Defending Byzantine Spain: frontiers and diplomacy

The centrality of the Reconquista in the historiography of medieval Spain has meant that there has been little examination of the evidence for interaction on and across political boundaries in pre‐Islamic Spain. This article re‐examines existing theories about the defence of the Byzantine province of Spania that had been established by Justinian in the 550s and was taken by the Visigoths in 625. The two existing and opposing models for the extent, defence, and – therefore – the importance of the province to the empire do not explain the evidence convincingly. Rather, a fluid zone of interaction was established in which diplomacy and ‘propaganda’ was the primary means by which opposition was articulated.     

The Politics of Policy Circulation: Unpacking the Relationship Between South African and South American Cities in the Adoption of Bus Rapid Transit

This paper utilizes the introduction of bus rapid transit (BRT) in South Africa to unravel the role of South–South connections in local policymaking. While the South African systems are unmistakably modeled after Bogotá's Transmilenio, whose accomplishments have been touted as the low‐cost, high‐quality transport solution, the process through which other Southern cities influenced the circulation of BRT remains underexplored. In so doing, this paper asks how and why certain cities are brought into conversation with one another and what happens as a result? This analysis suggests that policy circulation is never a rational survey of best practices but a political process through which policymakers select their sites of learning in accordance with wider aspirations, ideologies and positioning. Illustrating the way in which policymakers deploy different meanings of the global South and their position within this construct to justify local policy decisions adds a critical dimension to understandings of policy mobilities.     

Natural degradation of earthworks,trenches, walls and moats,Northern Thailand

We here investigate the geometry, age, and history of several enigmatic northern Thailand earthwork entrenchments that are mostly located on hills and could not have held water to form moats. The earthworks are either oval or rectangular in plan view and typically encircle 0.3 to 1?sq km areas with no potsherd debris that would indicate former towns. Most trenches are 3–5?m deep with inner walls 4.5–8?m high. Some encircling earthworks are concentric double trenches spaced approximately 10?m apart. Historians have suggested these earthworks enclosed defensible areas where people in outlying villages sought refuge when under attack by neighboring rulers, the Chinese Ho, or the Burmese. We argue that some encircling entrenchments may have been for the capture or containment of elephants. Nearly all of the once near-vertical original walls have degraded to slopes of 32–47°. Fitting calculated curves of the diffusion-based scarp-degradation model to our height-slope data, and assuming most scarps have degraded since the end of La Na Kingdom time a.d. 1558, we derive a diffusion coefficient of 0.002?m² y^?1. Slopes of the rectangular earthwork at Souvannkhomkham, Laos, across the Mekong River from Chiang Saen Noi, are significantly more degraded (approximately 32°), indicating an age of 800–1200 years. Locations of these earthworks are established in hope that they will be preserved as part of the Thai and Lao archaeological legacy.     

Enlightenment,revolution and romanticism: the Genesis of modern German political thought, 1790–1800

A recent discovery of an exchange of letters between John Maynard Keynes and the Reverend Kenneth Rawlings from 1936 to 1944 shows the way in which Keynes assisted Rawlings in the establishment of permanent amateur theatre premises in the County Town of Lewes. The timing coincided with the onset of World War II, and additional letters from Rawlings to others including the town clerk, Lord Gage, Margeret Masterman and Major G. H. Powell-Edwards reveal the tensions between the ardent pacifist Rawlings and establishment figures as war approached. Steadied by Keynes and like-minded influential figures, Rawlings wins through triumphantly, the theatre effort viewed as an essential cultural asset during the dark war years. It is noted in the present article that Keynes could observe Rawlings enact what became an aim of the Council for the Encouragement of Music with the Arts, of which he became president soon after its conception in 1940—that of providing a theatre for every town in England.     

