Book Reviews

Books reviewed: Peter Chapman, general editor, Historical Records of Australia: Resumed Series III, Despatches and Papers Relating to the History of Tasmania, Volume VII. Tasmania, January–December 1828 Various authors, Edward Gibbon Wakefield and the Colonial Dream: A Reconsideration Ged Martin, Edward Gibbon Wakefield: Abductor and Mystagogue Rosamond Siemon, The Mayne Inheritance Stephen Garton, The Cost of War: Australians Return Bridget Goodwin, Keen As Mustard: Britain’s Horrific Chemical Warfare Experiments in Australia Meredith Burgmann and Verity Burgmann, Green Bans, Red Union: Environmentalism and the New South Wales Builders Labourers’ Federation Tim M. Berra, A Natural History of Australia Gregory Melleuish, The Packaging of Australia: Politics and Culture Wars Errol Cocks, Charlie Fox, Mark Brogan and Michael Lee, eds, Under the Blue Skies: The Social Construction of Intellectual Disability in Western Australia R.A. Markus, Gregory the Great and His World Caroline Litzenberger, The English Reformation and the Laity: Gloucestershire, 1540–1580 Peter Marshall, ed., The Impact of the English Reformation Tom Webster, Godly Clergy in Early Stuart England: The Caroline Puritan Movement, c. 1620–1643 Adrian Wilson, ed., Rethinking Social History: English Society 1570–1920 and its Interpretation David Alexander, Richard Newton and English Caricature in the 1790s David Taylor, The New Police in Nineteenth-Century England: Crime, Conflict and Control Bernard Lightman, ed., Victorian Science in Context Geoffrey V. Sutton, Science for a Polite Society: Gender, Culture and the Demonstration of Enlightenment Edna Hindie Lemay and Alison Patrick, Revolutionaries at Work: The Constituent Assembly, 1789–1791 Martin Kitchen, The Cambridge Illustrated History of Germany Douglas Newton, British Policy and the Weimar Republic 1918–1919 Andrei Sinyavsky, The Russian Intelligentsia Bruce Russett, No Clear and Present Danger A Skeptical View of the United States Entry into World War II Paul N. Goldstene, Revolution American Style: The Nineteen-Sixties and Beyond Vamik D. Volkan, Norman Itzkowitz and Andrew W. Dod, Richard Nixon: A Psychobiography Eric Jones, Lionel Frost and Colin White, Coming Full Circle: An Economic History of the Pacific Rim Stephen Alomes and Michael Provis, eds, French Worlds, Pacific Worlds: French Nuclear Testing in Australia’s Backyard Nicholas Tarling, Nations and States in Southeast Asia David Kelly and Anthony Reid, eds, Asian Freedoms: The Idea of Freedom in East and Southeast Asia Edmund Terence Gomez and Jomo K.S., Malaysia’s Political Economy: Politics, Patronage and Profits Martin Stuart-Fox, History of Laos Christopher Kremmer, Stalking the Elephant Kings: In Search of Laos Grant Evans, The Politics of Ritual and Remembrance: Laos Since 1975 K.L. Sharma, Social Stratification in India: Issues and Themes Vera Mackie, Creating Socialist Women in Japan: Gender, Labour and Activism, 1990–1937 Ian Bellany, The Environment in World Politics: Exploring the Limits David Shearman with Gary Sauer-Thompson, Green or Gone: Health, Ecology, Plagues, Greed and Our Future Daniel S. Geller and J. David Singer, Nations at War: A Scientific Study of International Conflict Daniel Pick, War Machine: The Rationalisation of Slaughter in the Modern Age     

A.H. Tammsaare’s Truth and Justice as a Postcolonial Bildungsroman

A.H. Tammsaare’s pentalogy Truth and Justice is considered a central text in Estonian culture, perceived virtually as a second national epic. The article analyzes it from the perspective of comparative genre studies. It is discussed as an idiosyncratic example of Bildungsroman, a genre narrativizing modernizing change focusing on the lives of everyday individuals, thus symbolically domesticating and humanizing the global developments of modernization. The emplotment of Tammsaare’s novel is comparatively discussed against the background of the Western European Bildungsroman on the one hand and of non-European postcolonial Bildungsroman on the other. The analysis enables to gain new insight into the reception and cultural working-through of the belated rapid modernization in Estonia. It also helps to explain the canonical position of Tammsaare’s novel in Estonian literature: The novel is a poetic tour de force that forges a both intra- and internationally acceptable model of modern Estonia.     

