This paper examines the experiences of Qantas and Aer Lingus. The two companies have a shared history as national, 'legacy' (full-service) carriers and strategically important, 'benevolent' employers. More recently, both airlines have been forced to change in the face of competition from low cost carriers (LCCs) and external threats to their existence. In this paper, we examine how the two airlines have reacted to these pressures. We look at the role played by institutional frameworks and competitive circumstances in determining industrial relations strategies. The entry of LCCs and changes (or potential changes) to ownership structures through privatization and takeover bids have led to downward pressure on pay and conditions at both airlines. Accordingly, a key issue considered is whether a collectivist model of employment relations can survive in the face of low cost competition.

In a war lasting almost twenty-eight years (1640–68), Spanish forces endeavoured to recover Portugal for the Spanish Habsburg monarchy. This article examines the war in terms of strategic geography, a crucial but rather neglected dimension of early modern military history. Drawing comparisons with Alba's successful 1580 campaign to annex Portugal, it shows how geographic and climatic factors influenced the conduct of the 1640–68 war in terms of strategy, tactics, and logistics. It also reveals how these factors contributed to the outcome of the war and to Spain's military failure against its smaller neighbour.

Reviewed by: The Duke of Alba Lorraine White The Duke of Alba. By Henry Kamen. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-300-10283-6. Maps. Illustrations. Notes. Short bibliography. Index. Pp. 204. $30.00. Twenty-one years after an Anglophone historian produced the first scholarly biography of the third duke of Alba—the most famous, and notorious, of Spain's soldiers of the early modern period (W. S. Maltby, Alba: A Biography of Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, Third Duke of Alba 1507-1582 [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983])—it has been left to another English-speaker to re-evaluate his life and career. Though Kamen modestly directs this relatively short study to the general reader, this is no mere derivative biography of the great duke. The author has carefully reviewed many of the available published collections of primary materials from Europe's archives that pertain to Alba's life in the service of Emperor Charles V and his son Philip II of Spain. In addition, he has explored further in a number of manuscript depositories in Spain (Simancas, the Alba family archive, and other archives in Madrid) and elsewhere in Europe (Geneva, Vienna, and London), uncovering fresh material. Combining this with recently published secondary sources, Kamen has provided new insights into Alba's long and distinguished career (including some major events in which he played only a minimal or indirect role), and has corrected a number of the recent and not so recent misapprehensions about his life and times. Of the book's seven chapters, the two dedicated to affairs in the Netherlands (along with two of the three maps, though these are too small to provide sufficient detail to illustrate the text) and to the most notorious period of Alba's career, contain a number of insights and challenges to conventional wisdom. There is, however, one area where the author apparently sees no need for re-evaluation. The emphasis of the penultimate chapter on the logistical and disciplinary problems of the last campaign in Portugal diverges from Kamen's ampler coverage of strategy and tactics in Alba's military activities elsewhere. If, like others (though not Maltby), Kamen believes the 1580 military campaign was unimportant "because no great events were experienced" (p. 193), this belies the significance the author reveals that his protagonist attributed to the conquest (p. 153). Nevertheless, the final chapter more than makes up for this unexpected shortcoming. In it Kamen engages in a succinct and masterful reassessment of aspects of Alba's character, beliefs and achievements, reminding us that while he did not participate in most of the famous military events of his time, nor take part in a full-scale battle, he was "[f]ar more than merely a general, he was also an active creator of Spanish military power" (p. 157). Throughout, the biography is superbly documented by numerous quotations taken from the duke's and his contemporaries' letters and accounts. If only for this reason, this book will be a key source not just for students of early modern European and military history, but also for academics and researchers of the period. Lorraine White University of Wollongong Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia Copyright © 2005 Society for Military History

Todavia continuan los debates sobre la revolucion militar (RM) ocurrida a comienzos de la Europa moderna. En un esfuerzo por determinar si la Iberia del siglo XVII merece permanecer en la periferia o ser incorporada en los territorios al centro de la RM, este articulo toma como cas de estudio la guerra luso-castellana de 1640-1668. En la aplicacion de ciertos aspectos de la teoria de Roberts-Parker (estrategias y tacticas, y tamano y composicion de los ejercitos) a los hechos documentados de los bandos involucrados en la guerra mas larga del siglo XVII ocurrida en Iberia, el articulo examina los recientes refinamientos de la teoria de la RM elaborada por David Parrott y John Lynn.

Until relatively recently, military history was traditionally focussed on the grand concepts of leadership and strategy.l In particular it concentrated on generals and attributed to them the power to determine the outcomes of battles and campaigns. This is hardly surprising given the fact that the perspective of war was limited by the available sources: most of them focus on-indeed many were written by-the military leaders themselves. This tended to increase the emphasis placed on the rationality of strategy and produce optimistic assumptions about the existence of organisation and order in military structure. Soldiers were thus viewed as passive recipients of orders, docile and obedient instruments that were easily manipulated by the generals and subject to control as if they were pieces on a giant chessboard.2

In the present study reverse transcriptase (RT) polymerase chain reaction (PCR) products were generated from the RNA of polio virus. The products of the RT-PCR were analyzed by slab-gel electrophoresis (SGE) on 4% agarose gels, and capillary electrophoresis (CE). CE separations were performed in a coated capillary containing a linear polyacrylamide. Samples were injected hydrodynamically or electrokinetically. Detection of the RT-PCR products on CE was by UV absorbance at (254 nm) or by laser-induced fluorescence (LIF). While SGE resulted in adequate separation of 163 and 97 base pair RT-PCR products, separation of the 97, 71 and 53 base pair products was minimal. CE separations showed baseline resolution for all the above PCR products. Finally, it was possible to quantitate the amount of RT-PCR product by developing a standard curve showing a linear relationship between the amount of RNA used in the RT-PCR and the amount of product formed in the RT-PCR. These results suggest the greater resolution and enhanced sensitivity observed, together with the ease of quantitation, make CE a powerful alternative to SGE for the separation and quantitation of PCR products.