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David Ransom, Forensic Medicine and the Law, 1996, Melbourne University Press, paperback $34.95.
The author is a medical practitioner who holds a law degree. He is an associate professor of Forensic Medicine at Monash University and deputy director of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine. Thus he is eminently qualified to write this book.
Forensic Medicine and the Law is dir¬ected towards medical practitioners and
students who anticipate giving expert evidence in legal proceedings on a regular basis. It is not a diagnostic text of condit¬ions that medical practitioners encounter and give evidence about. The objective of the book, as stated in its preface, is to pro-vide general background material on the aspects of the law that most affect the practice of forensic medicine and to pro-vide guidance on some of the major tasks that are required of forensic medical practitioners. It achieves its objective admirably and goes some way further in that medicos in their forensic practice might find it beneficial to elevate the "guidance" pro¬vided to the status of rules that should be followed in the normal course.
Chapter 1 is entitled "The Legal System" and Chapter 3 "Court Procedure and Evi¬dence". These chapters provide a succinct outline of the court system and process. Even law students may find that they gain a better basic understanding of the way the legal system operates by reading the 32 pages in these chapters than by digesting more voluminous material on the same subject.
Chapter 4, entitled "The Medical Wit¬ness", deals with preparation for giving evidence, demeanour as a witness and the presentation of evidence. Litigation law¬yerswill applaud its emphasis on the appearance of the witness and the manner in which the witness gives evidence, given that appearance and presentation may be as significant to the outcome of a case as the actual evidence the witness gives.
Although the focus of the book is on medical practitioners, Chapters 1, 3 and 4 would be useful to other professionals who anticipate giving expert evidence. The specific guidance provided in Chapter 4 can be adapted to expert witnesses in other fields.
The book does not address topical forensic issues, nor does it refer to case law or legislation in those areas. Consequently lawyers who grapple with those issues will not find assistance in the book. This is not meant to be a criticism as that is not the book's objective.
ALEXANDER ALBERT
Helen Irving (ed), A Woman's Constitution? Gender & History in the Australian Common-wealth, 1996, Hale & Iremonger, paperback $24.95.
This collection of articles focuses on the previously unacknowledged role of women in the making of the Australian Constit¬ution and on the ways in which the Con¬stitution itself has affected the nature and extent of participation by women in the formal processes of legislating and gov¬erning.
The idea for the book emerged from a conference, 'Women and Federation", held in 1994 in Hay, the NSW town where the recently rediscovered Women's Federal League was established in 1899. The con¬tributors to this volume are mostly histor¬ians and constitutional lawyers, and the book is a tribute to the new perspectives such cross-fertilisation of the disciplines can produce.
Given the intrinsic interest of this book and the interaction between historians and lawyers that gave rise to its publication, it is a pity that there is no introductory or concluding chapter that links some of the conclusions and draws attention to avenues for further research. One possibility that springs to mind is to link the largely per¬ipheral role of women in the writing of the Constitution, as well as the problem of the gross under-representation of women in a legislative system based on the principle of representative democracy, with the eager and widespread participation of women in diverse extraparliamentary political pressure groups such as the Australian Wom¬en's National League, the Women's Christ¬ian Temperance Union, the Country Wom¬en's Association and the Housewives' Associations. Was it that women felt wel¬come and empowered in these organisat¬ions whereas they were made to feel alien, uncomfortable and ineffectual in the halls of Parliament?
As Pat Grimshaw's chapter so clearly indicates, this experience of ostracism and belated inclusion as citizens has even greater relevance for the political responses of Aborigines in the wake of their specific exclusion from the most basic right of citizenship, the vote - an exclusion that, ironically but quite consciously, was made law in the very Act that gave all white Australian women the franchise for the commonwealth legislature in 1902. The issue of gender in the Constitution was thus fractured by race from the very beginning. Although these matters could well have been explicitly raised and dis¬cussed by the editor of this volume, it is a tribute to her and to the other contrib¬utors that the quality of their discussion has brought old debates to life and pro¬voked timely new questions.
JUDITH SMART
D O'Connor and PA Fairall, Criminal Defences (3rd ed), 1996, Butter-worths, hardback $89.
This is the third edition of a well known text, which the authors say brings the law up to date as at 1995.
The book deals with the three criminal code jurisdictions, Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory; Tasmania and New Zealand, where the criminal law is codified but common law defences are retained; and the remaining Australian jurisdictions where common law defences have been retained but still have differences between themselves. No wonder there is a call for greater uniform¬ity in criminal law among the states and territories! Not only does that suggestion seem to me to be eminently reasonable, it would make the book somewhat easier to read without the constant reference to each individual state or territory's differences.
The text looks at fifteen areas of defence from, for example, mistake of fact, through necessity, self-defence and intoxication to diminished responsibility. It is a good starting point for any legal defence to a criminal prosecution. The test is to use it to prepare a defence, which is exactly what I did in relation to one of my current matters.
