A stable isotope method for identifying transatlantic origin of pig (Sus scrofa) remains at French and English fishing stations in Newfoundland

From the 16th century onward, various European nations shared fishing spaces off the coast of Newfoundland in an effort to provide salt-fish products to supplement increasing European demand. Faunal remains excavated at seasonal and permanent Newfoundland fishing stations indicate that pigs were the primary mammal species consumed by cod fishermen. It is not clear whether these pig remains derive from salt pork and/or live pigs imported from Europe or, rather, from pigs bred and raised in Newfoundland. Based on the notion that Newfoundland-raised pigs would have had greater access to marine-derived foods from nearby fisheries compared to their European-raised counterparts, we analyzed stable carbon and nitrogen isotope values from 28 pigs and 117 other faunal specimens from Dos de Cheval (EfAx-09) and Ferryland (CgAf-02) in order to identify individuals with marine or terrestrial isotope dietary signatures. Results indicating two distinct groups of pigs with mean δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N values differing by ∼6‰ and ∼9‰, respectively, suggest differing pig-product origins at each site. This method for identifying the transatlantic origin of pig remains has potential to shed light on patterns in the provisioning of the early European transatlantic fishing industry and inter-community relations. It may also allow for the development of more sophisticated body part representation models for zooarchaeological reconstruction of barreled salt pork use.     

The Struggle for Mastery in Cilicia: Turkey,France, and the Ankara Agreement of 1921

Micahel Williams. Deforesting the Earth: From Prehistory to Global Crisis. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2003. Pp. xxvi, 689. $70.00 (US). Reviewed by Paul W. Hirt

Richard P. Hallion. Taking Flight: Inventing the Aerial Age from Antiquity through the First World War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xxi, 531. $49.95 (CDN). Reviewed by Robin Higham

A. B. Bosworth. The Legacy of Alexander: Politics, Warfare, and Propaganda under the Successors. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. xiii, 307. $127.50 (CDN). Reviewed by Waldemar Heckel

Frances Wood. The Silk Road: Two Thousand Tears in the Heart of Asia. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2002. Pp. 270. $29.95 (US) Reviewed by Albert E. Dien

Lisa M. Bitel. Women in Early Medieval Europe, 400–1100. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xv, 326. $60.00 (US), cloth; $22.00 (US), paper. Reviewed by John J. Contreni

Victor Lieberman. Strange Parallels: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c.800–1830: I: Integration on the Mainland. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. xxiii, 484. $24.00 (US), paper. Reviewed by Nicholas Tabling

Alan Knight. Mexico: From the Beginning to the Spanish Conquest. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xix, 254. $60.00 (US); Alan Knight. Mexico: The Colonial Era. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xix, 353. $65.00 (US). Reviewed by Eric van Young

Debra Higgs Strickland. Saracens, Demons, and Jews: Making Monsters in Medieval Art. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2003. Pp. 336. $60.00 (US). Reviewed by David Williams

Perez Zagorin. HOW the Idea of Religious Toleration Came to the West. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2003. Pp. xvi, 371. $29.95 (US) Reviewed by John Christian Laursen

Amnon Linder. Raising Arms: Liturgy in the Struggle to Liberate Jerusalem in the Late Middle Ages. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2003. Pp. xx, 423. €90.00. Reviewed by Christoph T. Maier

Brenda Bolton and Anne J. Duggan, eds. Adrian IV The English Pope (1154–1159): Studies and Texts. Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate, 2003. Pp. xv, 343. $84.95 (US). Reviewed by James M. Powell

Róbert Simon. Ibn Khaldün: History as Science and the Patrimonial Empire, trans. Klára Pogátsa. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 2002; dist. Pordand: ISBS. Pp. 217. $57.00 (US). Reviewed by Michael Brett

John F. Richards. The Unending Frontier: An Environmental History of the Early Modern World. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003. Pp. xiv, 682. $75.00 (US). Reviewed by Michael Williams

Jos Gommans. Mughal Warfare: Indian Frontiers and High Roads to Empire, 1500–1700. London and New York: Roudedge, 2002. Pp. xv, 268. $27.95 (US); paper. Reviewed by Stephen F. Dale

David A. Lupher. Romans in a New World: Classical Models in Sixteenth-Century Spanish America. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003. Pp. vi, 440. $59.50 (US). Reviewed by Arthur M. Eckstein

Matthew Restall. Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xix, 218. $48.00 (CDN). Reviewed by Ida Altman

Horst Pietschmann, ed. Atlantic History: History of the Atlantic System, 1580–1830. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck is Ruprecht, 2002. Pp. 556. €86.00. Reviewed by Ian K. Steele

