Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this articles. Historical Records of Australia: Resumed Series III Despatches and Papers Relating to the History of Tasmania Volume IX Tasmania, January ‐ December 1830. General Editor Peter Chapman, Co‐editors Peter Chapman and Tim Jetson Australia Imagined: Views from the British Periodical Press 1800‐1900. Edited by Judith Johnston and Monica Anderson John Devoy's Catalpa Expedition. Edited by Philip Fennell and Marie King Return to Gallipoli: Walking the Battlefields of the Great War. By Bruce Scates Jack Lang and the Great Depression. By Frank Cain Documents on Australian Foreign Policy: Australia and the Formation of Malaysia 1961‐1966. Edited by Moran Dee Car Wars: How the Car Won Our Hearts and Conquered Our Cities. By Graeme Davison with Sheryl Yelland Fear and Politics By Carmen Lawrence Disputed Histories: Imagining New Zealand's Pasts. Edited by Tony Ballantyne and Brian Moloughney Revolution: The 1913 Great Strike in New Zealand, Edited by Melanie Nolan Facing Illness in Troubled Times: Health in Europe in the Interwar Years 1918‐1939. Edited by Iris Borowy and Wolf D. Gruner Darwin's Origin of Species: A Biography. By Janet Browne The Dilemmas of De‐Stalinization. Negotiating Cultural and Social Change in the Khrushchev Era. Edited by Polly Jones Anti‐Chinese Violence in Indonesia: 1996‐1999. By Jemma Purdey. Marx's Das Kapital. A Biography. By Francis Wheen     

Security,Nationalism and Popular Culture: Screening South Korea’s Uneasy Identity in the Early 2000s

By examining the cultural representations of the South Korean notion of the Self/Other in relation to its major traditional enemy — North Korea — this article aims to capture a picture of South Korea’s discursive economy of the North, and to problematise the South Korean identities implicated in that economy in the early 2000s. To achieve these aims, this article focuses on representations of a successful popular South Korean film which was released in 2000, just a few months after the first inter-Korean summit: Joint Security Area JSA. By analytically reading JSA, it is revealed that, in South Korea, the traditional discursive practices based on the Cold War thinking have been eroded. For the South, the North is part of the Self (Korean-ness; love for the North as the same nation) and, at the same time, is an Other (South Korean-ness; contempt for the North as an inferior state). Related to this, South Korea appears to be the uneasy Self without a firm Other in between Korean-ness and South Korean-ness.     

Captains of erudition

Abstract

W. A. Nielsen's book The Big Foundations is an informed survey of the American foundation scene. Writing from a vantage point within the citadels of big-time philanthropy, Nielsen takes a chatty and discursive approach to a subject that in fact deserves much more. It seems that the insider's privilege of access can be a handicap as well as an asset, and that a subject of this importance needs critical scrutiny from independent researchers.     

The financial autonomy of the municipalities and the Valencian Parliament

SUMMARY

In the first half of the fourteenth century and on countless occasions, the Crown granted the leaders of the City of Valencia authorization to collect indirect taxes as a means of collecting the subsidies allocated to its military needs. The ratification of fiscal autonomy can be related to the Crown's interest in gaining control of municipal resources as a way of demanding donations in order to accomplish its policies.

The main reason for the royal privilege to raise taxes in favour of the cities was the extensive expenses caused by the conquest of Corsica and Sardinia during the reign of James II. The Kingdom and the city of Valencia came to the aid of the monarch because they were interested in trading with Sicily and these two islands were impeding trade routes. To make things easier, Alfonso IV granted them a privilege to levy taxes on the grain and meat trades and on merchant shipping within the municipal territory of the city of Valencia. The municipal tax on meat and grain was used as a model for the tax approved in the Cortes of 1329, extending it to exports everywhere in the Kingdom of Valencia. The tax approved by these Cortes, agreed in order to collect the subsidy offered to the monarch, was the first general tax validated in the Cortes following the model of the exisiting municipal tax. To mark the occasion of the war against Castile, Peter IV took a decisive step in 1363 and extended the capacity to levy taxes to all royal towns and cities. The municipalities turned indirect taxation into one of the basic pillars of their economy.     

