Book reviews

Australian politics

Frank Brennan, Land Rights Queensland Style. The Struggle for Aboriginal Self‐Management (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1992) pp.182. $29.95 ISBN 0 7022 2407 3.

Frank Brennan, Sharing the Country: The Case for an Agreement Between Black and White Australians (Melbourne: Penguin, 1991) pp.176. $18.95 ISBN 0 14 013867 6.

Libby Connors, Lynette Finch, Kay Saunders and Helen Taylor, Australia's Frontline: Remembering the 1939–45 War (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1992) pp.244. $16.95 ISBN 7022 2446 4.

Peter Edwards with Gregory Pemberton, Crises and Commitments: The Politics and Diplomacy of Australia's Involvement in Southeast Asian Conflicts 1948–1965 (Sydney: Allen & Unwin in association with the Australian War Memorial, 1992) pp.515. $45.00 ISBN 1 86373184 9.

Dean Jaensch, The Politics of Australia (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1992) pp.446. $34.95 ISBN 0 7329 0396 3.

J.E. King (ed.), Readings in Australian Labour Economics (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1992) pp.363. $29.95 9 ISBN 0 7329 1261 X.

Patrick O'Brien and Martyn Webb (eds), The Executive State: WA Inc. and the Constitution (Perth: Constitutional Press, 1991) pp.389. $19.95 ISBN 0 646 04875 9.

David Pollard, Social Need and Social Policy (Sydney: Hale and Iremonger, 1992) pp.112. $24.95 0 86806 452 1.

David Trigger, Whitefella Commin’: Aboriginal Responses to Colonialism in Northern Australia (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1992) pp.250. $45.00 ISBN 0 521 40181 X.

J.C. Altman (ed.), A National Survey of Indigenous Australians: Options and Implications. Research Monograph No. 3. (Canberra: Centre For Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, Australian National University, 1992) pp.170. $4.80 ISBN 0 7315 1395 9.

Compartive and International Politics

Peter H. Argersinger, Structure, Process, and Party: Essays in American Political History (Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharp, 1992) pp.219. $US29.95 ISBN 0 87332 798 5.

Jane H. Bayes (ed.), Women and Public Administration: International Perspectives (Binghamton: Harrington Park Press, 1991) pp.139. $US14.95. ISBN 1 56023 014 2.

Jonathan Boston, John Martin, June Pallot, Pat Walsh (eds), Reshaping the State: New Zealand's Bureaucratic Revolution (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1991) pp.408. $48.00. ISBN 0 19 558222 5.

Naomi Chazan, Robert Mortimer, John Ravenhill and Donald Rothchild, Polities and Society in Contemporary Africa (second edition) (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1992) pp.483. $19.95 ISBN 155587 283 2.

Cal Clark and Steve Chan (eds), The Evolving Pacific Basin in the Global Political Economy: Domestic & International Linkages (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1992) pp.226. $n.p. ISBN 1 55587 271 9.

Jacques Delors (trans Brian Pearce), Our Europe: The Community and National Development (London, New York: Verso, 1992) pp.166. $59.95 ISBN 0 86091 380 5.

David Denver and Gordon Hands (eds), Issues and Controversies in British Electoral Behaviour (London: Harvester Wheatsheef, 1992) pp.390 $n.p. ISBN 0 7450 0976 X.

Jean Bethke Elshtain (ed.), Just War Theory (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992) pp.336. $39.95. ISBN 0 631 17278 5.

Mark Franklin, Tom Mackie, Henry Valen et al, Electoral Change: Responses to Evolving Social and Attitudinal Structures in Western Countries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992) pp.475. $140.00 ISBN 0 521 37460 X.

Lawrence Freedman and Efraim Karsh, The Gulf Conflict 1990–1991: Diplomacy and War in the New World Order (London: Faber and Faber, 1993) pp.504. $45.00 ISBN 0 571 16457 9.

