Madagascar

Graeber, David. Lost People. Magic and the Legacy of Slavery in Madagascar. Indiana University Press, Bloomington [etc.] 2007. xiii, 469 pp. $25.95.

In this ethnographic study, the author attempts to qualify the stories and customs in the village of Betafo from the historical perspective of the slavery experience. Nineteenth-century Merina, centrally situated on Madagascar, was a slave society, where around 40 per cent of the population is estimated to have consisted of slaves. The lost people (slaves) were pillaged from the coastal areas of Madagascar. After slavery was abolished by the French in 1896, the society remained divided between “black” and “white”, descended from slaves and slave-owning nobles, respectively. This pervasive distinction has determined all relationships, customs and local politics.

South Africa

Price, Richard. Making Empire. Colonial Encounters and the Creation of Imperial Rule in Nineteenth-Century Africa. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2008. xxix, 371 pp. Ill. Maps. £50.00; $99.00. (Paper: £18.99; $36.99.)

This study examines the colonial encounter between the British and the Xhosa in the South African Eastern Cape region during the nineteenth century. Professor Price, who has published widely on British social history, explores the interactions of individual British missionaries, officers and politicians with the Xhosa, how this process shaped the form and culture of imperial rule in Southern Africa, and how this imperial presence and culture was shaped by encounters with the Xhosa and their fierce antagonism. See also Jeff Peire’s review in this volume, pp. 139–141.

Brazil

Burke, Peter [and] Maria Lúcia G. Pallares-Burke. Gilberto Freyre. Social Theory in the Tropics. [Past in the Present.] Peter Lang, Oxford 2008. 261 pp. £19.99

This book is more an intellectual portrait of the Brazilian Gilberto Freyre (1900–1987) than a chronological biography, and offers a comprehensive introduction to the work and life of a fascinating individual. Freyre studied history, sociology and anthropology and was a politician and artist as well. He used the term postmodernism before it came into vogue in academia and introduced other terms that later became commonplace in new cultural history. The study includes a detailed review of Freyre’s most important work: Casa Grande & Senzala (1933), which translates literally as “The Big House and the Slave Quarters”, but was published in translation as The Masters and the Slaves. The term miscegenation is pivotal in his ideas about Brazil.

Canada

Hepburn, Sharon A. Roger. Crossing the Border. A Free Black Community in Canada. University of Illinois Press, Urbana [etc.] 2007. 252 pp. £40.00.

This study of the free black community of Buxton, founded in 1849 in Ontario, Canada by the Revd William King, traces how this settlement became a thriving, stable agricultural community that grew steadily in population and stature. Professor Hepburn explores the degree of autonomy black settlers had, the control they could exercise over their lives to further their own interests, and the relation they established with the emancipationists, abolitionists, and philanthropists that helped found and develop the settlement.

Stephen, Jennifer A. Pick One Intelligent Girl. Employability, Domesticity, and the Gendering of Canada’s Welfare State, 1939–1947. [Studies in Gender and History.] University of Toronto Press, Toronto 2007. x, 299 pp. $75.00; £48.00. (Paper: $29.95; £20.00.)

At the beginning of World War II many Canadian women entered the ranks of the federal civil service to oversee the massive recruitment of Canadian women. This study examines the gendered origins of the Canadian welfare state by reviewing the psychological, economic, and managerial techniques applied to recruit and train women for military and civilian jobs and then, at the war’s end, to move women out of the labour force entirely again. The training and employment system developed in the years 1939–1947 by this new generation of “experts” would become an enduring feature of the Canadian welfare state, argues Professor Stephen.

Cuba

Luciak, Ilja A. Gender and Democracy in Cuba. [Contemporary Cuba.] University Press of Florida, Gainesville [etc.] 2007. xxviii, 143 pp. £39.53.

In this study the author examines how the Cuban revolutionary process influenced the role of women in politics. The revolution brought dramatic improvements for women in several fields, such as education and healthcare. Women figure prominently in political bodies, both formally and quantitatively. Yet they continue to face political inequities. Men hold most of the decision-making authority. The strength of the official Federación de Mujeres Cubanas has blocked the rise of an autonomous women’s movement able to act independently. The author travelled to Cuba ten times for this study between 1998 and 2003.

El Salvador

Almeida, Paul. Waves of Protest. Popular Struggle in El Salvador, 1925–2005. [Social Movements, Protest, and Contention, Vol. 29.] University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis [etc.] 2008. xxii, 298 pp. $25.00.

In this long-term analysis of large-scale protest movements in El Salvador from the early twentieth century to the present, Professor Almeida aims to offer an original interpretation of what has determined the course of contentious actions. He argues that regime liberalization, including democratization and institutional access, has created opportunities for civic organization, which have in turn radicalized with the recurrent temporary increases of authoritarianism and subsequent de-democratization that have led to recurrent violent protest campaigns and revolutionary situations. See also Irina Carlota Silber’s review in this volume, pp. 146–148.

Guadeloupe

Braflan-Trobo, Patricia. Conflits sociaux en Guadeloupe. Histoire, identité et culture dans les grèves en Guadeloupe. [Sociétés et économies insulaires.] L’Harmattan, Paris [etc.] 2007. 180 pp. € 16.00.

Focusing on two recent labour conflicts in the French overseas region of Guadeloupe at the Agence Nationale pour l’Emploi (ANPE), the National Agency for Employment, in 2001 and at the Association Française des Banques (AFB) in 2004, this study explores the origins and course of the conflicts in the context of the historical development of social and labour conflict on the archipelago. ANPE manager Dr Braflan-Trobo aims to show how significant the impact of social and cultural traditions, especially in the field of race relations, was on the nature of the conflicts.

Schnakenbourg, Christian. Histoire de l’industrie sucrière en Guadeloupe aux XIXe et XXe siècles. Tome II. La transition post-esclavagiste 1848–1883. L’Harmattan, Paris 2007. 161 pp. € 15.00.

Twenty-seven years after the publication of volume I about the crisis of the slave economy on Guadeloupe, this second volume has appeared, addressing the transition period that followed the abolition. After the planters failed in their efforts to tie those who were freed to the plantations, they targeted immigration. Indian workers were especially popular recruits, just as in the British and Dutch West Indies. The author then reviews, from an economic history perspective, the transition to new financial and market conditions for the sugar industry and describes in detail the concentration process from hundreds of enterprises to a score of factories. Until the sugar crisis of 1884, the economy favoured the Creole working class that emerged after 1848.

Haiti

Popkin, Jeremy D. Facing Racial Revolution. Eyewitness Accounts of the Haitian Insurrection. University of Chicago Press, Chicago [etc.] 2007. xv, 400 pp. Ill. $19.00; £10.00.

Professor Popkin presents in this volume excerpts from more than a dozen accounts of the Haitian Revolution, the only truly successful slave uprising in the Caribbean, starting in 1791, and leading ultimately to Haiti’s independence in 1804. He brings together a selection of first-hand accounts written by white colonists, who describe, for example, the actions of the revolutionaries and encounters with the uprising’s leaders. In his general introduction he describes the broader context of the revolution and discusses issues such as the question of the witnesses’ reliability and the implications of the narrators’ perspectives.

United States of America

Alkebulan, Paul. Survival Pending Revolution. The History of the Black Panther Party. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa 2007. xvi, 176 pp. £25.71.

