Planning in the 1990s: An international agenda

This paper, originally presented to the AESOP‐ACSP joint conference in Oxford in 1991, stresses that both in Europe and in the US, there is a major difference for planning in the switch from boom to recession. During the 1990s a major challenge will be to find new ways of public‐private partnership in financing new urban infrastructure at a time when developer contributions — a major innovation of the 1980s — have dried up. This particularly applies to the European high‐speed train system — one critical element of which will run through the East Thames Corridor, one of Britain's major urban developments in the coming years. In the US, planners are likely to remain more locally focused, less internationally concerned, than in a Europe in which national barriers are rapidly eroding.     

X-ray fluorescence analysis of late Roman and Sassanian silver plate

About 200 analyses have been made on late Roman and Sassanian silver objects using energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence. This has shown that the main feature of the composition of the silver throughout the period and across the geographical area studied was towards high fineness (average silver percentage about 95%). Compositional differences are found between Roman and Sassanian silversmiths' products for the elements copper and lead. Much of the material analysed came from hoards, and using a statistical technique on the analytical data (Discriminant Analysis) broad compositional differences between hoards were found to emerge. The use of different compositions of silver for different joined parts of a single object are discussed.     

The (Pregnant) Mouse Freed from the Gallows: A Ballad Parallel for the Conclusion of Manawydan fab Llŷr

In the concluding episode of the Third Branch of the Mabinogi, the Welsh nobleman Manawydan takes the (pregnant) mouse that he has captured to the magically significant site Gorsedd Arberth and prepares to hang her for theft, according to the law. As he prepares the gallows, various figures attempt to intervene until finally a ‘bishop’ redeems his transformed wife by disenchanting the land, freeing Manawydan’s companions, and swearing not to take vengeance. We argue that this scene is strikingly similar to the famous ballad widely attested all over Europe, ‘The Maid Freed from the Gallows’, a parallel which not only illuminates this episode in the Mabinogi, but also suggests how the Welsh storyteller used traditional material in shaping these narratives.     

Pushed into Pragmatism: British Approaches to Science in Post-War Occupied Germany

One of the most important dilemmas facing the British authorities when they occupied their zone of Germany at the end of the Second World War was what to do with German science. The contributions made by scientists and engineers to the Nazi war machine, in fields such as rocketry and submarines, meant that German science was both revered and feared, and was therefore closely linked to concerns about a post-war military resurgence in Germany. This article aims to chart the changing approaches which the British occupation officials adopted towards German science in this period. While the initial intention was to prevent Germany from ever waging war again, through demilitarisation, denazification and dismantling, the focus changed as British enmity shifted from a former adversary, Germany, to a former ally, the Soviet Union. Policy reflected this shift as technology transfer and the reconstruction of domestic German science won greater favour. This article aims to show that, in the face of growing hostility from the USSR and in the deeply suspicious climate of the early Cold War, Britain was forced to abandon its moral mission towards German science and adopt a far more pragmatic strategy instead.