The Energy Dilemma of Belarus: The Nuclear Power Option

A specialist on Belarusian politics and society as well as on the impacts of the Chernobyl' nuclear power station accident on that country examines the factors shaping the current debate regarding construction of a nuclear power station in the eastern oblast of Mahileu (Mogilev). In particular, he analyzes the role played by a significant rise in the price of imported oil and gas from Russia, as well as increasingly strained political relations between the two countries. The paper outlines the discussions within the country on energy and economic issues, the new relationship with Russia, and the new power station, and offers a preliminary assessment of the feasibility of the nuclear power option. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: H54, O18, Q40. 1 figure, 25 references.     

Contesting Marshall Sahlins on Kinship

In a recent two‐part article on the nature of kinship, Marshall Sahlins maintains that performative criteria for kin‐reckoning are at least as salient as procreative ones, and that, at conception, an individual is endowed with a wide circle of kin, including the ancestral dead. For both reasons, he argues, there is no warrant for granting privileged status to what anthropologists have called ‘primary’ kinship. The contentions here are that performative criteria are modeled upon procreative ones; that ties to ancestral figures are seen as antithetical to procreative ties; and that, therefore, all kinship constructs are derived from nuclear family relationships. Evidence in support of these contentions is provided from the Mae Enga, Fiji, the Trobriands, and Aboriginal Australia.     

Review of Books

GORDON MAXWELL. A Battle Lost: Romans and Caledonians at Mons Graupius. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press; dist., New York: Columbia University Press, 1990. Pp. viii, 138. $15.50 (us), paper. Reviewed by A.R. Birley

ANDRÉ WINK. Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World: Volume I: Early Medieval India and the Expansion of Islam 7th–11th Centuries. Leiden: EJ. Brill, 1990. Pp. viii, 396. $82.50 (us). Reviewed by D.N. MacLean

PETER EDBURY. The Kingdom of Cyprus and the Crusades, 1191–1374. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. xvii, 241. $44.50 (us). Reviewed by James A. Brundage

THEO HOLZAPFEL. Papst Innozenz III., Philipp II. August König von Frankreich und die englisch-welfische Verbindung 1198–1216. New York: Peter Lang, 1991. Pp. 334. $68.00 (us). Reviewed by H.E J. Cowdrey

DIRK H.A. KOLFF. Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy: The Ethnohistory of the Military Labour Market in Hindustan, 1450–1850. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Pp. xv, 217. $49.50 (us). Reviewed by Richard B. Barnett

KIRKPATRICK SALE. The Conquest of Paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1990. Pp. 451. £17.95; Reviewed by G.V. Scammell

DAVID HENIGE. In Search of Columbus: The Sources for the First Voyage. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1991. Pp. xiii, 359. $24.95 (us). Reviewed by G.V. Scammell

DANIEL GOFFMAN. Izmir and the Levantine World, 1550–1650. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1990. Pp. xv, 236. $25.00 (us). Reviewed by Salih ÖZbaran

ALBERT HOURANI. Islam in European Thought. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. xi, 199. $34.50 (us). Reviewed by Michael Curtis.

HEDLEY BULL, BENEDICT KINGSBURY, and ADAM ROBERTS, eds. Hugo Grotius and International Relations. New York: The Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 1990. Pp. xi, 331. $96.50 (CDN). Reviewed by Cornelius F. Murphy, Jr.

MICHAEL ROBERTS. From Oxenstierna to Charles XII: Four Studies. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. ix, 202. $49.50 (us). Reviewed by David Kirby

JACK VERNEY. The Good Regiment: The Carignan-Salières Regiment in Canada 1665–1668. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1991. Pp. ix, 222. $34-95 (CDN). Reviewed by Jay Cassel.

SERGEI SOLOVIEV. History of Russia: Volume XLVIII: The Rule of Catherine the Great: War, Diplomacy and Domestic Affairs, 1771–1774, ed. and trans. George E. Munro. Gulf Breeze, Fla.: Academic International Press, 1991. Pp. xix, 339. $33.00 (us). Reviewed by John T. Alexander.

W.J. WOOD. Battles of the Revolutionary War: 1775–1781. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1990. Pp. xxxii, 315. $24.95 (us). Reviewed by Paul David Nelson.

