Ghana

Ipsen, Pernille. Daughters of the Trade. Atlantic Slavers and Interracial Marriage on the Gold Coast. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia (PA) 2015. 269 pp. Ill. Maps. £32.50.

In this book about interracial marriage on the Gold Coast, from the early eighteenth century to 1850, Professor Ipsen follows six generations of Ga speaking families in Accra marrying their daughters to Danish men in Christiansborg (now known as Osu Castle), the base of Danish slave trade in West Africa. She illustrates how the European colonial system shaped individual lives and families of West African and European slave traders, how the spatial organization and material culture of these families shifted, and how, as the slave trade evolved over the eighteenth century, race gained significance as a social marker.

Canada

Reviving Social Democracy. The Near Death and Surprising Rise of the Federal NDP. Ed. by David Laycock and Lynda Erickson. University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver [etc.] 2015. viii, 340 pp. Ill. $95.00. (Paper: $32.95.)

The social democratic Canadian New Democratic Party (NDP) was formed in 1961 by the Canadian Labour Congress and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (a federal socialist party founded in 1932 that incorporated both labour and agrarian interests) to advance social reform. In this collection about the history of the NDP, eleven political scientists analyse the ideological evolution of the NDP, describe its members, leaders and voters, highlight the NPD presence in Quebec and the role of party leader Jack Layton, and discuss prospects for an NDP-Liberal Party merger.

El Salvador

Sánchez, Peter M. Priest under Fire. Padre David Rodríguez, the Catholic Church, and El Salvador’s Revolutionary Movement. University Press of Florida, Gainesville (FL) [etc.] 2015. xvi, 308 pp. Ill. $44.95.

In the 1970s, David Rodríguez (b. 1940), a diocesan priest, joined the largest guerrilla organization in El Salvador, the FPL (Popular Liberation Forces), which later became the political party FMLN (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front). Drawing mainly on interviews with Rodríguez and people who know him, Professor Sánchez offers an account of Rodríguez’s life to provide insight into the Salvadoran civil war, particularly on how Roman Catholic clergy committed to liberation theology influenced grassroots political movements of the 1970s.

United States of America

Bussel, Robert. Fighting for Total Person Unionism. Harold Gibbons, Ernest Calloway, and Working-Class Citizenship. [The Working Class in American History.] University of Illinois Press, Urbana (IL) [etc.] 2015. ix, 244 pp. Ill. $95.00. (Paper: $32.00; £22.99.)

During the 1950s and 60s, Harold Gibbons, a Teamsters Union leader, and Ernest Calloway, a labour organizer and NAACP leader, promoted a labour movement that looked beyond the shop floor and mobilized its “citizen members” around campaigns for urban revitalization, improved public services, and the advancement of racial and economic justice. They did so through the “community stewards program” of Teamsters Local 688 in St Louis. In this book, Professor Bussel traces the careers of Gibbons and Calloway and their efforts to broaden the struggle for workers’ rights into a fight for social justice.

Martin, Lou. Smokestacks in the Hills. Rural-Industrial Workers in West Virginia. [The Working Class in American History.] University of Illinois Press, Urbana (IL) [etc.] 2015. xi, 239 pp. Ill. Maps. $95.00. (Paper: $28.00.)

In the early twentieth century, steel and pottery companies built factories in Hancock County, West Virginia, and employed sons and daughters of local farmers, as well as migrants from other rural places, creating a rural-industrial workforce. In this book, Professor Martin describes how access to land in and around steel and pottery towns allowed residents to preserve rural habits. The resulting rural working-class culture, he argues, privileged place and local community over class. This helps explain why the rural-industrial workers of Hancock were never fully integrated into the national labour movement.

Maxwell, William J. F.B. Eyes. How J. Edgar Hoover’s Ghostreaders Framed African American Literature. Princeton University Press, Princeton (NJ) [etc.] 2015. xiv, 367 pp. Ill. £19.95.

Drawing on FBI files on twentieth-century African American writers, Professor Maxwell reconstructs how between 1919 and 1972, the FBI, who viewed black politics and black literature as being closely connected, scrutinized African American prose and poetry from the earliest journalism of the Harlem Renaissance to the performative verse of the black arts movement, as well as intercepted correspondence. The appendix includes a list of writers appearing in FBI files; copies of the files used maybe be examined at http://digital.wustl.edu/fbeyes/.

Moyer, Teresa S. Ancestors of Worthy Life. Plantation Slavery and Black Heritage at Mount Clare. Foreword by Paul A. Shackel. University Press of Florida, Gainesville (FL) 2015. xvi, 217 pp. Ill. $74.95; £63.95.

