Books: Notes & reviews

Australian

T. Brennan, New Community, Problems and Policies, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1973, pp. 353, $3.95.

J. E. Richardson, Patterns of Australian Federalism, Centre for Research on Federal Financial Relations, Research Monograph No. 1, ANU, Canberra, 1973, pp. 142 + x, $4.00.

Australian Women in Governments Past and Present, revised as of July, 1973, pp. 15. Survey of Women in Local Government in Australia, 3rd edn, September, 1973, pp. 60. Both compiled by A. Viola Smith, 6 Baden Road, Neutral Bay, NSW 2089.

The Government Law Newsletter (the Newsletter of the Government Law Interest Group of the Australasian Universities Law Schools Association), No. 1, August, 1970; from No. 2, March, 1972, issued twice a year. Editor: Stan Hotop, University of Sydney Law School, 173–5 Phillip St, Sydney, NSW 2000. Free.

Australian Law Librarians’ Group Newsletter, No. 1, December, 1973. Six times a year. Editor: Robert Watt, Law Reform Commission, Box 6, GPO, Sydney, NSW 2001. Free.

Non‐Australian

Jeffrey L. Pressman and Aaron B. Wildavsky, Implementation: How Great Expectations in Washington Are Dashed in Oakland; or, Why It's Amazing that Federal Programs Work at all, This Being a Saga of the Economic Development Administration as Told by Two Sympathetic Observers Who Seek to Build Morals on a Foundation of Ruined Hopes. University of California Press, 1973, pp. 182 + xviii.

Dusan Sidjanski, ed., Political Decision Making Processes: studies in national, comparative and international politics, Elsevier Scientific Publishing Co., Amsterdam, 1973, pp. 237, Dfl 27.50.

P. R. Kaim‐Caudle, Comparative Social Policy and Social Security: A Ten Country Study, Martin Robertson, 1973, pp. viii + 357, £2.25.

Prasanta K. Pattanaik, Voting and Collective Choice. Some Aspects of the Theory of Group Decision‐Making, Cambridge University Press, 1971, pp. viii + 184, $9.50.

Government Publications Review: an international journal, 1 (1), Fall, 1973, quarterly, $US35 p.a. Published by SEBD Publications Inc., 380 Saw Mill River Road, Elmsford, New York 10523.

Bertell Oilman, Alienation: Marx's Conception of Man in Capitalist Society, Cambridge University Press, 1971. pp. 325 + xvi, paperback, £1.80.

L. G. Churchward, The Soviet Intelligentsia: An essay on the social structure and roles of Soviet intellectuals during the 1960s, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London. 1973, pp. xiii + 204, $9.85.

Nancy Whittier Heer, Politics and History in the Soviet Union, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, 1971, pp. xi + 319, $12.50.

Leslie R. Marchant, The Phoenix Seat: An Introductory Study of Maoism and the Chinese Communist Quest for a Paradise on Earth, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1973, pp. 276, $7.95.

F. C. Langdon, Japan's Foreign Policy, University of British Columbia Press, 1973, pp. 231 + xiv, $9.00.

Donald F. Miller, Pervasive Politics: a study of the Indian district, Melbourne Politics Monograph, 1972.

Brian Edwards, ed., Right Out—>The Labour Victory 1972, A. H. and A. W. Reed, 1973, pp. 262, $6.50.

Mahdi Elmandjra, The United Nations System: An Analysis, Faber and Faber, London, 1973, pp. 329 + annexes, $16.50.

Gerhard Mally, The European Community in Perspective, the New Europe, the United States and the World, D. C. Heath and Co., Lexington, Massachusetts, 1973, pp. xvi + 349, $11.50.     

Rural Growth Points and Rural Industries in Zimbabwe: Ideologies and Policies

A Rural Service Centre which provided all basic infrastructure, had a strong residential component and offered a wide range of services would automatically attract rural non-farm activities. This is the term applied to the whole range of activities connected with trading, manufacturing, construction, transport and government and other services. improved infrastructure is the key to more rural manufacturing. The deficiency in manufacturing may therefore be expected to right itself if given the necessary Government support through the provision of infrastructure. (Whitsun Foundation, 1980: 60–1; emphases added). Rural Service Centres ‘do not offer any major form of non-agricultural employment other than trade and certain jobs connected with the provision of services for agricultural communities’. (Hanratty and Heath, 1984:27)     

Culture and Development Ethics: Needs,Women's Rights,and Western Theories

Can development ethics avoid presuming that European cultures have universal validity and yet also avoid treating every distinct culture as sacrosanct and beyond criticism? While work on ‘culture and development’ valuably stresses the importance of cultural differences and identity it has often been hindered by conceptual limitations when faced with the ambiguities, variety, conflict and change within societies. This article queries a communitarian belief, that morality cannot be anything other than whatever a community's norms are, and suggests that recent development ethics work usefully blends universalist ethics with room for local traditions and choices. As advances on both (a) forms of liberalism that are universalist in scope but Eurocentric and over-individualistic in content, and (b) relativist forms of communitarian or post-modern ethics, three current approaches are noted: new work on Basic Human Needs theory, including Amartya Sen's capabilities approach; Martha Nussbaum's Aristotelian extension of Sen; and Onora O'Neill's Kantian development ethic. Particular attention is paid in the article to disputes concerning women's rights.     

