Editorial: Culture matters

In this paper, I examine the notion of privilege as it relates to whiteness. The argument that racial privilege is actively constructed in the micro-geographies of everyday life is based on a case study conducted in Buffalo, New York. In this study, I analyze the narrated experiences of white elderly, primarily female, residents of a changing urban neighborhood. To capture the interrelationships between racial privilege and place, I used multi-methods research which included surveys, mental maps, travel diaries, interviews, and participation observation. The stories told are detailed accounts of the ways in which these white elderly residents cope with a slipping away of their white privilege through learning new boundaries of privilege, devising strategies for coping with their changed neighborhood, and reclaiming, in part, their previously held privileges. I propose that whiteness and its attendant privilege is not just about who you are, but where you are.     

Book reviews

Allen C. Guelzo, Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999). Pp.xii + 516. $29.00 (hardback). ISBN 0 8028 3872 3.

David L. Dykstra, The Shifting Balance of Power: American‐British Diplomacy in North America, 1842–1848 (Lanham, Md: University Press of America, 1999). Pp.xxxiv + 247. $39.00 (hardback). ISBN 0 7618 1316 2.

Kathryn Teresa Long, The Revival of 1857–58: Interpreting an American Religious Awakening (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). Pp.x + 256. $45.00 (hardback). ISBN 0 1951 1293 8.

David Williams, Rich Man's War: Class, Caste, and Confederate Defeat in the Lower Chattahoochee Valley (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1998). Pp.xiv + 288. $34.95 (hardback). ISBN 0 8203 2033.

Eugene D. Genovese, A Consuming Fire: The Fall of the Confederacy in the Mind of the White Christian South (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1998). Pp.xvi 4–180. $24.95 (hardback). ISBN 0 8203 2046 3.

Randall M. Miller, Harry S. Stout, and Charles Reagan Wilson, eds., Religion and the American Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). Pp.xiii + 422. $55.00 (hardback); $24.95 (paperback). ISBNs 0 1951 2128 7 and 0 1951 2129 5.

Daniel E. Sutherland, ed., Guerrillas, Unionists, and Violence on the Confederate Home Front (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1999). Pp.250. $32.00 (hardback); $20 (paperback). ISBN 1 5572 8549 7; ISBN 1 5572 8550 0.     

Correspondence

‘Textual Corruption’     

Book Reviews

BRIAN BOND. British Military Policy between the Two World Wars. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980. Pp. XVI, 419. £16.00. Reviewed by Paul Kennedy

Washington Despatches, 1941–1945: Weekly Political Reports from the British Embassy, edited by H.G. Nicholas, with an introduction by Isaiah Berlin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; London: George Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1981. Pp. XVIII, 700. $40.00 (US), £20.00. Reviewed by David Reynolds

MARK C. WHEELER. Britain and the War for Yugoslavia, 1940–1943. New York: Columbia University Press, 1980. Pp. 342 (East European Monographs, No. LXIV). SI8.50 (US). Reviewed by John O. Iatrides

PATRICIA JALLAND. The Liberals and Ireland. The Ulster Question in British Politics to 1914. Hassocks, Sussex, 1980. Pp. 250. £20.00. Reviewed by John Kendle

BRIAN JENKINS. Britain and the War for the Union. Volume II. Montreal: McGill- Queen's University Press, 1980. Pp. IX, 480. $26.50 (US). Reviewed by Frank Lawrence Owsley, Jr.

GEOFFREY ELLIS. Napoleon's Continental Blockade: The Case of Alsace. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981. Pp. 355. $65.75. (CAN.) Reviewed by Richard Glover

R.D. THORPE. The Uncrowned Prime Ministers. London: Darkhorse Publishing, 1980. Pp. XV, 263. $35.00 (US). Reviewed by J.O. Stubbs

DAVID DILKS, ed. Retreat from Power: Studies in Britain's Foreign Policy of the Twentieth Century. Vol. I. 1906–1939. London: Macmillan, 1981. Pp. 213. £10. Reviewed by Trevor Burridge

DAVID DILKS, ed. Retreat from Power: Studies in Britain's Foreign Policy of the Twentieth Century. Vol. II. After 1939. London: Macmillan, 1981. Pp. 198. £10. Reviewed by Ray Jones

CLAIRE HIRSCHFIELD. The Diplomacy of Partition: Britain, trance and the Creation of Nigeria, 1890–1898. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979. Pp. 234, Fl. 90. Reviewed by A.S. Kanya-Forstner

PHILIP M. TAYLOR. The Projection of Britain: British Overseas Publicity and Propaganda 1919–1939. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Pp.xv, 363. £25.00. Reviewed by Keith Robbins

