‘A Tiny Little Footnote in History’: Conservative Centre Forward

In May 1985, two years after he had returned to the back benches, Francis Pym launched the first organised display of dissent within the parliamentary Conservative Party against Margaret Thatcher's leadership: Conservative Centre Forward. Those Conservative MPs who joined the group were very much believers in One Nation Conservatism. Conservative Centre Forward survived for barely a week after going public; it rapidly collapsed amid accusations of disloyalty and inept leadership. The group proved to be a short-lived experiment which achieved little of note and exposed those who were involved to widespread ridicule. Yet, it was precisely because Conservative Centre Forward collapsed so quickly and achieved so little that it was significant. In its own way, the short life of the group provided a revealing commentary upon the character of the mid-1980s Conservative Party. It was a party which, on the one hand, was moving inexorably to the right and therefore ever further away from the values of One Nation Conservatism which Conservative Centre Forward espoused. On the other hand, it was a party which was still traditional enough to view open displays of dissent, of whatever magnitude, as a threat to the unity upon which its continued electoral success depended.     

From Babylon to Christianity: William Foxwell Albright on Myth,Folklore, and Christian Origins

The American Orientalist William F. Albright (1891–1971) is remembered as a leading voice of twentieth‐century “biblical archaeology,” a field that aimed to demonstrate empirically the Hebrew Bible's substantial historicity. Less well known is Albright's research on Christian backgrounds, which by contrast reflected modernist theology's scepticism about the gospel narratives' literal truth. Drawing ideas from the “Pan‐Babylonian” school of biblical criticism, Albright invoked the influence of ancient Near Eastern myth and folklore on the Christ story, this being the culminating theme of his magnum opus From the Stone Age to Christianity (1940). Originally Albright believed that this mythological interpretation would reestablish Christianity's intellectual credibility in the twentieth century and thus help revive New Testament theology. Yet in the latter part of his career he omitted the mythological thesis from his writings, apparently having concluded that it was harmful to orthodox Christian faith.     

On Greenfield's Review of The Encyclopedia of African and African American Religions: A Response

Jack M. Potter. Thai Peasant Social Structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976.     

Exploring the Transition: Coursework to Research‐Based Study in the Geography Honours Year

The transition from coursework study to independent research is a component of many geography Honours programs in Australian tertiary institutions. Despite being canvassed at the 2003 annual meeting of the Australian Heads of Geography Units, it is a topic that has, to date, received relatively little academic attention. This paper developed from a review of the Geography Honours program at the University of Sydney, conducted by the authors in early 2004. The paper aims to help address the perceived deficiency of research into Honours study. Three topics, related to the Honours year transition, are discussed. These are: the rationale for the Honours year transition from undergraduate coursework to research‐focussed study; the composition and rationale behind coursework programs for geography Honours students, and student‐supervisor relations and their impact on independent Honours research. In the process of examining these issues this paper offers suggestions as to how tertiary geography schools can look to develop their Honours year programs. These recommendations are made with the understanding that all tertiary Honours programs are unique and that issues such as staffing levels and departmental structure will influence what suggestions are appropriate for individual institutions. It is hoped that this paper will encourage more discussion about the nature of the Honours year. It is through such communication that the value of the Honours year in student development can be enhanced     

UN transformation in an era of soft balancing

Between 2003 and 2006 UN Secretary General Kofi Annan pursued the most ambitious overhaul of the United Nations since its inception. This transformation effort aimed to make the UN more effective in addressing non‐traditional threats and to persuade the United States to re‐engage with the world body. Launched during a time that was unpropitious for achieving far‐reaching change, the effort nonetheless produced some surprising agreements. Several factors prevented greater achievement: the episodic attention of the Bush administration and the personal agenda of John Bolton, the US permanent representative to the UN; the failure of the UN Secretariat to pursue a capital based strategy that engaged heads of state and foreign ministers; and the decision by many member states that they would rather have an ineffective United Nations than an effective one that furthered the interests of the Bush administration. Whether future efforts to transform collective security will fall victim to the same fate depends in part on the actions and words of a new American president in 2009.