H. V. Bowen, Margarette Lincoln, and Nigel Rigby, eds. The Worlds of the East India Company. Woodbridge, UK and Rochester, NY: Boydell Press, 2002. Pp. xiii, 246. $75.00 (US). Reviewed by Jon E. Wilson

David Ormrod. The Rise of Commercial Empires: England and the Netherlands in the Age of Mercantilism, 1650–1770. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. xvii, 400. $75.00 (US). Reviewed by H. T. Dickinson

David S. Landes. The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present, 2nd ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. xii, 576. $27.00 (US), paper. Reviewed by Rick Szostak

Patrice Higonnet. Paris: Capital of the World, trans. Arthur Goldhammer. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2002. Pp. 493. $35.00 (US). Reviewed by Donald Reid

Michael Rowe, ed. Collaboration and Resistance in Napoleonic Europe: State-Formation in an Age of Upheaval, c.1800–1815. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Pp. xii, 254. $72.00 (US). Reviewed by Philip G. Dwyer

Purnima Bose. Organizing Empire: Individualism, Collective Agency, and India. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2003. Pp. xi, 278. $22.95 (US) paper. Reviewed by Thomas R. Metcalf

Dierk Walter. Preufiische Heeresreformen, 1807–1870: Militärische Innovation und der Mythos der ‘Roonschen Reform’. Paderborn: Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, 2003. Pp. 654. €88.00. Reviewed by Gunther E. Rothenberg

Brian E. Vick. Defining Germany: The 1848 Frankfurt Parliamentarians and National Identity. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2002. Pp. x, 283. $49.96 (US). Reviewed by Helmut Walser Smith

James A. Jones. Industrial Labor in the Colonial World: Workers of the Chemin de Fer Dakar-Niger, 1881–1963. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2002. Pp. xxiii, 154. $59.95 (US). Reviewed by Martin Klein

Irmin Schneider. Die deutsche Ruplandpolitik, 1890–1900. Paderborn: Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, 2003. Pp. 344. €38.00, paper. Reviewed by David Wetzel

S. C. M. Paine. The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895: Perceptions, Power, and Primacy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. xi, 412. $55.00 (US). Reviewed by David Curtis Wright

Greg Cuthbertson, Albert Grundungh, and Mary-Lynn Suttie, eds. Writing a Wider War: Rethinking Gender, Race, and Identity in the South African War, 1899–1902. Athens: Ohio University Press; Cape Town: David Philip Publishers, 2002. Pp. xix, 345. $24.95 (US), paper. Reviewed by Martin Legassick

Robert B. Bruce. A Fraternity of Arms: America and France in the Great War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003. Pp. xx, 380. $39.95 (US). Reviewed by Mitchell Yockelson

Eric Lohr. Nationalizing the Russian Empire: The Campaign against Enemy Aliens during World War I. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2003. Pp. xi, 237. $45.00 (US). Reviewed by Norman E. Saul

Tammy M. Proctor. Female Intelligence: Women and Espionage in the First World War. New York and London: New York University Press, 2003. Pp. xvi, 204. $29.95 (US). Reviewed by Hew Strachan

Alfred W. Crosby. America's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918,2nd ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. xiv, 337. $60.00 (US), cloth; $22.00 (US), paper; Howard Phillips and David Killingray, eds. The Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1918–19: New Perspectives. London and New York: Routledge, 2003. Pp. xxi, 357. $100.00 (US). Reviewed by Linda Bryder

Kais M. Firro. Inventing Lebanon: Nationalism and the State under the Mandate. London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2003; dist. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Pp. 274. $59.50 (US). Reviewed by James A. Reilly

Kathleen Hayes, ed. and trans. The Journalism of Milena Jesenska: A Critical Voice in Interwar Central Europe. New York and Oxford: Berghahn, 2003. Pp. vi, 323. $29.95 (US). Reviewed by Igor Lukes

Silvio Pons. Stalin and the Inevitable War, 1936–1941. London and New York: Frank Cass, 2002. Pp. xvi, 240. $62.50 (US); Steven Merritt Miner. Stalin's Holy War: Religion, Nationalism, and Alliance Politics, 1941–1945. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2003; dist. Toronto: SBS. Pp. xix, 407. $90.75 (CDN). Reviewed by Gabriel Gorodetsky

Francine McKenzie. Redefining the Bonds of Commonwealth, 1930–1948: The Politics of Preference. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave, 2002. Pp. xii, 351. $72.00 (US). Reviewed by Catherine R. Schenk

Eunan O'Halpin, ed. Mis and Ireland, 1939–1945: The Official History. Dublin and Pordand: Irish Academic Press, 2003. Pp. xiv, 130. $26.50 (US), paper; Mark M. Hull. Irish Secrets: German Espionage in Ireland, 1939–1945. Dublin and Portland: Irish Academic Press, 2003. Pp. xx, 383. $59.50 (US). Reviewed by WILLIAM Sheridan Allen

