The Failure of ‘Liberal Developmentalism’: The United States's Anti-Communist Showcase in Guatemala, 1954–1960

This article examines the British involvement in the reorganisation of the Ottoman Empire's customs service. The study focuses particularly on the role of Sir Richard Crawford, who was appointed as a consultant to the Ottoman customs administration in 1909. In doing so, the article sheds fresh light on the position of European advisers as well as on British commercial diplomacy in the Ottoman Empire during the years preceding the First World War. This topic warrants further historical research as previous studies have not considered Crawford's position and the progress of the customs reform in detail. He introduced some important reforms, but proved unable to solve the complex question over the porterage service or to increase customs revenue as much as had been anticipated. War and revolution as well as the consequent disruption of trade; the vast geographical scope of the Ottoman Empire; and opposition from local and international stakeholders to his reforms explain to some extent why Crawford was unable to modernise the customs service as effectively as had been planned. In addition, Crawford's professional background and his personal characteristics were in some ways incompatible with the requirements of the demanding diplomatic world of Constantinople.     

Review of Books

JOHN BOARDMAN et al., eds. The Cambridge Ancient History. Volume III, pt. 2: The Assyrian and Babylonian Empires and Other States of the Near East, from the Eighth to the Sixth Centuries BC. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. xix, 906. $125.00 (us). Reviewed by William M. Calder

H. T. WALLINGA. Ships and Sea-Power before the Great Persian War: The Ancestry of the Ancient Trireme. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1993. Pp. xv, 217. $80.00. Reviewed by J. F. Lazenby

JONATHAN J. PRICE. Jerusalem under Siege: The Collapse of the Jewish State, 66–70 CE. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992. Pp. xiv, 361. $91.50 (us). Reviewed by Uriel Rappaport

ROBERT BARTLETT. The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization, and Cultural Change, 950–1350. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. Pp. 432. $29.95 (us). Reviewed by H. E. J. Cowdrey

ALAN L. KAHRAS and J. R. MCNEILL, eds. Atlantic American Societies: From Columbus to Abolition, 1492–1888. London and New York: Roudedge, 1992. Pp. xi, 274. $16.95 (us), paper. Reviewed by Ian K. Steele

DAVID J. WEBER. The Spanish Frontier in North America. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992. Pp. xx, 579. $35.00 (us). Reviewed by Amy Turner Bushnell

SANJAY SUBRAHMANYAM. The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500–1700: A Political and Economic History. London and New York: Longman, 1993. Pp. xiii, 320. £34.00. Reviewed by André Wink

ROBERT BRENNER. Merchants and Revolution: Commercial Change, Political Conflict, and London's Overseas Traders, 1550–1653. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. Pp. xx, 734. $59.50 (us). Reviewed by Conrad Russell

STEWART P. OAKLEY. War and Peace in the Baltic, 1560–1790. London and New York: Routledge, 1992. Pp. xvii, 222. $59.95 (us). Reviewed by H. M. Scott

ROGER SCHLESINGER, ed. Portraits from the Age of Exploration: Selections from André Thevet's ‘Les vrais pourtraits et vies des hommes illustres’, trans. Edward Benson. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1993. Pp. 159. $24.95 (us). Reviewed by Luca Codignola

JANE H. OHLMEYER. Civil War and Restoration in the Three Stuart Kingdoms: The Career of Randal MacDonnell, Marquis of Antrim, 1609–1683. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. xxiii, 357. $69.95 (us). Reviewed by Ian Gentles

MICHAEL DUFFY, ed. Parameters of British Naval Power, 1650–1850. Exeter, UK: University of Exeter Press, 1992. Pp. vi, 144. £11.95. Reviewed by Philip Woodfine

ZDENKO ZLATAK. Between the Double Eagle and the Crescent: The Republic of Dubrovnik and the Origins of the Eastern Question. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs; dist. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. Pp. xx, 336. $49.00 (us). Reviewed by F. W. Carter

J. R. JONES. Marlborough. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. 245. $49.95 (us).

MARK PHILP, ed. The French Revolution and British Popular Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. 238. $49.95 (us). Reviewed by John Bohstedt

ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. Anglo-Ottoman Encounters in the Age of Revolution: Collected Essays: Volume I, ed. Edward Ingram; Eastern Questions in the Nineteenth Century: Collected Essays: Volume II, ed. Edward Ingram. London: Frank Cass; dist. Portland, OR: ISBS Inc., 1993. Pp. xiv, 351, £35.00; xiv, 272. £35.00. Reviewed by M. S. Anderson

JAMES E. MCCLELLAN III. Colonialism and Science: Saint Domingue in the Old Regime. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992. Pp. xviii, 393. $52.00 (us). Reviewed by Hannah Gay

MICHAEL FRY. The Dundas Despotism. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1992. Pp. xii, 425. £45.00. Reviewed by Brendan Carnduff

HSI-HUEY LIANG. The Rise of Modern Police and the European State System from Mettemich to the Second World War. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pp. xiii, 345. $49.95 (us). Reviewed by Lucy Riall

GREGOR DALLAS. At the Heart of a Tiger: Clemenceau and His World, 1841–1929. London: Macmillan, 1993. Pp. xiv, 620. £25.00. Reviewed by Marjorie M. Farrar

FRANK J. COPPA. The Origins of the Italian Wars of Independence. London and New York: Longman, 1992. Pp. ix, 188.,£22.00. Reviewed by Richard Bosworth

BRUCE W. MENNING. Bayonets before Bullets: The Imperial Russian Army, 1861–1914. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1992. Pp. x, 334. $35.00 (us). Reviewed by John Bushnell

A. HAMISH ION. The Cross and the Rising Sun: Volume II: The British Protestant Missionary Movement in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, 1865–1945. Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1993. Pp. xii, 324. $39.95 (CDN). Reviewed by Peter Lowe

DONALD CALMAN. The Nature and Origins of Japanese Imperialism: A Reinterpretation of the Great Crisis of 1873. London and New York: Routledge, 1992. Pp. xxii, 354. $55.00 (us). Reviewed by Hilary Conroy, With Peter Shin

ROSEMARY R. GAGAN. A Sensitive Independence: Canadian Methodist Women Missionaries in Canada and the Orient, 1881-1925. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1992. Pp. xii, 281. $39.95 (CDN). Reviewed by A. Hamish Ion

J. N. F. M. À CAMPO. Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij: Stoomvaart en Staatsvorming in de Indonesische Archipel, 1888–1914. Hilversum: Verloren, 1992. Pp. 756. No Price Available. Reviewed by Maahten Kuitenbrouwer

B. J. C. MCKERCHER, ed. Arms Limitation and Disarmament: Restraints on War, 1899–1939. New York. Praeger, 1992. Pp. xvi, 250. $55.00 (us). Reviewed by John W. Coogan

PAUL BAIROCH. Economics and World History: Myths and Paradoxes. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1993. Pp. xvi, 184. $32.50 (us). Reviewed by Peter J. Cain

CHRISTINE A. WHITE. British and American Commenrcial Relations with Soviet Russia, 1918–1924. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1992. Pp. xii, 345. $39-95 (us). Reviewed by Michael Jabara Carley

ERIK GOLDSTEIN. Winning the Peace: British Diplomatic Strategy, Peace Planning, and the Paris Peace Conference, 1916–1920. New York: The Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 1991. Pp. xix, 307. $94.50 (CDN). Reviewed by Trevor Wilson

JÓZSEF GALÁNTAI. Trianon and the Protection of Minorities, trans. Ervin Dunay. Boulder, CO: Social Science Monographs; dist. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. Pp. x, 185. $36.50 (us). Reviewed by M. B. Biskupski

MARTIN S. ALEXANDER. The Republic in Danger: General Maurice Gamelin and the Politics of French Defence, 1933–1940. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. xiv, 573. $94-95 (us). Reviewed by Robert J. Young

JAMES GOODWIN. Eisenstein, Cinema, and History. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1993. Pp. x, 262. $39.95 (us), cloth; $15.95 (us), paper. Reviewed by Philip M. Taylor

VALDIS O. LUMANS. Himmler's Auxiliaries: The Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle and the German National Minorities of Europe, 1933–1945. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1993. Pp. xiv, 335. $43.95 (us). Reviewed by Carole Fink

