Agricultural Estates Research Articles

Recreation potential of agro-tourism

The article examines the essence of recreational potential, in particular in the context of agrotourism, taking into account the needs of vacationers and the proposed agrotourism product. The concept and meaning of recreation, as a way of meeting the relevant needs of a person and improving the quality of his life, the differences between the categories of "tourism" and "recreation", as well as the forms and functions of recreation that are implemented or possible to be implemented in rural tourism and agrotourism are considered. The essence and features of the formation of the recreational potential of agritourism are highlighted, taking into account the macro conditions in the country, primarily safety, and the tourist and recreational potential of the destination. The complex and multifaceted nature of the recreational potential is noted, it is claimed that the components of the potential are resources, competences and tools that determine potential opportunities, but the possibilities of its implementation depend on the conditions, productivity and efficiency of the economic entity. Attention is drawn to the fact that the recreational potential of agritourism is determined by the product offered by its subjects, in particular by their quality, and by the capacity of the market that they are able to satisfy. The role of providers of agro-tourism services in the formation of recreational potential in accordance with the needs, requirements and preferences of customers is considered, in particular, the need to expand the range of recreational services, in particular sports, to specialize their activities and to personalize the recreational offer. The tourist and recreational potential of rural areas, which is determined by natural features, traditions and ecological cleanliness, has been studied. In the context of agritourism, agricultural recreation is considered, including participation in agricultural work, life activities of the peasant economy and local events. It is noted that the recreational potential of agritourism is largely formed outside the boundaries of agricultural estates, but primarily depends on the individuality and creativity of service providers. Emphasis is placed on the importance of developing individualized recreational activities that meet the needs of vacationers and reflect local traditions and culture. It is emphasized that the effective use of recreational potential is the main prerequisite for successful management in the market of agro-tourism services.

The survival of three large agricultural estates on the north Hampshire-south Berkshire border during the interwar period

Abstract Historians credit the interwar period with the demise of the great agricultural estates but many survived, reduced in area and refocussed on new priorities. Three estates lying in close proximity in north Hampshire and south Berkshire had very divergent interests, but there were similarities, and significant differences, in the manner in which they survived the interwar period. One invested in a programme of renewal of houses and farm buildings, and another adopted a more commercial approach to managing its diverse interests and the third retrenched, cutting investment but maintaining the status quo as an agricultural and shooting estate. All three survived, relatively intact and financially stable, and remain in operation today. An examination of estate financial performance before and after the Great War provides the context to the strategies pursued by the owners and their Land Agents, and their place in the broader rural landscape of the 1920s and 1930s.

Colonial agricultural estates and rural development in twentieth-century Mexico

ABSTRACT This study documents that municipalities in central Mexico closer in the past to an agricultural estate (hacienda) are associated with higher literacy and lower poverty throughout the twentieth century than municipalities similar in other respects but farther from a hacienda. The results are robust to various specifications, neighbour matching analyses, and a placebo-type test. The complementarities between late-colonial haciendas in central Mexico and mining and trade appear to have set municipalities close to a hacienda on a distinct development path. The evidence points to local-scale economies in hacienda locations that coordinated new investments away from agriculture and towards the new industrial and commercial sectors. The twentieth-century land reform and the railroad play a small role in explaining hacienda legacy. Our findings highlight the role of landed estates as centres linking rural economic activity to the main colonial economic activities, mining and trade.

ЗЕМЛЕВЛАДЕЛЬЧЕСКАЯ АРИСТОКРАТИЯ РОССИЙСКОЙ ИМПЕРИИ И ЭКОНОМИЧЕСКОЕ ИСПОЛЬЗОВАНИЕ ЧАСТНОГО ПРАВА НА НЕДРА В ПЕРИОД "ИНДУСТРИАЛИЗМА" 1890-1914 ГГ.

