Book reviews

THE FRAGILE BLOSSOM: CRISIS AND CHANGE IN JAPAN. Zbigniew Brzezinski. New York, Harper and Row, 1972. 06–010468–6. xii, 153 pp. $US5.95.

THE SOUTHERN EXPANSION OF THE CHINESE PEOPLE: ‘SOUTHERN FIELDS AND SOUTHERN OCEAN’. C. P. FitzGerald. Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1972. 07081–0220–4. xxi, 230 pp. $7.50.

IN SEARCH OF SOUTHEAST ASIA. David Joel Steinberg (ed.). Praeger, New York, 1971. 522 pp. $820 paper.

SUPER POWERS AND WORLD ORDER. Carsten Holbraad (ed.). Australian National University Press, 1971. 0–7081–0264–6. ix, 161 pp. $6.95.

INTERNATIONAL SECURITY: REFLECTIONS ON SURVIVAL AND STABILITY. Kenneth J. Twitchett (ed.). Oxford University Press, London, 1971. 148 pp. $3.40 paper.

THE MASS MEDIA IN AUSTRALIA: USE AND EVALUATION. J S. Western and Colin A. Hughes. University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, 1971. 0–7022–0720–9. 178 pp. $6.50.

WE TOOK THEIR ORDERS AND ARE DEAD. Shirley Cass, Ros Cheney, David Malouf and Michael Wilding (eds.). Ure Smith, Sydney, 1971. 0–7254–0070–6. 256 pp. $1.75.

AUSTRALIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: THE DIARIES OF R. G. CASEY 1951–60. T. B. Millar (ed.). Collins, Sydney, 1972. 0–00–211001–6. 352 pp. $7.95.

AUSTRALIA AND THE UNITED STATES. Norman Harper (ed.). Nelson, Sydney, 1971. 17–004929–9. 274 pp. $5.95 hard cover, $3.25 paper.

PACIFIC POLITIES. I F. Nicholson and Colin A. Hughes (eds.). Pitman Pacific Books, Carlton, 1972. 0–85896–072–9. 286 pp. $8 hard cover, $4.50 paper.

SIR WILLIAM MACGREGOR. Roger Joyce. Oxford University Press. Melbourne, 1971. pp. XVI, 484. $15.00.

COLONIAL ISSUES IN BRITISH POLITICS 1945–61. David Goldsworthy. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1971. 425 pp. $14.00.

ECONOMIC REGULATION OF THE WORLD'S AIRLINES: A POLITICAL ANALYSIS. William E. O'Connor. Praeger, New York, 1971. xii, 189 pp. $US 15.00.

TOWARD FULL EMPLOYMENT: A PROGRAMME FOR COLOMBIA. International Labour Office, Geneva, 1970. 471 pp. US$4.00, 16 SwFr, $1.60 paper.     

Delmephialmas and Sircorcor: Gasparo Balbi, Dalmâ, Julfâr and a problem of transliteration

Gasparo Balbi, the state jeweller of the Venetian Republic, visited the eastern Arabian coast in c. 1580 and recorded many of the places in the modern United Arab Emirates for the first time, giving them the names by which we know them today, albeit in sixteenth-century Italian transliteration. While some places are readily recognizable, Balbi's terms Delmephialmas and Sircorcor present problems. It is suggested that Delmephialmas is the island of Dalmâ off the coast of Abu Dhabi but with an additional phrase as a suffix, giving a meaning approximating to Dalmâ, fî-hâ mâ' , i.e. 'Dalmâ, there is water there'. The absence of any reference to so major a port as Julfâr in modern Ra's al-Khaima by Balbi is remarkable. It is suggested that Balbi's term Sircorcor is an eliding of al-Sirr as a synonym for Julfâr combined in error with Khawr al-Khuwayr to the north of Julfâr.     

On Being ‘Hen's Teeth’: Interdisciplinary practices for women of color in Geography

This paper examines the position of women of color in the discipline of geography in terms of our relatively small numbers, or what one geography professor described as being ‘as rare as hen's teeth’. Using pedagogical examples, the paper analyzes institutionalized racism and sexism at the level of the educational institution, both in geography and also in interdisciplinary locations such as gender studies. Drawing from collective analysis and interdisciplinary research, I propose interdisciplinary strategies of mentorship and support, intellectual exchange, and political engagement outside the academic context as ways to address disciplinary isolation for women of color in the field. I argue that these strategies can offer crucial alternative entry points into intellectual and political projects and can open up the discipline itself by destabilizing its structural and intellectual hierarchies and expanding the scope and relevance of geographic research.