GREGOR BENTON. Mountain Fires: The Red Army's Three-Year War in South China, 1934–1938. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. Pp. xlv, 639.- $70.00 (us). Reviewed by Qiang Zhai

DAVID MORGAN and MARY EVANS. The Battle for Britain: Citizenship and Ideology in the Second World War. London and New York: Routledge, 1993. Pp. 193. $62.50 (us). Reviewed by Trevor Burridge

REINHOLD BRENDER. Kollaboration in Frankreich im Zweiten Weltkrieg: Marcel Déat und das Rassemblement national populaire. Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1992. Pp. 338. No Price Available. Reviewed by William D. Irvine

IGNÁC ROMSICS, ed. Wartime American Plans for a New Hungary: Documents from the US Department of State, 1942–1944. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs; dist. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. Pp. xvii, 328. $45.00 (us). Reviewed by Bennett Kovrig

JOHN BAYIS. The Dipbmacy of Pragmatism: Britain and the Formation of NATO, 1942–1949. London: Macmillan, 1993. Pp. xi, 194.,£40.00. Reviewed by T. Michael Ruddy

GÜNTER BISCHOF and STEPHEN E. AMBROSE, eds. Eisenhower and the German POWs: Facts against Falsehood. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992. Pp. xvii, 257. $24.95 (us). Reviewed by S. P. Mackenzie

R. J. B. BOSWORTH. Explaining Auschwitz and Hiroshima: History Writing and the Second World War, 1945–1990. London and New York: Routledge, 1993. Pp. xv, 262. $59-95 (us). Reviewed by Martin Kitchen

ELIZABETH A. COBBS. The Rich Neighbor Policy: Rockefeller and Kaiser in Brazil. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992. Pp. xiv, 273. $30.00 (us); Reviewed by Thomas Schoonover

MICHAEL L. CONNIFF. Panama and the United States: The Forced Alliance. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992. Pp. xi, 201. $35.00 (us), cloth; $15.00 (us), paper. Reviewed by Thomas Schoonover

GEORGE W. BALL and DOUGLAS B. BALL. The Passionate Relationship: America's Involvement with Israel, 1947 to the Present. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1992. Pp. 382. $29.99 (CDN); Reviewed by William R. Polk

DAVID SCHOENBAUM. The United States and the State of Israel. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Pp. xiv, 404. $55.95 (CDN). Reviewed by William R. Polk

B. W. MUIRHEAD. The Development of Postwar Canadian Trade Policy: The Failure of the Anglo-European Option. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1993. Pp. x, 230. $36.95 (CDN). Reviewed by Robert D. Cuff

LUDWELL LEE MONTAGUE. General Walter Bedell Smith as Director of Central Intelligence, October 1950–February 1953. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992. Pp. xxviii, 308. $14.95 (us). Reviewed by Melvyn P. Leffler

THOMAS BORSTELMANN. Apartheid's Reluctant Uncle: The United States and Southern Africa in the Early Cold War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Pp. ix, 298. $49.00 (CDN). Reviewed by L. H. Gann

G. R. BERRIDGE. South Africa, the Colonial Powers, and ‘African Defence’: The Rise and Fall of the White Entente, 1948–60. London: Macmillan, 1992. Pp. xiii, 234. £40.00. Reviewed by Ritchie Ovendale

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, ed. Dean Acheson and the Making of US Foreign Policy. London: Macmillan, 1993. Pp. xx, 271. £45.00. Reviewed by Robert H. Ferrell

CHRISTOPH BLUTH. Soviet Strategic Arms Policy before SALT. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pp. xiii, 317. $59.95 (us). Reviewed by John Erickson

KIMBERLY MARTEN ZISK. Engaging the Enemy: Organization Theory and Soviet Military Innovation, 1955–1991. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. Pp. x, 286. $39.50 (us). Reviewed by Lawrence Freedman

FREDERICK M. NUNN. The Time of the Generals: Latin American Professional Militarism in World Perspective. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1992. Pp. xv, 349. $50.00 (us). Reviewed by Ronald C. Newton

FARHANG RAJAEE, ed. The Iran-Iraq War: The Politics of Aggression. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1993. Pp. vii, 245. $39.95 (us), cloth; $19.95 (us), paper. Reviewed by Fred Halliday

