Dry-bone manifestations of rickets in infancy and early childhood

Rickets and osteomalacia are the subadult and adult expressions of a disease in which the underlying problem is a failure to mineralize bone protein (osteoid). The most common cause of this disease is a physiological deficiency in vitamin D. The associated problems include deformed bones and this condition is well known in pre-modern medical texts and documents as a fairly common cause of morbidity. Given these facts, it is surprising that the literature on palaeopathology provides very little evidence of this disease in archaeological human skeletal samples. The medieval sample (N=687) of human remains from Wharram Percy, North Yorkshire, England contains a remarkable subsample of eight burials in which a spectrum of pathological features is expressed. The subsample includes infants ranging in age from 3 to 18 months at the time of death. Ten abnormal bone features were identified in the subsample, including: (i) cranial vault porosity; (ii) orbital roof porosity; (iii) deformation of the mandibular ramus; (iv) deformation of arm bones; (v) deformation of leg bones; (vi) flared costo-chondral ends of ribs; (vii) irregular and porous cortex of the costo-chondral ends of the ribs; (viii) abnormality of the growth plates of long bones; (ix) irregular and porous surfaces of the metaphyseal cortex; (x) thickening of the long bones, particularly in the metaphyseal areas. Not all of these features were found in all of the cases. Nevertheless, the overall pattern of skeletal abnormality fits well with the anatomical and radiological conditions associated with rickets. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Politicized Ecology: Local Responses to Mining in Papua New Guinea

Our paper draws on research in two sites where large goldmining projects are located — Misima and Lihir islands in Papua New Guinea. We examine the socio‐economic context in which criticisms of environmental degradation arise. We discuss the social and political meanings embedded in local demands for compensation for environmental damage, drawing attention to the disparities between local Melanesian conceptions of the environment and global, Western ideas that inform international environmentalist criticisms of mining. We dispute the ‘romantic primitivism’ of some environmentalist discourse, using the work of ethno‐ecologists and case studies of specific incidents on these islands, contesting the view that there is a natural conservationist ethic in Melanesia. The image of the ‘noble primitive ecologist’ that some environmentalists appeal to, would in most circumstances be rejected by Melanesians as racist and paternalistic, but is embraced as a strategy in conflicts with mining companies and when making legal claims for compensation. Alliances formed between landowners, environmentalists and western lawyers against mining companies such as BHP and Rio Tinto are based more on shared political ends than on the epistemological consistency of their perceptions of environmental damage from mining. Local Melanesian communities claim sovereignty over all resources and their compensation claims for environmental degradation constitute a new form of resource rent.     

A coin of Queen Fastrada and Charlemagne

A Carolingian coin has recently been acquired by the Centre Charlemagne in Aachen which represents an entirely unexpected and truly historic addition to our knowledge of the reign of Charlemagne, as it bears the name of his wife Fastrada. It is the first known example of a queen being named on a Carolingian coin, and because the coin type was only introduced in 793 and Fastrada died in August 794, it can be very precisely dated. Charles was almost certainly prompted to strike it by learning of pennies of Cynethryth minted by Offa in the late 780s. The coinage reflects both the affection in which Charlemagne held Fastrada and the power he was prepared to share with her.     

Book reviews

CHINA

ZHIYUE BO. Chinese Provincial Leaders: economic Performance and Political Mobility since 1949. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2002. 183 pp. Appendix, bibliography, index. US$74.95, hardcover.

KIRK A. DENTON. The Problematic of Self in Modern Chinese Literature: Hu Feng and Lu Ling. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998. 324 pp. A$90.00, hardcover.

ROSS GARNAUT and LIGANG SONG (eds). China 2002: WTO Entry and World Recession. Canberra: Asia Pacific Press, 2002. x, 192 pp. Bibliography. A$35.00/US$30.00, paper.

NEIL C. HUGHES. China's Economic Challenge: smashing the Iron Rice Bowl. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2002. xv, 235 pp. Photographs, map, index. US$24.95, paper.

P. R. KUMARASWAMY (ed). China and the Middle East: the Quest for Influence. New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1999. 228 pp. Rs425, hardcover.

