This paper considers why political leaders and central bankers continued to adhere to the gold standard as the Great Depression intensified. We do not focus on the effects of the gold standard on the Depression, which have been documented elsewhere, but on the reasons why policy makers chose the policies they did. We argue that the mentality of the gold standard was pervasive and compelling to the leaders of the interwar economy. It was expressed and reinforced by the discourse among these leaders. It was opposed and finally defeated by mass politics, but only after the interaction of national policies had drawn the world into the Great Depression.

This article is a reassessment of F. G. Stambrook's well-known claim that Lord D'Abernon was the architect of German Locarno diplomacy. It suggests that Stambrook did not fully understand D'Abernon's relationship with the Luther–Stresemann government, and in particular it seeks to place German Locarno diplomacy within the wider context of German foreign policy in the period. It throws new light not only on the D'Abernon–von Schubert relationship but on the dynamic forces at work within the German Foreign Ministry. The article also contains a brief assessment of German relations with the United States.

By analysing the Anglo-German talks about financial compensation for the cost of British troops in West Germany, this article seeks to clarify the linkages between Britain's security and European and monetary policies. The ideological commitment of British politicians to a reserve currency role for sterling had a deep impact on Britain's relations to Europe, particularly the Federal Republic. By consistently threatening to cut its military commitment on the Continent and by minimising it to a question of financial expediency, London failed to draw any political capital from its troops. This became very visible in the field of European integration. The conflict on currency issues and troop deployment was a crucial element in preventing closer relations between the Federal Republic and the United Kingdom in the 1950s and 1960s.

The construction of Europe is often teleologically addressed as a result of an unstoppable trend towards federalism. Another angle on this history gives access to another logic: that of a European kind of nation-state which considers European integration not as an element in its decline, but as a tool to reorganise its power. This new youth for the old nation-state was linked as much to the historical context of the 1950s–1970s as to the specific rules of policy-making and to the economic regulation focus of the European Community.

Marc Olivier Baruch, Servir l'Etat français: L'administration en France de 1940 à 1944, preface by Jean-Pierre Azéma (Paris: Fayard, 1997), 737 pp., FF 180, ISBN 2–213–59930–0.

François Bloch-Lainé and Claude Gruson, Hauts Fonctionnaires sous l'Occupation (Paris: Editions Odile Jacob, 1996), 283 pp., FF 130, ISBN 2–738–10419–3.

Claude Singer, L'Université libérée, l'université épurée (1943–1947) (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1997), 430 pp., FF 185, ISBN 2–251–38037–x.

Bureaucracies are so famously capable of destroying the best-laid plans of reformers that historians often take their power to resist or collaborate for granted. In the burgeoning field of Vichy France, for example, we have studies of the ideologies of the well-known collaborators and of Vichy's ’National Revolution‘ as well as studies of the havoc those ideologies wreaked on the country and the growing opposition to both the ideas and the consequences. What we do not have is a very clear picture of how those ideas became consequences. The question is important because, unlike eastern European countries where Nazi occupation was naked and brutal, the French ended up amply serving the German cause almost despite themselves and at remarkably low cost to the Germans in terms of personnel. The French were not terrorised into turning over their Jews, their young people, or their crops at gunpoint in the way that, say, the Poles were. And yet they turned them over. Were the French, then, Nazis willing to give their all for the cause? Certainly not: far too many heroic men and women preferred to die as resistants rather than help the Germans.

Ian Bremmer and Ray Taras, eds., New States, New Politics: Building the Post-Soviet Nations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 743 pp., ISBN 0–521–57101–4

Bruno Coppieters, Alexei Zverev and Dmitri Trenin, eds., Commonwealth and Independence in Post-Soviet Eurasia (London: Frank Cass, 1998), 232 pp., ISBN 0–714–64480–3

Leslie Holmes, Post-Communism: an Introduction (Oxford: Polity Press, 1997), 260 pp., ISBN 0–745–61311–x

Michael Mandelbaum, ed., Post-Communism: Four Perspectives (US Council of Foreign Relations, 1996), 208 pp., ISBN 0–876–09186–9

Ilya Prizel, National Identity and Foreign Policy: Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia and Ukraine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 443 pp., ISBN 0–521–57157–x

Richard Rose, William Mishler and Christian Haerpfer, Democracy and Its Alternatives: Understanding Post-Communist Societies (Oxford: Polity Press, 1998), 270 pp., ISBN 0–745–61926–6

Barnett R. Rubin and Jack Snyder, Post-Soviet Political Order (London/New York: Routledge, 1998), 201 pp., ISBN 0–415–17068–0

Graham Smith, Vivien Law, Andrew Wilson, Annette Bohr and Edward Allworth, Nation-Building in Post-Soviet Borderlands: The Politics of National Identities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 304 pp., ISBN 0–521–59045–0

Vladimir Tismaneanu, Fantasies of Salvation: Democracy, Nationalism, and Myth in Post-Communist Europe (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 217 pp., ISBN 0–691–04826–6

Gordon Wightman, ed., Party Formation in East-Central Europe: Post-Communist Politics in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Bulgaria (Vermont: Edward Elgar, 1995), 270 pp., ISBN 1–858–898132–8

It is now about 10 years since the communist bloc ceased to exist (1989 is the year when communism was defeated in central-eastern Europe, and in 1991 its bastion – the Soviet Union – fell). What it left behind are a couple of die-hard communist survivor-states, an urge to ‘rethink’ or ‘re-define’ many fundamental concepts of political science, and a large swathe of land that is still to be properly categorised in registers of comparative political science. ‘Post-communism’ is the most popular term to cover this territory. But does it refer to something real today, or does it just express some kind of intellectual inertia? How much do the ‘post-communist countries’ still have in common with each other and to what extent are they different from any others?