MICHAEL N. BARNETT. Confronting the Costs of War: Military Power, State, and Society in Egypt and Israel. Princeton. Princeton University Press, 1992. Pp. xiii, 378. $39.50 (us). Reviewed by Stuaht A. Cohen

STEPHEN F. SZABO. The Diplomacy of German Unification. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992. Pp. xiv, 162. $22.95 (us). Reviewed by Frank Ninkovich

BRIAN HOLDEN REID, ed. The Science of War: Back to First Principles. London and New York: Roudedge, 1993. Pp. vii, 212. $59.95 (us). Reviewed by T. H. E. Travers     

3400 years of agricultural engineering in Mesoamerica: lama-bordos of the Mixteca Alta,Oaxaca, Mexico

The origins of early Mesoamerican agricultural techniques are not well established. Our charcoal-derived radiocarbon chronology dates cross-valley check dams, or lama-bordos, buried by up to 11.5 m of sediment in arroyos near Coixtlahuaca, Oaxaca, Mexico. Now it is clear that people in highland Mexico built lama-bordos at least 3400–3500 years ago, several hundred years earlier than previously dated engineering systems in Mesoamerica. Lama-bordo systems evolved as intensively and extensively managed landscapes coeval with climate shifting to more arid conditions. They provide clear examples of human-produced stratigraphy and artificial landscapes (stair-stepped valleys). More importantly, these lama-bordo systems signal a major cultural tipping point toward sedentary agricultural life and solidify our understanding of the Neolithic transition in Mesoamerica.     

Aimé Césaire 1913–2008

In a necessarily selective way, this paper explores the historiographical evolution of ‘settler colonialism’ as a category of analysis during the second half of the twentieth century. It identifies three main passages in its development. At first (until the 1960s), ‘settlers’, ‘settlement’ and ‘colonisation’ are understood as entirely unrelated to colonialism. The two do not occupy the same analytical field, pioneering endeavours are located in ‘empty’ settings and the presence and persistence of indigenous ‘Others’ is comprehensively disavowed. In a second stage (until the late 1970s), ‘settler colonialism’ as a compound identifies one specific type of diehard colonialism, an ongoing and uncompromising form of hyper-colonialism characterised by enhanced aggressiveness and exploitation (a form that had by then been challenged by a number of anti-colonial insurgencies). During a third phase (from the late 1970s and throughout the first half of the 1980s), settler colonialism is identified by a capacity to bring into being high standards of living and economic development. As such, settler colonialism is understood as the opposite of colonialism and associated underdevelopment and political fragmentation. It is only at the conclusion of a number of successive interpretative moments that ‘settler colonial’ phenomena could be theorised as related to, and yet distinct from, colonial ones. On the basis of this transformations, beginning from approximately the mid-1990s, ‘settler colonial studies’ as an autonomous scholarly field could then consolidate.     

Late Devonian thelodonts (Agnatha) from the Gneudna Formation,Carnarvon Basin,Western Australia

Dermal denticles of two thelodont agnathans, Australolepis seddoni gen. et sp. nov., and a possible nikoliviid gen. et sp. indet. are described from the Gneudna Formation, a marine sequence of interbedded limestone and shale exposed on the eastern edge of the Carnarvon Basin, Western Australia. The age and significance of these new forms are discussed. The Gneudna Formation is Late Devonian, probably early Frasnian, which, if confirmed, makes these the youngest thelodonts known to date.     

Significance of diadematid echinoid ossicles in micropalaeontological samples,Miocene–Pliocene of Indonesia

Fragments of diadematoid echinoids from the early and middle Miocene, and late Miocene–Pliocene, respectively, of Java, Kalimantan and Sulawesi, Indonesia, are identified as diadematid spp. indet. (radioles from all sites) and Centrostephanus sp. (an interambulacral plate; early Miocene, Java). The radioles are probably a mixture of Diadema ± Centrostephanus ± Echinothrix. This is the first report of identifiable fossil diadematoid remains from Indonesia and demonstrates that these echinoids, so common in modern reef environments, were present in the Neogene of the region. Even though classified in open nomenclature, Centrostephanus sp. nevertheless provides further evidence for the Cenozoic record of a genus in which the only nominal species are of Late Cretaceous and Holocene age.