Re‐valuing the Fringe: Some Findings on the Value of Agricultural Production in Australia's Peri‐Urban Regions

The agriculture that occurs in Australia's peri‐urban regions is not well understood, nor has its economic value ever been examined systematically. Using a spatial frame derived from research into population change, Agricultural Census data are used to calculate the value of this agricultural production. The analysis suggests that peri‐urban regions in the five mainland States produce almost 25% of Australia's total gross value of agricultural production. Evidence gathered from other surveys suggests that, in some respects, this may be an underestimate. Although qualified and provisional, these findings have important strategic implications for agricultural development, urban and regional development and, ultimately, sustainable development. However, peri‐urban issues are often submerged in public policy deliberations, and peri‐urban agriculture is poorly served by the Agricultural Census.     

Book reviews

CHINA

DORE J. LEVY. Ideal and Actual in “The Story of the Stone”. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. 213 pp. US$49.00/£33.95, hardcover; US$19.00/£13.50, paper.

GREGOR BENTON (ed and trans). Chen Duxiu's Last Articles and Letters, 1937–1942. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 1998. 163 pp. Foreword by Wang Fanxi, editor's introduction, appendices, glossary, index. £40.00, hardcover.

EILEEN CHANG. The Rice‐Sprout Song. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. 182 pp. Foreword by David Der‐wei Wang. US$15.95, paper.

EILEEN CHANG. The Rouge of the North. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. 185 pp. Foreword by David Der‐wei Wang. US$15.95, paper.

MCLAREN, ANNE E. Chinese Popular Culture and Ming Chantefables. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1998. viii, 340 pp. US$103.75, hardcover.

EDWARD S. STEINFELD. Forging Reform in China: the Fate of State‐Owned Industry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. 300 pp. Tables, figures, preface, notes, bibliography, index. A$80.00, hardcover; £12.95, paper.

PETER CONN. Pearl S. Buck: a Cultural Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. 467 pp. A$28.95, paper.

FLEMMING CHRISTIANSEN and ZHANG JUNZUO (eds). Village INC. Chinese Rural Society in the 1990s. Surrey: Curzon, 1998. 277 pp. Illustrations, introduction, notes, bibliography, index. £35.00, hardcover.

HAROLD M. TANNER. Strike Hard! Anti‐Crime Campaigns and Chinese Criminal Justice 1979–1989. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University East Asia Program, 1999. 253 pp. US$28.00, hardcover; US$17.00, paper.

JAPAN, KOREA

LONNY E. CARLILE and MARK C. TILTON (eds). Is Japan Really Changing Its Ways?: regulatory Reform and the Japanese Economy. Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1998. 232 pp. US$39.95, hardcover.

PETER KATZENSTEIN and TAKASHI SHIRAISHI (eds). Network Power: Japan and Asia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997. 399 pp. US$62.50, hardcover; US$23.95, paper.

BERNARD FAURE. The Red Thread: Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998. 338 pp. US$18.95, paper.

SOUTH, WEST & CENTERAL ASIA

VIJAY MISHRA. Devotional Poetics and the Indian Sublime. New York: State University of New York Press, 1998. 268 pp. US$21.95, paper.

OLIVER MENDELSOHN and MARIKA VICZIANY. The Untouchables: subordination, Poverty and the State in Modern India. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1998. 289 pp. Glossary, preface, bibliography, index. A$36.95, paper.

DONALD S. LOPEZ, Jr. Prisoners of Shangri‐La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1998. 238 pp. Notes, index. US$25.00, hardcover.

MELVYN C. GOLDSTEIN and MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN (eds), with a foreword by Orville Schell. Buddhism in Contemporary Tibet, Religious Revival and Cultural Identity.

Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1998. x, 207 pp. 37 b/w photographs, notes, bibliography, index. US$40.00, hardcover; US$15.95, paper; £30.00, hardcover; £11.95, paper.

