Dorset,Kincardine and peasant crisis: A comment on David Craig

David Craig's paper ‘Novels of Peasant Crisis’ is to be warmly welcomed. But Craig provides no adequate analysis of the peasant crises underlying the novels which he considers. This paper considers one of Craig's novels; Lewis Grassic Gibbon's Sunset Song. Craig's explanation of this book in terms of depopulation and the destruction of the Kincardine peasantry from outside is seen to be inadequate. Sunset Song is about the crumbling of a peasant mode of production through the working out of internal contradictions within that mode of production. As an introduction to this discussion of Sunset Song Craig's dismissal of the utility of Thomas Hardy's work for the analysis of rural class relations is argued to be distinctly premature.     

Obituary: Marshal of the royal air force Sir Edward Leonard Ellington,G.C.B., C.M.G., C.B.E.

General

Islam in Perspective: A Guide to Islamic Society, Politics and Law. By Patrick Bannerman. Routledge for Chatham House. 1988. Pp. 278. Gloss. Biographical Notes. Index. £35.00.

Profit and Loss Sharing: An Islamic Experiment in Finance and Banking. By Shahrukh Ran Khan. Karachi, O.U.P., 1988. Pp. 180. Bibliog. Index. £10.95 Pb.

The Urbanization of the Third World. Ed. J. Gugler. Oxford, O.U.P., 1988. Pp. 421. Index. £12.95 Pb.

South Asia

Poona in the Eighteenth Century: an Urban History. By Balkrishna Govind Gokhale. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1988. Pp. 225. Maps. Bibliog. Index. £9.95.

A Clash of Cultures: Awadh, the British and the Mughals. By Richard M. Fisher. Riverdale, Maryland. The Riverdale Company, 1987. Pp. 245. Appendices, Gloss. Bibliog. Index. Illus. £35.00.

The Asiatic Society of Bengal and the Discovery of India's Past 1784–1838. By O. P. Kejariwal. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1988. Pp. 293. Bibliog. Index. £12.95.

Vallabhbhai Patel: Power and Organization in Indian Politics. By Rani Dhavan Shankardass. London, Sangam Books, 1988. Pp. 325. Bibliog. Index. £17.95.

India Wins Freedom ‐ the Complete Version. By Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. London, Sangam Books, 1988. Pp. 283. Illus. Index. £12.95.

The Politics of Health in India. By Roger Jeffrey. Berkeley, University of California Press. 1988. Pp. 348. Bibliog. Index. $39.95.

Breaking the Curfew: A Political Journey Through Pakistan. By Emma Duncan. London, Michael Joseph, 1989. Pp. 313. Index. £14.95.

South‐East Asia

Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450–1680, Volume One: The Lands below the Winds. By Anthony Reid. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1988. Pp. 275. Maps. Illus. Index. £20.00.

The Rise of Ersatz Capitalism in South‐East Asia. By Yoshihara Kunio. Singapore, Oxford University Press, 1988. Pp. 297. Appendices. Tables. Bibliog. Index. £22.50.

Sociology of “Developing Societies”: Southeast Asia. Ed. John G. Taylor and Andrew Turton. Basingstoke and London, Macmillan, 1988. Pp. 280. Bibliog. Index. £30.00 Hb. £8.95 Pb.

ASEAN and the Security of South‐East Asia. By Michael Leifer. International Politics in Asia Series. Routledge, 1988. Pp. 198. Appendices. Bibliog. Index. £30.00.

Indonesia Under Suharto. By Nawaz B. Mody. London, Oriental University Press, 1987. Pp. 405. Bibliog. Index. £25.00.

Chinese Politics in Malaysia ‐ A History of the Malaysian Chinese Association. By Heng Pek Koon. Singapore, Oxford University Press, 1988. Pp. 307. Bibliog. Index. £16.50.

Running Amok ‐ an historical inquiry. By John C. Spores. Athens, Ohio, Ohio University Press, 1988. Pp. 179. Notes. Bibliog. £12.35 Pb.

Heaven in Transition ‐ Non‐Muslim Religious Innovation and Ethnic Identity in Malaysia. By Susan E. Ackerman and Raymond L. M. Lee. Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 1988. Pp. 201. Bibliog. Index. £20.90.

Frank Swettenham &; George Giles Watercolours &; Sketches of Malaya 1880–1894. Text by Lim Chong Keat and Henry Barlow. Kuala Lumpur, The Malaysian‐British Society, 1988. Pp. 166. Notes. Bibliog. Price not stated.

Government and Politics of the Philippines. Eds. Raul P. De Guzman and Mila A. Reforma. Singapore, Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press, 1988. Pp. 289. Tables. Index. £19.50.

Vietnam and the Chinese Model. A Comparative Study of Vietnamese and Chinese Government in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century. By Alexander Barton Woodside. Harvard University Press, 1988. Pp. 358. Bibliog. Index. £11.25 Pb.

French Catholic Missionaries and the Politics of Imperialism in Vietnam, 1857–1914: A Documentary Survey. By Patrick J. N. Tuck. Liverpool University Press, 1987. Pp. 352 Maps. Bibliog. £12.50.

