Zeitschriftenartikel zum Thema „Commonwealth (Organization) History“

The article is devoted to an analysis of the role of the Commonwealth of Nations in British history and politics. Having emerged at the end of the XIX c. as an informal association of Britain and dominions within the British Empire it has developed into an independent institute that includes almost all former British territories. Even though nowadays the Commonwealth is a free association of countries and manifests democratic values, this distinctive representation of imperialists stood at its origins, and at times the term itself signified the empire, though in a more progressive, democratic and human form. The author argues that for many decades the main reason for this evolution was British politicians'desire to deter regions from breaking away from within the British sphere of influence. Indeed, the Commonwealth countries belonged to one of the three most important and traditional circles of British political and economic interests, as formulated by W. Churchill, while its importance has been constantly emphasized in numerous election manifestos and government statements. However, with the weakening of Britain and growing independence within the organization, as well as because of contradictions between British national interests and the Commonwealth's founding ideals and principles, Britain has become less and less capable of impacting the organization, and its significance has declined, while some British leaders have even openly sabotaged it. Nevertheless, voices that appeal to reanimate the institution, as well as Britain's role in it, are still heard in the British political arena.

Lord Casey's sad testament to an organisation which was perceived as “on the way to becoming not much more than a paper connection” is hardly encouraging to someone intent on studying the institution. It would appear that the Commonwealth of Nations as a contemporary discussion point is even less fashionable today than it was 30 years ago. It has recently been written that in our generation those few individuals with an opinion about the Commonwealth view it as an “anachronistic organization whose retirement to the pages of history is long overdue”. The situation of an Australian attempting to write about the Commonwealth is confused by the need to distinguish it from the “Commonwealth of Australia” by such adjectives as the “British” Commonwealth or the “Commonwealth of Nations”.

The article analyzes the main key events in the development of the thirty-year history of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) as the main structure operating in the post-Soviet space. The main stages of the formation of the CIS as a full-fledged international organization are shown; the characteristics of its structure and statutory bodies are given. Special attention is paid to the essential aspects of the development of the CIS in 2020–2021, as well as the current state of this organization, the direction of its activities in the context of overcoming the negative consequences of the coronavirus pandemic. The possible alternatives for the development of the Commonwealth in the near future have been predicted.

For its first interview, English Today talks to Alan Lee Williams, Director-General, the English-Speaking Union of the Commonwealth, about his association's aims, history, organization, membership, projects and approach to the English language.

The article examines the issues of expanding and strengthening the military-political cooperation of the Republic of Tajikistan with the Russian Federation to ensure the security of the states of the Central Asian region. It is noted that a broad legal and organizational-structural base has been created that enshrines the directions of military-political cooperation between the two states. The international activities of states in the field of security in the framework of the Commonwealth of Independent States hereinafter (CIS), the Collective Security Treaty Organization (hereinafter CSTO) and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (hereinafter SCO). The history of the formation of security cooperation aimed at countering modern challenges is disclosed. The basic principles and features of the development of military — technical cooperation between the two states in the framework of the CSTO are determined. The importance of military-technical cooperation in order to ensure the security of Central Asian states is substantiated.

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania takes the stance that there are no Native Americans within the borders of the state, but as in the rest of the United States there has been over the last three decades a rising consciousness among Pennsylvanians with some native ancestry of their cultural heritage. These people contend that they are descended from intermarriages between colonial Europeans and the indigenous Lenape or Susquehannock peoples, and that their ancestors did not leave Pennsylvania in the 18th century, as history books assert, but rather stayed behind, assimilated, and hid their native background for fear of reprisals. Today these individuals are proud of their background and have formed a number of organizations to promote greater awareness of their existence. In recent years, a number of challenges have arisen to the authenticity of these claims, charging that people calling themselves Native Americans in Pennsylvania are frauds. The authors have partnered with the largest native organization in the state, the Eastern Delaware Nations, on an oral history project to identify and where possible authenticate claims of native ancestry. The paper discusses the many obstacles to be encountered in this effort.

In November 2000, the living newspaper drama Sheep Hill Memories, Carver Dreams premiered to packed houses at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond. This documentary play concerns the history and survival of Carver, a historically African- American working-class community bordering VCU which was being threatened by the university’s planned expansion. Performed by a Carver-based theater group with a twenty-seven-year history, in collaboration with TheatreVCU, Sheep Hill Memories, Carver Dreams was the outcome of a two-year collaboration between a grass-roots community organization and the university. As playwright and co-director of the two-year Carver Living Newspaper Project, I present the development of the project, its outcomes, and the challenges we faced along the way in creating the play.

The compulsory medical benefit scheme for white public servants in South Africa grew out of a friendly society founded in 1905. This development diverged from the experience of other members of the British Commonwealth, where universal health insurance schemes developed following the British example. The Civil Servants’ Medical Benefit Association (CSMBA) addressed the needs of white public servants, leaving the non-white communities without any form of government-sponsored medical support, apart from health care provided at government hospitals. The CSMBA was a well-managed medical benefit association, but when it was appointed the compulsory medical benefit association for white public servants, government intervention affected the financial viability of the organization, despite the payment of a state subsidy.

European historiography changed considerably during the nineteenth century. Formation of historical source study as a separate science, on the one hand, and awareness of the connection between the historical narrative of the past with political interests, on the other hand, gave impetus to the writing of historical works on national history, the so-called grand narratives. They relied on historical sources, but chose what served the actual political interests, and ignored or interpreted otherwise what they did not fit. The territorial organization of living space has become a priority task of national development in the nineteenth century, and the recognition of land, borders, and people as own should have been historically grounded. The difficulty for Ukrainians was that the traces of Ukrainian-Russ statehood were lost in ancient times, while the neighbors, primarily Russians and Poles, tried to draw both the territory and the past of Ukraine into their own concepts of the creation of modern nation. The creation of the Ukrainian grand narrative was influenced by external factors: the division of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the collapse of its once unified political, cultural and intellectual space, and the policy of the Russian authorities, aimed to separate «Little Rus’» from western civilization. Russian censorship successfully removed memory of Polish-Ukrainian ties from historical works and replaced it with the image of the invading Poles. The traumatic, post-war experience, idealization of images of Cossack soldiers was the favorable ground for this. As a result, in Ukrainian historical grand narrative the «Polish-Lithuanian» period was interpreted as an external occupation, a break in the «correct» history of Ukraine. The whole complex of everyday life, cultural and political influences of Ukrainians in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth remained beyond history. Its main content was recognized by the Polish-Ukrainian conflicts. The views on the legacy of the Commonwealth in the Ukrainian society of the nineteenth century can also be analyzed from the perspective of the intellectual biographies of their creators and take into account the experience of relations with the Poles, the private image and repression of the Russian government. An unbiased rethinking by professional historians of the past of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from the point of view of the interactions of various cultural spaces in the nineteenth century was not a matter of time. Keywords Ukrainian-Polish relations in the nineteenth century, Ukrainian-Russian relations in the nineteenth century, Ukrainian historiography of the nineteenth century, intellectual biography, cultural and intellectual heritage of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