ECKHART HELLMUTH, ed. The Transformation of Political Culture: England and Germany in the Late Eighteenth Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Pp. ix, 597. $132.00 (CDN). Reviewed by Daniel Moran.

ROBERT D. BILLINGER, JR. Metternich and the German Question: States' Rights and Federal Duties, 1820–1834. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1991. Pp. 230. $35.00 (us). Reviewed by Lawrence J. Flockerzie.

RICHARD J.B. BOSWORTH and SERGIO ROMANO, eds. La politica estera italiana, 1860–1985. Bologna: II Mulino, 1991. Pp. 360. L. 38,000. Reviewed by Alan Cassels.

WILLIAM CARR. The Origins of the Wars of German Unification. London and New York: Longman, 1991. Pp. xiv, 239. £8.99, paper. Reviewed by Ulrich Trumpener.

ALLAN MITCHELL. The Divided Path: The German Influence on Social Reform in France after 1870. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1991. Pp. xx, 410. $45.00 (us). Reviewed by Patricia E. Prestwich.

ULRICH HERBERT. A History of Foreign Labor in Germany, 1880–l980: Seasonal Workers/Forced Laborers/Guest Workers, trans. William Templer. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990. Pp. xvi, 310. $48.95 (us). Reviewed by Robert G. Moeller.

MICHAEL FRöHLICH. Von Konfiontation zur Koexistenz: Die deutsch-englischen Kolonialbeziehungen in Afrika zwischen 1884 und 1914. Bochum: Universitätsverlag Dr N. Brockmeyer, 1990. Pp. 371. DM 54,80. Reviewed by Woodruff D. Smith.

RHODRI WILLIAMS. Defending the Empire: The Conservative Party and British Defence Policy 1899–1915. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1991. Pp. x, 306. $35.00 (us). Reviewed by Keith Neilson

FRANK FIELD. British and French Writers of the First World War: Comparative Studies in Cultural History. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. xii, 280. $39.50 (us). Reviewed by Paul Delany.

ANATOLE C. J. BOGACKI. A Polish Paradox: International and the National Interest in Polish Communist Foreign Policy 1918–1948. Boulder, Col.: East European Monographs; dist., New York: Columbia University Press, 1991. Pp. xvi, 320. $37.00 (us). Reviewed by David Mayers.

ALAN SHARP. The Versailles Settlement: Peacemaking in Paris, 1919. London: Macmillan, 1991. Pp. xi, 243. £35.00. Reviewed by Gordon Martel.

NICHOLAS R. CLIFFORD. Spoilt Children of Empire: Westerners in Shanghai and the Chinese Revolution of the 1920s. Hanover, N.H. and London: University Press of New England, 1991. Pp. xvi, 361. $45.00 (us). Reviewed by Parks M. Coble.

ROBERT GORDON KAUFMAN. Arms Control during the Pre-Nuclear Era: The United States and Naval Limitation between the Two World Wars. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991. Pp. viii, 289. $40.00 (us). Reviewed by Francis M. Carroll.

ALFREDO JOSÉ SCHWARCZ. Y a pesar de todo …: Losjudios de habla alemana en la Argentina. Buenos Aires: Grupo Editor Latinoamericano, Colecciín Estudios Politicos y Sociales, 1991. Pp. 317. No Price Available; Reviewed by Ronald C. Newton

CARLOTA JACKISCH. El nazismo y los refugiados alemanes en la Argentina, 1933– 1945. Buenos Aires: Editorial de Belgrano, 1989. Pp. 306. No Price Available; Reviewed by Ronald C. Newton

OLGA ELAINE ROJER. Exile in Argentina, 1933–1945: A Historical and Literary Introduction.. New York: Peter Lang, 1989. Pp. 250. $49.50 (US). Reviewed by Ronald C. Newton

NEIL V. SALZMAN. Reform and Revolution: The Life and Times of Raymond Robins. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1991. Pp. xiv, 472. $35.00 (us). Reviewed by Bruce S. Greenawalt.

EDWARD M. BENNETT. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Search for Victory: American-Soviet Relations, 1939–1945. Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1990. Pp. xxvii, 207. $40.00 (us), cloth; $13.95 (us), paper. Reviewed by Sean Dennis Cashman.

