Book Reviews

Understanding the Southern African Crises

Paul Keal, Unspoken Rules and Superpower Dominance. Macmillan, London, 1983, pp.262. $48.00

Roger Hilsman, The Politics of Policy Making in Defense and Foreign Affairs: Conceptual Models and Bureaucratic Politics. Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1987, pp.ix,326. $42.50.

Benjamin B. Ferencz, A Common Sense Guide to World Peace. Oceana, New York, 1985, pp. xvi + 112. $US15.00.

United Nations, Department of Public Information, The Blue Helmets: A Review of United Nations Peace‐keeping. United Nations, New York, 1985, pp. 361. $US8.96.

United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, The History of UNCTAD 1964–1984. United Nations, New York, 1985, pp. 294.$US5.00.

United Nations, Department for Disarmament Affairs, Co‐ordination and World Disarmament Campaign Section, The United Nations and Disarmament: 1945–1985. United Nations, New York, 1985, pp. 166.$US16.95.

Chris Bellamy, The Future of Land Warfare. Croom Helm, London and Sydney, 1987, pp.xv+326. £29.95.

John Prados, The Soviet Estimate: U.S. Intelligence Analysis & Soviet Strategic Forces. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1986, pp.xvi+391. $24.00.

J.W.C. Cumes, The Reconstruction of the World Economy. Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1984, pp. 181 $6.91.

Commonwealth Secretariat, Towards a New Bretton Woods: Challenges for the World Financial and Trading System, Report by a Commonwealth Study Group. Longman for the Commonwealth Secretariat, London, 1983, pp. xii + 148. $ 12.95.

Peter Hayes, Lyuba Zarsky and Walden Bello, American Lake. Penguin Books, Ringwood, Victoria, 1986, pp.xiv, 529. $14.95.

A.G. Milner and Trevor Wilson (eds), Australian Diplomacy: Challenges and Options for the Department of Foreign Affairs. AIIA Occasional Paper No. 5, August 1987, pp. 90. $4.50.     

Military Power and Political Influence

This is an edited text of the sixth John Vincent Memorial Lecture delivered by Lawrence Freedman at the University of Keele on 8 May 1998. Against the background of Soviet military power in Europe in the 1970s, the author explores in the first place the question of the utility of force in circumstances where there is no immediate danger of war, and concludes with a discussion of its contemporary relevance for the armed forces of the Atlantic alliance.     

An Axiomatic Approach to Geographical Space

Geographical space is a major concept in spatial analysis. Curiously enough, no attempt has so far been made to provide a general and rigorous presentation. In this paper, a formal definition of the basic geographical components is given. For that purpose, topology and measure theory are used. A general definition of geographical space is then proposed and some properties are examined. Finally, the relations between the proposed definition and the particular representations used in spatial analysis are discussed.