Book reviews

Australian Politics

Douglas Blackmur, Strikes: Causes, Conduct and Consequences (Sydney: The Federation Press, 1993) pp.232 $n.p. ISBN 1 86287 114 0.

W.D. Borrie, The European Peopling of Australasia (Canberra: Demographic Program, RSSS, Australian National University, 1994) pp.403 $24.50 ISBN 0 7315 1860 8.

Deborah Brennan, The Politics of Australian Child Care: From Philanthropy to Feminism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) pp.242 $29.95 ISBN 0 521 41792 9.

Peter Gathercole, T.H. Irving and Gregory Melleuish (eds), Childe and Australian Archaeology, Politics and Ideas (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1995) pp.241 $16.95 ISBN 0 7022 26130.

Gerard Henderson, Menzies’ Child: The Liberal Party of Australia (Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1994) pp.382 $29.95 ISBN 1 86373 747 2.

Dean Jaensch, Election! How and why Australia votes (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1995) pp.155 $19.95 ISBN 1 86373 761 8.

John Murphy, Harvest of Fear: A History of Australia's Vietnam War (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1993) pp.335 $19.95 ISBN 1 86373 49 X.

Bron Stevens and John Wanna (eds), The Goss Government: Promise and Performance of Labor in Queensland (Melbourne: Macmillan Education Australia, 1993) pp.292 $29.95 ISBN 0 7329 2622 X.

Beverley Symons (compiled with Andrew Wells and Stuart Macintyre), Communism in Australia: A Resource Bibliography (Canberra: National Library of Australia, 1994) pp.281 $25.00 ISBN 0 642 10625 8.

W.A. Townsley, Tasmania: Microcosm of the Federation or Vassal State 1945–1983 (Hobart: St David's Park Publishing, 1994) pp.451 $n.p. ISBN 0 7246 2345 0.

Comparative and International Politics

David Baldwin (ed.), Neorealism and Neoliberalism: The Contemporary Debate (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993) pp.377 $US56.50 ISBN 0 231 08440 4.

Leon Brittan, Europe. The Europe We Need (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1994) pp.248 $35.95 ISBN 0 261 00249 4.

Desmond Dinan, Ever Closer Union? An Introduction to the European Community (Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner, 1994) pp.532 $US19.95 ISBN 1 55587 388 X.

Francis G. Castles (ed.), Families of Nations: Patterns of Public Policy in Western Democracies (Aldershot: Dartmouth Publishing Company, 1993) pp.353 £37.50 ISBN 1 85521 345 1.

Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Civil War (Granta Books: London, 1994) pp.144 $14.95 ISBN 0 14 014094 8.

Gareth Evans and Bruce Grant, Australia's Foreign Relations: in the world of the 1990s (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2nd ed., 1995) pp.417 $34.95 ISBN 0 522 84657 2.

S. Henningham and R.J. May (eds), Resources, Development and Politics in the Pacific Islands (Bathurst: Crawford House Press, 1992) pp.323 $24.95 ISBN 186333063 1.

Helen Hughes, Wolfgang Kasper and John Macleod, Australia's Asian Challenge (Sydney, The Centre for Independent Studies, CIS Policy Forums 12, 1994) pp.47 $7.95 ISBN 1 86432 000 1.

Fergal Keane, The Bondage of Fear: A Journey Through the Last White Empire (London: Viking, 1994) pp.242 £17.00 ISBN 0 670 85391 7.

Bradley S. Klein, Strategic Studies and World Order: The Global Politics of Deterrence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) pp.196 £11.95 ISBN 0 521 46644 X.

Roy Licklider (ed.), Stopping the Killing: How Civil Wars End (New York: New York University Press, 1993) pp.354 $US50.00 ISBN 0 8147 5070 2.

Andrew Maclntyre (ed.), Business and Government in Industrialising Asia (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1994) pp.312 $29.95 ISBN 186373 556 9.

Michael McKinley, The Gulf War: Critical Perspectives (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1994) pp.201 $24.95 ISBN 1 86373 606 9.

Robert F. Miller (ed.), The Development of Civil Society in Communist Systems (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1992) pp.197 $22.95 ISBN 1 86373 1717.

Kim Richard Nossal, Rain Dancing: Sanctions in Canadian and Australian Foreign Policy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994) pp.323. $US21.95 ISBN 0 8020 7571 1.

Barnett R. Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the International System (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995) pp.378 $US35 ISBN: 0 300 05963 9.

Dennis J.D. Sandole and Hugo van der Merwe (eds), Conflict Resolution, Theory and Practise: Integration and Application (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993) pp.298 $55.00 ISBN 0 7190 3748 4.

Jan Aart Scholte, International Relations of Social Change (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1993) pp.186 $45.00 ISBN 0 335 09329 9.

Susan L. Shirk, How China Opened its Door: The Political Successes of the PRC's Foreign Trade and Investment Reforms (Washington DC: Brookings Institute, 1994) pp.120 $US28.95 ISBN 0 8157 7854 6.

Stephen John Stedman (ed.), South Africa: The Political Economy of Transition (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 1994) pp.213 $US38.00 ISBN 1 55587 421 5.

Lionel Cliffe et al, The Transition to Independence in Namibia (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 1994) pp.293 $US38.00 ISBN 1 55587 420 7.

Frederick C. Teiwes, Politics and Purges in China: Rectification and the Decline of Party Norms, 1950–1965. 2nd edn (Armonk and London: M.E. Sharpe, 1993) pp.594 $US27.95 ISBN 1 56324 227 3.

Luke Trainor, British Imperialism and Australian Nationalism: manipulation, conflict and compromise in the late nineteenth century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) pp.213 $29.95 ISBN 0 521 43476 9.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, The State of the World's Refugees: The Challenge of Protection (London: Penguin, 1993) pp.191 $19.95 ISBN 0 14 023487.

