Maps and the settlement of southern Palestine, 1799–1948: an historical/GIS analysis

Historical maps of the Negev Desert which comprises half of the total land area of Palestine can be viewed from several intersecting perspectives relating to aspects such as their contribution to tracing patterns of settlement and agricultural history, imperialism and mapping, and legal geography of land ownership and indigenous people. Here we focus mainly on the first theme, incorporate new methods and demonstrate their application to studies in historical geography.     

National identity and primitive methodism in the United States: A transatlantic perspective

The Primitive Methodist Church in the United States of America was, throughout the nineteenth century, a denomination that was transatlantic in character. It attempted to act both as a home away from home for newly arriving English industrial immigrants and as a tool of their Americanization. In the former role, the denomination enjoyed considerable success, benefiting from continuous English immigration throughout the period. However, Primitive Methodist attempts at Americanization presented much greater challenges. The constant contact both with newly arriving English immigrants and the Primitive Methodist Conference in England frustrated attempts to take the denomination in new directions and undermined its claim as an American and Americanizing church. Whilst the process of becoming American was very difficult and painful for many individual immigrants, it proved almost impossible for the institution of Primitive Methodism. Ninety years after its establishment in the United States, the denomination was still homesick.     

Parallel Lives – An Interview with Ruth Tringham

Ruth Tringham is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley. She is one of the founders and a director of the UC Berkeley Multimedia Authoring Center for Teaching in Anthropology (MACTiA). Her research has focused on the transformation of early agricultural (Neolithic) societies. Tringham has directed and published archaeological excavations in South‐east Europe and Turkey, at the site of Çatalhöyük. Current research focuses on the life‐histories of buildings and the construction of place. Much of her recent practice of archaeology incorporates digital, especially multimedia, technology in the presentation of the process of archaeological interpretation, Since 1998 Tringham has incorporated multimedia authoring and digital technology into teaching inquiry‐based hybrid courses. From 1998 to 2001 she held the UCB Presidential Chair in Undergraduate Education. Tringham is now recognized internationally as one of the leaders of digital education, media literacy, and digital publishing in archaeology. This interest in multimedia grows out of a lifelong passion for music, puppets and cultivating illusions of reality.

The interview was conducted in Cambridge on 23 October 2007, the day after Ruth Tringham's participation in a personal history retrospective at the Department of Archaeology together with Meg Conkey, Henrietta Moore and Alison Wylie, and organized by Pamela Smith. The retrospective aimed to reflect on the transformation of archaeological theory and method during the 1970s and early 1980s (an audio recording is at http://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/podcast/rss.xml). The interview was transcribed by the interviewees together with Dr Katharina Rebay, University of Cambridge.     

Political and Socioeconomic Indicators of State Restrictiveness Toward Abortion

We compare the relative impacts of political and socioeconomic factors on state restrictiveness toward abortion during the pre-Roe, pre-Webster and post-Webster time frames. This analysis tests the value of cycle theory, where shifting epochs dominated by liberalism and conservatism enhance the role of political variables in shaping policy formation. It also tests the explanatory value of public opinion theory which holds that bimodal issues which cut across party lines accentuate the role of socioeconomic variables in shaping issue evolution. The results of this analysis lend support to cycle theory and public opinion theory, although public opinion theory receives stronger support. When socioeconomic independent variables are regressed against our dichotomous measures of state restrictiveness toward abortion, they explain more variance than political independent variables. Political variables were more important in the conservative era (1989) than in the liberal era (1972).