Book Reviews

Ken Booth and Steve Smith (eds), International Relations Theory Today, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995. xii + 367pp. $39.95 (paper).

Christine Sylvester, Feminist Theory and International Relations in a Postmodern Era. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. xi + 265pp. $47.50 (paper).

Stephanie Lawson (ed.), The New Agenda for Global Security: Cooperating for Peace and Beyond. St. Leonards: Allen & Unwin/Department of International Relations, RSPAS, Australian National University, 1995. xi + 217pp. $24.95.

Anne O. Krueger, Economic Policies at Cross‐Purposes: The United States and Developing Countries. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1993. xii + 253pp. $US36.95 (cloth).

Robert L. Paarlberg, Leadership Abroad Begins at Home: U.S. Foreign Economic Policy After the Cold War. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1995. xxv + 115pp. $US28.95 (cloth); $US10.95 (paper).

Tony Brenton, The Greening of Machiavelli: The Evolution of International Environmental Politics. London: Royal Institute of International Affairs/Earthscan, 1994. xvii + 282pp. $UK14.95 (paper).

John Charmley, Churchill's Grand Alliance: The Anglo‐American Special Relationship, 1940–1957. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1995. xv + 427pp. $55.00 (cloth).

Victor A. Kremenyuk, Conflicts In and Around Russia. Nation‐Building in Difficult Times. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1994. xiv + 159pp. $US49.95 (cloth).

Alexander Johnston, Sipho Shezi and Gavin Bradshaw (eds), Constitution‐making in the New South Africa. London and New York: Leicester University Press, 1993. viii + 272pp. $UK 39.50.

Ramesh Thakur, The Politics and Economics of India's Foreign Policy. London: Hurst and Company; New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994. xi + 306pp. No price given.

Francis Seow, To Catch a Tartar: A Dissident in Lee Kuan Yew's Prison (with a foreword by C.V. Devan Nair). Yale Southeast Asia Studies Monograph 42, New Haven: Yale Centre for International and Area Studies, 1994. xxxiii + 293pp. $50.00 (paper).

Brij Lal, Robert Kiste and Kerry Howe (eds), The Tides of History: The Pacific Islands in the 20th Century. St Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 1994. xviii + 475pp. $34.95 (paper).

LaMond Tullis, Unintended Consequences—Illegal Drugs and Drug Policies in Nine Countries. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1995. ix + 229pp. $US42.00 (cloth).

The United Nations and Cambodia 1991–1995, The United Nations Blue Books Series, Vol. II. New York: Department of Public Information, United Nations, 1995. 352pp. $US29.95 (paper).

‘Atu Emberson‐Bain (ed.), Sustainable Development or Malignant Growth? Perspectives of Pacific Island Women. Suva, Fiji: Marama Publications, 1994. 290pp. No price given.

Payam Akhavan and Robert Howse (eds), Yugoslavia, the Former and Future: Reflections by Scholars front the Region. Washington, DC and Geneva: The Brookings Institution and The United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, 1995. xxviii + 188pp. $US32.95 (cloth) $US 12.95 (paper).

David Camroux, ‘Looking East’ . . . and Inwards: Internal Factors in Malaysian Foreign Relations during the Mahathir Era 1981–1994. Australia‐Asia Papers No. 72. Griffith University: Centre for the Study of Australia‐Asia Relations, 1994. iii + 62pp. $10.00.     

The Economic Degeneration of Masculinity in Rafael Chirbes's En la orilla

Rafael Chirbes's En la orilla has been proclaimed as “la novela de la crisis,” and it has garnered an impressive amount of distinction in the short length of time since its publication in May 2013. It was voted the 2013 novel of the year by readers of El País, and in January 2014 it won the Premio Francisco Umbral, as well as reaching its fifth edition. Unsparingly critical, En la orilla forms an integral part of the cultural requestioning of social values in the wake of the Spanish crisis, “la literatura de la crisis,” which stresses the human and material consequences of the suspension of human values stemming from the social endorsement of market imperialism. En la orilla thematizes the corrosion of moral character during Spain's economic boom, in its multiple forms, such as selfishness, disregard for the elderly, and arrant mercenariness, while also fictionalizing neoliberal Spain's exclusion of immigrants and the poor. Integral to Chiribes's historically contextualized critique of the recession, and the object of my study, is a perceptive vision of the historical degeneration of masculinity from the Second Republic, 1931–1936, to the present day. This article will first provide a brief overview of “la literatura de la crisis,” while the second part illumines the economic and ideological distortion of the father–son relationship in this novel.     

