Book reviews

A HISTORY OF AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE AND FOREIGN POLICY, 1901–23. VOLUME 1. THE SEARCH FOR SECURITY IN THE PACIFIC, 1901–14. Neville Meaney, Sydney University Press, Sydney, 1976. 306 pp. $18.00.

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL MOVEMENTS IN WESTERN EUROPE. Martin Kolinsky and William E. Paterson (eds.). London: Croom Helm, 1976. Pp.360.

OCEANIA AND BEYOND: ESSAYS ON THE PACIFIC SINCE 1945; F.P. King (ed.). Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut, 1976. 265 pp.     

Late Preceramic Peru

This paper presents a synthesis of current knowledge of Late Preceramic Peru (ca. 4450–3800 B.P.), a field of study that is less than 50 years old. A brief history of investigations and discussion of chronological systems are presented. A review of Late Preceramic achievements concentrating on subsistence economies and technology is followed by discussion of the social world of Late Preceramic Peru and current consensus and disputes regarding culture processes. Extensive long-distance exchange, farming, and social complexity are first clearly seen in the archaeological record during this time period. Nevertheless, the significance of this evidence with regard to the nature and intensity of the culture practices and processes that they represent is currently under investigation and in contention.     

Afro-Caribbean migrants in France: employment,state policy and the migration process

"Afro-Caribbean labour in France plays a distinctive role relative to the French population as a whole and the foreign immigrant population. Using a variety of qualitative and quantitative sources, this paper demonstrates that the role of the state in the process of migration from the French Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe from the early 1960s onwards was crucial.... Aggregate sources are used to describe detailed occupational distributions while records of individual migrants illustrate the process of migration and the influences on employment. At a time usually characterized by lack of direct involvement in migration by the French state, for Afro-Caribbeans state intervention in recruitment, training and settlement is shown to be very substantial."     

The greater risk of fewer deaths: an ethnodemographic approach to child mortality in Hausaland

"A Nigerian case study illustrates how local understandings of health influence perceptions of infant survival in ways that may juxtapose indigenous interpretations to other 'objective' data. Evidence from two extended field investigations of a Hausa-Fulani village, set 12 years apart, suggests a decline in childhood mortality rates attendant upon the increasing availability of biomedicines. We note, however, that local perceptions are that mortality risks are now greater for those less than five years old. Our discussion focuses on the circumstances that inform this ethnodemography and its applicability to other population studies." (SUMMARY IN FRE)