NAVY RECORDS SOCIETY. The Keyes Papers, Vol. III, 1939–1945, ed. Paul Halpern. London: Allen and Unwin, 1981. Pp. 398. $;37.50 (Can.). Reviewed by Donald M. Schurman

JOHN TURNER. Lloyd George's Secretariat. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. Pp.vm, 254 £15. Reviewed by Patricia Jalland

JAMES NEIDPATH. The Singapore Naval Base and the Defence of Britain's Eastern Empire, 1919–1941. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981. Pp.XVII, 296. £22.50. Reviewed by C.C. Ong

ELEANOR M. GATES. End of the Affair: The Collapse of the Anglo-French Alliance, 1939–40. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1981. Pp. XVIII, 630. $28.50 (US). Reviewed by P.M.H. Bell

F.H. HINSLEY ET AL. British Intelligence in the Second World War: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations. Vol. I, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979. Pp. 616. $29.95 (US); Vol. H, ibid., 1981. Pp. 690. $39.50 (US). Reviewed by D.C. Watt

E. MARY SMALLWOOD. The Jews under Roman Rule: A Study in Political Relations. From Pompey to Diocletian. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1981. Pp. XIV, 595. 96 guilders. Reviewed by Jacob Neusner     

Review articles

Colette is not generally included in recent narratives of twentieth-century French neoclassicism. However, her contemporaries of various political and aesthetic persuasions considered Colette to be a classique of the first order. This article explores classification as classique by critics sympathetic to Charles Maurras and the aesthetics of the Action française as well as left-leaning critics associated with André Gide and the group surrounding the Nouvelle Revue française. The article shows that it is Colette's strong association with a particular type of femininity that allows her to be thought of as classique by critics of such different political and aesthetic commitments. The article also examines examples of resistance to Colette's categorisation as classique, and attempts to assert the modernity of her work, coining the term classique moderne as a way of bringing together diverse attempts to explain the harmony between classicism and modernity in Colette's work. The article suggests that Colette's incorporation in the canon of the classique is part of a larger solidifying of the role of femininity in French identity at that moment.     

Election Administration Reform and State Choice: Voter Identification Requirements and HAVA

This research examines factors that have influenced state choices about methods of voter identification practices in the current environment of election administration reform. State voter identification practices have been an active area of state policy action since 2000. Rival explanations for state adoption of voter identification requirements are analyzed for three national election cycles following the 2000 presidential election. State voter identification practices are classified according to levels of relative stringency and in terms of variation from federal requirements for voter identification under the Help America Vote Act of 2002. State decisions to adopt more stringent forms of voter identification are significantly influenced by intrastate factors including Republican Party control of state government, traditionalist state political culture, and greater levels of racial/ethnic diversity. Federal review of election practices under the Voting Rights Act is positively associated with more moderate approaches to voter identification but is not significant over this time period.     

Site formation processes in caves: The Holocene sediments of the Haua Fteah,Cyrenaica, Libya

Caves have yielded some of the most globally important archaeological sequences, but often their interpretation has suffered from assumptions about cave sedimentary processes. Caves contain distinctive sedimentary environments: this has major implications for the understanding of contained archaeological materials. This paper describes and analyses the Holocene sediments in the Haua Fteah, a sequence regarded as essentially continuous by the original excavator. 50 years after it was first excavated, the Haua's Epipalaeolithic to post-Classical chronological range and rich finds make it still the key Holocene archaeological site in North Africa. The reassessment shows, however, that the sequence is strongly discontinuous and this has major implications for the reinterpretation of the site, as the highly-resolved archaeological record is thus likely to reflect a series of brief occupations, rather than continuous human activity. As with many caves, the sedimentary record in the Haua Fteah is an extremely sensitive indicator of environments and processes in the wider landscape. Secure understanding of sedimentary process, from analysis of the highly individual records found in caves, is essential for full understanding of their contained archaeology.     

‘Any place to raise children is a good place’: children,housing and neighbourhoods in inner Newcastle,Australia

Neighbourhoods are important spaces of interaction for children. This paper explores the perceptions of residents from seven suburbs in the inner area of Newcastle, Australia concerning what makes a good neighbourhood for children. Key factors identified by residents include the types of dwellings found in the neighbourhood (with detached houses being seen as preferable for children) and the quality of neighbourhood resources. Another important feature was social interactions within the neighbourhood, including interactions between children and adults and interactions between groups of children. The paper examines how different features of neighbourhoods interact to create adult perceptions about whether a neighbourhood is appropriate for children. The paper also points to the ways that children are seen to actively produce the neighbourhood in which they live.