Lawrence of Arabia: The life,the legend. A review of the exhibition at the Imperial War Museum, 14 October 2005–17 April 2006

Biography and Autobiography

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. A memoir by his grandson, The. Earl of Lytton. Macdonald, London. Pp. 357. Index, illus. 30s.

Gertrude Bell. From her Personal Papers. 1914–26. Vol. II. By Elizabeth Bur‐goyne. Benn, 1961. Pp. 399. Illus., index. 45s.

The Yoshida Memoirs. By Shigeru Yoshida. Translated by Kenichi Yoshida. Pp. 291. Heinemann. 30s.

Kuniyoshi. By B. W. Robinson. Published by the Victoria and Albert Museum. 1961. Pp. 71. Plates 98. 27s. 6d.

Mao Tse‐tung and I Were Beggars. By Dr. Siao Yu. Hutchinson. Illus. Index. Pp. 253.

The Boss (The Story of Gamal Abdel Nasser). By Robert St. John. Arthur Barker, Ltd. London. 1961. Pp. 288. Index. 21s.

King Mongkut of Siam. By A. A. Griswold. Published by the Asia Society. New York. Pp. 60. $1.

Memoirs of a Bengal Civilian. By John Beames. Chatto and Windus, 1961. Index. 30s.

Religion and Philosophy

A Short History of Islam. By S. F. Mahmud. Pakistan branch O.U.P. i960. Pp. x + 724. Maps 24. 35s.

Studies in Islamic History and Civilisation. Ed. by Uriel Heyd. (Scripta Hierasolymitanc, vol. IX). Jerusalem, 1961. Pp. 228. 40s.

Yoga. Union with the Ultimate. The Sutras of Patanjali. By Archie J. Bahm. Published by Fredk. Ungar Publishing Co., N.Y. 1961. $3.50.

The Confucian Persuasion. Edited by Arthur Wright. Published by the Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, U.S.A. Index. 68s.

Selected Chinese Sayings. Translated and annotated by T. C. Lai, M.A. Published by University Book Store, Hong Kong. Pp. 191. U.S. $3.50 or 20s.

A New Selection from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. By John C. E. Bowen. Published by The Unicorn Press, London, 1961. Pp. xv + 136. Illustrations. 21s.

Asia (general)

Blueprints for Independence. By Dr. R. C. Winter. Djambatan (Amsterdam). Pp. 351. Bibliography and Annexes.

Far East

The Japanese Seizure of Korea, 1868–1910. By Hilary Conroy. Pennsylvania Press (London: Oxford University Press). Pp. 507. 60s.

East Asia: The Great Tradition. By Edwin O. Reischaucr and John K. Fairbank of Harvard University. Published by George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., London, i960. Pp. 690. Illus. Index and Biblio. 55s.

Contemporary China—Volume III, 1958–59. Ed. by Professor E. Stuart Kirby. Published by Hong Kong University Press. 1961. 45s.

Communist China Today. By S. Chandrasekhar, with a foreword by Frank Moraes; Asia Publishing House. 1961. No illustrations. Pp. 199. 21s.

South‐West Asia

The Emergence of Modern Turkey. By Bernard Lewis. Oxford University Press. Pp. 495. Biblio. Index and maps. 48s.

Crisis in Lebanon. By Fahim I. Qubain. The Middle East Institute, Washington D.C. 1961. Pp. 235. Map, appendices and index. I5.

A Modern History of the Sudan. By P. M. Holt. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Pp. 240. Illus., index, biblio. and maps. 27s. 6d.

South Asia

The Soul of India. By Comtc Amaury de Riencourt. Jonathan Cape. Pp. xvi + 431. 25s.

The National Culture of India. By S. Abid Husain. Asia Publishing House, London, 1961. Pp. xi + 237. Index. 32s.

Indian Economic Policy and Development. By P. T. Bauer. Allen and Unwin, 1961. Pp. 152. Index. 16s.

The Quintessence of Nehru. Selected and with an introduction by K. T. Narasimha Char. Allen and Unwin, London, 1961. Pp. 271. Index. 21s.

Pakistan, the Formative Phase. By Dr. Khalid bin Sayeed. Pakistan Publishing House, Karachi, i960. Pp. xii + 492.

A History of the Freedom Movement. Published by the Pakistan Historical Society, Karachi. 1957–1960. Volume I, 1707–1831. Pp. xiii + 630. Volume II, 1831–1905. Pp. viii + 332.

Central Asia

The Changing Map of Asia. A Political Geography. Edited by W. Gordon East and O. H. K. Spate. 4th Edition. Revised. (London: Methuen and Co., Ltd. New York: E. P. Dutton and Co. Inc.). Pp. xviii + 436. Maps, tables and index. 36s.