Decision Against War. Eisenhower and Dien Bien Phu, 1954. By Melanie Billings‐Yun. New York, Columbia University Press, 1988. Pp. 199. Bibliog. Index. US$25.00.

Middle East

The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the Middle East and North Africa. Eds. Trevor Mostyn and Albert Hourani, Cambridge University Press, 1988. Pp. 504. Illus. Index. £30.00.

Ethnicity, Pluralism, and the State in the Middle East. Ed. Milton J. Esman and Itamar Rabinovich. New York, Cornell University Press, 1988. Pp. 296. Index. Hb. $35. Pb. $12.95.

Lebanon: A History of Conflict and Consensus. Ed. Nadim Shehadi and Dana Haffar Mills. London, I.B. Tauris, 1988. Pp. 337. Bibliog. Index. £29.50.

A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered. By Kamal Salibi. London, I. B. Tauris, 1988. Pp. 247. Map. Bibliog. Index. £17.50.

The Druze. By Robert Brenton Betts. Yale University Press. 1988. Pp. 161. Maps. Illus. Gloss. Bibliog. Index. £14.95.

The Soviet Union and Syria: The Asad Years. By Efraim Karsh. London, Routledge, Chatham House Papers, 1988. Pp. 136. Notes. Appendices. £7.95.

Far East

East Asian Civilizations: A Dialogue in Five Stages. By Wm. Theodore de Bary, Harvard University Press, 1988, Pp. 160. Notes, Bibliog. Index. £15.95.

China in World History. By S. A. M. Adshead. London, Macmillan Press, 1988. Pp. 422. Notes. Index. Bibliog. £35.00. Hb.

Behind the Scenes in Peking. By Mary Hooker. Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1988. Pp. 209. Illus. Bibliog. Index. £4.95 Pb.

Elegant Flower: Recollections of a Cadet in Cathay. By Desmond Neill. O.U.P., 1988, Pp. 202. £6.95 Pb.

Myself a Mandarin: Memoirs of a Special Magistrate. By Austin Coates. O.U.P., 1988. Pp. 250. £2.50 Pb.

Discos and Democracy: China in the Throes of Reform. By Orville Schell. New York, Pantheon Books, 1988. Pp. 381. $19.95.

Bandits in Republican China. By Phil Billingsley. Stanford, California, Stanford University Press, 1988. Pp. 375. Gloss. Illus. Index. Bibliog. Maps. £42.50.

China Builds the Bomb. By John Wilson Lewis and Xue Litai. Stanford, Ca, Stanford University Press, 1988. Pp. 238. Appendices. Bibliog. Index. $29.50.

Hong Kong under Imperial Rule. 1912–41. By Norman Miners. Hong Kong, OUP, 1988. Pp. 330. Illus. Bibliog. Index. £18.50.

A Macao Narrative. By Austin Coates. Oxford University Press, 1987. Pp. 112. Bibliog. Index. Illus. £7.95.

The Craft of Gardens. By Ji Cheng. Translated by Alison Hardie, Photographs by Zhong Ming with a Foreword by Maggie Keswick. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1988. Pp. 144. Notes. Index. £25.00.

The Hatcher Porcelain Cargoes: The Complete Record. By Colin Sheaf &; Richard Kilburn. Oxford, Phaidon Christie's, 1988. Pp. 192. Illus. Bibliog. Gloss. Map. Index. £45.00.

The Food of China. By E. N. Anderson. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1988. Pp. 263. Bibliog. Index. £14.95.

Pirates of the South China Coast 1790–1810. By Dian H. Murray. Stanford, California, Stanford University Press, 1987. Pp. 243. Appendices, Bibliog. Illus. Index. US$32.50.

Ceremony and Symbolism in the Japanese Home. By Michael Jeremy &; M. E. Robinson. Manchester University Press, 1989. Pp. 196. Illus. Gloss. Bibliog. £25.00.

Mirror in the Shrine: American Encounters with Meiji Japan. By Robert A. Rosenstone. Howard University Press, 1989. Pp. 315. Frontis. £19.95.

Japanese Government Leadership and Management. By Charles P. Bingham. London, Macmillan Press, 1989. Pp. 165. Index. £29.50.

“Things Seen &; Unseen; Discourse &; Ideology in Tokugawa Nativism”. By H. D. Harootunian. Chicago &; London, University of Chicago Press, 1988. Pp. 494. Index (includes Bibliog.) £11.95 Pb.

Political Protest and Social Control in Pre‐war Japan: the Origins of Buraku Liberation. By Ian Neary. Manchester University Press, 1989. Pp. 250. Illus. Bibliog. Index. £29.95.

The Origins of the Korean Community in Japan 1910–1923. By Michael Weiner. Manchester University Press, 1989. Pp. 249. Index. £29.95.

A Heritage of Kings: One Man's Monarchy in the Confucian World. By JaHyun Kim Haboush. New York, Columbia University Press, 1988. Pp. 237. Appendices, Gloss. Bibliog. Index. $35.00.

South Korea: Education, Culture and Economy. By Georgie D. M. Hyde. London, The Macmillan Press, 1988. Pp. 287. Bibliog. Index. Appendices. £35.00.

