Biography without history?

Kevin Perkins: Menzies: Last of the Queen's Men, Rigby, Adelaide, 1968, pp. 264, $5.50.     

Book reviews

Hans Granqvist: The Red Guard: A Report on Mao's Revolution, trans. Erik J. Friis, Thomas Nelson, Melbourne, 1967, pp. 159 + ix, $5.95.

James A Maxwell: Commonwealth‐State Financial Relations in Australia, Melbourne University Press, 1967, pp. 124 + ix, $5.00.

J. R. Flynn: American Politics: a Radical View, Blackwood and Janet Paul Limited, Auckland, 1967, pp. 255, $5.50.

Colin Mackerras and Neale Hunter: China Observed, 1964/1967, Thomas Nelson, Melbourne, 1967, pp. 194, $4.95.

F. Alexander: Australia Since Federation, Thomas Nelson, Melbourne, 1967, pp. 352, well illustrated, $4.95, $2.50 (paperback).

G. R. Elton: The Practice of History, Sydney University Press, Sydney, 1967, pp. 178 + viii, $3.00.

A. Jones: Andrew Jones M.H.R. by Himself, Rigby Ltd., Adelaide, 1967, pp. 186, $0.95.

R. W. Connell and Florence Gould: Politics of The Extreme Right, Sydney Studies in Politics, No. 7, Sydney University Press, 1967, pp. 115, $2.50.

R. R. Walker: Communicators: People, Practices, Philosophies in Australian Advertising, Media, Marketing, Lansdowne Press, Melbourne, 1967, pp. 416, $10.

Basil Mitchell: Law, Morality and Religion in a Secular Society, Oxford University Press, London, 1967, pp. 141 + vii, $4.25.     

Sickle blade life-history and the transition to agriculture: an early Neolithic case study from Southwest Asia

In Southwest Asia, sickle blades first appear early in the sequence of the transition to agriculture. In the past, detailed qualitative research on silica bearing blade stone tools focus on the characterization of use-wear traces such as polish types and accrual rates. In this paper we approach the study of sickle blades slightly different, choosing to examine tool life-history by developing a method to quantitatively estimate harvesting intensity. The method centers on an experiment of cutting cereal stalks and measuring stone blade edge thickness under a scanning electron microscope as a proxy for cutting time. We end with regressing the experimental results to provide an estimation of how intensively archaeological sickle blades recovered from the site of Dhra’, Jordan were used for harvesting. The results, while preliminary, enable an initial interpretation of sickle blades as important tools with long use-life histories during the early Neolithic in the Southern Levant.     

Cultural landscape protection in Australia: The Wingecarribee Shire study

Abstract

The concept of cultural landscapes as remarkable windows onto the past, and rich historical documents that can be read has gained increasingly wide acceptance in Australia over the past few years. Allied to this, and informing it. is the way in which landscape as a cultural construct plays a major role in attachment to place and sense of Australianness. The understanding of cultural landscapes as a setting where human history is on display is a community movement as well as a professional one. This paper reviews one particular study which focused on heritage evaluation of an historic rural landscape and moves for its protection.     

A Bi‐objective Optimization Model for Designing Safe Walking Routes for School Children

This study uses a mathematical optimization approach to design safe walking routes from school to home for children. Children are thought to be safer when walking together in groups rather than alone. Thus, we assume that the risk of walking along a given road segment in a group is smaller than that of walking the same segment alone. At the same time, the walking route between school and home for each child should not deviate substantially from the shortest route. We propose a bi‐objective model that minimizes both the total risk (particularly, the total distance walked alone) and the total walking distance for all children. We present an integer programming formulation of the proposed problem and apply this formulation to two instances based on actual road networks. We obtain Pareto optimal solutions using a mathematical programming solver and analyze the characteristics of the solutions and their potential applicability to real situations. The results show that the proposed model produces much better solutions compared with the solution where each child walks along the shortest path from school to home. In some optimal solutions, only a small deviation from the shortest path results in a dramatic reduction of the risk objective.     

Soft Transport Policies and Ground‐Level Ozone: An Evaluation of the “Clear the Air Challenge” in Salt Lake City

In recent years, communities have begun to implement both “soft” and mandatory policies designed to address worsening air quality. Voluntary or soft transportation policies have included air quality alert systems that encourage people not to drive on days when the air quality index is above a specified threshold and public education/action campaigns that focus on reducing automobile related travel. In this article, we evaluate the effectiveness of one such soft policy, the Clear the Air Challenge (CAC), in reducing ground‐level ozone during the Wasatch Front's summer ozone season. Using daily ozone data and color‐coded daily air quality designations from 2006 through 2012, we estimate a range of nonequivalent control group models. In only one of the models does the CAC generate a statistically significant but small reduction in ground‐level ozone. Future research should assess the full range of costs and benefits to the public associated with such soft transport policies.     

In search of Henry Mayer

This article explores the rich legacy of Henry Mayer for the study of politics, and the media, in the Australian context and his influence on several generations of Australian intellectuals whom he taught. The article concludes that Henry Mayer remains ‘inscrutable'; such is the complexity of his worldview and the unique circumstances of his upbringing in Germany under the shadows of the Second World War.

本文探讨了亨利梅耶留给澳大利亚政治及媒体研究的遗产,以及对他教授过的几代澳大利亚知识分子的影响。文章的结论是梅耶高深莫测;他的世界观太复杂了,他二战期间成长于德国的环境太独特了。