AbstractWhy does civil society in some cases become a tool of elite organization and domination of non-elites, and in others a sphere for non-elite self-organization and self-determination? To answer this question, this article compares the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century divergent developments of civil society in two regions of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: Russian-ruled Congress Poland, with a focus on the Warsaw Governorate (1815–1915), and Austrian-ruled western-Galicia, concentrating on the Grand Duchy of Krakow (1846–1914). This analysis of variation in elite domination of civil society shifts the focus of civil society debates away from the market and the state and toward elites. It argues that while imperial policies of regional integration and socioeconomic changes spurred by the transition from feudalism shaped the potential paths of civil society's development in both regions, their effects on civil society's relative autonomy in each were mediated, and thus steered, by the interests and conflicts of local elites.

Abstract Employing an anticolonial and anticapitalist approach to HIV/AIDS, the activists of the Latina/o Caucus of ACT UP/NY pushed beyond a biomedical framework of “drugs into bodies” that tended to dominate the larger organization. As US queer racialized/colonial subjects, Latinx AIDS activists enacted a queer and feminist decolonial activism that looked past the continental United States to the global South. In Puerto Rico, Latinx AIDS activists helped establish the first chapter of ACT UP in a Spanish-speaking country. Together, the Latina/o Caucus and ACT UP/Puerto Rico spearheaded a campaign against the colonial policies of the United States, the corporate greed of island-based pharmaceutical firms, and the heteropatriarchal investments of church and commonwealth officials—conditions that exacerbated the disproportionate rates of HIV/AIDS among Puerto Rican island and diasporic communities. Through these efforts, Latinx AIDS activists transformed the domestic and global fight against AIDS into a queer, feminist, and decolonial endeavor.

ABSTRACTCurrent prescriptions for welfare reform and increased reliance on the voluntary sector often base their appeal on the lessons of history, in particular the apparent successes of Victorian philanthropy in combating ‘pauperism’. This article looks at how this message has become influential in the USA and the UK among the ruling parties of right and left through the particular prism of the neo-conservative appreciation of the work of Thomas Chalmers, the early nineteenth-century Scottish churchman and authority on poverty. The attraction of Chalmers, both to the Charity Organization Society then and neo-conservatives today, lies in the practical application of his idea of the ‘godly commonwealth’ in Glasgow and Edinburgh where voluntary effort, organized through the church, replaced the statutory obligations of the poor law. While Chalmers, and his followers, declared his ‘experiments’ to be great successes, modern Scottish historians have revealed these claims to be false and his efforts failures. Only by completely ignoring the evidence presented by this historiography and continuing to rely on Chalmers's own writings and earlier hagiographies can the neo-conservative approbation of Chalmers be sustained. Such wilful neglect raises questions both about their approach to history and their proposed remedies for tackling poverty today.

AbstractThis article explores the removal or exclusion in the late 1940s of people in interracial marriages from two corners of the newly formed Commonwealth of Nations, Australia and Britain's southern African colonies. The stories of Ruth and Sereste Khama, exiled from colonial Botswana, and those of Chinese refugees threatened with deportation and separation from their white Australian wives, reveal how legal rearticulations in the immediate postwar era created new, if quixotic, points of opposition for ordinary people to make their voices heard. As the British Empire became the Commonwealth, codifying the freedoms of the imperial subject, and ideas of universal human rights “irrespective of race, color, or creed” slowly emerged, and claims of rights long denied seemed to take on a renewed meaning. The sanctity of marriage and family, which played central metaphorical and practical roles for both the British Empire and the United Nations, was a primary motor of contention in both cases, and was mobilized in both metaphorical and practical ways to press for change. Striking similarities between our chosen case studies reveal how ideals of imperial domesticity and loyalty, and the universalism of the new global “family of man,” were simultaneously invoked to undermine discourses of racial purity. Our analysis makes a significant contribution to studies of gender and empire, as well as the history of human rights, an ideal which in the late 1940s was being vernacularized alongside existing forms of claim-making and political organization in local contexts across the world.

AbstractThe article examines the enduring phenomenon of double monasticism, the type of religious organization whereby a single monastic unit combined a male and a female community that followed the same rule, recognized the authority of the same superior, and functioned within the boundaries of the same monastic compound or in close proximity to each other, but not in shared quarters. After centuries of evolution since late antiquity, double monasteries effectively ceased to exist in the Latin West by the high middle ages, but demonstrated remarkable staying powers in the sphere of historic Byzantine cultural influences, particularly in Orthodox Eastern Europe and Christian Middle East, where this archaic type of monastic institution survived into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Based on previously unexplored archival material from the Orthodox lands of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and later the Ukrainian Hetmanate, a semi-autonomous state ruled by elective officers who recognized the tsar of Muscovy as their suzerain, the article analyses the place of kinship structures, economic and political factors, legal frameworks, and the role of the imperial state in the evolution and ultimate decline of the double monastery.

This essay examines the cultural dimensions of state administrative formation. Revisiting the organization of early U.S. state school administrations in the decades before the Civil War, I emphasize the culturally peculiar vocabularies of universal salvation and motherly care in which early administrators outlined an apparatus of state “designed, like the common blessings of heaven, to encompass all.” Self-consciously distinguishing themselves from a republican governing tradition that depended upon localities to administrate state policy, the Unitarian Horace Mann and his liberal Protestant allies imagined a unified state “like a mother … taking care of all its children.” Drawing from a cultural preoccupation with a motherly and infinitely forgiving God, these Massachusetts state administrators articulated a vision of a department of state government that would directly recognize all persons, and all schools, “within every part of the Commonwealth.” Such words were more than metaphor, though metaphor was crucial to the project. Rather, the organizational logic of the “motherly state” unfolded in the matrices of responsibility and communication, of surveillance and discipline and labor policy that constituted the foundational systems of early comprehensive state administration. By bringing together the insights of institutional development with the methods of cultural history, this essay ultimately suggests that government itself can be understood as a cultural artifact.

