Book reviews

Women in the Muslim World. Edited by Lois Beck and Nikki Keddie. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1978. 698 pp. $30.00.

Iran: Monarchy, Bureaucracy and Reform under the Qajars: 1858–1896. By Shaul Bakhash. London: Ithaca Press (St. Anthony's Middle East Monographs, No. 8), 1978. £7.50.

Iran: The Illusion of power. By Robert Graham. London: Croom Helm, 1978. 228 pp. £7.95.

An Anthology of Modern Persian Poetry. Selected and translated with an introduction by Ahmad Karimi‐Hakkak. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1978 (Bibliotheca Persica: Modern Persian Literature Series, Number 1), xvii + 203 pp. $15.

Entrepreneurs of Iran. By Mohammad Reza Vaghefi. Palo Alto, Calif.: The Altoan Press, 1976. 196pp.     

THE ACTUAL AND PERCEIVED EFFECTS OF FLOODPLAIN LAND-USE REGULATIONS ON RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY VALUES IN LONDON, ONTARIO

The impacts associated with floodplain management adjustments should be understood. This paper addresses this need by describing the perceived and actual impacts floodplain regulations have had on residential land values in a portion of London, Ontario. The institutional arrangements for floodplain regulation and the actual practice of regulation in the City of London for the period 1978–1989 are described. Actual impacts on land values were determined through use of a geographical matching technique based on data obtained from mls sources and permit data available at the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority office. Perceptual data were acquired from a questionnaire survey of floodplain landowners. Findings indicate that most residents perceived that no impact on land values was associated with floodplain regulations. This view was supported by the analysis of actual home transactions     

Routes of Resistance: Mobilizing Discourses of Opportunity in Ann Petry’s The Street and Austin Clarke’s The Meeting Point

Ann Petry’s The Street and Austin Clarke’s The Meeting Point provide important representations and affirmations of black people’s use of movements such as educational attainment and economic advancement to create routes to resist inequitable treatment and demand equal access to the benefits of belonging to American and Canadian national communities. In The Street, Lutie employs intellectual and economic movements to achieve her American dream but learns that systematic inhibitions block her intended ascension. In The Meeting Point, Bernice also tries to attain education and make financial strides to achieve her Canadian dream but finds herself barred from fully materializing that dream. Lutie and Bernice continue their quests to fulfill their mobility ideals, despite obstructions they face. Through that movement, which is driven by their knowledge of the implications of their exclusions from promises of the nations they call home, they counter boundaries intended to restrict them. While they do not accomplish fully their upward mobility ideals, their resistance demonstrates their refusal to be denied the benefits of American and Canadian discourses of opportunity. Petry’s and Clarke’s representations of this persistent resistance help inform and give voice to struggles against exclusionary practices blacks in the United States and Canada continually experience.