POLICY COMMUNITIES: THE BRITISH AND EUROPEAN POLICY STYLE

It seems possible to formulate broad characterizations of the British and European policy processes in terms of the relationship between government and interest groups. There is a preferred type of machinery in Britain, reflecting normative values, which is to avoid electoral politics and public conflict in order to reach consensus or “accommodation” in the labyrinth of consultative machinery. This style is aptly labelled “bureaucratic accommodation” and is a system in which the dominant actors are groups and government departments. Departments readily recognize the “relevant” groups in a given policy area and seek to mobilize the community around agreed policies. The predilection for the avoidance of conflict seems equally apparent in other Western European nations.     

Book reviews

PRESENT AT THE CREATION. MY YEARS IN THE STATE DEPARTMENT. Dean Acheson. London, Hamish Hamilton Ltd., 1969. xviii, 798 pp. $12.80.

THE SPLIT: AUSTRALIAN LABOR IN THE FIFTIES. Robert Murray. Melbourne, Cheshire, 1970. vi, 388 pp. $5.95.

THE EMERGENCE OF THE SUPER‐POWERS: A SHORT COMPARATIVE HISTORY OF THE USA AND THE USSR. Paul Dukes. London, Macmillan, 1970. 155 pp. £1 and $3.40.

NEW PERSPECTIVES ON GANDHI. K. P. Karunakaran. Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Simla, 1969. ii, 115 pp. Rs. 10, $3.60 U.S.

LENIN THROUGH INDIAN EYES. K. P. S. Menon. Vikas Publications, Delhi, 1970. ix, 79 pp. Rs. 12.

AUSTRALIA AND THE UNITED NATIONS: NEW GUINEA TRUSTEESHIP ISSUES FROM 1946 TO 1966. W. E. Tomasetti. New Guinea Research Bulletin, No. 36, July 1970, New Guinea Research Unit, Australian National University, Canberra and Boroko. 108 pp. $1.50.

ENGLISH TRANSPORTED: ESSAYS ON AUSTRALASIAN ENGLISH. W. S. Ramson. (ed.). Australian National University Press, 1970. xii, 243 pp. $3.95 Paper. $6.00 Cloth.

THE FIRST AI.F. A STUDY OF ITS RECRUITMENT 1914–1918. L. L. Robson. Melbourne University Press, 1970. 230 pp. $6.75.     

Book reviews

T. B. Millar, The Commonwealth and The United Nations, Sydney University Press, Sydney 1967, pp. 237 + xv, $5.50.

A. C. Palfreeman, The Administration of the White Australia Policy. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne 1967, pp. 184 + ix, $6.00.

Robert Shaplen, The Lost Revolution: Vietnam, Andre Deutsch, London 1966, pp. 404 + xii, $5.45.

Elias Duek‐Cohen, ed., Utzon and the Sydney Opera House, Morgan, Sydney 1967, pp. 128, paperback, $1.20.

G. C. Bolton, Dick Boyer, An Australian Humanist, A.N.U. Press. Canberra 1967, pp. 295 + viii, $5.40.

Richard Rose, Influencing Voters: A Study of Campaign Rationality, Faber & Faber, London 1967, pp. 288, $7.35.

Ian Turner, Sydney's Burning, Heinemann, London 1967, pp. 245 + xv, $6.75.     

Ways of Seeing Early Modern Decorative Textiles

Abstract

The article introduces and contextualises this special issue on ‘Ways of Seeing Early Modern Decorative Textiles’, which comprises a series of essays that draw on the activities, research findings and insights of an Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded research network, ‘Ways of Seeing the English Domestic Interior, 1500–1700: The Case of Decorative Textiles’. Critically evaluating the results of the network’s findings, the paper situates them within a broader investigation of the role of decorative textiles in shaping the experience of domestic interiors in the past and present, and explores new ways of reading such objects in the context of the household. It examines the historiography and current range of approaches to the study, interpretation and exhibition of historic textiles, and analyses the insights offered by bringing together different disciplinary and professional perspectives. It argues for the key significance of these textiles for both historical and modern perceptions of the domestic interior and for the importance of collaborative, cross-disciplinary approaches to researching them in order to understand how they functioned in the early modern period and to inform new directions for their display and presentation in the present.     