Joyce N. Wiley, The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shias (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 1992) pp.193 $US30.00 ISBN 1 55587 2727.

David W. Ziegler, War, Peace and International Politics, 6th ed. (London: Harper Collins, 1993) pp.458 $n.p. ISBN 0 673 52287 3.

Political Theory and Methodology

Stephen Eric Bronner, Of Critical Theory and Its Theorists (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1994) pp.372 $45.00 ISBN 0 631 18738 3.

William James Booth, Patrick James and Hudson Meadwell (eds), Politics and Rationality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) pp.307 $39.95 ISBN 0 521 43568 4.

Richard Sylvan and David Bennett, The Greening of Ethics: From Human Chauvinism to Deep‐Green Theory (Cambridge, UK: White Horse Press, 1994) pp.269 £11.95 ISBN 0 8165 1529 8.

Danilo Zolo, Democracy and Complexity: A Realist Approach. David McKie (trans.) (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992) pp.202 $39.95 ISBN 0 7456 0675 X.     

Claiming the high ground: theories of imperial authority and the British hill stations in India

By the 1880s, imperial government's practice of ‘retreating’ to the Indian hill stations for much of the year was well established. Despite the strength of this new tradition, such a relocation of colonial administration never lacked its critics. This paper examines the expanding administrative use of the hill stations from the early nineteenth century through the 1880s. As the nineteenth century ‘scientific’ framework for British control of India was formed, conflicting strategies and practices for maintaining imperial control required mediation and contrasting frameworks for defining duty and loyalty between government and subject vied for dominance. The significance of Utilitarian thought, changing appraisals of climate and constructions of race are evaluated in an analysis of the imperial hill stations.     

Land Snail Shell Beads in the Sub-Saharan Archaeological Record: When,Where, and Why?

Shell beads are well established in the archaeological record of sub-Saharan Africa and appear as early as 75,000 BP; however, most research has focused on ostrich eggshell (OES) and various marine mollusc species. Beads made from various land snails shells (LSS), frequently described as Achatina, also appear to be widespread. Yet tracking their appearance and distribution is difficult because LSS beads are often intentionally or unintentionally lumped with OES beads, there are no directly dated examples, and bead reporting in general is highly variable in the archaeological literature. Nevertheless, Achatina and other potential cases of LSS beads are present at over 80 archaeological sites in at least eight countries, spanning the early Holocene to recent past. Here, we collate published cases and report on several more. We also present a new case from Magubike Rockshelter in southern Tanzania with the first directly dated LSS beads, which we use to illustrate methods for identifying LSS as a raw material. Despite the long history of OES bead production on the continent and the abundance of land snails available throughout the Pleistocene, LSS beads appear only in the late Holocene and are almost exclusively found in Iron Age contexts. We consider possible explanations for the late adoption of land snails as a raw material for beadmaking within the larger context of environmental, economic, and social processes in Holocene Africa. By highlighting the existence of these artifacts, we hope to facilitate more in-depth research on the timing, production, and distribution of LSS beads in African prehistory.     

An Interview with James Kwesi Anquandah

Professor James Kwesi Anquandah was Ghana’s first archaeologist. He was also the first Ghanaian to become head of the Archaeology Department at the University of Ghana, which was the first archaeology department in sub-Saharan Africa, established in 1951. Dedicating his life to Ghanaian archaeology, particularly during the difficult years in Ghana in the 1980s and early 1990s, Anquandah had a significant impact on the development of archaeology in Ghana. In addition to his research, advisory and curatorial work, Professor Anquandah was instrumental in the training of three generations of Ghanaian archaeologists. During the course of a professional career that spanned nearly six decades, Professor Anquandah made archaeology relevant and accessible to all Ghanaians.     

The Middle Neolithic of Morocco’s North-Western Atlantic Strip: New Evidence from the El-Khil Caves (Tangier)

The period comprising the end of the Early Neolithic and the Middle Neolithic, dated broadly within the fifth millennium cal BC, corresponds to an interval that remains largely unknown in the extreme north-western tip of Africa. This situation contrasts with that of the Early Neolithic, a period characterised by the earliest evidence of the diffusion of a productive economy, cultivated plants and domestic animals. The paucity of data for these later phases can be explained in part by the lack of secure contexts and sequences based on radiocarbon datings of short-lived samples. The current study presents the results of the excavations of El-Khil Caves B and C that yield materials allowing re-evaluation of the chronology of a type of ceramic known as Ashakar ware. The study also identifies two traditions in the northern Moroccan Middle Neolithic. The first is heir to the so-called Impressa Mediterranean ware and rooted in the Cardial Neolithic, while the second is characterised by roulette cord impressions, red slip and tunnel lugs and probably rooted in the region of the Sahara, and has no technological precedents in the study area.     

Marginalized Potters and Ceramic Compositional Groups: Neutron Activation Analysis of Contemporary Pottery from Tigray,Northern Highland Ethiopia

The study presents the results of neutron activation analysis (NAA) of contemporary pottery from Tigray Regional State, northern highland Ethiopia. This is the first regional-scale study of ceramic composition of Tigray’s pottery and is part of an ethnoarchaeological study of the material and social contexts of pottery production and consumption in Tigray’s Eastern (Misraqawi), Central (Mehakelegnaw), and North-western (Semien Mi’irabawi) zones. The analysis identifies clear compositional groups with strong regional patterns, an encouraging result for the use of NAA to study Tigray’s ancient pottery trade. Significantly, the study further contributes to discussions of how mutually constituted social identities of potters and consumers affect compositional patterning in the distribution of pottery in market networks.