A Platform for Art: Infrastructural Citizenship Beyond Monumentality in Toronto’s Transit Art

The flourishing of transit art globally reflects a widespread belief in the power of aesthetic practices to promote infrastructural and civic revitalisation. This article analyses how transit art engages spaces and practices of publicness and how art explores ideas of mobility in Toronto. It argues that while arts are frequently deployed to reproduce status quo relations of power and to bolster elite and exclusionary forms of urbanisation, they can also work to challenge these. Through the notion of infrastructural citizenship, I show how arts can unsettle grounds of public space and public life and illuminate the contentious relations that cohere in public transit space. Overall, I claim that transit networks are a key platform through which the politics of public art are staged and that despite existing constraints, there are many affordances for transit art to critically intervene into neoliberal urban processes.     

Women With AIDS: Will It Change aids Service Organizations?

In the early 1980s, gay men formed AIDS service organizations (ASOs) in areas hardest hit by the disease, such as San Francisco and New York City, to provide assistance to infected members of their own communities. The Ryan White CARE Act of 1990 made funds available for community-based groups, such as ASOs, to provide support services to all people with HIV/AIDS. The epidemiology of AIDS has changed greatly in recent years, and increasing numbers of poor, minority women with children now contract HIV/AIDS. To determine if ASOs are in compliance with the CARE Act, this study surveyed 20 ASOs across the country and a number of their female clients to see if ASOs, some of which were started by gay men, have tailored their services for a growing minority, heterosexual population. The results indicate that a number of ASOs have been slow in responding to the diverse needs of women. Recommendations are offered to make the organizations more responsive.     

Book Reviews

ROBERT E. CONRAD. Children of God's Fire: A Documentary History of Black Slavery in Brazil. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984. Pp. xxvi, 515. $50.00 cloth; $16.50 paper (US). Reviewed by A.J.R. Russell-Wood

STEPHEN KERN. The Culture of Time and Space: 1880–1918. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983. Pp. 372. $25.00 (US). Reviewed by Frank M. Turner

ESCOTT REID. On Duty: A Canadian at the Making of the United Nations, 1945–1946. Toronto: McClelland &; Stewart, 1983. Pp. xxii, 181. $16.95 (Can.). Reviewed by Robert Bothwell

LESTER LANOLEY. The Banana Wars: An Inner History of American Empire, 1900–1934. Lexington: The University of Kentucky Press, 1983. Pp. vii-viii, 255. $26.00 (US). Reviewed by Richard D. Challener

RICHARD BOSWORTH. Italy and the Approach of the First World War. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983. Pp. 174. $22.50 (US). Reviewed by Samuel R. Williamson, Jr.

ROBERT MIRAK. Torn Between Two Lands: Armenians in America, 1890 to World War I. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983. Pp. xiv, 384. $25.00 (US). Reviewed by George B. Kooshian, Jr.

LEE FEIGON. Chen Duxiu: Founder of the Chinese Communist Party. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983. Pp. 297. $25.00 (US). Reviewed by William Saywell

GHARLES CRUICKSHANK. SOE in the Far East. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984. Pp. 285. $25.00 (US). Reviewed by David Stafford

F.H. HINSLEY et al. British Intelligence in the Second World War: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations. Volume III, Part 1. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Pp. xvi, 690. $39.50 (US). Reviewed by Patrick Beesly

RICHARD HOUGH. The Great War at Sea, 1914–1918. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1983. Pp. xviii, 353. $25.00 (US). Reviewed by Jon Tetsuro Sumida

HERMIA OLIVER. The International Anarchist Movement in Late Victorian London. New York: St Martin's Press, 1983. Pp. 176. $25.00 (US). Reviewed by Haia Shpayer-Makov

STEWART A. STEHLIN. Weimar and the Vatican 1919–1933: German-Vatican Diplomatic Relations in the Interwar Years. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984. Pp. 490. $50.00 (US). Reviewed by John S. Conway

GEORGE F.G. STANLEY. The War of 1812: Land Operations. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, in collaboration with the Canadian War Museum, National Museum of Man, National Museums of Canada, 1983. Pp. 489. $24.95 (Can.); J.C.A. STAGG, Mr. Madison's War: Politics, Diplomacy, and Warfare in the Early American Republic, 1783–1830. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983. Pp. 538. $49.00 (US). Reviewed by William Stinchcombe

JACOB TOURY. Die Jüdische Presse im Österreichischen Kaiserreich: Ein Beitrag zur Problematik der Akkulturation 1802–1918. New York: Leo Baeck Institute, 1983. Pp. 171. Reviewed by George O. Kent

GOTTFRIED NIEDHART, ed. Der Westen und die Sowjetunion: Einstellungen und Politik gegenüber der UdSSR in Euro pa und in den USA seit 1917. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1983. Pp. 372. DM 48. Reviewed by Gerhard L. Weinberg

DANIEL H. THOMAS. The Guarantee of Belgian Independence and Integrity in European Diplomacy, 1830's–1930's. Kingston, Rhode Island: D.H. Thomas Publishing, 1983. Pp. xv, 789. Reviewed by D. Stevenson

FRED v. CARSTENSEN. American Enterprise in Foreign Markets: Singer and International Harvester in Imperial Russia. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1984. Pp. vii, 289. $39.95 (US). Reviewed by John P. Mckay

JULIANNA PUSKAS. From Hungary to the United States, 1880–1914. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1982; distributed in North America by Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1983. Pp. 225. $24.25 (US). Reviewed by Janos M. Bak