In the summer of 1992 I was fortunate enough to visit two large collections of photographs for the purpose of African historical research.Muse and subject of this essay, these collections are housed in the library of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (hereafter FCO) and the library of the Royal Commonwealth Society (hereafter RCS), both in London. Although comparable in some respects, the two contrast sharply in styles of organization. It is this contrast which motivates the present writing, as it illustrates certain effects of the organization of collections on the usefulness of photographs as historical sources, and it leads as well to some reflections on the nature of historical evidence and visual images.Both the RCS and the FCO have substantial holdings of photographic materials which should be of interest to Africanist historians generally. The size of the RCS collection has been variously estimated at between 45,000 and 70,000 photographs, while that of the FCO is approximately as large. In both cases, the researcher must make an appointment to see the collections, and neither is open to the general public. At the time of this writing, the FCO, having moved to a new location, has closed its photo collection, with no plans to reopen in the near future.Specialists on Nigeria will find that the FCO and RCS each have over 30 albums relevant to this country's history. The FCO has somewhat larger Nigerian holdings, while the RCS collection will be of greater interest to historians of Sierra Leone and other West African countries. The Nigerian materials in the FCO are generally older, many falling roughly between ca. 1890 and ca. 1920, while the RCS holdings tend to concentrate on the mid-twentieth century. The FCO's Nigeria albums are approximately equally divided between the northern and southern portions of the country, while those of the RCS focus more heavily on northern Nigeria.

In this text, motivated by the need to offer a different perspective to the representation of theSenado da Câmara(Municipal Council) in relation to the society that participated in Corpus Christi, I return to the study of the feast in the eighteenth century. The câmara was responsible for the spatial-temporal framework of the ritual in the diverse cities of Portuguese America, among other prerogatives and duties identified and analyzed by the historiography regarding this institution of the Ancien Regime. According to the câmara's minutes, the “Church, the Senate and the People (Povo)” would be present at the feast, thus establishing in the discourse a tripartite and corporative social order that does not identify the participants, whether individuals or the diverse “bodies” that comprised the Church or the people. And, of even greater importance, the câmara's discourse makes reference to the three bodies it claims to represent. However, it is known that if the camara symbolically evokes therespublica(commonwealth) through the organization and appearance at thisroyal feast, in political terms, the participation of elements that comprised the people in the Senado da Câmara, in other words, of the artisan crafts and skilled trades, was restricted to Bahia and Rio de Janeiro for a short period of time.

China’s rise became evident at the turn of the century in a context of American unilateralism under the command of George W. Bush. This context explains, to a large extent, Chinese strategies to avoid isolation and defend its interests. As such, China has chosen to act through multilateralism, previously viewed with suspicion, but now sought as an essential element to its diplomatic strategy, especially at the regional level. In this context, FOCAC can be understood as an imperfect multilateral undertaking knowing that bilateral relations are at the core of the relations between China and African countries both within and outside the institution. Is FOCAC an organization similar to the Commonwealth or the International Organization of La Francophonie? Are African countries true actors in this institution or do they orbit around China while it defines the rules and principles to be enacted and profits from them alone? Given all that was stated above, this paper has two main objectives. First, we seek to demonstrate in which ways FOCAC is part of an alliance building strategy to allow China to better resist American unilateralism and the risks of being stopped by its Western rivals. Then, we will show that, as an institution, FOCAC is a place of socialization, that is, a place where standards, practices and patterns of behavior are set and disseminated. As such, far from being a mere instrument manipulated by China, it is both a framework and a tool with shared impacts. In order to achieve both our goals, at first we will outline the theoretical and conceptual background to guide our work – constructivist theory – resorting to the concepts of soft balancing and socialization. After that, a thorough explanation of FOCAC’s history will be presented, highlighting institutional characteristics and their impact on China-Africa relations.

The article analyzes the history of lesser-known literary union “The Sailors of Marseilles” that existed in Petrograd in 1917. Mikhail Kuzmin was the central figure and the most popular writer in this union. Other “sailors” were young poets who wanted to reach out the audience and to get the opportunity for publication. Until now, this union has not been studied in the context of Kuzmin’s oeuvre, literary reputation and author’s strategies. Some conclusions have been made in the process of our research. First of all, Kuzmin’s attitude to literary unions has been specified. As we can see, he considered literary groups as a commonwealth of independent authors exploiting shared writing technics. On the other hand, he did not approve ideological unification within such unions. Denying hierarchy in literary groups, Kuzmin strove to create a literary union on an equal footing. He emphasized the individuality of each “sailor” to create to make it real, but in fact, this union was just adopting Kuzmin’s techniques, i.e., it followed the authoritative model. It should be mentioned, that the organization of the group was also the Kuzmin’s endeavour to assert his literary reputation that was in decline during 1917. Moreover, the whole concept of “The Sailors of Marseilles” was carried in accordance with the nautical symbolics developed by Kuzmin in 1917. The sea was the sign of power and war, and the sailors were the image of fraternity capable to contradict this power. “The Sailors of Marseilles” in the final count can be considered as creative-life Kuzmin’s project.

AbstractBoth Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri inCommonwealth(2008) and Peter Linebaugh inThe Magna Carta Manifesto(2009) want to put the commons and communism—understood as a form of society in which private property has been replaced by property in common—“back on the agenda.” They even insist that just such a social and economic order “grounded in the common” is “already in process” and that communism is thus more relevant and possible than ever. To a certain extent, they are right. We need a functioning commons if human society is to remain viable. But we also need a functioning commercial economy capable of feeding the billions that human society has and most likely will continue to produce.