The Worst Is Not over Yet: The Lives and Deaths of the ‘Self’ and ‘Others’ in Brazil's Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

This paper focuses on the politics of life and death in Bolsonaro's Brazil during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is argued that while this administration, and the president himself, have long supported violence against individuals and social groups they did not see as fully human, their response to the pandemic marked a public transition from valuing certain kinds of lives as opposed to others, to a general contempt for human lives. The paper explores this transition by discussing the reification of the economy to the detriment of the people who produce and consume.     

Millions of Small Battles: The Peronist Resistance in Argentina

This article studies the working‐class clandestine political organisation known as the Peronist resistance. Created after Argentine President Juan Perón was overthrown in 1955, the resistance movement was much more than a reaction to the limitations imposed on the organisation of unions. It signalled the birth of a new paradigm of political and cultural resistance firmly anchored in the household and the neighbourhood. Looking into the cultural dimensions of violence, the study shows how violence functioned as a creative force, producing transformations in political agency and cultural practices that reached into the Peronist household and shaped mourning rituals and the politics of martyrdom.     

Justice for All? Accountable Translations of Texts on Indigenous Law

ABSTRACT

This article addresses challenges arising from the guarantee in South Africa's Constitution (1996) of continued use of indigenous law. This law has been handed down in oral form, but increasingly, written sources are needed when cases relating to indigenous law are heard in South Africa's higher courts. Although access to this kind of information is vital to empowerment and justice in Africa, wider access is hampered by different literacy levels and language differences. This article examines accountable translation into English of legal anthropological texts, referring to a case study on law practised among the Nkuna of Ritavi to demonstrate some of the complexities. The article considers the Anglo-American translation tradition's preference for idiomatic translation (paraphrasis) rather than word-for-word faithfulness (metaphrasis). It advocates focusing on the Skopos (purpose) of texts negotiated with the author. It also proposes foregrounding the hermeneutic engagement of translators as readers. For the text in the case study, it suggests two translations, for two audiences: one into an academic register (for academics, legal experts, and educated members of the Nkuna community), and one into Plain English (mainly for members of the Nkuna community for whom English is a second language). To address political dimensions of responsible translation, metatextual strategies espoused by feminist translators to increase translators’ visibility and accountability can be used, and postcolonial translation theory should be considered.     

Recent books on the East

The following paper was discovered by Laurence Evans, Professor of History at the State University of New York at Binghamton, during the course of research in the files of the Department of State (to which Department the paper had been made available in 1918 for use as background information by the American Delegation at the Peace Conference), and Professor Evans has kindly communicated it to the Society. Its contents are not included in the book on Mecca which Snouk published in German, and it is not among the scattered articles in Verspreide Geschriften (1923–27). That collection does, however, include another essay about Ahmad Dahlan, in Dutch, entitled “Een rector der Mekkaansche universiteit”, originally contributed to a learned journal and reprinted in vol. 111, pp. 65–122. [We are printing this paper in good faith believing it to be previously unpublished. Ed.]     

Re-imagining the Global Colour Line: The Bolt Case and the Politics of Whiteness

This paper revisits the controversy generated by a series of publications in 2009 by prominent Australian journalist Andrew Bolt. The overall argument is that the controversy generated by the Bolt case contributed to a reimagining of a twenty-first century version of the global colour line. Bolt's articles rested on a “racial grammar of whiteness” that enabled him simultaneously to assert and mask the hegemonic naturalness of whiteness. A racial grammar of whiteness mediates what people take to be the norm in representations and writings about the natures, roles and attributes of whites and non-whites in social situations and the social relations appropriate to them. It enables such views to be presented as just so much common-sense. Demonstrating this racial grammar at work is important because his articles appeared to echo an earlier era's narratives about race, power and privilege that were themselves informed by the global colour line, and which culminated in the now defunct White Australia Policy. The paper explores how those echoes were given substance within Bolt's articles and the subsequent court case about them, and how this contributed to a reimagining of the global colour line.     