How clothing design and cultural industries refashioned frontier masculinities: a historical geography of Western wear

Gendered subjectivities emerge historically and geographically, not only in situ, within an ‘authentic’ origin period or site, but through later retrospective commodifications and fantastical popular culture depictions. This article traces the masculine identity of the cowboy as commodified and performed through clothing. The cowboy emerged from colonial origins as a model and myth of frontier masculinity: the ‘rugged outdoor type’. But it was then formularized and stylized when subject to popular culture diffusion, and as accompanying clothing design evolved. Through clothing – advertised by metropolitan manufacturers and consumed across America and beyond – an archetypal, sexualized cowboy ‘look’ thus emerged. The author traces a historical geography of cowboy masculinities in clothing design, from early ‘frontier garments for the outdoor man’ to later Western-wear ‘for that long, lean look’. Related constructions of femininity are also considered, after women's Western-wear clothing lines were produced in the 1950s. To illustrate, I draw on archival brochures, catalogs, and advertising materials from the 1920s to 1970s, as well as discuss the material design of the clothes themselves. I focus especially on the Western snap shirt – an apparel item never actually worn on the nineteenth-century colonial frontier, but that became an ‘essential’ element of the cowboy look, and a vehicle for masculine appearance. Western-wear epitomizes how gendered subject positions are visually constituted in relational fashion via bodies, materials, media, and imagined geographies.     

Participatory Feedback and Dissemination with and for Children: Reflections from Research with Young Migrants in Southern Africa

In this contribution we discuss the process of feedback and dissemination that we adopted following research with children affected by AIDS in southern Africa. We outline our reasons for engaging in detailed feedback and dissemination, distinguishing between active or passive processes and discuss the participatory methods we adopted. Through our reflections we consider feedback as an obligation to participants and dissemination as a potential agent of social change. In addition we evaluate the effectiveness with which we were able to truly incorporate the voices of young people in our dissemination and relinquish control of the outcomes to make them available for action among policy-makers. In conclusion we highlight that active dissemination, although not able to guarantee that research recommendations will be acted upon, at the very least opens dialogue and enhances understanding among those able to implement action.     

The sky is the limit: reconstructing physical geography from an aerial perspective

In an era of rapid geographical data acquisition, interpretations of remote sensing products are an integral part of many undergraduate geography degree schemes but there are fewer opportunities for collection and processing of primary remote sensing data. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) provide a relatively inexpensive opportunity to introduce the principles and practice of airborne remote sensing into field courses, enabling students to learn about image acquisition, data processing and interpretation of derived products. Two case studies illustrate how a low-cost “DJI Phantom Vision+” UAV can be used by students to acquire images that can be processed using Structure-from-Motion photogrammetry software. Results from a student questionnaire and analysis of assessed student reports showed that using UAVs enhanced student engagement and equipped them with data processing skills. The derivation of bespoke orthophotos and Digital Elevation Models has the potential to provide students with opportunities to gain insight into various remote sensing data quality issues, although additional training is required to maximize this potential. Recognition of the successes and limitations of this teaching intervention provides scope for improving future UAV exercises. UAVs are enabling both a reconstruction of how we measure the Earth’s surface and a reconstruction of how students do fieldwork.     

Trends in pig product processing at British Neolithic Grooved Ware sites traced through organic residues in potsherds

Gas chromatography (GC), GC-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and GC-combustion-isotope ratio MS (GC-C-IRMS) analyses of absorbed and surface lipid residues preserved in potsherds were used to explore the extent of pig product processing exploitation in the later British Neolithic Grooved Ware tradition. Assessments were made regarding whether porcine lipids were associated with specific Grooved Ware traits, i.e. decoration, substyle, geographical area and type of site. Two hundred and twenty-two Grooved Ware potsherds were analysed, 70% of which contained lipid concentrations considered significant (>5 μg g⁻¹). All the lipid residues were dominated by animal fats, although plant and beeswax were also detected in a small number of extracts. δ¹³C values of the major fatty acid components of degraded animal fats (C_16:0 and C_18:0) were determined for 126 extracts and used to assign ruminant or porcine origins to the residues; 16% of these were found to have a predominantly porcine isotope signature. Statistical associations with pig exploitation were shown to exist with substyle, geographical area and site type, whereas, no relationship was seen between decoration and the type of commodity processed. Intact triacylglycerols were preserved in 19% of the sherds; half of these had distributions consistent with the identifications based on δ¹³C values, the remainder differed either due to the presence of mixed commodities or because lower molecular weight homologues had been lost due to degradation. In addition to the detection of pig exploitation, results from lipid residue analysis showed a good correlation with faunal assemblages, suggesting that stable isotope analysis may be used as a proxy for animal exploitation at sites where bones have not survived.