THE SHIPMENT OF TRADED GOODS AND OF BALLAST IN ANTIQUITY

Summary. A ship's Master has to ensure that goods are loaded in such a combination, and stowed in such a manner, that his ship has a safe freeboard and adequate stability. In antiquity these considerations would have been evaluated from experience and by inherited rules of thumb, whereas today stowage factors are used. Greek decorated pottery, with a relatively high stowage factor, is most unlikely to have been used as ballast in the ancient Mediterranean, but small consignments may have been used as 'space-fillers'.     

The Affluent Worker or the Divided Party? Explaining the Transformation of the ALP in the 1950s

This article argues that the Australian Labor Party was transformed in the 1950s, shedding its rhetorical commitment to socialism as well as many of its democratic ties to the organised working class. It also attempts to explain this transformation. The argument that this transformation was the product of rising working-class incomes and declining class consciousness is considered, before being rejected on both empirical and theoretical grounds. An alternative political explanation, which focuses on the interactions between the Party, its working-class constituency, and its leadership, is then offered. The article thereby aims not only to reconceptualise a specific moment in the history of Labor, but to reorient our theoretical approach to the Party, and our understanding of political change in the early postwar decades.     

ASSESSING THE PERFORMANCE OF AN ANCIENT BOAT—THE HASHOLME LOGBOAT

Summary. Several methods of assessing the performance of ancient boats are briefly described, including the experimental building and trials of replicas. It is considered that the method of using hydrostatic curves and speed-related coefficients is often the most cost-effective and this is used to assess the logboat from Hasholme, North Humberside of c 300 BC.