The presence of enslaved African Americans in historically preserved plantations and house museums is often ignored in site histories and guided tours, according to this case study of Mount Clare, a historic house museum in Baltimore, Maryland. Teresa Moyer uses both archaeological and written evidence to examine the history of the Mount Clare plantation and ironworks, its slaveholder owners, and the lives of the slaves and former slaves of Mount Clare and to reveal how black history was erased from Mount Clare.

Rodriguez, Marc Simon. Rethinking the Chicano Movement. [American Social and Political Movements of the Twentieth Century.] Routledge, New York (NY) [etc.] 2015. 204 pp. $135.00; £85.00. (Paper: $39.95; £27.99.)

The Mexican-American civil rights movement, also known as the Chicano movement, sought to end discrimination against Americans of Mexican ancestry and to encourage support for educational, social, and employment opportunities for Mexican Americans. In this introduction, Professor Rodriguez examines the origins of this grassroots movement, which thrived in the 1960s and 70s; its significance for the movement of California farm workers; organizations in urban areas; the Chicano student movement; the rise of Chicano studies; the role of print media; and the contributions of Chicano muralists to “museums of the streets” in American cities.

Ryan, Erica J. Red War on the Family. Sex, Gender, and Americanism in the First Red Scare. Temple University Press, Philadelphia (PA) 2015. xii, 220 pp. $69.50; £44.00.

The Russian Revolution of 1917 heralded a period of increasing conservatism in the United States, according to Professor Ryan, who argues that the “First Red Scare” also influenced how Americans in the 1920s considered sexuality and the status of women. Tracing the origins of sexual modernism and the history of anti-radicalism and anti-feminism, she aims to demonstrate that these forces helped constitute the defensive nationalist ideology of Americanism, which sought to impose traditional family values on groups such as immigrants, workers, women, and young people.

Wirth, Christa. Memories of Belonging. Descendants of Italian Migrants to the United States, 1884–Present. [Studies in Global Social History, Vol. 17; Studies in Global Migration History, Vol. 5.] Brill, Leiden [etc.] 2015. xii, 406 pp. Ill. Maps. € 129.00; $167.00.

Drawing on interviews, private documents, and American and Italian archives, Dr Wirth examines how descendants of an Apulian couple, who migrated to Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1913, construct their identities. Documenting how memories of migration, everyday life, and ethnicity are passed on through the generations, she highlights the significance of gender in everyday life, as well as food, religious, language, and educational customs; reveals a history of lived ethnicity and societal exclusion; and concludes that family, respect, and employment, rather than social mobility, are central in this Worcester family history.

Young, Ralph. Dissent. The History of an American Idea. New York University Press, New York (NY) [etc.] 2015. xi, 603 pp. Ill. $39.95.

In this book, Professor Young tells the story of the United States through the voices of dissenters, ranging from the Puritan Anne Hutchinson and Native American chief Powhatan in the seventeenth century to the Occupy and Tea Party movements in the twenty-first century. Young’s selection covers dissenters and dissent movements that have influenced major events in American history (e.g. the American Revolution, the antebellum abolitionist movement, and opposition to the Vietnam War) alongside less successful examples of dissent and conservative and reactionary forms of dissent, as well as progressive movements.

China

Han Dongfang. Mon combat pour les ouvriers chinois. Avec la collab. de Michaël Sztanke. Michel Lafon, Paris 2014. 241 pp. € 17.95; $29.95.

During the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, Han Dongfang (b. 1963) helped organize the Beijing Workers’ Autonomous Federation (BWAF), the first independent trade union in the People’s Republic of China. When the rebellion was suppressed, the BWAF was disbanded and Han imprisoned. After his release, he spent a year in the United States. Returning to China in 1993, he was arrested and expelled to Hong Kong, where he continues to defend the rights of workers through the China Labour Bulletin and Radio Free Asia, reporting, for example, on the working conditions of Chinese coal miners. This book contains his memoires.

Hu, Aiqun. China’s Social Insurance in the Twentieth Century. A Global Historical Perspective. [Studies in Global Social History, Vol. 21.] Brill, Leiden [etc.] 2015. viii, 224 pp. € 99.00; $128.00.

Using the framework of “interactive diffusion of global models” (a synthesis of theories on the welfare state and world society and diffusion theories), Professor Hu examines how social insurance in twentieth-century China has been influenced by two competing models: the German capitalist and the Soviet socialist one. She discusses the role of the ILO in China’s early labour legislation, the formation of social insurance institutions in nationalist and communist-controlled areas, the Soviet model in China, the German one in Taiwan, and the influence of the World Bank in present-day social insurance reforms in both China and Taiwan.