This is a study of the origins and development of the Black Panther Party (BPP), the political arm of the Black Power movement, one of the most controversial political organizations in postwar American history, founded in October 1966 and dissolved sixteen years later. Professor Alkebulan, a former member of the BPP, distinguishes three ideological eras, each with a different political objective: 1966–1971 was the era of advocacy of political autonomy, potentially through violence, of Black America; 1971–1974 saw the disengagement from armed confrontation with the government; and 1974–1982 was characterized by the increased involvement of women in the leadership and a reorientation towards community work.

Brown, David and Clive Webb. Race in the American South. From Slavery to Civil Rights. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 2007. vi, 392 pp. £60.00. (Paper: £18.99.)

This textbook aims to offer a comprehensive general overview of the race issue in the American South from the colonial origins of plantation slavery in the eighteenth century, through the maturation of slavery in the nineteenth century, the rise of a new racial order during the Civil War and Reconstruction eras, the emergence of Jim Crow laws, to the civil rights revolution in the second half of the twentieth century. Both the connection with class and gender issues and the intellectual ideas about race and their reception by ordinary southerners are addressed.

High, Steven and David W. Lewis. Corporate Wasteland. The Landscape and Memory of Deindustrialization. ILR Press, Ithaca [etc.] 2007. 193 pp. $18.95; £9.50.

Combining oral history, photographs and interpretive chapters, this study explores the social, economic and cultural significance of deindustrialization in the United States by focusing on landscape and memory. In the first section of the book the authors examine the rituals, representations, and explorations of abandoned industrial landscapes, while the second section offers a counterpoint of photographs of industrial ruins and the stories of workers who actually experienced plant shutdowns and lived through these profound social and economic transformations.

Nevels, Cynthia Skove. Lynching to Belong. Claiming Whiteness through Racial Violence. [Centennial Series of the Association of Former Students, Number 106.] Texas A&M University Press, College Station 2007. xi, 189 pp. Ill. £16.40.

Focusing on three cases of racial violence and lynching in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Bazos county, Texas, this study explores how, by taking advantage of and directly participating in these events, Italian, Irish, and Czech immigrants in this region tried to assert their place in society and to establish their racial identity in the American South. Detailing the social and political context of these violent incidents, Mrs Nevels aims to show how the deaths of black men helped these immigrant groups establish their racial identity and the superiority of whiteness.

Richards, Lawrence. Union-Free America. Workers and Antiunion Culture. [The Working Class in American History.] University of Illinois Press, Urbana [etc.] 2008. x, 252 pp. Ill. $40.00.

In this study of the causes of the strong opposition to organized labour in the United States, and the decline of unions in the postwar era, Dr Richards focuses especially on the attitudes of workers themselves, rather than considering employers and government policies. According to the author, an underlying anti-union culture has been remarkably consistent over the last half century. Based on a number of case studies of failed organizing drives in the last decades of the twentieth century, he aims to show how strong the influence of this persistent anti-union culture has been. See also Shelton Stromquist’s review in this volume, pp. 148–150.

Spickard, Paul. Almost All Aliens. Immigration, Race, and Colonialism in American History and Identity. Routledge, New York [etc.] 2007. xx, 721 pp. £21.99.

This comprehensive, chronologically ordered overview of the history of American immigration aims to shift the hitherto dominant paradigm that sees this history as the success story of the American melting pot, in which people from all origins have been able to assimilate. Based on recent work from ethnic studies scholars in particular, Professor Spickard argues that race ought to be given a far more central place in the history of American immigration; and also that the history of immigration should be written with more distance from one’s own immigrant background as a US historian and from the illusion that one particular place (New York City) has set the pattern for all American immigration.

Stern, Susan. With the Weathermen. The Personal Journal of a Revolutionary Woman. Ed. and with an Intr. by Laura Browder. [Subterranean lives.] Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey [etc.] 2007. xxxix, 387 pp. £16.08.

Originally published in 1975, this memoir of Susan Stern, born Susan Harris (1943–1976) offers a first-hand account of how she changed from a shy, married graduate student into an active member of the Weathermen, a revolutionary splinter group of American Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), that advocated the violent overthrow of the government and capitalism. Describing the advantages and drawbacks of joining this radical group as a young woman, she shares a personal and distinctly female perspective on the lifestyle and often contradictory attitudes towards gender roles within this radical group. Professor Bowder’s introduction offers a historical contextualization of the memoir and its reception at the time.

Vaught, David. After the Gold Rush. Tarnished Dreams in the Sacramento Valley. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 2007. Ill. xi, 309 pp. $55.00.

The lower Sacramento Valley in northern California became one of the richest agricultural districts of the state in the 1850 and 1860s. Focusing on the community of Putah Creek, this study explores how, after the short-lived gold rush in this region, a group of miners turned farmers endured land conflicts and the unpredictability of local, national, and world markets to establish one of the most successful wheat, livestock, and fruit-producing regions of their time. Professor Vaught previously published a study of the origins and rise of speciality crop farming and farm labour relations in California between 1875 and 1920 (see IRSH, 46 (2001), p. 121).

Warren, Wilson J. Tied to the Great Packing Machine. The Midwest and Meatpacking. University of Iowa Press, Iowa City 2007. xii, 317 pp. $39.95.

Meatpacking has been a central industry to the American Midwest over the last 150 years. This study aims to offer a comprehensive overview of the evolution of the packing industry from its earliest stages, dominated by the big terminal markets in urban settings, to today’s smaller meatpacking rural communities. Professor Warren not only concentrates on the transformations in the industrial processes but also discusses ethnic and racial relations in the industry, the role of labour unions, gender issues, changing attitudes toward the ethics of animal slaughter, and industry-related environmental problems.

China

The History of the PRC (1949–1976). Ed. by Julia Strauss. [The China Quarterly Special Issues, New Series, No. 7.] Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2007. viii, 251 pp. £16.99; $32.99.

The ten essays in this volume, most based on papers presented at a workshop organized at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in October 2005, deal with the history of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from its foundation in 1949 to the death of its leader Mao Zedong in 1976. Included are contributions on China’s role in the international socialist world; the role of feminism in the PRC history; the development of rural living standards; and factional conflict at Beijing University during the Cultural Revolution.

Iran

Cronin, Stephanie. Tribal Politics in Iran. Rural Conflict and the New State, 1921–1941. [Royal Asiatic Society Books.] Routledge, London [etc.] 2007. xii, 258 pp. Maps. £75.00.

Focusing on Iran in the period of Riza Shah’s rule (1921–1941), this study examines how the nationalist leadership approached tribal politics, based on a policy of authoritarian modernization and coercion, and how the tribal leadership and rural population reacted to this approach to the “tribal problem”. Dr Cronin, who has published widely on Iranian social history (see IRSH, 43 (1998), pp. 451–471 and 50 (2005), pp. 167–201), argues that in the longer run this approach was disastrous for the nationalist elite and Riza Shah’s position, and paved the way for repression and dictatorship. See also Reza Jafari’s review in this volume, pp. 143–146.

Vietnam

Brocheux, Pierre. Ho Chi Minh. A Biography. Transl. by Claire Duiker. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2007. xxi, 265 pp. £25.00; $35.00.

This English translation of Hô Chi Minh: Du révolutionnaire à l’icone, published in 2003, offers a biographical study of the founder of the Vietminh, the Vietnamese communist anti-colonial liberation movement, and first President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. In his judgment of Ho Chi Minh’s political belief, Professor Brocheux presents a portrait that balances the extremes of doctrinaire Marxism-Leninism with simple patriotism, and in his assessment of Ho’s early influences stresses the importance of Confucian moral and political philosophy, in addition to the French influence of the humanist tradition.