Kim Il Sung: The North Korean Leader. By Dae‐Sook Suh. Columbia University Press, 1988. Pp. 338. Notes. Bibliog. Index. $45.00.

The Korean Frontier in America: Immigration to Hawaii, 1896–1910. By Wayne Patterson. University of Hawaii Press, 1988. Pp. 257. Bibliog. Index. £28.50.

Shorter notices

International Relations of the Asian Muslim States. By James Piscatori, Lanham, New York, London, University Press of America. 1986. Pp. 41. Gloss. Bibliog. £13.40.

The Asian Development Bank and Rural Development: Policy and Practice. By R. Withol, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1988. Pp. 218. Bibliog. Index. £15.00.

An Arab‐Syrian Gentleman and Warrior. Memoirs of Usamah Ibn‐Munqidh. Translated by Philip Hitti. Princeton, 1987. Pp. 265. Illus. Map. Index. $9.95 Pb.

Curzon's Persia. Edited by Peter King. London. Sidgwick &; Jackson, 1988. Pp. 192. Illus. Maps. £9.95 Pb.

The Modern History of Mongolia. By C. R. Bawden. London, Kegan Paul International. 1989. Pp. 476. Illus. Maps. Bibliog. Index. £14.95 Pb.

Gandhi and His Critics. By B. R. Nanda. Delhi, OUP, 1985. Pp. 178. Index. £9.95.

Traditional Chinese Clothing in Hong Kong and South China 1840–1980. By Valery Garrett. Oxford University Press, (Images of Asia Series), 1988. Pp. 87. Illus. Index. £6.95.     

A systems thinking approach to the integration of food insecurity policy

Food insecurity represents a growing problem in the United States, with levels of household insecurity hovering around 12.5% of national population. Policy leaders and advocates have long struggled to define adequate solutions, mired in concerns about food access and affordability, as well as overlays of equity and social justice, in part because of the numerous many ways we have measured the problem and defined and evaluated solutions. Most food security programs are designed as temporary assistance and few policy leaders or advocates are well‐placed to address leverage points for durable policy change, both because they are focused on short term solutions and because they are unable to collaborate to identify leverage points within the food policy system that would enable long term solutions. This paper offers a systems thinking assessment of a recent food policy symposium, illuminating the problem and causes as perceived by those practitioners involved in addressing household food insecurity, highlighting the lack of coherence among current stakeholders and an inability to collaboratively address the problem of food insecurity. It concludes with suggestions for future research.     

Training parenting plan evaluators: Looking towards the future

Standards of practice for parenting plan evaluations continue to evolve, informed by advances in research and the development of innovative, evidence-based approaches to assessment and intervention. Parenting plan evaluators are asked to inform the court, parents, and other professionals on how to address the complex needs of increasingly diverse families amid reorganization, high conflict, and crisis. How can we attract and properly train new mental health professionals to do important work in an increasingly strained adversarial system? How can evaluators keep up with these advances over the course of their careers? How can they deepen and refine their skills to work with a diverse array of individuals, family constellations and an enormous range of family circumstances? And how can evaluators care for their own well-being and their colleagues? In this article, the authors describe a multi-dimensional approach to training both new and experienced custody evaluators that includes imparting baseline knowledge on how to conduct quality parenting plan evaluations as a starting point. We discuss a variety of modalities and approaches that can enable evaluators to deepen and expand their skills over the years, contribute to the diverse community of family law professionals, and manage the exceptional demands of working in this field.     

Strategic change,leadership and accounting: A triptych of organizational reform

Strategic change in public sector organizations has been well documented. This article suggests that public management research would benefit from a greater appreciation of how calculative practices are deeply imbricated with, and constitutive of, organizational life. In turn, the article argues that the field of interdisciplinary accounting has much to learn from public administration, especially in terms of leadership. The overarching argument is that understanding strategic change in public organizations can be enhanced by bringing together insights from the academic fields of public administration and interdisciplinary accounting. In this respect, organizational reform can be understood as a triptych, involving strategic change, leadership and accounting practices. We illustrate this thesis through a case study of strategic change in the world's largest public service broadcaster—the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). It is shown how, during the tenure of one organizational leader—John Birt—accounting became pivotal to his leadership.     

Les entreprises publiques: pourquoi et pour qui?

Sommaire: Le présent article remet en cause les justifications à caractère économique qui sont fréquemment avancées pour “rationaliser” l'existence d'entreprises publiques. La faiblesse des arguments économiques usuels est soulignée dans une perspective à la fois théorique et empirique. Par ailleurs, la poursuite dintérêts politiques et administratifs (bureaucratiques) est proposée comme facteur explicatif et quelques suggestions sont présentées afin de rationaliser le choix des instruments d'intervention utilisés par les gouvernements. Abstract: This paper shows the weaknesses of the usual economic arguments used to justify the existence of public enterprise. The pursuit of political and bureaucratic interests is proposed as a determinant factor explaining the choice of public enterprise as a tool of government intervention. Some suggestions for a rationalisation of government choice among policies are also presented.