The Good Neighbors and Their Undefended Fence: US–Canadian Cross-Border Military Excursions Before the First World War

This article analyzes US–Canadian military relations in the nineteenth and early-twentieth century through the lens of frequent cross-border visits between the Canadian Militia and the US National Guard. Beginning in 1857 and continuing until the eve of the First World War, Canadian and American citizen soldiers visited back and forth between cities across the continent, taking part in celebrations of Queen Victoria's birthday and the Fourth of July. After 1898 these recreational visits became an annual event for several regiments on both sides of the border, interrupted only occasionally by the vagaries of Anglo-American diplomacy, periodic shortages of regimental funds, or the disapproval of higher authorities in Ottawa or Washington. Although US–Canadian military relations in this period are typically remembered as being non-existent, with the two North American nations scarcely communicating unless it was through British intermediaries, this article explores the very friendly relations that existed between the Canadian Militia and their counterparts in the US National Guard.     

Fantastic topographies: neo-liberal responses to Aboriginal land claims in British Columbia

This paper presents an analysis of the referendum on Native land claims that took place in British Columbia (BC) in the spring of 2002. The province's Liberal Government claimed that the referendum was needed in order to secure a public mandate for a set of negotiating principles that would breath new life into the supposedly stalled treaty process. Drawing evidence from government press releases, politicians' statements and media coverage, we argue that the BC Government and its supporters employed a discourse centred on neo-liberal economic logic in order to justify the exercise. Furthermore, we charge that this discourse relies on an erasure of the historical–geographical contexts of Native–newcomer relations in the province. By drawing on Cindi Katz's socio-spatial metaphor of 'topographies', we suggest that Native space in British Columbia needs to be understood as a series of situated and grounded experiences of colonialism and capitalist production. Then, extending the metaphor, we highlight the ways in which the referendum supporters' rhetoric contains a vision of future topographies of Native experience that adhere to the private property ethic of neo-liberal economics. We conclude that the politics surrounding the treaty process must be understood as a contest over the terms of Aboriginal citizenship and not merely as a conflict over the allotment of land and resources.     

Pastoralism and politics: reinterpreting contests for territory in Auckland Province, New Zealand, 1853–1864

As colonial frontiers expanded in the nineteenth century, contests over access to land suitable for farming between pastoralists, small farmers and indigenous populations were the inevitable result. In colonial Auckland, this contest was particularly vigorous, firstly because the young settlement's economic survival was at stake, since environmental constraints largely prevented its participation in the lucrative New Zealand wool industry, and secondly, because the economic and military prowess of indigenous Maori meant that settlers had little room to move in. Auckland's wealthy pastoralists pinned their hopes on the occupation of Maori land to the south of Auckland, since this was more suitable for sheep than the settlement's immediate environs, but this required dispossessing the Maori population by force. Initially, this obstacle gave small farmers a political advantage over the pastoralists, but as firstly arable markets, and then plans for small farmers and Maori to rear sheep themselves, all faltered, the pastoralist cause became increasingly difficult for colonial authorities to resist. When these authorities finally turned against the Maori communities south of Auckland, and launched an imperial war against them, the pastoralists successfully lobbied for the lands they most coveted to be confiscated from Maori, an event that radically altered New Zealand's future economic geography.     

X-ray microtomographic imaging of charcoal

We assess the potential of X-ray microtomography as a tool for the non-destructive, three-dimensional examination of the internal structure of charcoal. Microtomographic analysis of a series of charcoals produced by the experimental pyrolysis of pine wood at temperatures from 300 and 600 °C in nitrogen only and in nitrogen mixed with 2% oxygen indicates that, despite substantial shrinkage, observed porosity, pore size and pore connectivity are all increased by pyrolysis and also by chemical oxidation. Analysis of a number of altered and unaltered archaeological and geological charcoals has demonstrated the capacity of the technique to identify and map the distribution of authigenic mineral contamination within charcoal fragments. The results are of significance to radiocarbon dating in that they provide insights into the mechanisms by which charcoal can be contaminated by extraneous carbon in the natural environment.