Glass and glass production in the Oman peninsula in antiquity reconsidered – chemical and mineralogical investigation of sands

A batch of green‐ and amber‐coloured glass chunks and unguentaria dating from the first century CE was found in 2007 at Dibba al Hisn, a site on the Arabian Sea coast of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Its elemental and isotopic composition revealed the glass to be of a previously unknown plant ash glass type, different from known contemporary Roman, Mesopotamian, and Indian glass. The Sr isotopic composition of the glass corresponds to locally available plants, pointing to the possible existence of a first‐century CE local glass production centre. To explore this possibility, sands from around the UAE were analysed to establish their suitability for glass making and correspondence with the Dibba finds. This paper presents the results of the elemental analysis of fourteen sands. The analysis, performed using inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP‐OES), revealed all sands to be rich in lime and alumina. X‐ray diffraction revealed the presence of calcite and other carbonate minerals, as well as antigorite and quartz. Comparison of the sand compositions to average first‐century CE non‐Roman glass found at Dibba showed them to be unsuitable as raw material for producing the glass of Dibba. The evidence thus identifies this glass batch as imported, contrary to what was suggested before. This paper also reviews the occurrence of thick‐walled unguentaria in the region.     

The last laugh: Western Australia's elections and the executive state, 1983–89

Aside from bribery and corruption associated with the police and organized ‘vice and crime’, Mr Tony Fitzgerald Q.C. highlighted in his ‘Report’ five criteria as areas of concern over the health and future of parliamentary democracy in Queensland. They were: 1. Decline of Parliament in terms of (a) sitting hours, and (b) consistent refusal by the Premier and Ministers to answer parliamentary questions and to be fully accountable and responsible to Parliament for public expenditures, ministerial expenses and extra‐parliamentary executive decisions; 2. Business deals, joint ventures and other financial transactions between government, its agencies and government favourites; 3. Lavish funding of the governing political party by recipients of its favours; 4. Political ‘stacking’ of the public service; 5. Use of taxpayers’ funds by Premier and Ministers to finance writs against critics.     

Literary and social criticism

John Docker, Australian Cultural Elites: Intellectual Traditions in Sydney and Melbourne, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1974, pp. xii + 182. $5.95, paper.     

Reviews: Australian

Graham Maddox, Australian Democracy in Theory and Practice, Melbourne, Longman Cheshire, 1985, pp.463, $19.95 (paper).

Bill Brugger and Dean Jaensch, Australian Politics: Theory and Practice, Sydney, Allen and Unwin, 1985, pp. 258 + 258. $29.95 (cloth), $15.95 (paper)

David Dunstan, Governing the Metropolis, Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 1984, pp. 362. $24.50 (cloth)

Stuart Harris and Geoff Taylor (eds), Resource Development and the Future of Australian Society, Canberra, Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University, 1982, pp.305. $14.95 (paper)

W. Ross Johnston, The Call of the Land: A History of Queensland to the Present Day, Milton, Jacaran‐da Press, 1982, pp. 229. $19.75 (cloth)

D. J. Killen, Killen: Inside Australian Politics, Brisbane, Methuen Haynes, 1985, pp. 355 $25.00 (cloth)

Murray Frazer, Jeffrey Dunstan and Philip Creed (eds), Perspectives on Organisational Change: Lessons from Education, Melbourne, Longman Cheshire, 1985, pp. 451. $29.95 (paper)

W. J. Byrt, The Framework of Consensus: Government, Business & Trade Unions, Sydney, Law Book Company, 1985, pp. 220. $17.50 (paper)

Janis Wilton and Richard Bosworth, Old Worlds and New Australia, Ringwood, Penguin, 1984, pp. 215. $8.95 (paper)

Tim Rowse, Arguing the arts: the funding of arts in Australia, Ringwood, Penguin, 1985, pp. 143. $7.95 (paper)

Russell Mathews, Fiscal equalisation in education, Canberra, Centre for Research on Federal Financial Relations, Australian National University, 1983, pp. 180. $12.00 (paper)

Constance Larmour, Labor Judge: The Life and Times of Judge Alfred William Foster, Sydney, Hale & Iremonger, 1985, pp. 286. $14.95 (paper), $29.95 (cloth)

Don Rawson and Chris Fisher (eds), Changing Industrial Law, Sydney, Croom Helm, 1984, pp.xxii + 235. $24.95 (cloth)

Douglas W. Smith and Donald W. Rawson, Trade Union Law In Australia: The Legal Status of Australian Trade Unions, Second Edition, Sydney, Butterworths, 1985, pp.xvii + 204. $37.50 (cloth)

Peter Groenewegen, Public Finance in Australia, Second Edition, Sydney, Prentice‐Hall, 1984, pp.363. $24.95 (paper)

Des Ball, J. Langtry and J. Stevenson, Defend the North, Sydney, Allen and Unwin, 1985, pp.104. $9.95 (paper)

H. O. Browning, 1975 Crisis, an historical view, Sydney, Hale and Iremonger, 1985, pp. 340. $14.95 (paper)

David Solomon, The People's Palace: Parliament in Modern Australia, Carlton, Melbourne University Press, 1986, pp. 194. $9.50 (paper) Joan Rydon, A Federal Legislature: The Australian Commonwealth Parliament 1901–1980, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1986, pp.290. $35.00 (cloth)

Patrick O'Brien, The Liberals: Factions, Feuds and Fancies, Ringwood, Penguin, 1985, pp.238. $24.95 (cloth), $9.95 (paper)

Glen St J. Barclay. Friends in High Places: Australian‐American Diplomatic Relations since 1945, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1985, pp.245. $25.00 (cloth)

Jonathan Boston, Incomes Policy in New Zealand, Wellington, Victoria University Press for the Institute of Policy Studies, 1984, pp.ix + 344. NZ $19.50 (paper)

David McGee, Parliamentary Practice in New Zealand, Wellington, Government Printer, 1985, pp.579.

