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.).     

Between National Socialism and expert internationalism: Karl Strölin and transnationalism in urban planning, 1938–45

This essay examines the transnational activities of National Socialist experts, focusing on the endeavours of the burgomaster of Stuttgart, Karl Strölin. In 1938, Strölin became president of the International Federation for Housing and Town Planning (IFHTP), one of the most distinguished international expert institutions for European and North American urban planning. The article discusses his belief that promoting an international convention on the protection of urban populations would contribute to German diplomacy in the initial period of the Second World War. Then it investigates the IFHTP president’s efforts to transform his institution into an outlet for National Socialist ideas against the background of the German advance through Europe. A final section deals with Strölin’s attempts to transform the IFHTP into a forum for evaluating urban reconstruction policies in the last year of the war. This biographical study shows how it was possible to juggle the logics and expectations of seemingly contradictory spatial and political realms during and after World War II. National socialist politics and ideology exacerbated the tensions between local, national and international affiliations, but at the same time never fully permeated the mechanisms of expert internationalism. By revealing how Strölin navigated between local ambitions, the demands of domestic foreign policy and the ethics of expert internationalism in three markedly different projects, this essay contributes to a growing body of scholarship on the cross-border activities of National Socialist professionals in (occupied) Europe.     

Caretakers of the Earth: integrating Canadian Aboriginal perspectives on culture and sustainability into local plans

Abstract

While still contested in most jurisdictions, a consensus on the four-pillar approach to sustainable development is slowly emerging. This perspective attempts to integrate the environmental, social, economic and cultural elements of a community into local sustainability planning processes and has been widely adopted in Canada as the basis of Integrated Community Sustainability Plans. However, Aboriginal perspectives have generally been marginalised in such efforts, largely because Aboriginal peoples take a more holistic approach to both sustainability and culture than Western-educated planners and decision makers. This article examines current approaches and methodologies adopted by Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities in Canada to integrate culture in sustainability planning and presents several case studies that examine the application of medicine wheel and other Aboriginal integrative worldviews to community sustainability planning. It discusses whether Aboriginal perspectives on culture can provide an alternative narrative that will advance our understanding of culture’s role in community sustainability and counteract the monocultural perspectives that are the legacy of colonialism throughout the world.