Indigenous health organizations,Indigenous community resurgence,and the reclamation of place in urban areas

Research around the world has been nearly unanimous about the positive impacts of Indigenous‐led health organizations on Indigenous peoples' qualitative experiences in health care, in the face of often negative experiences in non‐Indigenous‐led health care settings. Urban environments, including health care environments, are areas of increasing attention with regard to Indigenous peoples' health in Canada. In this study, which took place in the northern city of Prince George, British Columbia, 65 Indigenous community members and health services workers participated in interviews and focus groups, describing their experiences with urban Indigenous‐led health organizations—defined in this study as non‐governmental organizations that prioritize the values and practices of local Indigenous communities. Employing perspectives on place and relationships drawn from Indigenous critical theory and Indigenous community resurgence to analyze the findings of this qualitative study leads to a focus on how relationships impact and can even constitute places, enabling new understandings of the roles of Indigenous‐led health organizations in urban Indigenous community resurgence.     

The Changing Face of Neolithic and Bronze Age Ireland: A Big Data Approach to the Settlement and Burial Records

This paper synthesizes and discusses the spatial and temporal patterns of archaeological sites in Ireland, spanning the Neolithic period and the Bronze Age transition (4300–1900 cal BC), in order to explore the timing and implications of the main changes that occurred in the archaeological record of that period. Large amounts of new data are sourced from unpublished developer-led excavations and combined with national archives, published excavations and online databases. Bayesian radiocarbon models and context- and sample-sensitive summed radiocarbon probabilities are used to examine the dataset. The study captures the scale and timing of the initial expansion of Early Neolithic settlement and the ensuing attenuation of all such activity—an apparent boom-and-bust cycle. The Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods are characterised by a resurgence and diversification of activity. Contextualisation and spatial analysis of radiocarbon data reveals finer-scale patterning than is usually possible with summed-probability approaches: the boom-and-bust models of prehistoric populations may, in fact, be a misinterpretation of more subtle demographic changes occurring at the same time as cultural change and attendant differences in the archaeological record.     

The Union of Two Worlds: Reconstructing Elements of Proto-Athabaskan Folklore and Religion

This study reconstructs elements of proto-Athabaskan folklore and religion, challenging received wisdom about the character of Southern Athabaskan culture. Detailed parallelism between Athabaskan and Old World folklore traditions, especially Inner Asian ones, means we must now consider that Southern Athabaskan cultures may retain significant elements of proto-Athabaskan belief systems originating in Asia.     

Grey and the Russian Threat to India, 1892–1915

ABSTRACT

As Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the Liberal Government from August 1892 to June 1895, Sir Edward Grey was exposed to the damage that an anti-British, Franco-Russian Alliance could do to the interests of the British Empire. The experience of those years left an enduring impression upon him. Between June 1895 and December 1905 Grey espoused the cause of agreement with the Russian Empire wherever possible. As Foreign Secretary, he advanced this cause through the Anglo-Russian Conventions of August 1907, whose objectives were to achieve what he described as ‘repose’ on the North West Frontier of India, and the reduction of Russian pressure on Persia in particular. So far as the outbreak of war in 1914 is concerned, Grey's known propensity to maintain good terms with Russia gave the latter a degree of leverage which they exploited to the full in insisting on British support in standing up to Germany and Austria-Hungary following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Grey's position within the Liberal Government, and his clear determination to resign unless Russian demands were met, swung the British government from a neutralist stance to one of full participation in the Great War.     

Book reviews

Australian politics

Sir John Cramer, Pioneers, Politics and People: A Political Memoir (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1990) pp.viii + 231. $39.95 (hbk.) ISBN 0–04–442104–4.

Adam Graycar and Adam Jamrozik, How Australians Live: Social Policy in Theory and Practice (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1989, reprinted 1990) pp.xii + 314.

Ronald T. Libby, Hawke's Law: The Politics of Mining and Aboriginal Land Rights in Australia (Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press, 1989) pp.xxvii + 175. $25.00 (pbk.) ISBN 0–85564–301–3.

George Palmer and Stephanie Short, Health Care & Public Policy: An Australian Analysis (Macmillan) $29.95(pbk.) $59.95(hbk.).

Tom Sheridan, Division of Labour: Industrial Relations in the Chifley Years 1945–1949 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1989) pp.404. $45 00.

Gwyneth Singleton, The Accord and the Australian Labour Movement (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1990) pp.viii + 222. $24.95 (pbk.) ISBN 0–522–84421–9.

Hugh Stretton, Political Essays (Georgian House: Melbourne, 1987).

James Walter (ed.), Australian Studies. A Survey (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1989) pp.vi + 326. $24.95 ISBN 0–19–554773‐X.

