Book reviews

SYSTEM 37 VIGGEN: ARMS, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE DOMESTICATION OF GLORY. Ingemar Dörfer. Universitetsforlaget, Oslo, 1973. 258 pp. N.Kr.90 ($US18.00).

SIR JOHN MONASH. A. J. Smithers. Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1973. 0–207–12587–2. 303 pp. $7.95.

RADICAL POLITICAL ECONOMY: COLLECTED ESSAYS. E. L. Wheelwright. ANZ Books, Sydney, 1974. 0–85552–018–3. 414 pp. $5.95 paper.

JAPAN'S FOREIGN POLICY. F. C. Langdon, University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver, 1973. 321 pp. $US9.00 hardcover.

THE PATHET LAO: LEADERSHIP AND ORGANISATION. Joseph J. Zasloff. Lexington Books, Lexington, Massachusetts, 1973. 174 pp. $US10.00.

PERVASIVE POLITICS: A STUDY OF THE INDIAN DISTRICT. Donald F. Miller Melbourne Politics Monographs, Department of Political Science, University of Melbourne, 1972. 226 pp. $2.80, $1.80 (students), paper (postage: local 85c, overseas $1.05).

CHINA IN BURMA'S FOREIGN POLICY. Ralph Pettman. Australian National University Press, Contemporary China Papers No. 7, Canberra, 1973. 56 pp. $2.50 paper.

ZAMBIA. SECURITY AND CONFLICT. Jan Pettman. Julian Friedmann Publishers Ltd., Lewes, Sussex, 1974. 284 pp. £4.25.

THE DIPLOMACY OF CONSTRAINT: CANADA, THE KOREAN WAR AND THE UNITED STATES. Denis Stairs. University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1974. 371 pp. $C15.00 hard cover.

ALL TOGETHER NOW: THE ORGANIZATION OF THE DEPARTMENT OF NATIONAL DEFENCE IN CANADA, 1964–1972. Vernon J. Kronenberg. Canadian Institute of International Affairs, Toronto, 1973. 124 pp. $C2.50 paper.

WAR MACHINERY AND HIGH POLICY: DEFENCE ADMINISTRATION IN PEACETIME BRITAIN 1902–1914. Nicholas d'Ombrain. Oxford Historical Monographs, Oxford University Press, London, 1973. 302 pp. $13.15.

BRITAIN'S LEGACY OVERSEAS. Geoffrey Bolton. Oxford University Press, 1973. 168 pp. $2.10, paper.

GREAT POWER POLITICS AND NORWEGIAN FOREIGN POLICY: A STUDY OF NORWAY'S FOREIGN RELATIONS NOVEMBER 1940‐FEBRUARY 1948. Nils Morten Udgaard. Universitetsforlaget, Oslo, 1973.

EUROPE 1945 TO 1970. Charlotte Waterlow and Archibald Evans. Methuen, London, 1973. 423–87840–9. 316 pp. $11.60.     

A Shift in Values

Quantitative indicators of change for non-commodity resource management were examined, to assess whether the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service has been changing its on-the-ground management practices to give more emphasis to non-commodity resources. Specifically, data on recreation management and on wildlife and fish habitat management were analyzed to determine whether any shifts in the agency's management priorities had occurred. All data examined indicate that the Forest Service has been increasing its activities in non-commodity resource management over historic levels. When viewed in context with other recent studies suggesting that the Forest Service is moving away from traditional commodity production, the results of this study provide evidence that a significant shift has occurred, or presently is occurring, in Forest Service management practices.     

Blood,Mud and Futility? Patrick MacGill and the Experience of the Great War

Despite a growing body of detailed studies of key aspects of the Great War, there remains a dominant image of the war as a major tragedy in which the idealism of a generation of young men was exploited by their incompetent and callous elders and out of which there emerged a profound disillusionment and rejection of past values. Such an interpretation rests on the evidence of a small, and untypical, number of ‘soldier-writers’. By exploring the contemporaneous writings of a relatively unknown figure, Patrick MacGill, this article offers an alternative perspective that recognises both the well-known horrors of the Great War but also the persistence of certain ‘heroic’ values that have been misleadingly obscured by the well-known retrospective accounts of the war.

Résumé:?Malgré de nombreuses études détaillées sur la grande guerre, une image domine qui présente le conflit comme le tombeau des idéalismes et dont ne sortiraient que la désillusion et le rejet des valeurs du passé. Bien des éléments de cette interprétation dépendent des écrits de quelques auteurs atypiques. Une lecture de Patrick MacGill permet de voir en son contexte la persistance des valeurs héroïques de la grande guerre souvent minimisées par la suite.     

Navigating the Methodological Landscape in Spatial Analysis: A Comment on “A Route Map for Successful Applications of Geographically-Weighted Regression”

The development of “route maps” for spatial analytical methods is a pursuit with important ramifications. Comber et al. propose a route map to guide applications of geographically weighted regression consisting of a three-step primary pathway and a series of secondary arterials. This comment first highlights some concerns about the underlying “map” (i.e., experimental setup and assumptions) and then with the proposed “route” (i.e., core decisions and evaluation criteria). It closes by suggesting a more general focus on identifying modeling issues with the highest impact and facilitating consensus-building, which could improve the future production of route maps for navigating the methodological landscape in spatial analysis.     

Taking perspective of the stories we tell about transgender rights: The narrative policy framework

Our project uses the narrative policy framework (NPF) to explore narrative effects on attitudes about transgender rights. The framework focuses on the stories that are told about public policy. As opposed to conceptualizing communications as informational, NPF suggests that getting lost in the story is primary for attitude change. We also incorporate a perspective taking exercise to examine its effects on individual attitudes. Using an experiment on 1784 American adults, we found that individuals who received the inclusive transgender policy narrative by either watching or reading the narrative held views more supportive of transgender rights, with the effect greater for watching than reading. Those who experienced greater narrative transportation, being more lost in the story, reported more supportive attitudes. We further find that those with traits that lead them to become more imaginatively involved in stories occasionally are more greatly affected by watching policy narratives than those who are less imaginatively involved. However, perspective taking did not influence attitudes and weakened the treatment effects of the narratives. Our findings suggest stories can affect policy attitudes and beliefs, which may be conceptually distinct from traditional framing-based accounts and implies distinctive causal mechanisms that result in attitude change.     

Situating Political Agronomy: The Knowledge Politics of Hybrid Rice in India and Uganda

The emergence of ‘political agronomy’ — a research agenda that interrogates the knowledge politics through which agronomic debates are constructed, shaped and contested — has added a new and important tool for the analysis of agricultural research and policy making in development contexts. This article seeks to advance the scope of political agronomy by providing an enhanced framework to link the analysis of agronomic knowledge production to the study of new agricultural technologies in practice. Using case studies of hybrid rice promotion in southern India and western Uganda, the article illustrates the power relations and unanticipated outcomes that accompanied the translation of agronomic research into agrarian settings characterized by pronounced social polarization and marked environmental transformations. These case studies affirm how the starkly uneven outcomes of technological change refract back into the politics of agronomic research and extension as both researchers and policy makers react to the unintended impacts of previous interventions when designing future agendas.