Wu, Yiching. The Cultural Revolution at the Margins. Chinese Socialism in Crisis. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA) [etc.] 2014. xii, 335 pp. Ill. $49.95; £36.95; € 45.00.

When Red Guard students and workers responded to Mao’s call for a cultural revolution and rose up against Party officials in 1966, they also responded to their own immediate socioeconomic circumstances, according to Professor Wu, and the rebellion slipped from the government’s grasp. When Mao demobilized the mass movement, he betrayed the young critics and activists who had taken the transformative promise by the movement seriously. In this account of the Cultural Revolution, Wu aims to give voice and historical visibility to the grassroots rebels. See also William Hurst’s review in this volume, pp. 342–344.

India

Viswanath, Rupa. The Pariah Problem. Caste, Religion, and the Social in Modern India. [Cultures of History.] Columbia University Press, New York (NY) 2014. xviii, 396 pp. $60.00.

Descendants of unfree agrarian labourers, Dalits (once known as “Pariahs”) are among India’s poorest and most discriminated classes. After describing the everyday lives of Dalit labourers in the 1890s, when the “Pariah Problem” was first publicly discussed, Professor Viswanath examines how high-caste landlords, state officials, and Protestant missionaries viewed Dalit oppression, aiming to demonstrate how a de facto alliance between British and Indian officials and native high-caste employers of Dalit labour ignored and later downplayed the economic, social, and political subordination of the Dalits. See also Tanika Sarkar’s review in this volume, pp. 337–339.

Indonesia

Kohl, August. Ein Luxemburger Söldner im Indonesien des 19. Jahrhunderts. Kommentierte Ed. der Reise- und Lebensbeschreibungen (1859–1865) des Soldaten August Kohl. Hrsg. von Thomas Kolnberger und mit Beitr. v. Norbert Franz. Centre national de littérature, Mersch 2015. 312 pp. Ill. Maps. € 25.00.

August Kohl was one of the over one thousand Luxemburgers who served in the Dutch colonial armed forces between 1789 and 1914. His memoirs, published here with explanatory notes, shed light on military life in colonial Indonesia. The four essays in the second part of this richly illustrated volume provide literary and historical contexts for Kohl’s narrative, which also includes an account of his eventful voyage to Indonesia, reports of expeditions to suppress local rebellions, and stories about tropical animals and the diseases he contracted.

Israel

De Vries, David. Strike Action and Nation Building: Labor Unrest in Palestine/Israel, 1899–1951. Berghahn, New York [etc.] 2015. xii, 170 pp. $90.00; £56.00.

In this book, Professor De Vries traces the history of strike actions in Palestine and Israel in the first half of the twentieth century, from the arrival of the strike phenomenon during the last phase of Ottoman rule through the seaman’s strike of 1951. Using quantitative materials from various archival and press sources and reconstructing strike histories, he analyses how strikes were deployed: as a means of pursuing national aims (notably in the Jewish settlement in Palestine until the late 1920s); as a routine means of collective action; and for political purposes by both Jews and Arabs. The appendix contains statistics about strikes.

Japan

Abel, Jessamyn R. The International Minimum. Creativity and Contradiction in Japan’s Global Engagement 1933–1964. [Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute. Columbia University.] University of Hawai‘i Press, Honolulu (HI) 2015. ix, 331 pp. $54.00.

Using unpublished documents from government and private archives, Professor Abel traces the evolution of internationalism in Japan from 1933 to 1964 by examining both official policy and general debates in popular journals, newspapers, books, public speeches, and literary works surrounding moments such as Japan’s withdrawal from the League of Nations and accession to the United Nations, the failed and successful attempts to host a Tokyo Olympiad, and conferences such as the Asian-African Conference in Bandung (1955).

Malaysia

Aljunied, Syed Muhd Khairudin. Radicals. Resistance and Protest in Colonial Malaya. Northern Illinois University Press, DeKalb (IL) 2015. xii, 227 pp. Ill. $35.00.

This is a history of radical movements, parties, and organizations in present-day Malaysia from the late nineteenth century until independence in 1957, ranging from the pioneering political organization Kesatuan Melayu Muda (founded in 1938) to various Muslim and women’s organizations. Professor Aljunied analyses the experiences of the Malay radicals through interconnected “mobilizing concepts”, such as heritage, consciousness, unity, nationalism, and freedom, and argues that their history is also a story of contacts, interactions, and exchanges between the cultures of the colonized and the colonizers.

