The Not So Peaceful Civilization: A Review of Maya War

The first Maya encountered by Europeans in the early sixteenth century were exceedingly warlike, but by the 1940s the earlier Classic Maya (AD 250–1000) were widely perceived as an inordinately peaceful civilization. Today, in sharp contrast, conflict is seen as integral to Maya society throughout its history. This paper defines war, reviews the evidence for it in the Maya archaeological record, and shows how and why our ideas have changed so profoundly. The main emphasis is on the Classic period, with patterns of ethnohistorically documented war serving as a baseline. Topics include the culture history of conflict, strategy and tactics, the scope and range of operations, war and the political economy, and the intense status rivalry war of the eighth and ninth centuries AD that contributed to the collapse of Classic civilization. Unresolved issues such as the motivations for war, its ritual vs. territorial aims, and sociopolitical effects are discussed at length.     

Maori Hapu as a Whole Way of Struggle: 1840s–50s Before the Land Wars

Research in Maori land history, burgeoning under the influence of the Waitangi Tribunal since the mid-1980s, promises a better understanding of the history of Maori kinship as well as New Zealand political economy. It has often been merely assumed, for instance, that contemporary hapu are a (or the) traditional form. I argue that Maori kinship and especially hapu or their equivalent need to be better understood in historical perspective. This essay examines some evidence and issues arising from the first few decades of colonisation before the land wars of the 1860s.     

Parliament,the Church of England and the Last Gasp of Political Protestantism, 1963–4

Political protestantism has been an enduring theme in parliamentary and ecclesiastical politics and has had considerable influence on modern Church and state relations. Since the mid 19th century, evangelicals have sought to apply external and internal pressure on parliament to maintain the ‘protestant identity’ of the national Church, and as late as 1928, the house of commons rejected anglican proposals for the revision of the prayer book. This article examines the attempts by evangelicals to prevent the passage through parliament of controversial measures relating to canon law revision in 1963–4. It assesses the interaction between Church and legislature, the influence of both evangelical lobbyists and MPs, and the terms in which issues relating to religion and national identity were debated in parliament. It shows that while evangelicals were able to stir up a surprising level of controversy over canon law revision – enough for the Conservative Party chief whip, Selwyn Lloyd, to attempt to persuade Archbishop Ramsey to delay introducing the vesture of ministers measure to parliament until after the 1964 general election – the influence of political protestantism, and thus a significant long‐term theme in British politics, had finally run its course.     

Editorial

Abstract

Solidarity has become a central concept in Christian ethics. Although solidarity or analogous concepts can be found in other Christian traditions, as well as other religious and philosophical systems of ethics, the Catholic social tradition has perhaps most fully developed a concept of solidarity over the last century. This article contends that solidarity as conceived in Catholic social teaching (CST) provides a robust and useful understanding of the social obligations of individuals, communities, institutions, and nations. As a general overview of the concept of solidarity in CST, the article elucidates its biblical, theological and experiential foundations, its historical antecedents, and the goals, methods and scope of solidarity. The article also describes contemporary applications of the Catholic ethic of solidarity, and theoretical and practical challenges to its realization.     

Reviews

S.M. IMAMUDDIN. Muslim Spain, 711–1492 A.D.: A Sociological Study. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1981. Pp. viii, 269. £36.80. Reviewed by Jill R. Webster

DANIEL R. HEADRICK. The Tools of Empire: Technology and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1981. Pp. 221, $14.95 (US). Reviewed by Barrie M. Ratcliffe

V.R. BERGHAHN. Militarism: The History of An International Debate 1861–1979. Leamington Spa: Berg Publishers, 1981. Pp. 132. $8.95. Reviewed by Martin Kitchen

HUYNH KIM KHANH. Vietnamese Communism, 1925–1945. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. Pp. 379. $25.00 (US). Reviewed by William J. Duiker

RALPH B. LEVERING. The Cold War, 1945–1972. Arlington Heights, Illinois: Harlan Davidson, Inc., 1982. Pp. 165, $6.95 (US). Reviewed by Wesley T. Wooley

R. DAN RICHARDSON. Comintern Army: The International Brigades and the Spanish Civil War. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1982. Pp. 232. $19.50 (US). Reviewed by Stanley G. Payne

KATHLEEN BURK (Editor). War and the State: The Transformation of British Government 1914–1919. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1982. Pp. 189. $29.50 (US). Reviewed by M.L. Dockrill

TONY SMITH. The Pattern of Imperialism: The United States, Great Britain and the Late-Industrialising World since 1815. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Pp. xi, 308. $34.50 (US). Paperback $10.95 (US). Reviewed by Barbie M. Ratcliffe

D. GEORGE BOYCE. Nationalism in Ireland. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982. Pp. 441. $32.50 (US). Reviewed by Don M. Cregier

ODED ERAN. The Mezhdunarodtniki: An Assessment of Professional Expertise in the Making of Soviet Foreign Policy. Ramat Gan, Israel: Turtledove Publishing, 1979. Pp. 331. £11.75. Reviewed by Teddy J. Uldricks

BINNAZ TOPRAK. Islam and Political Development in Turkey. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1981. Pp. viii, 164. $22.75 (US). Reviewed by Dimitri Kitsikis

ORVILLE T. MURPHY. Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes: French Diplomacy in the Age of Revolution, 1719–1787. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, pp. 607. $16.95 (US) paper. Reviewed by William Stinchcombe

HUNTER R. RAWLINGS III. The Structure of Thucydides' History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981. Pp. xiv, 278. $21.00 (US), MARC COGAN. The Human Thing: The Speeches and Principles of Thucydides' History. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1981. Pp. xvii, 309. $20.00 (US). Reviewed by Malcolm F. McGregor

H.E. MAUDE. Slavers in Paradise: The Peruvian Slave Trade in Polynesia, 1863–1864. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1981. Pp. xxii, 244. $22.50 (US). Reviewed by James A. Boutilier     

Medieval Britain in 1976

Abstract

The Hospital of St Mary Magdalen, Partney has seen the first major excavation of a minor rural hospital. Existing by c 1115, it was amongst the earliest hospitals founded in Britain after the Norman Conquest and is one of a class of about 60 sites that were run as cells of larger religious foundations. Excavations uncovered the hospital chapel and its burial ground, as well as timber buildings. Monks/priests and lay people, possibly from the monastic estate, may have been interred in separate locations with different burial rites. Of particular note was a burial in a locked coffin or chest. Partney had ceased to function as a hospital by 1318, when it formed an administrative cell of Bardney Abbey. It was abandoned and robbed in the mid-15th century when the area was given over to agriculture.