Reviews

S.M. IMAMUDDIN. Muslim Spain, 711–1492 A.D.: A Sociological Study. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1981. Pp. viii, 269. £36.80. Reviewed by Jill R. Webster

DANIEL R. HEADRICK. The Tools of Empire: Technology and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1981. Pp. 221, $14.95 (US). Reviewed by Barrie M. Ratcliffe

V.R. BERGHAHN. Militarism: The History of An International Debate 1861–1979. Leamington Spa: Berg Publishers, 1981. Pp. 132. $8.95. Reviewed by Martin Kitchen

HUYNH KIM KHANH. Vietnamese Communism, 1925–1945. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. Pp. 379. $25.00 (US). Reviewed by William J. Duiker

RALPH B. LEVERING. The Cold War, 1945–1972. Arlington Heights, Illinois: Harlan Davidson, Inc., 1982. Pp. 165, $6.95 (US). Reviewed by Wesley T. Wooley

R. DAN RICHARDSON. Comintern Army: The International Brigades and the Spanish Civil War. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1982. Pp. 232. $19.50 (US). Reviewed by Stanley G. Payne

KATHLEEN BURK (Editor). War and the State: The Transformation of British Government 1914–1919. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1982. Pp. 189. $29.50 (US). Reviewed by M.L. Dockrill

TONY SMITH. The Pattern of Imperialism: The United States, Great Britain and the Late-Industrialising World since 1815. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Pp. xi, 308. $34.50 (US). Paperback $10.95 (US). Reviewed by Barbie M. Ratcliffe

D. GEORGE BOYCE. Nationalism in Ireland. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982. Pp. 441. $32.50 (US). Reviewed by Don M. Cregier

ODED ERAN. The Mezhdunarodtniki: An Assessment of Professional Expertise in the Making of Soviet Foreign Policy. Ramat Gan, Israel: Turtledove Publishing, 1979. Pp. 331. £11.75. Reviewed by Teddy J. Uldricks

BINNAZ TOPRAK. Islam and Political Development in Turkey. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1981. Pp. viii, 164. $22.75 (US). Reviewed by Dimitri Kitsikis

ORVILLE T. MURPHY. Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes: French Diplomacy in the Age of Revolution, 1719–1787. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, pp. 607. $16.95 (US) paper. Reviewed by William Stinchcombe

HUNTER R. RAWLINGS III. The Structure of Thucydides' History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981. Pp. xiv, 278. $21.00 (US), MARC COGAN. The Human Thing: The Speeches and Principles of Thucydides' History. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1981. Pp. xvii, 309. $20.00 (US). Reviewed by Malcolm F. McGregor

H.E. MAUDE. Slavers in Paradise: The Peruvian Slave Trade in Polynesia, 1863–1864. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1981. Pp. xxii, 244. $22.50 (US). Reviewed by James A. Boutilier     

“Talk & talk & talk”: Virginia Woolf's responses to Ireland

The complexity of Virginia Woolf's relationships with Empire can be illustrated by considering her responses to Ireland. Woolf's relationship with Ireland and Irish writers has received only cursory attention. Those critics who have addressed the topic have assumed that she responded positively to her experience of Irish “talk” on her holiday in Ireland in 1934. However, her response on that holiday reveals some underlying imperial presumptions and a sense of Ireland as stereotypically a land of “talk, talk, talk”. Indeed, this is in keeping with her responses to a wide range of Irish writers over many years (most notably, it chimes with her reading of Ulysses). This essay brings together for the first time Woolf's comments on Ireland and Irish writers, from her diaries, letters, essays and reviews, in order to show that she consistently characterised them as loquacious. Ireland was thus merely a subject of talk, a “question” that could only by discussed, and then only in stereotypical and liberalist terms. Further, Woolf associated talk with looseness and bad writing, and sought to maintain a mode of semi-privacy, apart from the “talk” that went on around her.     

