‘A Repository,a Switchboard,a Dynamo’: H.L. Beales,a Historian in a Mass Media Age

The historian H.L. Beales (1889–1988) managed to propagate a wider interpretation of nineteenth century social history through non-academic means. Whilst Beales failed to write much in the way of history, his parallel career as an adult education tutor, radio broadcaster and editor of Pelican books meant that he acted as an important propagator of the subject. This, combined with wide influence over a considerable proportion of the younger generation, means that he should be considered as a singularly important historian of the period, who realised and adapted to the potential of new mass media to reach new audiences.     

Engineering Art and Telling Tales: Anish Kapoor at the Royal Academy

Anish Kapoor has become well known for his enormous architectural installations and for his use of vibrant colour. Much of his work depends critically on good engineering and he has collaborated closely with engineers for many years. I discuss several of Kapoor's large works, approaching them from an engineer's perspective. I also show how Kapoor weaves layers of narrative in some of his work: so that a naïve understanding of a piece's construction is a falsehood layered over the true engineering solution. The story seems initially obvious to the audience but a little digging, a little thought, reveals that it is a fiction and that reality is something other.     

The Illegal Excavation and Trade of Syrian Cultural Objects: A View from the Ground

The illegal excavation and trade of cultural objects from Syrian archaeological sites worsened markedly after the outbreak of civil disturbance and conflict in 2011. Since then, the damage to archaeological heritage has been well documented, and the issue of terrorist funding explored, but hardly any research has been conducted into the organization and operation of theft and trafficking of cultural objects inside Syria. As a first step in that direction, this paper presents texts of interviews with seven people resident in Syria who have first-hand knowledge of the trade, and uses information they provided to suggest a model of socioeconomic organization of the Syrian war economy regarding the trafficking of cultural objects. It highlights the importance of coins and other small objects for trade, and concludes by considering what lessons might be drawn from this model to improve presently established public policy.     

Being Mesolithic in Life and Death

Fifty years ago, approaches to Mesolithic identity were limited to ideas of ‘Man the Hunter’ and ‘Woman the Gatherer’, while evidence of non-normative practice was ascribed to ‘shamans’ and to ‘ritual’, and that was that. As post-processual critiques have touched Mesolithic studies, however, this has changed. In the first decade of the 21st century a strong body of work on Mesolithic identity in life, as well as death, has enabled us to think beyond modern Western categories to interpret identity in the Mesolithic. These studies have addressed the nature of personhood and relational identities, the body, and the relationship between human and other-than-human persons. Our paper reviews these changing approaches, offering a series of case studies from a range of different sites that illustrate how identity is formed and transformed through engagements with landscapes, materials, and both living and dead persons. These are then developed to advocate an assemblage approach to identity in the Mesolithic.     

Book reviews

Paul Cammack, David Pool and William Tordoff, Third World Politics. A Comparative Introduction. Basingstoke: Macmillan Education, 1988. xi+308pp. $22.95

Naomi Chazan, Robert Mortimer, John Ravenhill and Donald Rothchild. Politics and Society in Contemporary Africa. Basingstoke: Macmillan Education, 1988. xi+459pp. $29.95.

Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Verba (eds). The Civic Culture Revisited. Newbury Park: Sage, 1989. 422pp. £39.95 (cloth), £15.75 (paper).

John R. Gibbins (ed). Contemporary Political Culture. Politics in a Postmodern Age. Newbury Park: Sage, 1989. 266pp. £27.50 (cloth), £10.95 (paper).

Kusuma Snitwongse and Sukhumbhand Paribatra (eds). Durable Stability in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1987. xiii+237pp. $S44 (cloth), $S32 (paper).

Lawrence C. Mayer. Redefining Comparative Politics. Promise Versus Performance. Newbury Park: Sage, 1989. 303pp. £29.50 (cloth), £13.95 (paper).

Amin Saikal (ed.). Refugees in the Modern World. Canberra: Department of International Relations, Australian National University, 1989‐ 125 pp. No price given.

