Reviews

DYNAMICS OF WORLD POLITICS: STUDIES IN THE RESOLUTION OF INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT. Linda B. Miller (ed.). Prentice‐Hall, 1968. Pp. viii + 294. $5.40.

THE UNITED NATIONS AND UNITED STATES SECURITY POLICY. Ruth B. Russell. The Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., 1968. Pp. ix + 510. $10.00 (U.S.).

THE POLITICS OF PEACE‐KEEPING. Alan James. Studies in International Security: 12. Chatto & Windus, London, for The Institute for Strategic Studies, 1969. Pp. 452. £.3.3.0.

INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION CENTER ON PEACE‐KEEPING OPERATIONS MONOGRAPHS NOS. 6–8. Paris, 1968. $1.00 each.

No. 6 CHARACTERISTICS AND SOME ASPECTS OF LAUNCHING U.N. PEACE‐KEEPING FORCES. Lieut.‐General P. S. Gyani. Pp. 13.

No. 7 PEACE‐KEEPING AND SELF‐DEFENCE. Dr Kjell Goldmann. Pp. 60.

No. 8 THE AUTHORIZATION OF PEACE‐KEEPING OPERATIONS IN TERMS OF THE NATURE OF THE CONFLICT. Albert Legault. Pp. 62

CANADA AND THREE CRISES. Robert W. Reford. Toronto, Canadian Institute of International Affairs, 1968. Pp. xii + 246. $5.00 (Canadian).

SYSTEMS, STATES, DIPLOMACY AND RULES. J. W. Burton. Cambridge University Press, 1968. Pp. xii + 251. $7 (U.S.).

GERMAN FOREIGN POLICY IN TRANSITION. BONN BETWEEN EAST AND WEST. Karl Kaiser. Issued under the joint auspices of the Harvard University Center for International Affairs, the Twentieth Century Fund's ‘Tocqueville Series’ and the Royal Institute of International Affairs. London, Oxford University Press, Oxford Paperbacks No. 159, 1968. Pp. x + 153. $2.00.

PEOPLE'S WAR. THE CONDITIONS AND THE CONSEQUENCES IN CHINA AND IN SOUTH‐EAST ASIA. J. L. S. Girling. London, Allen and Unwin, 1969. Pp. 244. $6.65.

ASIAN CONTRACT LAW. David Allan (General Editor). Melbourne University Press, 1969. Pp. xiii + 237. $9.60.

MODERN FEDERALISM. G. F. Sawer. The New Thinker's Library, No. 29. London, C. A. Watts & Co., 1969. Pp. 204. 15/‐ (U.K.).     

Sapwood estimates in the interpretation of tree-ring dates

Many timber finds lack some or all of the outer, sapwood rings formed in the years just before felling. In order to estimate felling date once the outermost remaining ring has been dated, it is necessary to estimate the number of sapwood rings originally present. Methods doing this for oak are reviewed in the light of an intensive study of living trees at one site and an extensive study of 175 samples from living trees in North Wales and northwest England. Some methods reported in the literature are found to be invalid. A method reported by Hollstein (1965) is most reliable, with modifications for known variations in sapwood number with position in the tree. At present the best available estimate is that a value of 30 sapwood rings be used (95% confidence limits: 19–50).     

The saint as patron in the work of Gregory of Tours

Gregory of Tours and his world have long been out of fashion; but despite modern neglect of his works, Gregory gives us access to an understanding of many important aspects of late antiquity, among which is the role of the saint as patron. Saints appear as patrons throughout Gregory's works; the focus of this study is his account of the miraculous deeds of St. Martin. The role of the saint as patron is best understood against the background of the recent work of Peter Brown on holy men in late antiquity; several other scholars have also emphasized the importance of patrons in the Roman world. Appeals to the saints in Gregory's world are to be understood as one manifestation of the Roman ritual of appeal to a patron. More important than their afflictions are the social circumstances of those who appeal to St. Martin and analyzing some others in detail, we can demonstrate that the most important elements in those appeals are the social weakness of the appellants, their need for a saintly patron, and Martin's role as a model saintly patron in Gregory's world     

A love story: for ‘Buddy System’ research in the academy

This article makes a case for a ‘buddy system’ approach to research and scholarship, or a kind of ‘caring with’ our colleagues, as feminist praxis and as an intentional, politicized response to the neoliberalization of the academy. Through autoethnographic writing on our travels together into farmed animal auction yards, we explain the buddy system as a mode of caring, solidarity, and love that differs from collaborative research, focused as it is on caring for and about our colleagues and their research even (or especially) when we have no direct stakes in the research being conducted. We contribute to three feminist conversations with this approach: feminist care ethics in geography; emotional geographies; and critical perspectives on the neoliberalization of the academy. We advocate the buddy system as an extension of feminist care ethics, enriching how feminists think about ‘doing’ research. We draw on feminist geographies of emotion and our own emotions (grief especially) experienced while witnessing processes of nonhuman animal commodification to politicize the act of researching and to develop a more caring way of inhabiting the academy. This is particularly important, we argue, in the context of deepening neoliberal logics that turn the academy into a place where care and love become radical acts of resistance and transformation.