Book review

Bruce Grant What Kind of Country? Australia and the Twenty First Century. Ringwood, Vic.: Penguin Books, xii +178pp. $ 11.95.

Phillip W. Jones. Australia's International Relations in Education. Hawthorne, Vic: The Australian Council for Educational Research Ltd, 1986. 123pp. $8.95.

Ronald H. Linden. Communist States and International Change: Romania and Yugoslavia in Comparative Perspective. Boston: Allen & Unwin, xviii+201pp. $87.50.

Christopher Tugendhat Making Sense of Europe. Harmond‐sworth: Penguin Books, 1987.240pp. $12.95.

A. J. Marques Mendes. Economic Integration and Growth in Europe. London; Croom Helm, 1987.141pp. £22.50.

Miles Hewstone. Understanding Attitudes to the European Community: a social‐psychological study in four member states. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. xviii+306pp. $98.00.

Sonia Mazey and Michael Newman (eds). Mitterrand's France. London: Croom Helm, 1987. xi+253pp. $105.00.

Tom Gallagher. Glasgow: The Uneasy Peace. Religious Tension in Modern Scotland, 1819–1914. Manchester. Manchester University Press, 1987.ix+382pp.$114.00.

Anthony Hall and James Midgley (eds). Development Policies: Sociological Perspectives. Manchester. Manchester University Press, 1988. 154pp £21.00.

Stewart MacPherson and James Midgley (eds). Comparative Social Policy and the Third World. Brighton, Sussex: Wheatsheaf Books, 1987.228pp. $69.95.

Edward J. Lincoln. Japan: Facing Economic Maturity. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1988. xii+298pp. $US11.95.

Harry Harding. China's Second Revolution: Reform after Mao. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1987. 369pp. $US12.95.

Zakaria Haji Ahmad (ed.). Government and Politics of Malaysia. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1986. xii + 178pp. No price given.

Raul P. de Guzman and Mila A. Reforma (eds.) Government and Politics of the Philippines Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1988. xii+289 pp. $S45.00.

Fred Greene (ed). The Philippine Bases: Negotiating for the Future. American and Philippine Perspectives. New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1988. xv+ 158pp. $US9.95.

Ed Garcia and Francisco Nemenzo. The Sovereign Quest. Freedom from Foreign Military Bases. Quezon City: Claretian Publications, 1988. xv+ 120pp. No price given.

Stella R. Quah and Jon S. T. Quah. Friends in Blue: The Police and the Public in Singapore. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1987. 209 pp. No price given.

Lim Chong Yah and Associates. Policy Options for the Singapore Economy. Singapore: McGraw‐Hill, 1988. xv + 499 pp. No price given.

Muthiah Alagappa. The National Security of Developing States: Lessons from Thailand. Dover, Mass: Auburn House, 1987. xiv + 274 pp. No price given.

R. A. Cramb and R. H. W. Reece (eds). Development in Sarawak. Monash Paper on Southeast Asia, No. 17. Melbourne: Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University, 1988. 190pp. $16.00.

Mavis Rose. Indonesia Free: A Political Biography of Mohammad Hatta. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, 1987. vii + 245pp.$US10.50.

Leonard Blusse. Strange Company: Chinese Settlers. Mestizo Women and the Dutch in VOC Batavia. Dordrecht Foris Publications, 1986, xiii + 302pp. Df1.35.

Mary Brooks. Fleet Development and the Control of Shipping in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1985,x+113pp.$SI8.00.

Robert H. Taylor. The State in Burma. London: C Hurst/Orient Longman, 1987, xvi+395pp. £27.50.

W. David McIntyre. New Zealand Prepares for War — Defence Policy 1919–39. Christchurch: University of Canterbury Press, 1988. 287pp. $NZ44.00.     

'Something Happened': The Relevance of the Risk Society for Describing the Siting Process for a Municipal Landfill

This paper investigates reactions to a proposed municipal solid waste facility in Southern Ontario supposed to be a low-level, low probability risk using the risk society framework, developed independently by Beck (1992a, 1992b) and Giddens (1990, 1991). Residents often view risk from environmental hazards as high despite expert assurances that risks are low. The appeal of risk society as a general framework is that it connects quantitative risk assessment (QRA) and the social construction of risk (SCR) to show how individuals and social structures reflexively alter and are altered by conflicts over (actual/potential) technological hazards. The analysis involves 30 in-depth face-to-face interviews with residents in Caledon, Ontario, contextualized by interviews with proponent experts (n=4) from the government organization responsible for conducting the siting process. The risk society framework, although developed primarily to describe the effects of high-consequence global hazards, seems well suited to describing local level, low-consequence hazards. The siting process involved a series of fateful moments which upset people's security in particular ways of life. The proposed landfill and the process itself threatened the very nature of what people valued and expected from their community. However, this study raises a concern that the risk society played out at the local/regional level may exacerbate inequalities in the distribution of risks relative to benefits from technological environmental hazards. This stands in contrast with Beck's (1992a) notion that the risks from hazards are equitably distributed within the risk society.     

The development of a scientific understanding of synesthesia from early case studies (1849-1873)

The first case of synesthesia was reported in 1812 ( Jewanski, Day, & Ward, 2009 ). However, it took almost seven decades before the idea of synesthesia entered the mainstream of science and, subsequently, art. There are no known new cases described between 1812 and 1848, but in the following three decades there are at least 11 reported cases of synesthesia and many reviews of these cases. This comes at an important period in the history of the neurosciences, and for sensory physiology in particular. However, the literature that describes synesthesia during this period is largely unknown to contemporary researchers and historians. The aim of this review is to discuss the reports of synesthesia during this period, providing translations of some key passages, and to place these reports within the contextual framework of nineteenth-century neuroscience.     

A battle worth winning: The service of culture to the Communist Party of Vietnam in the contemporary era

The Communist Party of Vietnam’s (CPV) market reform policies—introduced in the late 1980s and carrying on today—have opened the country to foreign investment, deregulated state-owned enterprises, decollectivized agricultural cooperatives, and encouraged foreign direct investment. However, what the Party has not wanted reformed, and has fought strongly on behalf of, is culture. Using primary source official CPV cultural policy documentation and secondary sources highlighting contemporary meanings of Vietnamese and foreign cultures, this paper evaluates the Party’s use of culture as a resource in the direction and regulation of the nation’s market economy with a socialist orientation. While culture is expedient for all governments, I argue that the CPV’s intent is unique in that it uses culture as an instrument to maintain its ownership, rather than simply to legitimize its regulatory ability, over the national political economy. This paper aims to show how culture is part and parcel of post-socialist governance’s political-economic framework and contributes to debates surrounding the reach and impact of neoliberalism in formerly command economies.