The Kretschmann Effect: Personalisation and the March 2016 Länder Elections

This paper examines the influences of candidate perceptions on Germany’s spring 2016 Länder election results. It takes a comparative approach, using a modified Michigan model on the data collected simultaneously in three Länder (Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate, and Saxony-Anhalt). It explains why the Green party was successful in Baden-Württemberg but not in the other Länder, the impact of the major candidates, and what distinguishes the influences of the current prime ministers running for these elections. Whereas Winfried Kretschmann’s (Green party, Baden-Württemberg) high impact on the election results was driven mainly by a warmth dimension (sympathy), Malu Dreyer (SPD, Rhineland-Palatinate) was viewed as being competent. Both candidates were assets to their parties and co-responsible for the results. In comparison, in Saxony-Anhalt, none of the candidates were as important to the outcomes of the electoral success.     

Rebeldía en Calama: desafío al orden centralista chileno en un contexto de boom minero

Protests in the mining city of Calama in 2011 represent a milestone in the history of Chilean territorial protest mobilizations. Considering their claims, namely, 5 percent of copper generated profits –the recovery of regional royalties gained in 1955 and 1973 and later revoked by the military dictatorship–, and the nationalization of resources, the Calama's social movement differs from other local and regional collective actions related to contentious representation and nimby (not in my backyard) phenomena. All of these actions were motivated by specific economic reasons, against environmental negative externalities or based on a State-claiming approach (peticionismo). This article is a case study of the Calama movement revolving around three issues: the presence of an individualistic leadership; the existence of two historical identities –the mining and the “ata-cameña” identities–; and the development of inclusion and solidarity mechanisms.     

Colonial education and the shaping of Islamism in Sudan, 1946–1956

Abstract

This article assesses the role of British colonial education in Condominium Sudan in shaping the mindsets of Sudan’s first generation of Islamists between 1946 and 1956. Drawing on post-colonial theorists such as Nandy and Bhabha, it contends that the experiences of the pioneers of Sudan’s Islamic movement at institutions such as Gordon Memorial College and Hantoub Secondary School moulded their understandings of both ‘modernity’ and ‘tradition’. As a result of their colonial education, Islamists deployed discourses concerning both ‘progress’ and ‘cultural authenticity’ that bore remarkable parallels with colonial essentialism, even as they announced a decisive break with the colonial past. Much like the conventional nationalists, they used the space created by the colonial educational institutions to establish an ideological community that transcended the narrow ethnic and regional divides previously fostered by the British. At the same time, Islamists and colonialists alike shared a contempt for Marxists and ‘deculturated’ effendis, and Muslim Brothers’ aspirations to escape the ‘English jahiliyya’, however counter-intuitive this may seem, bore similarities with the worldviews of colonial officials concerned with preventing what they saw to be the excessive impact of urbanization and modern education on Sudan.     

Kohl's chancellorship

The Kohl Chancellorship. Edited by CLAY CLEMENS and WILLIAM E. PATERSON. London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1998. £14.50 pb.

Deutschlandpolitik in Helmut Kohls Kanzlerschaft. Regierungsstil und Entscheidungen 1982–1989. By KARL‐RUDOLF KORTE. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags‐Anstalt, 1998.     

The ‘Revolution’ of 27 May 1960 in Turkey: British Policy towards Turkey

Muslim National Communism in the Soviet Union: A Revolutionary Strategy for the Colonial World by Alexandre A. Bennigsen and S. Enders Wimbush. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1979. Pp. xxii + 265, illustrations, index, bibliography. $20.00.

Islam, Nationalism and Communism in a Traditional Society: The Case of the Sudan by Gabriel Warburg. London: Frank Cass, 1978. Pp. 253 + xi.

A Textbook on Muslim Law by David Pearl. London: Croom Helm, 1979. Pp. 317, bibliography, legislation, index and glossary. £14.95 (hardback), £6.95 (paperback).     

Towards a new model of the rise of right‐wing extremism

Terror from the Extreme Right. Edited by Tore Bj?rgo. London: Frank Cass, 1995.

The Extreme Right. Freedom and Security at Risk. Edited by Aurel Braun and Stephen Scheinberg. Boulder: Westview, 1997.

The Logic of Evil. The Social Origins of the Nazi Party, 1925–1933. By William Brustein. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.