The article concerns the premises and the course of the Civil War (the Time of Troubles) in the Russian Black Earth Region. Fortress cities “na Pole” [in the field] were founded in the late 16th century. The major part of the regional population were service-class people who were not as wealthy as serviceclass people from central uyezds. Introducing a work-off servitude caused their defection to False Dimitry. Fortress cities “na Pole” supported the movement under I. Bolotnikov’s and False Dimitry II’s command. In 1611-1612 the Black Earth Region cities didn’t seem to recognize Vladislav as a Russian tsar. A holistic analysis of the events of 1604-1618 in the fortified cities “na Pole” was not undertaken. Methods and materials. The main sources for writing the article are the record keeping materials of Posolsky, Discharge, Local Prikazes, Voronezh Mandative House. The scientific principles on which the study is based include the principles of historicism and objectivity. The author uses general scientific methods of analysis, synthesis, the historical-genetic method, the systematic approach allowing to consider the events of political, economic, social history in their interrelation. Analysis and Results. The article deals with the facets of the Civil War overcoming in the area of the Russian Black Earth Region. In the context of interreign and new tsar’s reign people’s self-organization expressed in creating provincial (“guba”) administrations, signing “Consolidated Charta” (“Utverzhdennaya Gramota”) by Black Earth Region city representatives on the election of Mikhail Romanov was extremely significant. In the fight against I. Zarutsky’s detachments most service-class people supported Mikhail Romanov, but some representatives of local Cossaks acted for the ataman. After 1613, settling the Black Earth Region area and uezd formation continued. Just at the Time of Troubles voivodes were appointed in those uezds where they owned land that can be traced in Voronezh cadastres. At the Time of Troubles final stage in 1617-1618 there happened an aggravation of military struggle in the Black Earth Region that was connected with the attacks of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth detachments. After 1618, social peacekeeping, restoring economy and defense system against Nogais and Crimean tribes were the main objectives for Black Earth Region authorities and society.

The Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) was a raft of measures introduced by the Commonwealth of Australia in response to allegations of child sexual abuse in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities. The measures included the compulsory acquisition of Aboriginal lands, the quarantining of welfare payments, prohibitions on alcohol, and the vesting of expansive powers in the Commonwealth Minister to intervene in the affairs of Aboriginal organizations. This article aims to provide a brief historical background of Aboriginal people's experiences with the law in Australia, discuss certain provisoins of the NTER, and, finally, examine the consequences three years after the implementation of the NTER. Through this analysis, the author suggests that history remains a powerful influence, resulting in the NTER being based on assumptions of Aboriginal people that are grounded in a racist past. Further, independent studies have shown that the NTER has been largely ineffective at accomplishing its stated objectives.

Purpose This paper aims to review the history of black and minority ethnic housing associations in England since the arrival of Commonwealth migrants. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on the theoretical framework of Lawrence and Buchanan (2017), the authors examine the interplay of institutional control, agency and resistance, in a highly racialized context. Findings The authors identify five phases in the development of grassroots organizers into housing associations, describing the different types of “institutional work” involved in challenging racialized institutions and establishing new institutions. The exercise of episodic power to achieve institutional agency created resistance from powerful actors seeking to maintain systemic power. The growing movement for black and minority ethnic housing fought to establish organizational legitimacy. Achieving this not only enabled them to serve and represent their communities but also entailed compromising more radical political agendas. Originality/value Racialized aspects are largely lacking from institutional theory, as are the actions of racialized individuals and organizations. In looking at a highly racialized context, the authors hope to contribute to understanding the institutional work done by such groups and the challenges they face as their efforts develop and become legitimated.

Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Libraries Special Collections and Archives has focused its manuscript collecting around women's collections since the department's inception in 1975. By happenstance, VCU's predecessor institutions, the Medical College of Virginia (1838) and the Richmond Professional Institute (1917), had accumulated research materials through their traditionally female-oriented courses of study, such as nursing and social work. Capitalizing on the rising popularity of women's history and the subject strengths found in its institutional archives, VCU began acquiring the papers of local women and the records of historically female organizations during the late 1970s and 1980s. This collection focus aligned with the urban, community-centered mission of the university and set VCU apart from other libraries and cultural institutions in central Virginia. The collecting area was expanded a decade later to include voices that were missing from the materials. Today, the collections are broad based and intersectional with wide-ranging representations of women.

The article, on the example of Volyn, analyzes the activities of public organizations in the Ukrainian ethnic lands that became part of Poland and the Soviet Union after the signing of the Riga peace treaty. These lands were the reflection of the most tragic pages in the history of Ukraine. More than once, they have played an extraordinary role in the history of the entire Ukrainian people, which has been reflected in his fate. The defeat of national liberation competitions in 1917 - 1921 and the tragic consequences of these events for the Ukrainian statehood turned Volyn into a specific socio-political and geopolitical region. The events in these territories, as well as the policies of the governments of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the USSR and the Second Commonwealth, were decisive for the Ukrainian population living on ethnic Ukrainian lands and those who found themselves in other countries. Our research suggests that the socio-economic processes in Volyn during the interwar period were an interesting social phenomenon when Ukrainians were immigrants in their ethnic lands among Ukrainians. The line of the Soviet-Polish border, which was the frontier of the opposition, attracted the most active participants in the national liberation struggle, who continued it under new conditions of statelessness, political and ideological pressure, persecution and repression by the smelling regimes. Work and activity in the interwar period of prominent political figures of the UNR era, religious, cultural and educational figures in the territory of Western Volyn, was of great importance not only for the population of the region, but also for the Ukrainian people.In the Volyn lands, the Orthodox Church had a huge influence on the people, Christian morality in the interwar period acted as the dominant ideology. No political party or NGO has had such an impact on the masses as the church. Understanding this, the Ukrainian clergy not only defended the Orthodox faith on both sides of the borders that divided Volhynia, but also nurtured national consciousness, language, and culture.

This article explores the origins of corporate public relations by examining the untold story of railroad development and expansion in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Understanding the circumstances surrounding Virginia’s pioneer railroads, which emerged at a tumultuous time within a state deeply divided over the related issues of the railroad and slavery, can enrich our comprehension of public relations history in corporate contexts. Fully functioning society theory (FFST) is used as a theoretical framework to guide the historical analysis of the rise of the railroad in Virginia in the 19th and 20th centuries. The article expands FFST’s application to historical inquiry and productively directs attention to the varied and complex nature of the emergence of corporate public relations without venerating or denigrating the field’s origins.