Kathleen E. R. Smith. God Bless America: Tin Pan Alley Goes to War. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2003. Pp. xiii, 274. $45.00 (US). Reviewed by John W. Jeffries

Nick Smart. British Strategy and Politics during the Phony War: Before the Balloon Went Up. Westport: Praeger, 2003. Pp. 267. $67.95 (US) Reviewed by David Dutton

W. A. B. Douglas, Roger Sarty, Michael Whitby, with Robert H. Caldwell, William Johnston, and William G. P. Rawling. No Higher Purpose: The Official Operational History of the Royal Canadian Navy in the Second World War, 1939–1943: II: Parti. St Catharines: Vanwell Publishing, 2002. Pp. xix, 664. $60.00 (CDN). Reviewed by Geoffrey Till

Omer Bartov. Germany's War and the Holocaust: Disputed Histories. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2003. Pp. xxi, 248. $18.95 (US)> paper; Fritz Kieffer. Judenverfolgung in Deutschland - eine innere Angelegenheit? Internationale Reaktionen aufdie Fluchtlingsproblematik, 1933–1939. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2002. Pp. 520. €100.00. Reviewed by Robert Edwin Herzstein

Petra Goedde. GIS and Germans: Culture, Gender, and Foreign Relations, 1945–1949. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003. Pp. xxiii, 280. $35.00 (US). Reviewed by Thomas Borstelmann

David M. Glantz. The Soviet Strategic Offensive in Manchuria, 1945: ‘August Storm’. London and New York: Frank Cass, 2003. Pp. xxviii, 451. $59.50 (US); David M. Glantz. Soviet Operational and Tactical Combat in Manchuria, 1945: ‘August Storm’. London and New York: Frank Cass, 2003. Pp. xvi, 368. $59.50 (US). Reviewed by Dale R. Herspring

Steven E. Phillips. Between Assimilation and Independence: The Taiwanese Encounter Nationalist China, 1945–1950. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003. Pp. xiii, 256. $55.00 (US). Reviewed by Ralph N. Clough

Independent Commission Of Experts Switzerland - Second World War. Switzerland, National Socialism, and the Second World War: Final Report. Zurich: Pendo, 2002. Pp. 597. €29.90. Reviewed by Jean-Christian Lambelet

D. Clayton Brown. Globalization and America since 1945. Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 2003. Pp. xxi, 166. $19.95 (US) paper; Alfred E. Eckes, Jr. and Thomas W. Zeiler. Globalization and the American Century. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. 343. $65.00 (US); $22.00 (US), paper. Reviewed by Warren I. Cohen

William Johnston. A War of Patrols: Canadian Army Operations in Korea. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2003. Pp. xx, 426. $45.00 (CDN). Reviewed by Jeffrey Grey

Peter Busch. All the Way with JFK?: Britain, the US, and the Vietnam War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xii, 240. $90.00 (CDN). Reviewed by Andrew Preston

Thomas Alan Schwartz. Lyndon Johnson and Europe: In the Shadow of Vietnam. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2003. Pp. 339. $29.95 (US). Reviewed by George C. Herring

Peter S. Li. Destination Canada: Immigration Debates and Issues. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xi, 228. $29.95 (CDN) paper. Reviewed by Patricia E. Roy

Heidrun Friese, ed. Identities: Time, Difference, and Boundaries. New York: Berghahn, 2002. Pp. xiv, 273. $27.50 (US), paper. Reviewed by John R. Gillis

Lex Heerma van Voss and Marcel van Der Linden, eds. Class and Other Identities: Gender, Religion, and Ethnicity in the Writing of European Labour History. New York: Berghahn, 2002. Pp. vi, 250. $69.95 (US), cloth; $25.00 (US), paper. Reviewed by Neville Kirk

Joseph E. Stiglitz. The Roaring Nineties: A New History of the World's Most Prosperous Decade. New York and London: W. W. Norton, 2003. Pp. xxxiv, 379. $25.95 (US). Reviewed by Barry Eichengreen

Vesna Danilovic. When the Stakes are High: Deterrence and Conflict among Major Powers. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002. Pp. xv, 294. $52.50 (US). Reviewed by Randall L. Schweller

Gammer, Moshe, ed., with Joseph Kostiner and Moshe Shemesh. Political Thought and Political History: Studies in Memory ofElie Kedourie. London and New York: Frank Cass, 2003. Pp. x, 186. $49.50 (US). Reviewed by Raphael Israeli     

Facing Oligopoly and Protectionism: the fate of small producers in the inter-war nickel industry

In the inter-war era international cartels and oligopolies dominated several industries. At the same time trade barriers were increasing. This article explores the fate of two small nickel producers, the Canadian company Falconbridge and the Norwegian Raffineringsverket. Falconbridge operated a nickel refinery in Norway from 1929 onwards. The article shows that small firms could act as ‘free riders’ in the nickel market provided that they had sufficient ore resources, were vertically integrated and had low marginal costs. The article also demonstrates that the Great Depression, widespread rise of protectionism and the move towards autarchy had surprisingly limited impact on the international nickel industry. Somewhat similar developments can be found in several industries. The article thus offers some new perspectives on the growth of the Norwegian exports of metallurgical products and thereby on Norwegian economic performance in the 1930s.     

