Reviews

Kavosh‐e rasad khaneh‐ye Maragheh va negahi be pishineh‐ye setareh shenasi dar Iran , [The Excavation of the Maragheh Observatory and a Look at the History of Astronomy in Iran], Parviz Varjavand, Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1987, xvi+ 513 pp.

Khans and Shahs: A Documentary Analysis of the Bakhtiyari in Iran , Gene R. Garthwaite, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983, xiii + 213 pp., 3 microfiche negatives.

Kalila wa Dimna: An Animal Alleqory of the Mongol Court: The Istanbul University Album , Jill Sanchia Cowen. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989, xiii + 176 pp. + index, 16 color plates and some 75 black‐and‐white illustrations. $40.00.

Content and Context of Visual Arts in the Islamic World , Priscilla Soucek, ed., University Park & London: Pennsylvania State University Press for the College Art Association of America, 1988,277 pp., 223 black‐and‐white‐photographs; hardcover, $42.50

The History of al‐Tabari: Ta'rikh al‐rusul wa'l‐mulük, an Annotated Translation , Muhammad ibn Jarir al‐Tabari, General editor, Ehsan Yar‐Shater, various translators, vols. II, IV, VII.’XVIII, XXVII, XXXV, XXXVII, XXXVIII, New York: State University of New York Press, 1985‐, SUNY Series in Near Eastern Studies (ed. Said Amir Arjomand): Bibliotheca Persica (ed. Ehsan Yar‐Shater).

Iran: The Crisis of Democracy 1941–1953 , Fakhreddin Azimi, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989, xi + 344 pp., notes to p. 404, bibliography to p. 422, index to p. 422. $39.95.

The Vanished Imam: Musa al‐Sadr and the Shi'a of Lebanon , Fouad Ajami, Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press, 1986, 228 pp., $17.95.

Freedom from the Self: Sufism, Meditation, and Psychotherapy, Mohammad Shafii, New York: Human Sciences Press, 1985, 261 pp.

A Jeweler's Eye: Islamic Arts of the Book from the Vever Collection , Glenn D. Lowry, with Susan Nemazee. 240 pp., 76 color plates, b&w illus.

An Annotated and Illustrated Checklist of the Vever Collection , Glenn D. Lowry and Milo Cleveland Beach with Roya Marefat and Wheeler M. Thackston. 448 pp., 456 b&w illus.Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and University of Washington Press, Washington, D.C. and Seattle, 1989, 2 volume set, $125.00

Iran in the Twentieth Century: A Political History , M. Reza Ghods. Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1989, 296 pp., including notes, selected bibliography, index. $35.00 cloth.

Insurgency Through Culture and Religion: The Islamic Revolution of Iran , M. M. Salehi. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1988, pp. vii + 186. $37.95 cloth.

Qajar Persia , A.K.S. Lambton, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1988, 341 pp., index, hardcover, $27.50.

Nameha‐ye Tab'id , (Letters in Exile), Mirza Aqa Khan Kcrmani, Homa Nateq & Mohammad Firuz, eds., Bonn: Hafez Verlag, 1365/1986, 201 pp., no price indicated.

The Iranian Mojahedin , Ervand Abrahamian, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989, 261 pp., notes, bibliography and index to p. 307, hardcover $27.50

Texte sur Agrargesetzgebung in der Isiamischen Republik Iran, übersetzt, kommentiert und annotiert , [Texts about Agrarian Legislation in the Islamic Republic of Iran], Asghar Schirazi, (Ethnizität und Gesellschaft, Probleme ethnischer grenzziehung in gesellschaften des vordern und mittleren orients, Frcie Univcrsilät Berlin), Berlin: Das Arabisch Buch, 1988, 381 pp.

The Chronicle of Theophanes , Translated from the Greek, with an introduction and notes, by Harry Turtledove, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982, 201 pp.

“The Government of God” — Iran's Islamic Republic , Chery1 Benard & Zalmay Khalilzad, New York: Columbia University Press, 1984, xiv + 240 pp.

Advice on the Art of Governance (Mau'izah‐i Jahangiri) of Muhammad Baqir Najm‐i Sani: An Indo‐Islamic Mirror for Princes , Persian translation with introduction, translation, and notes by Sajida Sultana Alvi, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989, x + 215 pp., Paper $14.95; cloth, $44.50

Cinema in Iran, 1900–1979 , Mohammad Ali Issari, New York: Scarecrow Press, 1990,446 pages. Hardcover. Illustrated.

The Ghazals of Hafez: Concordance and Vocabulary , Daniela Meneghini Correale. Rome: Cultural Institute of the the Islamic Republic of Iran in Italy, 1988, 894 pp.

Naser‐e Khosraw's Book of Travels (Safarnama) Translated from Persian, with introduction and annotation by W.M. Thackston, Jr., Persian Heritage Series, No. 36, New York: Bibliotheca Persica, 1986, xii + 135 pp.

Roots of North Indian Shi'ism in Iran and Iraq: Religion and State in Awadh, 1722–1858 , J.R.I.Cole, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988, xiv + 327 pp., $38.00.

Musaddiq, Iranian Nationalism, and Oil , James A. Bill and W.M. Roger Louis, eds. London: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd., 1988, 358 pp. Published simultaneously by the University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas. $30.00 hardcover.