DAVID F. SCHMITZ and RICHARD D. CHALLENER, eds. Appeasement in Europe: A Reassessment of US Policies. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1990. Pp. xxiii, 166. $3795 (us). Reviewed by D. Cameron Watt

JOHN CARVER EDWARDS. Berlin Calling: American Broadcasters in Service to the Third Reich. New York: Praeger, 1991. Pp. x, 238. $21.95 (us). Reviewed by Justus D. Doenecke

TERRY COPP and BIIL MCANDREW. Battle Exhaustion: Soldiers and Psychiatrists in the Canadian Army, 1939–1945. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1990. Pp. x, 249. $29.95 (CDN). Reviewed by Robert. J.T. Joy.

ROBERT BOH N, JÜRGEN EL VERT, HAIN REBAS, MICHAEL SALEWSKI, eds. Neutralität und totalitäre Aggression: Nordeuropa und die Großmächte im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1991, Pp. xii, 435. DM 128; Reviewed by Martin kitchen.

IZIDORS VIZULIS. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939: The Baltic Case. New York: Praeger, 1990. Pp. vi, 176. $38.95 (us). Reviewed by Martin Kitchen.

P.M.H. BELL. John Bull and the Bear: British Public Opinion, Foreign Policy and the Soviet Union 1941–1945. London: Edward Arnold, 1990. Pp. x, 214. $45.00 (us). Reviewed by Gordon W. Morrell.

AVIEL ROSHWALD. Estranged Bedfellows: Britain and France in the Middle East during the Second World War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Pp. xii, 315. $63.00 (CDN). Reviewed by Michael Fry.

HENRY ROUSSO. The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France since 1944, trans. Arthur Goldhammer. Cambridge, Mass, and London: Harvard University Press, 1991. Pp. xii, 384. $37.50 (us). Reviewed by Robert J. Young.

JOSEPH SMITH, ed. The Origins of NATO. Exeter, UK: University of Exeter Press, 1990. Pp. xvi, 173. £6.95. Reviewed by S. Victor Papacosma

PETER L. HAHN. The United States, Great Britain, and Egypt, 1945–1956: Strategy, Diplomacy in the Early Cold War. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1991. Pp. x, 359. $37.50 (us); Reviewed by Michael J. Cohen.

DAVID R. DEVEREUX. The Formulation of British Defence Policy towards the Middle East, 1948–56. London: Macmillan, 1990. Pp. xi, 241.,£35.00. Reviewed by Michael J. Cohen.

JAMES BARBER and JOHN BARRATT. South Africa's Foreign Policy: The Search for Status and Security 1945–1988. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Pp. ix, 398. $54.50 (us), cloth; $16.95 (us), paper. Reviewed by Ritchie Ovendale.

CHESTER J. PACH, JR. Arming the Free World: The Origins of the United States Military Assistance Program, 1945–1050. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1991. Pp. x, 322. $34.95 (us). Reviewed by Steven L. Rearden.

JOEL J. SOKOLSKY. Seapower in the Nuclear Age: The United States and NATO 1949–80. London and New York: Routledge, 1991. Pp. xi, 221. £35.00. Reviewed by Geoffrey Till.

LESTER D. LANGLEY. Mexico and the United States: The Fragile Relationship. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1991. Pp. xvi, 138. $27.95 (us), cloth; $13.95 (us), paper. Reviewed by Don M Coerver.

MARTIN S. NAVIAS. Nuclear Weapons and British Strategic Planning, 1955–1958. New York: The Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 1991. Pp. 269. $76.50 (us). Reviewed by John Baylis.

GLEN BALFOUR-PAUL. The End of Empire in the Middle East: Britain's Relinquishment of Power in the Last Three Arab Dependencies. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. xxiii, 278. $49.50 (us). Reviewed by Michael B. Bishku.

SANTOSH MEHROTRA. India and the Soviet Union: Trade and Technology Transfer. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Pp. xvi, 243. $49.50 (us). Reviewed by Colin Lawson.

JAMES MAYALL and ANTHONY PAYNE, eds. The Fallacies of Hope: The Post Colonial Record of the Commonwealth Third World. Manchester: Manchester University Press; dist., New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991. Pp. 218. $59.95 (us). Reviewed by Robin W. Winks.

BARRY H. STEINER. Bernard Brodie and the Foundations of American Nuclear Strategy. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991. Pp. xvi, 367. $40.00 (us). Reviewed by Edward Rhodes.