Abstract The goal of the paper is to analyze the Canadian policy towards Bangladesh. In this paper I argue that Canadian approach towards Bangladesh was different in different phases of history. In the liberation war of Bangladesh Canada played a role that went against the interest of Bangladesh and suited with the triple alliance of the US-Pakistan and China. Against the backdrop of Cold War politics, Canadian policy demonstrated the reflection of her national interest. In the dawn of the independence of Bangladesh in the early 1970’s Canada revised its policy, immediately recognized the new nation and supported Bangladesh’s admission in to the Commonwealth, the United Nations and other international organizations. Since the threshold of Bangladesh’s journey Canada emerged as a development partner of the new nation. Apart from significant aid, Canada also provided immigration facilities to the Bangladeshis. All these are consistent with its national interest. I also focus on the Canadian concerns over the violation of human rights and poor governance that gradually eroded the image of Bangladesh among the Canadian policy makers. Finally, I suggest a way out to improve relations between the two countries of the ‘North’ and ‘South’.

Introduction. The paper is devoted to the participation of Canada in the creation and activities of the Imperial War Cabinet and two Imperial War Conferences of 1917 and 1918 to explain the evolution of the foreign and political status of Canada as a part of the British Empire after the end of the War. Methods and materials. The paper is based on the British and Canadian Parliamentary Debates, Reports, Minutes of Proceedings and Meetings of the Imperial War Conferences 1917/1918 and the Imperial War Cabinet. To study them, it uses the method of historical criticism of sources. The author also uses the historical-genetic, comparative and the narrative methods to investigate the causes, the process of creating and activities of imperial military bodies for the unified management of the war. Analysis. The paper analyzes the reasons for the creation of imperial military organizations in the British Empire during the war. It reveals the organizational and functional differences between the two imperial military bodies: Cabinet and Conference. The author studies the activities of imperial military bodies during the war in detail, determines the role of the Canadian delegation in this process. The article analyzes the decisions of the imperial military bodies, reveals their domestic and foreign policy consequences for Dominion of Canada. Results. Canada’s active participation in the creation and activities of the imperial military bodies during the First World War was one of the factors in the transformation of the Empire into the Commonwealth of Nations, the formation of its own national identity, political and foreign independence within the Empire.

AbstractThroughout its European history, Australia has solved recurrent labor shortages by importing workers from overseas. Situated on shipping lanes between the Pacific and Indian Oceans, the northern Australian pearlshelling industry became a significant locus of second-wave transnational labor flows (1870–1940) and by the 1880s was dependent on indentured workers from the Pacific and Southeast Asia. Exempted from the racially discriminatory Immigration Restriction Act of 1901, indentured Asian seamen, principally Japanese, maintained the industry until the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941. The Torres Strait pearlshelling industry, centered on Thursday Island in Far North Queensland, resumed in 1946 amid general agreement that the Japanese must not return. Nevertheless, in 1958, 162 Okinawan pearling indents arrived on Thursday Island in a controversial attempt to restore the industry's declining fortunes. This article is intended as a contribution to the history of transnational labor movements. It consults a range of sources to document this “Okinawan experiment,” the last large-scale importation of indentured Asian labor into Australia. It examines Australian Commonwealth-state tensions in formulating and adopting national labor policy; disputes among Queensland policy makers; the social characteristics of the Okinawan cohort; and local Indigenous reactions. Also discussed are the economics of labor in the final years of the Torres Strait pearling industry. This study thus extends our knowledge of transnational labor movements and the intersection of early postwar Australian-Asian relations with Queensland Indigenous labor policy. It also foreshadows contemporary Indigenous demands for control of local marine resources.

The Massachusetts Historical Commission (MHC) is the State Historic Preservation Office for Massachusetts. Established in 1963, MHC has been inventorying historic properties for over half a century. Since 1987, it has maintained a heritage database, the Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System, or MACRIS. Today MACRIS holds over 206,000 records from the 351 towns and cities across the Commonwealth. Since 2004, a selection of the more than 150 MACRIS fields has been available online at mhcmacris. net.<br><br> MACRIS is widely used by independent consultants preparing project review files, by MHC staff in its regulatory responsibilities, by local historical commissions monitoring threats to their communities, as well as by scholars, historical organizations, genealogists, property owners, reporters, and the general public interested in the history of the built environment.<br><br> In 2016 MACRIS began migration off of its three-decade old Pick multivalue database to SQL Server, and in 2017, the first redesign of its thirteen-year old web interface should start to improve usability. Longer-term improvements have the goal of standardizing terminology and ultimately bringing interoperability with other heritage databases closer to reality.

Though canons and faculty have greatly diversified in recent decades, English departments around the world fundamentally prioritize English and American literatures. To this extent, they resemble the Anglo-American imperial commonwealths that some toward the end of the nineteenth century advocated for in order to stave off the decline of the British Empire and to shore up a permanent Anglo-American supremacy against all threats. Still, as the English language becomes “global,” English departments today founder for a variety of reasons and convey a persistent sense of crisis. Has the time come radically to decolonize the English department, not only at the level of curriculum but also in terms of its basic organizational structures to facilitate the study of anglophone literatures now planetary in reach? If so, how might this best be achieved in the British and American core countries and also in the more peripheral regions of Anglophonia?

At approximately 06:15h on 16 April 2009, there was an explosion and subsequent fire onboard the Suspected Illegal Entry Vessel (SIEV) 36. The vessel was located in the vicinity of the Ashmore Reef, approximately 610 kilometers north of Broome in Western Australia (WA). Onboard were members of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), 47 asylum seekers, and two crew members. Traveling with SIEV 36 were the RAN Patrol Boats, HMAS Childers, and HMAS Albany. The explosion resulted in five deaths and a large number of casualties with severe burn injuries, and a smaller number with concurrent trauma injuries. The Ashmore Reef incident was unique in that it involved the medical management and evacuation of 44 injured foreign nationals (31 seriously injured) in an extremely remote location. It resulted in an unprecedented health response from multiple agencies including local, regional, and state governments, commonwealth government agencies, non-government organizations, and private industry. The mission objective for this incident was to retrieve and evacuate multiple seriously injured casualties and stabilize them for safe transport to definitive care. The mission objective was achieved for the Ashmore Reef incident with no further deaths. As with all disasters, many lessons have been learned, and recommendations have been formulated. The logistic requirements to successfully complete such a mission have been reinforced as a result of this incident, as this was the most logistically challenging mass-casualty incident in WA history.