Chapter 4 is headed "Claim of Right", and that was a defence I wanted to explore. This chapter was sufficient as a starting point but to my mind too academic in its approach. For instance, one of the most important aspects to this defence is, in my view, the fact that the accused's belief as to his or her entitlement to the property taken is all that is required to be estab¬lished. It is not necessary that the accused must believe he or she is legally entitled to take the property in the manner they did. The SA decision of Langham is referred to, however a more recent and very good decision of the SA Supreme Court is not. That decision, Noble v Police [1994] SASC 4366; (1994) 70 A Crim R 560, is further clear authority for that proposition and details the basis on which the defence can be run. In my experience this is the crucial area to look at for such a defence of claim of right.
Nevertheless, this book will give you a good detailed starting point for prep¬aration, but as in any area, don't rely on it fully without investigating the subject matter thoroughly.
CHESTER METCALFE
Bruce Kercher, Debt, Seduction and Other Disasters: The birth of civil law in convict New South Wales, 1996, Federation Press, paperback $24.95.
Behind this unhelpful title is a short scholarly legal history of civil law in the first 25 years of New South Wales, from the arrival of the eleven tall ships of the First Fleet in Sydney in February 1788 up to 1823. By this time, commercial life in Sydney was well established, and there were thoughts of the bright prospects of what might lie south of the Murray River.
The author, Dr Bruce Kercher of Mac¬quarie Law School, is of the current generation of lawyer-historians following in the footsteps of Drs Currey, Evatt and
Bennett, Justices Windeyer and Else-Mitchell and Professor Castles. The book is based on liberally cited source materials which were analysed for the author's PhD in history.
The book contains chapters on the reception of English law, contract, tort, land title and debtor/creditor. Of special interest is the description of the first civil case of Cable v Sinclair in July 1788, a successful claim in detinue lodged by husband and wife convicts for return of their baggage from the master of the ship transporting them. This case confirmed the rule of law in New South Wales (rather than military or arbitrary rule), the right of convicts to sue (no doctrine of felony attaint), and the legal capacity of women (as also exemplified by property and transport magnate Mary Reibey, featured on the $20 note).
Four years passed before the next civil case in 1792, but the numbers were aver-aging about 500 per year from the time of Governor Macquarie in 1810.
The first "judge-advocate" was David Collins (from 1788 to 1796), who later led the first settlement at Port Phillip in 1803 and who was to give his name to Collins Street, Melbourne. Collins, who was not legally trained, had the resources of a library of five English law books. The first legally trained judge-advocate did not arrive until 1798.
This book does not contain much analysis of the underlying themes of the times, and a reader unfamiliar with the themes and personalities - the Rum Rebellion, Mac¬quarie, Macarthur, the emancipists - would need a copy of Manning Clark's A Short History of Australia or Robert Hughes' The Fatal Shore to provide some of the back-ground and colour.
So much law is based on history and precedent, and this book is recommended for those interested in how it was done two centuries ago.
PAUL LATIMER
Philip King, Professional Practice Management, 1996, LBC Information Services, paperback $55.
I picked up my copy of Professional Practice Management with great expect with the management of Australian pro¬fessional practices by Philip King, a former managing partner of Allen Allen & Hems-ley, one of Australia's major law firms.
The foreword, by Professor Robin Woel¬lner, dean of the Faculty of Law, University of West Sydney, recommended this text as "a timely and valuable guide for both new and more experienced managers of professional firms".
Unfortunately my expectations were not met. The book is disappointing, especially in comparison with David Maister's Man-aging the Professional Service Firm.
The text of Professional Practice Management is well laid out, organised and covers every possible topic that could be of relevance to a professional practice.
The contents cover managing the firm, the staff, clients, the finances of the firm and a myriad of other topics. There is even a chapter on the health of the managing partner, including advice on a sensible diet and the advice that a managing partner should "restrict the bad food to not more than two days a week". The following pages then describe what is, in the author's opinion, good and bad food.
There are other chapters on how leadership operates and the necessity of dealing with firm politics.
The problem is that, despite being extremely systematic and well organised, the text is dull. It does not lack for any fine detail on the most minute of subjects, but lacks the very thing which I look for in a management text book, i.e. experiences and insights into solving the difficulties facing all law firms.
Unfortunately one does not gain any real understanding of the obviously very suc¬cessful management style that was adopt¬ed by Mr King while he was managing partner of Allen Allen & Hemsley.
Accordingly, I am still awaiting the great Australian management textbook. Perhaps Mr King will write another book which will detail his experiences as managing partner and provide us with insights as to the manner in which he made Allen Allen & Hemsley the successful law firm that it is today.
MARK HARRICK
Stephen Barkoczy et al, Australian Tax Casebook (2nd ed), 1996, CCU, paperback $54.
This book should appeal widely to both students and practitioners of taxation law. Taxation law judgments are often con ceptually difficult to understand and quite
often the commentary found in texts and elsewhere does not sufficiently address particular issues. The great virtue of Australian Tax Casebook is that the reader is given a summarised view of important cases, which substantially saves research time and effort.