Based on the study of archival materials (primarily from the funds of the Yusupov princes), the article considers the issue of the realization by the largest landowners of the Russian Empire in 1890–1914 of their right to the subsoil in order to increase the profitability of their estates. As it turns out, that economic strategy was characteristic not only of a small group of Ural owners, but also for many other titled aristocrats whose possessions were located in the central provinces and especially in the regions of Southern Russia (Donbass and the Caucasus), where huge reserves of mineral raw materials were discovered. The analysis of the relevant sources shows what significant opportunities for increasing revenue were provided by coal and oil deposits, and primarily, by the initiative and economic pragmatism of private landowners in organizing extractive production. As a rule, most aristocrats managed to increase their cash receipts immediately due to minimal organizational efforts. But in the future, with the expansion and complication of extractive production, landowners faced a lack of available funds. The way out of that was seen in selling their lands or in the corporatization of the enterprise, which guaranteed the aristocrats a certain dividend from profits, but transferred most of the capital and income of the estate into the hands of industrial or banking companies. In any case, the entry of the Russian economy in 1890-1914 in the “industrial” period turned out to be extremely profitable for the largest landowners, not only for purposes of developing their agricultural estates, but also in terms of the diversification of their economy, including through the active exploitation of mineral resources.

People, Crops, and Bee Farming: Landscape Models for a Symbiotic Network in Greece

Despite the rising awareness of the mutual benefits of pollination, agricultural production, and biodiversity, Greek planning has scarcely moved toward patterns of pollinator-friendly farm design models. This paper presents data from preliminary research analysis that defined generic landscape design models that can enhance the symbiotic associations between farming production and beekeeping in Greece. The main objective is to determine tailor-made landscape models that can contribute to a portfolio of actions easily apprehensible by non-technical audiences in the farming sector who want to introduce biodiversity enhancements to monoculture farming, fostering a safer, poisonous-free environment for introduced honeybees, simultaneously helping to augment their production yields. A preliminary study was conducted in four agricultural farming estates in Thessaly and the Peloponnese involving apple farming, citrus orchards, and hemp cultivation. It combined the analysis and assessment of land cover classes with regard to the provision of foraging habitat, assessment of foraging suitability, description of connectivity characteristics, and emerging spatial patterns of natural corridors, patches, and edges at an observation perimeter around each farm. Assessment of these data informed design models for planting enrichment and integration of natural patches, such as meadows and shrub corridors. Pilot installations of hives in study areas that combined characteristics of the landscape models presented resulted in the production of 8% to 12% bigger fruits and 30% to 50% increase in the total yield. We conclude that landscape design models for biodiversity enhancement are an important attribute of ecosystem services and require an understanding of specific geographical and landscape parameters to render models operational for bee farming and pollination.

Arboriculture and Viticulture as Investment in the Early Islamic Levant: An Archaeobotanical and Historical Investigation of the Site of Ashkelon

Abstract This article combines historical and archaeological evidence to investigate the role arboriculture played in the agricultural economy in the southern Levant as centers of production moved away from rural agricultural estates and focused instead on urban centers. Integrating this evidence with archaeobotanical data from Early Islamic deposits at the archaeological site of Ashkelon, located on the southern Mediterranean coast of modern-day Israel, I conclude that people specialized in arboriculture as a means to supply the needs of both subsistence and craft economies in this city, encapsulating the intensification of agricultural production in this period.

Do Large Estates Benefit Smallholder Neighbours? Evidence from Malawi

We examine spillovers from agricultural estates to Malawian smallholders within an econometric counterfactual framework. We consider economic spillovers such as income, as well as agrarian spillovers such as yields, harvests, and crop diversity. We identify long-run effects of large agricultural investments on small-scale farmers. For the location of large estates, we use a novel OpenStreetMap dataset, while data on smallholder’s stems from a household survey. We provide evidence for the importance of the distance threshold for spillovers, and explore multiple thresholds. In proximity to estates we find higher groundnut and pigeon pea yields and increased crop diversity. In very close proximity, incomes are also higher. Area under cultivation in total and for maize are smaller for nearby households, while maize yields are not significantly different. Overall, our results suggest that policies should aim to leverage the increased crop diversity and groundnut yields while mitigating potential detrimental effects arising from reduced cultivated land.