Ho Chi Minh. Down with Colonialism! Intr. by Walden Bello. [Revolutions.] Verso, London [etc.] 2007. xliv, 226 pp. £7.99.

This volume in a series of selections of texts by “classical” twentieth-century revolutionaries brings together forty-nine excerpts from the writings of Ho Chi Minh (1890–1969), founder of the Vietminh, the Vietnamese communist anti-colonial liberation movement, and first President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. In his introduction to this selection, Professor Bello argues that Ho Chi Minh remains important for his ability to translate Marxist-Leninist revolutionary ideas into a pragmatic and inspiring programme of anti-colonial struggle.

Bulgaria

Brunnbauer, Ulf. “Die sozialistische Lebensweise”. Ideologie, Gesellschaft, Familie und Politik in Bulgarien (1944–1989). [Zur Kunde Südosteuropas, Band II/35.] Böhlau Verlag, Wien [etc.] 2007. 768 pp. € 69.00.

This Habilitationsschrift (Freie Universität Berlin, 2006) examines how, after the takeover in 1944, the communists in Bulgaria sought to implement a socialist lifestyle in which all aspects of everyday life were to be modelled. Dr Brunnbauer focuses on several central elements in the development of this socialist lifestyle to analyse the dialectic process that developed between the social and political intervention of the state and the tacit and explicit resistance to it by the Bulgarian people. He concludes that, although the ambitious goals of this communist policy were hardly ever achieved, it greatly transformed and defined Bulgarian society and culture.

Eire – Ireland

Carey, Sophia. Social Security in Ireland, 1939–1952. The Limits to Solidarity. Irish Academic Press, Dublin [etc.] 2007. 280 pp. € 65.00; £50.00. (Paper: € 27.50; £19.95.)

The 1952 Social Welfare Act in Ireland heralded reforms that defined the nature of the Irish welfare state for decades to come. This study analyses the gestation of this act in the period 1939–1952 and its impact on subsequent developments, and explores the debates about the (re)distribution of resources that underpinned the birth of the Irish welfare state. Mrs Carey aims to show how Ireland’s colonial legacies, its late industrialization, and the paramount role of Catholicism in society have shaped a distinctive type of welfare.

Clear, Caitriona. Social change and everyday life in Ireland 1850–1922. Manchester University Press, Manchester [etc.] 2007. xiv, 206 pp. £50.00.

This textbook aims to offer a comprehensive social history of Ireland from 1850 to its independence in 1922, with an emphasis on everyday material conditions. Based on primary sources, as well as on local histories, contemporary press sources, and autobiographies, Dr Clear sketches ordinary people’s work, migration decisions, lifestyle, gender relations, and nutritional, health, and housing conditions to offer insights into broader issues of poverty and inequality and changes in these respects during this period.

France

Bourg, Julian. From Revolution to Ethics. May 1968 and Contemporary French Thought. McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montréal [etc.] 2007. ix, 468 pp. £17.99.

In this intellectual history of the French left during the revolts of May 1968 and the following decades, Professor Bourg argues that these events led French intellectuals and activists to deal with their interpersonal, institutional, and political dilemmas from an ethical perspective. Focusing on four case studies (the Maoist Gauce prolétarienne; the anti-psychiatry movement around Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari; the debates among French feminists about the sexual revolution, sexual violence, and the law; and the advent of the New Philosophers, with their focus on human rights), the author aims to show how and why they turned to ethics.

Cent ans de mouvements étudiants. Groupe d’études et de recherches sur les mouvements. Coord. Jean-Philippe Legois, Alain Monchablon, Robi Morder, étudiants (Paris). Éditions Syllepse, Paris 2007. 434 pp. € 29.00.

This volume is published in honour of the centenary of the Union nationale des associations d’étudiants de France (UNEF), the French national students’ union, and has been edited under the auspices of the Groupe d’études et de recherches sur les mouvements étudiants (Germe), a research group on the history of students’ movements. The editors have brought together eight chronologically ordered essays on the origins and development of UNEF and twelve thematic contributions on the movement’s structure, political, and social identity and characteristics and social and cultural achievements. The appendices feature a great many source documents.

Cheminots engagés. 9500 biographies en mémoire, XIXe–XXe siècles. Sous la dir. de Marie-Louise Goergen. Avec Éric Belouet. [Collection Maitron.] Les éditions de l’atelier, Ivry-sur-Seine 2007. (Incl. CD-Rom.) 63 pp. € 19.90.

Following the publication of Cheminots et militants in 2003, this CD-Rom brings together over 9,500 short biographical annotations of activists in the French trade-union movement of railway workers, covering the period from the origins of French railways and railway syndicalism in the first half of the nineteenth century until 1982. Thematic essays, chronological overviews and bibliographies are included on the CD-Rom. In the accompanying booklet, Dr Goergen offers an historical introduction on syndicalism among French railway workers; a manual for the CD-Rom and a comprehensive list of relevant trade unions are included.

Communisme en France. De la révolution documentaire au renouveau historiographique. Sous la dir. de Stéphane Courtois. Actes du colloque organisé par le Centre de Recherches Hannah Arendt le 11 mai 2006. [Travaux du Centre de Recherches, 2.] Édition Cujas, Paris 2007. 282 pp. € 39.00.

The ten contributions to this volume – the proceedings of a colloquium organized in May 2006 by the Centre de Recherches Hannah Arendt, part of the French Institut catholique d’études supérieures (ICES) – explore recent developments in the historiography of the PCF, the French communist party, in light of the recent opening of PCF archives. Apart from a chronological overview of the historiography of the PCF by Professor Courtois, controversial editor of the Le Livre noir du communisme (1997), essays on regional chapters of the PCF and thematic issues are also included.

Courier, Paul-Louis. Une écriture du défi. Tous les pamphlets. Édition établie par Michel Crouzet. Éditions Kimé, Paris 2007. 474 pp. € 35.00.

This volume features all pamphlets published by the French radical political writer Paul Louis Courier (1773–1825), together with relevant correspondence. Courier started his career as a pamphleteer in 1816 after the Bourbon Restoration. Professor Crouzet has written a biographical introduction to Courier’s background and work, placing him in a contemporary social, political, and cultural frame of reference. In chronologically ordered sections, he gives the specific context of the various pamphlets, dealing with the political affairs and personal circumstances that formed the cause and motive for Courier’s writings, and analysing his literary development and significance.

Jousse, Emmanuel. Réviser le marxisme? d’Édouard Bernstein à Albert Thomas, 1896–1914. [Des poings et des roses.] L’Harmattan, Paris 2007. 263 pp. Ill. € 20.00.

This study, based on a masters’ thesis that received the annual award from the Fondation Jean-Jaurès in 2007, explores the reception among French socialists of Bernstein’s revisionism and the corresponding debates within German social democracy. Contesting the traditional view that these debates on revisionism received little or no consideration among French socialists, Mr Jousse aims to show that especially the younger generation, around individuals such as Albert Thomas, embraced important elements of Bernstein’s revisionism to elaborate a French reformism that catered to the French economic and political situation.

Kouvelakis, Stathis. La France en révolte. Luttes sociales et cycles politiques. [Collection La Discorde.] Textuel, Paris 2007. 318 pp. € 25.00.