The second edition, published in Jan¬uary 1996, contains 400 case summaries in which the authors have effectively done much of the required research by accur¬ately portraying the facts and arguments in every case, summarising the main issues and explaining the decision, adding, where appropriate, quotations from the original judgments.
The book covers all areas of taxation relevant to university teaching and pro¬fessional practice. The layout is starkly simple: cases are listed alphabetically with no attempt to group or categorise them according to subject matter. A distinctive feature is that there is no actual com¬mentary of any kind and the purpose of the book appears to be to depart from the traditional casebook edict of providing slabs of judgements interspersed with commentary (sometimes raising more questions than answers). Notwithstanding this, the second edition contains more quotations from judgments than the first edition and this should serve the addit¬ional needs of law students and practit¬ioners while not losing the essential char¬acter of the book, being that of presenting cases in a brief, concise and readable manner.
It should be emphasised that the book claims to be a companion to other texts, and should therefore be regarded as an excellent starting point in any research process. However, I found that quite often there was no need to consult the full text of a decision after reading the summary.
As with many things, the measure of value is in the book's use. Discussions with many students for whom it has been pre-scribed have produced very favourable feedback.
The overwhelming usefulness of this book appears to be as a very effective timesaving device for readers and as a gateway to such further research as re¬quired. It is recommended for all uni¬versity teaching as well as for private professional practice.
MURRAY CRAWFORD
BLEC Books, Using Technology to Present Your Case, 1996, paperback $89.
Using Technology to Present Your Case is a collection of seven papers presented at a seminar held in March and April 1996. They deal with "Use of Technology in Effective Dispute Management"; Discovery and Subpoenas"; "Technology and Case Support"; "Costs"; "Case Management Reports"; "Hearing" and "Case Study Focusing On the Use of Case Management Initiatives and Technology in the Recently Settled Fairfax Litigation".
Each paper is clearly set out, and follows a logical sequence, offering a clear insight into the most effective use of technology, costs of hardware and software, structuring charges to the client for these services, and the most practical method of implement¬ation and integration of current and new technical resources.
The information is well set out, and while some of it is quite complex, it is arranged in a logical sequence. It should provide practical guidelines for pract¬itioners to follow in their own applic¬ations.
GARRY FABIAN
Stephen Krueger, Krueger on United States Passport Law, 1996, Crossbow Corporation, hardback US$75.*
The author's objective was to present a treatise on the legislation, regulations and case law pertaining to US passports.
Given the perceived value attached to a passport from the United States, one can only imagine the mountain of judicial interpretation and government regulation which the author had to sift through to produce this work.
The book starts by defining "passport" and examines the earlier case law pertain¬ing to passports. The history of passports and of the right to travel is examined in some detail. It is interesting to read that at one time passports were not necessary for international travel; this was as late as 1928 in the case of the United States.
The book covers in minute detail the subjects of US passport issuance, elig¬ibility, ownership, types, format and application procedure.
In addition, the author sets out the appellate and judicial review procedures for aggrieved applicants.
Given the narrow focus of this book it is likely to be of much interest or value to only a handful of practitioners in Australia. Given that anyone applying for a US pass-port is in all likelihood using a US attorney, it would be futile for any practitioner to spend a significant amount of time studying this work.
SRECHKO KONTELJ
Cheques made payable to Crossbow Corporation should include US$12.75 for postage and be sent to the author at General Delivery, Koror 96940, Palau.
WJ Gough, Company Charges (2nd ed), 1996, Buttcrworths. hardback $250.
This is the second edition of this text by Mr Gough, who practises as a solicitor in Sydney.
The first edition was published in 1978 so, needless to say, there have been sig¬nificant developments, including expans¬ion of the case law in relation to both floating charges and the charges regis¬tration provisions of the companies legislation.
At the time of the first edition, the charges provisions of the companies legis¬lation in Australia were verbatim adopt-ions of the relevant sections of the English Companies Act 1948. In 1991 Corp-orations Law repeated the new statutory system of charge priorities introduced by the states' companies codes in 1982. Apart from the expressed statutory rules regu¬lating priorities between registrable charges, the legislation in Australia relating to company charges is still largely identical to English law. Mr Gough uses this, quite appropriately, as justifying common treat¬ment of the law on the subject in England, Australia and New Zealand.
This is a specialist text on the various kinds of company securities and their public disclosure through registration.
The main focus of the book is the priorities created by charges against other creditors and subsequent purchases. Other main concerns include the effect of automatic crystallisation clauses, romalpa clauses and non-purchase money on the tradit¬ional bank floating charge.
Within its ambit, this book is extremely comprehensive. Importantly, it has a good, comparative multi-jurisdictional treat¬ment that covers New Zealand, English and Australian law on this topic. Stylist¬ically speaking, one of the things this reviewer found favourable about the layout was the straightforward headings without those annoying numbers at the start of every paragraph. The index goes by way of pages, rather than paragraphs.
