TOWARDS REALISING THE FULL ARCHAEOENVIRONMENTAL POTENTIAL OF RAISED (OMBROTROPHIC) MIRES IN THE BRITISH ISLES

Summary. Raised mires represent a unique resource for the study of past peoples within their changing landscape context. However, present palaeoecological and archaeological approaches to these landscapes within the British Isles have followed largely separate agendas. Palaeoecological study has generally been focused on themes of climate change, using a range of techniques to derive information relating to changes in surface wetness of raised mires over time. In contrast, archaeological study has been broadly limited to themes of preservation and site recovery. This paper argues that the integration of the methods employed within both disciplines can enable an investigation of context unattainable for the majority of archaeological sites. A case study illustrates the recursive nature of human-environment relations in a raised mire system in Ireland.     

The historiography of nationalism and national identity in Latin America

ABSTRACT. This article surveys the current state of research on nationalism in Latin America, focusing on the large body of work produced from the 1990s onwards in a wide variety of disciplines (history, the social sciences and cultural studies). Covering work on both the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, it takes as a starting point the impact of Benedict Anderson's work, Imagined Communities, on Latin Americanists. It discusses the ways in which Latin Americanists have applied his ideas, and their critiques of many of his claims about Latin American nationalism. It goes on to outline major recent developments across the field, within the context of an argument that it is important for all scholars of nationalism to incorporate Latin American experiences into their debates on the history and theory of nationalism. The references have been selected to guide readers to key relevant works; regrettably, the article cannot, for reasons of space, offer a fully comprehensive bibliography.     

ITALY AND FRANCE IN THE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY STAGE CONTROVERSY

Abstract

Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687) was a notable Dutch statesman who penned over 75,000 lines of verse in eight languages. He made visits to England on no less than seven occasions and wrote a significant body of poetry, primarily in Dutch, but also in Latin, and very occasionally in French and English, during these visits. In this article, a detailed account is given of the poetry, which Huygens wrote in England. It provides a case-study of someone writing Dutch, and indeed Latin, verse in England in the early-modern period. Furthermore, during a time when the fortunes of Britain and the Northern Netherlands were very closely linked, it illustrates how a Dutchman responded in verse to aspects of English social and cultural life, and events such as the execution of Charles I, and the Great Fire of London of 1666.     

De la terre au territoire: the reinvention of French rural space

This article seeks to explore how the two dominant policy agendas of postwar rural France, agricultural modernisation and aménagement du territoire, have, over the last few years, taken a decisive turn towards new forms of intervention and new spatial configurations. The Contrats territoriaux d'exploitation and the Pays collectively represent a reaffirmation of territorial difference, individuality and identity. In doing so, both have challenged the traditional mechanisms and institutions of policy making in their respective domains and both have had, as a result, lengthy and not uncontroversial periods of gradual appropriation.     

Towards an NPT‐restrained world that makes economic sense

Because most of the world's proliferators have used the Nuclear Non‐proliferation Treaty's (NPT) call on nations to ‘share the benefits of the applications of peaceful nuclear energy’ to help justify their nuclear activities, it is unclear just how much any proliferator ultimately has been restrained by these rules. This needs to change but is unlikely, unless the NPT's qualifications on the right to ‘peaceful’ nuclear energy are read in a much more restrictive fashion to only authorize nuclear projects that are clearly beneficial economically and that truly can be safeguarded against diversion to make bombs. In this regard, our best hope is that, as nations consider how to prevent global warming, they might adopt clear economic guidelines that would compel all energy projects—both nuclear and non‐nuclear—to compete economically against one another on a much more level playing field. This would make dangerous, uneconomical nuclear projects far less likely to be pursued, and a centering of the world's security on a proper reading of the NPT much more likely and sustainable. Indeed, unless economic discipline of this sort is attempted internationally, it is quite likely that the continued implementation of the current egregious view of the NPT will only serve to accelerate nuclear proliferation more rapidly than if there was no NPT at all.     

Doing Fieldwork in Development Geography: Research Culture and Research Spaces in Vietnam

Rapid socioeconomic and institutional changes in Vietnam since the early 1990s have opened up new geographical spaces for field research. Reflecting on the experiences of three doctoral student researchers engaged in distinct development geography fieldwork projects in Vietnam, this paper profiles some of the conditions and procedures for carrying out fieldwork in order to serve as a basis for comparison of changing ‘fieldwork possibilities’ in Vietnam and other developing and transitional socialist countries.