Associate editor's editorial

EUROPE

The Political Evolution of the Hungarian Nation. By the Hon. C. M. Knatch‐bull‐Hugessen. 2 vols. London : The National Review Office 1908. Price 15s. net.

The Castles and Keeps of Scotland. By Frank Roy Fraprie. London : George Bell and Sons, 1908. Price 7s. 6d. net.

Along the Rivieras of France and Italy. Written and Illustrated by Gordon Home. London : J. M. Dent and Co. New York : The Macmillan Company, 1908. Price 7s. 6d. net.

ASIA.

From, Damascus to Palmyra. By John Kelman, M.A., D.D. Painted by Margaret Thomas. London : Adam and Charles Black, 1908. Price 20s. net

In Japan: Pilgrimages to the Shrines of Art. By Gaston Migeon. Translated from the French by Florence Simmonds. London: William Heinemann, 1908. Price 6s. net.

A Wandering Student in the Far East. By The Earl of Ronaldshay, M.P. 2 vols. Edinburgh : William Blackwood and Sons, 1908. Price 21s. net.

AFRICA

Tunis, Kairouan, Carthage. By Graham Petrie, R.I. London : W. Heinemann, 1008. Price 16s. net.

The Exploration of Egypt and the Old Testament. By J. Gakrow Duncan, B.D. London : Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier, 1908. Price 5s. net.

AMERICA

The Inner Life of the United States. By Monsignor Count Vay Dk Vaya and Luskod, Apostolic Protonotary. London : John Murray, 1908. Price 12s. net.

Camp Fires on Desert and Lava. By William T. Hornaday. London : T. Werner Laurie, 1908. Price 16s. net.

AUSTRALASIA

The Fijians: A Study of the Decay of Custom. By Basil Thomson. London : William Heinemann, 1908. Price 10s. net.

POLAR

Scottish, National Antarctic Expedition: Report on the Scientific Results of the Voyage of S.Y. “Scotia.” Vol. iv. Zoology. Part I. Zoological Log. By David W. Wilton, J. H. Harvey Pirie, B.Sc, M.D., and R. N. Rudmose Brown, B.Sc. Thirty‐three Plates and two Maps. Edinburgh : The Scottish Oceanographical Laboratory, 1908. Price 13s.

Zoology. Vol. v. Parts I. to XIII. With Thirty‐six Plates. 1909. Price 23s. 6d.

GENERAL

Practical Geography. Part I. By J. F. Unstead. M.A. Oxford : Clarendon Press. 1908. Price 1s. 6d.

Nautical Charts. By G. R. Putnam, M.S. New York: John Wiley and Sons. London : Chapman and Hall, 1908. Price 8s. 6d. net.     

Spreading the benefits of heritage visitor quarters

Heritage has come to play a very significant, though largely unrecognised, role in the evolution of urban design. Central city heritage quarters are a major response to the development of the urban fringes, and have developed an internationally recognisable form. This paper examines the characteristics and assets of such quarters and also considers their impact on the urban populace, and their implications for future urban design work in the intermediate zone.     

From icons to institutions: Heritage conservation in Sydney

Over the course of the twentieth century, the Identification of heritage values in the urban environment has undergone a slow but in recent years quite dramatic shift from an elite emphasis on individual landmarks to a more inclusive appreciation also characterised by bureaucratisation, institutionalisation and commodification. Heritage is no longer an ‘add on’ to the planning system, although management, financial and philosophical problems remain. This paper traces the evolution of urban heritage consciousness and policy in Australia from the late colonial period to the postmodern era, focussing on Sydney.     

The conservation and management of historic urban space

In practice, the care of historic urban space is dominated by planning professionals whose bias is towards the broad remit of the conservation of the built heritage; it remains the exception for other professions to take an active role in the protection of spatial elements of the historic townscape. Neither do these areas enjoy the same degree of statutory protection as their built counterpart, even though they may have played an equally important role in the evolution of our towns and are an integral part of the urban form. This study is the first stage of the author's on‐going research into the value of historic space within the modern urban environment and the level of protection afforded it by the planning system. The results of this pilot study are used to suggest a professional and statutory framework, based upon inter‐disciplinary co‐operation, from which the full value of townscapes may be safeguarded in the future.     