Lawyers, financiers, liquidators and receivers will find this work invaluable.
ROBERT LOMBARDI
Colin Lockhart (ed), Misleading or Deceptive Conduct: Issues and trends, 1996, The Federation Press, hardback $75.
I like collections of essays. They have the benefit of being an accessible way into different perspectives on a single topic without major study. The best essays are pithy and precise, covering their subject matter with confidence. A good collection of essays should be unified by a logical structure and guiding editorial comment.
This book resulted from a seminar held at the University of Western Australia in 1994. It contains ten essays, divided into two parts, dealing with "the nature of misleading or deceptive conduct" and "remedies for misleading or deceptive conduct". The book is introduced by Justice Malcolm and concludes with a piece on future directions by Justice French.
Substantive matters covered by the book include: the relevance of the victim's level of care; misleading or deceptive conduct by representations as to future matters; s995 Corporations Law; com¬parative advertising; the duty to negotiate in good faith in US law; extraterritoriality and conflicts of laws; causation and reliance; and developments in relation to assessments of damages.
The essays vary in pith and precision, but most are readable and informative. They are largely of an academic nature. Despite s52 jurisprudence being well-tilled soil, the collection manages to synthesise a range of diverse topics and in places breaks fresh ground.
It is somewhat unfortunate that the editor chose to adopt such a light-handed approach to his task. The bipartite structure of the book is unhelpful - and probably misleading or deceptive - since, strictly, three out of four essays in Part B have little to do with remedies. The book would also have benefited from a longer editorial introduction, commenting on each of the essays and summarising what the 1994 conference added to our knowledge of s52. As it is, readers are left to draw their own conclusions.
However, both the specialist practit¬ioner and the novice should find some-thing worthwhile in this book. I would encourage The Federation Press to keep publishing well-priced collections of this kind.
RICHARD DAMMERY
Richard Andrews and Paul Schellenberger, The Tomb of God: The body of Jesus and the solution to a 2000-year-old mystery, 1996, Little, Brown, hardback $39.95.
This book seeks to adduce evidence that the physical remains of the historical Jesus of Nazareth are preserved and concealed in a rock formation in Mount Cardou in southern France.
The authors suggest that the remains were excavated by the Knights Templar in the aftermath of the fall of Jerusalem to the first Crusade in 1099. Certain elements of the Order then participated in the secret which has been passed on through guard¬ians.
The authors explain in an excessively drawn out manner how they came to this conclusion by the application of sophist¬icated geometry featuring 60 degree angles, equilateral triangles, pentagrams, and various permutations and combin¬ations of intersecting lines.
The geometry is applied to illustrations of secret parchments said to have been discovered during the restoration of a church in the late nineteenth century. The geometrical processes identify particular letters which are in secret code, only carrying meaning for the initiated. Of course "no author has claimed to have held the original parchments".
The geometry is also applied to geo¬graphical maps of the area in France and to angles in famous paintings, including works of Poussin and Van Dyke.
The authors argue that Paul and the apostles saw the immense potential of the idea of bodily resurrection of Jesus. The early Christian Church exploited human nature by promoting the concept in order to maintain the Church's influence.
The secret of the bodily remains is said to have its inheritance in "Christian Gnost¬icism". Organisations and persons assoc¬iated with Gnosticism, such as the Rosi¬crucians, and the occasional "errant priest", have been the vehicles by which the secret has been passed down through the centuries.
By reading this book we are supposed to become enlightened about the merits of Gnosticism and to discover the Roman Catholic cover up of the truth about the resurrection.
Despite all efforts to retain an open mind and to be charitable to the authors, I can form no other conclusion than that the book is full of arrant nonsense. The authors have simply juggled the geometry to produce their desired end. Whatever one's views of the resurrection may be, this extraordinary application of geometry and deciphering of secret codes stretches the bounds of credulity to unprecedented lengths.
The work does not even meet basic standards of modern historical and theo¬logical scholarship. There is no excuse for such basic errors as, for example, the one on page 67 where Psalm 118:13 is said to have been checked against the original Greek (try Hebrew).
At 513 pages, this book has the potential to waste a great deal of your time, but the saving grace is that it takes only a few pages to realise this.
LAURENCE DALTON
Gerald Messadie, The History of the Devil, 1996, Newleaf, hardback $39.95.
This book reads so well in English, with Marc Romano's translation, that I wish I could read it in the original French, the better to savour Messadie's wit and intel¬lect.
We are all someone else's Devil - and no amount of political correctness or freedom from political correctness will alter that aspect of the human condition. From the moment one defines Evil, when one names it, when one ascribes it a recognised repre¬sentative, one gives in to the temptation of localising it. Once that has been done, the only remaining goal becomes to destroy it. So writes Messadie, quite usefully, as he knew nothing of the NSW royal com¬mission into something beginning with
"p".
