BOOK REVIEWS

Book Reviews in This Article: Al-Quran Rendered into English. By Syed Abdul Latif. The Message of the Qur'an Presented in Perspective. By Hashim Amir-Ali. Ibn Kammn?a's Examination of the Three Faiths: A Thirteenth-Century Essay in the Comparative Study of Religion. Translated from the Arabic, with an Introduction and Notes, by Moshe Perlman. Arab Civilization to A.D. 1500. By D. M. Dunlop. The Baha'i Faith: Its History and Teachings. By William McElwee Miller. Jeunesse, Famille et Développement: Essai sur le changement socio-culturel dans un pays du Tiers Monde (Tunisie). By Carmel Camilleri. Jabal al-Akhdar, Cyrenaica: An Historical Geography of Settlement and Livelihood. By Douglas L. Johnson. Is Western Civilization Universal? By Maryam Jameelah. Syria under the Ba'th, 1963-1966: The Army-Party Symbiosis. By Itamar Rabinovich. Politics and Change in Al-Karak, Jordan. By Peter Gubser. Man, State, and Society in the Contemporary Middle East. Edited by Jacob M. Landau.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book Reviews in This Article:
Der Koran. Ed. by Rudi Paret.
Introduction to Classical Arabic Literature. By Ilse Lichtenstadter.
On the Art of Medieval Arabic Literature. By Andras Hamori.
Four Egyptian Literary Critics. By David Semah.
Hispano-Arabic Strophlc Poetry. Studies by Samuel Miklos Stern.
The Hamadsha: A Study in Moroccan Ethnopsychiatry. By Vincent Crapanzano.
Publish it not… The Middle East Cover-up. By Christopher Mayhew and Michael Adams.
From Ottomanism to Arabism: Essays on the Origins of Arab Nationalism. By C. Ernest Dawn.
An Inquiry into the Ethnography of Afghanistan. By Henry W. Bellew.     

Making waves: the valuation of innovations in San Sebastian’s surf economy

This study takes a valuation perspective to study how and where products and innovations are gaining ‘economic significance’ in the contemporary economy. Building on a recent research stream in economic geography and urban and regional studies, it highlights that the economic value of many products is not formed within production systems alone, but relies on co-constructed connections between production and consumption systems, playing out across multiple geographies. It distinguishes between three types of economic valuation pathways – namely technical, experiential and identity-based – which although analytically distinct may actually build and reinforce one another. This approach is empirically illustrated with the case of the surf-related economy in the city of San Sebastian (Basque Country, Spain), which is used to make a broader point about the growing relevance of a valuation approach to understand competitive advantage and economic renewal in localized production systems.     

The Authenticity of Spatial Planning Knowledge

This article intends to start a debate on the authentic disciplinary grounds of spatial planning studies as a scientific discipline of spatial intervention closely interrelated with practices of spatial development. In a volatile epoch of regrouping academic specializations, scientists feel a strong incentive to reflect on the authentic grounds of their discipline. This certainly goes for spatial planning studies that heavily rely on intensive interaction with a wide range of disciplines. What justifies its own position? Spatial planning studies are intensely interrelated with practices of planning, which demarcates its scientific position in a specific way. The author does not claim an exclusive position for spatial planning studies (the diversity of external relations and alliances enriches the field of study) but defines the authentic identity of the spatial planning discipline in the conceptual coherence of five dimensions: practical context, spatial norms, knowledge and action, to be validated in new contexts of practice. The author states that different planning paradigms interconnect the five dimensions in their own way and in doing so innovate the authentic body of planning knowledge. To invest in this authenticity is crucial in this era of organizational proliferation.     

Significance of diadematid echinoid ossicles in micropalaeontological samples,Miocene–Pliocene of Indonesia

Fragments of diadematoid echinoids from the early and middle Miocene, and late Miocene–Pliocene, respectively, of Java, Kalimantan and Sulawesi, Indonesia, are identified as diadematid spp. indet. (radioles from all sites) and Centrostephanus sp. (an interambulacral plate; early Miocene, Java). The radioles are probably a mixture of Diadema ± Centrostephanus ± Echinothrix. This is the first report of identifiable fossil diadematoid remains from Indonesia and demonstrates that these echinoids, so common in modern reef environments, were present in the Neogene of the region. Even though classified in open nomenclature, Centrostephanus sp. nevertheless provides further evidence for the Cenozoic record of a genus in which the only nominal species are of Late Cretaceous and Holocene age.