Political preferences in the new middle class: A ‘correspondence analysis’ of the orientations of Australian professional workers

Most discussions of the relationship between class and political orientation assume a coherent and homogeneous class response. Here, the new middle class of professional workers is disassembled into constituent occupations. An analysis of political preference data by means of ‘correspondence analysis’ reveals a pattern which is consistent with a structural relationship between occupational experience and political preference.     

Australia,the security council and the Iranian crisis of 1946: Liberal internationalism in practice

In the early months of 1946 Dr H.V. Evatt made a concerted effort to shape the newly formed Security Council as a security tribunal. He wanted the Security Council to be governed by the principles of the United Nations Charter, to adopt regular procedures, to have an investigatory function and to make determinations on the facts of each case, not on the basis of power politics. Evatt attempted to implement his policy during the Iranian crisis despite the opposition of all the great powers, including the United Kingdom. This episode reveals the commitment to liberal internationalism that marked Australian foreign policy during this period and demonstrates both the possibilities and limits of an ‘idealist’ foreign policy.     

Expanding the Australian Empire?: The Australian Council for the World Council of Churches,the Menzies Government and the New Hebrides in the late 1950s

In the late 1950s the Australian Council for the World Council of Churches (AC‐WCC) inspired primarily by the Presbyterian Church, undertook a concerted campaign to pressure the Australian government to assume a greater role in the affairs of the New Hebrides. The AC‐WCC wanted the Australian government to take over the United Kingdom's role in the administration of the Anglo‐French Condominium. It was motivated to undertake this campaign by the dismal social and economic conditions in the islands, the neglect of the British and French colonial authorities, and their failure to offer the indigenous people a way forward to self‐government. The high point of the campaign was a meeting between Robert Menzies, the Australian prime minister and a delegation from the AC‐WCC in early 1958. As a result of this meeting Australian ministers and officials, for the final time, gave extended consideration to expanding Australia's empire in the South Pacific to include the New Hebrides. This article examines the AC‐WCC's campaign, explores the Australian government's response, and analyses the outcome of this important episode in Australia's involvement in the colonial territories of the South Pacific.     

The Last of Australian Imperial Dreams for the Southwest Pacific: Paul Hasluck,the Department of Territories and a Greater Melanesia in 1960

This paper is a study of the vision held at the beginning of the 1960s by Paul Hasluck, the minister for external territories, and his department of the path to decolonisation for Melanesia. Faced by the ongoing West New Guinea crisis, Hasluck and his officials proposed to keep the western part of New Guinea out of Indonesian hands by expanding Australia’s empire, step by step, to include most of Melanesia. This greater Melanesian empire would eventually be guided to self-government. The proposal stood in a long line of ideas by Pacific-minded Australians going back for 100 years for an expanded Australian empire in the southwest Pacific. Consequently the Menzies cabinet’s rejection of Hasluck’s proposal was not just an important step towards changing its policy towards WNG; it marked the end to a century of Australian dreams and designs of a greater formal empire in the southwest Pacific.     

The Two Eschatological Perspectives of the Book of Daniel

The revelatory traditions found in chs. 2,7-12 of the book of Daniel are exceptional in connecting the historical circumstances pertaining to the persecution under Antiochus IV Epiphanes with the eschatological hopes of the Hebrew Bible. We will argue that the nature of this connection is twofold. On the one hand, for the redactor who gave the book of Daniel its canonical form, the distress associated with Antiochus was the distress associated with the last days. On the other hand, for the original composers of the book of Daniel, the distress associated with Antiochus was only a precursor to the distress associated with the last days. Finally, we will apply the insights gained from making this argument to the question of the book of Daniel’s composition.     

Maria Mirabilis: Beholding Mary in the Miracles†

In medieval miracles of the Virgin Mary that feature images, gazing at Mary and being seen by her can shape or change the identity of the miracle's protagonist. Such miracles often feature figures who have the potential to be adult male Christians but do not yet hold that status; they are transformed by their encounters with the malleable materiality of Marian images. Narratives of a Muslim devoted to a Marian statue and an English child who has to have an image of the Crucifixion explained to him show how questioning the nature of such images, and their material implications, could lead to belief. The widely popular story of “The Jewish Boy” extends the power of the image to suggest that merely looking upon it without understanding is sufficient to create a circuit of likeness and recognition that ultimately leads to conversion. In such miracles, an ostensibly surface-oriented or simplistic mode of religious devotion engages with gendered bodies in powerfully transformative ways that touch on complex theological issues.     

Regional Development Agencies and Local Economic Development: Scale and Competitiveness in High-technology Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire

Regional Development Agencies have been given the fundamental aim of improving their regions' economic performance and competitiveness. Supporting innovation is a cornerstone of this policy. This paper explores the limitations of region-based strategies arguing that this neglects the importance of policy intervention at the local level, using case studies of Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire.     

Agricultural and household activities in Vestfold,Southeast Norway,as illustrated by pollen data and the charred remains of crops and wild plants

This paper presents and interprets two data sets from Vestfold, Southeast Norway: the pollen record is from a small lake basin, isolated from the sea in Mid Mesolithic (8100–6400 cal BC), and with a record of sediment deposition up to recent time. Charred plant remains from six settlement sites ranging in date from the Late Neolithic (2400–1800 cal BC) to the Merovingian Period (cal AD 570–800). Soil from archaeological contexts that was recovered from several prehistoric settlement features (two- and three-aisled houses, a rock shelter and a pit) has also been investigated. The number and concentrations of identifiable charred macro remains are low from all features except one, but the records contribute to the interpretation of agriculture and wild plant use. Carbonised cereals dated to the Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age are reported from a two-aisled house. Naked barley was the main cereal identified and a few weed seeds were found with the cereal grains. In a rock shelter nearby, cereals and seeds of flax were found, demonstrating cultivation in the Late Bronze Age. Pollen of ribwort plantain recorded in lake deposits in Nordbytjern, 0·5?km to the southwest, also indicates agricultural activity in the southern part of Vestfold during the Late Bronze Age. Archaeobotanical samples from Early Iron Age houses contained low concentrations of carbonised cereal remains, mainly hulled barley, but also wheat and oat. Seeds/fruits of weeds, plants of moist/wet habitats and grasses increase in abundance from the end of Roman Period. The high concentration of hulled barley found in a pit at the site of Ringdal 13 confirms that hulled barley was a cereal used in the Iron Age. Throughout the Iron Age, cereal pollen has a continuous curve in the Nordbytjern pollen diagram, demonstrating the significance of cereal cultivation in Vestfold. Flax was also cultivated in the vicinity of and probably processed in Nordbytjern. Large numbers of rush seeds and sedge nutlets indicate a possible involvement in basketry and cordage making and/or as animal fodder.