public Administration, University of Sydney, 1970, pp. 69 + ii, 75c. Cheques payable to Sydney Monographs.

D. W. Rawson and Suzanne Wrightson, A Handbook of Australian Trade Unions and Employees’ Associations, Occasional Paper No. 5, Department of Political Science, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, 1970, pp. 114, $1.50.

P. H. Partridge, W. F. Connell, S. W. Cohen, Social Science for the Secondary School, Ian Novak, Sydney, 1969, pp. 132, $2.70.

Non‐Australian Books

A. Robinson, et al., Black Studies in the University: a Symposium, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1969, pp. 231, $6.95.

G. Christenson (ed.), The Future of the University, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1969, pp. 292, $2.70.

J. Jeffery Auer (ed.), The Rhetoric of Our Times, Appleton‐Century‐Crofts, New York, 1969, pp. 493 + xv, $5.20.

P. J. Eldridge, The Politics of Foreign Aid in India, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1969, pp. 289, $8.90.     

Unravelling the “Thin Blue Line”: Policing as an Engine of Inequality

This paper argues that policing be understood as a creative social force that reproduces important dimensions of earlier iterations of the colour line. The paper advances this argument by integrating findings from two distinct research projects: the first on the household financial losses that follow arrest by immigration officials in Tucson, AZ; and the second focusing on the everyday costs of policing and carceral supervision absorbed by residents of Philadelphia, PA. Together, data from these sites illuminate how exposure to policing exhausts emotional and material resources from expansive family and community networks of care and support. To theorise the connection between financial dispossession and the dispossession of future opportunity, we draw on a heuristic reading of the “thin blue line” symbol. We conclude by suggesting a need for closer attention to how contemporary state interventions drive patterns of dispossession and vulnerability that accumulate across various scales, sites, rhythms, and collectivities.     

Ethnicity in complex societies: Archaeological perspectives

It is often difficult to identify ethnic groups in the archaeological record, yet archaeology has much to contribute to understanding the long-term social and political dynamics of ethnicity. This review considers recent anthropological perspectives on ethnic groups and their boundaries, emphasizing the role of state formation in their creation and maintenance. It then reviews recent archaeological studies of ethnicity in complex societies and discusses current questions facing archaeological research on these topics.     

Was Photios an Anti‐Latin?: Heresy and Liturgical Variation in the Encyclical to the Eastern Patriarchs

In discussing Epistle 2, most of the attention has been focused on the discussion of the filioque, to the exclusion of Photios’ other liturgical and ecclesiastical comments. While the filioque arguments are now widely seen as an interpolation into the text (though whether by the hand of Photios or another author can be debated), these additional comments are largely glossed over. However, the liturgical comments in Photios’ Ep. 2 are indeed a central point of contention for the Patriarch himself, rather than a scribe or secondary author. Photios’ antagonism towards Latin liturgy is part of a broader cultural conflict between the two halves of medieval Christendom. For Photios, as well as his predecessors and successors, Orthodoxy was increasingly defined as not only a theological issue, but an issue of praxis, and the presence of innovative liturgical practices was indicative of a perverted theology. These sorts of differences would have been especially notable for Greek missionaries to the Bulgars who lived and worked beside, and in opposition to, Latin missionaries in a competition for ecclesiastical hegemony. Ultimately, Photios’ writings against the liturgical practices of the Latins were of considerably greater importance to his contemporaries than the filioque was to his successors, and the implications of Photios’ theology, given his enduring importance to Orthodox Christianity, have the potential to create new flashpoints in contemporary discussions between Orthodox and Western Christians.     

The Eslington Sword and the Kingdom of Northumbria

NEW DISCOVERIES may indicate the location of a previously unknown early medieval burial ground in central Northumberland. Objects discovered during the course of metal-detecting include an assemblage with a folded, pattern-welded sword and zoomorphic shield mount. Excavation indicated near total destruction of deposits as a result of post-medieval land-use and only Bronze-Age burials inserted into bedrock remained intact. Three putative early medieval burials are identified here, with the largest assemblage associated with a high-status male. The sword and shield mount from this assemblage are comparable with finds from high-status burials in southern and eastern England. Together with the landscape context of the site, the assemblage provides evidence for the burial practices of an emerging Northumbrian elite in the late 6th century ad.     

Insights into the processes behind the contamination of degraded human teeth and bone samples with exogenous sources of DNA

A principal problem facing human DNA studies that use old and degraded remains is contamination from other sources of human DNA. In this study we have attempted to contaminate deliberately bones and teeth sampled from a medieval collection excavated in Trondheim, Norway, in order to investigate this poorly understood phenomenon. Five pairs of teeth and bone samples were bathed in water containing various concentrations (from 10⁻⁹ and 10⁻²¹ g/l) of purified ΦX174 DNA. Subsequently the samples were subjected to a routine decontamination protocol involving a bleach bath followed by exposure to λ=254 nm ultraviolet light, prior to DNA extraction and analysis for evidence of the persistence of the contaminant. The results support previous speculation that bone is more susceptible to water‐borne sources of contaminant DNA, although both bone and teeth are readily contaminated and are difficult to decontaminate using the tested protocol. We believe that this is largely due to the porous nature of bone and teeth facilitating the deep penetration of the contaminant DNA. To simulate a more realistic handling situation, 27 further teeth were directly handled and washed, then decontaminated, prior to assaying for the residual presence of the handler's DNA. Surprisingly, although our results suggest that a large proportion of the teeth were contaminated with multiple sources of human DNA prior to our investigation, we were unable to contaminate the samples with further human DNA. One potential explanation may be the deposition of sediment or other structural changes that occur within the samples as they desiccate post‐excavation, which may protect samples from subsequent contamination, but also prevent the efficacy of bleach baths in decontaminating specimens. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.