Pakistan

Ali, Kamran Asdar. Communism in Pakistan. Politics and Class Activism 1947–1972. I.B. Tauris, Cambridge [etc.] 2015. xiv, 298 pp. £50.00; $80.00.

This study of communism and the working classes in Pakistan from 1947 to 1972 begins with the history of the Communist Party of Pakistan during its period of legal existence (1948–1954) and ends in the early 1970s, shortly after Bangladesh gained independence. Drawing on oral testimonies and ethnographic fieldwork, as well as archival research, Professor Ali also examines the history of Pakistan’s relationship with its various ethnic groups and relates how labour and class-based politics were increasingly replaced by politics shaped by issues of ethnic, religious, and sectarian differences.

Eire–Ireland

Philanthropy in Nineteenth-Century Ireland. Ed. by Laurence M. Geary and Oonagh Walsh. [Nineteenth-Century Ireland.] Four Court Press, Dublin 2015. 251 pp. Ill. Maps. € 55.00.

Focusing on philanthropy – as opposed to charity – in nineteenth-century Ireland, the twelve studies in this volume include articles on philanthropy and poor relief before the Poor Law (1801–1830); the Society for Promoting the Comforts of the Poor, which encouraged self-help among the poorest in Ireland; charitable loan fund societies (1820–1914); landlord paternalism and the 1822 famine; the Guinness family’s worker housing projects; the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in Ireland (1889–1921); women campaigners using philanthropic work to advance women’s political and economic positions; and cultural philanthropy.

France

Hyvert, Julie. Le chant à l’ œuvre. La pratique chansonnière des compagnons du Tour de France (XIXe–XXIe siècle). [Collection “Histoire”.] Presses Universitaires de Rennes, Rennes 2015. 389 pp. Ill. € 22.00.

This historical, musicological, and ethnologic study (based on a dissertation, l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales) is about the nineteenth- to twenty-first-century song culture of the Compagnons du Tour de France, the French organization of craftsmen and artisans, who trained as apprentices to different masters across France. Using interviews as well as written sources, Dr Hyvert compares singing by compagnons with other song cultures; describes the historical context in which the compagnons developed their song culture; examines the main themes of their songs; and assesses the meaning of singing for individual compagnons.

Michel, Louise. La Commune. Nouvelle édition établie et présentée par Éric Fournier et Claude Rétat. La Découverte, Paris 2015. 476 pp. € 14.50.

Michel, Louise. À travers la mort. Mémoires inédits, 1886–1890. Éd. critique par Claude Rétat. La Découverte, Paris 2015. 353 pp. € 22.00.

Michel, Louise. La Chasse aux loups. Éd. critique par Claude Rétat. [Bibliothèque du XIXe siècle, vol. 44.] Classiques Garnier, Paris 2015. 358 pp. € 62.00.

Louise Michel wrote her history of the Paris Commune, in which she was so prominent, twenty-five years after the events. In this new, fully annotated edition of her account (based on the original edition of 1898), the editors also offer a history of and reflections on Michel’s text. The appendix contains some photographs related to the Commune. Louise Michel published the first volume of her Mémoires in 1886. The second volume was published in 1890, not as a book but as a series in the newspaper L’Égalité. Michel’s memoirs covering the years 1886–1890 are now published in a single volume with explanatory notes by Dr Rétat. La Chasse aux loups is a short novel that revolves around the suppression of the Paris Commune. Originally published as a series in L’Égalité, it now appears in a single volume, with explanatory notes and an introduction situating this novel in the context of Michel’s other fiction work.

Ross, Kristin. Communal Luxury. The Political Imaginary of the Paris Commune. Verso Books, London [etc.], 2015. viii, 148 pp. £16.99. (Ebook: £16.99.)

Inspired by the Occupy Movement, and focusing on themes that are still debated today, such as internationalism, education, labour, art, communal forms of government, and ecology, Professor Ross reflects on the political culture of the Paris Commune of 1871, examining texts by (exiled) Communards, their supporters, and commentators, including Elisée Reclus, André Léo, Peter Kropotkin, William Morris, and Karl Marx. The words “communal luxury” are taken from the Manifesto of the Commune Federation of artists. The book is also published as L’Imaginaire de la Commune (Paris, 2015).

Salin, Sandra. Women and Trade Unions in France. The Tobacco and Hat Industries, 1890–1914. [Trade Unions Past, Present and Future, Vol. 22.] Peter Lang, Oxford [etc.] 2014. xvi, 400 pp. € 73.60.

