Magical Beliefs and Practices among the Galician Ukrainians

PYTH0N: a study of Delphic Myth and its Origins. By JOSEPH FONTENROSE. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1959. Pp. xviii, 617, 28 illustrations, 3 maps. Reviewed by H. J. Rose.

THE PLAY PARTY IN INDIANA. By L. J. WOLFORD. Indianapolis Historical Society Publications, 10. Indiana, 1959. Pp. 105–326. Reviewed by Douglas Kennedy.

NEHALEM TILLAMOOK TALES. Recorded by ELIZABETH DEER JACOBS. Edited by MELVILLE JACOBS. University of Oregon Monographs, Studies in Athropology, No. 5, February 1959. Pp. 216+ix. Reviewed by C. A. Burland.

TALES OF ANCIENT INDIA. Translated from the Sanskrit by J. A. B. VAN BUITENEN. University of Chicago Press, 1959. Pp. 260. Reviewed by J. H. H.

DEUTSCHES JAHRBUCH FÜR VOLKSKUNDE. Vol, v, Part I. Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 1959, Pp. 233, 8 plates, 6 maps, 35 text illustrations. Reviewed by E. Ettlinger.

STUDIES IN IRISH AND SCANDINAVIAN FOLKLORE. By R. TH. CHRISTIANSEN, Copenhagen, 1959. Pp. vii, 249. Reviewed by E. Ettlinger.

DIE VEREHRUNG DES HEILIGEN BLUTES IN WALLDÜRN. By W. BRÜCKNER P. Pattloch-Verlag, Aschaffenburg, 1958. Pp. 352, 12 maps and 79 photographs. Reviewed by E. Ettlinger.

VÖLKERKUNDE. Edited by H. TISCHNER. Fischer Bücherei, Francfort, 1959. Pp. 368, 94 illustrations (photographs, drawings and maps). Reviewed by E. Ettlinger.

ATLAS DER DEUTSCHEN VOLKSKUNDE. Edited by M. ZENDER. New series, first issue. Maps 1–12. ERLÄUTERUNGEN ZUR I. LIEFERUNG. N. G. Elwert Verlag, Marburg, 1958, 1959. Pp. 232, 25 illustrations. ZWEITE ARBEITSTAGUNG ÜBER FRAGEN DES ATLAS DER DEUTSCHEN VOLKSKUNDE, Protokollmanuskript, Arbeitsstelle, Bonn, 1959. Pp. 59, 4maps. Reviewed by E. Ettlinger.

ULSTER FOLKLIFE: Vol. 5, 1959. Published by the Committee on Ulster folklife and traditions. Pp. 72.58.6d. Reviewed by W. B.     

Apparatus of capture: Fiscal state formation in the republic of Georgia

How did the rate of central government tax revenue more than triple in the (post-Soviet) Republic of Georgia over 2004–2007? This paper investigates fiscal state formation in Georgia using ethnographic fieldwork to document how the reformist government brought to power by the 2003 “Rose Revolution” impelled tax compliance using a set of tactics of anti-corruption, anti-tax evasion, individual accountability, and compromising information collected through extra-legal surveillance. The use of ethnographic methods to examine the recent and rapid process of state formation in Georgia is a departure from much of the extant literature on state formation, which is dominated by historical scholarship that examines relatively long-term processes of political and economic change culminating in the present state. In contrast, the approach taken here uses the Deleuzian concept of assemblage to examine how the state is a process of continuous formation. The fast emergence of a historically unprecedented scale of tax compliance in Georgia was the result of the application of particular techniques of government that assembled micro-subjective dispositions into a macro-institutional process of revenue capture.     

Investigating the processes necessary for satisfactory freeze-drying of waterlogged archaeological wood

Preliminary studies into methods for improving and safeguarding the preservation of waterlogged archaeological wooden artefacts are presented. Mannitol, sorbitol and trehalose have been tested as replacements for polyethylene glycol (PEG) as a treatment prior to freeze-drying of wooden archaeological objects. The highest anti-shrink efficiency achieved in this short experiment was (70 ± 15) % using a 20% weight per volume solution of sorbitol after soaking for one week. The collapse or eutectic temperature of each solution used was determined using a freeze-drying microscope. Importantly, it was noted that the collapse temperature of the solutions was reduced by several degrees after use for treatment of the wood samples for one month. A freeze-drying microscope with a cold light source has been used to observe the real-time freeze-drying behaviour of various treatments inside a thin section of wood, confirming that this novel technique is indeed possible and useful. Lastly, the effects of magnesium phytate as an iron chelator have been studied. It was found that the treatment lowers the collapse temperature of a PEG 600/2000 solution by roughly 3 °C meaning that objects must be freeze-dried at a correspondingly lower temperature. Iron K-edge X-ray absorption near-edge spectroscopy analysis showed that the treatment extracted approximately half of the iron(III) ions present in the timbers.     

Widespread Policy Disruption: Terrorism, Public Risks, and Homeland Security

We address theoretical and empirical aspects of policy disruptions that affect multiple areas of policymaking. Our theorizing leads us to consider the effects of widespread disruptions in gaining the attention of elected officials, in affecting policymaking, and in reshaping the involvement of federal agencies. Our empirical analyses concern the threat of terrorism in the United States and its implications for public risk subsystems over the past 25 years. Our analyses of the attention of policymakers and resultant policymaking volatility show selective patterns of subsystem disruption related to the threat of terrorism. We show that capturing the attention of policymakers in multiple subsystems is insufficient to motivate heightened levels of policymaking across the board. In addition, we find more muted impacts for federal agency involvement than might have been expected from the massive reorganization that created the Department of Homeland Security. More generally, the disjunctions we observe show the powerful influence of policy subsystems in buffering against widespread policy disruptions.     

Provisioning of the Inka army in wartime: obsidian procurement in Pambamarca,Ecuador

Ninety-nine obsidian artifacts from fortified and non-fortified sites in the Pambamarca region of northern Ecuador were analyzed with XRF to examine patterns of procurement of obsidian by soldiers in the Inka army and by the local Cayambes who were resisting Inka conquest. The results show that the Inkas acquired material from several different sources, a pattern consistent with provisioning by subject peoples in partial fulfillment of labor obligations. The Cayambes also acquired material from multiple sources, although they may not have directly procured material from all of the sources because the external boundary of Inka territory bisected the region of obsidian sources. That frontier may have prevented the Inkas from accessing one source, Callejones, from which the Cayambes acquired some of their obsidian. In addition, the Inkas were acquiring some obsidian from the Yanaurco-Quiscatola source, which had been previously abandoned around AD 1000.