Rebecca Grant and Kathleen Newland (eds), Gender and International Relations (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1991) pp.176. $29.95. ISBN 0 335 09740 5.

Janette Habel (trans by Jon Barnes), Cuba: The Revolution in Peril (London: Verso, 1991) pp.241. $59.95. ISBN 0 86091 308 2.

Anthony Heath, Roger Jowell, John Curtice, Geoff Evans, Julia Field, and Sharon Witherspoon, Understanding Political Change: The British Voter 1964–1987 (Oxford and Sydney: Pergamon Press, 1991) pp.334. £11.95 ISBN 0 08 037256 2.

Martin Holland (ed.), Electoral Behaviour in New Zealand (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1992) pp.202. $35.00 ISBN 0 19 558261 6.

Eamonn Hughes, Culture and Politics in Northern Ireland: 1960–1990 (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1991) pp.182. $32.95 ISBN 0 335 09712 X.

John Kingdom, No Such Thing as Society? Individualism and Community, (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1992) pp.134. $34.95 ISBN ISBN 0 335 09726 X.

Jan‐Erik Lane, David McKay, and Kenneth Newton (eds), Political Data Handbook OECD Countries (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991) pp.257. $75.00 ISBN 0 19 827718 0.

Arend Lijphart (ed.), Parliamentary Versus Presidential Government (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1992) pp.257 $22.95 ISBN 0 19 878043 5.

David Marsh and R.A.W. Rhodes (eds), Implementing Thatcherite Policies: Audit of an Era (Buckingham, England: Open University Press, 1992) pp.212 $45.00. ISBN 0 335 15682 7.

Anthony G. McGrew and Paul G. Lewis et al, Global Politics (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992) pp.337. $39.45 ISBN 0 7456 0756 X.

Miroslav Nincic, Democracy and Foreign Policy: The Fallacy of Political Realism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992) pp.200. $US43.50 ISBN 0231076681.

B. Guy Peters, The Politics of Taxation: A Comparative Perspective (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991) pp.338. $39.95 ISBN 1 55786 211 7.

Matthew Spriggs and Donald Denoon (eds) The Bougainville Crisis. 1991 Update. Political and Social Change Monograph No. 16 (Department of Political and Social Change, Australian National University and Crawford House, Bathurst, 1992) pp.228. $n.p. ISBN 1 863 33013 5.

Ruy Teixeira, The Disappearing American Voter (Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1992) pp.256. $31.95 ISBN 0 8157 8302 7.

Loukas Tsoukalis, The New European Economy: The Politics and Economics of Integration (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991) pp.333. $59.95. ISBN 0 19 828750 X.

Mark Turner, Papua New Guinea: The Challenge of Independence (Ringwood, Vic.: Penguin Books, 1990) pp.200. $16.95 ISBN 0 14 012390 3.

Jack Vowles and Peter Aimer, Voters’ Vengeance — The 1990 Election in New Zealand and the Fate of the Fourth Labour Government (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1993) pp.264. $32.50 ISBN 1 86940 078 X.

Bo Yang (trans. and ed. by Don J. Cohn and Jing Qing), The Ugly Chinaman and the Crisis of Chinese Culture (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1992) pp.162. $19.95 ISBN 1 86373 116 4.

Theory and Methodology

Terrell Carver (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Marx (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1991) pp.357. $35.00 ISBN 0 521 36694 1.

William Galston, Liberal Purposes: Goods, Virtues, and Diversity in the Liberal State (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991) pp.343. $35.00 ISBN 0 521 42250 7.

Peter Hay and Robin Eckersley (eds), Ecopolitical Theory: Essays From Australia, Occasional Paper 24 (Hobart: Centre for Evironmental Studies, University of Tasmania, 1992) pp.238. $24.00 ISBN 0 65901 508 4.

Ernest Mandel, Power and Money: A Marxist Theory of Bureaucracy (London: Verso, 1992) pp.252. $34.95 ISBN 0 86091 548 4.