L'Italie — Le Bicaméralisme Imparfait: Du Sénat du Royaume au Sénat de la République

Summary

Imperfect Bicameralism: Italy from the Senate of the Monarchy to the Senate of the Republic

1. The creation of the royal Senate; 2. The Italian antecedents of the 1848 Senate; 3. Projects for the reform of the Senate; 4. G. Mosca: the eulogy of imperfect bicameralism; 5. The end of the royal Senate and the birth of the republican Senate; 6. The current debate on bicameralism in Italy.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed in this article: Fred R. Myers, Painting Culture: The Making of an Aboriginal High Art Rebe Taylor, Unearthed: The Aboriginal Tasmanians of Kangaroo Island Daniel Marc Segesser, Empire und Totaler Krieg: Australien 1905–1918 Marilyn Lake, Faith: Faith Bandler, Gentle Activist David Goldsworthy, Losing the Blanket: Australia and the End of Britain's Empire Bridget Griffen‐Foley, Party Games: Australian Politicians and the Media from War to Dismissal Edited by Susan Ryan and Troy Bramston, The Hawke Government: A Critical Retrospective Rae Wear, Johannes Bjelke‐Petersen: The Lord's Premier Marilyn Dodkin, Bob Carr: The Reluctant Leader Edited by Michael Hogan and David Clune, The People's Choice. Electoral Politics in 20th Century New South Wales. Volume One: 1901 to 1927; Volume Two: 1930 to 1965; Volume Three: 1968 to 1999 Verity Burgmann, Power, Profit and Protest: Australian Social Movements and Globalisation Michael Goldsmith and Doug Munro, The Accidental Missionary: Tales of Elekana The State Trials 1163–1858 on CD‐ROM Catherine Hall, Civilising Subjects: Metropole and Colony in the English Imagination, 1830 – 1867 Robert Sloan, William Smith O'Brien and the Young Ireland Rebellion of 1848 Edited by Robert J. Young, Under Siege: Portraits of Civilian Life in France during World War I Robert Boyce and Joseph Maiolo, eds, The Origins of the Second World War: The Debate Continues Jürgen Tampke, Czech‐German Relations and the Politics of Central Europe: From Bohemia to the EU Rolf Steininger, Der Mauerbau: Die Westmächte und Adenauer in der Berlinkrise 1958–1963 [The Building of the Wall: The Western Powers and Adenauer in the Berlin Crisis, 1958–1963] Edited by Larry Eugene Jones, Crossing Boundaries. The Exclusion of Minorities In Germany and the United States Mark Sanders, Complicities: The Intellectual and Apartheid Michael E. Brown and ?umit Ganguly, eds, Fighting Words: Language Policy and Ethnic Relations in Asia Shigeharu Tanabe and Charles F. Keyes, eds, Cultural Crisis and Social Memory: Modernity and Identity in Thailand and Laos Asa Briggs and Peter Burke, A Social History of the Media: From Gutenberg to the Internet Sophie Bessis, trans. Patrick Camiller, Western Supremacy: Triumph of an Idea? Henry Milner, Civic Literacy. How Informed Citizens Make Democracy Work M. Anne Brown, Human Rights and the Borders of Suffering: The Promotion of Human Rights in International Politics Janna Thompson, Taking Responsibility for the Past: Reparation and Historical Injustice Philip B. Heymann, Terrorism, Freedom and Security: Winning Without War     

Party Politics and Governance in Grenada: An Analysis of the New National Party (1984–2012)

Abstract

This article examines party politics and governance in post-revolutionary Grenada, using the case of the New National Party (NNP). The central question is what does the evolution of the NNP suggests about governance and democracy in post-invasion Grenada? The article traces four phases of the NNP since its formation in 1984: (1) externally imposed marriage of convenience; (2) intra-party conflict and splintering; (3) rebranding, consolidation and dominance; and (4) electoral defeat. The article contends that Grenada has transitioned to formal democracy and the NNP is a significant actor. Yet, despite this transition, Grenada has not become the showcase of democracy that the US said it would in 1984.     