Jean-Louis Briquet, La tradition en mouvement. Clientélisme et politique en Corse (Paris: Belin, 1997), 303 pp. ISBN 2–701–12079–9.

Barbara Loyer, Géopolitique du Pays basque. Nations et nationalismes en Espagne (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1997), 416 pp. ISBN 2–738–45089–X.

Carl Levy, ed., Italian Regionalism. History, Identity and Politics (Oxford/Washington, DC: Berg, 1996), 197 pp. ISBN 1–859–73156–2.

Peter Mackridge and Eleni Yannakis, eds., Ourselves and Others. The Development of a Greek Macedonian Cultural Identity since 1912 (Oxford/New York: Berg, 1997), 259 pp. ISBN 1–859–73138–4.

Claude Hauser, Aux origines intellectuelles de la Question jurassienne. Culture et politique entre la France et la Suisse romande (1910–1950) (Courrendelin: Editions communication jurassienne et européenne (CJE), 1997), 528 pp. ISBN 2–940–11204–5.

Any examination of political movements that claim a basis in territorial and cultural identity tends to come up against a major obstacle, the problem of tracing the reasons for their emergence. There are two competing approaches: the ’culturalist‘, which considers cultural differences among communities as being themselves the chief cause of conflict; and the ’instrumentalist‘, which holds that those differences are exploited and manipulated by individuals or groups seeking to acquire or maintain a position of power.

Gordon Cherry, Town Planning in Britain since 1900 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 260 pp., £12.99, ISBN 0–631–19994–2.

Mark Clapson, Invincible green suburbs, brave new towns (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998), 242 pp., £45.00 (hb), ISBN 0–719–04135–X.

Mark Clapson, Mervyn Dobbin and Peter Waterman, eds., The Best Laid Plans. Milton Keynes since 1967 (Luton: University of Luton Press, 1998), 142 pp., ISBN 1–860–20556–9.

Gilles Massardier, Expertise et aménagement du territoire. L'Etat savant (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1996), 286 pp., 160 FF, ISBN 2–738–44903–4.

Danièle Voldman, La reconstruction des villes françaises de 1940 à 1954. Histoire d'une politique (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1997), 488 pp., 270 FF, ISBN 2–738–45194–2.

About one century ago, a movement was born which aimed at reforming the physical environment of cities in order to reform society. It greatly broadened the scope of the former, piecemeal Improvement Commissions which had begun to beautify the cities. Five recent and varied publications will be reviewed here, originating from both British and French academics and planners. We shall use them to make a second reading of ideas and processes contributing to the (re)shaping of town and country in two west European countries. Often described as entities with distinct political, social and economic agendas, both countries nevertheless developed strong confidence in the planning role of the state in cities as well as in ‘town and country’.

James Loughlin, The Ulster Question since 1945 (London: Macmillan, 1998), 151 pp., £10.99 (pb), ISBN 0–333–60616–7.

David Harkness, Ireland in the Twentieth Century. Divided Island (London: Macmillan, 1996), 190 pp., £9.99 (pb), ISBN 0–333–56796–X.

Thomas Hennessey, A History of Northern Ireland, 1920–1996 (London: Macmillan, 1997), 347 pp., £12.99 (pb), £40.00 (hb), ISBN 0–333–73162–X.

Brian A. Follis, A State Under Siege. The Establishment of Northern Ireland, 1920–1925 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995), 250 pp., £35.00 (hb), ISBN 0–198–20305–5.

Dermot Keogh and Michael H. Haltzel, eds., Northern Ireland and the Politics of reconciliation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 256 pp., £35.00 (hb), ISBN 0–521–44430–6.

William Crotty and David Schmitt, eds., Ireland and the Politics of Change (London/New York: Longman, 1999), 264 pp., £17.99 (pb), ISBN 0–582–32894–2.

David Miller, ed., Rethinking Northern Ireland. Culture, Ideology and Colonialism. (London/New York: Longman, 1999), 344 pp., £17.99 (pb), ISBN 0–582–30287–0.

Anthony D. Buckley and Mary Catherine Kenney, Negotiating Identity: Rhetoric, Metaphor, and Social Identity in Northern Ireland (Washington: Smithonian Institution Press, 1996), 270 pp., £34.75 (hb), ISBN 1–560–98520–8.

John D. Brewer, with Gareth I. Higgins, Anti-Catholicism in Northern Ireland, 1600–1998: the mote and the beam (London: Macmillan, 1998), 248 pp., £16.99 (pb), ISBN 0–333–74635–X.

During the last three decades, and accompanying the ‘troubles’, the literature on Northern Ireland has mushroomed. Within the last ten years two surveys have attempted to summarise and categorise the major interpretations. John Whyte's Interpreting Northern Ireland covered the 1970s and 1980s and came to the conclusion that traditional Unionist and nationalist interpretations, with their emphasis on external, that is British and Irish, forces as the cause for the problem, had begun to lose out to ‘internal conflict’ interpretations. He felt, however, that this approach, too, was coming to the end of its usefulness, and he expected the emergence of a new paradigm shortly.

Colleagues will wish to know that the Centre Historique des Archives Nationales have published another guide to their holdings.