Patrick Riley (ed.), Essays in Political Philosophy (Rochester, New York: University of Rochester Press, 1992) pp.385. $n.p. ISBN 1 878822 08 X.

Dorothy Ross, The Origins of American Social Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) pp.508. $59.50 ISBN 0 521 35092 1.

Stephen Sedley and Lawrence Kaplan (eds), foreword by Christopher Hill, A Spark in the Ashes: The Pamphlets of John Warr (London and New York: Verso, 1992) pp.116. ISBN 0 86091 599 9.

Judith A. Swanson, The Public and the Private in Aristotle's Political Philosophy (New York: Cornell University Press, 1992) pp.244. $US31.95 ISBN 0 8014 2319 8.     

Remembering and forgetting 1974: the 2011 Brisbane floods and memories of an earlier disaster

The city of Brisbane, capital of the Australian state of Queensland, sits on a floodplain and has been struck by two devastating flood disasters in the last 50 years. This article contributes to the growing literature on disaster memory by tracing memories of a flood in 1974 as they were constructed and re‐enacted in a more recent disaster in 2011. The article examines how disaster memories shape local identities and considers how such memories influence policy and local knowledge, doing so by reference to an analysis of three forms of memory media—personal narratives, news media reporting, and built memorials. At times, memories of 1974 enabled Brisbane residents to prepare for an oncoming flood and to understand the scope of the 2011 event. Yet other memories produced a form of forgetting by positioning the earlier flood as a successfully navigated event now safely contained in the past. Findings from the analysis thus point to the importance of understanding memories of past disasters as a critical element of disaster planning and management.     

The Newcastle Upon Tyne Peace Society (1817–50)

The 1816 foundation of the Society for the Promotion of Permanent and Universal Peace in London was followed by the creation of a number of Auxiliary societies throughout the country. This paper analyses the history of the Newcastle Auxiliary, covering its establishment in 1817, its disaffiliation from the London Society in 1840, and its subsequent re-affiliation in 1850. After an initial period of quietism after their formation, the paper demonstrates how the radical pacifism of the society developed in the 1830s and 1840s, placing their activities in relation to the specificities of Newcastle’s political history, wider transformations in the British peace movement, and the influence of transatlantic networks of American peace advocacy and anti-slavery activism. The local Richardson family of Quakers personified these transformations, even as anarchists such as Joseph Barker represented a militant outer fringe of the society. Ultimately, however, the society struggled to garner wider support in Newcastle, clashing with local Chartists and with the town’s militarist merchants and businessmen in 1848. The paper therefore demonstrates how the Auxiliary societies need to be thought of active, agential organisations which negotiated the contradictions between their pacifist ideologies and the local and regional milieus within which they were enmeshed.     

Mapping the audit traces of interdisciplinary collaboration: bridging and blending between choreography and cognitive science

ABSTRACT

Two long-term sci–art research projects are described and positioned in the broader conceptual landscape of interdisciplinary collaboration. Both projects were aimed at understanding and augmenting choreographic decision-making and both were grounded in research conducted within a leading contemporary dance company. In each case, the work drew upon methods and theory from the cognitive sciences, and both had a direct impact on the way in which the company made new work. In the synthesis presented here the concept of an audit trace is introduced. Audit traces identify how specific classes of knowledge are used and transformed not only within the arts or sciences but also when arts practice is informed by science or when arts practice informs science.     

Does Nature Pluralize?

Abstract

In this article, I argue against understanding and treating nature as external. Arguing against such externality of nature, I suggest that the human situation is best understood by reference to postnatural right. As abstract and revolutionary, such right is critical, leveling, and teleological. This forms the basis of a formative metaphysics that I proceed to test against the concept of the common good and a recent theological engagement with climate change. At the conclusion, I argue that the plurality of nature recommends understanding society as a “greater society” that in turn has implications for how we think about civil society.