This paper presents an evaluation of the work of the Commonwealth of Learning’s (COL) eLearning with International Organisations (eLIO) section. Participants in the investigation included a representative sample of the learners (<em>N</em> = 15), their supervisors (<em>N</em> = 5), and the COL staff, including all of the eLIO staff (<em>N</em> = 10). The methodology consisted of an examination of all relevant documents, interviews that formed a learning history, and a sample survey. The investigation concluded that the eLIO achieved its goal of developing a distance learning model, and it met or exceeded identified objectives, with a high degree of satisfaction expressed by all participants. This included teaching +2000 satisfied learners; partnering with eight international organizations; achieving a 62% female participation rate and a high completion rate (75%) in the courses provided; testing, piloting, and delivering two new elearning courses; conducting needs analyses; recruiting/training highly qualified tutors; monitoring; and using appropriate technologies. Shortcomings of the programmes include the lack of pre- and post-tests, little analysis of pricing structures, some unclear instructions (a need for plain English), unclear copyright licensing, only very limited use of available OER software, and the absence of a succession plan for the manager. Based on the high level of satisfaction among all participants, it was recommended that the section maintain its present work and address these shortcomings.

“For hard it is for high and stately buildings long to stand except they be upholden and staid by most strong shores, and rest upon most sure foundations”—Jean Bodin, The Six Books of a Commonweale (1576)It has been said of the redemptive quality of procedural reform that it is “about nine parts myth and one part coconut oil.” Yet, as the recent history of the United Nations shows, failure to enact adequate procedural reform can have damaging consequences for an organization and its activities. In the targeted-sanctions context, litigation in over thirty national and regional courts over due process deficiencies has had a “significant impact on the regime,” placing it “at a legal crossroads.” In the peacekeeping context, the United Nations’ position that claims in the ongoing Haiti cholera controversy are “not receivable” has been described in extensive and uniformly critical press coverage as the United Nations’ “Watergate, except with far fewer consequences for the people responsible.” Complacency in the face of allegations of sexual abuse by UN blue helmets led to the unprecedented ousting of a special representative to the secretary-general in the Central African Republic. Economizing on due process standards is proving to be a false economy.

Abstract Among the multitude of enemies facing the newly born English republic, the Presbyterians of Ulster posed a threat at once ideological and military. Such supporters of the new regime as John Milton derided the “blockish presbyters” of a “remote” province and denounced them as Scottish intruders upon English soil. But the threat they posed lay not only in their capacity to mobilize an armed population but to do so around religious and political positions drawn from a common stock of ideas present across the three kingdoms. The twin dangers could be made to serve polemical purposes within domestic English debate as the Commonwealth sought to counter the religious ambitions and constitutional challenges of those they branded as “Scottified” Presbyterians. In Ulster, the short-lived Presbyterian “revolt” proved a remarkable though fleeting success. Its proponents cultivated these transplanted ideas into fertile if fragile growth in the form of armed organization and communal mobilization. This episode attests to the importance of localizing ideology in precise contexts, and to the fact that print was only one vector, if a vital one, for its transmission.

Abstract Background Primary care reform has been on the political agenda in Canada and many industrialized countries for several decades; it is widely seen as the foundation for broader health system transformation. Federal investments in primary care, including major cash transfers to provinces and territories as part of a 10-year health care funding agreement in 2004, triggered waves of primary care reform across Canada. Nevertheless, Commonwealth Fund surveys show, Canada continues to lag behind other industrialized nations with respect to timely access to care, electronic medical record use and audit and feedback for quality improvement in primary care. This paper evaluates the pace and direction of primary care reform as well as the extent of resulting change in the organization and delivery of primary care in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province. Methods Qualitative and quantitative methods were used for this study. A literature review was conducted to analyze the core dimensions of primary care reform, the history of reform in Ontario, and the extent to which different dimensions are integrated into Ontario’s models. Quantitative data on the number of family physicians/general practitioners and patients enrolled in these models was examined over a 10-year period to determine the degree of change that has taken place in the organization and delivery of primary care in Ontario. Results There are 11 core reform dimensions that individually and collectively shift from conventional primary care toward the more expansive vision of primary health care. Assessment of Ontario’s models against these core dimensions demonstrate that there has been little substantive change in the organization and delivery of primary care over 10 years in Ontario. Conclusions Primary care reform is a multi-dimensional construct with different reform models bundling core dimensions in different ways. This understanding is important to move beyond the rhetoric of “reform” and to critically assess the pace and direction of change in primary care in Ontario and in other jurisdictions. The conceptual framework developed in this paper can assist decision-makers, academics and health care providers in all jurisdictions in evaluating the pace of change in the primary care sector, as well as other sectors.

As asynchronous learning becomes the norm throughout academia, changes are taking place in campus information systems. Academic libraries, as the entity responsible for serving the information needs of the university, have little choice but to change dramatically. In fact, academic libraries have a history of being aggressive in adapting state-of-the-art technologies. One can point to decades-long involvement with the development of online catalogs and the use of shared cataloging utilities. Libraries continue to serve academic teaching and learning by taking on new roles, revising traditional services, and time and space constraints.Libraries have, however, been slower to adjust organizational structures and processes to leverage the potential of technology. Replies to a recent survey of Association of Research Libraries (ARL) indicate that change in the responding libraries at this time is incremental rather than dramatic. Patterns are emerging, however, relative to resource reallocation and the formation of partnerships with other university units that reflect new priorities.This article describes two examples of innovative information delivery initiatives. VIVA, the Virtual Library of Virginia, was proposed by the state’s Library Advisory Council in 1993 to encourage collaboration among the Commonwealth’s institutions of higher education and to support the electronic dissemination of information. Academic libraries are also leading the way by providing new and unique sources of online information such as Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs), by developing electronic submissions, online archiving, and Web access, as well as bringing to the forefront discussions about issues such as copyright and publishers’ control of academic publications. Network-based access to information resources such as these is changing higher education, and the opportunities offered by asynchronous learning networks are challenging libraries to adjust their policies, processes, and services.