ROBERT H. SHARF. Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism: a Reading of the Treasure Store Treatise. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002. 414 pp. US$47.00, hardcover.

STEPHEN UHALLEY, JR. and XIAOXIN WU (eds). China and Christianity: burdened Past, Hopeful Future. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2001. 520 pp. Illustration, table, notes, bibliography, glossary, index. $79.95, hardcover.

ANN BARROTT WICKS (ed). Children in Chinese Art. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002. 216 pp. Illustrations (colour and b/w), glossary of Chinese characters. US$51.00, hardcover.

YONGJIN ZHANG and GREG AUSTIN (eds). Power and Responsibility in Chinese Foreign Policy. Canberra: Asia Pacific Press, 2001. 293 pp. Index. A$36.00/US$32.00, paper.

JAPAN AND KOREA

DAVID BELL. Chushingura and the Floating World: the Representation of Kanadehon Chushingura in Ukiyo‐e Prints. Richmond: Japan Library, 2001. 170 pp. 41 b/w plates, synopsis, list of principal characters and roles, glossary, bibliography, dustjacket. US$48.00, hardcover.

EYAL BEN‐ARI and JOHN CLAMMER (eds). Japan in Singapore: cultural Occurrences and Cultural Flows. Surrey: Curzon Press, 2000. 238 pp. £40.00, hardcover.

MAHITO ISHIMOTO (ed). Remembering Aizu: the Testament of Shiba Gorō. Translated, with Introduction and Notes, by Teruko Craig. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1999. 158 pp. US$37.00, hardcover; US$19.95, paper.

YASUHIRO NAKASONE. The Making of the New Japan: reclaiming the Political Mainstream (translated and annotated by Lesley Connor). Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 1999. 256 pp. £30.00, hardcover.

HIROSHI SHIMIZU and HITOSHI HIRAKAWA. Japan and Singapore in the World Economy: Japan's Economic Advance into Singapore 1870–1965. London: Routledge, 1999. 268 pp. £60.00, hardcover.

JULIA ADENEY THOMAS. Reconfiguring Modernity: concepts of Nature in Japanese Political Ideology. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. xv, 239 pp. Index. A$37.50, hardcover.

SOUTH, WEST & CENTRAL ASIA

BAABAR (Bat‐Erdene Batbayar). Twentieth Century Mongolia. Cambridge: White Horse Press, 1999. xiv, 448 pp. £50.00, hardcover.

WENDY DONIGER (ed). Splitting the Difference. Gender and Myth in Ancient Greece and India. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1999. xi, 376 pp. Bibliography, index. £38.50, hardcover; £15.50, paper.

DIANA L. ECK. Dar?an: seeing the Divine Image in India, 3rd edition. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998. v, 115 pp. Appendices, bibliography, glossary. US$16.50, paper.

JEFFREY HOPKINS. Emptiness in the Mind‐Only School of Buddhism: dynamic Responses to Dzong‐ka‐ba The Essence of Eloquence: I. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. 542 pp. US$45.00, hardcover.

FAREED KAZMI. The Politics of India's Conventional Cinema: imagining a Universe, Subverting a Multiverse. New Delhi: Sage, 1998. 252 pp. Rs 195.

BURTON WATSON, trans. The Essential Lotus: selections from the Lotus Sutra. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. 195 pp. US$16.95, paper.

SOUTHEAST ASIA

LEONARD BLUSSÉ Bitter Bonds: a Colonial Divorce Drama of the Seventeenth Century. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 2002. x, 194 pp. US$49.95, hardcover; US$22.95, paper.

ERIK COHEN. The Commercialized Crafts of Thailand: hill Tribes and Lowland Villages. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2000. xiii, 316 pp. Photographs, diagrams, tables, notes, bibliography, index. US$39.00, hardcover; US$19.95, paper.

VIRGINIA MATHESON HOOKER. Writing a New Society: social Change through the Novel in Malay. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002. xviii, 492 pp. Notes, select bibliography, index. US$39.00, hardcover.