In this qualitative and quantitative analysis of women in French trade unions between 1890 and 1914, Dr Salin compares two industries in which women workers were in a majority: the state-owned tobacco industry and the hat industry (especially millinery), which belonged to the private sector. She considers working conditions, wages, trade union attitudes to women, and women’s militancy (especially strikes). The appendix includes statistics about female membership in labour organizations, on participation in trade union congresses, and on strikes and strikers.

Spang, Rebecca L. Stuff and Money in the Time of the French Revolution. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA) [etc.] 2015. viii, 350 pp. Ill. $39.95; £25.00; € 35.00.

Assignats, the national paper money issued by the French revolutionary government, were useless for daily transactions, because the notes were issued in large denominations. Local banks, municipalities, manufacturers, and charitable ventures therefore circulated their own paper money in smaller denominations. This “freedom of money” had disastrous consequences, according to Professor Spang in this book about French monetary politics from 1789 through the 1840s, also illustrating that money is a social and political mediator as well as an economic instrument.

Germany

Braskén, Kasper. The International Workers’ Relief, Communism, and Transnational Solidarity. Willi Münzenberg in Weimar Germany. [Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements.] Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke 2015. xvii, 319 pp. £60.00.

The Berlin based Internationale Arbeiterhilfe was an international relief organization that advocated class-based solidarity. Closely connected to the Comintern, it has been classified as a communist front organization. Its solidarity campaigns included famine relief, strike support, and social programmes for workers, women, and children. As part of its cultural work, the Arbeiterhilfe produced films, books, and newspapers. In this study of the Arbeiterhilfe, from its founding in 1921 to its demise in 1933, Dr Braskén highlights the significance of its leader Willi Münzenberg in the historical development of transnational solidarity during the interwar period.

Ebert, Simon. Wilhelm Sollmann. Sozialist – Demokrat – Weltbürger (1881–1951). Dietz Verlag, Bonn 2014. 605 pp. Ill. € 58.00.

Wilhelm Sollmann (1881–1951) was a German social-democratic journalist, a local politician of Cologne, and Minister of the Interior in the Weimar Republic. After Hitler’s seizure of power, he went into exile. He arrived in the United States in 1937, where he joined the Pendle Hill Quaker community, gave lectures, and wrote for the New York-based Neue Volks-Zeitung. In this biography of Sollmann (based on a dissertation, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, 2012), Dr Ebert draws on archival sources including papers at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania and the City Archives of Cologne.

Ferdinand Lassalle und das Staatsverständnis. Hrsg. Peter Brandt und Detlef Lehnert. [Staatsverständnisse, Band 65.] Nomos, Baden-Baden 2014. 247 pp. € 34.00.

The eleven chapters in this volume published in recognition of the 150^th anniversary of the death of Ferdinand Lassalle (1825–1864), one of the founding fathers of German social democracy, discuss pivotal themes in Lassalle’s work, such as democracy and the welfare state; his philosophy of law (in Das System der erworbenen Rechte) and his constitutional theory; the context in which his ideas emerged (e.g. August Bebel’s and Eduard Bernstein’s understanding of the state); and his views of science and belief in progress. One contributor examines the image of Lassalle in the GDR; three others reflect on Lassalle’s legacy in politics and state theory.

Jünke, Christoph. Leo Koflers Philosophie der Praxis. Eine Einführung. [LAIKAtheorie, Band 38.] LAIKA Verlag, Hamburg 2015. 231 pp. € 18.90.

Leo Kofler (1907–1995) was a German-Austrian Marxist, social theorist, and philosopher and was influenced by e.g. Max Adler and Georg Lukács. In this introduction to Kofler’s work (in part a compilation of edited, previously published texts), Dr Jünke provides an overview of Kofler’s ideas, examining, for example, Kofler’s critique of Stalinism; his humanist understanding of Marxism; his ideas on anthropology; his assessment of aesthetic avant-gardism and the Frankfurter Schule; and highlights Kofler’s significance as a mediator between the “old” labour movement and the New Left.

Kommunale Armenpflege. Bearb. von Wilfried Rudloff unter Mitarb. von Gisela Rust-Schmöle. [Quellensammlung zur Geschichte der Deutschen Sozialpolitik 1867 bis 1914; II. Abt.: Von der kaiserlichen Sozialbotschaft bis zu den Februarerlassen Wilhelms II. (1881–1890), Band 7.]. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2015. lvi, 534 pp. € 92.00.