In this analysis of social struggles and political developments in France in the period 1986–2007, Professor Kouvelakis aims to explain, from a Marxian perspective, why the growing social protest against and resistance to neo-liberal reform policies did not stand in the way of Nicolas Sarkozy’s victory in the presidential elections of 2007. Based on a sketch of the changes in social relations in the period 1980–1990, during the advent of neo-liberalism, and an analysis of the subsequent social struggles in the 1990s, he aims to show how this led to a fragmentation of French politics, especially on the left.

Lanza, Janine M. From Wives to Widows in Early Modern Paris. Gender, Economy, and Law. [Women and Gender in the Early Modern World.] Ashgate, Aldershot [etc.] 2007. ix, 252 pp. £60.00.

Focusing on the widows of master craftsmen in Paris from the late sixteenth century up to the time of the French Revolution, in this study Professor Lanza examines the social and cultural structures that shaped widows’ lives and their day-to-day experiences, and explores how they experienced their widowhood. She aims to show how legal changes at the beginning of the period provided widows with more opportunities to run businesses, negotiate marriage contracts upon remarrying, and enter the work force than historians have hitherto realized. See also Ariadne Schmidt’s review in this volume, pp. 137–139.

Le livre noir de la Révolution Française. Sous la dir. de Renaud Escande. Les éditions du cerf, Paris 2008. Ill. 882 pp. € 44.00

This bulky anthology, comprising forty-five original previously published essays as well as eleven selections from documents, aims to offer an alternative view on the history and historical legacy of the French Revolution from a perspective that emphasizes the bleak and violent aspects of this epochal phase in French and world history. The title is a direct reference to the Blackbook of Communism, which one of the many contributors to this volume, Stéphane Courtois, edited in 1997, and has elicited comparable criticism of one-sidedness and of serious methodological flaws.

Olmi, Janine. Oser la parité syndicale. [Logiques historiques.] L’Harmattan, Paris 2007. 294 pp. € 25.50.

The first four decades of postwar France saw three generations of women promoting the position of women inside the French trade-union movement, in particular within the Confederation Générale du Travail (CGT). Dr Olmi, active in the CGT’s women’s movement in the 1970s and 1980s, offers in this study a comprehensive overview of feminist activism inside the CGT: Marie Couette’s attempts to establish the Conseil National des Femmes in 1945; the resurgence of the feminist initiative in 1955 with the start of the periodical Antoinette; and a new, more confrontational feminist strategy in the 1970s.

Perry, Matt. Prisoners of Want. The Experience and Protest of the Unemployed in France, 1921–45. [Studies in Labour History.] Ashgate, Aldershot [etc.] 2007. xiv, 296 pp. £55.00.

This study examines the experience of the unemployed in France, their protests and their organizations in a period (1921–1945) that started and ended with mass unemployment. Dr Perry argues that both unemployment and the incidence of protests by the unemployed were higher than official statistics suggest. Looking at forms of protest, tactics, support among the unemployed, and responses from the authorities, the author also considers the relationship between communists and the workless and the longer-term impact of protests by the unemployed on the rise of the French welfare state.

Quinlan, Sean M. The Great Nation in Decline. Sex, Modernity and Health Crises in Revolutionary France c.1750–1850. [The History of Medicine in Context.] Ashgate, Aldershot [etc.] 2007. x, 265 pp. £55.00.

This study examines how doctors contributed to a broad discussion about physical degeneracy and depopulation in France between 1750 and 1850. Focusing on a far-ranging medical debate, Professor Quinlan aims to show how hygiene activists from the Enlightenment onward used terms and discourse from biomedical science to analyse what they saw as a sick and decaying nation, and propose a solution to regenerate France by promoting “physical and moral hygiene”. He argues that this discourse allowed lay people to make sense of intense socio-political changes and gave medicine an unprecedented importance in French society.

Ratcliffe, Barrie M. [et] Christine Piette. Vivre la ville. Les classes populaires à Paris (1ère moitié du XIXe siècle). La Boutique de l’Histoire éditions, Paris 2007. 584 pp. € 34.00.

This study aims to offer, for the first time since the publication in 1958 of Louis Chevalier’s Classes laborieuses et classes dangéreuses, à Paris, pendant la première moitié du XIXe siècle, a comprehensive history of the popular classes in Paris in the first half of the nineteenth century. Combining, as did Chevalier, demography and historical geography with social history, the authors aim to rebut input received about the effects of immigration and the ability of the poor to cope with poverty.

Regards sur le syndicalisme révolutionnaire. Victor, Émile, Georges, Fernand, et les autres… Actes du colloque tenu à Nérac, le 25 et 26 novembre 2006: “la Charte d’Amiens a 100 ans”. Ouvrage collectif publié sous la dir. de Michel Pigenet et Pierre Robin avec l’aide de Céline Piot et d’Anthony Lorry pour la partie iconographique. Éditions d’Albret, s.l. 2007. 336 pp. € 18.00.

These are the proceedings of a colloquium, organized in November 2006, to commemorate the centennial of the Charter of Amiens, adopted at the ninth congress of the Confédération générale du travail (CGT), in October 1906, and the main theoretical reference for French revolutionary syndicalism since then. The sixteen contributions explore, among others, the Charter’s social and political context and the main protagonists and political factions involved, including a paper by Jean Maitron on the leading actors in Amiens, such as Émile Pouget and Victor Griffuelhes. The text of the Charter and speeches by the main proponents are appended.

Shovlin, John. The Political Economy of Virtue. Luxury, Patriotism, and the Origins of the French Revolution. Cornell University Press, Ithaca [etc.] 2007. 265 pp. Ill. $24.95; £12.50.

Based on an analysis of hundreds of tracts published in France between 1740 and the early nineteenth century, Professor Shovlin explores the political and economic origins of the French Revolution by focusing on the debates among mid-level French elites (magistrates, clerics, lawyers, soldiers, landed gentlemen) about the problems of economic order and civic virtues. The author argues that the Revolution arose from concern about how to create a commercial society that might foster both wealth and virtue, and the wish to destroy a plutocracy that channelled national wealth into the hands of courtiers and financiers.

Sonenscher, Michael. Before the Deluge. Public Debt, Inequality, and the Intellectual Origins of the French Revolution. Princeton University Press, Princeton [etc.] 2007. x, 415 pp. £23.95.

This study deals with French political predictions in the decades preceding the French Revolution that the rising public debt to finance modern warfare was likely to cause a future social collapse, summarized by the famous phrase: Après moi, le déluge. According to Dr Sonenscher, the vision of the future common to many pre-revolutionary political theorists of a series of debt defaults, instigated by the financial pressure of modern war finance, that would either destroy established political orders or cause a lunge into despotic rule was of greater importance to the intellectual origins of the French Revolution than is often assumed.

Germany

Constantine, Simon. Social Relations in the Estate Villages of Mecklenburg c.1880–1924. [Studies in Labour History.] Ashgate, Aldershot [etc.] 2007. 163 pp. £55.00.

Contrary to the concentration of much social-historical research of Germany on urban life, this study focuses on rural social relations in the 1,500 estate villages (Gutsdörfer) of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz in the four decades around the turn of the nineteenth century. Dr Constantine explores labour relations and discipline issues, such as the chains of command and obedience, the relative legal positions of owner and workers and contractual relations; economic issues such as the mutual economic dependency of estate owners and workforce; and cultural aspects such as the value systems of owners and labourers, which informed these relationships.