Caliphs and Merchants: Cities and Economies of Power in the Near East (700–950)

Caliphs and Merchants: Cities and Economies of Power in the Near East (700–950)

The Slaves of the Churches: A History by Mary E. Sommar

Reviewed by: The Slaves of the Churches: A History by Mary E. Sommar William Chester Jordan The Slaves of the Churches: A History. By Mary E. Sommar. (New York: Oxford University Press. 2020. Pp. [viii], 268. $38.95. ISBN 9780190073268.) This book addresses the way the Church treated the issue of slavery from the time of Jesus until the late medieval commencement of the Atlantic intercontinental slave trade, but it goes into detail only through the mid-thirteenth century, the period of the classical canon law. Indeed, the principal texts that the author marshals are canonistic, but for the earliest period, she looks at other writings of both the Church Fathers and subsequent leading clerical figures. The author’s characterization of her work as an “analysis” appears several times in the text, but I found it difficult to justify this description. For, to the extent that the book has value, it is in its referencing passages from letters, conciliar collections, etc. that in one way or another touch on churchmen’s ideas about slavery. More particularly, she indicates those parts of certain texts that address the naturalness or unnaturalness of slavery, the various processes of manumission, and the legal doctrine of the inalienability of church property and its relation to the slaves owned by individual churches and churchmen. It is useful to have all of these passages noted and summarized, but this does not constitute analysis (see especially, pp. 68–72). Imprecision is a characteristic feature of the author’s remarks. A favorite locution is “a lot of” (for example, pp. 59, 60, 99, 115, and 227), but other phrases and words, like “pretty much” (p. 102) and “often” (p. 116), weaken the prose. “Abolition” and variants of the term are also favorites (pp. 18–19, 28, 35, 56, 66, 99–100, 101, 153, etc.). For the author is on a quest to find abolitionism in the past. When she cannot find it, she laments the inhumanity of churchmen who owned slaves or who refused to manumit them or who manumitted only with conditions in line with the inalienability of church property. When she finds a normative statement that appears to be in favor of abolition, she refuses to believe it. Writing of Gregory of Nyssa’s Fourth Homily on Ecclesiastes, she acknowledges that his discourse “certainly does sound a lot like abolitionist thinking” (p. 99). However, she immediately adds, “he never actually called for a change in the economic practice of using slave labor.” Later (p. 101), she repeats that Gregory “was not an abolitionist. [He] lived in a world where the idea of abolishing slavery was not something that could have even been imagined.” If so, then why search for it and tediously remind one’s readers that X was not an abolitionist, Y was not an abolitionist, and on and on? Let us assume for the moment that the author’s clerical actors were genuinely unable to think abolitionist thoughts. It is nevertheless the case that, as Professor [End Page 779] Sommar documents, several of them admonished their flock to treat their slaves with kindness. Now, the normative moral principles underlying such admonitions do not mean that the slave owners to whom they were addressed followed the advice. Nor does it preclude the possibility that the churchmen were hypocrites and treated their slaves poorly. However, it is a far cry from conceding these possibilities and writing a statement, in this case with regard to the Carolingian period, that churches, as “the owners of vast agricultural estates that employed thousands of unfree laborers . . . behaved no differently toward their servile personnel than did the secular owners of similarly large establishments” (p. 244). The author marshals no proof to establish the accuracy of this statement, which is really an accusation. It is an accusation grounded in the belief that free-born Romans had “contempt” for slaves in the ancient world and that this negative attitude persisted among the Catholic clergy for more than a thousand years, that is, until more than a millennium after the decline of the Western Empire. “Contempt” is a strong term. What is the evidence? “A late Carolingian preacher,” the author informs her readers, “exhorted his...

