Mesopotamian or Iranian? A New Investigation on the Origin of the Goddess Anāhitā

Ar?dvī Sūrā Anāhitā, a popular Zoroastrian yazatā, is celebrated in Ya?t 5 (ābān Ya?t). Anāhitā is mostly believed to be an Indo-Iranian or Iranian deity who has absorbed influences from the creed and iconography of Ishtar, the Mesopotamian goddess, in the course of history. The type and the degree of such influences are still under debate. The paper places this goddess into the context of ancient Western Asia. Findings are presented in two sections: in the first section, the Indo-Iranian, Iranian and western Iranian origins of Anāhitā are questioned, and in the following section two points are clarified: first, the Mesopotamian origin for Anāhitā is more consistent with historical and archaeological evidence, and second, Anāhitā is the same as Annunit/Annunitum, Sippar—Amnamum’s goddess of war and victory and the avatar of Antu, who was added to the list of his royal patron deities as a result of political and military developments early in the reign of Artaxerxes II.     

Razi on Reason and Political Authority: A Study in Medieval Persian Political Thought

The Philosopher of Rey, Mohammad-e Zakariya-ye Razi and his Ismaili adversaries, Abu Hatam-e Razi and Naser-e Khosrow, share a political understanding of religion according to which religion is a theologico-political system of domination. However, they are at odds over the political philosophy appraisal of religion qua a system of authority. The paper explicates the latter disagreement in part based on Razi's and his opponents' conflicting ideas about the nature of the faculty of Reason and its distribution among men. Consequently, the paper underlines a democratic implication of Razi's thesis on the makeup of the human intellect.     

Book reviews

The Regions and the New Europe: Patterns in Core and Periphery Development. Martin Rhodes (Ed.). Manchester and New York Manchester University Press, 1995, xiv + 359 pp, £45.00 hb, ISBN 0 7190 4251 8

Kurswechsel in der Industrie: Lean Production in Baden‐Wurttemberg (Change of Course in Industry). Hans‐Joachim Braczyk and Gerd Schienstock (Eds). Stuttgart, Berlin, Koln: Verlag W. Kohlhammer, 1996, 356pp, DM98.00 (£43.00), ISBN 3 17 014004 3

Regions and Environment in Transition: in Search of New Solutions. Markku Sotarauta and Jarmo Vehmas (Eds). Tampere: University of Tampere, Department of Regional Studies, Research Reports, Series A 16, 1995, 232 pp, 90 FIM, £12.42, ECU15.52, ISBN 951 44 3804 3 (Obtainable from University of Tampere/Sales office, PO Box 617, FIN‐33101 Tampere, Finland, Tel. + 358 31 215 6055, Fax. +358 31 215 7150.)

Postmodern Semiotics: Material Culture and the Forms of Postmodern Life. M. Gottdiener. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1995, 262 pp, £13.99 pb, £45.00 hb, ISBN 0 631 19215 8 pb/O 631 19216 6 hb

Urban Policy in Britain: the City, the State and the Market. Rob Atkinson and Graham Moon. London: Macmillan Press, 1994, 306 pp, £13.50 phi£40.00 hb, ISBN 0 333 56747 1 pb/0333 567463 hb     

The Unfolding of Unreason: Javad Tabatabai's Idea of Political Decline in Iran

Javad Tabatabai, a leading theorist and historian of political thought in Iran, has presented a controversial theory regarding the causes of the decline of political thought and society in Iran over the last few centuries. His ideas on Iranian decline have affected the intellectual debates on modernity and democracy currently underway in Iran. Tabatabai's career-long research has revolved around this question: “What conditions made modernity possible in Europe and led to its abnegation in Iran?” He answers this question by adopting a “Hegelian approach” that privileges a philosophical reading of history on the assumption that philosophical thought is the foundation and essence of any political community and the basis for any critical analysis of it as well. This article critically engages with Tabatabai's ideas of “crisis,” and “decline” by challenging his exposition of the Persian tradition.     