W. Michael Reisman and Andrew R. Willard (eds). International Incidents: The Law That Counts in World Politics. Princeton: Princeton Unversity Press, 1988.xii+278 pp. $US35.00 (cloth), $US12.95 (paper).

Samuel B. Payne, The Conduct of War: An Introduction to Modem Warfare. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988. xiv+309 pp. $49.95.

Jane F. Marceau. A Family Business? The Making of an International Business Elite. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. x+247 pp. $65.00

Kenneth Hoover and Raymond Plant. Conservative Capitalism in Britain and the United States: A Critical Appraisal. London: Routledge, 1989. xvii+341 pp. $98.95.

David Carlton, Britain and the Suez Crisis. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989‐ 174 pp. $27.95.

Michael Dockrill. British Defence Since 1945. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988. 171 pp. $24.95.

Yves Boyer, Pierre Lellouche and John Roper (eds). Franco‐British Defence Co‐operation: A New Entent'e Cordiale?. London: Routledge, 1989‐ 194 pp. $89.95.

Kristian Gerner and Stefan Hedlund. Ideology and Rationality in the Soviet Model. A Legacy for Gorbachev. London and New York: Routledge, 1989. xii+455 pp. $105.00.

Boris Kagarlitsky. The Thinking Reed. Intellectuals and the Soviet State from 1917 to the Present. London: Verso, 1988. x+370 pp. $29.50.

Alan B. Sherr. The Other Side of Arms Control: Soviet Objectives in the Gorbachev Era. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1988. xviii+325 pp. $US42.00.

David Childs, Thomas A. Baylis and Marilyn Rueschemeyer (eds). East Germany in Comparative Perspective. London & New York: Routledge, 1989. xvi+238 pp. $105.00

Tony Judt (ed.). Resistance and Revolution in Mediterranean Europe, 1939 ‐ 1948. London and New York: Routledge, 1989. iv+229 pp. $105.00.

Yoshihara Kunio. The Rise of Ersatz Capitalism in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1988. xiii+297 pp. $24.95.

Chin Kin Wah (ed.), Defense Spending in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. 1987. ix+326pp. $US 20.00.

P.J. Soedjati Djiwandono & Young Mun Choeng (eds). Soldiers and Stability in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. 1988. ix+354 pp. $US22.00.

Greg Lockhart. Nation in Arms: The Origins of the People's Army of Vietnam. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, in association with the Asian Studies Association of Australia, 1989‐ xiv+314pp. $29.95 (cloth), $24.95 (paper).

John Overton. Land and Differentiation in Rural Fiji. Canberra: National Centre for Development Studies, 1989. vii+152 pp. $20.00.

Walter Manshard and William B. Morgan (eds). Agricultural Expansion and Pioneer Settlements in the Humid Tropics. Tokyo: United Nations University, 1988, 305 pp. $US20.00.

Robert H. Bruce (ed). The Modern Indian Navy and the Indian Ocean: Developments and Implications. Perth: Centre for Indian Ocean Regional Studies, Curtin University of Technology/Australian Institute of International Affairs, x+168 pp. $22.50.

Rasul B. Rais. The Indian Ocean and the Superpowers, London: Croom Helm, 1988.215 pp. No price given.

Roy Mottahedeh. The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran, Harmonsworth: Penguin Books, 1987. 418 pp. $22.95.

Max G. Manwaring and Court Prisk (eds). El Salvador at War: An Oral History. Washington D.C.: National Defence College, 1988. liv + 500 pp. No price given.     

Panchayati Raj in West Bengal: Popular Participation for the People or the Party?

Since 1978 the Left Front government in West Bengal, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) — CPI(M) — has pursued a strategy of decentralized planning through locally elected panchayats (councils) in the countryside. The stated ideological commitment of the CP1(M) is to support and eventually empower the poor and oppressed and this has resulted in Panchayati Raj assuming the status of not just a state sponsored decentralization strategy, but the institutional forum for the mobilization of the poor and the expansion of the party's base. However the CPI(M)'s strategy is to some extent ambiguous in that it combines a need to maintain an electoral status as a party leading a state government within the Indian Union and a political status as a party promoting the conditions for, and the transition to, a people's democracy and thereby socialism.