“To This Day”: Aetiology,Rhetoric, or Literary Motif?

ABSTRACT

Many biblical stories exhibit an intentional association between “subjective facts” deriving from the narrative and “objective facts” belonging to external historical reality. This article examines stories belonging to the “departure on a journey” pattern which contain references to objective facts which follow a virtually fixed formula and occur at a standard location in the narrative. Both the frequency with which these facts are adduced and their formulaic nature make it difficult to adopt external criteria such as those proposed by either of the two conventional models (aetiological and communication), suggesting rather an inner—literary—link between the two sets of facts.     

Short notices

AGERON, C.‐R. and MICHEL, M. (eds), L'Ere des décolonisations, Karthala, 1996, 516 pp., 170F., ISBN 2 86537 579 X

BRIAN, E. and DEMEULENAERE‐DOUYERE, C. (eds), Histoire et mémoire de l'Académie des sciences. Guide de Recherches, TEC & DOC Lavoisier, 1996, 449 pp., no price indicated, ISBN 2 7430 0148

CORRÉARD, M.‐H. (ed.), The Pocket Oxford‐Hachette French Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 1996, 784 pp., £7.99, ISBN 0 19 864534 1

CORRÉARD, M.‐H. and O'NEILL, M. (eds), Oxford Starter Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 1997, 400 pp., £6.99, ISBN 0 19 864527 9

DURAND, P., Poésies de Stéphane Mallarmé, Gallimard, 1998, 252 pp., 54F., ISBN 2 07 038939 1 (collection ‘Folio')

HAFEN, L. (ed.), French Fur Traders and Voyageurs in the American West, (Selected with an Introduction by Janet Lecompte) University of Nebraska Press, 1997, 333 pp., £13.95, ISBN 0 8032 7302 9

SOULEZ‐LARIVIÈRE,, D. Grand Soir pour la justice, Seuil, 1997, 175 pp., 110F., ISBN 2 02 032215 3

STEINBERG, P., Chroniques d'ailleurs, Ramsay, 1996, 190 pp., 92F., ISBN 2 84114 133 0     

The ‘Horns’ of a Medical Dilemma: Alexander the Great

Retrospective ‘diagnosis’ of clinical disorders of famous historical figures has been of medical interest. In the absense of a patient’s ‘body’, the validity of ‘physical symptoms’ and their interpretation by contemporary diagnostic criteria are questionable. When the symptoms have been gleaned from the patients’s effigy which, as in the case of Alexander the Great, is submerged in legend, the enterprise becomes inherently hazardous. In the present paper, some of the conceptual problems underlying retrospective diagnoses will be identified. Then the use of iconographic records, such as numismatics and sculpture, to provide evidence of clinical symptoms will be shown to be highly misleading.     

On the Subject of Historical Geography (Landscape and Ethnos,III)

The author develops a methodology of historical geography revolving around the relationship between an ethnos, or ethnic community, and the “encompassing landscape.” He finds that under the conditions of the nomadic stockherding peoples of the steppe, where this relationship is most clearly expressed, the nomads become an inseparable part of the landscape, together with plant and animal life.     

Climate influence on radial increment of oak (Quercus SP.) in central Poland

The study investigates the influence of climate conditions on radial increment of oak, with special concern to the situations when analysed trees formed conspicuously wider or narrower tree-rings. The research material was collected in four locations in central Poland within natural range of pedunculate and sessile oaks. The elaborated residual chronologies were correlated with CRUTS 2.1 climate data. The analyses included thermal and pluvial conditions spanning from April of the year prior to ring formation to September of the current growth year. Special interest was paid to simple water ability index that combined both temperature and precipitation during the vegetation season. Additionally, pointer year analysis was carried out to determine situations when conspicuously smaller or larger increment was formed. Investigated chronologies cover the period of 1927?C1992 (?ochów), 1845?C1992 (P?o??sk), 1868?C1992 (Pu?tusk), and 1796?C1992 (Soko?ów). The analysed oaks from sites in central Poland exhibit growth patterns comparable with those known form previous studies concerning that species, where influence of precipitation (higher and positive) and temperature (negative) have been observed. Extreme growth reactions expressed by negative and positive pointer years turned to present high dependence of analysed oak?? growth on water availability during vegetation season.