Book reviews

Luciano Guerci and Giuseppe Ricuperati (eds) 1998 Il coraggio della ragione. Franco Venturi intellettuale e storico cosmopolita (Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi promosso da Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, Università degli Studi di Torino, Accademia delle Scienze, Deputazione Subalpina di Storia Patria, Torino, 12–14 dicembre 1996) (Turin: Fondazione Luigi Einaudi), pp. 1–497, ISBN 88–430–1129–4.

Stefano Levati ( 1997) La nobiltà del lavoro. Negozianti e banchieri a Milano tra Ancien Regime e Restaurazione (Milan: Franco Angeli), pp. 1–320, 40,000 lire.

Guido Formigoni (1998) L'Italia dei cattolici: Fede e nazione dal Risorgimento alla Repubblica (Bologna: Il Mulino), pp. 1–176, 22,000 lire, ISBN 88–15–06314–5 paperback.

Albert Schram ( 1997) Railways and the Formation of the Italian State in the Nineteenth Century, ’Cambridge Studies in Italian History and Culture’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 1–164, Bibliography and Index, $59.95, ISBN 0–521–57159–6 hardback.

Catherine Brice (1989) Monumentanté publique et politique à Rome. Le Vittoriano (Rome: École Française de Rome), pp. 1–439.

Hans Woller ( 1997) I conti con il fascismo: L'epurazione in Italia 1943–1948 (Bologna: Il Mulino), pp. 1–603, 50,000 lire, ISBN 88–15–06198–3 paperback.

Maria Stone ( 1998) The Patron State: Culture and Politics in Fascist Italy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), pp. 1–334, ISBN 0–691–05999–3 paperback.

Angelo Ventrone (1996) La cittadinanza repubblicana. Forma‐partito e identità nazionale alle origini della democrazia italiana (1943–1948) (Bologna: Il Mulino), pp. 1–305, 38,000 lire, ISBN 88–15–05508–8 paperback.

R. J. B. Bosworth and Patrizia Dogliani (eds) (1999) kalian Fascism: History, Memory and Representation (Houndmills and New York: Macmillan/St Martin's Press), pp. 1–245, ISBN 0–312–21717.

Ernesto Galli della Loggia (1998) L'identità italiana (Bologna: Il Mulino), pp. 1–171, 18,000 lire, ISBN 88–15–066 12–8 paperback.

Aldino Monti (1998) I braccianti (Bologna: Il Mulino), pp. 1–161, 18,000 lire, ISBN 88–15–06582–2 paperback.

Giuliana Gemelli (ed.) (1998) Scuole di management Orìgini e primi sviluppi delle business schools in Italia (Bologna: Il Mulino), pp. 1–543, ISBN 88–15–06297–1 paperback.

Valeria Fargion (1997) Geografia della cittadinanza sociale in Italia (Bologna: Il Mulino), pp. 1–351, 42,000 lire, ISBN 88–15–06127–4 paperback.

Umberto Gentiloni Silveri (1998) L'Italia e la nuova frontiera: Stati Uniti e centrosinistra 1958–1965 (Bologna: Il Mulino), pp. 1–343, 45,000 lire, ISBN 88–15–06282–3 paperback.     

Stories of fracture and claim for belonging: young migrants' narratives of arrival in Britain

This article brings an anthropological approach to bear on the question of ‘children's voices’ and, particularly, on the stories told by some young migrants about their recent arrival as asylum-seekers in Britain. Young migrants' narratives are examined as situated and self-conscious claims to a certain identity as child refugee. The question of why a particular narrative of ‘arrival in Britain’ was offered by a diverse group of young migrants and asylum seekers is discussed. These stories present a view of their tellers as alone and irreconcilably detached from past lives and relationships. These narrative repertoires as well as their telling draw from and elaborate certain views of the ‘proper refugee child’ that circulate through various regimes of immigration, welfare and emancipatory community work that all involved these young people. An approach to the stories as accomplished as well as situated performances that collapse the ordinary division between stories as ‘facts’ or ‘fictions’ is introduced. In this sense, the ‘children's voices’ heard in this study are recognised as situated and interested products of a research relationship.     

Increased Sedentism in the Central Oases of the Egyptian Western Desert in the Early to Mid-Holocene: Evidence from the Peripheries

Two locations adjacent to the great central oases of the Egyptian Western Desert experienced an unusual period of sedentism in the early to mid-Holocene. Around the Southeast Basin near Dakhleh Oasis and in the Wadi el-Midauwara above Kharga, areas sharing close cultural ties, groups of slab structure sites attest to increased sedentism spanning 2,500 years. Kharga seems to have been settled fairly continuously through the two and a half millennia, but little is known of subsistence practices in this location. Dakhleh experienced two episodes of increased sedentism. Early Holocene Masara groups occupied a well-watered location within a generally dry desert. In the wetter mid-Holocene, Bashendi settlers in large stone-built sites hunted, collected wild cereals, and may have kept herds. As the desert dried after 5300 BC, the settlers switched to a life of mobile forager-herders.

Ceramic production and provenience at Gordion, Central Anatolia

Phrygian Gordion was the political center of an influential Iron Age polity that extended across west central Anatolia during the first half of the 1st millennium BC. Though the borders of this polity remain vague a characteristic of the Phrygian “footprint” is the distribution of highly distinctive ceramics. The extent to which Gordion potters were the originators of these wares remains uncertain. In this paper we use Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) to establish the local signature of predominantly Iron Age ceramics for this site by combining samples from several decades of excavation with an extensive regional sediment sequence. We also compare previous NAA work at Gordion to suggest that the formative stages of the Phrygian state appears to have involved a more extensive network of non-local specialist producers than previously thought.     

Leading Lights in the ‘Mother of Darkness’: Perspectives on Leadership and Value in North Ambrym,Vanuatu

In comparative political theory in Anthropology, Pacific leadership has had a prominent place, with a long history of debate about typologies and forms. In this paper I eschew such approaches in favour of a demonstration of the complexity of interactions fostered in local communities by interpretations of a protean ‘tradition’, refracted by a history of encounters with modernity and its social imaginary at a particular historical moment. The narratives of three local leaders in Vanuatu's recent history, provide a context for evaluating the relative merits of such typologies when the grounds of leadership itself are contested.