Godfrey Hodgson, All Things To All Men: The False Promise of the Modern American Presidency, Penguin, rev. ed. 1984. $7.95 (paper)

Richard H. Leach, Whatever happened to urban policy? A comparative study of urban policy in Australia. Canada and the United States, Canberra, Centre for Research on Federal Financial Relations, 1985, pp.134. $10.25 (paper)

Walker Connor, The National Question in Marxist‐Leninist Theory and Strategy, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1984, pp. 614. $62.00 (cloth), $19.00 (paper)

Owen Greene, Ian Percival and Irene Ridge, Nuclear Winter, Cambridge & Oxford, Polity Press & Basil Blackwell, 1985, pp. 216. $9.95 (paper)

Derek McDougall, Harold D. Lasswell and the Study of International Relations, Lanham, Maryland, University Press of America, 1984, pp. 370. $14.00 (paper)

Immanuel Wallerstein The Politics of The World Economy, London, Cambridge University Press, 1984, pp. 191. $26.50 (paper)

Douglas E. Ashford, British Dogmatism and French Pragmatism: central‐local policymaking in the Welfare State, London, George Allen and Unwin, 1982, pp. 406. $75.00 (cloth)

Manning Marable, Race, Reform and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction in Black America, 1945–1982, London, Macmillan (Contemporary U.S. series), 1984, pp. 249. $14.95 (paper)

Christopher Ham and Michael Hill, The Policy Process in the Modern Capitalist State, Brighton, Sussex, Harvester Press, 1984, pp. 210. $14.99 (paper)

Steve Smith (ed.), International Relations: British and American Perspectives, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1985, pp. xiv + 242. $49.95 (cloth)

Clive Archer, International Organizations, London, Allen & Unwin, 1983, pp. 192. $29.95 (cloth), $16.50 (paper)

Joan Edelman Spero, The Politics of International Economic Relations, Third Edition, London, Allen & Unwin, 1985, pp. 447. $18.95 (paper)

H.T. Stanbury and Thomas E. Kierans (eds), Papers on Privatization, Montreal, Institute for Research on Public Policy, 1985, pp.325. $8.00 Canadian

Arend Lijphart, Democracies: Patterns of Majoritarian and Consensus Government in Twenty‐One Countries, New Haven/London, Yale University Press, 1984, pp.229. US$6.95 (paper)

Michael Sandel (ed.), Liberalism and Its Critics, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1984, pp. 272. $45.00 (cloth), $17.95 (paper)

Vernon Bogdanor, What is Proportional Representation? Oxford, Martin Robertson, 1984, pp. 164. $39.95 (cloth), $9.95 (paper)

Enid Lakeman, Power to Elect: The Case for Proportional Representation, London, Heinemann, 1982, pp. 178. £6.95 (paper)

Graham Little, Political Ensembles: A Psychosocial Approach to Politics and Leadership, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1985, pp. 223. $25.00 (cloth)

Claus Offe, Contradictions of the Welfare State, edited by John Keane, London, Hutchinson, 1984, pp. 310. $18.95 (paper)

John Keane, Public Life and Late Capitalism: toward a socialist theory of democracy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1984, pp. 340. $66.50 (cloth)

Jill Julius Matthews, Good and Mad Women: The Historical Construction of Femininity in Twentieth Century Australia, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1984, pp.223. $9.95 (paper)

Marilyn Waring, Women, Power and Politics, Wellington, Unwin Paperbacks & Port Nicholson Press, 1985, pp.121. $9.95 (paper)

Jacqueline Goodnow and Carole Pateman (eds), for the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, Women, Social Science and Public Policy, Sydney, George Allen and Unwin, 1985, pp. 162. $29.95 (cloth), $14.95 (paper)

Jane Lewis, Women in England 1870–1950, Brighton, Wheatsheaf Books, 1984, pp.240. $16.50 (paper)

Janet Siltanen and Michelle Stanworth. (eds), Women and the Public Sphere: A critique of sociology and politics, London, Hutchinson, 1984, pp.251. $19.95 (paper)

Susan Magarey, Unbridling The Tongues of Women: A Biography of Catherine Helen Spence, Sydney, Hale & Iremonger, 1985, pp. 239. $14.95 (paper)     

ACADEMIA AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

In recent years a revolutionary shift has occurred in the federal goovernment—-higher education relationship. Why didn't higher education resist more vigorously federal encroachment in its autonomy? First, academia focused its attention on the wrong kind of threat. Second, federal involvement was useful for solving problems on campus and often was in keeping with objectives and values supported in academia institutions. Third, the rise of public institutions altered the receptivity of higher education to accepting federal funds and pursuing direct solutions to society's problems, i.e. to being “involved” at the expense of autonomy. Finally, higher education's traditional strategy of being aloof from partisan politics kept it from vigorously defending its interests. Alternatives for the future appear to be: 1) a reorganisation of higher education to make it a clear, systematic agent of national policy, or 2) a successful effort by higher education to convert itself into an effective national interest group.