Hoffmann, Stefan-Ludwig. The Politics of Sociability. Freemasonry and German Civil Society 1840–1918. [Social History, Popular Culture, and Politics in Germany.] University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor 2007. x, 413 pp. $35.00.

This is the English translation of an original German dissertation, published as Die Politik der Geselligkeit (2000), that explores the social and political significance of Freemasonry in German history from the early nineteenth century until World War I. Professor Hoffmann aims to show how German Freemasonry, a refuge for elevated, liberal-minded bourgeois men who sought to reform self and society, ultimately failed to balance the requirements of modern politics in a time of growing nationalism with their own universalist pretentions and cosmopolitan ethos.

Ploenus, Michael. “… so wichtig wie das tägliche Brot”. Das Jenaer Institut für Marxismus-Leninismus 1945–1990. [Europäische Diktaturen und ihre Überwindung.] Böhlau Verlag, Köln [etc.] 2007. 355 pp. € 39.90.

From 1951 onward, the “Marxistisch-leninistisches Grundlagenstudium”, a course on Marxist-Leninist fundamentals, became mandatory for all university students in the GDR. Using the case of the Jena Institute for Marxism-Leninism, this dissertation (Technische Universität Chemnitz, 2005) explores the role of these institutes from the origins of the GDR in 1945 until its demise in 1990 and their part in the communist political-ideological penetration of universities. Dr Ploenius focuses in particular on the everyday educational practices and continuing resistance to this form of ideological paternalism and politicization of academia.

Port, Andrew I. Conflict and Stability in the German Democratic Republic. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2007. xix, 303 pp. Ill. $84.00.

This is a case study of the political, social, and economic relations and conflicts at grass roots level in Saalfeld, an important agricultural and industrial district in the GDR, in the period of Ulbricht’s leadership (1945–1971). Professor Port aims to explain the longevity of the GDR and, by extension, the Soviet bloc as a whole, by exploring how authorities on the one hand tried to achieve harmony and consensus through negotiations and compromise, and on the other hand created deep-seated social rifts that prevented East Germans from presenting a united front to authorities.

Reagin, Nancy Ruth. Sweeping the German Nation. Domesticity and National Identity in Germany, 1870–1945. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2007. xii, 247 pp. £45.00; $75.00.

This study explores the relationship among gender roles, domesticity and German national identity between 1870 and 1945 by focusing on the development of a distinct Germanness in domesticity and housekeeping that originated among the mid-nineteenth-century bourgeoisie but soon became a cross-class phenomenon. Professor Reagin argues that the articulation of this particular domestic identity was embedded in the period’s dominant notions of gender. She shows how this ideal of Germanness also played a major role in colonial German Southwest Africa before 1914 and became strongly racialized under the National Socialists.

Sozialversicherung in Diktatur und Demokratie. Begleitband zur Wanderausstellung der Arbeitsgemeinschaft “Erinnerung und Verantwortung” der Sozialversicherungsträger in NRW. Hrsg. Marc von Miquel. Klartext Verlag, Essen 2007. 415 pp. € 19.90.

Based on an exhibition and documentation project on social insurance in the German land of Nordrhein-Westphalen during the Weimar Republic, the Nazi era, and the Federal Republic, this richly illustrated volume brings together nineteen contributions on the origins and development of statutory social insurance (including health, old age, and work-related accidents) through these three historical phases. Papers are included on the social security state and ethical principles and, together with chronologically arranged papers on the various forms of social security, offer a comparative overview of the changes and continuities in social security throughout these three periods.

Stamp, Friedrich. Im Wandel solidarisch bleiben. Geschichte der Metallarbeiter und ihrer Gewerkschaften in Mecklenburg und Vorpommern. Mit einem Vorwort von Jutta Blankau. VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 2007. 453 pp. € 16.80.

This study aims to give a comprehensive overview of the history of workers and their trade unions in the metal industries in the German states of Mecklenburg and Vorpommern, from early industrialization in the nineteenth century to the present. Dr Stamp examines differences and similarities in the development of the working class in the metal industry and its organizations, in relation to changes in industrial enterprises in the region in different historical phases, from the Prussian authoritarian state, through the Weimar Republic, the Nazi era, and the SBZ/GDR years to the post-1989 era of reunification.

Strewe, Uta. Bücher von heute sind morgen Taten. Geschichtsdarstellung im Kinder- und Jugendbuch der DDR. [Kinder- und Jugendkultur, -literatur und -medien. Theorie, Geschichte, Didaktik, Band 49.] Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main [etc.] 2007. 272 pp. € 42.50.

This dissertation (Technical University Dresden, 2006) explores the system of production, distribution, and appreciation of literature for children and young adults in the GDR, and analyses the ideological strategic goals for which this system was employed. Focusing on literature for children and young adults on historical themes, Dr Strewe concludes that, in this realm, literary writers were closely supervised by state officials and remained within a rigidly defined ideological framework meant to educate the GDR residents as socialist citizens.

Von Oertzen, Christine. The Pleasure of a Surplus Income. Part-Time Work, Gender Politics, and Social Change in West-Germany, 1955–1969. [Studies in German History, Vol. 6.] Berghahn Books, New York [etc.] 2007. xi, 238 pp. $85.00.

This English translation of Teilzeitarbeit und die Lust am Zuverdienen: Geschlechterpolitik und gesellschaftlicher Wandel in Westdeutschland 1948–1969 (1999) examines the rise of part-time work among married women in West Germany from the early 1950s to 1969, when this form of paid labour became legislatively institutionalized. Professor Von Oertzen explores how this form of work for married women and mothers became embedded in norm, law, and practice, how the related public discourse developed, and how this rise profoundly changed gender relations and the lives of both individual women and families.

Great Britain

Chilton, Lisa. Agents of Empire. British Female Migration to Canada and Australia, 1860s–1930. [Studies in Gender and History.] University of Toronto Press, Toronto [etc.] 2007. viii, 240 pp. Ill. $60.00; £40.00. (Paper: $27.95; £18.00.)

Between the 1860s and the 1920s large numbers of single British women emigrated to Canada and Australia, a migration process managed largely by women, organized in a number of societies and organizations. This study examines the origins and character of women-run female emigration societies, and considers the responses they received from emigrants and settlers, from the mostly male managers of imperial migration, and from the women they tried to manage in the emigration process.

Cooper, Brian P. Family Fictions and Family Facts. Harriet Martineau, Adolphe Quetelet and the population question in England, 1798–1859. [Routledge studies in the history of economics, vol. 54.] Routledge, London [etc.] 2007. 294 pp. € 60.00.

Using both economic and literary theory, this study focuses on three sets of works (among others, the publications on the British decennial population censuses) that informed the general public on the emerging social sciences, and more particularly on statistics and political economy, to examine the definition and role of the family in the context of the early nineteenth-century debate on population growth, the social question and reform. Professor Cooper concludes that the concept of family embodies both positive attributes and normative beliefs about gender, class, and racial and national identities.

Cox, Nancy and Karin Dannehl. Perceptions of Retailing in Early Modern England. [The history of retailing and consumption.] Ashgate, Aldershot [etc.] 2007. xi, 214 pp. € 55.00.