Extremism in Europe. By Jean‐Yves Camus (co‐ordinator). Paris: Editions de l'Aube/CERA, 1997.

The Rise of National Socialism and the Working Classes in Weimar Germany. Edited by Conan Fischer. Providence and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1996.

The Radical Right in Western Europe. A Comparative Analysis. By Herbert kitschelt (in collaboration with Anthony J. Mcgann). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995.

The Revival of Right‐Wing Extremism in the Nineties. Edited by Peter H. Merkl and Leonard Weinberg. London: Frank Cass, 1997.

Hitler's Thirty Days to Power. January 1933. By Henry Ashby Turner Jnr. Reading, Mass.: Addison‐Wesley, 1996.     

Model Citizens of the State: The Jews of Turkey during the Multiparty Period

The Palestinian Arab National Movement: volume II From Riots to Rebellion 1929–1939 by Y. Porath. London: Frank Cass, 1977. Pp. 414, index. £16.00.

The Origins of Zionism by David Vital. Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 1975. Pp. xvi+396, bibl., index. £4.95 (paperback) 1980.     

Apartheid,Jim Crow,and Comparative Literature

This article examines John Greyson’s film, Proteus, for the way it figures queer masculinity and race in South Africa’s national historical narrative. The film offers an esthetic rendering of an eighteenth century interracial sodomy trial set on Robben Island. Drawing on contemporary queer theory and recent South African narratives of masculinity that privilege heternormativity and nationalism, this paper argues that the film carves out a space for queer identity within national history where it had previously been denied. The paper traces the way that the film interjects queer narratives into South Africa’s national identity, disrupts the heteronormalization of various sites of national iconography on South Africa’s historical terrain (such as Robben Island), and offers a queer masculinity that resists racial segregation. Moreover, this paper traces the ways that the film has implications for contemporary queer communities within South Africa.     

Book notes

An Awakening: The Arab Campaign 1917–18 by Sir Alec Kirkbride. Pp. vi + 134, illustrations, appendices, index. University Press of Arabia, 1 West Street, Tavistock, Devon.

Revolutions and Military Rule in the Middle East: The Arab States. Part II: Egypt, The Sudan, Yemen and Libya by George M. Haddad. New York: Robert Speller and Sons, 1973, Pp. x + 454, illustrations, appendix, bibliography, index; $12.50.

Arab Culture and Society in Change: A Partially Annotated Biblography of Books and Articles in English, French, German and Italian, compiled by the Staff of The Centre d'Etudes pour le Monde Arabe Moderne, St. Joseph's University, Beirut. Beirut: Dar El‐Mashreq, Pp. xli + 318; $15.00.

The Arab Israeli Conflict: A Bibliography of Arabic Books and Publications, compiled and edited by Naim Shahrabani. Jerusalem: Mount Scopus Center for Research on the Palestinian Arabs and Arab‐Israeli Relations. Pp. 301; n.

American and British Doctoral Dissertations on Israel and Palestine in Modern Times, compiled and edited by Frank Joseph Shulman. Ann Arbor: Xerox University Microfilms. Pp. vii + 25; n.p.

Bibliotheca Cisorientalia: An Annotated Checklist of Early English Travel Books on the Near and Middle East, compiled and edited by Richard Bevis. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co. Pp. xviii + 317; U.S.: $29.50, elsewhere: $32.45.

Bidwell's Guide to Government Ministers: Volume 2 : The Arab World 1900–1972, compiled and edited by Robin Bidwell. London: Frank Cass and Co., 1974. Pp. xi + 124; £9.     

Die Grünen and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

This paper discusses the German Greens' recent policy on Israel and Palestine, from the beginning of the first red-green federal government to the present. It looks at Green Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer's diplomatic role in the Middle East, and the Greens' current very "mild" policy with regards to Israel, especially when compared to earlier Green attitudes to the region. This is explained with reference to both the continuing relevance of German history to German foreign policy, and the constraints that participation in the federal coalition — and supplying Germany's Foreign Minister — place on the Greens. The influence of history and power on the German Greens is further illustrated by a comparison of German Green attitudes to Israel with the US Greens' much more critical position.