Book notes

King Abdullah, Britain and the Making of Jordan by Mary C.Wilson. Cambridge, New York and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Pp.xxii + 289, index. £25

War and Intervention in Lebanon: The Israeli‐Syrian Deterrence Dialogue, by Yair Evron; London and Sydney, Croom Helm, 1987; pp.x–246.

The Palestinian Entity 1959–1974: Arab politics and the PLO, by Moshe Shemesh; London, Frank Cass, 402 pp.1988. £35.00.

Jerusalem in the 19th Century: The Old City by Yehoshua Ben‐Arieh. Jerusalem: Yad Itzhak Ben Zvi; New York: St Martin's Press, 1984. Pp.438, index. No price given. Jerusalem in the 19th Century: Emergence of the New City by Yehoshua Ben‐Arieh. Jerusalem: Yad Itzhak Ben Zvi; New York: St Martin's Press, 1986. Pp.198, index. No price given.

The Jews in Palestine 1800–1882, by Tudor Parfitt. Pp.xiii + 243 tables, footnotes, bibliography, notes, glossary, index. The Royal Historical Society, The Boydell Press, Exeter, 1987. £25.     

Fluid Loyalties in a Regional Crisis: Chadian 'Ex-Liberators' in the Central African Republic

This article examines a neglected pattern of the regional crisisin Darfur, Chad, and the Central African Republic: the cross-borderactivities of combatants with fluid loyalties. The trajectoriesof Chadian ‘ex-liberators’ in CAR, which have beenlittle documented, are used to illustrate the regional movementsof armed men. The article explains how unemployed Chadian soldierswere recruited to fight with François Bozizé inCAR and why many of them joined other armed groups after Bozizé'stakeover. The reconversions of armed combatants, who may easilyshift allegiance and cross borders to carry on with their ‘politico-militarycareers’, is thus a structural characteristic of the currentconflict, which has major implications both at the local andtransnational levels. The article concludes that freelance militaryentrepreneurs’ trajectories are crucial in understandingthe unfolding of this regional crisis.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed: Sally, Graham, (ed.) A Man about Town: The Letters of James Graham, Victorian Entrepreneur 1854‐1864 Pamela, Jeanne Fulton, (ed.) The Minerva Journal of John Washington Price: A Voyage from Cork, Ireland, to Sydney, New South Wales, 1798‐1800 Susan, Lawrence, Dolly's Creek: An Archaeology of a Victorian Goldfields Community Don, Garden, Theodore Fink. A Talent for Ubiquity John, Ritchie, (ed.) Australian Dictionary of Biography. Vol. 15. 1940‐1980. Kem‐Pie Kay, Saunders and Roger, Daniels, (eds) Alien Justice. Wartime Internment in Australia and North America Mark, Johnston, Fighting the Enemy: Australian Soldiers and their Adversaries in World War II Frank, Bongiorno, The People's Party: Victorian Labor and the Radical Tradition Brian, Costar and Nicholas, Economou, (eds) The Kennett Revolution. Victorian Politics in the 1990s Michael, Thompson, Labor Without Class: The Gentrification of the Labor Party Ian, Hancock, National and Permanent? The Federal Organisation of the Liberal Party of Australia 1944‐1965 Ian, Cook, Liberalism in Australia John, Chesterman and Brian, Galligan, (eds) Defining Australian Citizenship: Selected Documents Sue, Richardson, (ed.) Reshaping the Labour Market: Regulation, Efficiency and Equality in Australia S., Bell, (ed.) The Unemployment Crisis in Australia: Which Way Out? Bain, Attwood and Andrew, Markus, The Struggle for Aboriginal Rights: A Documentary History Tony, Coady (ed.) Why Universities Matter