Based on the idea that perceptions of retailing current at the time provide a new gateway for understanding retailing, this study explores retailing practices in early modern England that depended on behavioural manipulation. Drs Cox and Dannehl combine this focus with the related concepts of space and distance, exploring issues such as the location of shops; visual and literary representations in retailing; itinerant traders; and the relation in retailing of provinces to the metropolis.

Gurney, John. Brave community. The Digger movement in the English Revolution. [Politics, culture and society in early modern Britain.] Manchester University Press, Manchester [etc.] 2007. xiii, 236 pp. £55.00; $84.95.

In this study of the Diggers, one of the best-known radical groups to emerge during the mid-seventeenth century English Revolution, Dr Gurney examines the pivotal role of Gerrard Winstanley and explores the local origins of the movement. Focusing in particular on the parish of Cobham (where significant numbers of the Diggers originated) and considering the social relations and tensions in that community, the author provides an overview of the Surrey Digger settlements, local reactions to this egalitarian movement, its spread beyond Surrey, and a reinterpretation of the movement and its most prominent theorist. See also Henk Looijestein’s review in this volume, pp. 135–137.

The High Tide of British Trade Unionism. Trade Unions and Industrial Politics, 1964–79. Ed. by John McIlroy, Nina Fishman, and Alan Campbell. Merlin Press, Monmouth 2007. xlii, 389 pp. £18.95

This is a reprinted paperback edition of a volume, originally published in 1999, featuring an attempt to assess the role and impact of British trade unionism in postwar industrial politics and the economy. The eleven essays deal with issues such as the class structure in postwar Britain, the role of women in the workforce and trade unions, the impact of immigration, relations with the Labour Party and other political parties and groupings, and labour conflicts in the early 1970s. In his preface to this new edition, the first editor inventories the original edition’s reception and impact and changes in historiography on this theme since 1999.

Kriegel, Lara. Grand Designs. Labor, Empire, and the Museum in Victorian Culture. Duke University Press, Durham [etc.] 2007. xviii, 305 pp. Ill. £55.00. (Paper: £13.99.)

In this study of industrial design reform and its relation to preoccupations with trade, labour, and manufacture in nineteenth-century Britain, Professor Kriegel explores how concern about a crisis of design and workmanship among the British working classes and artisans led reformers and other actors (working men and artisans, manufacturers) to pioneer schools of design, copyright protections, and a spectacular display of industrial and imperial wares, the latter culminating in the Great Exhibition of 1851 and the establishment of the South Kensington Museum, a precursor to the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Newby, Andrew G. Ireland, Radicalism and the Scottish Highlands, c. 1870–1912. [Scottish Historical Review Monographs.] Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 2007. vii, 224 pp. € 45.00.

While the influence of Irish nationalism on the Scottish Highland land agitation from the 1870s onward has been noticed by contemporaries and historians alike, this study aims to give a first comprehensive overview of the origins and nature of this involvement. Dr Newby reveals the influential role of a group of Glasgow-based reformers, located around the city’s branch of the Irish Land League, in the process leading to the Highland “Crofters’ War” as an early manifestation of the important “single tax” or “land restoration” movement of the early twentieth century.

Oldfield, John R. ‘Chords of Freedom’. Commemoration, ritual and British transatlantic slavery. Manchester University Press, Manchester [etc.] 2007. Ill. 193 pp. £50.00.

This study explores how, during the nineteenth century and up to the present day, the memory of British transatlantic slavery and its abolition was constructed and absorbed into the nation’s collective memory. Through a case study of, for example, the Anti-Slavery Convention of 1840, and an exploration of visual images, literary memories, memorials, museums, and commemorative rituals, Dr Oldfield aims to show how the “culture of abolition” that took root in Britain taught the British to view the history of transatlantic slavery predominantly through the moral triumph of abolition.

Patriquin, Larry. Agrarian Capitalism and Poor Relief in England, 1500–1860. Rethinking the Origins of the Welfare State. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke [etc.] 2007. ix, 254 pp. £50.00.

In this study of the origins of poor relief in England from the beginning of sixteenth century, Professor Patriquin aims to show that England’s system of poor relief was actually unique compared with any other country in the world. The reason for this exceptionalism, argues the author from a clear stand of historical materialism, is that the system of English poor relief is rooted in the birth of agrarian capitalism in the sixteenth century, with a crucial role for the state in the exploitation of labour. Poor relief, according to the central argument, was a substitute for access to land and common rights.

Rereading Read. New Views on Herbert Read. Ed. by Michael Paraskos. Freedom Press, London 2007. 237 pp. Ill. $36.95

The sixteen essays in this richly illustrated and artfully designed volume offer a comprehensive sample of recent interpretations of the work and thought of the English art and literary critic, Herbert Read (1893–1968). The first four essays focus on the political context of his critical work and in particular on his anarchist political convictions and his relation with anarcho-modernism and existentialism. The other contributions deal with his theory on the position of art in society and his work as an art and literary critic.

Rogers, Nicholas. The Press Gang. Naval impressment and its opponents in Georgian Britain. Continuum, London [etc.] 2007. xi, 168 pp. £17.99.

In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries impressment – to register or to enrol a recruit with an element of coercion – was indispensable to the British Navy in securing the manning of ships. Regulating naval officers and their gangs (press gangs) were notorious, and often met with strong resistance from the recruits and their communities. This study gives an overview of the workings of the press gangs and their legal basis, examines the social groupings of their main victims, and focuses on forms of opposition to their activities.

Ugolini, Laura. Men and Menswear. Sartorial Consumption in Britain 1880–1939. [History of retailing and consumption.] Ashgate, Aldershot [etc.] 2007. xi, 292 pp. £55.00.

Bringing together the study of masculinity and the history of consumption, this study explores the changing nature of retailing menswear to illuminate wider aspects of masculine identity and patterns of male consumption in Britain between 1880 and 1939. Focusing on an activity generally considered to be potentially “unmanly”, Dr Ugolini argues that clothes consumption was a social activity for men, influenced most strongly by the opinions of other men about the norm on what to wear.

Hungary

Jutteau, Kati. L’enfance embrigadée dans la Hongrie communiste. Le mouvement des pionniers. L’Harmattan, Paris 2007. 283 pp. € 25.50.

This study sketches the origins and development of the Union of Hungarian Pioneers, a communist youth movement founded in June 1946 to target young people aged six to fifteen. Dr Jutteau explores the political, organizational, and social context of the movement, the development of its various activities, its political, ideological, and educational aims and its international relations, for example with the international scouting movement.

Italy

Baravelli, Andrea. Il giusto prezzo. Storia della cooperazione di consumo in area adriatica (1861–1974). [Storia e studi cooperativi.] Il Mulino, Bologna 2008. 356 pp. Ill. € 20.00.

This is a study of consumer cooperatives in the coastal region along the Adriatic Sea from Venice to the Abruzzi, including Bologna and Emilia-Romagna. The author considers regional social and political differences in his chronological study of the rise of consumer cooperatives from their origins in the period of mutual aid societies up to the postwar period, also addressing the period under fascism in detail.

Brianti, Marc. Bandiera rossa. Un siècle d’histoire du Mouvement ouvrier italien du Risorgimento (1848) à la République (1948). Connaissances et Savoirs, Paris 2007. 812 pp. € 35.00.

