Books Received

abstract

David Wilkinson. Environment and Law. Routledge, New York. 2002. 312 pp. Hard cover, $80.00. Paper, $25.95 *

Tim W. Clark. The Policy Process: A Practical Guide for Natural Resource Professionals. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT. 2002. xii + 215 pp. $35 (hard cover), $18.50 (paper)

George M. Woodwell. Forests in a Full World. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT. 2001. xxii + 231 pp. $30.00 (hard cover), $15.00 (paper)     

Child Maltreatment,Placement Strategies,and Delinquency

The current study examined the criminal justice experiences of foster care youth living with relatives, foster families, and living in congregate care; dependents receiving in-home care; and non-dependent youth. Specific attention was directed at uncovering whether form of maltreatment, placement type, and/or placement instability were related to delinquency. A prospective analysis of official record data followed children in Los Angeles County from the time of a first admission to the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) to potential involvement in the criminal justice system (N = 1,235). The study also utilized a matched control design in which DCFS cases were compared to non-dependent controls (N = 1,235). The most consistent predictors of delinquency were placement instability and age at placement. Youth who were older at placement and youth with at least one placement change were more likely to be arrested for violent and non-violent crimes as well as be charged by the district attorney than younger youth with no placement changes.     

A Developmental-Ecological Model of the Relation of Family Functioning to Patterns of Delinquency

Person-centered approaches to understanding delinquent and criminal careershave identified several distinct pathways or patterns of delinquent behavior(Gorman-Smith et al., 1998; LeBlanc and Kaspy, in press; Loeber et al.,1991; Loeber et al., 1993). In addition, research suggests that there maybe etiological variations that correspond to these different pathways(Gorman-Smith et al., 1998). That is, there may be different configurationsof risk factors associated with different types of delinquent and criminaloffending. If this is so, understanding these relations can have importantimplications for intervention and prevention. However, there have been fewstudies that examine how the configuration of risk factors may vary inrelation to different delinquency pathways. The current study brings aperson-centered analysis to examine how patterns of family functioningrelate to patterns of offending. In addition, this study contextualizesthese relations by examining how these relations vary as a function ofcommunity setting. This study expands upon previous research that hasidentified four basic patterns of delinquent behavior among a sample ofminority male adolescents living in poor urban neighborhoods (Gorman-Smithet al., 1998).     

The Interplay Between Interpersonal Stress and Psychological Intimate Partner Violence Over Time for Young At-Risk Couples

The substantial number of young people in romantic relationships that involve intimate partner violence, a situation deleterious to physical and mental health, has resulted in increased attention to understanding the links between risk factors and course of violence. The current study examined couples’ interpersonal stress related to not liking partners’ friends and not getting along with parents as contextual factors associated with couples’ psychological partner violence and determined whether and when couples’ friend and parent stress increased the likelihood of couples’ psychological partner violence. A linear latent growth curve modeling approach was used with multiwave measures of psychological partner violence, friend stress, parent stress, and relationship satisfaction obtained from 196 men at risk for delinquency and their women partners over a 12-year period. At the initial assessment, on average, the men were age 21.5 years and the women were age 21 years. Findings indicated that couples experiencing high levels of friend and parent stress were more likely to engage in high levels of psychological partner violence and that increases in couples’ friend stress predicted increases in couples’ partner violence over time, even when accounting for the couples’ relationship satisfaction, marital status, children in the home, and financial strain. Interactive effects were at play when the couples were in their early 20s, with couples being most at risk for increases in psychological partner violence if they experienced both high friend stress and low relationship satisfaction. Couples’ friend stress had the greatest effect on psychological partner violence when the couples were in their early to mid 20s when levels of friend stress were high. As the couples reached their 30s, low relationship satisfaction became the leading predictor of couples’ psychological partner violence.     

Technology and the housewife in nineteenth‐century America

ALICE JAMES: A BIOGRAPHY by Jean Strouse. Boston. Houghton, Mifflin, 1980. 367 pp. ($15.00).

THE DEATH AND LETTERS OF ALICE JAMES edited by Ruth Bernard Yeazell. Berkeley. University of California Press, 1981.214pp. ($12.95)

CONVERSATIONS WITH KATHERINE ANNE PORTER by Enrique Hank Lopez. (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1981). 326 pp., $14.95.     

Interviewer: ‘Are women and girls ever responsible for the domestic violence they encounter?’ Student: ‘No,well, unless they did something really,really bad …’

Research shows the ‘gendered nature’ of domestic violence, with Women’s Aid (a UK-based charity) estimating that 1 in 4 women are affected (2014). This paper reports on a project – funded by Comic Relief, completed by Nottinghamshire Domestic Violence Forum (now known as Equation) and evaluated by Nottingham Trent University. The project adopts a Whole School Approach in seeking to prevent domestic violence. Students at three secondary schools attended between one and five blocks of work, and special events. There is evidence of positive developments – with young people showing understanding of domestic violence as well as the margins between healthy and unhealthy relationships. However, not all students could reply ‘never’ to the question of ‘are women and girls to blame for the domestic violence they experience?’, remarking that if the woman had done something ‘really, really bad’ then violence might be justified. We argue that young people’s uncertainties need to be situated within the gender-unequal socio-contexts of contemporary society, and further call for a WSA to domestic violence prevention to be a compulsory part of the UK national curriculum.     