The Slno‐Soviet Dispute. Edited by G. F. Hudson, Richard Lowenthal and Roderick MacFarquhar. Published by The China Quarterly, London. 5s.

Between Oxus.and Jumna. By Arnold Toynbee. O.U.P. 1961. Pp. 202. Illustrated, map and index 21s.

The Snowman and Company. By Odette Tcherninc. Robert Hale. ? 1961. Pp. 174. Biblio. Index. Illus. 18s.

In the Kirghiz Steppes. By J. W. Wardell. Published by the Galley Press, 1961. Pp. 182. Illus. Maps. Indexed. 25s.

Everyman's Concise Encyclopaedia of Russia. By S. V. Utechin. London: J. M. Dent and Sons, Ltd. New York: B. P. Dutton and Co. Inc. Pp. xxvi + 623. 30s.     

Book reviews

Improving the quality of public participation in council decision making continues to be a key goal of local government 'modernisation'. Different rationales for this have been advanced, including consumerist aims of service improvement, participation as an important value in itself, and participation as a survival strategy for local government. Based on surveys of, and interviews with, councillors and senior officers in Scottish local government, this article explores the ways in which concepts of 'consumerism' and 'citizenship' inform councils' approaches to public participation.     

Green Grabbing: a new appropriation of nature?

Across the world, ‘green grabbing’ – the appropriation of land and resources for environmental ends – is an emerging process of deep and growing significance. The vigorous debate on ‘land grabbing’ already highlights instances where ‘green’ credentials are called upon to justify appropriations of land for food or fuel – as where large tracts of land are acquired not just for ‘more efficient farming’ or ‘food security’, but also to ‘alleviate pressure on forests’. In other cases, however, environmental green agendas are the core drivers and goals of grabs – whether linked to biodiversity conservation, biocarbon sequestration, biofuels, ecosystem services, ecotourism or ‘offsets’ related to any and all of these. In some cases these involve the wholesale alienation of land, and in others the restructuring of rules and authority in the access, use and management of resources that may have profoundly alienating effects. Green grabbing builds on well-known histories of colonial and neo-colonial resource alienation in the name of the environment – whether for parks, forest reserves or to halt assumed destructive local practices. Yet it involves novel forms of valuation, commodification and markets for pieces and aspects of nature, and an extraordinary new range of actors and alliances – as pension funds and venture capitalists, commodity traders and consultants, GIS service providers and business entrepreneurs, ecotourism companies and the military, green activists and anxious consumers among others find once-unlikely common interests. This collection draws new theorisation together with cases from African, Asian and Latin American settings, and links critical studies of nature with critical agrarian studies, to ask: To what extent and in what ways do ‘green grabs’ constitute new forms of appropriation of nature? How and when do circulations of green capital become manifest in actual appropriations on the ground – through what political and discursive dynamics? What are the implications for ecologies, landscapes and livelihoods? And who is gaining and who is losing – how are agrarian social relations, rights and authority being restructured, and in whose interests?     

The 2007 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections in Timor‐Leste

In the wake of the 2006 “east‐west” crisis in Timor‐Leste, the 2007 Presidential and Parliamentary elections were widely heralded as a key test of political development in the newly independent nation. This article analyses the pre‐election situation, significant electoral law changes, the emergence of new political parties, campaign incidents, poll results, and postelection negotiations over a coalition government. It concludes by reflecting on some of the wider implications for political stability in Timor‐Leste, and related developments through 2008. 1     

Canadian Federalism Revisited

The crisis in Canadian federalism is examined in its historicalcontext, with particular emphasis on regionalism, provincialand national assertions of power, the institutional framework,and intergovernmental consultation. Current problems are consideredin relation to the new Constitution.     

The Audit Commission's View of Politics: A Critical Evaluation of the CPA Process

The Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) process introduced in the wake of the Local Government Act 2000 was in essence a managerial tool applied to a political environment. An analysis of the Commission's first tranche of CPA reports reveals a particular perspective on the role of politics and parties in local authorities which raises issues about the Commission's competence and legitimacy to make such judgements. Composite pictures of the ‘good political authority’ and the ‘poor political authority’ can be drawn up, which display a degree of political naivety and a failure to recognise the differences between political and managerial logic. It is concluded that the CPA process should have taken the political culture of an authority as a ‘given’ (at least in the short term), and evaluated the performance of the authority's management in the political circumstances in which they had to operate. Finally the role of the CPA process in contributing to the government-led pressures for depoliticisation of local decision-making is examined, with a particular concern about the substitution of the concept of ‘the good of the area’ for the different priorities and visions of different parties.