Die gesetzliche Krankenversicherung. Bearb. von Wolfgang Ayass, Florian Tennstedt und Heidi Winter unter Mitarb. von Andreas Hänlein. [Quellensammlung zur Geschichte der Deutschen Sozialpolitik 1867 bis 1914; III. Abt.: Ausbau und Differenzierung der Sozialpolitik seit Beginn des neuen Kurses (1890–1904), Band 5.]. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2012. xlvi, 750 pp. € 118.00.

Die Praxis der Rentenversicherung und das Invalidenversicherungsgesetz von 1899. Bearb. von Wolfgang Ayass und Florian Tennstedt unter Mitarb. von Andreas Hänlein und Gisela Rust-Schmöle. [Quellensammlung zur Geschichte der Deutschen Sozialpolitik 1867 bis 1914; III. Abt.: Ausbau und Differenzierung der Sozialpolitik seit Beginn des neuen Kurses (1890–1904), Band 6.]. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2014. xl, 605 pp. € 99.90.

The documents in these three volumes, the most recent in a series of source collections pertaining to the history of German social policy from 1867 to 1914, relate respectively to the local organization of poor relief in the 1880s and the debates surrounding the requirement to work, beggary and vagrancy; the acts of 1883 and 1892 on obligatory medical insurance for workers and the rise of health insurance funds, including those managed by workers; and the revision of the 1889 act that regulated old age and disability insurance. See also IRSH 52 (2008), p. 359, for the previously published volume in this collection.

Lorke, Christoph. Armut im geteilten Deutschland. Die Wahrnehmung sozialer Randlagen in der Bundesrepublik und der DDR. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main [etc.] 2015. 469 pp. € 39.90.

This book (based on a dissertation, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, 2013) compares perceptions and interpretations of poverty after World War II in East- and West-German history within the different contexts of democracy and dictatorship. Dr Lorke examines how both states debated and communicated about social inequality, and how they treated specific groups, such as war victims, large families, and the elderly. He also considers respectable versus unrespectable poverty and reflects on the structural inequality in relations between the two states and the “new poverty” that became noticeable following the Reunification.

Melzer, Patricia. Death in the Shape of a Young Girl. Women’s Political Violence in the Red Army Faction. [Gender and Political Violence Series.] New York University Press, New York (NY) [etc.] 2015. xii, 337 pp. Ill. $35.00.

In this study about women in the German terrorist movement of the 1970s, Professor Melzer focuses on the seemingly oppositional politics of the Red Army Faction (RAF) and feminism. Questioning the separation of political violence from feminist politics, she examines the ideology of motherhood in terrorist discourse, the autonomous women’s movement and mainstream media; feminist responses to media representations of women terrorists; gender aspects of the RAF hunger strikes; and autobiographies of former female terrorists, concluding that these women understood their violent political actions as feminist practices that challenged existing gender ideologies.

Sedlmaier, Alexander. Consumption and Violence. Radical Protest in Cold-War West Germany. [Social History, Popular Culture, and Politics in Germany.] The University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor (MI) 2014. 335 pp. $80.00. (Paper: $39.50; E-book: $39.50.)

In this book about protest movements against consumer society in West Germany between 1950 and 1990, Dr Sedlmaier describes violent protest actions, such as the 1968 department store arsons in Frankfurt, conflicts over public transport fares between the mid-1960s and early 1980s, the anti-Springer Media campaign, and the squatting movement. He also traces theoretical understandings of consumer capitalism (especially the work of Herbert Marcuse) and analyses the writings of the Red Army Faction). See also Benjamin Möckel’s review in this volume, pp. 345–347.

Sinjen, Beke. Prosa der Verhältnisse. Die Entdeckung der Erzählliteratur durch die Arbeiterbewegung (1863–1906). Klartext Verlag, Essen 2015. 379 pp. € 34.95.

This book is about the discovery of prose fiction by the labour movement in Germany between the 1840s and 1906. While previous studies have focused mainly on labour poetry and theatre, Dr Sinjen, concentrating on the period from 1863 to 1909, examines various forms of working-class prose writing, discussing for example a novel about the early years of social democracy by Johann Baptist von Schweitzer, and stories published in serial form by authors such as Carl Lübeck and Robert Schweichel. See also Patrick Eiden-Offe’s review in this volume, pp. 334–336.

Vom Linksliberalismus zur Sozialdemokratie. Politische Lebenswege in historischen Richtungskonflikten 1890–1945. Hrsg. Detlef Lehnert. [Historische Demokratieforschung. Schriften der Hugo-Preußstiftung und der Paul-Löbe-Stiftung, Band 8.] Böhlau Verlag, Köln [etc.] 2015. 318 pp. Ill. € 42.90.