Book reviews

Rachel Sharp (ed.), Apocalypse No: An Australian Guide to the Arms Race and the Peace Movement. Pluto Press, Sydney and London, 1984.

David Martin, Armed Neutrality for Australia. Dove Communications, Blackburn, Vic., 1984, pp. xii + 294. $14.95.

Jeffrey T. Richelson and Desmond Ball, The Ties That Bind. Allen and Unwin Australia, North Sydney, 1985, pp. xvi + 402. $29.95.

Deborah Welch Larson, Origins of Containment: A Psychological Explanation. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1985, pp. xvi + 380. $US40.50.

Michael Ghertman and Margaret Allen, An Introduction to the Multinationals. Macmillan Press for the Institute for Research and Information on Multinationals, London, 1984, pp. 143. $11.95.

Neil Renwick, Multinational Corporations and the Political Economy of Power. Canberra Studies in World Affairs No. 14, Department of International Relations, Australian National University, Canberra, 1983, pp. 207. $10.00.

David Hawdon (ed.), The Energy Crisis: ten years after. Croom Helm, London and Canberra, 1984, pp. iii + 137. $27.95.

Robert L. Downen and Bruce J. Dickson (eds), The Emerging Pacific Community: A Regional Perspective. Westview Press, Boulder (Suppliers Bowker Publishing Co. Epping UK), 1984, pp.245. $US23.00

Donald Denoon, Settler Capitalism: The Dynamics of Dependent Development in the Southern Hemisphere. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1983, p. viii + 280. $56.00.

John Ravenhill, Collective Clientelism The Lomé Conventions and North‐South Relations. Columbia University Press, New York, 1985, pp. xxi + 389. $US49.00.

Miron Dolot, Execution by Hunger: The Hidden Holocaust. W.W. Norton, New York, 1985, pp. xvi + 231. $32.90.

W. Laquer and B. Rubin (eds), The Israel‐Arab Reader: A Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict. Fourth edition. Penguin Books, New York, 1984, pp. xi + 704. $7.95.

David Newman (ed.), The Impact of Gush Emunim. Croom Helm, London and Sydney, 1985, pp. 276. $35.95.

Alan Dowty, Middle East Crisis: US Decision‐Making in 1958, 1970 and 1973. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1984, pp. xiv +416. $71.95.

Michael Smith, Jane McLoughlin, Peter Large and Rod Chapman, Asia's New Industrial World. Methuen, London and New York, 1985, pp. 136. $8.95.

Lim Joo‐Jock and Vani S. (eds), Armed Communist Movements in Southeast Asia. Gower, Aldershot, 1984, for the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, pp. xviii + 204. $28.50.

Lim Joo‐Jock and Vani S. (eds), Armed Separatism in Southeast Asia. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, 1984, pp. 270. $S44.00 (cloth), $S32.00 (paper).

Beverley Hooper, Youth in China. Penguin Books Australia, Ringwood, 1985, pp. x + 235 pages. $7.95.

Chang Pao‐Min, Kampuchea Between China and Vietnam. Singapore University Press, Singapore, 1985, pp. xi + 204. No price given.

Carmel Budiardjo and Liem Soei Liong, The War Against East Timor. Zed Press, London; Pluto Press, Sydney, 1984, pp. xviii + 253. $14.95.

Michael C. Williams, Sickle and Crescent: The Communist Revolt of 1926 in Banten. Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, Cornell University, 1982, pp. 81. $US6.00.

Patricia Herbert, The Hsaya San Rebellion (1930–1932) Reappraised. Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University, 1982, pp. 17. $3.00.

Abd Chamid. The Poorest of the Poor: Three Case Studies from Indonesia. Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University, 1982, pp. 42. $3.00.

Benjamin A. Batson, The End of the Absolute Monarchy in Siam. Oxford University Press (for the Asian Studies Association of Australia), Singapore, 1984, pp. xviii + 349. $13.95.

Kim Richard Nossal, The Politics of Canadian Foreign Policy. Prentice‐Hall Canada, Scarborough, Ont., 1985, pp. 232. No price given.