Gender- inequality in Agrarian sector during the covid-19 pandemic

The covid-19 pandemic creates a severe threat to worldwide people’s lives and livelihoods. It is not just a health disaster but also an economic, social, and, most importantly, a gender-inequality crisis. Some gender-specific impacts occurred, such as increased violence towards women & girls. The research objectives identify the differences in gender stereotypes between families and the agrarian workplace, the key issues they face, and then provide recommendations to accelerate the advancement of gender equality through the agricultural sector. The research problem is, why did agrarian estate women become more vulnerable than men during the pandemic period? A research field based on the ‘Parawila Watta’ Tamil state (rubber & sugarcane cultivation) and people aged 15-50 category, both men and women. Information was analyzed using these qualitative and quantitative methods. Interviews and observations were used as primary and statistical data sources and national and international research as secondary data sources. SPSS software is used to analyze data. The research findings explained the increase of violence against agrarian women as covid-19 has exacerbated known problematic issues of family violence, financial problems, psychological problems, unnecessary pregnancies in the family and labour exploitation, salary issues, sexual violence and job insecurity in the agrarian workplace. According to the Patron-client relationship, the woman is the employee on the plantation and in the family. Therefore she becomes more exposed and vulnerable during the pandemic. Men worked in public spaces outside the estate while married women toiled in the agricultural sector, and many men lost their employment due to the epidemic. But they didn’t join to plantations & forcibly took the women’s daily wage. However, their daily wage of LKR 740 was also reduced due to the pandemic, which was insufficient to support her family. Finally, it’s clear that the agricultural women face several crises as employees in the workplace and in the family. Therefore, they can’t escape from the effects of patriarchy even in times of pandemics and discrimination from diverse factors against women living in agricultural estates.

The Integration of Social Anthropology and Historical Geography in the Study of Rural Agricultural Estates in Northern Israel in the Late Ottoman and Mandate Periods: 1879-1948

Anthropology and history employ two entirely different research methodologies: anthropological research is based on face-to-face interviews and direct observation, while historians eschew all forms of non-documented information, and generally assume that only the written word and maps are reliable. Exploiting the different relative advantages of these two disciplines, together with GIS (Geographic Information Systems), it was possible to locate and situate historical events from different periods in the physical landscape in which they took place. Such a “mixed methodological approach” yielded information that would otherwise not be found. This is illustrated in a study of the development of rural estates in the Galilee, consequent on the promulgation of the Ottoman Land Code in 1858.

‘Real’ regulation and property relations on agricultural estates: Reducing opportunities for new entrants to agriculture

A decline in the availability of opportunities for new entrants to agriculture is a recognised consequence of the agricultural restructuring process. Under the Common Agricultural Policy, various support schemes have attempted to address such concerns, with limited success. A number of these schemes focus on the provision of agricultural property rights for new entrants, but there appears to be limited justification for this. This paper argues the new entrant problem is as much about progression and exit as it is about entry, with such considerations generally not included in support frameworks. To develop this argument, the paper re-engages with the concept of ‘real’ regulation to examine rural property relationships on agricultural estates held by local authorities and county councils within England and Wales (i.e. the county farms estate). ‘Real’ regulation influences property-owner behaviour in three-ways: regulation of land occupancy; regulation of landowner behaviour; and, regulation of land use. These three regimes allow property owners to determine management strategies based on economic, social and environmental considerations. The flexibility afforded by ‘real’ regulation, and in particular, the regulation of land occupancy, and of landowner behaviour, allows property-owners the option to shift focus between these regimes, especially when faced with unfavourable market conditions. Analysis of different estate management strategies (consolidation, partial disinvestment, disinvestment), shows how this severely restricts the provision of property rights to new entrants and progressing tenants, as property-owners look to protect their interests. For these reasons, current new entrant support networks have limited success, irrespective of the political approach driving them.

"НОВОЕ" БОГАТСТВО РУССКОЙ АРИСТОКРАТИИ В ПЕРИОД "ИНДУСТРИАЛИЗМА" (1890–1914 ГГ.): БАНКОВСКИЕ СЧЕТА, АКЦИИ И ДРУГИЕ ЦЕННЫЕ БУМАГИ В СОСТАВЕ КАПИТАЛОВ КРУПНЕЙШИХ ЗЕМЛЕВЛАДЕЛЬЦЕВ РОССИЙСКОЙ ИМПЕРИИ