John, Wiseman, Global Nation? Australia and the Politics of Globalisation Donald, Denoon, (ed.) with Stewart, Firth; Jocelyn, Linnekin; Malama, Meleisea and Karen, Nero, The Cambridge History of the Pacific Islanders Richard, Price British Society, 1680‐1880: Dynamism, Containment and Change Kathleen, Wilson, The Sense of the People: Politics, Culture and Imperialism in England, 1715‐1785 John, Brewer and Eckhart, Hellmuth, (eds) Rethinking Leviathan: The Eighteenth‐Century State in Britain and Germany Jörn, Rüsen, (ed.) Westliches Geschichtsdenken. Eine interkulturelle Debatte John B., Hattendorf, (ed.), with a foreword by Paul Kennedy Naval Strategy and Policy in the Mediterranean. Past, Present and Future Jean‐Claude, Favez,, (eds and trans by John and Beryl Fletcher) The Red Cross and the Holocaust István, Deák; Jan T., Gross and Tony, Judt, (eds) The Politics of Retribution in Europe: World War II and its Aftermath Peter, Grose, Operation Rollback: America's Secret War Behind the Iron Curtain Hira, Sing, (foreword by André Béteille) Colonial Hegemony and Popular Resistance. Princes, Peasants and Paramount Power Martin, Doornbos and Sudipta, Kaviraj, Dynamics of State Formation, India and Europe Compared. Indo‐Dutch Studies on Development Alternatives, 19 Marie‐Claire, Bergère, (Janet Lloyd trans) Sun Yat‐Sen Sherman, Cochran, (ed.) Inventing Nanjing Road: Commercial Culture in Shanghai, 1900‐1945 Frederick C., Teiwes with Warren, Sun, China's Road to Disaster, Mao, Central Politicians, and Provincial Leaders in the Unfolding of the Great Leap Forward 1955‐1959 Richard J., Aldrich, Intelligence and the War against Japan: Britain, America and the Politics of Secret Service Dr Maung, Maung, The 1988 Uprising in Burma. Monograph 49 Manoranjan, Mohanty and Partha, Math Mukherji with Olle, Törnquist, (eds) People's Rights: Social Movements and the State in the Third World Diane B., Paul, The Politics of Heredity: Essays on Eugenics, Biomedicine and the Nature‐Nurture Debate Joseph, Hamburger, John Stuart Mill on Liberty and Control April, Carter and Geoffrey, Stokes, (eds) Liberal Democracy and its Critics: Perspectives in Contemporary Political Thought Judith N., Shklar, (ed. by Stanley Hoffmann and Dennis F. Thompson) Redeeming American Political Thought Jennifer, Platt, A History of Sociological Research Methods in America: 1920‐1960     

Exhibiting the Enlightenment: Joseph Banks’s Florilegium and Colonial Knowledge Production

ABSTRACT

The returned Australia-Japan Foundation Visiting Professor of Australian Studies at the University of Tokyo (2014–15), Anna Johnston, reflects on a 2014 exhibition held in Tokyo: The Bunkamura Museum of Art’s “Captain Cook’s Voyage and Banks’ Florilegium.” The Florilegium continues to have resonance as part of Australia’s complex colonial inheritance from the Enlightenment past. Its display and interpretation both overseas and within Australia provides an opportunity to better understand its origin in a pivotal historical period, globally, and its contribution to knowledge in arts and sciences. The Florilegium also reveals how Indigenous knowledge was central to European exploration and knowledge production. This article outlines contextual issues and seeks to provide a complex biography of this scientific and artistic artefact of Empire, in order to propose new ways of reading the Florilegium that pay attention to that enriched biography.     

The Red Flag Riots: A Study of Intolerance.