PETER RICHARDUS (ed), with an historical foreword by Alex McKay. Tibetan Lives: three Himalayan Autobiographies. Surrey: Curzon, 1998. xxviii, 223 pp. 2 maps, frontispiece, 33 b/w plates, select bibliography, index. £40.00, hardcover.

RAMAKRISHNA PULIGANDLA. Fundamentals of Indian Philosophy. Delhi: D. K. Print‐world, 1997 (revised edition), xix, 362 pp. Preface to second edition, preface to first edition, bibliography, glossary, index. Rs. 450, hardcover.

SOUTHEAST ASIA

PAUL HUTCHCROFT. Booty Capitalism: the Politics of Banking in the Philippines. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1998. 278 pp. US$39.95, hardcover.

PRAMOEDYA ANANTA TOER. Tales from Djakarta: caricatures of Circumstances and their Human Beings. Ithaca: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 1999. 145 pp. Foreword, introduction, glossary. US$15.00, paper.

GENERAL ASIA

YAYORI MATSUI. Women in the New Asia: from Pain to Power. Melbourne: Spinifex Press, 1999. x, 194 pp. Index. A$29.95, paper.     

An Early Pleistocene Phytolith Record from Wonderwerk Cave,Northern Cape,South Africa

Grass silica short cell phytoliths were sampled from the four lowermost archaeological strata in excavation 1 at Wonderwerk Cave and offer an independent record of climatic change during an episode of Early Stone Age hominin occupation at the cave. Linked to differences in growing season temperature and the geographic distribution of C₃ and C₄ grasses in southern Africa, fossil grass phytoliths were used to trace palaeoenvironmental shifts at the site. The results suggest that Early Pleistocene environmental conditions at the cave fluctuated: between wetter and drier summer–rainfall growing conditions (C₄) towards the end of the Olduvai subchron and the beginning of the subsequent interval of reversed polarity, to mostly dry and cooler winter–rainfall growing conditions (C₃), that continued throughout the interval. It ended with a shift towards increased summer rainfall aridity at around one million years ago. The fluctuation between markedly wetter and drier C₄ conditions at the cave (NADP-me grass types vs. NAD-me grass types) does not support the premise that the expansion of C₄ grasslands was always coupled with increased aridity.     

A royal Maya country house: Archaeology at Bejucal,Guatemala

This article presents three years of archaeological investigations at the minor Maya center of Bejucal, Guatemala. A complete site history is presented relying on data from artifact analysis, architectural study, epigraphy, and bioarchaeology, with a goal towards identifying the site's function within the broader El Zotz polity. The authors argue that Bejucal underwent significant transformation following its establishment as a sacred hilltop site during the Late Preclassic period (400 b.c.–a.d. 250). The El Zotz royal family gradually appropriated the space, converting it into a royal country house and elite burial place. Bejucal's proximity to a large permanent water source suggests that the country house was situated within favorable hunting grounds. The research contributes to a broader discussion about the role of minor centers in regional settlement patterns, highlighting the benefit of textual data in making interpretations. The article also highlights the important role of salvage work in lowland Maya archaeology.     

“Global/local” community engagement: advancing integrative learning and situated solidarity

This article illustrates how “global/local” community engagement, a particular form of experiential learning and political work that draws upon geography conceptually, pedagogically, and programmatically, is well suited to advance integrative learning and invite students into social action. Through specific examples from Mount Holyoke College, we argue that “global/local” community engagement helps students cultivate the skills and dispositions of reciprocity, reflexivity, and place-based and interdependent knowledge production. These are habits of mind and patterns of praxis necessary for enacting “situated solidarity,” a practice with great potential for grappling with the complex challenges and marked divisiveness of the twenty-first century. As our empirical examples demonstrate, the geographic concept of contour lines matched with the pedagogies of accompaniment and co-labor guide “global/local” community engagement. We conclude with a set of recommendations for implementing “global/local” community engagement in other institutions of higher education to reveal the context-specificity of our examples and the possibilities for application elsewhere.