PETER RIDDELL. Islam and the Malay‐Indonesian World: transmission and Responses. London: C. Hurst and Co., 2001. xix, 349 pp. Maps, tables, index, bibliography. £45.00, hardcover.

GENERAL ASIA

RICHARD J. ELLINGS and AARON L. FRIEDBERG (eds). Strategic Asia: power and Purpose 2001–02. Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2001. 378 pp. US$19.95, paper.

PETER FRANCIS, Jr. Asia's Maritime Bead Trade: 300 B.C. to the Present. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002. 305 pp. A$52.00, hardcover.

DAVID GOLDSWORTHY (ed). Facing North: a century of Australian Engagement with Asia, Volume 1:1901 to the 1970s. Carlton South: Melbourne University Press, 2001. 523 pp. A$59.95, hardcover; A$39.95, paper.

BRIAN MOERAN (ed). Asian Media Productions. Richmond: Curzon Press, 2001. £45.00, hardcover.     

A first prehistoric case of tuberculosis from Britain

A likely case of tuberculosis in an Iron Age human burial from Dorset, England is described. Osteological examination and biomolecular study support the diagnosis. A radiocarbon determination indicates a date range for the burial of BC 400–230. This case represents the earliest reported case of tuberculosis from Britain, and indicates that the disease was present here prior to the Roman invasion. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reviews

James Beck with Michael Daley, Art Restoration. The Culture, the Business and the Scandal. London: John Murray, 1993. xiv + 210 pp., 27 b. &; w. illus. ISBN 0–7195–4635–4. £17.99.

Jon Bird, Barry Curtis, Tim Putnam, George Robertson, and Lisa Tickner (eds.), Mapping the Futures Local Cultures, Global Change, London &; New York: Routledge, 1993. xv + 288 pp., 25 b. &; w. illus. ISBN 0–415–07018‐X. £11.95.

Rodney Castleden, The Making of Stonehenge, London and New York: Routledge, 1993, 260 pp., 98 figs., 44 b. &; w. illus. ISBN 0–415–08513–6. £25.

Eilean Hooper‐Greenhill (ed.), Museums and Their Visitors, London and New York: Routledge, 1994. xv + 206 pp., 16 b. &; w. illus. ISBN 0–415–06857–6. £22.50.

Gerry Kearns &; Chris Philo (eds.), Selling Places: The City as Cultural Capital, Past and Present,. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1993. 316 pp., 4 b.&; w. illus. ISBN 0–08–041384–6. £22.95.

International Committee on Museum Security, Museum Security and Protection, ed. David Liston, London &; New York: Routledge, 1993. xiv + 319 pp. ISBN 0–415–07509–2. £22.50.

Richard Prentice Tourism and Heritage Attractions, London and New York: Routledge, 1993. xv + 253 pp., 5 b. &; w. figs., ISBN 0–415 08525‐X. £35.00.

Anabel Thomas, Illustrated Dictionary of Narrative Painting. London: John Murray in association with National Gallery Publications, 1994. xx + 268 pp., 152 b. &; w. illus. ISBN 0–7195–5290–7. £13.99.     

Bringing Workers’ Rights Back In? Propositions towards a Labour–Trade Linkage for the Global South

The idea of forging a linkage between global trade and labour standards has a long history and has been the subject of fierce debate. In a global political economy that incites ‘competition for jobs’, the idea cannot escape controversy. Crucially, it has failed to win significant support from trade unionists in the global South. Drawing on viewpoints voiced by workers’ rights activists in South Africa and Brazil, this article presents four propositions on the features and functions that a labour–trade linkage would have to possess if it is to serve workers’ interests, and explores whether and how these may be accommodated by the ILO and WTO regimes. It is argued that a linkage requiring a new single WTO undertaking is out of the question; a linkage would only make sense if it superimposes ILO rule onto the WTO, not the opposite; a linkage should be premised on positive trade measures; and, finally, it should serve the interests of presently unprotected and unorganized workers. Overall, the main challenge of such a linkage would be to achieve the necessary reform within the ILO.