The Querelle Between Alain Badiou and Éric Marty,Contrasted With Régis Debray's Lettre Ouverte to Élie Barnavi and Barnavi's Response

This article contrasts two major debates in book form on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, so central to French political discussion today—the ‘quarrel’ between Alain Badiou (with Cécile Winter, in Circonstances 3: Portées du mot ‘juif’) and Éric Marty (Une querelle avec Alain Badiou, philosophe), and the debate between Régis Debray and Élie Barnavi (À un ami israélien, by Debray with a response from Barnavi). The Badiou/Marty exchange is hostile and polarised, Badiou arguing strongly against the existence of a separate Israeli state and Marty vehemently in its favour, while À un ami israélien evidences what I describe as Debray's post-Zionism in dialogue with Barnavi's Left Zionism. What emerges from the two exchanges is, it is argued, a taxonomy of attitudes towards Israel substantially more complex than the traditional, and often misleading, polarity between ‘Zionist’ and ‘anti-Zionist’.     

Protocol for Recording Enamel Hypoplasia in Modern and Archaeological Caprine Populations

This paper outlines the first methodology for recording dental enamel hypoplasia in the high‐crowned dentition of modern and archaeological caprine teeth. The method has been developed and trialed on five caprine populations from Orkney (UK); two modern populations (Shetland and North Ronaldsay breeds) and three Neolithic assemblages from the archaeological sites of Knap of Howar, Skara Brae and Holm of Papa Westray. Problems associated with differential tooth wear, as well as the presence of coronal cementum, are discussed, and recommendations are given on the identification and recording of hypoplastic dental defects in caprines. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Book reviews

Mohammed Ayoob, The Middle East in World Politics. Croom Helm Ltd., London, 1981, pp. 217. $10.95

Charlotte S.M. Girard, Canada in World Affairs, Volume XIII, 1963–1965. Canadian Institute of International Affairs, Toronto, 1980, pp. 372. $Can27.00 (cloth), $Can10.00 (paper).

Morton A. Kaplan, Towards Professionalism in International Theory: Macrosystem Analysis. The Free Press, New York, 1979, pp ix + 182. $US17.95.

Holly Sklar (ed.), Trilateralism The Trilateral Commission and Elite Planning for World Management. Black Rose Books, Montreal, 1980, pp. 604. No price given.

Michael Mandelbaum, The Nuclear Question: The United States and Nuclear Weapons 1946–1976. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1979, pp. 276. £ 12.50.

Graham Kearns, Arms for the Poor. Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University, Canberra, 1980, pp. 131. $7.00.

John G. Keliher, The Negotiations on Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions: The Search for Arms Control in.Central Europe. Pergamon Press, New York, 1980, pp. 204. No price given.

Michael Sexton, War for the Asking: Australia's Vietnam Secrets. Penguin Books Australia, Ringwood, 1981, pp.212. $5.95.

Ian McGibbon, Blue‐Water Rationale: The Naval Defence of New Zealand 1914–1942. Government Printing Office, Wellington, 1981, pp xxi + 446. $NZ45.00.

Erhard Fordran and Paul J. Friedrich (eds.), Rüstungskontrolle und Sicherheit in Europa. Europa Union Verlag GMBH, Bonn, 1979, pp. 374. No price given.

Alan Rix, Japan's Economic Aid. Croom Helm, London, 1980, pp. 286. £14.95.

K.H. Digby, Lawyer in the. Wilderness, Data Paper No. 114, Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., 1980, pp. xi + 102. $US5.75.

R.B. Smith and W. Watson (eds.), Early South East Asia: Essays in Archaeology, History and Historical Geography. Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1979, pp. xv + 561. $56.00.

Allan Bollard, Agricultural Project Design and Evaluation in an Island Community, Australian National University Development Studies Centre Monograph No. 15, 1979, pp. xiii + 228. $8.00.

Philip J. Eldridge, Indonesia and Australia: The Politics of Aid and Development since 1966. Australian National University, Development Studies Centre Monograph No. 18, 1979, pp. xviii + 233. $8.00.

Paul Harrison, The Third World Tomorrow: a report from the battlefront in the war against poverty. Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1980, pp. 380. $7.95.

R. T. Shand and H. V. Richter (eds.), International Aid: Some Political, Administrative and Technical Realities. Development Studies Centre Monograph No. 16, The Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1979, pp. 278. $9.00.

Seweryn Bialer, Stalin's Successors. Leadership, Stability and Change in the Soviet Union. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1980, pp. 312. £12.50.     

Book reviews

RODERICK STACKELBERG. Idealism Debased: From Völkisch Ideology to National Socialism. Kent, Ohio: The Kent State University Press, 1981. Pp. XIII, 202, 3 plates. $18 (US). Reviewed by Lawrence D. Stokes

JEROME CH'EN. China and the West: Society and Culture 1815–1937. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press. Pp. 488. $25.90 (Can.) Reviewed by David P. Barrett

FREDERICK W. MARKS ill. Velvet on Iron: The Diplomacy of Theodore Roosevelt. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1979. Pp. xiv, 247. $15.00 (US). Reviewed by Raymond A. Esthus

CRAIG L. SYMONDS. Navalists and Antinavalists: The Naval Policy Debate in the United States, 1785–1827. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1980. Pp. 252. $17.50 (US). Reviewed by Reginald C. Stuart

BERNARD RANSOM, Connolly's Marxism, London: Pluto, 1980. Pp. 126. Reviewed by Desmond Bowen

THOMAS A. BAILEY and PAUL B. RYAN, Hitler vs. Roosevelt: The Undeclared War. London: Collier Macmillan, 1979. Pp. 302. £7.45. Reviewed by Ronald W. Pruessen

