John Marshall Harlan's Political Memoir

Near the end of his life, John Marshall Harlan wrote a number of biographical essays, presumably at the request of his children. Most of the essays relate to his experiences in the Civil War. The essay reprinted here instead recounts Harlan's political career before he joined the Supreme Court. Although he rarely won any elections and only held a couple of offices, Harlan's political odyssey is significant in that it shows how his social views were formed. Harlan's transformation from a staunch anti‐abolitionist to a civil‐rights advocate can be viewed as a series of reactions against various opponents as he struggled to find his political identity after the collapse of the Whig party in the 1850s.     

RADIOCARBON MEASUREMENTS ON A FLOATING TREE-RING CHRONOLOGY FROM NORTH-EAST SCOTLAND

Radiocarbon measurements have been performed on a 250 year ‘floating’ tree-ring section recovered from an archaeological site in north-east Scotland. Short term fluctuations in atmospheric concentration appear to be superimposed on a general trend of decreasing ambient ¹⁴Cparallel with tree growth. The most significant finding is the range of dates obtained from the sequence, namely 400 years, since it implies that the error on a single radiocarbon date is considerably greater than at present accepted on the basis of analytical precision alone.     

A Powerful Place of Pictland: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on a Power Centre of the 4th to 6th Centuries ad

OUR UNDERSTANDING of the nature of late and post-Roman central places of northern Britain has been hindered by the lack of historical sources and the limited scale of archaeological investigation. New work at Rhynie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland (NJ 49749 26345), has begun to redress this through extensive excavation and landscape survey. This has revealed a Pictish central place of the 4th to 6th centuries ad that has European connections through material culture, iconography and site character. In addition to reviewing the place-name and historical context, this article outlines preliminary reflections on five seasons of excavation and survey in the Rhynie landscape. The article also provides a detailed consideration of chronology, including radiocarbon dating and Bayesian statistical analysis. The results reveal the multi-faceted nature of a major, non-hillfort elite complex of Pictland that comprised a high-status residence with cult dimensions, a major centre for production and exchange, and a contemporary cemetery. A series of sculptured stones stood in association with the settlement and cemetery and the iconography of the stones, along with the wider archaeological evidence, provides a rich dataset for a renewed consideration of the central places of early medieval northern Britain with broader implications for the nature of power and rulership in late and post-Roman Europe.     

Of squatting amid capitalism on Yangon's industrial periphery

Across major cities throughout the world, inflated real-estate markets continue to exacerbate crises of affordable housing. Amid such conditions, squatting has emerged as a means to claim urban residence while bypassing the rule of property, resulting in densely populated informal settlements stretched along urban peripheries, most notably in the Global South. But in what respect might squatting be said to have anti-capitalist content? But does the challenge squatting poses to private property mean the practice is unambiguously anti-capitalist? The case presented here illustrates how squatting – initially a challenge to the rule of private property – becomes imbricated with wider relations of extraction and rule and with the broader capitalist context more generally.     

Looking to the past,uncertain about the future: Japan's politics in an era of disaster and stagnation

The Japanese state and society face major challenges due to more than 20 years of economic stagnation and steady political transformation. The books reviewed here dissect a nation in the midst of change: its politics, political economy, and response to the triple disaster of the Tohoku earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima nuclear incident (commonly referred to by the Japanese as 3.11) in 2011. John Dower considers Japanese difficulty in confronting its wartime past, while Frances Rosenbluth and Michael Thies lay out the broad sweep of Japan's political history. Ellis Krauss and Robert Pekkanen focus an institutional lens on the evolution of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from hegemonic to merely dominant party, while Leonard Schoppa and colleagues examine the emergence of a two‐party system since the political shakeup of 1993–1994. Robin LeBlanc employs a gender approach to parse the nature of male values and show how they shape the actions of political candidates and activists. Lucy Birmingham and David McNeill provide an on‐the‐ground view of individuals reacting to the 3.11 calamity. The McKinsey & Co. collection includes varied articles, from optimistic pieces urging Japan towards a quick rebound to more sober assessments of long‐term national decline. Together, these books provide an excellent snapshot of Japan at a metaphorical turning point.     

Swings and Roundabouts? Patterns of Voting for the Australian Labor Party at State and Commonwealth Lower House Elections, 1901-96

Federation for Australia in 1901 was closely followed by the rise of the mass party, an organisation with the potential to reduce the regional differentiation that federalism is designed to protect. Loyalty to party can submerge local issues in nationally based partisanship, and the Australian Labor Party (ALP) may have performed precisely this role, particularly if voters have not differentiated between voting for the ALP at state and Commonwealth elections. This article examines the pattern of electoral support for the ALP at state and Commonwealth elections since 1901 and finds that an apparent similarity in long-term voting support masks important variations both within and between states. The potential for mass party loyalty to create uniform voting responses across the federation has been strongly moderated by the diversity inherent in the federal system.     

Caesium-137 as an indicator of geomorphic processes in a drainage basin system

Caesium-137 from fallout from nuclear weapons tests is adsorbed on fine sediments and becomes an effective tracer. It is hypothesised that within a drainage basin, sites undergoing little or no erosion accumulate ¹³⁷ Cs in their upper layers; cultivated soils will have ¹³⁷ Cs uniformly distributed within the cultivated layer; eroded soils, cultivated or not, will have relatively less ^l37 Cs, depending on the severity of erosion. Accumulated sediments will have characteristic ¹³⁷ Cs profiles reflecting temporal fallout variations and sedimentation history. This hypothetical model is largely confirmed by results from Maluna Creek basin, where erosion and accumulation of sediments has taken place. Soils under viticulture have about one third the ¹³⁷ Cs content of soils with grass cover, indicating more severe erosion under cultivation. Caesium-137 profiles in alluvial fan and flood plain deposits correlate with sediment layers and known cultivation history.