Unconventional energy sources have become increasingly important to the global energy mix. These include coal seam gas, shale gas and shale oil. The unconventional gas industry was pioneered in the United States and embraced following the first oil shock in 1973 (Rogers). As has been the case with many global resources (Hiscock), many of the same companies that worked in the USA carried their experience in this industry to early Australian explorations. Recently the USA has secured significant energy security with the development of unconventional energy deposits such as the Marcellus shale gas and the Bakken shale oil (Dobb; McGraw). But this has not come without environmental impact, including contamination to underground water supply (Osborn, Vengosh, Warner, Jackson) and potential greenhouse gas contributions (Howarth, Santoro, Ingraffea; McKenna). The environmental impact of unconventional gas extraction has raised serious public concern about the introduction and growth of the industry in Australia. In coal rich Australia coal seam gas is currently the major source of unconventional gas. Large gas deposits have been found in prime agricultural land along eastern Australia, such as the Liverpool Plains in New South Wales and the Darling Downs in Queensland. Competing land-uses and a series of environmental incidents from the coal seam gas industry have warranted major protest from a coalition of environmentalists and farmers (Berry; McLeish). Conflict between energy companies wanting development and environmentalists warning precaution is an easy script to cast for frontline media coverage. But historical perspectives are often missing in these contemporary debates. While coal mining and natural gas have often received “boosting” historical coverage (Diamond; Wilkinson), and although historical themes of “development” and “rushes” remain predominant when observing the span of the industry (AGA; Blainey), the history of unconventional gas, particularly the history of its environmental impact, has been little studied. Few people are aware, for example, that the first shale gas exploratory well was completed in late 2010 in the Cooper Basin in Central Australia (Molan) and is considered as a “new” frontier in Australian unconventional gas. Moreover many people are unaware that the first coal seam gas wells were completed in 1976 in Queensland. The first four wells offer an important moment for reflection in light of the industry’s recent move into Central Australia. By locating and analysing the first four coal seam gas wells, this essay identifies the roots of the unconventional gas industry in Australia and explores the early environmental impact of these wells. By analysing exploration reports that have been placed online by the Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines through the lens of environmental history, the dominant developmental narrative of this industry can also be scrutinised. These narratives often place more significance on economic and national benefits while displacing the environmental and social impacts of the industry (Connor, Higginbotham, Freeman, Albrecht; Duus; McEachern; Trigger). This essay therefore seeks to bring an environmental insight into early unconventional gas mining in Australia. As the author, I am concerned that nearly four decades on and it seems that no one has heeded the warning gleaned from these early wells and early exploration reports, as gas exploration in Australia continues under little scrutiny. Arrival The first four unconventional gas wells in Australia appear at the beginning of the industry world-wide (Schraufnagel, McBane, and Kuuskraa; McClanahan). The wells were explored by Houston Oils and Minerals—a company that entered the Australian mining scene by sharing a mining prospect with International Australian Energy Company (Wiltshire). The International Australian Energy Company was owned by Black Giant Oil Company in the US, which in turn was owned by International Royalty and Oil Company also based in the US. The Texan oilman Robert Kanton held a sixteen percent share in the latter. Kanton had an idea that the Mimosa Syncline in the south-eastern Bowen Basin was a gas trap waiting to be exploited. To test the theory he needed capital. Kanton presented the idea to Houston Oil and Minerals which had the financial backing to take the risk. Shotover No. 1 was drilled by Houston Oil and Minerals thirty miles south-east of the coal mining town of Blackwater. By late August 1975 it was drilled to 2,717 metres, discovered to have little gas, spudded, and, after a spend of $610,000, abandoned. The data from the Shotover well showed that the porosity of the rocks in the area was not a trap, and the Mimosa Syncline was therefore downgraded as a possible hydrocarbon location. There was, however, a small amount of gas found in the coal seams (Benbow 16). The well had passed through the huge coal seams of both the Bowen and Surat basins—important basins for the future of both the coal and gas industries. Mining Concepts In 1975, while Houston Oil and Minerals was drilling the Shotover well, US Steel and the US Bureau of Mines used hydraulic fracture, a technique already used in the petroleum industry, to drill vertical surface wells to drain gas from a coal seam (Methane Drainage Taskforce 102). They were able to remove gas from the coal seam before it was mined and sold enough to make a profit. With the well data from the Shotover well in Australia compiled, Houston returned to the US to research the possibility of harvesting methane in Australia. As the company saw it, methane drainage was “a novel exploitation concept” and the methane in the Bowen Basin was an “enormous hydrocarbon resource” (Wiltshire 7). The Shotover well passed through a section of the German Creek Coal measures and this became their next target. In September 1976 the Shotover well was re-opened and plugged at 1499 meters to become Australia’s first exploratory unconventional gas well. By the end of the month the rig was released and gas production tested. At one point an employee on the drilling operation observed a gas flame “the size of a 44 gal drum” (HOMA, “Shotover # 1” 9). But apart from the brief show, no gas flowed. And yet, Houston Oil and Minerals was not deterred, as they had already taken out other leases for further prospecting (Wiltshire 4). Only a week after the Shotover well had failed, Houston moved the methane search south-east to an area five miles north of the Moura township. Houston Oil and Minerals had researched the coal exploration seismic surveys of the area that were conducted in 1969, 1972, and 1973 to choose the location. Over the next two months in late 1976, two new wells—Kinma No.1 and Carra No.1—were drilled within a mile from each other and completed as gas wells. Houston Oil and Minerals also purchased the old oil exploration well Moura No. 1 from the Queensland Government and completed it as a suspended gas well. The company must have mined the Department of Mines archive to find Moura No.1, as the previous exploration report from 1969 noted methane given off from the coal seams (Sell). By December 1976 Houston Oil and Minerals had three gas wells in the vicinity of each other and by early 1977 testing had occurred. The results were disappointing with minimal gas flow at Kinma and Carra, but Moura showed a little more promise. Here, the drillers were able to convert their Fairbanks-Morse engine driving the pump from an engine run on LPG to one run on methane produced from the well (Porter, “Moura # 1”). Drink This? Although there was not much gas to find in the test production phase, there was a lot of water. The exploration reports produced by the company are incomplete (indeed no report was available for the Shotover well), but the information available shows that a large amount of water was extracted before gas started to flow (Porter, “Carra # 1”; Porter, “Moura # 1”; Porter, “Kinma # 1”). As Porter’s reports outline, prior to gas flowing, the water produced at Carra, Kinma and Moura totalled 37,600 litres, 11,900 and 2,900 respectively. It should be noted that the method used to test the amount of water was not continuous and these amounts were not the full amount of water produced; also, upon gas coming to the surface some of the wells continued to produce water. In short, before any gas flowed at the first unconventional gas wells in Australia at least 50,000 litres of water were taken