By Ramond Evans. St. Lucia. University of Queensland Press, 1988. pp, xv + 252. Illustrated. Seven maps. The Fight Goes On. A Picture of Australia and the World in Two Post-war Decades. By Ralph Gibson. Ascot Vale, Red Rooster Press, 1987. pp:280, illustrated. $23.00 paperback. The New Right's Australian Fantasy. Edited by Ken Coghill. The German Presence in Queensland Over the Last 150 Years Edited by Manfred Jurgensen and Alan Corkhill. Brisbane. Research Unit German Australian Relations, Dept. of German. University of Queensland, 1988. pp. 414. No price given. The Fenians In Australia 1865–1880. By Keith Amos. Policing In Australia: Historical Perspectives. Edited by Mark Finnane Law and Government in Colonial Australia. By Paul Finn. A Divided Working Class. By Constance Lever-Tracy and Michael Quinlan. Buongiorno Australia: Our Italian Heritage. By Robert Pascoe. Big-noting: The heroic theme in Australian war writing. By Robin Gerster. Rising Damp: Sydney 1870–90. By Shirley Fitzgerald. A Trunk Full of Books: History of the State Library of South Australia and its Forerunners By Carl Bridge. Delivering the Goods: A History of the NSW Transport Workers Union 1888–1986. By Mark Bray and Malcolm Rimmer. No Paradise for Workers: Capitalism and the Common People in Australia 1788–1914. By Ken Buckley and Ted Wheelwright. Labour Party in New South Wales 1880–1900. By Raymond Markey. The Scottish in Australia. By Malcolm D. Prentis. Bunyip Aristocracy: The New South Wales Constitution Debate of 1853 and Hereditary Institutions in the British Colonies. By Ged Martin. Ambivalent Allies: Myth and Reality in the Australian-American Relationship. By Dennis Phillips. Te Aso Fiafia: Te Tala o Te Kamupane Vaitupu 1877–1887 [The Joyous Day: the tale of the Vaitupu Company, 1877–18871. By T. Isala and D. Munro. Funafuti & Suva, Tuvalu Extension Services Centre and the Institute of Pacific Studies of the University of the South Pacfic, 1987. Intermittent Diplomat. The Japan and Batavia Diaries of W. MacMahon Ball. Edited and introduced by Alan Rix. Equal or Different—Women's Politics 1800–1914. Edited by Jane Rendall. British Policy in Relation to Poland in the Second World War. By Stanislaw Zochowski. Foreign Policy Implementation. Edited by Steve Smith and Michael Clarke.     