The New Miss India: Popular Fiction in Contemporary India

Miss New India is the title of a 2011 novel by Indian-born (now American-based) Bharati Mukherjee, which tells the story of a young woman who leaves her small-town home and family to find work in a call centre in the information technology city of Bangalore. The call centre is emblematic of a ‘new India’, in which educated young people seize the possibilities of a global labour market. This is a generation for whom colonialism is ancient history, a generation who have grown up in the aftermath of economic liberalization in India. Chetan Bhagat refers to this generation as ‘Young India’ and has written a series of best-selling novels that feature ambitious young men in the ‘new India’. There is, however, an emerging genre of similar narratives written by women and addressed to a female readership. This article discusses a range of contemporary Indian women’s popular novels and argues that, while Bhagat and his male heroes may embrace globalization and the market, the narratives written by women are more nuanced in their celebration of economic liberalization. The novels dramatize the tensions between tradition and modernity, family and independence, and suggest that these are particularly fraught for young Indian women. These texts pick up on the discourses of contemporary journalism about ‘Young India’, within the generic form of the romance, but their resolutions are repeatedly uneasy and suggest that the ‘new India’ is not an entirely comfortable space for the new Miss India.     

Educating Women: schooling and identity in England and France, 1800–1867 CHRISTINA DE BELLAIGUE; Rousseau's Daughters: domesticity,education and autonomy in modern France JENNIFER J. POPIEL

The following books are reviewed.

Women and Gender in Early Modern Wales MICHAEL ROBERTS &; SIMONE CLARKE (Eds), 2000 Cardiff: University of Wales Press. 320 pp., ISBN 0 7083 1550 X, paperback, £14.99; 0 7083 1580 1, hardback, £35.00

Women in Scotland c. 1100–c. 1750 ELIZABETH EWEN &; MAUREEN M. MEIKLE (Eds), 1999 East Linton: Tuckwell Press. 282 pp., ISBN 0 86232 046 2, £14.99

Gendering Scottish History: an international approach TERRY BROTHERSTONE, DEBORAH SIMONTON &; OONAGH WALSH (Eds), 1999 Glasgow: Cruithne Press. xxi + 280 pp., ISBN 1 873448 18 X, hardback, £20.00; 1 873448 16 3, paperback, £10.95

Women, Sexuality and War PHILOMENA GOODMAN New York: Palgrave. xii + 164 pp., ISBN 0 333 76086 7, £42.50

Revealing New Worlds: three Victorian women naturalists SUZANNE LE-MAY SHEFFIELD, 2001 London: Routledge. ISBN 0 415 2706 9, hardback, £65.00

‘Wicked’ Women and the Reconfiguration of Gender in Africa Dorothy L. Hodgson &; Sheryl A. McCurdy, 2001 Oxford: James Currey. xiii + 325 pp., ISBN 0 85255 695 0, hardback, £40.00; 0 85255 654 4, paperback, £16.95

‘I Will Not Eat Stone’: a women's history of colonial Asante Jean Allman &; Victoria Tashjian, 2000 Oxford: James Currey. xlvi + 255 pp., ISBN 0 85255 691 8, hardback, £40.00; 0 85255 641 1, paperback, £15.95

‘We Women Worked So Hard’: gender, urbanization and social reproduction in colonial Harare, Zimbabwe, 1930–56 TERESA A. BARNES, 1999 Oxford: James Currey. xlv + 204 pp., ISBN 0 85255 686 1, hardback, £40.00; 0 85255 636 5, paperback, £16.95

Women and Modernity in Weimar Germany: reality and representation in popular fiction VIBEKE RÜTZOU PETERSEN, 2001 Oxford: Berghahn Books. xvi + 184 pp., ISBN 1 57181 154 0, hardback, £20.00; 1 57181 789 1, paperback, £13.95

The Irish Women's History Reader ALAN HAYES &; DIANE URQUHART (Eds), 2001 London: Routledge. xi + 242 pp., ISBN 0 415 19914 X

The Routledge Historical Atlas of Women in America SANDRA OPDYCKE, 2000 New York: Routledge. 144 pp., ISBN 0 415 92138 4, £10.99

What American Women Did, 1789–1920 LINDA MILES COPPENS, 2001 Jefferson, NC: McFarland &; Company. ix + 259 pp., ISBN 0 7864 0899 5, £36.60

Favorite Dishes: a Columbian autograph souvenir cookery book CARRIE V. SHUMAN (Ed.), 2001 (reprinted from an 1893 edition) Champaign: University of Illinois Press. lxiii + 210 pp., hardback, $29.95; paperback, $15.00

Feminist Freikorps: the British voluntary women police, 1914–40 R.M. DOUGLAS, 1999 Westport: Praeger. xiv + 171 pp., ISBN 0 275 96249 0, hardback, US$58/£48.95