A geography of residents' worry about the disruptive effects of contaminated sites

While the links between contaminated sites and adverse effects on human health and well‐being are being increasingly recognised, some argue that the magnitude of the health problem is inadequately addressed because it is largely invisible. Health geographies literature has sought to highlight this invisibility by focusing on the link between contaminated sites and health. This study adds to health geographies by presenting unique insights into the geography of residents' worry about the disruptive effect of environmental contamination on health and well‐being. It analyses a sample of residents (n = 485) living near 13 contaminated sites across Australia. Ordinal logistic regression analysis of closed‐format survey questions was combined with coding of open‐ended survey questions to reveal the geography of residents' worry about contamination from nearby sites. First, the study explores some of the main relationships between residents, their environs, and contaminants from nearby source sites, which determines their levels of worry: residents' demographics, residents' proximity to sites, contaminant boundaries and borders, and type of contaminant. Second, the study investigates how worry affects residents' health and well‐being, ranging from effects on their personal functioning through to their sense of ontological security, which depends in part upon their perceptions of contaminants' impacts. Despite having identified a range of diverse and negative effects of worry about contamination on residents, we found that worry for contamination can also prompt coping strategies and problem‐solving, reinforcing the need for more research on this subject.     

The Information Research Department,British Covert Propaganda,and the Sino-Indian War of 1962: Combating Communism and Courting Failure?

Britain's post-war interventions in former colonial territories remain a controversial area of contemporary history. In the case of India, recent releases of official records in the United Kingdom and South Asia have revealed details of British government anti-communist propaganda activity in the subcontinent during the Cold War period. This article focuses attention on covert or unattributable propaganda conducted in India by the Foreign Office's Information Research Department (IRD). It specifically examines the 1960s: a time between the outbreak of the Sino-Indian border war in 1962, and the Indian general election of 1967, when IRD operations peaked. The Indian government welcomed British support in an information war waged against Communist China, but cooperation between London and New Delhi quickly waned. Britain's propaganda initiative in India lacked strategic coherence, and cut across the grain of local resistance to anti-Soviet material. The British Government found itself running two separate propaganda campaigns in the subcontinent: one focused on Communist China, and declared to the Indian government; and a second, secret programme, targeting the Soviets. In this context, Whitehall found it difficult to implement an integrated and effective anti-communist propaganda offensive in India.     

Making a significant place: excavations at the Late Mesolithic site of Langley’s Lane,Midsomer Norton,Bath and North-East Somerset

Excavations at the site of Langley’s Lane, Bath and North-East Somerset, have revealed an important sequence of Late Mesolithic activity focused around an active tufa spring. The sequence of activity starts off as an aurochs kill and primary butchery site. Culturally appropriate depositional practices occur through the placement of a selection of bone in the wetland of the spring and the digging of pits around the spring margins. The spring at Langley’s Lane continued to be visited and more animal bone and lithic material was placed in the wetland. Finally, visits to the site involved yet more formalized activity in the form of pit digging and the creation of a stone surface. Activities such as these are difficult to locate in the archaeological record and Mesolithic ritual activity rare, making this a site of some significance to studies of Mesolithic NW Europe.     

THE HISTORIAN AS A PUBLIC MORALIST: ON THE ROMAN ORIGINS OF A SCHOLARLY PERSONA

In her recent book, Virtus Romana, Catalina Balmaceda provides a fascinating analysis of the concept of virtus in Roman historiography. Although virtus, which translates as courage or more generally as virtue, meant different things to different Roman historians, Balmaceda shows that disagreement was never about whether historians should provide readers with examples of virtue. Historians' differences of opinion focused rather on where such models were to be found and what they should look like. This review essay summarizes Balmaceda's main arguments, raises a question about historians' own virtus, and draws some implications from the book for the study of scholarly personae. Did the persona of the historian as a public moralist, such as is known from nineteenth‐century Europe, originate in ancient Rome?     

Retracted: The Rise,Success, and Dismantling of New Zealand's Anglican‐led Māori Education System, 1814–1864

The above article from Journal of Religious History, published online on 14 August 2019 in Wiley Online Library ( wileyonlinelibrary.com ), has been retracted by agreement between the authors, the journal Editors in Chief, Joanna Cruickshank and Kriston Rennie, and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. The retraction has been agreed following discovery of an administrative error resulting in extensive overlap between this article and previously published research.     

Where were the hearths: an experimental investigation of the archaeological signature of prehistoric fire technology in the alluvial gravels of the Southern Plains

The interpretation that a rock has been subjected to cultural utilization is a basic element of hunter-gatherer research. The fracture mechanics of the flaked stone tool production process are well understood and the material residues are routinely identified during fieldwork. Conversely, non-percussion processes such as hot-rock technology, which can result in rock fracture, are less well understood. An experimental study has been developed to examine the fractured gravels observed at a prehistoric site on the Southern Plains (USA). The experiment has sought to determine whether cultural or natural agencies were responsible for the production of the angularly fractured rocks. The positive results of the experiment indicate that not only were humans most likely responsible for the breakages, but also that the fractured rocks often exhibit distinctive morphologies that may be identified during fieldwork. This simple experimental methodology is applicable to other hunter-gatherer sites where the depositional environment is not conducive to the structural preservation of features such as hearths.     

The Politics of Party Leader Survival and Succession: Australia in Comparative Perspective

The processes of replacement of party leaders are well-published events in media outlets across the world's democracies, but are scarcely analysed by political scientists. In this article we examine the extent to which incumbent party leaders are able to control their own fate in the face of various types of challenges that herald a possible end to their rule. It discusses three related research questions derived from this main objective: (1) what makes incumbents quit? (2) How do incumbents respond to various types of triggers heralding a possible end to their rule? (3) To what extent does incumbent behaviour prior to and following succession affect the fortunes of their successors and their party? We draw on a four-country–eight-party data set of leadership successions between 1945 and 2005, and on findings of in-depth studies of Australian cases to show that not only do Australian leaders get challenged and replaced more frequently than do other leaders, but they are also forced to combat more internal rivalry than their counterparts elsewhere.