Book Reviews

Books Reviewed: Donald Denoon and Philippa Mein‐Smith with Marivic Wyndham, A History of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Elaine Brown, Cooloola Coast: Noosa to Fraser Island. The Aboriginal and Settler Histories of a Unique Environment Edward Duyker and Maryse Duyker, Bruny d'Entrecasteaux, Voyage to Australia and the Pacific John Molony, The Native‐Born. The First White Australians Alan Powell, Far Country: A Short History of the Northern Territory, Centenary Edition Lynn Sunderland Charlie's Book: the Life and Times of a Country Town Sherry Saggers and Dennis Gray.Dealing With Alcohol: Indigenous Usage in Australia, New Zealand and Canada Alison Palmer, Colonial Genocide Colin Dyer, A Frenchman's Walk Across the Nullarbor: Henri Gilbert's Diary, Perth to Brisbane, 1897–1899 Al Grassby and Silvia Ordonez, The Man Time Forgot. The Life and Times of John Christian Watson Peter Botsman The Great Constitutional Swindle: a Citizen's View of the Australian Constitution Joy Damousi, The Labour of Loss: Mourning, Memory and Wartime Bereavement in Australia Philip Ayres Mawson: A Life Michael McKernan.Beryl Beaurepaire Ben O'Dowd, In Valiant Company: Diggers in Battle‐Korea, 1950–51 Graham Willett Living Out Loud: a History of Gay and Lesbian Activism in Australia Susan Sheridan with Barbara Baird, Kate Borrett and Lyndall Ryan Who Was That Woman?: The Australian Woman's Weekly in the Postwar Years Lynette Russell.Colonial Frontiers: Indigenous‐European Encounters in Settler Societies Peter Dennis, 1945 War and Peace in the Pacific: Selected Essays J. W. Burrow The Crisis of Reason. European Thought, 1848–1914 Tadhg FoleyFrom Queen's College to National University: Essays on the Academic History of QCG/UCG/NUI Terry Eagleton Scholars and Rebels in Nineteenth‐Century Ireland Roy Porter.Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World Michael T. Davis, Radicalism and Revolution in Britain, 1775–1848: Essays in Honour of Malcolm I. Thomis Susan Thorne.Congregational Missions and the Making of an Imperial Culture in 19th‐Century England Roland Hill Lord Acton F.H.Hinsley and Alan Stripp eds Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park Margaret Lavinia Anderson Practicing Democracy: Elections and Political Culture in Imperial Germany Peter Monteath ed, Ernst Thälmann. Mensch und Mythos Harold Marcuse Legacies of Dachau: The Uses and Abuses of a Concentration Camp, 1933–2001 Mikhail Bakunin, Bakounine: Oeuvres Complètes Yarong Jiang and David Ashley Mao's Children in the New China: Voices from the Red Guard Generation Ann Kent, China, the United Nations, and Human Rights: The Limits of Compliance Theodore McNelly, The Origins of Japan's Democratic Constitution H.W. Arndt & Hal Hill, Southeast Asia's Economic Crisis. Origins, Lessons, and the Way Forward Nils Petter Gleditsch et al, Making Peace Pay: A Bibliography on Disarmament & Conversion Arthur L. Rosenbaum and Chae‐Jin Lee The Cold War — Reassessments Paul Boreham, Geoff Dow & Martin Leet, Room to Manoeuvre: Political Aspects of Full Employment Aynsley Kellow, International Toxic Risk Management: Ideals, Interests and Implementation Jeremy Waldron, The Dignity of Legislation Stephen White, Sustaining Affirmation: The Strengths of Weak Ontology in Political Theory     

Remembering the family home: emotions,belonging, and migrant men in multicultural Australia

Abstract

The article opens a space in which to discuss migrant men's emotions and their engagement with family life. It focuses on Australia's Goan community to explore the fluidity of ethnic identity and its relation to remembered family and childhood. The article suggests a “family” that is not only a domestic home but is constituted across both time and space. The men's memories of their childhood and family life prior to arrival in Australia are central to their constitution of self within Australia. These memories provide the men with the emotional means to contest their positioning in Australia's multicultural framework. The men's memories of childhood are experienced beyond domestic and multicultural spaces, making remembered families an important part of their work lives and sense of success in Australia.     

The Rise of Capital and the Necessity of Political Economy

Indonesia: The Rise of Capital by Richard Robison is regarded as one of the most important books in the study of modern Indonesia. It was also a major instigator of a turn toward political economy in the scholarship on Southeast Asia, more generally in the 1980s. This introductory article to the current feature issue examines the context that made the writing of The Rise of Capital an intellectually necessary endeavour. It also explores the book's relevance to developments in three broad areas of academic debate within which the book can be situated.     

Development as a Source of Conflict: The Sahukars,Displaced People and the Maoists in Koraput

The dominant debate in India on the role of development in reducing conflicts still remains open. Despite development measures by both state and non-state actors, conflicts continue to emerge frequently in the country. In Koraput district of Odisha state, development models implemented by the state and by non-state actors have accentuated conflicts. The Sahukar-model of development has caused land alienation among marginalised communities leading to conflicts between the landowners and the landless. Large-scale displacements caused by mega development projects have intensified the confrontation between the displaced and the state. The Communist Party of India-Maoist (‘Maoists’ in short) claims to have an alternative development model, which rejects the state-led development plan. The alternative model imposed by the Maoists—reclaiming land from the rich and adopting ‘Community Farming’—has further exacerbated the conflicts among various communities. Though the nature of conflict and its contenders keep changing, the conflicts as such refuse to die down in Koraput.     

