Book reviews

William M. Carpenter and David G. Wiencek (eds), Asian Security Handbook: An Assessment of Political‐Security Issues in the Asia‐Pacific Region. New York: M.E. Sharpe Inc., 1996. xv + 301 pp. $US68.95 (cloth), $US27.95 (paper).

David S. Mason, Revolution and Transition in East‐Central Europe. Second Edition. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996. xiv + 242 pp. $US52.00 (cloth), $US 14.95 (paper).

Desmond Ball (ed.), The Transformation of Security in the Asia/Pacific Region. London: Frank Cass, 1996. 244 pp. £30.00 (cloth), £15.00 (paper).

M. Jane Davis (ed.), Security Issues in the Post‐Cold War World. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 1996. ix + 248 pp. £45.00 (cloth).

Sam Bateman and Stephen Bates (eds), Calming the Waters: Initiatives for Asia Pacific Maritime Cooperation. Canberra: Canberra Papers on Strategy and Defence No. 114, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University, 1996. xxii + 207 pp. $23.00 (paper).

Sam Bateman and Stephen Bates (eds), The Seas Unite: Maritime Cooperation in the Asia‐Pacific Region. Canberra: Canberra Papers on Strategy and Defence No. 118, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University, 1996. xxx + 303 pp. $25.00 (paper).

Anthony Hyman, Political Change in Post‐Soviet Central Asia. London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1994. 52 pp. £9.50 (paper).

Steven Philip Kramer and Irene Kyriakopoulos, Trouble in Paradise? Europe in the 21st Century. Washington, DC: McNair Paper 49, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, 1996. v + 71 pp. No price given.

Yaw Saffu (ed.), The 1992 PNG Election—Change and Continuity in Electoral Politics. Canberra: Department of Political and Social Change Monograph No. 23, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, 1996. xii + 409 pp. $30.00 (paper).

Roger Bell, Tim McDonald and Alan Tidwell (eds), Negotiating the Pacific Century—The ‘New’ Asia, the United States and Australia. St. Leonards: Allen & Unwin in association with The Australian Centre for American Studies, 1996. xi + 324 pp. $29.95 (paper).

Anthony Milner and Mary Quilty (eds), Australia in Asia: Communities of Thought. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1996. xi + 212pp. $24.95 (paper).

Colin Mackerras (ed.), Australia and China: Partners in Asia. South Melbourne: Macmillan Education Australia, 1996. xi + 217 pp. $32.95 (paper).

Peter Maass, Love Thy Neighbour: A Story of War. Papermac, 1996. 305 pp. $24.95 (paper).

United Nations, The United Nations and The Advancement of Women 1945–1996. Blue Books Series, Volume VI, Revised Edition. New York: United Nations Department of Public Information, 1996. 852 pp. US$49.95 (paper).

Frank Elbe and Richard Kiessler, A Round Table With Sharp Corners, The Diplomatic Path to German Unity. Baden‐Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 1996. 256 pp. No price given.

Walter Hatch and Kozo Yamamura, Asia in Japan's Embrace: Building a Regional Production Alliance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. xv + 281 pp. $90.00 (cloth), $34.95 (paper).

Andrew Selth, Transforming the Tatmadaw: The Burmese Armed Forces Since 1988. Canberra: Canberra Papers on Strategy and Defence No. 113, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University, 1996. 205 pp. $23.00 (paper).

Terry Burstall, Vietnam: The Australian Dilemma. St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1993. xxv + 329 pp. $19.95 (paper).

Terry Nardin (ed.), The Ethics of War and Peace: Religious and Secular Perspectives. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996. x + 286 pp. $US35.00 (cloth).

Archie Law, A Hollow Success: The Repatriation and Reintegration of Cambodian Refugees. Melbourne: Issues in International Development No.7, Research and Policy Unit, World Vision Australia, 1995. 86 pp. No price given.     

