Rural China in ruins: The rush to urbanize China's countryside is opening a moral battleground (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

China has officially become a predominantly urban country, with over 50% of the population now registered as urban residents. Its urbanization process has been described as the most managed in human history. The Chinese government manages the building of new cities, regulates the housing of displaced people and controls squatters. As an historically poorer area, the west of China has been the target of ongoing efforts at infrastructural development. Describing urbanization as managed however masks the conflicts and contradictions involved in a process which is far from smooth. Although villagers are usually seen to be largely the powerless victims of these initiatives, it is clear that many try to take advantage of the situation, while others are unable to do so. Based on recent fieldwork and eight years of visits to one village undergoing urbanization, this article looks at the complex dynamics involved and at the moral battleground which they lay bare.     

Promoting Women's Rights,Hiding the Empire: Marie-Hélène Lefaucheux,an Imperialist Woman at the United Nations

This contribution examines the role of Marie-Hélène Lefaucheux, the French representative in the UN Commission on the Status of Women between 1948 and 1953. By focusing on Lefaucheux's activism and connection with the French government, this article intends to analyse how French post-imperial policy carried out by reformist women's organisations pursued the expansion of women's and human rights whilst supporting the empire. Using a range of archival sources and the Commission's reports, this work argues that the role of reformist imperial women and organisations was crucial in influencing the Commission which was both a place of contestation and protection of the gendered and colonial order.     

Book reviews

Australian politics

Cora Vellekoop Baldock, Volunteers in Welfare (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1990) pp.xii + 171. $19.95 ISBN 0 04 442213 X.

Hugh V. Emy and Andrew Linklater (eds.), New Horizons in Politics: Essays with an Australian Focus (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1990) pp.vii+207. $17.95 ISBN 0 04 442269 5.

P. Hay, R. Eckersley and G. Holloway, Environmental Politics in Australia and New Zealand (Hobart: University of Tasmania, 1989) pp.200. $n.p. ISBN 0 85901 405 3.

Peter Larmour (ed.) The Greening of Government: The Impact of the Labor/Green Accord on Government in Tasmania (Hobart: Royal Australian Institute of Public Administration, 1990) pp.iv + 74. $12.00.

Ian McAllister, Malcolm Mackerras, Alvaro Ascui and Susan Moss Australian Political Facts (Longman Cheshire, 1990) pp.x + 234. $12.99 ISBN 0 582 71258 0.

John Summers, Dennis Woodward and Andrew Parkin (eds.), Government, Politics and Power in Australia (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 4th edition, 1990) pp.375. $n.p. 0 582 86843 2.

Comparative and international politics

Archie Brown (ed.), Political Leadership in the Soviet Union (London: Macmillan, 1989) pp.xi + 245. $14.99 ISBN 0 333 41343 1.

Henry P. Frei, Japan's Southward Advance and Australia—from the sixteenth century to World War II (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1991) pp.xvii + 303. $34.95 ISBN 0 522 843921.

Manuel Antonio Garreton, The Chilean Political Process (Translated by Sharron Kellum and Gilbert W. Merkx) (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989) pp.xix + 220. $39.95 ISBN 0 04 497069 2.

Timothy Garton Ash, We The People, The Revolution of ‘89, Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin & Prague (Cambridge: Granta Books, 1990) pp.156. $12.99 ISBN 0 14 014023 9.

Misha Glenny, The Rebirth of History: Eastern Europe in the Age of Democracy (London: Penguin, 1990) pp.xiii + 245. $14.99 ISBN 0 14 014394 7.

Dennis Gilbert, Sandinistas: the party and the revolution (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988, paperback edition, 1990) pp.xii + 238. $29.95 ISBN 1 55786 072 6.

Dennis Kavanagh and Peter Morris, Consensus Politics from Attlee to Thatcher (Basil Blackwell, 1989) pp.ix + 137. £6.95 ISBN 0 631 16566 5.

Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Southeast Asian Affairs 1990. (Southeast Asian Studies, 1990) pp.x + 395. $US37.00 ISBN 0377 5437.

David Lane, Soviet Society under Perestroika (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990) pp.xv + 401. $34.95 ISBN 0 04 445167 9.

Ralph Miliband, Divided Societies: Class Struggle in Contemporary Capitalism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989) pp.x + 277. $n.p. ISBN 0–19827535–8.

J.D.B. Miller and John Vincent (eds.), Order and Violence: Hedley Bull and International Relations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990) pp.viii + 220. $55.00 ISBN 0 19 827555 2.

Peter Riddell, The Thatcher Decade: How Britain has changed during the 1980s (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989) pp.x + 236. $39.50 ISBN 631 16274 7.

Carlyle A. Thayer, War by Other Means: National Liberation and Revolution in Vietnam 1954–1960 (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1989) pp.xxx + 256. $19.95 ISBN 0 04 370187 6.

Malcolm Waters, Class and Stratification: Arrangements for Socioeconomic Inequality Under Capitalism (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1990) pp.ix + 199. $n.p. ISBN 0 582 86833 5.

Political theory and methodology

Rodney Barker, Political Legitimacy and the Stale (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 990) pp. 216. $62.50 ISBN 0 19 827495 5.

John Braithwaite and Philip Pettit, Not Just Deserts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990) pp.viii + 229. $65.00 ISBN 0 19 824233 6.

David Gauthier, Moral Dealing: Contract, Ethics, and Reason (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990). pp.377. $14.95 ISBN 0 8014 2431 3.

G.T. Kaplan and C.S. Kessler (eds.), Hannah Arendt (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1989) pp.xi + 178. $16.95 ISBN 0 04 920109 3.

David W. Lovell, Marx's Proletariat: The Making of a Myth (N.Y.: Routledge, 1988) pp.261. $27.59 ISBN 0–415–00116–1.

Schmidtz, David. The Limits of Government: An Essay on the Public Goods Argument (Boulder: Westview Press, 1991) pp.xviii + 197. $21.00 ISBN 0 81 330871 2.

Michael Thompson, Richard Ellis, Aaron Wildavsky, Cultural Theory (Boulder, San Francisco and Oxford: Westview Press, 1990) pp.xiv + 296. $49.95 ISBN 0 8133 7863 X.     

Contribution to the geology of Failaka Island,Kuwait: Evidence from sedimentological and petrographic data from the NE part of the island

Kuwait–Georgian archaeological work at Failaka Island showed the need for geological study. Analysis of sediments related to drinking water-collecting cisterns was performed on a Late Islamic settlement (NE part of the island) in 2018. Field sedimentological, grain size and XRD analysis of the sediment profiles showed that the shallow (about 1 m deep) cone-shaped wells are dug in the loose, porous, cross-stratified calcareous coarse-grained quartz sandstones. Three upper layers of quartz sandstones in the profile have high infiltration rate and provide a rare yet ideal material for water retention. The fourth dense layer below, composed of very fine sand and silt fraction, tends to hinder water movement and forms a relatively impermeable water-resistant surface. Thus, the distribution patterns of clay content, grain sizes and porosity of the well-hosting sediments are favourable for freshwater infiltration and harvesting. An additional petrographic analysis was conducted on different types of rocks discovered on the archaeological site, used as building material and fragments of stone artifacts to identify their origin. It was established that archaeological building material is of local origin, whereas the source rocks for stone artifacts were imported.