Patrick Weller, Malcolm Fraser: A Study of Prime Ministerial Power in Australia (Penguin Books, 1989) pp.xvii + 440. $26.99 ISBN 0–14–012974‐X.

Anna Yeatman, Bureaucrats, Technocrats, Femocrats: Essays on the Contemporary Australian State (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1990) pp. xiii + 197. $14.95 (pbk.) ISBN 0–04.442103–6.

Comparative and international politics

Raja Anwar, The Tragedy of Afghanistan (New York: Verso Press, revised edition 1989) (Translated from the Urdu by Khalid Hasan, with and introduction by Fred Halliday) pp.xvii + 306. $34.95 ISBN 0–86091–979‐X.

George Bailey, The Making of Andrei Sakharov (Allan Lane, Harmondsworth, 1989) pp.453. $55.00 ISBN 0–7139–9033–3.

Patrick Cockburn, Getting Russia Wrong: The End of Kremlinology (London: Verso, 1989) pp.vii + 228. $24.95 ISBN 0–86091–977–3.

Bernard Eccleston, State and Society in Post‐War Japan (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989) pp.xvi + 286. $32.95 ISBN 0–7456–0166–9.

Julius W. Friend, Seven Years in France, François Mitterrand and the Unintended Revolution, 1981–1988 (Boulder: Westview Press, 1989) pp xiv + 249. $US34.95 (hbk.).

John Gaffney (ed.), The French Presidential Elections of 1988 (Aldershot: Dartmouth, 1989) pp.241. £29.50 ISBN 1–85521–059–2.

Steven A. Hoffmann, foreword by Michael Brecher, India and the China Crisis (Berkeley/London: University of California Press, 1990) pp.324. $US39.95 ISBN 0–520–06537–9.

Thomas Mann (ed.), A Question of Balance: The President, The Congress and Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1990). pp.ix + 265. $US29.95 (cloth) $US10.95 (pbk.) ISBN 0–8157–5453–1.

Rosalind Marsh, Images of Dictatorship: Portraits of Stalin in Literature (London: Routledge, 1989) pp.267. ISBN 0–415–03796–4.

Ross M. Martin, Trade Unionism: Purposes and Form (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989) pp.xiii + 296. $70.00 (cloth) ISBN 0–19–827710–5.

Richard Mulgan, Maori, Pakeha and Democracy (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1989) pp.viii + 159. $38.00 ISBN 0–19–558204–7.

William David Pederson, The ‘Barberian’ Presidency (N.Y.: Theoretical and Empirical Reading, Peter Lang, 1989) pp.xii + 265. ISBN 0–8204–0693–7.

Gerald M. Pomper et al, The Election of 1988: reports and interpretations (New Jersey: Chatham House, 1989) pp.vi + 221.

Edited by John Ravenhill, No Longer an American Lake? (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1989) pp.285. $17.95 (pbk.) ISBN 0–04–372042–0.

Colin White, Russia and America: The Roots of Economic Divergence. (London: Croom Helm, 1987) pp.268.

Political theory and methodology

David Boucher, The Social and Political Thought of R.G. Collingwood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989) pp.xi + 300. $75.00 (hbk.) ISBN 0–521–36384–5.

Gregory Claeys, Thomas Paine: Social and Political Thought (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990) pp.xiv + 257. $34.95(pbk.) ISBN 0–04–445090–7.

Steven M. DeLue, Political Obligation in a Liberal State (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989) $US39.50 (cloth) ISBN 0–7194–0092–1.

Eva Etzioni‐Halevy, Fragile Democracy: The Use and Abuse of Power in Western Societies (Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick and London, 1989) pp.xiii + 194. $US28.95 ISBN 0–88738–270–3.

David Held, Political Theory and the Modern State (Cambridge: Polity, 1989) pp.265. $29.95 (pbk.) ISBN 0–7456–0620–2.

Sue Curry Jansen, Censorship: The Knot that Binds Power and Knowledge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988) pp.282. $70.00.

Philip K. Lawrence, Democracy and the Liberal State (Dartmouth: Aldershot, 1989) pp.213.

Ellen Meiksins Wood, Peasant‐Citizen and Slave: The Foundations of Athenian Democracy (London and New York: Verso, 1989), pp.210 + x, pbk, $29.95, ISBN 0–86091–911–0

Erik Olin Wright, Uwe Becker, Johanna Brenner, Michael Burawoy, Vai Burris, Gugliclmo Carchedi, Gordon Marshall, Peter Meiksins, David Rose, Arthur Stinchcombe and Philippe Van Parijs, The Debate on Classes (London and New York: Verso, 1989) pp.ix + 356. $34.95.