Based on the study of archival materials, the article considers an impact of the emerging system of «industrialism» on the economic well-being of the largest landowners of the Russian Empire in 1890–1914. As the analysis of the origin, composition and volume of the so-called «paper» funds in the capital means of some of the Russian aristocracy richest families shows, that period was a time of active conversion of some of their land holdings into the stocks, bonds and other securities of various state and commercial banks, as well as of joint-stock companies. That economic strategy, characteristic of most of the largest landowners, was explained by quite pragmatic reasons: favorable market conditions in the sphere of securities turnover, the availability of spare cash through the sale of part of land, significant revenues from the agricultural estates and mortgage lending. The conversion of part of the capital into the stocks and bonds provided the aristocracy with an opportunity to receive a more guaranteed income without serious risks associated with farming or industrial entrepreneurship. As a result, on the eve of 1914, various securities (the stocks and bonds of state and commercial banks, of industrial societies and railway companies) as part of the capital means of the largest landowners of the Russian Empire reached 20–30% of the total value of their fortune, as well as the dividends received from them as part of the total income. It seems that the strengthening of the economic position of the aristocracy by that time was explained not only by the progress in the organization of agricultural production in the estates, the growth of income from forestry and the urban real estate, but also by the emergence of the new form of wealth as bank accounts and interest-bearing securities

Stonewall Jackson, Beresford Hope, and the Meaning of the American Civil War in Britain by Michael J. Turner

Reviewed by: Stonewall Jackson, Beresford Hope, and the Meaning of the American Civil War in Britain by Michael J. Turner Jeffrey Zvengrowski (bio) Stonewall Jackson, Beresford Hope, and the Meaning of the American Civil War in Britain. By Michael J. Turner. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2020. Pp. 334. Cloth, $50.00.) Michael J. Turner looks at an old topic in Civil War historiography, pro-Confederate sympathy in abolitionist Britain, from an intriguing new angle. He does so by focusing on the career of Beresford Hope, an important British sympathizer with the Confederacy, whom scholars of the Civil War have hitherto neglected. An antidemocratic Conservative politician, influential "High Church" Anglican, and wealthy public intellectual, Hope favored free trade while distrusting centralized governmental power. The first section of Turner's book examines Hope's leading role among pro-Confederate Britons, many of whom shared most of Hope's cultural inclinations and political views. Turner also explains how those Britons could work with proslavery Confederate agents despite being nominally opposed to slavery, which Hope claimed the Confederacy would gradually eliminate even as he presented plantations in the South as decently Christian institutions that functioned akin to paternalistic British agricultural estates. Hope and like-minded Britons accordingly avoided the proslavery "racial argument" as "embarrassing" while insisting that northerners actually "were more racially prejudiced than southerners" (72, 90). In Hope's view, non-British immigration and un-Anglican ideas of atheism, democracy, and racism had corrupted the Union to a far greater [End Page 134] degree than the Confederacy, where Hope believed that English bloodlines, culture, and religion might grow even purer than in industrializing, urbanizing England—let alone the U.S. North. After skillfully recounting Hope's pro-Confederate activism and opinions, Turner emphasizes that pro-Confederate Britons and their Confederate collaborators on both sides of the Atlantic vested hopes in Confederate general Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. They romanticized Jackson as a devout and properly Protestant inspiration to the enslaved and soldiers alike and a charmingly eccentric military genius of pure Anglo-Saxon ancestry, who confounded the massive Union armies that embodied everything about modernity that they disdained and feared. Attributing the Confederacy's ultimate destruction in 1865 to Jackson's untimely death in 1863, Hope and other pro-Confederate Britons raised impressive sums to commission a statue of the deceased Confederate general in Britain. That statue would eventually be unveiled and installed in Richmond, Virginia, soon after pro-British ex-Confederates came to power in Virginia during the mid-1870s. As a whole, Turner's book features a cumulative and culminative structure that is remarkably harmonious and very pleasing to read. His work also boasts voluminous primary sources, including archival manuscripts, published documents, and, above all, British newspapers. Turner, moreover, intelligently engages with relevant secondary sources to a degree that is usually edifying but not pedantic, although chapter 1 is a fairly laborious exception. His laudable style of writing is refreshingly free from jargon and unexplained technical terms, too, with minor exceptions in chapter 5. Furthermore, Turner happily avoids moralizing and "presentist" analysis, with the lamentable exception of his book's conclusion, much of which already seems strikingly dated owing to events that have transpired in Richmond since 2020. Turner's book contains the occasional repetitive fact and description as well as a handful of typos, but a much greater irritation that is found on far more pages is his contradiction-inducing assumption that Hope and other pro-Confederate Britons were actually in "agreement with southerners' own self-definition" (10). Turner's chapters are replete with evidence, hints, and even sporadic admissions that more than a few Confederates did not agree with the worldview of Hope's pro-British Confederate associates (see, for instance, 62, 64–65, 68–69, 104, 118, 160, 174–75, and 299). Turner, moreover, assiduously avoids acknowledging that pro-Confederate Britons and pro-British Confederates were frequently at odds with both the British and Confederate governments, which regularly antagonized each other much to the chagrin of the pro-Confederate minority in Britain [End Page 135] and the pro-British minority in the Confederacy. Turner does note, however, that even though Hope stomached assisting Henry Hotze, a Swissborn Confederate...