Our growing up, our education, both formal and informal, is the process of receiving, accepting and sometimes reject¬ing notions big and small, simple and complex that guide our view of life. What each of us thinks about "good and evil" is an example. What would happen to us because we were good, because we were naughty again, because we were disobed¬ient to our parents, our teachers, in the eyes of the all seeing God - the messages began at a very early age and produced Woody Allen and angst.
Says Messadie, "Every people produces myths according to its landscape". Some 2500 years ago the Zoroastrians devised a perfect and entirely substanceless fiction for reasons of political pragmatism. They invented our Good and Evil, immanent and pre-existing, whose conflict was not to be resolved until the end of time.
So was erected the framework of the three monotheisms (Judaism, Christianity and Islam). The Devil's birth certificate was filled out by an Iranian prophet. The Devil's curriculum vitae, however, has been customised to a variety of needs. So the Devil has become the hero of the loser, the god of effortless gain, or the god of laziness, incompetence, unculturedness and indifference.
Those who continue to propagate the belief in the Devil, because it is a concept which sells so well, continue to pander to the great popular need, writes Messadie, for a countergod who will avenge the less fortunate against a God who protects only the righteous, the rich, the white and the powerful.
Glance at the covers of the expose "hot" weekly or monthly magazine, watch for the next witchcraft, satanic cult, or dem¬onic possession film at a cinema near you, wonder at the next cleric who performs an exorcism. Messadie asks why demonic possession does not afflict secretaries of state, famous writers or TV hosts, but instead, only individuals of average intel¬lectual and psychological status.
To paraphrase one of Messadie's des¬criptions, he has, with consummate intel¬ligence, undermined a number of sacred myths, deflating them like a jellyfish left on hot sand. It's a good summer read about evil's timelessness.
HUGH SELBY
Jeremy Rifkin, The End of Work, 1996, Penguin, paperback $26.95.
The reasoning behind Rifkin's book, The End of Work, is relatively simple. It starts with the premise that new forms of tech¬nology and management techniques have been and are continuing to remove the need for people in the workplace. Its second premise is that fewer jobs are being created than are being eliminated by machines and new management tech¬niques. This trend will continue. Rifkin's conclusion: in the near future, almost all work will be done by machines and there will be no need for all but a few people in the workforce.
Rifkin sketches two possibilities for this near-workerless world. There is the utopic, in which everyone shares in the techno¬logical gains. And the dystopic. This world, Rifkin says, will come about if two cir¬cumstances materialise. The first is that corporations and companies continue their current practice of shedding workers and the second is that no replacement for the income and fulfilment that work provides is created. In this dystopic world, unemployment levels will skyrocket and the majority of people, with no work and no pay, will find themselves living below the poverty line. Crime will soar, violence will erupt and a severe strain will be placed on society.
Rifkin's book is divided into two parts. The first deals with the approach of the workerless society. It documents the rise of technology and the effect it has had on work and workers over the past century. This section, which takes up two-thirds of the book, is extensively researched, care-fully considered and concisely written.
The second section comprises Rifkin's recommendations on how we can avoid the dystopic and achieve the utopic society in the next 30 to 40 years. This section is not as powerful as the first. It assumes too much about human nature, is far too limited in its scope and is encased by the hollow ring of unbridled idealism.
However, this book is important because it explores issues which are already affecting us. Over the next decade we will have to face them. As such, Rifkin's book is a must read.
DAVID COLLErr
Charles Reither, Human Resources Management, 1996, FT Pitman Publishing, looseleaf $245.
Increasing attention is being focused on the implementation of effective human resource risk management programs and practices within organisations, not only from a "best practice" point of view, but also with the aim of diminishing potential employment-related litigation.
In recent times, information, materials and seminars on HR risk management pro-grams have become more prominent and accessible to HR practitioners.
At first glance this manual appears to have all the immediate answers for implementing effective HR risk management programs and practices. It comes in an A5 binder with thirteen clearly tabbed sect-ions covering topics such as HR and corporate risk management strategies and pro-gram implementation, risk program implementation, occupational health and re-habilitation and safety management, and employee incidents and claims management.
While it appears to cover many of the HR practices relevant to every organisation, the manual suffers from "information congestion". The terminology is clinical and the layout is not user friendly or practical.
Each section comprises an introduction followed by clear subheadings, however the information does not follow any logical or practical progression. There are no diagrams or flowcharts showing the implementation of various practices, and few pro forma forms.
The purchase of this manual is subject to an annual licence fee, based on the number of employees within an organisation. This permits the buyer to "copy” and use the forms and specimen docu¬ments contained in the manual". As there is no information in relation to updating the manual, I assume that the manual is intended to stand alone without updates. In comparison with other HR subscript-ions, the annual fee is expensive as there is no way of ensuring that the information is up to date.
Although this manual provides a found¬ation for developing and implementing risk management practices and programs, it does not go the next step of providing practical direction or day to day, user friendly specimen forms.
IRENE HALL
Jason Romney, Law on the Line, 1996, Law Press, paperback $32.50.