水乡寻镇 江南织梦——《清代江南市镇与农村关系的空间透视》述评

本述评围绕吴滔新著《清代江南市镇与农村关系的空间透视》的主要思路和问题脉络,尝试对江南市镇研究及区域历史地理研究提出若干探索方向。评述者讲述其与吴滔近十年在江南共同开展实地调查的真实经历,从而阐释书中有关水乡聚落环境、市镇型塑机制、市镇空间生产等重要分析框架的缘起和旨趣,进而提出尚待商榷和推进的若干课题。     

肯尼迪政府的"限蒋出笼"政策(1961～1963)

20世纪60年代肯尼迪上台后,一改此前美国的"放蒋出笼"政策,反对蒋介石的"反攻大陆"要求.肯尼迪政府阻拦蒋介石"反攻大陆"是因应当时美国对华政策的需要,国际局势的发展已使美国政府认识到,新中国政权是稳固的,无法以外力推翻.在策划"限蒋出笼"政策的过程中,肯尼迪政府就如何应付蒋介石的对策问题曾进行过激烈的辩论,从最初的模糊政策到最后向蒋介石摊牌,政策的出台经历了一个复杂的决策过程.     

Decentralised Institutions and Electoral Authoritarianism: The Case of Town Councils in Singapore

Singapore’s electoral autocracy is well known for its innovative use of political institutions such as Parliament and elections to enhance its durability, but relatively little attention has been paid to decentralised subnational institutions such as Town Councils, which require elected Members of Parliament to manage public housing estates in their constituencies. This paper focuses on Town Councils by examining the motives behind their formation and exploring how they serve as institutions to support authoritarianism. Based on analysis of a range of primary and secondary sources such as parliamentary Hansard, government documents and newspaper articles, this paper argues that the formation of Town Councils was politically motivated and specifically designed to thwart opposition growth. It also argues that Town Councils support authoritarianism in three ways. First, they create extra hurdles and disadvantages for the opposition. Second, they give the ruling party an additional election issue on which to attack the weaknesses of the opposition and allow it to shift the focus of elections in its favour. Lastly, they facilitate more effective and targeted material distribution and create more opportunities for elite co-optation. The implications of the study for Singapore politics and the role of decentralisation in electoral autocracies are discussed.     

From ethnographic knowledge to anthropological intelligence: An anthropologist in the office of strategic services in Second World War Africa

This article explores the overlapping modalities and practical purposes of anthropological ethnographic knowledge and political–military intelligence gathering – the commonalities as well as the boundaries between them – through an analysis of the career of the anthropologist Jack Sargent Harris (1912–2008), a secret operative for the United States’ Office of Strategic Services during the Second World War in Nigeria and South Africa. Calling upon archival and oral historical sources, the article relates Harris’s training in Boasian cultural anthropology and as a professional ethnographer of African societies and cultures to the ways he recruited informants, conducted surveillance, related to foreign Allied officials, utilized documentary evidence, and worked to establish authority and credibility in his wartime intelligence reporting. The article argues that political purpose is a central artefact of anthropological ethnography as it is in other ethnographic modalities even if the justifications for these endeavours remain distinct.     

Embodying vertical geopolitics: Towards a political geography of falling

The emergence of air power in the 20th Century marked a new era of warfare. Speed, covertness, mobility, and verticality emerged as the buzzwords. This paper examines experimental body-centred encounters with verticality during preparatory parachute training at Ringway Aerodrome 1940–1945. I trace how falling bodies encountered, were organised in, and harnessed space for air-led warfare and, by extension, how vertically moving bodies perform alternative geopolitical realities. First, the paper outlines a political geography of falling and calls for greater critical conceptual thinking on the micro-practices capable of exerting geopolitical influence. Second, I outline three design principles cultivated through military parachuting. Repetition, relationality, and alignment advance theorisations of the organisation of aerial space, and affirm the entangled geographies of embodiment, verticality, and geopolitics. I draw upon the Royal Air Force's practical airborne training programme as a means for enacting ‘high readiness, forced entry’ operations through the amalgamation of man, technological-non-human, and air. The paper argues for the achievement of air power and the performance of aerial supremacy through gravity and falling. This has important implications for unpacking the corporeal mobilities and training practices by which geopolitical realities are known, embodied, made, and articulated, and of the role of elite performances of aerial mobility in disrupting inter/national aerial sovereignty.     

The Nixon and Ford Administrations and the Future of Post-Franco Spain (1970–6)

What was the value of Spain to the United States in the last years of the dictatorship of Francisco Franco? Unlike the Western European states, Washington had specific military interests in Spanish territory: military bases that were part of NATO's defensive strategy even though Spain was not a member of the Alliance. Since 1953, the Francoist system had been the guarantor of the political stability essential for the proper use of the bases. With the dictator's death approaching, maintaining stability in post-Franco Spain was the main concern of the US government. The maintenance of the bases as well as the Spanish policy of the European NATO members who, for the US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, were capable of ‘making shoddy decisions of heroism so long as they don't have to pay for them’, would be essential to keep Spain stable.