LEGAL SITUATION OF AN AGRICULTURAL PROPERTY PURCHASER

The Act on shaping the agricultural system of April 2003 introduces a special regime for trading in agricultural real estates. This act, as a rule, imposes the ban on purchasing agricultural real estates by entities that are not individual farmers, including primarily any legal persons (entities) as well as natural persons who do not meet the criteria for being considered as individual farmers. However, the scope of the Act is much wider – its operation does not end with the acquisition of the agricultural real estate by its purchaser. Among the instruments for shaping the trade of agricultural real estates it is also necessary to indicate the obligation of the purchaser to run a farm, which includes the purchased property, for a period of at least 5 years from the date of its purchase, and if the purchaser is a natural person, an obligation to run this farm personally by its owner. In addition, during this period, the purchaser of agricultural real estate may not sell it or give it over to other entities (e.g. for tenancy or lease). The article discusses details of the limitations of the ownership rights to the agricultural real estate, including restrictions on the freedom to use and dispose it. The discussed regulations are also assessed as to their compliance with the Constitution and the law of the European Union.

АРИСТОКРАТИЯ И ЕЕ ВЛАДЕНИЯ В ДВУХ СТОЛИЦАХ РОССИЙСКОЙ ИМПЕРИИ, 1890–1914 ГГ.: ГОРОДСКАЯ СОБСТВЕННОСТЬ КАК ИСТОЧНИК БЛАГОСОСТОЯНИЯ

The article considers an issue of changing the attitude of the Russian aristocracy to their urban possessions in St. Petersburg and Moscow in the context of the capitalist economy of 1890–1914. The study main attention is focused of the composition and value of that property, the nature of its use, the size and dynamics of the urban real estate income. The article analyzes the factors, primarily related to the favorable economic environment and the overall development of the industrial city space in the modern era, which contributed to a fairly successful adaptation of the large landowners from the aristocracy to the new economic realities. The research is based on the archival materials from the personal funds of the largest landowners of the Russian Empire that contain a detailed economic documentation on many urban possessions. The most important conclusions should be attributed primarily to the observed economic pragmatism of the aristocratic owners in relation to the housing complexes and urban areas. Along with spending heavily on their Palace residences in the capitals and maintaining their representative status, they started investing significant assets in other types of urban real estate – the apartment and commercial buildings. This allowed the aristocracy in the period between 1890 and 1914 to significantly increase their revenue from urban property, which, in terms of volume, ranked second after the income from agricultural estates. It can be stated that St. Petersburg and Moscow were then considered by the aristocracy not only as the centers of attraction due to the proximity of the Imperial Court and government institutions, but also as attractive objects for capital investment, the use of technical innovations and a comfortable private life.