‘Asian American women in human geography are as rare as hen's teeth.’ (Professor in Geography)     

Book reviews

CHINA

PAUL A. COHEN. History in Three Keys: the Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. xviii, 428 pp. £27.95, paper.

DAVID S. G. GOODMAN (ed). China's Provinces in Reform. London and New York: Routledge, 1997. 278 pp. US$85.00, £50.00, hardcover; US$25.99, £15.99, paper.

HUANG JIANLI. The Politics of Depoliticization in Republican China: Guomindang Policy towards Student Political Activism, 1927–1949. Berne: Peter Lang AG, 1996. US$52.95, £34.00, hardcover.

PAUL R. KATZ. Demon Hordes and Burning Boats: the Cult of Marshal Wen in Late Imperial Chekiang. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995. xviii, 261 pp. Index. US$19.95, paper.

JAPAN, KOREA

EYAL BEN‐ARI. Body Projects in Japanese Childcare—culture, Organization and Emotions in a Preschool. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 1997. 166 pp. £40.00, hardcover.

JENNIFER DUFFY and GARY ANSON, eds. Encounters with Japan: twenty Extraordinary Stories. Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1994. 159 pp. A$14.95.

KEN'ICHI GOTO. ’Returning to Asia’: Japan‐Indonesia Relations, 1930s‐1940s. Tokyo: Ryukei Shyosha, 1997. xxvi, 496 pp. Index. ¥12,000, hardcover.

AMY VLADECK HEINRICH (ed). Currents in Japanese Culture: translations and Transformations. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. 493 pp. Preface, brief biographies of contributors, index. US$52.00, hardcover.

STEWART LONE. Japan's First Modern War: army and Society in the Conflict with China, 1894–95. Studies in Military and Strategic History. Houndmills and London: Macmillan/St. Martin's Press, in Association with King's College, London, 1994. xii, 222 pp. £40.00, hardcover.

COLIN McKENZIE and MICHAEL STUTCHBURY (eds). Japanese Financial Markets and the Role of the Yen. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1992. 176 pp. Tables, abbreviations, glossary, preface, list of contributors, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. A$39.95 hardcover; A$24.95, paper.

SOUTH ASIA

KATE BRITTLEBANK. Tipu Sultan's Search for Legitimacy: Islam and Kingship in a Hindu Domain. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997. 184 pp. Illustrations, introduction, notes, bibliography, index. Rs. 450, hardcover.

SOUTHEAST ASIA

BENG‐HUAT CHUA. Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore. London: Routledge, 1997 (revised edition), xiv, 213 pp. Preface, preface to paperback edition, references, index. £45.00, hardcover; £14.99, paper.

STEVEN HEDER and JUDY LEDGERWOOD (eds). Propaganda, Politics and Violence in Cambodia: democratic Transition under United Nations Peace‐Keeping. New York and London: M.E. Sharpe, 1996. xx, 277 pp. US$71.95, hardcover; US$29.95, paper.

ROBERT LOWRY. The Armed Forces of Indonesia. St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1997. xxiv, 282 pp. Tables, maps, graphs, index. A$29.95, paper.

GENERAL ASIA

CHRISTINE DOBBIN. Asian Entrepreneurial Minorities: conjoint Communities in the Making of the World Economy, 1570–1940. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 1996. 246 pp. Glossary, selected bibliography, index. £45.00, hardcover; £16.99, paper.     

“Where the spirit of wisdom lies”: Inculturation,self-determination and the authority of First Nations

By the 1970s, Christian missions to Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory were enthusiastic supporters of Indigenous self-determination, even as they sought to maintain a missionary presence in Aboriginal communities. This article asks how missions continued to seek to influence and direct Aboriginal churches and communities through espousing self-determination, and how Aboriginal leaders engaged with and exploited this apparent contradiction. Focusing on contributions to the missiological publication Nelen Yubu from Deacon Boniface Pedjert, Patrick Dodson, Miram Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann, Dyiniyini Gondarra and Alice Kelly this article considers how Aboriginal leaders and thinkers managed and challenged non-Indigenous expectations set for them around how their decolonisation was to proceed. Self-determination, for missionaries, could be achieved by a new, supposedly more enlightened mission to “inculturate” the gospel. Whereas missionaries presumed Aboriginal church leaders' authority rested in their cultural authenticity, these Aboriginal leaders were also asserting other sources of authority including their culture, but especially the authority that arises from Country itself.