OVERCOMING OBSTACLES TO PROGRAM EVALUATION IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT

This article is based on five applied local government program evaluation studies carried out in the spirit of the work done by Harry Hatry and others at the Urban Institute. Problem areas identified include the attitudes and skills of local government personnel, the lack of appropriate local government resources, the absence of incentives for local governments to conduct evaluations, and the methodological difficulties encountered in conducting research in an action setting. The article ends with a discussion of the unique role academically based evaluations can play in overcoming obstacles.     

Transnational Corporations and Third World Agriculture

I prefer to use the term ‘transnational’ because it indicates the tendency of the corporations to cross national frontiers with a minimum of difficulty, whereas the connotation ‘multinational’ may suggest a kind of common ownership which actually does not exist. This article has been published in Rapport, the periodical of the Swedish International Development Authority (no. 2, 1975).     

Mr Lumb and Masters Megatherium: an unpublished letter by Charles Darwin from the Falklands

In the history of nineteenth-century exploration, Charles Darwin has a niche only less important than that which he occupies in the history of science and ideas. His notebooks and journals are full of information of great use to historical geographers of the areas he visited, particularly to those of geological and ecological bent. From his notebooks he combined (often doing the writing the same evening) three different journals: a personal one, a geological one, and a biological one. Since he was a neophyte, only just graduated from Cambridge, there are frequent errors and misinterpretations—as with young Francis Parkman on the Oregon Trail—but the volume of information and ideas is almost startlingly impressive. The JHG is thus glad of the chance of being the first to publish this particular letter of Charles Darwin.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book Reviews in This Article: Trois ?uvres Inédites de mystiques musulmans: āqq? al-Bal?, Ibn ?, Niffarā. By Paul Nwyia. The Formative Period of Islamic Thought. By W. Montgomery Watt. The Arab Mind. By Raphael Patai. l?m? al-Adab al-M?r f? Mir? (Bio-bibliographical Critical Series), No. 1, h?āūsayn. By Hamdi Sakkut and Marsden Jones. A History of the Crusades. Kenneth M. Setton, general editor. Volume III, The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries , edited by Harry W. Hazard. The Muslim Dilemma in India. By M. R. A. Baig. Who is Maudoodi ? By Maryam Jameelah. A Tacit Alliance. By S. K. Crosbie.