Karol Brzostowski i jego Instytucja Rolno-Fabryczna Sztabińska

Karol Brzostowski was born in 1796. His parents were Ewa Chreptowicz and Michał Hieronim. His grandfather was Joachim Litawor Chreptowicz – writer, poet, and activist of the Commision of National Education. Karol Brzostowski was a famous landowner in the first half of the 19th century. He was a farmer of the Sztabin estates. His greatest achievement in the field of industrial development was the establishment of the Sztabińska Huta settlement, in which there were: a factory of agricultural machines and tools; glassworks, foundry and a blast furnace. Karol Brzostowski was also an inventor and constructor. In his will, written on November 29, 1853, he granted Sztabin’s provincial landowners ownership of the land, and from the rest of the property he created the Factories Fund, called the Sztabińska Agricultural and Factory Institution. The Institution started operating on January 1, 1855, a few months after the testator’s death. Its property consisted of industrial plants and agricultural estates. A few years after his death, the Institution started to go bankrupt. In 1948, the remains of the Institution, in the form of a forest known as the Sztabin Parcellation, became property of the state. The main aim of this article is to present a short outline of the history of the Sztabińska Agricultural and Factory Institution. The most important source giving rise to its existence is the mentioned will of Karol Brzostowski. The Sztabińska Agricultural and Factory Institution was written about by, inter alia, L. Pietrusiński, J. Rółkowski, I.W. Kosmowska, J. Bartyś, G. Ryżewski, H. Zawistowska-Zacharewicz and S. Maciejewski. The files concerning the Sztabińska Agricultural and Factory Institution are located, among others, in the State Archives in Suwałki and the Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw.

West Germany and the Iron Curtain: Environment, Economy, and Culture in the Borderlands by Astrid Eckert

Reviewed by: West Germany and the Iron Curtain: Environment, Economy, and Culture in the Borderlands by Astrid Eckert Kristin Poling West Germany and the Iron Curtain: Environment, Economy, and Culture in the Borderlands. Astrid Eckert. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Pp. xvi+422, black & white illustrations, endnotes. $105.00, hardcover, ISBN 978-0-1906-9005-2. $29.95, paperback, ISBN 978-1-1975-8231-2. In her book on West Germany's eastern borderlands, Astrid Eckert recounts the story of a tourist visiting the border in 1964, who, on being shown where East Germany lay across the Elbe River, cried out, "Why, there is no Iron Curtain!" (95). For this tourist, and not her alone, the global significance and powerful iconography of the Iron Curtain had shaped her expectations and obscured the reality of the border. The German-German border's very prominence as a Cold War frontier made it harder to see. From behind that powerful metaphor, Eckert seeks to restore the 1,400-kilometer border to visibility with all its complexity and materiality, its regional specificity, and its natural environments. Her project, drawing on extensive research in diverse archival and print sources, is to write the history of West Germany's borderlands as a place that provided homes for both people and nonhuman natures, existed before 1949, and continued to exist after 1990. The results are richly rewarding, as a study of the Federal Republic, a contribution to border studies, and an example of an integrated approach to environmental history that incorporates culture, politics, and economics. Unlike other landmark studies focused on the materiality and local experience of the German-German boundary, such as Daphne Berdahl's Where the World Ended: Re-Unification and Identity in the German Borderland (1999) and Edith Sheffer's Burned Bridge: How East and West Germans Made the Iron Curtain (2011), Eckert does not zoom in on a single exemplary place to illuminate the dynamics of the border. Instead, she takes as her subject the entirety of the 40-kilometer-wide strip defined as the "zonal borderlands" and eligible for federal borderland aid. Through her six thematic chapters, Eckert shows that while proximity to the German Democratic Republic gave the West German zonal borderlands a unified identity, the border remained a heterogeneous landscape. It included open land and rural areas, but also major cities from Lübeck to Hof. The strip intersected with the Harz Mountains, the Drömling wetlands, the Bavarian forest, and several major rivers, including the Elbe and the Werra. Through borderland [End Page 88] aid (chapter 2), border tourism (chapter 3), environmental diplomacy (chapter 4), landscape and wildlife management (chapter 5), and the controversy over a planned-but-never-built nuclear waste disposal center at Görleben in the northeastern corner of Lower Saxony (chapter 6), West German policies and attitudes set apart the borderlands as an exceptional zone, reflecting attitudes toward division and toward the German Democratic Republic. Eckert also shows, however, the ways in which Cold War politics and culture butted up against the materiality of the region's landscapes and features. The Iron Curtain comes and goes, both shaping and shaped by the environments it traversed. Throughout the book, Eckert attends to how the exceptional conditions of division were grounded in prewar circumstances. In one memorable example, she recounts how the language, planning expertise, and visual iconography used to describe the German-German boundary in the 1950s referenced the loss of territory after World War I. Gruesome metaphors of mutilation on the "bleeding border" resurfaced, and spatial planners like Gerhard Isenberg studied the economics of the newly drawn borders of 1919 in an attempt to better understand the borders of 1949. Justifications for borderland aid even directly referenced the precedent of Osthilfe, the aid provided by the Weimar government to bankrupt Junkers in East Prussia—a reference perhaps all the more telling for its inaptness, since the earlier relief program had aimed to shore up large agricultural estates and had ended in scandal (56–57). The value of Eckert's long-term view is especially evident in the chapters dealing with environmental issues. While inter-German environmental diplomacy made environmental concerns more visible and salient for...