from underground. Results show that the water was not ready to drink (Mathers, “Moura # 1”; Mathers, “Appendix 1”; HOMA, “Miscellaneous Pages” 21-24). The water had total dissolved solids (minerals) well over the average set by the authorities (WHO; Apps Laboratories; NHMRC; QDAFF). The well at Kinma recorded the highest levels, almost two and a half times the unacceptable standard. On average the water from the Moura well was of reasonable standard, possibly because some water was extracted from the well when it was originally sunk in 1969; but the water from Kinma and Carra was very poor quality, not good enough for crops, stock or to be let run into creeks. The biggest issue was the sodium concentration; all wells had very high salt levels. Kinma and Carra were four and two times the maximum standard respectively. In short, there was a substantial amount of poor quality water produced from drilling and testing the three wells. Fracking Australia Hydraulic fracturing is an artificial process that can encourage more gas to flow to the surface (McGraw; Fischetti; Senate). Prior to the testing phase at the Moura field, well data was sent to the Chemical Research and Development Department at Halliburton in Oklahoma, to examine the ability to fracture the coal and shale in the Australian wells. Halliburton was the founding father of hydraulic fracture. In Oklahoma on 17 March 1949, operating under an exclusive license from Standard Oil, this company conducted the first ever hydraulic fracture of an oil well (Montgomery and Smith). To come up with a program of hydraulic fracturing for the Australian field, Halliburton went back to the laboratory. They bonded together small slabs of coal and shale similar to Australian samples, drilled one-inch holes into the sample, then pressurised the holes and completed a “hydro-frac” in miniature. “These samples were difficult to prepare,” they wrote in their report to Houston Oil and Minerals (HOMA, “Miscellaneous Pages” 10). Their program for fracturing was informed by a field of science that had been evolving since the first hydraulic fracture but had rapidly progressed since the first oil shock. Halliburton’s laboratory test had confirmed that the model of Perkins and Kern developed for widths of hydraulic fracture—in an article that defined the field—should also apply to Australian coals (Perkins and Kern). By late January 1977 Halliburton had issued Houston Oil and Minerals with a program of hydraulic fracture to use on the central Queensland wells. On the final page of their report they warned: “There are many unknowns in a vertical fracture design procedure” (HOMA, “Miscellaneous Pages” 17). In July 1977, Moura No. 1 became the first coal seam gas well hydraulically fractured in Australia. The exploration report states: “During July 1977 the well was killed with 1% KCL solution and the tubing and packer were pulled from the well … and pumping commenced” (Porter 2-3). The use of the word “kill” is interesting—potassium chloride (KCl) is the third and final drug administered in the lethal injection of humans on death row in the USA. Potassium chloride was used to minimise the effect on parts of the coal seam that were water-sensitive and was the recommended solution prior to adding other chemicals (Montgomery and Smith 28); but a word such as “kill” also implies that the well and the larger environment were alive before fracking commenced (Giblett; Trigger). Pumping recommenced after the fracturing fluid was unloaded. Initially gas supply was very good. It increased from an average estimate of 7,000 cubic feet per day to 30,000, but this only lasted two days before coal and sand started flowing back up to the surface. In effect, the cleats were propped open but the coal did not close and hold onto them which meant coal particles and sand flowed back up the pipe with diminishing amounts of gas (Walters 12). Although there were some interesting results, the program was considered a failure. In April 1978, Houston Oil and Minerals finally abandoned the methane concept. Following the failure, they reflected on the possibilities for a coal seam gas industry given the gas prices in Queensland: “Methane drainage wells appear to offer no economic potential” (Wooldridge 2). At the wells they let the tubing drop into the hole, put a fifteen foot cement plug at the top of the hole, covered it with a steel plate and by their own description restored the area to its “original state” (Wiltshire 8). Houston Oil and Minerals now turned to “conventional targets” which included coal exploration (Wiltshire 7). A Thousand Memories The first four wells show some of the critical environmental issues that were present from the outset of the industry in Australia. The process of hydraulic fracture was not just a failure, but conducted on a science that had never been tested in Australia, was ponderous at best, and by Halliburton’s own admission had “many unknowns”. There was also the role of large multinationals providing “experience” (Briody; Hiscock) and conducting these tests while having limited knowledge of the Australian landscape. Before any gas came to the surface, a large amount of water was produced that was loaded with a mixture of salt and other heavy minerals. The source of water for both the mud drilling of Carra and Kinma, as well as the hydraulic fracture job on Moura, was extracted from Kianga Creek three miles from the site (HOMA, “Carra # 1” 5; HOMA, “Kinma # 1” 5; Porter, “Moura # 1”). No location was listed for the disposal of the water from the wells, including the hydraulic fracture liquid. Considering the poor quality of water, if the water was disposed on site or let drain into a creek, this would have had significant environmental impact. Nobody has yet answered the question of where all this water went. The environmental issues of water extraction, saline water and hydraulic fracture were present at the first four wells. At the first four wells environmental concern was not a priority. The complexity of inter-company relations, as witnessed at the Shotover well, shows there was little time. The re-use of old wells, such as the Moura well, also shows that economic priorities were more important. Even if environmental information was considered important at the time, no one would have had access to it because, as handwritten notes on some of the reports show, many of the reports were “confidential” (Sell). Even though coal mines commenced filing Environmental Impact Statements in the early 1970s, there is no such documentation for gas exploration conducted by Houston Oil and Minerals. A lack of broader awareness for the surrounding environment, from floral and faunal health to the impact on habitat quality, can be gleaned when reading across all the exploration reports. Nearly four decades on and we now have thousands of wells throughout the world. Yet, the challenges of unconventional gas still persist. The implications of the environmental history of the first four wells in Australia for contemporary unconventional gas exploration and development in this country and beyond are significant. Many environmental issues were present from the beginning of the coal seam gas industry in Australia. Owning up to this history would place policy makers and regulators in a position to strengthen current regulation. The industry continues to face the same challenges today as it did at the start of development—including water extraction, hydraulic fracturing and problems associated with drilling through underground aquifers. Looking more broadly at the unconventional gas industry, shale gas has appeared as the next target for energy resources in Australia. Reflecting on the first exploratory shale gas wells drilled in Central Australia, the chief executive of the company responsible for the shale gas wells noted their deliberate decision to locate their activities in semi-desert country away from “an area of prime agricultural land” and conflict with environmentalists (quoted in Molan). Moreover, the journalist Paul Cleary recently complained about the coal seam gas industry polluting Australia’s food-bowl but concluded that the “next frontier” should be in “remote” Central Australia with shale gas (Cleary 195). It appears that preference is to move the industry to the arid centre of Australia, to the ecologically and culturally unique Lake Eyre Basin region (Robin and Smith). 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