This voluminous study aims to give a general overview of the history of the Italian labour movement from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, written for a general readership. Mr Brianti, a former high-ranking manager in the FIAT corporation, who previously published his autobiography Ma vie chez Fiat: Le parcours singulier d’un jeune ouvrier socialiste devenu l’un des dirigeants du groupe turinois (2005), offers a chronologically ordered sketch of the development of the Italian labour movement without any reference to primary or secondary sources. The extended annexes include biographies, chronologies, selected source documents, and many other items.

Donne partigiane. A cura di Valentina Catania. [Nordest nuova serie, vol. 69.] Cierre edizioni, Istituto mantovano di storia contemporanea, Istituto Veronese per la storia della resistenza e dell’età contemporanea 2008. 275 pp. Ill. € 12.50.

This collection comprises eleven contributions to a colloquium held in Verona in December 2005 on women in the resistance in Verona and Mantua, 1943–1945 (Donne e Resistenza, una memoria di confine. Verona–Mantova 1943–1945). The participants were researchers from the Istituti di storia della Resistenza e dell’età contemporanea from both provinces. The three sections address the presence of materials regarding women in the resistance in the archives of resistance organizations and police records; written and oral sources by women, as well as by men about women in the resistance; the results of war experiences – which ones have been remembered, and how they are remembered.

Furiozzi, Massimo. “La Nuova Europa” (1861–1863). Democrazia e internazionalismo. [Europa socialismo democrazia.] FrancoAngeli, Milano 2008. 184 pp. € 18.00.

This is a study of the Florentine daily, La Nuova Europa, established immediately after the proclamation of the Italian kingdom by exponents of the radical and democratic movements. Although at first the views disclosed here closely reflected the ideas of Mazzini and Garibaldi, the paper later drifted away from both. In this work the author aims to reconstruct the most important issues the paper raised throughout its circulation, especially democracy and internationalism. The paper manifested a highly progressive approach toward problems in structuring the new Italian state, and published detailed accounts of the struggle of democratic popular movements abroad.

Giuseppe Garibaldi. Il radicalismo democratico e il mondo del lavoro. A cura di Maurizio Ridolfi, presentazione di Carlo Ghezzi. Ediesse, Roma 2008. 179 pp. € 10.00.

This collection comprises nine specially edited contributions to an international workshop organized by the Fondazione Giuseppe di Vittorio, the research desk of the Cgil trade union confederation in honour of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Garibaldi. Because of his involvement in the early labour movement, Garibaldi is regarded as a precursor to the present movement. Contributors to this work examine how Garibaldi and his family’s forms of social and political activity correlate with the myth surrounding his person, with respect to how this myth was instrumentalized in the labour and farmers’ movements, the associative movement, and Italian politics.

Gregorini, Giovanni. Lavoro, rappresentanza, riforme. La CISL di Bergamo e lo sviluppo economico-sociale nel secondo novecento (1943–1985). FrancoAngeli, Milano 2008. 234 pp. € 24.00.

This is the history of the Bergamo provincial chapter of the Confederazione italiana sindacati lavoratori (Cisl), the Catholic trade-union confederation. The book is arranged by theme and comprises four chapters addressing: the identity and fundamental choices of the organization; the position of the union on social-economic change, especially the role of cultural aspects and socio-cultural education; issues relating to social struggle over the years; and internal organizational issues and debates. The author consulted materials in the historical archive of the Cisl in Bergamo. The founding deed of the Cisl in Bergamo is appended.

Nicolai, Gilda. Lavoro, patria e libertà. Associazionismo e solidarismo nell’alto Lazio lungo l’Ottocento. [Progetto memoria.] Sette Città, Viterbo 2008. 372 pp. € 25.00.

This study is about the associative movement in the province of Viterbo during the nineteenth century. The author starts by exploring the historiography on mutual aid societies and goes on to investigate the associative movement prior to Italian unity, which was the source of the mutual aid societies founded later on. Using scarce original archive materials on these organizations, and focusing especially on printed sources, she studies the internal functioning of the societies, their members, their use of the funds, and their roots in the local communities. Following social legislation and the rise of organized socialism, these societies made way for production cooperatives and the like.

Parlato, Giuseppe. La sinistra fascista. [Storica paperbacks, 46.] Storia di un progetto mancato. Società il Mulino, Bologna 2008. 404 pp. € 14.00.

In this study Professor Parlato examines the school within the Italian fascist movement that he calls the “fascist left”. He uses this designation to indicate that this school aimed to carry on the legacy of the Italian national left, which, via predecessors such as Garibaldi, Mazzini and Pisacane, and via non-internationalist socialism and revolutionary syndicalism, connected to fascism with some difficulty. This form of fascism was imbued with a strong anti-civilian and anti-capitalist sentiment, an interpretation of politics as revolution, i.e. subversion of civic values, glorification of work, and the pursuit of a totalitarian popular democracy according to Rousseauian principles.

Le sinistre italiane tra guerra e pace (1840–1940). A cura di Gian Biagio Furiozzi. [Europa socialismo democrazia.] FrancoAngeli, Milano 2008. 256 pp. € 20.00.

This collection comprises fifteen contributions to a colloquium held in Perugia in May 2006 and organized by the Istituto socialista di Studi storici to explore views among the different leftist movements and persons within the Italian left on war and peace in the 1840–1940 period. The movements examined include those of anarchists, socialists, republicans, communists etc. The positions range from outright condemnation of war (anarchists) to a more pragmatic disposition (Garibaldi, Pisacane). Major turning points were World War I, perceived by many as a democratic war waged in Mazzinian style to redraw the map of Europe, and the Spanish Civil War.

The Netherlands

Owens, Lynn. Cracking under Pressure. Narrating the Decline of the Amsterdam Squatters’ Movement. [Solidarity and Identity.] Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2009. 290 pp. Ill. € 34.50.

In this study of one of the most impressive social movements in postwar Europe, the Amsterdam squatters’ movement, Professor Owens focuses on the period of the movement’s decline from 1982 onward, to analyse how participants in social movements experience the contradictions that are immanent in the phase of decline. Central to his analysis is the role of narratives in giving meaning to events and in managing the emotions of the participants as they negotiate the relationships between culture and politics in the movement. See also Bart van der Steen’s review in this volume, pp. 151–153.

Romania

Turnock, David. The Transition from Communism to the European Union. Restructuring Romanian Industry and Agriculture since 1990. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham [etc.] 2009. xiv, 361 pp. £85.00.

This book is devoted to the restructuring of Romania’s economy after the fall of the Ceausescu regime in 1989. Following the chronological review of the political context in the first chapter, the author focuses on selected industrial sectors, such as mining and metallurgy, engineering and transport equipment, automotive and aerospace industries, the food, beverage, and tobacco industries, as well as on energy and agriculture. He draws on fieldwork in all parts of the country and on source material from the economic press.

Russia – Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Bohn, Thomas M. Minsk, Musterstadt des Sozialismus. Stadtplanung und Urbanisierung in der Sowjetunion nach 1945. [Industrielle Welt, Band 74.] Böhlau Verlag, Köln [etc.] 2008. xv, 410 pp. € 59.90.

This study analyses changes in ideas about Soviet city planning and urbanization from the 1930s to the 1950s. The author describes the concepts of the “socialist city”, the “closed city”, and the “hero city”, and depicts the post-1945 transition of the destroyed Belorussian capital Minsk from a local centre in an agrarian region to an industrial metropolis to compare the illusions and realities of Soviet urban development projects. The socio-economic and cultural-political backgrounds of these urbanization processes receive extensive consideration as well.

