Book reviews

B.J.C. McKercher, Transition of Power: Britain's Loss of Global Pre-eminence to the United States, 1930-45, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999, xii + 403, £40, ISBN 0521 440 904

Joseph A. Maiolo, The Royal Navy and Nazi Germany, 1933-39: A Study in Appeasement and the Origins of the Second World War (London, MacMillan Press Ltd., 1998), xii + 259 pp. £?? ISBN 0-333-72007-5.

William I. Hitchcock, France Restored: Cold War Diplomacy and the Quest for Leadership in Europe, 1944-54, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1998, pp.291. £37.50 hardback, £14.50 paperback.

R. Holland, Britain and the Revolt in Cyprus 1954-1959 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1998). 347 pp. £48 hb. ISBN 0-19-820538-4.

Michael L. Krenn, Black Diplomacy: African Americans and the State Department 1945-1969 (London: M.E. Sharpe, 1999). Viii + 223pp. £15.95 pb. ISBN 0-7656-0381-0

Jerrold L. Schecter, Russian Negotiating Behavior (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1998). 225 pp. ISBN: 1-878379-78-X.     

The Mistreatment of Others: Discrimination Can Undermine University Identification,Student Health,and Engagement

Past research documents the extent that discrimination experiences and observations can undermine people’s health and performance. In addition to discrimination’s direct consequence for targets, discrimination implicates the morality of the larger community where it occurs. Perceptions of community morality could predict community identification that, in turn, could predict health and performance. To test this serial mediation hypothesis, 615 second- and third-year university undergraduates reported the frequency of discrimination observations and experiences. Students’ perceptions of the university community’s morality mediated the relationship between discrimination and the extent that they identified with the university. In turn, university identification mediated the relationship between university morality and students’ academic engagement and mental health. However, only university morality reliably mediated the relationship between discrimination and physical health. Discrimination can affect the health and engagement of all community members, even observers who are not part of the targeted group.     

Free Speech and Learning from Difference

In debates about campus speech, there are arguments from the left and from the right that the community function of a college and the intellectual functions of a college can’t both be maximized. Improving the community role necessarily entails placing limits on the intellectual roles, and improving the intellectual role necessarily entails placing limits on the community roles. Where these arguments disagree is in the valuation of the tradeoffs between these roles. I argue that the apparent tension between the community role and intellectual role of colleges can be resolved, or at least mitigated, if we make a clearer distinction between speech and community endorsement of speech. What’s more, if we understand speech to be exploratory in nature rather than declaratory, we may remove some of the status competition between different groups that characterizes the dispute. This can allow for potential complementarities to emerge from the community support role of a college and the intellectual role. The core idea that I wish to explore is the notion of discovery that is embedded in Mill’s defense of free speech and in his conception of experiments in living. This approach depends on the idea that we can abandon the goal of defeating our opponents, and instead embrace the goal of accommodating one another.     

Pierre Manent, <Emphasis Type="Italic">Beyond Radical Secularism: How France and the Christian West Should Respond to the Islamic Challenge</Emphasis>

As he draws on the concept of the common good from Aristotle in a practical and extended essay on the future of France, Pierre Manent rearticulates the political tradition of the sacred politics of the nation thatapplies to the entire west.     

Road crash cervical injuries. A radiological study of fatalities

A lateral radiograph of the cervical spine was obtained for 174 of the 207 persons killed in road crashes in Adelaide, South Australia, during the 12-month period of June 1, 1987 to May 31, 1988. Of the total of 57 cases of cervical injury, routine postmortem examination identified 30 cases (52.6%), and the radiographic examinations identified 51 cases (89.5%). In the cases where it was performed, radiography identified 96.2% of injuries. One-half of injuries of level C3 and above were not reported at postmortem examination, compared with 22% of those occurring below this level. This finding correlates with the physical difficulties of examining the upper part of the cervical spine. This study has shown that lateral cervical radiography is a simple and effective method of more accurately identifying significant cervical spinal injuries, thus improving greatly the value of postmortem examinations in determining the patterns and mechanisms of these injuries.     

Resuscitation and petechiae

Petechiae can be important corroborative evidence of asphyxia, but are also seen in persons who have died of other means. It is not uncommon to encounter them in cases in which cardiopulmonary resuscitation has reestablished blood flow and pressure in small vessels already damaged by hypoxia resulting in the formation of petechiae. This report documents some representative cases.