R.B. SMITH. An International History of the Vietnam War. Volume III: The Making of a Limited War 1965–66. London: Macmillan, 1991. Pp. xiv, 490. £4500. Reviewed by John M. Carland.

BRIAN VANDEMARK. Into the Quagmire: Lyndon Johnson and the Escalation of the Vietnam War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Pp. xvi, 268. $22.95 (us); Reviewed by Gary R. Hess.

ELIZABETH JANE ERRINGTON and B.J.C. MCKERCHER, eds. The Vietnam War as History. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1990. Pp. xiv, 196. $45.00 (us); Reviewed by Gary R. Hess.

ELIZABETH NORMAN. Women at War: The Story of Fifty Military Nurses who Served in Vietnam. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990. Pp. x, 211. $36.95 (us), cloth; $14.95 (us), paper. Reviewed by Gary R. Hess.

RICHARD A. MELANSON. Reconstructing Consensus: American Foreign Policy since the Vietnam War. London: Macmillan, 1991. Pp. viii, 248. £9.99. Reviewed by Lawrence Aronsen.

F. ROBERT HUNTER. The Palestinian Uprising: A War by Other Means. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. Pp. xx, 292. $24.95 (us). Reviewed by Ibrahim Abu-Lughod.

JONATHAN HASLAM. The Soviet Union and the Politics of Nuclear Weapons in Europe, 1969–87. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1990. Pp. xv, 227. $13.95 (us). paper. Reviewed by Paul Buteux

HENRY T. BERNSTEIN. And None Afraid: Soviet-Western Suspicion and Trusting from Red October to Glasnost Dialogue. Oxford: Baardwell, 1991. Pp. 240. £ 19.95. Reviewed by J.L Black.

CLAYTON R. NEWELL. The Framework of Operational Warfare. London and New York: Roudedge, 1991. Pp. xiv, 186. £25.00. REviewed by K.E. Hamburger

PAUL KENNEDY, ed. Grand Strategies in War and Peace. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1991. Pp. x, 228. $25.00 (us). Reviewed by Gordon A. Craig.

MICHAEL HOWARD. The Lessons of History. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1991. Pp. 217. $27.50 (us). Reviewed by M.L. Dockrill.     

The Making of a Non-Aligned Nuclear Power: India's Proliferation Drift, 1964–8

The article examines the strategic circumstances leading to non-aligned India's safeguard of its nuclear option during a crucial period in its proliferation trajectory, when it was one of the states closest to nuclear-weapons development, and faced US pressures to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that was being negotiated at the time. Based on Indian, US, and French primary sources, this paper demonstrates that India's regional strategic insecurities and bilateral tensions with the United States were too great for it to sign the NPT. Yet, New Delhi's capability to successfully reprocess weapons-grade plutonium permitted the developing country substantial leverage that it exploited through advancing on a slow dual-use nuclear programme.     

‘We are not a rich country to waste our resources on expensive toys’: Mexico’s version of Atoms for Peace

Abstract

The Atoms for Peace initiative was announced by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly on 8 December 1953. The ways in which Eisenhower’s proposal was interpreted, adapted and reshaped by different countries allows us to understand the various meanings and uses of nuclear technologies, particularly in Third World countries. Mexico’s version of the initiative was related to its modernizing nationalism, a distaste for overt geopolitical alignment and nuclear weapons, and an intermittent commitment of the federal government with nuclear technologies. These ingredients eventually led to the promotion of the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean, known as the Treaty of Tlatelolco (TT) signed in Mexico City in 1967. The TT made Latin America the first nuclear weapons-free populated region in the world, thus positioning Mexico in the new geopolitical nuclear order through a denuclearization discourse and a policy of non-engagement with nuclear technologies.     