The neglected research of Egas Moniz of internal carotid artery (ICA) occlusion

Egas Moniz is generally remembered for having discovered cerebral angiography in 1927, and having introduced lobotomy as a form of treatment for mental illness in 1935. Less well known is his pioneering research on occlusive cerebrovascular disease, namely internal carotid artery (ICA) occlusion, as documented by cerebral angiography. It is our contention that the medical community has, until recently, largely overlooked this research. His neglected observations on ICA occlusion and the important diagnostic role played by angiography are reviewed. We propose to show how our paper differs from previous publications regarding Moniz's ICA occlusion contributions. Whereas most previous reviews have focused on either the role played by cerebral angiography in the diagnosis of ICA occlusion, or on the importance of Moniz's internal carotid occlusion observations, our review attempts to integrate both topics. We will tie Moniz's ICA occlusion research to his documented use of angiography.     

EUROPEAN BRIEFING: Polycentricity in European spatial planning: from an analytical tool to a normative agenda

The notion of polycentricity is gaining widespread currency in both academic and professional debates. It has opened its way in the spatial policy documents of the European Union and member states alike, and has become one of the key components of the integrated spatial development strategy promoted by the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP). Whilst polycentricity is increasingly shaping the spatial policy discourses both in the Commission and in member states, the precise meaning of the term has remained elusive. The first two sections of this article aim to unpack the concept of polycentricity, trace its origin and its development and clarify the confusion over its multiple interpretations at various spatial scales. The third section of the article explains how the concept of polycentricity which has traditionally been used as an analytical tool to explain an existing or emerging reality is now increasingly being used to determine that reality. This is based on the analyses of the use of polycentricity within the European spatial planning framework and in particular the ESDP. Here, the article raises a number of questions regarding the promotion of the polycentric urban regions as one of the ESDP's key policy options for a balanced territorial development across Europe.     

An Introduction to the Network Weight Matrix

This study introduces the network weight matrix as a replacement for the spatial weight matrix to measure the spatial dependence between links of a network. This matrix stems from the concepts of betweenness centrality and vulnerability in network science. The elements of the matrix are a function not simply of proximity, but of network topology, network structure, and demand configuration. The network weight matrix has distinctive characteristics, which are capable of reflecting spatial dependence between traffic links: (1) elements are allowed to have negative and positive values capturing the competitive and complementary nature of links, (2) diagonal elements are not fixed to zero, which takes the self‐dependence of a link upon itself into consideration, and (3) elements not only reflect the spatial dependence based on the network structure, but they acknowledge the demand configuration as well. We verify the network weight matrix by modeling traffic flows in a 3 × 3 grid test network with 9 nodes and 24 directed links connecting 72 origin‐destination (OD) pairs. Models encompassing the network weight matrix outperform both models without spatial components and models with the spatial weight matrix. The network weight matrix represents a more accurate and defensible spatial dependency between traffic links, and offers the potential to augment traffic flow prediction.     

Seismic Protection of the Piers of Integral Bridges using Sliding Bearings

Seismic resilience and continued operation of bridges after earthquakes are important seismic design criteria. A new seismic protection concept for integral bridge piers is explored that uses sliding bearings to separate the superstructure from the piers. The influence of sliding bearings on the seismic response of a representative 3-span integral highway bridge is investigated. With sliding bearings, the pier column shear force was limited to the bearing design friction force. Furthermore, the abutment ductility demands were found to be insensitive to the friction forces in the sliding bearings because the bridge displacement demands were controlled by the equal displacement rule.     

Divine Spark: The Prelude to the Tobacco Régie of 1890

This article looks at the negotiations leading up to the Persian Tobacco Régie of 1890 as well as a previous failed Tobacco Régie in 1886. There exist only a few allusions to these two phases of the tobacco concession in the existing literature. Due to the newly uncovered diaries of the main commercial intermediary in these negotiations, the present article will be able to retrace, with precision, the events leading up to this economic concession of historical significance.