Corporate land grabs: Colonial continuity and space of exception in Kenya

In this paper, the focus is on land dispossession instigated by large corporations, and the way they produce spaces of colonial persistence through particular structures and sovereignty systems that differ from the state-based administrative settings in which they are located. The study looks at phenomena that can be observed on large agricultural estates, particularly in the Teita sisal plantation in Taita-Taveta county in Kenya. This is one of the largest sisal estates in the world, established during colonial times. It is a corporation that uses migrant workers to avoid potential conflicts with the neighbouring communities which still consider those fields to be their own ancestral land. Different working tasks are racialized, and functioning bodies are exploited as resources that have to be maximised. Inside the camp, life and work are regulated with meticulous biopolitical order in restricted conditions. Patrolled borders and gates maintain distance from the local communities who claim the estate is expanding, dispossessing them of land, roads and the river, and repositioning them as squatters on what they see as their ancestral land. In relation to this private company, the national state values its taxation contributions and does not question the exceptional conditions of exploitation of human and environmental resources occurring within that space. The estate was accessed in 2013 and interviews took place then and later. This case study reveals situations of oppression on both sides of the estate borders, including struggles that remain fragmented and hidden. There is a need for new solidarity linkages between groups confronting land and other resource dispossession on a wider scale, to support their political empowerment and rights to human and environmental justice.

‘Estates’ or ‘forts’ in Persian period Yehud?

ABSTRACT A series of large Persian Period buildings dots the Judean Mountains; they are usually located alone in prominent places without nearby villages or other remains. Their presence stresses the scarcity of towns and villages in Yehud. In a recent article in this journal, Faust, A. (2018. ‘Forts or agricultural estates? Persian period settlement in the territories of the former Kingdom of Judah’, PEQ 150/1, 34–59) noted difficulties with the interpretation of these buildings as forts. He suggested that they were estates, and that their ‘settlers’ were Judean or Jewish returnees from Babylonia. Moving this discussion forward, we stress that the archaeological data does not furnish clear answers, mainly since functions of ‘forts’ and ‘estates’ are not mutually exclusive. Such buildings are not limited to Yehud: they appear also in Idumea, Samerina, and Transjordan. An estate is not a certain type of building that can be easily identified by archaeologists, but a set of land rights and obligations. The variety of Persian Period forms of land tenure should be acknowledged. We suggest that these buildings served more than one function. Perhaps some of those living in them followed haṭru-like arrangements (thus Faust), but if so, they were colonial settlers in the service of Persia, who received their land from the king or satrap, rather than free persons returning to their ancestral lands. They also did not remain there for long, since the phenomenon of the buildings was limited in duration and numbers of dwellers. The buildings did not develop into larger settlements; most were abandoned and did not continue into the Hellenistic Period.