Book reviews—comptes rendus

Themes in Political History—Thèmes en histoire politique

Peter BLICKLE ed., Resistance, Representation and Community, Oxford University Press, Origins of the Modern State in Europe, 13th‐18th Centuries Series, Oxford, 1997, 401 pp. ISBN 0–19–820548–1. £50.00.

J. L. MERRITT ed., The Political World of Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford 1621–1641, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996, 307 pp. ISBN 0–521–560–411. £40.00.

Themes in Napoleonic Studies—Etudes sur Napoléon

Malcolm CROOK, Napoleon comes to power: Democracy and Dictatorship in Revolutionary France, 1795–1804, University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1998 ISBN 0–7083–1461–9 (hardback) £15.00, ISBN 0–7083–1401–5 (paperback) £7.95.

Christopher PRENDERGAST, Napoleon and History Painting. Antoine‐Jean Gros's La Bataille d'Eylau, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1997, xiv + 223 pp., ISBN 0–19–817402–0 £45.00.

Matthew TRUESDELL, Spectacular Politics. Louis‐Napoleon Bonaparte and the Fête Impériale, 1849–1870, Oxford University Press Oxford, 1997, viii + 238 pp., ISBN 0–19–510689‐X £35.00.

Themes in Twentieth‐Century History—Aspects de l'histoire du vingtième siècle

Götz ALY, Macht‐Geist‐Wahn. Kontinuitäten deutschen Denkens, Argon, Berlin, 1997, 220pp., ISBN 3–87024–361–9.

Holger H. HERWIG, The First World War: Germany and Austria‐Hungary 1914–1918, Modern Wars, Arnold, London, 1997, xx + 490 pp. ISBN 0–340–67753–8 (hb), 0–340–57348–1 (pb) £16.99.

Lonnie R. JOHNSON, Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbours, Friends, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1996, xi + 339 pp., ISBN 0–19–510071–9 (hardback) £27.00. 0–19–510072–7 (paperback) £15.00.

Iwao Peter SANO, One Thousand days in Siberia: The Odyssey of a Japanese‐American POW, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London, 1997, xvii + 210pp., ill., ISBN 0–8032–4262‐X £23.95.

Martin THOMAS, Britain, France and Appeasement: Anglo‐French Relations in the Popular Front Era, Berg, Oxford, 1996, x + 268pp., ISBN 1–85973–192–9 £29.95 and £12.95.     

Degrees of Engagement: Using Cultural Worldviews to Explain Variations in Public Preferences for Engagement in the Policy Process

Scholars have been studying the concept of public engagement and its role in the policy process for some time. Scholars have argued that understanding the interests and motivations of the public and engaging them in the decision‐making process can lead to better policy designs and, ultimately, better policy outcomes. However, studies of public engagement often assume that people have a desire to get involved in the policy process. This paper tests this key assumption using the case of nuclear facility siting in the United States to ask: what factors influence an individual's stated willingness to want to engage in the policy process? Using data from a national web survey fielded in 2013, we ask the public if and to what extent they would likely engage in the siting process if given the opportunity. Findings indicate that the likelihood of engagement varies rather substantially across individuals. We find that an individual's cultural belief system and existing level of political activity account for some of this variation. These findings suggest that public engagement programs may vary across groups and communities. In other words, the prospects of engagement are likely to appeal to some members of the population and not others.     

Gamming Chairs and Gimballed Beds: Seafaring Women on Board Nineteenth-Century Ships

During the nineteenth century, many captains’ wives from New England took up residence on the ships their husbands commanded. This article focuses on how those women at sea attempted to use material culture to domesticate their voyaging space. While writing in their journals, they referred to not only the small personal things such as books and knitting needles that they brought in their trunks, but also large items, built for and used by women, such as gamming chairs, deckhouses, parlor organs, sewing machines, and gimballed beds. Mary Brewster attempted to retreat from the ship’s officers in her small deckhouse, Annie Brassey slept in the gimballed bed, and Lucy Lord Howes disembarked in a gamming chair when captured by Confederates during the Civil War. Evidence of these artifacts found during shipwreck archaeology could be used to further what is known of the culture aboard ships on which women lived. Analysis of the material culture reveals how a captain’s wife domesticated space, altered her environment, and made a home on the ship for her family.     

The Maritime Cultural Landscape of Northern Patagonia

This article is a contribution to the study of the indigenous navigation and its boats in the region of northern Patagonia. This article also aims to contribute to the understanding of indigenous navigation practices and technologies and their origins from prehistoric times to the mid-twentieth century. It presents and discusses the concept of Westerdahl’s Maritime Cultural Landscape in relation to other landscape concepts. This model is applied to northern Patagonia in order to discuss if it is possible to speak of a true maritime culture in the region. For this purpose, archaeological, historical and ethnographic data are presented in an integrative and innovative methodology for the discipline. Finally, the Maritime Cultural Landscape model will allow the integration of aquatic and terrestrial landscapes as routes traveled by native inhabitants of northern Patagonia and southern Chile, and propose an important and diversified maritime, river and lake tradition.     

Prehispanic Dugout Canoes in Mexico: A Typology Based on a Multidisciplinary Approach

Navigation implies a deep knowledge of the environment in which it is practised as well as the development of correlated technologies and techniques. In fact, sailing in lakes, rivers, along coasts or in high seas requires specific skills. This is why watercraft reflect the specific expertise of cultures in relation to the available resources and materials. Navigation as a means of movement and boats as modes of transportation is a well-documented topic in Europe, Asia and the Pacific Ocean, whether focusing on antiquity or the present. Nonetheless, in the New World, especially in Mesoamerica where the Aztec, Tarascan and Mayan Empires flourished, indigenous maritime history has been thoroughly under-investigated. This article explores the first prehispanic dugout canoes of the region, based on a multidisciplinary approach for the Mexico and Pátzcuaro Basins, in the Late Postclassic period (AD 1325-1521). For the first time, a typology of these dugout types is proposed, with a discussion of the importance of dugout canoes as a means of transportation in Mesoamerican civilizations, where wheels and draught animals did not exist.     

Walking the Land: Aboriginal Trails,Cultural Landscapes,and Archaeological Studies for Impact Assessment

Aboriginal people have occupied northern Alberta since the end of the last ice age. For most of that time they travelled across the land by foot, producing complex networks of trails, many of which may have great antiquity. Aboriginal people also modified the landscape extensively by the use of controlled burning. Lastly, they are immersed in and “read” the land as places with multiple cultural meanings, which in turn helped shape their cultures and identities. Together, these elements indicate the existence of a series of overlapping cultural landscapes for which the cross-country trails and waterways provide the grid. This article addresses the importance of traditional trails for identifying the cultural landscapes of northeastern Alberta and points to the rapid disappearance today of knowledge about such trails. It considers how archaeological investigations done in Alberta for Impact Assessment purposes fail to consider either trails or cultural landscapes in their surveys or to consult with Aboriginal people. As a result, government Review Panels making recommendations for whether or not an industrial project should be approved are basing their findings on incomplete information about Aboriginal land uses and meanings.     

Unpacking Neoliberal Archaeological Control of Ancient Indigenous Heritage

Archaeologists often discuss the First People of the Western Hemisphere (the Americas) and their descendants, as Immigrants from Asia or Solutreans from France. In this paper, I discuss how archaeologists as handmaidens of the late modern state control the past in the present. This control keeps Indigenous people of the Western Hemisphere as recent migrants on a global history time scale. Arguing against recent initial migration time frames to the Western Hemisphere, I discuss the Indigenous Palaeolithic of the Americas; and what an acknowledgement of the ancient past may bring to contemporary Indigenous communities.