Technology has become an integral part of our daily life and one of its more visible manifestations is the computer.
Walk into any office, be it a large corp¬oration, a middle size business or a one person operation, and a computer will be part of the furniture. Sit at any airport, and the odds are that several passengers will be working on laptops sitting on their knees, while waiting for that boarding call.
But despite the universal spread of new technology, to many of us it remains a mystery, no more intelligible than Latin to the average citizen.
Many computer books are written by experts for experts and tend to confuse the average reader even more. When a book comes along that is logically arranged, easy to understand and informative, it is a time to give three cheers.
Law on the Line is such a book. It sets out the basics of computers, the various components and how they work, and what to look for when buying your first com¬puter. It covers the most widely used soft-ware programs and steps to take to integrate your computer with other machines. It provides specific information on products that are suitable, and indicates prices. It provides a realistic budget figure for entering the electronic age (although you can probably do better by shopping around).
I have seen many computer books, but this is one of the best and most practical I have come across. Anyone interested in buying a computer or in running an existing machine more effectively should read it carefully and retain it on their bookshelf in a prominent position for when their computer throws that in¬evitable "wobbly" - which usually happens right in the middle of a really vital piece of work.
GARRY FABIAN
Bernard Hoekman and Michel Kostecki, The Political Economy of the World Trading System from GATT to WTO, 1996, Oxford University Press, paperback 34.95.
This book's endorsement states that it is a "comprehensive and non-technical introduction to the institutional mechan¬ics, economics and politics of the world trading system". Yet it should be men¬tioned that for the average reader it could still be heavy reading, at least in parts. This is in no way a reflection on the authors' commendable efforts to introduce the general reader to this inevitably technical subject. Indeed, they point to the need for business and trade persons, economists, lawyers (academic, practit¬ioner and law student alike) and even the general public to have at least a passing knowledge of the areas covered by the book.
Part I, entitled "The Institution", is an historical overview as well as an analysis of the essential features of the General Agreement on Trades and Tariffs (GATT) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), established in 1995.
Part II deals with "The Multilateral Trade Agreements", including trade in services and intellectual property. Rules and regulations in these areas are appar¬ently innovations that were taken with the establishment of the WTO.
The issue of intellectual property is a "hot" topic, at least among certain Asian elites like Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad. In his address to the 1996 United Nations General Assembly, Mahathir attacked "Northern" firms and companies for "stealing" from the South's resources and then preventing their access to the refined products of their own natural resources. By implication, and according to Mahathir, western intel¬lectual property laws are the legal vehicles which prevent the developing nations from having access to their own products. The discussion on intellectual property rights in Hoekman and Kostecki's tract may not answer Mahathir's accusations; however, it does fill in one's knowledge of this relatively new and at times controversy-ridden aspect of the world trading system.
Part III, "Holes and Loopholes", is per¬haps the most technical part of the book. It does discuss European Free Trade Area (EFTA) and North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA), but there is only a passing mention of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) agreement. The book concludes with a look at future challenges and opportunities.
This book would be mainly beneficial for persons who already have basic or even medium-level familiarity with the issues; however, some parts could be useful for the less knowledgeable general reader.
MYINT ZAN
Oliver MacDonagh, The Sharing of the Green, 1996, Allen & [Tnwin, paper-back $19.95.
This book is subtitled "A modern Irish history for Australians" and is an exercise in historical "niche-marketing". It is not a new history of Ireland, but rather a version of events directed at a particular audience. Based on the author's assumptions as to the interests of that audience, emphasis has been placed on "religion, land protest, respectability, the role of the state, attitudes to authority, the imperial connection, separatism and above all politics, both organisational and aspirational".
Oliver MacDonagh is an eminent Irish historian who has taught and written extensively at the highest level in Ireland and Australia. The Sharing of the Green purports to be an Australian-accented his¬tory of Ireland. It is not a complete history of Ireland, Australia or Irish-Australia; nor is it a comparative study of Irish and Australian history.
The idea that you can write Irish or any other national history in this way requires intellectual justification. Apart from the potential it has to confirm stereotypical assumptions about both the Irish and Australians, and Irish-Australians in part¬icular, it is an approach that runs contrary to the disinterestedness and inclusiveness to which any serious history of a nation ought to aspire.
Ideally, history should seek to educate in the broadest sense and not reinforce or pander to received ideas and prejudices, in relation to either its subject matter or its readership. Although such charges cannot be laid here, MacDonagh's approach, no matter how scrupulously it is effected, inevitably diminishes both the Irish contribution to the modern world and, as a consequence, the understanding in Aust¬ralia of that contribution. Instances of this diminution are too numerous to list. There is, for instance, nothing here about literature, a stunning omission in a history of modern Ireland. On a local level, there is no mention of the vital contribution made by Irish Protestants to the founding of Australia's institutions (including the Torrens system of land title). It is the kind of history that, by its very nature, cannot stand alone.