M.A. HICKS, False, Fleeting, Perjur'd Clarence; George, Duke of Clarence, 1449–1478. Gloucester: Alan Sutton, and Atlantic Highlands, NJ. Humanities Press, 1980. Pp. 270. $22.00 (US). Reviewed by Robert Tittler

MURIEL ATKIN, Russia and Iran, 1780–1828. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980. Pp. xii, 216. $20 (US). Reviewed by M.E. Yapp

J.K. FEDOROWICZ. England's Baltic Trade in the Early Seventeenth Century: A Study in Anglo-Polish Commerical Diplomacy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. Pp. XIII, 334. $35 (US). Reviewed by David S. Macmillan

MICHAEL CROWDER. Colonial West Africa: Collected Essays. London: Frank Cass, 1978. Pp. 341. $28.50 (US). Reviewed by John Flint

PETER GRAF KIELMANSEGG. Deutschland und der erste Weltkrieg. 2. Auflage. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1980. Pp. XI, 755. Reviewed by Henry Cord Meyer

PIOTR S. WANDYCZ. The United States and Poland. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pp. XVI, 465. $28.50 (US). Reviewed by Stanislaw Bobr-Tylingo

FREDERICK COOPER. From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Colonial Kenya, 1890–7925. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980. Pp. xi, 328. $25 (US). Reviewed by Mike Mason

DONALD E. QUELLER. Medieval Diplomacy and the Fourth Crusade. London: Variorum Reprints, 1980. Pp. 322. £22. Reviewed by Bernice M. Kacznski

CHRISTINE MOSS HELMS. The Cohesion of Saudi Arabia: Evolution of Political Identity. London: Croom Helm, &; Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981. Pp. 313. $25.00 (US). Reviewed by Ray L. Cleveland

CHRISTOPHER H.D. HOWARD, editor. The Diary of Edward Goschen, 1900–1914. London: Royal Historical Society (Camden Fourth Series, Vol. 25), 1980. Pp. xn, 315. £10. Reviewed by Briton C. Busch     

Ceramic production and provenience at Gordion, Central Anatolia

Phrygian Gordion was the political center of an influential Iron Age polity that extended across west central Anatolia during the first half of the 1st millennium BC. Though the borders of this polity remain vague a characteristic of the Phrygian “footprint” is the distribution of highly distinctive ceramics. The extent to which Gordion potters were the originators of these wares remains uncertain. In this paper we use Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) to establish the local signature of predominantly Iron Age ceramics for this site by combining samples from several decades of excavation with an extensive regional sediment sequence. We also compare previous NAA work at Gordion to suggest that the formative stages of the Phrygian state appears to have involved a more extensive network of non-local specialist producers than previously thought.     

A Bayesian AMS C chronology of the Classic Maya Center of Uxbenká, Belize

Archaeologists require precise chronologies of cultural change to understand the nature and timing, and causes and effects, of ecological and social transformations. The Uxbenká Archaeological Project (UAP) has made chronology building a main goal, employing epigraphic data, artifact seriation, and high-precision AMS ¹⁴C dating. With more than 60 ¹⁴C dates with measurement errors below ±25 ¹⁴C yr, primarily on single charcoal specimens, Uxbenká may be the most intensively dated Classic Period site in the tropical Maya Lowlands. Here we take the next step, combining this rich chronometric dataset with associated stratigraphic information in OxCal's Bayesian framework to generate a high-resolution chronology of Uxbenká's early development and expansion in southern Belize. We show how archaeologists may take advantage of complex architectural stratigraphy to constrain broad calibrated ranges during the Classic Period, and to estimate dates for observed construction events that can not be directly dated (e.g., clearing/leveling plazas, laying plaster floors, renovating/rebuilding structural elements). Our analysis confirms the antiquity of the ceremonial Stela Plaza (Group A), where first construction is estimated between 60 cal BC and cal AD 220 and is associated with a Pre-Classic structure obscured by later construction and reorientation of the group to a N-S alignment ca. AD 150–310. The analysis also indicates initial leveling and construction at plaza Group B from cal AD 60–310 and Group D from cal AD 20–240, both earlier than previously assumed. Though Late Classic contexts are not as well represented by direct dates, architectural modifications are documented at all three plaza groups after AD 550, including the extensive plastering, laying paving stones, and construction of facades on existing structures. The resulting chronology revises our previous thinking on the mode of settlement and development of Classic Maya society at Uxbenká and indicates specific areas of investigation to elucidate events in the Late and Terminal Classic at the site, including political and social fragmentation and the abandonment of the urban core late in the Classic Period.     

Adjustment or renewal in regional clusters? A study of diversification amongst SMEs in the Aberdeen oil complex

A renewed interest in the spatial clustering or agglomeration of economic activity is evident within economic geography and related fields. This paper considers processes of change within 'mature' regional clusters, developing a conceptual framework which links firm-level strategies to development scenarios at the cluster level through a set of intervening mechanisms. Whange, enabling the cluster to sustain its prosperity, and adjustment which is associated with stagnation and gradual decline. This conceptual framework is applied to an analysis of one key mechanism of change, diversification, as pursued by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Aberdeen oil cluster. Our analysis indicates that some diversification is occurring, with the implications for the cluster lying midway between adjustment and renewal. In conclusion, we emphasize the need to assess and 'unpack' the clusters concept and suggest that research should focus on the relationships between proximity, learning and evolution.     

Letter from Europe, June 2004

This is the first episode of our new column 'Letter from Europe', in which Keith Hart reflects on life. Ed.