Trans experiences in lesbian and queer space

This article explores how individuals who identify as transgendered and transsexual men experience the internal possibilities, limitations, and resistances found in spaces identified as ‘lesbian’ or as ‘queer’ in the City of Toronto. The article draws on interview data transcribing the experiences of 12 transgender and transsexual individuals in LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer) spaces. These interviews empirically illustrate how fluid and unfixed gendered and sexualized practices can transform spaces and their occupants. Further, this article considers the ways spaces may be ‘queered’ and the implications of these processes on the constitution of LGBTQ spaces. The experiences of transmen in lesbian and queer spaces bring into sharp relief the complex ways that material spaces, even those arising out of resistive impulses, incorporate disciplining expectations and new opportunities. Those who research or utilize these places must be attentive to these processes, if there is to be a serious commitment to the creation of libratory, inclusive spaces.     

The Early Bronze Age Fortifications At Tell Es-Safi/Gath,Israel

Tell es-Safi/Gath is a multi-period site located on the border between the Judean foothills (Shephelah) and the southern coastal plain in central Israel, which has been subject to survey and excavations over the last two decades. Excavations by Bliss and Macalister in 1899 exposed a fortification system which was dated to the “Jewish period”. In this paper, we present updated data on these fortifications which have led to fresh insights. In two separate excavation areas, we excavated portions of the fortification system that surrounded the site which can now be dated to the EB III of the southern Levant. The EB fortification system influenced the location of later fortifications at the site. The nature of the construction techniques of these fortifications and the character of the settlement which they surrounded suggest that Tell es-Safi/Gath was a major regional urban centre during the EB III and was governed by a centralised administrative hierarchy.     

Gender collections: Three approaches to the subject

Frese, Pamela R. and John M. Coggeshall, eds. Transcending Boundaries: Multi‐Disciplinary Approaches to the Study of Gender. New York: Bergin and Garvey, 1991. xvi + 208 pp. including chapter references and index. $42.95 cloth, $15.95 paper.

Jolly, Margaret and Martha Macintyre, eds. Family and Gender in the Pacific: Domestic Contradictions and the Colonial Impact. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. xii + 296 pp. including collected bibliography and index. $49.50 cloth.

Sanday, Peggy Reeves and Ruth Gallagher Goodenough, eds. Beyond the Second Sex: New Directions in the Anthropology of Gender. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990. viii + 350 pp. including chapter references and indices. $36.95 cloth, $16.95 paper.     

Coming out of purdah?: Two studies of Rajput women

Minturn, Leigh Sita's Daughters: Coming out of Purdah: The Rajput Women of Khalapur Revisited. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. xiii + 371 pp. including bibliography, appendices, glossaries, and index. $45.00 cloth

Harlan, Lindsey. Religion and Rajput Women: The Ethic of Protection in Contemporary Narratives. Berkeley: University of California Press. xiv + 260 pp. including appendices, glossary, bibliography, and index. $40.00 cloth.     

Four lives that rocked the boat

Oscar Lewis, Ruth M. Lewis, and Susan M. Rigdon. Four Men: Living the Revolution, an Oral History of Contemporary Cuba. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977. lxv + 538 pp. Map, abbreviations, glossary, selected bibliography. $15.00 paper.     

Geochemical composition of source obsidians from Kenya

Here we provide a reference resource to archaeologists interested in the sources of obsidian in Kenya, through electron microprobe analyses of 194 obsidian samples from 90 localities. Averaged analyses of each sample and eleven published analyses are categorized into 84 compositional groups of which only about 21 are known to have been used to produce artifacts, possibly because studies of artifactual material in the region are lacking. We also provide trace element analyses determined by XRF and LA-ICP-MS for these same obsidians. In northern Kenya 27 distinct compositions of obsidian have been found, including some of Miocene age, but the source of the most abundant obsidian found in archaeological sites in this part of Kenya remains obscure. The Baringo region contains at least 13 varieties of low-silica obsidian. The Naivasha–Nakuru region contains an abundance of obsidian with 38 compositional types recognized, and is the only region in Kenya apart from the Suregei (northern Kenya) that contains rhyolitic obsidian. Nine compositionally distinct types of obsidian are known from southern Kenya. Although Kenyan obsidians span the compositional range from phonolite to rhyolite, low-silica, nepheline-normative obsidians occur only south of 1°N latitude. One obsidian type, the Lukenya Hill Group, appears to have been derived from a regionally extensive ash flow tuff with a distribution of over 8000 km². From previous studies it is known that obsidians of lowest (Mundui) and highest iron content were used for tool manufacture, as were some obsidians (e.g., Kisanana) with the highest alkali content, and obsidians with both high (Njorowa) and low (Kisanana) silica content.