The narrative is certainly compelling, and to his credit MacDonagh makes his purpose clear and leaves it to the reader to decide if the result is satisfactory. In order to make that decision, the reader must already know his or her Irish history; which again poses the question - why this book?
SJ CATERSON
H Paul Jeffers, Colonel Roosevelt: Theodore Roosevelt goes to war - 1897-1898 (part of a series on Roosevelt), 1996, Jacaranda Wiley, hard-back $47.95.
Theodore Roosevelt is increasingly, and deservedly, being ranked with the greatest of US presidents.
He was, in turn, a weakling youngster and fitness-mad Harvard graduate, a rancher, a politician (Republican) and a New York police commissioner, assistant secretary of the Navy and a military leader and hero. He went on to become New York governor, vice-president and then presi¬dent. He was a conservationist, an advent¬urer, a prolific writer, an imperialist and a dedicated family man.
Theodore Roosevelt was, unapologet¬ically, a jingo. While the Monroe doctrine kept the European powers out of the US's backyard, the Americans maintained the right to expand their own power and influence. There was more: theirs was a blessed cause, with genuine roots in the Declaration of Independence. Freedom, by moral definition, was universal. Spain's continued presence in the region was unacceptable.
In that cause, the jingos were urged on by the New York press, notably Hearst. On 15 February 1898, the US warship Maine sank in Havana harbor after an explosion unexplained to this day. This incident led directly to war with Spain. "Remember the Maine!" was the the catchcry, as "Rem-ember Pearl Harbor" was to become a half century later.
The brief Spanish-American War was, really, small change. Yet "it transformed the United States into a world power. It also assured Roosevelt's political career". During the only land battle, he led the legendary charge up San Juan Hill in Cuba: "This was to be the great day of my life."
His unconventional volunteer regiment "Rough Riders" was a weird mob - cow-boys, Indians, adventurers, prospectors, "momentarily reformed bad men from the West" and East Coast university polo players "spoiling for a good fight".
Victory for the Americans was swift. In a goodwill gesture, the Spaniards were paid $20m for Cuba, the Philippines and Puerto Rico. The Germans were told "not in the Pacific, thank you" and Japan was told to "forget" Hawaii; this was all enforceable with the now modern American Navy.
The historian in Roosevelt also caut¬ioned against the growth of Germany and Japan's likely challenge to the US; in Russia, he feared "a red terror which will make the French Revolution pale". In brokering the peace in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905 he picked up a Nobel peace prize.
Author Jeffers does, as I do here, oversell the "product". I plead blind enthusiasm, for Theodore Roosevelt was a remarkable person - a renaissance man.
FRANK GARDINER
Isabel Allende, Paula, 1996, Flamingo, paperback $14.95.
When Isabel Allende's daughter Paula fell into a deep coma, Allende started to write her a long letter about her family, so that when Paula woke up she would not feel so lost.
Allende had plenty to write about. Her family, which emigrated from Spain to Chile several centuries ago and became wealthy Chilean landowners, is full of off-beat characters and intriguing events - many of which provided the inspiration for Allende's bestseller The House of Spirits. Allende's parents were globe-trotting diplo¬mats and her uncle was the late Marxist president of Chile, Salvador Allende.
Allende is such a gifted storyteller she could turn the dullest family into a good read. After growing up on two continents, Allende returned to her native Chile where she worked as a journalist until she, with her husband and two children, was forced to flee to Venezuela after her uncle was ousted in a military coup.
She intersperses the stories about her family and her own life with more immediate reports about Paula's health and her feelings for her dying daughter.
Ultimately the entertaining stories about the Allende clan must give way to Paula's fate, but Paula remains delightfully and honestly written.
CHRISTINA CRIDLAND
Anthony Lawrence, The Viewfinder, 1996, UQP, paperback $19.95.
Reading an excellent new book of Aust¬ralian poetry is a little like watching a lowly football team with no hope of reaching the finals score a rare win. Joy at witnessing such a stunning achievement is tempered by the sad knowledge that, apart from a few faithful, no one really cares.
Still, The Viewfinder, Anthony Law¬rence's fifth book of verse, is the work of a skilled and passionate poet.
I had never heard of Lawrence before reading this book. Judging from his poems (an unreliable source, of course), he seems to be a bit of a wreck: a heavy smoker with chronic lung problems, someone who flirts often with depression and madness.
The heightened awareness which ill health can bring is evident in his poems, but he avoids the self-indulgence which often comes with it. Instead, his writing is full of humour and he springs the impos¬sible on readers with evident enjoyment.
"My father/has become what he always wanted," he blandly announces. "He has become a pygmy water buffalo." And he proposes this remedy for depression: "Swim naked with a blue heeler at Min¬nehaha Falls." There is even a series of poems about watching cricket. One of them, "Umpire Crafter Says No" is some-thing you can imagine being read out with mock gravity by HG Nelson.