A Bibliography of Afghanistan , Keith McLachlan & William Whittaker, Cambridgeshire: Middle East & North African Studies Press Limited (Menas Press Ltd.), 1983, xiii, + 671 pp., index, map, hardcover, UK£ 55.25, paperback, UK£ 19.50

The Qashqa'i of Iran , Lois Beck. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986, xvi + 384 pp., maps, bibliography (p. 353), and index (p. 369). S30.00 hardback.

Iran Media Index , Hamid Naficy, compiler. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1984, xxxiii + 265 pp.

Religious Trends in Early Islamic Iran , Wilferd Madelung, Albany: State University of New York Press (Bibliotheca Persica), 1988, x + 128 pp., hardcover $32.50, paper $9.95

The State and Social Revolution in Iran: A Theoretical Perspective, Farrokh Moshiri, New York: Lang Publishing Inc., 1985, xvii + 232 pp., no price listed.     

Barley and identity in the Spanish colonial Audiencia of Quito: Archaeobotany of the 18th century San Blas neighborhood in Riobamba

Archaeological excavation of two late-18th century household middens in the San Blas parish of the colonial city of Riobamba resulted in the recovery of samples of archaeobotanical remains dating to the period before the AD 1797 destruction of the city in an earthquake. These seed remains were dominated by barley (Hordeum vulgare) and quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa). The dominance of these two grains in samples from artisans’ households in this marginal neighborhood suggests that we should question the assumption that imported Old World domesticates were associated with more elite houses during the Spanish colonial period in the Andes.     

Women Appear in the Plains

Androcentrism marked archaeology on the American Plains, women excluded from major projects and archaeology focused on lithics supposedly made by men, with sherds used to establish chronologies and regions. In the 1970s, women scholars initiated feminist studies and became more numerous in the profession. On the Canadian Plains, two 1980 books shifted attention to the formation of Métis, which can be seen as contributing to feminist diversity theory. Postcolonialism, incorporating collaboration with First Nations, became important after 2000 and adds to diversity theory as well as pointing the real-world political-economic consequences of traditional archaeological pictures of Plains “prehistory.”     

Islam in Tribal societies

Ahmed, Akbar S., and David M. Hart, eds. Islam in Tribal Societies: From the Atlas to the Indus. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984. vii + 343 pp. including chapter references and index. $21.95 paper.     

Approaching selfhood

Often overlooked is the fact that postmodern theory brought to the fore a crisis in the humanities. The implied universalism of the current “iconic turn” in postmodern thinking is a blow to the traditional sciences grouped around national literatures and cultures. In the 1980's, postmodern practitioners in the United States began to assault the discursive practices of the mainstream under the banner of cultural studies. The current crisis in the humanities surfaced in the emancipation of the various studies from their traditional fields in the humanities. The German Studies practiced today in the United States for instance, has no counterpart in Germany's traditional departments of Deutsche Philologie. Whereas the icon in the United States has become an object of investigation for the various studies, it has not yet displaced the littera in Germany's literary sciences. However in the 1990's, the historical sciences in Germany responded to the challenge of the various studies by directing their attention not to cultural studies, but to cultural history, with its well-defined set of methodologies. But what kind of cultural history is it? Is it built on 19th century German foundations, or is it grafted to current North American notions of post-industrial culture? In this paper I show that the supposed opposition between cultural studies and cultural history is artificial. Through a close reading of Hayden White's extremist questioning of historical practice in Metahistory (1973), I demonstrate that there is no opposition between the icon and the littera in this recent radical critique of mainstream humanistic science. The vehement German reaction to his North American assault on European Kultur is based on a misunderstanding of White's premises. Rather than being constructed on a hodgepodge of postmodern approaches, I show that White's postmodern history is in fact conventionally grounded in 19th century Nietzschean thinking.     

Identifying pottery clay from rice fields: an example from southern Luzon,the Philippines

The general type of clay used by potters can often be identified from attributes of the finished ceramic vessel or sherd. This information is important for compositional and sourcing studies and may also shed light on the variables influencing clay choice such as social, economic, and landscape use patterns. Rice paddies are one type of clay source that are readily identifiable in archaeological ceramics. This paper describes rice paddy clays gathered during ethnoarchaeological studies of traditional potters in Paradijon, southern Luzon, the Philippines. We analyze the effects of clay processing and vessel manufacture on these clays and find that the most diagnostic attribute of paddy soils, the iron oxide mottling, is retained in finished vessels.     

The Impact of Agglomeration Economies on Estimated Demand Thresholds: An Extension of Wensley and Stabler

Central place theory predicts that geographic markets located in rural areas have lower demand thresholds, and, therefore, a higher frequency of business establishments relative to areas that are more proximate to urban centers, other things equal. Wensley and Stabler (1998) confirm this prediction using data on the location and frequency of business activities in rural Saskatchewan. We demonstrate that this relationship may not always hold true depending on the existence and magnitude of agglomeration economies. If average cost differences associated with being located in an urbanized area are sufficiently large, then the relationship between urban proximity and number of establishments may be reversed. We provide evidence of this reversal using 1996 cross-sectional data on hospital services in Texas.