Book reviews

Australian. J. S. Western and Colin A. Hughes, The Mass Media in Australia. Use and Evaluation, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1971, pp. 178, $6.50.

R. G. Casey, Australian Foreign Minister: Diaries 1951–60, ed. T. B. Millar, Collins, Sydney, 1972, pp. 352, $7.95.

Ian Bellany, Australia in the Nuclear Age: National Defence and National Development, Sydney University Press, 1972, pp. 144, $6.00.

J. A. La Nauze, The Making of the Australian Constitution, Melbourne University Press 1972, pp. 369 + xi, $15.00.

Scott Bennett, The Making of the Commonwealth, Cassell Australia, Melbourne, 1971, pp. xi + 244, no price.

Commonwealth Parliamentary Library, Parliamentary Handbook of the Commonwealth of Australia, 17th ed., 1971, Australian Government Publishing Service Canberra 1972, pp xiii + 954, $11.50.

Naomi Turner, Sinews of Sectarian Warfare? State Aid in New South Wales 1836–1862, Canberra, Australian National University Press, 1972, pp. 272, $8.50.

Niall Brennan, John Wren Gambler, Hill of Content, Melbourne, 1971, pp. xii + 259, $6.95.

Irwin Young, Theodore His Life and Times, Alpha, Sydney, 1971, pp. 189, $4.50.

Don Whitington, Twelfth Man?, Jacaranda Press, Brisbane, 1972, pp. 180, $4.95.

J. E. Menadue, A Centenary History of the Australian Natives’ Association, 1871–1971, Horticultural Press, Melbourne, n.d., 1972, pp. x + 425, no price.

I. McKay, R. Boyd, H. Stretton and J. Mant, Living and Partly Living, Thomas Nelson, Melbourne, 1972, pp. 195, $10.95.

Robin Boyd, The Great Great Australian Dream, Pergamon Press, Sydney, 1972, pp. 395 + xviii, $5.95.

Style Manual for Authors, Editors and Printers of Australian Government Publications, 2nd ed., Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1972, pp. 417 + xiv, $9.95.

Other. Marian W. Ward (ed.), Change and Development in Rural Melanesia: Papers Delivered at the Fifth Waigani Seminar, The University of Papua and New Guinea, Port Moresby, and the Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University, A.N.U. Press, Canberra, 1972, pp. ix + 556, $6.00.

L. Cleveland and A. D. Robinson (eds.), Readings in New Zealand Government, Reed, Wellington, 1972, pp. 314, $NZ5.30.

Richard Crossman, Inside View, Jonathan Cape, London, 1972, pp. 117, $6.50.

Humphrey Berkeley, Crossing the Floor, George Allen & Unwin, London, 1972, pp. 170, $9.30.

Eleanor Kapp, Eleanor Marx, Volume I Family Life 1855–1883, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1972, pp. 319, £4.50 (English price).

U. Bronfenbrenner, Two Worlds of Childhood: U.S. and U.S.S.R., George Allen and Unwin, London, 1971, pp. xii + 190 (plus 4 blank pages), $10.60.

R. J. Mokken, A Theory and Procedure of Scale Analysis, with Applications in Political Research, Mouton, The Hague, 1971, pp xiii + 353, 45 guilders.     

Cultural policy‐making in the free trade era: an evaluation of the impact of current world trade organisation negotiations on audio‐visual industries

The delicate compromise concerning the regulation of world trade in audio‐visual materials is about to be upset. Ongoing negotiations under the World Trade Organisation's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) are seeking to establish, in the words of US negotiators, “clear, dependable and predictable trade rules” for transnational media exchanges. This article evaluates the impact of the GATS on audio‐visual industries and considers the extent to which cultural industries fit into the framework of multilateral trade talks. Based on interviews with trade officials in the WTO and the UK Department of Trade and Industry, the article concludes that liberalising and deregulatory policy shifts are more likely to emanate from corporate and state environments than from the slow and detailed negotiations in WTO headquarters in Geneva where “defensive” interests appear to be dominating over “offensive” ones.     

Metrics,models and the meaning of media ownership

Concentrated media ownership has become an increasingly salient issue in the context of global demands for social justice and democracy. This article calls for cultural policy analysts to highlight issues of media ownership and maps out three approaches to ownership that are designed to provide a more holistic account of the problems and potential solutions. Attention is first paid to ‘metrics’ and the gathering of quantitative data; next, to the generation of normative models of media ownership; and then, to an ideological perspective on ownership that locates it in relation to systems of thought and action that privilege particular ways of thinking about and ordering the world. By arguing for a renewed focus on ownership that is based on the integration of all three perspectives into a more holistic methodology, the article aims to provide scholars with a conceptual and a strategic framework for understanding and intervening in ongoing debates about the dynamics of contemporary cultural industries.     

