In search of Egypt

R. Hrair Dekmejian, Egypt under Nasir: A Study in Political Dynamics, Albany, State University of New York Press, 1971, 368 pp.. $10.00.

Iliya F. Harik, The Political Mobilization of Peasants: A Study of an Egyptian Community, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1974, 309 pp., $12.50.

James B. Mayfield, Rural Politics in Nasser's Egypt: A Quest for Legitimacy, Austin, University of Texas Press, 1971, 288 pp., $10.00.

Amos Perlmutter, Egypt: The Preatorian State, New Brunswick, Transaction Books, 1974, 234 pp., $9.95.     

Return to Sangamo Town: Research-Based Investigations at the Charles Broadwell Home Site, 1825–1845

This article discusses the results of research-based excavations at the Charles Broadwell site, located in the extinct town of Sangamo Town in central Illinois. A large cellar feature produced a robust sample of consumer goods dating to circa 1825–1845. Of interest is the archaeological signature of a well-appointed home in this frontier community; the character of mass-produced goods and the visibility of consumer patterning; the visibility of folk goods and their affiliated practices; and the view of abandonment and reclamation processes visible in the fill of the cellar feature.     

The Road to the Chaco War: Bolivia’s Modernisation in the 1920s

When Bolivian and Paraguayan leaders entered into war over the contested Chaco Boreal in 1932, they unleashed powerful, violent forces that would dramatically alter history. Understanding the Chaco War as the most pivotal event in Bolivia’s modern history, this article seeks to clarify the modernisation programme that had been underway in Bolivia during the 1920s. Reforms marked the decade and intersected with and accentuated a tense political environment. The political dynamic of the years prior to the outbreak of war showed how fragile the Bolivian system was and how the global economy further eroded the government’s manoeuvrability to avoid war.     

The Multiple Functions of Criollo,Gaucho and Indigenous Symbols in La Historieta Patoruzú, 1936–50: The Conflicts of Peronism,Nationalism and Migration

This article considers the comic book Patoruzú in light of the cultural expressions of Argentine criollismo between the 1930s and 50s. It begins by examining the political and class conflicts that informed the meanings of criollo symbols, and how Dante Quinterno’s creation interacts with them. Perón’s political organisation, for example, constantly resorted to discourses and images of a gaucho and rural nature in order to propagate the ideals of nationalist corporatism. From one perspective, the drawings, storylines and characters of Patoruzú articulate the arguments set forth by Perón in his battles with neo-colonial and oligarchic forces. However, as Anthony Cohen and Stuart Hall argue, mass-media products and popular national symbols are dialogic; they enter into a dialogue with different competing discourses. Thus the comic book is also analysed in respect of the different and conflictive uses and potential interpretations of criollo symbols. One such conflict, it is proposed, resides in the understudied effect of modernisation and urbanisation on the rural criollo migrants, who moved to the provinces of Buenos Aires in large numbers in the 1930s. The comic book, therefore, is not understood simply as an expression of Peronist ideals, but as a footprint of the complex political and identity conflicts of the period.     

On new forms of government

The article by Ganghof, Eppner and Pörschke discusses the concept of semi-parliamentarism. This concept is very useful and will be used in future empirical studies. This short commentary provides a constructive critique of the concept, noting that only two countries currently meet the definitional criteria for the concept, that normative criteria should be avoided when defining regimes, that the definition introduces new criteria for classifying regimes, and that when it is applied empirically scholars should be careful not to introduce subjective judgments about which countries should be classed as semi-parliamentary.     

Telepresence-Enabled Maritime Archaeological Exploration in the Deep

Telepresence-enabled exploration of deep sea environments has developed over the past 30 years, providing access to archaeologists, scientists, and the general public to sites otherwise inaccessible due to depth. Pioneered through the inception of the JASON Project in the late 1980 s, telepresence missions have expanded to two dedicated ships of exploration, NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer and exploration vessel Nautilus, and has been implemented on a series of opportunistic missions on other vessels. This paper chronicles the history of the use of telepresence for the exploration of shipwrecks in deep water as well as how this capability has allowed the public to engage with such missions. Broadening the scope of who can explore the deep sea, telepresence has also expanded what is observed and documented in the deep, which speaks to humanity’s use of the maritime world and an archaeology of discard through our material disposed of into the deep sea.