Delmephialmas and Sircorcor: Gasparo Balbi, Dalmâ, Julfâr and a problem of transliteration

Gasparo Balbi, the state jeweller of the Venetian Republic, visited the eastern Arabian coast in c. 1580 and recorded many of the places in the modern United Arab Emirates for the first time, giving them the names by which we know them today, albeit in sixteenth-century Italian transliteration. While some places are readily recognizable, Balbi's terms Delmephialmas and Sircorcor present problems. It is suggested that Delmephialmas is the island of Dalmâ off the coast of Abu Dhabi but with an additional phrase as a suffix, giving a meaning approximating to Dalmâ, fî-hâ mâ' , i.e. 'Dalmâ, there is water there'. The absence of any reference to so major a port as Julfâr in modern Ra's al-Khaima by Balbi is remarkable. It is suggested that Balbi's term Sircorcor is an eliding of al-Sirr as a synonym for Julfâr combined in error with Khawr al-Khuwayr to the north of Julfâr.     

Book reviews

CHINA

PAUL A. COHEN. History in Three Keys: the Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. xviii, 428 pp. £27.95, paper.

DAVID S. G. GOODMAN (ed). China's Provinces in Reform. London and New York: Routledge, 1997. 278 pp. US$85.00, £50.00, hardcover; US$25.99, £15.99, paper.

HUANG JIANLI. The Politics of Depoliticization in Republican China: Guomindang Policy towards Student Political Activism, 1927–1949. Berne: Peter Lang AG, 1996. US$52.95, £34.00, hardcover.

PAUL R. KATZ. Demon Hordes and Burning Boats: the Cult of Marshal Wen in Late Imperial Chekiang. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995. xviii, 261 pp. Index. US$19.95, paper.

JAPAN, KOREA

EYAL BEN‐ARI. Body Projects in Japanese Childcare—culture, Organization and Emotions in a Preschool. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 1997. 166 pp. £40.00, hardcover.

JENNIFER DUFFY and GARY ANSON, eds. Encounters with Japan: twenty Extraordinary Stories. Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1994. 159 pp. A$14.95.

KEN'ICHI GOTO. ’Returning to Asia’: Japan‐Indonesia Relations, 1930s‐1940s. Tokyo: Ryukei Shyosha, 1997. xxvi, 496 pp. Index. ¥12,000, hardcover.

AMY VLADECK HEINRICH (ed). Currents in Japanese Culture: translations and Transformations. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. 493 pp. Preface, brief biographies of contributors, index. US$52.00, hardcover.

STEWART LONE. Japan's First Modern War: army and Society in the Conflict with China, 1894–95. Studies in Military and Strategic History. Houndmills and London: Macmillan/St. Martin's Press, in Association with King's College, London, 1994. xii, 222 pp. £40.00, hardcover.

COLIN McKENZIE and MICHAEL STUTCHBURY (eds). Japanese Financial Markets and the Role of the Yen. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1992. 176 pp. Tables, abbreviations, glossary, preface, list of contributors, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. A$39.95 hardcover; A$24.95, paper.

SOUTH ASIA

KATE BRITTLEBANK. Tipu Sultan's Search for Legitimacy: Islam and Kingship in a Hindu Domain. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997. 184 pp. Illustrations, introduction, notes, bibliography, index. Rs. 450, hardcover.

SOUTHEAST ASIA

BENG‐HUAT CHUA. Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore. London: Routledge, 1997 (revised edition), xiv, 213 pp. Preface, preface to paperback edition, references, index. £45.00, hardcover; £14.99, paper.

STEVEN HEDER and JUDY LEDGERWOOD (eds). Propaganda, Politics and Violence in Cambodia: democratic Transition under United Nations Peace‐Keeping. New York and London: M.E. Sharpe, 1996. xx, 277 pp. US$71.95, hardcover; US$29.95, paper.

ROBERT LOWRY. The Armed Forces of Indonesia. St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1997. xxiv, 282 pp. Tables, maps, graphs, index. A$29.95, paper.

GENERAL ASIA

CHRISTINE DOBBIN. Asian Entrepreneurial Minorities: conjoint Communities in the Making of the World Economy, 1570–1940. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 1996. 246 pp. Glossary, selected bibliography, index. £45.00, hardcover; £16.99, paper.     

Re-Inventing Mississippian Tradition at Etowah,Georgia

Frequent population movement and political re-organization spurred a pattern of repeated abandonment at the Mississippian mound center of Etowah in the southeastern United States. These processes also characterized the larger surrounding region in north Georgia and southeast Tennessee. The Etowah abandonments provided inflection points where interest groups were able to distance themselves from previous conventions of structure and reformulate new forms of sociopolitical organization. Re-invented traditions were embedded in changing definitions of genealogical and mythical time, and mediated through the built environment and iconography.     

Rooflessness in London

Rooflessness in London emerged as a media issue and political problem during the 1980s. While "rough sleeping" undoubtedly increased, numbers are hard to quantify because studies are unreliable, use different categories, and people seamlessly drift from one category to another. This article analyzes the causes of rooflessness in London, focusing on central government policy change at a time when London, atypically among major cities, had no overarching metropolitan government. The creation of multiple quasi-governmental agencies and charities whose responsibilities for homelessness overlap does not help coordination. Many short-term initiatives have been attempted, but solving rooflessness may require more radical changes if endemic homelessness is not to be the condition of the post-welfare state.