This volume features biographies of eleven social-democratic politicians, trade unionists, social reformers, and journalists who had previously been left-wing liberals: the politician and historian Franz Mehring; trade unionists and politicians Anton Erlenz and Siegfried Aufhäuser; the pacifist journalist Kurt Eisner; the journalist and social reformer Paul Nathan; Max Kosler, who campaigned against anti-Semitism; the lawyer and politician Hugo Sinzheimer; and politicians Adolf Grimme, Rudolf Breitscheid, Georg Schümer, and Ludwig Bergsträsser. The introduction provides background information about Imperial and Weimar German party history and explains relevant political terms.

Great Britain

Dancy, J. Ross. The Myth of the Press Gang. Volunteers, Impressment and the Naval Manpower Problem in the Late Eighteenth Century. The Boydell Press, Woodbridge 2015. xiv, 213 pp. £75.00.

Drawing on Royal Navy muster books of ships commissioned between 1793 and 1801, this book about British naval manpower during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars offers detailed information about individual seamen and petty officers: their age; form of recruitment; date of entry; place of birth; discharge; and skill levels. While recruiting enough men for the Navy was a major problem for the Admiralty, according to Professor Dancy, the largest body of men were not pressed men but volunteers. Especially at the beginning of wars, however, in efforts to find seamen with specific skills, additional manpower was obtained via impressment.

Levine-Clark, Marjorie. Unemployment, Welfare, and Masculine Citizenship. “So Much Honest Poverty” in Britain, 1870–1930. [Genders and Sexualities in History Series.] Palgrave MacMillan, Basingstoke [etc.] 2015. xix, 304 pp. £60.00.

Poverty and unemployment have restricted the abilities of men to act out dominant models of masculinity and to fulfil the male breadwinner ideal, according to Professor Levine-Clark. Introducing the concept of “honest poverty”, she aims to demonstrate how British policymakers, welfare providers, and working-class men from c.1870 to 1930 struggled to reconcile men’s dependence on state assistance within understandings of masculine citizenship. She emphasizes, for example, the importance of the “work imperative” (men should prove they wanted to work) and marital status, through which “honest” unemployed men could demonstrate their “welfare deservedness”.

Strange, Julie-Marie. Fatherhood and the British Working Class, 1865–1914. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2015. ix, 234 pp. £65.00; $99.00.

Histories of working-class family life in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain generally rely on official discourse, according to Professor Strange. In this book, she draws on working-class autobiographies to examine what fatherhood and father-child relationships meant to people raised in urban and rural working-class families and to explore how emotional ties were formed between fathers and their children, and how fathers interacted with children inside and outside the home.

Trounce, Beverley. From a Rock to a Hard Place. Memories of the 1984/85 Miners’ Strike. With a contr. by ex-striking miner Charlie Cibor. The History Press, Stroud 2015. 127 pp. Ill. £12.99.

The 1984/85 miners’ strike in the United Kingdom was not only about saving jobs, according to this richly illustrated book. It was also an attempt to protect communities and preserve a way of life. Beverley Trounce, whose father was a miner, has interviewed people directly involved to offer an account of the Great Miners’ Strike, covering the pickets; the collieries; the poverty of the time; the role of women’s groups; and the effects on the wider community, as well as the aftermath, and what the strike’s legacy means to people today.

Greece

Kornetis, Kostis. Children of the Dictatorship. Student Resistance, Cultural Politics and the “Long 1960s” in Greece. [Protest, Culture and Society.] Berghahn, New York (NY) [etc.] 2013. xvii, 373 pp. Ill. $120.00; £75.00. (Paper: $34.95; £22.00.)

Based mainly on personal testimonies, this is a history of the Greek student movement during the dictatorship of the Colonels (1967–1974). Highlighting the role of (Marxist) literature, music, cinema, and theatre, Professor Kornetis examines the social and political backgrounds of the students; the influence of the traditional Greek left; differences between two “generations” of student activists; their role in the regime’s demise; and their disillusionment following the regime change. Comparing Greek student activism with other movements of the 1960s, Kornetis concludes that Greek students were fighting for basic human and political rights already established in Amsterdam, Paris, and Berlin.

Papadogiannis, Nikolaos. Militant Around the Clock? Left-Wing Youth Politics, Leisure, and Sexuality in Post-Dictatorship Greece, 1974–1981. Berghahn, New York (NY) [etc.] 2015. x, 327 pp. Ill. $110.00; $68.00.