But it is not all humour and whimsy - no way. His description of a depressed housewife: "She wakes, tense/and loaded with bad energy . . . rage, locked like/a drawer full of knives behind her ribs". And a woman waking from a coma: ". . . the first words in three months/began to appear inside her head/like grey mould/ around the wormy hemispheres of a fallen walnut".
There are ghosts everywhere in Law¬rence's world, though as often pitiable as frightening: "Out from the camouflaged windows of duck hides/the ghosts of the dead shooters are rising/the very young and careless among them . . . trying/to plug arterial wounds with moss."
One criticism: the book concludes with a collection of prose poems which seem lazy and unfocused after such compressed brilliance.
But overall, this is a superb collection of poems by a strong talent. At the risk of sounding like a tin rattler for Fitzroy, everyone who cares about Australian poetry should buy a copy.
RICHARD EVANS
Mario Vargas Llosa, Death in the Andes (trans. Edith Grossman), 1996, Faber and Faber, hardcover $35.
In Death in the Andes Vargas Llosa combines a range of narrative voices, storylines and literary styles to produce a novel that has already achieved remark-able critical and popular success in the Hispanic world.
The central plot revolves around two paramilitary police stationed at a remote camp in the Peruvian Andes. Corporal Lituma and his offsider, Private Carreno, have been stationed there to protect workmen who are cutting a road through the mountains.
Three workers have mysteriously dis¬appeared. At first Lituma fears they have been killed by members of the Shining Path - the Maoist guerilla organisation which has terrorised rural Peru since 1980. (However, the organisation has been in decline since its leader Abimail Guzman was captured in 1992.)
After a time, Lituma realises that the three men have been victims of a grisly pagan sacrifice ritual. He suspects this was initiated by the bisexual publican at the camp and his "witch" wife (who later tells her own story) to appease what they refer to as the "apus", or gods of the mountains.
The main subplot unfolds during Carreno's "confessions" to Lituma. Each night, Carreno tells Lituma a different episode of the story of his romance with a prostitute, Mercedes, whom he had rescued by killing a sadistic client. After that, Carreno and Mercedes live a life on the run while the young naive Carreno tries to win the cynical Mercedes' love.
Interspersing these narrations are passages describing the atrocities perp¬etrated by the Shining Path. Its members move from village to village, whipping up
hatred for anybody they deem to be "anti-social" (ultimately being far more "anti-social" than many of the tourists and villagers they execute).
Death in the Andes is, then, part thriller, part love story, part folk legend and part political commentary, as well as offering sobering observations on the wider human condition.
The fragmented narrative and diverse assemblage of voices - characteristic of Vargas Llosa's modernist style - may at first take some getting used to, but the different voices and their stories come together to offer fascinating insights into the complex country of Vargas Llosa's birth.
CHRISTINA CRIDLAND
Thea Astley, the multiple effects of rainshadow, 1996, Viking, hardback $25.
It is sad when a favourite writer loses her spark. Such, unfortunately, is true of Thea Astley, whose latest novel the mult¬iple effects of rainshadow seems to show
that a decline which began a few books back is gathering pace.
Rainshadow is not a bad novel, just a tired one. In it Astley explores familiar territory (far north Queensland) and fam¬iliar themes - the lonely outsider, and the injustices suffered by women and Abor¬igines.
There is an ensemble cast of lonely misfits in rainshadow; against them are set two groups of cardboard cutouts, dignified and long-suffering Aborigines, and bullying redneck whites.
These groups get a guernsey in most of Astley's fiction, but in the past the mix was leavened with a delightful wry humour and a poetic and elegant writing style. These redeeming features seem to have deserted her.
Worse, in what is an historical novel (the story is based on events on an island penal colony for Aborigines in the 1930s and 1940s), Astley's writing doesn't ring true to the context. For instance:
Mrs Curthoys, who runs a guesthouse on the island, muses: "Cultural bias. I share it with him. What else have I been taught in a country that enslaved those whom it didn't murder or exploit sex¬ually?" Would a woman in the early 1930s use the words "cultural bias" and "exploit sexually"? They have a very modern ring to them.
At the same point in time, Gerald Mor¬row, an English drifter, curses shallow writers who produce best-selling "block-busters". But wasn't the publishing "blockbuster" derived from the name of a bomb used in the Second World War, ten years after Morrow visits the island? Later, during the war, a Catholic priest, Father Donnellan, visits the island and is "inspected by a low flying American helicopter". Were there helicopters in military service in 1942? Almost cert¬ainly not.
Are such objections just quibbling? Not in this instance. This novel is an historical polemic, brimming with outrage about the scandalous treatment of Aborigines. It tells, for example, of Aborigines working in chains in the cane fields. Astley asks us to trust her that this is true, and to join her in her anger. Fair enough. But the passing overhead of impossible helicopters then becomes a serious problem: if she is wrong about that, what else is she wrong about?
Thea Astley is a remarkable woman who has written some excellent books, but the multiple effects of rainshadow will not enhance her reputation.
RICHARD EVANS
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URL: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/LawIJV/1997/22.html