Marked occupational dental abrasion from medieval Kent

A medieval male skeleton displays marked dental abrasion which is considered to be occupational, possible related to carpentry. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dynamic Stability and Design of C-Bent Columns

Symmetrically reinforced bridge columns with a horizontal cantilever in one direction, called C-bent columns, tend to deform predominantly in the direction of applied moment when subject to strong earthquake shaking. For this reason, the strength in the direction of applied moment is generally increased in design. This article describes the use of inelastic dynamic time history analyses with a suite of ground motion records to quantify the amount of strength increase required to minimize likely peak and permanent displacement demands. It is shown that the strength should be increased by approximately 2.3 times the applied moment in design.     

Folder 5, box 92

This short paper is concerned with a map of central Japan that the later University of Chicago Professor of Geography, Chauncy Harris, drew in September 1944, when he was assigned as an US Army Private to work at the headquarters of the Research and Analysis Branch, Office of Strategic Services. The map provided a functional classification of Central Japanese cities, highlighting those that specialized in manufacturing. It was precisely these set of cities that were targeted for firebombing by the US Airforce from March 1945.     

Trajectories of Culture in West Mexico

Explaining culture change requires a multi-dimensional approach, and so does explaining cultural continuity. I combine several approaches to explain why the account given of a Mexican town's history changed between 1879 and 1992. I also identify and explain what did not change during the period, as well as during the subsequent period of fieldwork itself, 1992–2005. Rather than treat cultural continuity as the result of inertia, I follow Urban ([2001], Metaculture: How Culture Moves Through the World, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN) in looking for what motivates the transmission of culture as well as what pathways it takes, although I prefer to stress human agency in writing of the trajectories along which people propel culture, in this case a town's history. One approach which I draw, for explaining the trajectories of culture, is Malinowski's seminal study of Trobriand myths (1926), but I combine it with the more recent approaches that link versions of history to the interests of social groups; highlight the density of ties between person, people and place; pay attention to the genre of narratives being transmitted, and to the skewing of culture towards central places; and finally, consider shifts not just in the figure of particular narratives but in the grounds that underlie them, such as the criterion of truth against which narratives are measured.     

Traditional and computed tomographic (CT) techniques link modern and Cenozoic fruits of Pleiogynium (Anacardiaceae) from Australia

Computed tomography (CT) and traditional techniques were used to study the internal morphology of modern fruits of Pleiogynium timoriense (DC.) Leenh., and phosphatized and silicified fruits that were considered to belong to the genus. The results demonstrate that phosphatized fruits from the Oligocene–Miocene Dunsinane site at Riversleigh and silicified fruits from the Oligocene Glencoe Site, which are both in Queensland, are referable to Pleiogynium. The Riversleigh material (Pleiogynium wannanii Rozefelds, Dettmann & Clifford sp. nov.) is very similar to extant P. timoriense (DC.) Leenh. Both possess locules that, in the vertical axial plane, are asymmetrically reniform and enclosed by a two-layered endocarp, the inner layer woody and resistant to decay, the outer of fibres and parenchyma, surrounded by a mesocarp of fibres and sclereids and a parenchymatous exocarp. The outer mesocarp is sculpted by meridionally arranged, elongate depressions (germination apertures) situated at the dorsal surface of each locule; erosion of the mesocarp and outer endocarp provides passage for emergence of the embryo’s radicle on germination. The silicified material from Glencoe (P. parvum Rozefelds, Dettmann & Clifford sp. nov.) is smaller in all its parts and has locules that are ovate in the vertical axial plane. Discrete, cap-like, opercula are not evident in the fruit wall of the fossil and extant fruits studied. The presence of Pleiogynium, and associated taxa, indicates the existence of rainforest communities at Glencoe, and mixed open forest/rainforest at Riversleigh during Oligocene–Miocene times. The multilocular, fossil fruit described as Pleiogynium mitchellii Collinson, Manchester and Wilde from the Eocene deposits at Messel Quarry, Germany, is not considered to belong in the genus, as evidence of elongate depressions on the dorsal surface of the fruit stones has not been demonstrated conclusively, and its internal morphology/anatomy differs significantly from that of Pleiogynium.