Russian nuclear energy diplomacy in Finland and Hungary

We compare Russian nuclear energy diplomacy toward Finland and Hungary, where the Russian state corporation Rosatom intends to build nuclear power plants by the 2020s. Russian nuclear energy diplomacy features Rosatom working with other state institutions, its own subsidiaries, and an extensive network of companies and R&D actors to support Russian nuclear power projects abroad. Using the structuration approach, we find three interests driving such diplomacy: energy business and associated profits; modernization of the Russian economy, including the diversification of its export structure; while foreign policy interests are also involved, considering the constraints emerging in EU–Russia energy diplomacy in the oil and gas sectors, including the sanctions since 2014. Some domestic actors in Finland and Hungary make the linkage between nuclear energy and foreign policy as explicit as do some Western commentators. Seeking to pursue these interests, Russian actors must accommodate their considerable assets to the structural constraints they encounter in the target countries. We identify four structural dimensions: the Russian actors are well endowed as regards the resources, technology, and infrastructure dimension; and the dimension of finance, business models, and markets. However, on the institutional dimension, they face a less controllable environment. Regarding the ecological dimension, they must conform to local safety requirements. In both cases, Russian actors were able to strengthen perceptions of joint interests with actors in the target country facilitating the nuclear power plant projects, thereby paving the way for the use of soft power.     

Italian Public Opinion in the Atomic Age: Mass-market Magazines Facing Nuclear Issues (1963–1967)

Through the analysis of a wide range of Italian mass-market magazines and a selection of public opinion surveys, this essay investigates widespread images and perceptions about nuclear issues in Italy during the Sixties. It considers the views of Italians about nuclear weapons within foreign policy debates, as well as the wide range of fears expressed about the atomic bomb. The article also analyses the image of anti-nuclear movements, as well as Italians’ views on disarmament and the easing of international relations after 1962. Deeply influenced by ideological divides and filtered through the mechanisms of mass culture – which tended to trivialise the bomb – these widespread representations of nuclear issues offer a unique perspective on Italians’ beliefs, fears, and hopes during a time of deep socio-economic change and shifting political equilibriums in the country.     

From the familiar to the extraordinary: local residents' perceptions of risk when living with nuclear power in the UK

Nearly two decades since the last nuclear power station was built and began operating in the UK, nuclear energy is firmly back on the political agenda domestically and elsewhere in the world. Yet since the 1980s, little research has investigated perceptions of nuclear power in the UK, particularly those of communities living in very close proximity to such facilities. Using biographical narrative interviews (n = 61), we explore how local residents living close to two nuclear power stations in the UK (Bradwell, Essex and Oldbury, South Gloucestershire) have come to view their local facility. We reveal how the power station is constructed through processes of familiarisation and/or the normalisation/normification of risk as part of everyday life; how this ordinariness is juxtaposed with moments of extraordinariness in which, due to direct and mediated events, the power station is reframed as a risk issue; and how risk awareness is associated with moments of anxiety which ebb and flow through our interviewees' lives. We conclude that biographical experiences dynamically unfolding through space and time can be interrupted by risk events (mediated and direct, real and symbolic, nuclear and non-nuclear) to disrupt the usually taken-for-granted ordinariness of a power station's presence in a particular locality. Our findings suggest that those involved in debate about new nuclear build must be sensitive to the heterogeneity of the extraordinary in nuclear affairs and the importance of socio-cultural histories of place.     

20世纪50年代美国政府关于核报复战略的内部争论

研究“核威慑”这一军事理念正式形成的50年代美国核战略的决策史,有助于认识今天再度得到强化的美国核战略态势。有关档案献显示,在军事战略领域首次正式将威慑理论付诸实践的艾森豪威尔政府,在“新面貌”战略特别是其中的“大规模报复战略”的具体实施问题上,一直存在严重分歧并为此展开了持久的争论。这既是出于对美苏核军备竞赛所加剧的全面战争危险和美苏可能最终形成战略均势的深切担忧,也是因为该战略在扼阻地区冲突方面的明显局限性。但由于对外部威胁的基本判断没有改变,加上现行战略的内在矛盾,艾森豪威尔政府始终无法彻底改弦更张,只能作一些局部的修补,因而未能摆脱战略上的困境。     

核武器与新中国60年发展历程

从抗日战争时期的"原子弹是纸老虎"到20世纪50年代对"蘑菇云"的追逐,中国领导人对核武器态度的变化只发生在战术方面,而战略上的积极防御以及在国家安全诉求之外对民族复兴、外交独立、国际认可和尊重、追赶先进、实现现代化等多方面的诉求,才是这一过程中不变的主旋律,同时也是中国发展核武器的根本动因。从追逐"蘑菇云"的"革命国家"到积极参与防止核扩散的负责任大国,核武器对新中国60年发展历程的政治意义大于军事意义。