Book reviews

Derek McDougall, Harold D. Lasswell and the Study of International Relations. University Press of America, Lanham, USA, 1984, pp.370. $16.50.

John W. Burton, Global Conflict: The Domestic Sources of International Crisis. Wheatsheaf Books, UK, 1984, pp.194. $54.00.

K.J. Holsti, The Dividing Discipline: Hegemony and Diversity in International Theory. Allen and Unwin, Boston and Sydney, 1985. pp.165. $39.95.

Hedley Bull (ed.), Intervention in World Politics. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1984, pp. viii + 198. $31.00.

Hedley Bull, Justice in International Relations. 1983–84 Hagey Lectures, University of Waterloo, 1984, pp. iii + 36. No price given. (Available from University Publications Distribution Service, Dana Porter Arts Library, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario N2L3G1, Canada.)

Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Verso Editions and NLB, London, 1983, pp. 160. £15.00.

Chalmers Johnson, Revolutionary Change. Second edition. Longman, London, 1983, pp.xii + 217. $13.85.

Peter Calvert, Politics, Power and Revolution. An Introduction to Comparative Politics. Wheatsheaf Books, Brighton, 1983, pp.208. £5.95.

John Walton, Reluctant Rebels. Comparative Studies of Revolution and Underdevelopment. Columbia University Press, New York, 1984, pp.xii + 230 $US36.00 (cloth), $US10.00 (paper).

E. A. Tiryakian and R. Rogowski (eds), New Nationalisms of the Developed West. Toward Explanation. Allen and Unwin, Boston, 1985, pp.xii + 394. $69.00.

Peter H. Merkl and Ninian Smart (eds), Religion and Politics in the Modern World. New York University Press, New York, 1985, pp.276. No price given.

Richard Lowenthal, Social Change and Cultural Crisis. Columbia University Press, New York, 1984, pp.viii + 252. $US29.50.

Dietrich Fischer, Preventing War in the Nuclear Age. Rowman and Allanheld, Totowa, N.J./Croom Helm, London, 1984, pp. x + 236. $27.95.

F. Dyson, Weapons and Hope Harper and Row, New York, 1984, pp.340. $24.95.

John Langmore and David Peetz (eds), Wealth, Poverty and Survival. Australia in the World. George Allen and Unwin, Sydney, in association with the Australian Labor Party, 1983, pp. 225.     

Dewey’s concept of experience for inquiry-based landscape drawing during field studies

The epistemological and educational philosophy of John Dewey is used as a theoretical basis to analyze processes of knowledge construction during geographical field studies. The experience of landscape drawing as a method of inquiry and a starting point for research-based learning is empirically evaluated. The basic drawing skills are acquired through an online drawing course. The main aim is to foster the self-organized acquisition of relevant skills to explore, describe and reflect on subjective mental and linguistic concepts in relation to scientific landscape models. The results, based on an evaluation of the students’ drawings, their responses to questionnaires and a review of students’ “reflective notes”, indicate that the approach motivated students to learn about the processes which formed the landscape and that the students perceived the method of inquiry after Dewey as a way to overcome cognitive dissonance.     

Kant and the scientific study of consciousness

We argue that Kant's views about consciousness, the mind-body problem and the status of psychology as a science all differ drastically from the way in which these topics are conjoined in present debates about the prominent idea of a science of consciousness. Kant never used the concept of consciousness in the now dominant sense of phenomenal qualia; his discussions of the mind-body problem center not on the reducibility of mental properties but of substances; and his views about the possibility of psychology as a science did not employ the requirement of a mechanistic explanation, but of a quantification of phenomena. This shows strikingly how deeply philosophical problems and conceptions can change even if they look similar on the surface.     

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Reviews

     

“MY PUTREFACTION IS MYRRH:”THE LEXICOGRAPHY OF DECAY,GILDED COFFINS,AND THE GREEN SKIN OF OSIRIS

While the ancient Egyptian practice of mummification inhibited physical decomposition, the Egyptians believed that there was a liminal state during decomposition where the dead were vulnerable to spiritual attack. Spells and incantations were used as a measure to preserve the deceased by ritually converting and transforming the products of decomposition. This paper explores the lexicography of rot and decay in order to study idiomatic expressions that anticipate outcomes that preserve the dead, reverse decomposition, and transfigure the deceased. The paper relates the ritual conversion presumed through some of the Coffin Texts to religious beliefs and practices that include apotheosis, gilded coffins, and the green skin of Osiris.