Civic geographies of architectural enthusiasm

In this short intervention, we introduce the display and walking tour that formed our contribution to the ‘civic geographies’ exhibition and session at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) Annual Conference in July 2012. We then move on to explore the notion of ‘civic geographies’ in relation to the architectural enthusiasm, specifically a strong emotional attachment to buildings, exhibited by members of The Twentieth Century Society. In doing so, we suggest that a more critical account of the role of enthusiasm in the civic realm is required for two important reasons: first, because such groups can be understood to be doing geography beyond the academy in the civic realm; and second, because enthusiast knowledges and practices are active in the (re)constitution of civic landscapes of various kinds. Enthusiasts participate in caring for buildings, preserving heritage, making community spaces, as well as creating and curating local histories. An understanding of who is participating in making these civic geographies, why, how, and with what consequences, is therefore crucial.

Sahel decadal rainfall variability and the role of model horizontal resolution

Substantial low-frequency rainfall fluctuations occurred in the Sahel throughout the twentieth century, causing devastating drought. Modeling these low-frequency rainfall fluctuations has remained problematic for climate models for many years. Here we show using a combination of state-of-the-art rainfall observations and high-resolution global climate models that changes in organized heavy rainfall events carry most of the rainfall variability in the Sahel at multiannual to decadal time scales. Ability to produce intense, organized convection allows climate models to correctly simulate the magnitude of late-twentieth century rainfall change, underlining the importance of model resolution. Increasing model resolution allows a better coupling between large-scale circulation changes and regional rainfall processes over the Sahel. These results provide a strong basis for developing more reliable and skilful long-term predictions of rainfall (seasons to years) which could benefit many sectors in the region by allowing early adaptation to impending extremes.

Soft balancing in the Americas: Latin American opposition to U.S. intervention, 1898–1936

In the aftermath of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, scholars of international relations debated how to best characterize the rising tide of global opposition. The concept of “soft balancing” emerged as an influential, though contested, explanation of a new phenomenon in a unipolar world: states seeking to constrain the ability of the United States to deploy military force by using multinational organizations, international law, and coalition building. Soft balancing can also be observed in regional unipolar systems. Multinational archival research reveals how Argentina, Mexico, and other Latin American countries responded to expanding U.S. power and military assertiveness in the early twentieth century through coordinated diplomatic maneuvering that provides a strong example of soft balancing. Examination of this earlier case makes an empirical contribution to the emerging soft-balancing literature and suggests that soft balancing need not lead to hard balancing or open conflict.

The Cold War and its aftermath in the Americas: the search for a synthetic interpretation of U.S. policy

More than two decades have passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the transfer of the Cold War file from a daily preoccupation of policy makers to a more detached assessment by historians. Scholars of U.S.-Latin American relations are beginning to take advantage both of the distance in time and of newly opened archives to reflect on the four decades that, from the 1940s to the 1980s, divided the Americas, as they did much of the world. Others are seeking to understand U.S. policy and inter-American relations in the post-Cold War era, a period that not only lacks a clear definition but also still has no name. Still others have turned their gaze forward to offer policies in regard to the region for the new Obama administration. Numerous books and review essays have addressed these three subjects—the Cold War, the post-Cold War era, and current and future issues on the inter-American agenda. Few of these studies attempt, however, to connect the three subjects or to offer new and comprehensive theories to explain the course of U.S. policies from the beginning of the twentieth century until the present. Indeed, some works and policy makers continue to use the mind-sets of the Cold War as though that conflict were still being fought. With the benefit of newly opened archives, some scholars have nevertheless drawn insights from the depths of the Cold War that improve our understanding of U.S. policies and inter-American relations, but they do not address the question as to whether the United States has escaped the longer cycle of intervention followed by neglect that has characterized its relations with Latin America. Another question is whether U.S. policies differ markedly before, during, and after the Cold War. In what follows, we ask whether the books reviewed here provide any insights in this regard and whether they offer a compass for the future of inter-American relations. We also offer our own thoughts as to how their various perspectives could be synthesized to address these questions more comprehensively.

Concrete gown for immaterial flows

Concrete Gown for Immaterial Flows was a sculptural installation and performance commissioned by the Hayward Gallery as part of the Mirrorcity exhibition (14 October 2014 - 4 January 2015). In an age of increasingly abstract power, ideology is disavowed as a twentieth century relic. We are instead told we are governed by pragmatic decisions based on charts and figures. Responding to this notion, Concrete Gown for Immaterial Flows is comprised of a concrete materialisation of abstract financial charts. It forms a stage upon which a series of live music performances take place. Musicians were commissioned to produce new interpretations of Nathan Alterman's "Morning Song", an old Zionist love song to the state, promising to clothe it in concrete and cement. Thus, the immateriality of financial transactions is made physical and given the monumental language it lacks in a patriotic offering for our times.

A new three-locus model for rootstock-induced dwarfing in apple revealed by genetic mapping of root bark percentage

Rootstock-induced dwarfing of apple scions revolutionized global apple production during the twentieth century, leading to the development of modern intensive orchards. A high root bark percentage (the percentage of the whole root area constituted by root cortex) has previously been associated with rootstock induced dwarfing in apple. In this study, the root bark percentage was measured in a full-sib family of ungrafted apple rootstocks and found to be under the control of three loci. Two QTL for root bark percentage were found to co-localise to the same genomic regions on chromosome 5 and chromosome 11 previously identified as controlling dwarfing, Dw1 and Dw2, respectively. A third QTL was identified on chromosome 13 in a region that has not been previously associated with dwarfing. The development of closely linked 3 Sequence-tagged site STS markers improved the resolution of allelic classes thereby allowing the detection of dominance and epistatic interactions between loci, with high root bark percentage only occurring in specific allelic combinations. In addition, we report a significant negative correlation between root bark percentage and stem diameter (an indicator of tree vigour), measured on a clonally propagated grafted subset of the mapping population. The demonstrated link between root bark percentage and rootstock-induced dwarfing of the scion leads us to propose a three-locus model that is able to explain levels of dwarfing from the dwarf ‘M.27’ to the semi-invigorating rootstock ‘M.116’. Moreover, we suggest that the QTL on chromosome 13 (Rb3) might be analogous to a third dwarfing QTL, Dw3 that has not previously been identified.

Trochoidea elegans in Surrey, England - when did it arrive?

The introduction of the snail Trochoidea elegans to one of its three known sites in Britain has been investigated. 210Pb dating suggests that it has been present at Chaldon, Surrey, at least since the first decade of the twentieth century; it may have been deliberately translocated to this site by the Rev. Canon J. W. Horsley.