Utopia in Crisis? Subaltern Imaginations in Contemporary Bihar

Abstract

The Subaltern Studies Collective inaugurated an important point of departure in Indian historiography and social sciences by demanding that attention be directed to subalterns (a term adapted from Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks) as makers of their own destinies. Their scholarship raises three issues, which are discussed in this article. The first of these relates to the empirical observation about subaltern resistance to elites. The second pertains to the analytical dichotomy between elite and subaltern modes of conducting politics. The third centres on the valorisation of a putatively coherent fragment that seeks autonomy from the totality of the state. The fundamental problem with the perspective advanced by the subaltern studies scholars stems from their implicit assumption that utopian ideals centred on reclaiming dignity and asserting social equality are necessarily derivative of European Enlightenment ideals.     

Boundaries delimitation: Palestine and Trans‐Jordan

The Struggle for Kurdistan was brought out by a Soviet historian of unusual ability named N. A. Khalfin. This was in 1963.

Kurdistan and the Kurdish Problem by M. S. Lazarev, Moscow, 1964

The Rising of the Kurds in 1880 (Vosstaniye Kurdov 1880 goda) by Dzhalile Dzhalil Dzhasimovich, Moscow, 1966;

The Economic Development of Persia by I. I. Palyukaytis, Moscow, 1966.

Mediaeval Philosophy of the Peoples of the Near and Middle East by S. N. Grigoryan, Moscow, 1966     

Some recent additions to the library

Richard Calland &; Paul Graham (Eds), IDASA's Democracy Index — Democracy in the Time of Mbeki, Cape Town: Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA), Cape Town, 2005, R150, 252 pages.

Pieter Wolvaardt, A Diplomat's Story: Apartheid and Beyond, 1969–1998, South Africa: Galago Publishing, 2005. ISBN 1–919854–15–0, R225, 336 pages.

Greg Mills, The Security Intersection: The Paradox of Power in an Age of Terror, Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2005, 321 pages.

Hugh Pope, Sons of the Conquerors. The Rise of the Turkic World, New York: Overlook Duckworth, 2005. ISBN 1–58567–641–1. 413 pages.     

‘We’, ‘they’ and the ‘human’ in the middle: foreign interventions for ‘humanitarian reasons’ during the nineteenth century in Turkish historiography

This paper explores the way in which historiography produced in Turkey (or by Turkish scholars abroad) approaches foreign military/diplomatic interventions in the Ottoman Empire during the long nineteenth century. It focuses on three case studies where ‘humanitarian reasons’ formed the discursive basis/justification of such interventions. The author argues that when the distinction between victims and perpetrators, civilians and combatants, emerges as an interpretive dilemma in the debates of the historical period examined, similar interpretive and normative challenges are inherited by the historiographical accounts of it. The paper distinguishes two contrasting ways in which Turkish historiographical scholarship responds to such a dilemma. The first remains confined by the way Ottomans themselves viewed the world around them and uncritically reproduces rigid categories of selfhood and otherhood between ‘us’ and ‘them’. The second trajectory offers tools for understanding the conflicts behind the construction of the category of the human worth of international protection, and disentangles itself from the normative bind described above.     

Imagining modernity: the language and genealogy of modernity in nineteenth-century Arabic

This article employs the methodology of conceptual history to contest two of the most common theoretical approaches dominating our understanding of modernity in the field of Middle Eastern studies. The first approach relies on the assumption of incompatibility between modernity and Islam and captures Arab modernity using concepts such as ‘adoption’. The second understands Arab modernity through concepts such as ‘imitation’, contending that it is a legacy of Western imperialism. This article challenges both theories by examining the genealogy of tamaddun (civilization, being civilized), a pivotal concept used in nineteenth-century Arabic to imagine modernity. The genealogy of tamaddun elucidates that medieval paradigms derived from the concept of madina (polity) were rediscovered, reimagined, and reused in the context of the rise of the nation-state and the challenge of Western imperialism. The article suggests understanding Arab modernity and its critique from within, rather than outside of, the temporality of the historical condition.