ROGER CHICKERING. We Men Who Feel Most German: A Cultural Study of the Pan-German League 1886–1044. Boston: George Allen &; Unwin, 1983. Pp. 365. $29.95 (US). Reviewed by George L. Mosse

PETER KRTCDTE. Peasants, Landlords and Merchant Capitalists: Europe and the World Economy, 1500–1800, translated by V.R. Berghahn. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Pp. 191. $39.95 (US). Reviewed by Phyllis Deane

JAMES WILLIAM MORLEY, ed. The China Quagmire: Japan's Expansion on the Asian Continent 1933–1941. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983. Reviewed by Samuel C. Chu

ERIC HOBSBAWM, TERENCE RANGER, eds. The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Pp. 320. $29.95 (US). Reviewed by Peter Stansky

AVI SHLAIM. The United States and the Berlin Blockade, 1948–1949: A Study in Crisis Decision-Making. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983. Pp. xiii, 463. $38.00 (US). Reviewed by Robert A. Divine

JAMES CRACRAFT, ed. The Soviet Union Today: An Interpretative Guide. Chicago: The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 1983. Pp. ix, 348. $9.95 (US). Reviewed by Lawrence W. Lerner

M.J. TREBILCOCK, J.R.S. PRICHABD, T.J. COURCHENE, J. WHALLEY, eds. Federalism and the Canadian Economic Union. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1983. $25.00 (Can.). Reviewed by Eric Kierans

PHILIP S. KHOURY. Urban Notables and Arab Nationalism: The Politics of Damascus, 1860–1920. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Pp. xi, 153. $34.50 (US). Reviewed by James Jankowski

PAUL MOSLEY. The Settler Economies: Studies in the Economic History of Kenya and Southern Rhodesia, 1900–1963. Cambridge and New York: Gambridge University Press, 1983. Pp. 289. $49.50 (US). Reviewed by Robert O. Collins     

Women in Suburbia

This research investigates the influence of a suburban lifestyle upon the attitudes of women. Specifically, a sample of suburban women are interviewed and information is ascertained concerning their attitudes toward commercial and social isolation in suburbia. Additionally, demographic data are acquired from the sample in order to describe the sample and compare it to the suburban female population that has previously been researched.     

CT and micro‐CT analysis of a case of Paget's disease (osteitis deformans) in the Grant skeletal collection

This paper presents a case study in which Paget's disease of bone is differentially diagnosed in an individual from the Grant skeletal collection using non‐destructive computed tomography (CT) and micro‐computed tomography (micro‐CT) analyses of the pubis, in addition to plain film radiography and macroscopic examination. In archaeological and modern osteological samples diagnosis frequently relies on macroscopic examination, plain film radiography and histological examination of bone samples. CT and micro‐CT modalities provide researchers with a non‐destructive view of the internal structure of bone unhampered by the superimposition that is characteristic of plain film radiographs. Given the importance of the increased cortical and trabecular thickness in the differential diagnosis of Paget's disease, these techniques are ideal means by which to non‐destructively examine culturally‐sensitive and scientifically‐valuable human remains for signs of Paget's disease of bone. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fuelling Social Inclusion? Neo‐extractivism,State–Society Relations and Biofuel Policies in Latin America's Southern Cone

Scholarship on neo‐extractivism agrees that this ‘post‐neoliberal’ model of development is founded on an inherent contradiction between the commitment to continue natural resource extraction and the need to legitimize these activities by using their revenues for poverty reduction. Using the cases of the national biofuel policies of the ‘post‐neoliberal’ governments of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, this article enquires why and how these policies emerged, how they were implemented, and how the resulting national experiences exemplify the inherent contradictions embedded in neo‐extractivist policies. Adopting a strategic‐relational approach to analyse state–society interaction, it is argued that the scope of progressive policies is conditioned to a large extent by pre‐existing social structures, institutions and state–society interactions. The article shows how progressive reforms intersect with the prevailing interests of agribusiness and state actors and are recast and used for different ends as these interact with powerful actors such as the multinational soybean complex and agrarian movements. It is suggested that the prevailing over‐emphasis in the neo‐extractivist literature on the politics of domination and contestation overlooks the multiple and complex rural responses of the different progressive governments. It also obscures the possibilities to explore the ruptures and continuities of these countries’ governments with previous models, and therefore fails to recognize state advances.     

CAN WE GET OLD HERE? SENIORS' PERCEPTIONS OF SEASONAL CONSTRAINTS OF NEIGHBOURHOOD BUILT ENVIRONMENTS IN A NORTHERN,WINTER CITY

Populations around the world are ageing. In response, the World Health Organization (WHO) has developed initiatives to encourage cities and regions to become age‐friendly for seniors. This work examines WHO's age‐friendly domains in the context of a northern, winter city in Canada. The urban centre of Edmonton, Alberta experiences both a climate characterized by long, cold winters and a sprawling, built environment with very low population densities. The research found that seniors did report a difference in built environment preferences in summer and winter and that some of those preferences match the elements of the eight WHO domains. However two additional important findings also emerged. First, winter weather was the dominating concept for discussion of the environment regardless of the time of year, and these weather concerns conflated seniors' perceptions of public–private spaces, pointing to the need to carefully examine how this conflation might influence civic participation. Second, participants almost unanimously spoke to the need to make individual adaptations in order to navigate their environments as their mobility decreased. In other words, instead of expecting environmental adaptations to meet their changing needs, seniors accepted and individually managed – to the best of their ability – the ongoing challenges. These findings provide empirical results that can be used to develop supportive built environments in winter cities, with an emphasis on ‘upstream’ health geography and public health imperatives that enable safe and vibrant neighbourhoods to support healthy aging, which has implications for geographers, planners, and public health personnel.