Ancient hydrocarbon seeps from the Mesozoic convergent margin of California: carbonate geochemistry, fluids and palaeoenvironments

More than a dozen hydrocarbon seep‐carbonate occurrences in late Jurassic to late Cretaceous forearc and accretionary prism strata, western California, accumulated in turbidite/fault‐hosted or serpentine diapir‐related settings. Three sites, Paskenta, Cold Fork of Cottonwood Creek and Wilbur Springs, were analyzed for their petrographic, geochemical and palaeoecological attributes, and each showed a three‐stage development that recorded the evolution of fluids through reducing–oxidizing–reducing conditions. The first stage constituted diffusive, reduced fluid seepage (CH₄, H₂S) through seafloor sediments, as indicated by Fe‐rich detrital micrite, corroded surfaces encrusted with framboidal pyrite, anhedral yellow calcite and negative cement stable isotopic signatures (δ¹³C as low as ?35.5‰ PDB; δ¹⁸O as low as ?10.8‰ PDB). Mega‐invertebrates, adapted to reduced conditions and/or bacterial chemosymbiosis, colonized the sites during this earliest period of fluid seepage. A second, early stage of centralized venting at the seafloor followed, which was coincident with hydrocarbon migration, as evidenced by nonluminescent fibrous cements with δ¹³C values as low as ?43.7‰ PDB, elevated δ¹⁸O (up to +2.3‰ PDB), petroleum inclusions, marine borings and lack of pyrite. Throughout these early phases of hydrocarbon seepage, microbial sediments were preserved as layered and clotted, nondetrital micrites. A final late‐stage of development marked a return to reducing conditions during burial diagenesis, as implied by pore‐associated Mn‐rich cement phases with bright cathodoluminescent patterns, and negative δ¹⁸O signatures (as low as ?14‰ PDB). These recurring patterns among sites highlight similarities in the hydrogeological evolution of the Mesozoic convergent margin of California, which influenced local geochemical conditions and organism responses. A comparison of stable carbon and oxygen isotopic data for 33 globally distributed seep‐carbonates, ranging in age from Devonian to Recent, delineated three groupings that reflect variable fluid input, different tectono‐sedimentary regimes and time–temperature‐dependent burial diagenesis.     

Book reviews

CHINA AND THE OVERSEAS CHINESE. A STUDY OF PEKING'S CHANGING POLICY, 1949–1970. Stephen FitzGerald. Cambridge University Press, 1972. 268 pp. £5.90.

CHINA'S WORLD: THE FOREIGN POLICY OF A DEVELOPING STATE. J. D. Simmonds. Australian National University Press, 1970. 0–7081–0694–3. 200 pp. $6.95.

THE CONVENTIONS OF CRISIS: A STUDY IN DIPLOMATIC MANAGEMENT. Coral Bell. Oxford University Press for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1971. 0–19–285054–7. 131 pp. $3.40 paper.

FROM CRISIS TO CRISIS: PAKISTAN 1962–1969. Herbert Feldmon. Oxford University Press, London, 1972. 0–19–215192–4. 340 pp. $17.10.

INDIAN REVOLUTIONARIES ABROAD. A. C. Bose. Bha Rati Bhawan, Patna, 1971. 268 pp. Rs. 30.00.

THE AUSTRALIAN‐NEW ZEALAND AGREEMENT 1944. Robin Kay (ed.). A. R. Shearer, Government Printer, Wellington, New Zealand, 1972. 297 pp. $NZ7.50.

PASSING FOR WHITE. A STUDY OF RACIAL ASSIMILATION IN A SOUTH AFRICAN SCHOOL. Graham Watson. Tavistock, London, 1970. 422–75470–6. 130 pp. $2.70, Social Science paperback, $7.10 hard‐cover.

ABORIGINES AND SETTLERS: THE AUSTRALIAN EXPERIENCE (1788–1939). Henry Reynolds. Cassell, Melbourne, 1972. 422–75470–6. $3.75.

WORLD ARMAMENTS AND DISARMAMENT: SIPRI YEARBOOK 1972. Almqvist and Wiksell, for SIPRI (Stockhohn International Peace Research Institute), Stockholm 1972. 91–85114–12‐X. 611 pp. $US15.00.

THE PROBLEM OF CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WARFARE. Volume V: THE PREVENTION OF CBW. SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute). Almqvist & Wiksell, Stockholm and Humanities Press, New York, 1971. 287 pp. $13 hard cover.

IN THE MINDS OF MEN: UNESCO 1946–1971. Gian Franco Pompei and others. UNESCO, Paris, 1972. 319 pp. $3.35 paper.

PROBLEMS OF INTERNATIONAL AIR TRANSPORT POLICY. Paul Heller. New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, 1972. 50 pp.

BRAZIL: THE PEOPLE AND THE POWER. M. Arraes. Pelican Latin American Library. $1.35.