Book reviews

NATO AND THE FUTURE OF EUROPE. Ben T. Moore. For the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations. New York, Harper & Brs., 1958, pp. xviii + 264. Australian price 56/6.

THE ATLANTIC TRIANGLE AND THE COLD WAR. Edgar McInnis. University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1959, pp. viii + 163. $4.50.

SURVEY OP BRITISH COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS. PROBLEMS OP WARTIME CO‐OPERATION AND POST‐WAR CHANGE, 1939–1952. Nicholas Mansergh. Oxford University Press for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1958.

THE DECISION TO INTERVENE. George F. Ken‐nan. Faber and Faber, 1958. Pp. xii + 513. U.K. price 50/‐.

COMMUNIST CHINA TODAY. Peter S. Tang. Thames & Hudson, London, 1957–8, 2 vote., pp. 536 & 137. End maps. Australian price 97/6 and 42/‐.

THE BIRTH OF A DILEMMA: The Conquest and Settlement of Rhodesia. Philip Mason. Under the auspices of the Institute of Race Relations. Oxford University Press, 1958, pp. xi + 366. Australian price 49/9.

THE SMALLER DRAGON. A Political History of Vietnam. Joseph Buttinger. Praeger and Stevens, Atlantic Books, 1958, pp. 535, with 9 maps and 13 plates. A SHORT HISTORY OP CAMBODIA. Martin F. Herz. Stevens & Sons, Atlantic Books, 1958, pp. 141. Australian price 34/6.

THE RECONSTRUCTION IN IRAQ: 1950–1957. Fahim I. Qubain. London, Stevens and Sons, 1958.     

New Research on the Late Prehistoric Coastal Polities of Northern Peru

Previously, the Chimú empire was thought to have dominated the north coast of Peru during the Late Intermediate period, virtually to the exclusion of other polities. However, new research on sites from this period has not only changed perspectives on the Chimú, but also shed light on two other important coastal polities: the Lambayeque/Sicán and the Casma, providing insights with the potential to reshape our understanding of the development of urbanism and the Andean state. This article presents a critical summary of recent literature, fieldwork, and discoveries. Analyses of these new data address a wide range of topics that can be loosely grouped into four major areas: complexity in political organization and the geopolitical landscape, variations in the urban environment, the intensification of trade and exchange, and dynamic expressions of religion and ideology. The latest interpretation of the north coast Late Intermediate period is a story of three major, competing polities that were eventually subsumed under one.     

Gendering the city: the lived experience of transforming cities,urban cultures and spaces of belonging

Debates centred on ‘planetary urbanisation’ have raised questions over the adequacy of existing theories and epistemologies to explain the quantitative and qualitative transformations of cities. However, this theorization of the urban has met with opposition from post-colonial and feminist researchers amongst others. The comparative, empirical research in this collection, from Bolivia, India and Turkey, highlights that the city remains an important analytical and concrete framework, demarcated by contingency and cultural change through which residents must navigate. In particular we focus on the specificity of women’s lives and their capacity to problematise universalist theory, documenting their interrogation of simplistic binaries such as modern/traditional; their innovative approaches to informal settlement, housing and markets; their production of urban knowledge in order to negotiate the city; and processes and practices of mobility, experimentation, risk taking and aspiration that contest or support a myriad of urban imaginaries. Whilst not rejecting the need for theories that allow comparative perspectives on cities, our conclusions underscore the importance of recognising the multiple logics that generate city space and urban cultures, and the consequent need to parochialise the empirical basis of theories that claim to be global in outreach.     

Consequences of conquest? The analysis and interpretation of subadult trauma at Puruchuco-Huaquerones, Peru

This paper examines bioarchaeological evidence of violence and traumatic injury on subadult skeletal remains from two Late Horizon (A.D. 1470-1540) cemeteries within the archaeological zone of Puruchuco-Huaquerones, Peru. Here we present the frequency and types of traumatic lesions on the 242 subadults analyzed. We observed significant increases in the frequency of subadult trauma, particularly among the burials associated with Spanish Conquest. Specifically, we noted a statistically significant increase in the frequency of cranial trauma in a subsample of individuals from one of two cemeteries at the site, 57AS03. These perimortem cranial injuries suggest an intensification of violence and lethality that may have affected the children from this community. We then discuss the biocultural implications of this analysis within the context of Spanish invasion and conquest.