Grüner, Frank. Patrioten und Kosmopoliten. Juden im Sowjetstaat 1941–1953. [Beiträge zur Geschichte Osteuropas.] Böhlau Verlag, Köln [etc.] 2008. xv, 559 pp. € 66.90.

This book is a slightly abridged and adapted version of the author’s dissertation “Das Ende des Traums vom jüdischen Sowjetmenschen? Juden und Sowjetstaat, 1941 bis 1953” (Universität Heidelberg, 2005). Dr Grüner examines relations between Jews and the Soviet state to explain the genesis of the anti-Jewish policies of the Stalin regime and the rise of an official anti-Semitism, and considers the effects of the political and social changes of World War II. Approaching his research from the perspective of Soviet Jews, the author focuses on their individual and collective ideas and their consciousness as Jews and as Soviet citizens.

Retish, Aaron B. Russia’s Peasants in Revolution and Civil War. Citizenship, Identity, and the Creation of the Soviet State, 1914–1922. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge [etc.] 2008. xiv, 294 pp. Ill. £55.00; $110.00.

This study examines how peasants experienced and helped guide the course of Russia’s war and revolution, and how peasant society and peasants’ conceptions of themselves as citizens evolved during the violence and devastation of these years. Concentrating on the north-eastern province of Viatka, the author describes the interaction between the peasants and the political and cultural elites, and analyses the complexity of peasant identity and peasant–state relationships. See also Sarah Badcock’s review in this volume, pp. 141–143.

Spain

Bascuñán Añover, Óscar. Protesta y supervivencia. Movilización y desorden en una sociedad rural: Castilla-la Mancha, 1875–1923. [Biblioteca Historia Social, Vol.19.] Centro Francisco Tomás y Valiente UNED Alzira-Valencia, Fundación Instituto de Historía Social, Valencia 2008. 336 pp. € 12.00.

Based on a doctoral dissertation, this study challenges the sanchopancesco image of the rural population of La Mancha and the two Castillas during the years of the Restoration. The author re-examines the details of social relations between the peasants and the expansive land owners, who received increasing support from the state, and reconstructs the lógica campesina of resistance against powerful enemies, seeking efficient ways to obtain often small results while minimizing risk. The rise of an organized labour movement with special weapons such as the strike enriched the rural armoury. Long before the violence that erupted in the Civil War, the central Spanish countryside was far from apathetic.

Corcuera Atienza, Javier. The Origins, Ideology, and Organization of Basque Nationalism, 1876–1903. Transl. by Albert Bork and Cameron J. Watson. [Center for Basque Studies. Occasional Papers Series, No. 12.] Center for Basque Studies. University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada 2007. 522 pp. $39.95. (Paper: $29.95.)

This is a translation of Orígenes, ideología y organización del nacionalismo vasco (1876–1904), originally published in 1979 and based on a dissertation completed the year before. The book has been partially rewritten – though not truly updated – but remains an important study of the origins of Basque nationalism and its “father” Sabino de Arana, founder of the Basque Nationalist Party. Focusing on the years from the abolition of the fueros after the Second Carlist War in 1876 to Arana’s early death in 1903, the author traces the tensions within nationalism between the total rejection of Madrid and a willingness to accommodate among those who profited from the Spanish state, such as the new industrialists in Bilbao.

Espinosa Maestre, Francisco. Contra el olvido. Historia y memoria de la guerra civil. Prol. de Alberto Reig Tapia. Crítica, Barcelona 2006. xvii, 350 pp. € 24.95.

This is a collection of articles written between 1998 and 2006 by a specialist on the Civil War in Andalusia. The title derives from an essay on the historiography of Franquist repression, a theme that that surfaces in most of the eleven chapters. This topic is addressed both at the level of general overviews and in detailed investigations of particular events based on archival documents. There are chapters on Cela’s famous novel La familia de Pascal Duarte and on recent “revisionist” works, such as those by Angel David Martín Rubio and Pío Moa.

La historia de las mujeres. Perspectivas actuales. Ed. Cristina Borderías. [Historia y feminismo]. Asociación Española de Investigación en Historia de las Mujeres, Icaria editorial, Barcelona 2008. 398 pp. € 22.00.

This volume, the second in a series of which the first was noted in IRSH, 53 (2008), p. 372, is the result of a conference organized by the Asociación Española de Investigación de Historia de las Mujeres in Barcelona in 2006 and comprises nine articles by the organizers of the major sessions, such as those on democracy, social movements, marriage, medicine, convents, autonomous urban production, quality of life under Franquism, the economy of the family, and memory and identity. These articles sum up the discussion, offer an outline of the status quaestionis and contain useful bibliographies.

Migración y exilio españoles en el siglo XX. Luís M. Calvo Salgado, Itzíar López Guil, Vera Ziswiler [etc.]. Iberocamericana, Vervuert, Madrid [etc.] 2009. 246 pp. Ill. € 24.00.

This book arises from the Interdisciplinary Day on Spanish migration and exile in the twentieth century, organized at the University of Zurich in November 2006. During the morning session five contributions were read on literature and linguistics, discussing, for example, Spanish linguistic forays in Switzerland. The afternoon was dedicated to six contributions on history, including chapters on migration to France and Germany during the Franco years from 1960 onward, on the Swiss-Spanish review Búho published in the mid-1970s, and on the return of migrants from Switzerland to Galicia after Franco’s death.

La recuperación de la memoria historica. Una perspectiva transversal desde las Ciencias Sociales. Coords Gonzalo Acosta Bono, Ángel del Río Sánchez, [y] José María Valcuende del Río. Centro de Estudios Andaluces, Consejería de la Presidencia, Sevilla 2008. 265 pp. € 25.00.

This volume brings together twenty-one contributions to two courses offered at the Universidad Pablo de Olavide at Sevilla in 2005–2006. They are written from the perspective of various disciplines, from anthropology and cultural psychology to philosophy and literary studies, and vary in their depth and character. Some are more general, while others discuss specific topics ranging from secondary school history textbooks to the possibility of opening a museum at the site of the Franquist concentration camp, Los Merinales. Though focused on Andalusia, the book is not merely of regional interest.

Solidaridad, seguridad, bienestar. Cien años de protección social en España. Director Santiago Castillo. Ministerio de Trabajo e Inmigración, s.l. 2008. 213 pp. No price.

This richly illustrated volume, published on the centenary of the foundation of the Instituto Nacional de Previsión in 1908, traces the history of social security in Spain in five chapters, covering the periods 1908–1918, 1919–1939, 1939–1962, 1962–1977, and 1977–2008, respectively. Though clearly intended for an informed general public, this scholarly book relies extensively on archival sources and contains a useful bibliography.

Los trabajos forzados en la dictadura franquista. Bortxazko lanak diktadura frankistan. Coord. José Miguel Gastón y Fernando Mendiola. Instituto Gerónimo de Uztáriz, s.l. 2007. 219 pp. Ill. No price.

This oblong book accompanied the exhibition Slavery under Franquism, which featured the roads and buildings (often dedicated to military purposes and aimed at the defence of Spain’s northern border) constructed by political and other prisoners after the Civil War. Nine contributions, some offering a broader historical context, tell the story of slave labour in the Pyrenees of Catalonia, Aragon, and the Basque country, as well as in railway construction here and elsewhere in Spain. Two chapters address the work by women prisoners and the families of those who built the Canal del Bajo Guadalquivir in Andalusia. All articles are in both Spanish and Basque.