Toward a More Socially Impactful Geographical Analysis

The fiftieth anniversary of Geographical Analysis occurs for many quantitative human geographers at an exciting era of new and exciting sources of data and computational advancements. However, it also represents a crossroads where excitement to quickly capitalize upon these new data sources and methods risks reverting the discipline back to its abstraction‐rich and overly generalized roots, erasing much progress made in the pages of this journal that advocated for the recognition of individual differences and need for alternative and even qualitative data sources. In this commentary, I reflect on what we can do over the next 50 years to ensure that the journal is producing research that is socially impactful and better able to explain the messiness of social reality.     

Notes on contributors

Australian governments are facing some confusion about public sector accountability. This paper argues that the opaque nature of accountability which persists is the result of changes being wrought, separately and together, by a number of macro factors of which public sector reform and corruption inquiries are but two. This explanation is developed by an examination of some fifteen specific issues which are symptomatic of the lack of transparency in Australian public sector accountability, and simultaneously, contribute to it. The paper contends that clarity is likely to emerge only slowly as gaps and anomalies are recognised and gradually remedied. The paper seeks to contribute to the process by offering a definition of accountability and an outline of several different types of accountability frameworks now operating in Australian governments.     

Book reviews—Comptes rendus

Early Europe—L'Europe antique

Maurice SARTRE, L'Asie Mineure et l'Anatolie d'Alexandre à Dioclétien (IVe siècle av. JC—IIIe siècle op. JC), Annand Colin, Collection U, Paris, 1995.

Peter KINGSLEY, Ancient Philosophy, Mystery and Magic Empedocles and Pythagorean tradition, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1995, ix + 422 p., ISBN 0–19–814988–3.

Central and eastern Europe—L'Europe centrale et orientate

Catharina LIS, Jan LUCASSEN & Hugo SOLY eds, Before the Unions: wage earners and collective action in Europe 1300–1850, Cambridge University Press, International Review of History Supplements, Cambridge, 1994,194 p., ISBN 0–521–47954–1.

M.S. ANDERSON, The War of the Austrian Succession, 1740–1748, Longman, London & New York, 1995, xi + 248 p., ISBN 0–582–05951–8.

C.W. INGRAO, ed., State and Society in Early Modern Austria, Purdue University Press, West Lafayette, Indiana, 1994, xvi + 339 p., ISBN 1–55753–047–5.

P.W. SCHROEDER, The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1994, xxii + 894 p,. ISBN 0–19–822119–3.

David E. BARCLAY, Frederick William IV and the Prussian Monarchy 1840–1861, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1995, 335 p., ISBN 0–19–820430–2 (German ed., Anarchie und guter Wille. Friedrich Wilhelm IV. und die preussische Monarchic, trartsl. by Marion Müller, Siedler Verlag, Berlin 1995, 535 p., ISBN 3–88680–463–1).

Jörg BABEROWSKI, Autokratie und Justiz. Zum Verhältnis von Rechtsstaatlichkeit und Rückständigkeit im ausgehenden Zarenreieh 1864–1914, Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt/M. (Veröffentlichungen des Max‐Planck‐Instituts für Europälsche Rechtsgeschichte, Ius Commune. Sonderhefte, Srudien zur Europäischen Rechtsgeschichte 78), 1996, xi + 845 p., ISBN 3465028325.

La vision de Ian Kershaw sur le pouvoir d'Hitler sur les Allemands. Deux ouvrages novateurs sur le nazisme traduits en français

Ian KERSHAW, L‘opinion allemande sous le nazisme: Bavière 1933–1945, CNRS‐Editions, collection “Histoire du XXe siècle”, Paris, 1995, 160 p.

Ian KERSHAW, Hitler: essai sur le charisme en politique, traduit de l'anglais par Jacqueline Carnaux, Gallimard, collection “NRF essais”, Paris, 1995, 240 p.

The idea of ‘Mitteleuropa’

Joseph ROTHSCHILD, Return to Diversity: a political history of East Central Europe since World War II, 2nd ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford & New York, 1993, 299 p., ISBN 0–19–507382–7.

Peter STIRK, ed., Mitteleuropa. History and prospects, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1994, 176 p., ISBN 0–7486–0449–9.

Europe since 1945—L ‘Europe depute 1945

Geoffrey BEST, Law and War since 1945, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1994, xiv + 434 p., ISBN 0198219911.

Anne‐Marie DURANTON‐CRABOL, L'Europe de l'extrême droite de 1945 à nos jours, Editions Complexe, Paris, 1991. 222 p.

Themes in cultural history—Etudes d'histoire culturelle

Mario MIEGGE, Il sogno del re di Babilonia, Feltrinelli, Milan, 1995, 210 p., ISBN 88–07–10178‐S.

Reba N. SOFTER, Discipline and Power: the university, history, and the making of an English elite, 1870–1930, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1994, viii + 308 p., ISBN 0–8047–2383–4.

Robert WOHL, A Passion for Wings: aviation and the western imagination, 1908–1918, Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 1994, vii + 320 p., ISBN 0300057784.     

TWO-EARNER FAMILIES IN THE HOUSING MARKET

The 1970's has been a period in which three trends have coincided: housing prices have been escalating, wives have continued to enter the labor force, and legislation prohibiting discrimination in mortgage markets on the basis of sex and marital status has been enacted. In this paper, we examine the role of the two-earner family–one in which both husband and wife work–in the housing market of the 1970's, and the interrelation of this household type with other factors shaping the current high demand for housing. We also speculate on the role of the two-earner family in the housing market of the 1980's. We conclude that two-earner families are in a position to increase their housing outlays in the future, that the continued growth in the number of two-earner families will add to future housing demand, but that many two-earner families may be divorced couples of the future. This suggests that, while there will be a strong impact on single-family home demand, there will also be some restructuring of demand toward rental housing and cooperative/condominium ownership.