In this book about left-wing youth politics and culture in Greece during the first years after the collapse of the military dictatorship, Dr Papadogiannis examines cultural practices (music, theatre, cinema, reading, and discussion) and sexual behaviours of young people belonging to or sympathizing with orthodox and heterodox communist and socialist youth organizations, analysing whether these activities were in accordance with official party guidelines. He also describes contacts with other European youth movements, the influence of both America and the Soviet Union and the role of left-wing youth in reinventing a Greek “popular tradition”.

Italy

Anna Kuliscioff. Il socialismo e la cittadinanza della donna. Maurizio Degl’Innocenti, Fiorenza Taricone, Paolo Passaniti [a.o.]. Agra editrice, Roma 2015. 300 pp. Ill. € 20.00.

Published in recognition of the ninetieth anniversary of the death of the feminist and socialist Anna Kuliscioff (1857–1925), this book comprises an article assessing her significance for the economic and political emancipation of women in Italy; a biographical sketch; an essay about the Italian legal framework for women’s citizenship; and another on photography as a source for the history of women’s work. The volume also includes a bibliography of Kuliscioff’s works, a sample of her writings and some visual documents.

Galzerano, Giuseppe. Paolo Lega. Vita, viaggio, processo, “complotto” e morte dell’anarchico romagnolo che attentò alla vita del primo ministro Francesco Crispi. [Atti e memorie del popolo.] Galzerano Editore, Salerno 2014. 1161 pp. Ill. € 50.00.

On 16 June 1894, the anarchist Paolo Lega tried in vain to shoot the Italian Prime Minister Francesco Crispi. This attempt was used by Crispi and the monarchy as a pretext for launching a series of repressive anti-anarchist and anti-socialist laws and arresting a great many purported accomplices of Lega. Galzerano offers a detailed reconstruction of the attempt to assassinate Crispi, the background of Lega and his trial, conviction, and death in a penal colony and describes the persecution of his alleged accomplices as well. The appendix includes personal documents and short biographies of Lega’s associates, his “accomplices” and involved parties.

Gambini, Claudio. Comunisti e sindacato. Dalle origini alle leggi eccezionali (1921–1926). Pref. di Alexander Höbel. Pres. di Franco Ottaviano. Editori Riuniti, Roma 2015. 343 pp. € 25.00.

This book is about the relationship between the Communist Party of Italy (PCI) and the Italian labour movement from 1921 (when the PCI was founded) to 1926 (when it was prohibited, and strikes were forbidden). After discussing the decline of the labour movement following the widespread social conflict of the so-called Red Two Years (1919–1920) and the rise of fascism, Mr Gambini provides a detailed year-by-year account of PCI involvement in labour organizations; PCI relations with the General Confederation of Labour (CGL) and unions such as the FIOM (metalworkers); the repression of labour activism; and the ultimate abolishment of all independent labour unions.

The Netherlands

Linden, David van der. Experiencing Exile. Huguenot Refugees in the Dutch Republic, 1680–1700. [Politics and Culture in Europe, 1650–1750.] Ashgate, Farnham 2015. xvi, 289 pp. Ill. Maps. £75.00.

After the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685 around 35,000 Huguenots fled to the Dutch Republic, not only to escape religious persecution, according to Dr Van der Linden, but also for socioeconomic reasons. Using archival materials from the towns of Dieppe and Rotterdam, he analyses how successful Huguenot refugees were in building a new life – poor people as well as textile entrepreneurs, ministers, and booksellers. The author also examines religious experiences among Huguenots, as well as memoires and histories published by refugee ministers.

Timmermans, Jan. Wonen als arbeider in een textielstad. Arbeidershuisvesting in Tilburg, 1870–1938. Verloren, Hilversum 2015. 342 pp. Ill. € 35.00.

This is a history of public housing politics in the Dutch textile-producing town of Tilburg from 1870 to 1938. Jan Timmermans compares housing conditions in Tilburg with those in other industrial centres in the Netherlands and Britain; discusses the Dutch public housing and public health acts of 1901; examines the response by the housing cooperatives and the reluctant acceptance by local authorities of their new responsibilities; and highlights the influence of the Roman Catholic Church.

Russia – Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Tuna, Mustafa. Imperial Russia’s Muslims. Islam, Empire, and European Modernity, 1788–1914. [Critical Perspectives on Empire.] Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2015. xiii, 276 pp. £64.99; $99.99.

Drawing mainly on Turkic and Russian primary sources ranging from the correspondence of tsarist officials to newspaper advertisements, in this book Professor Tuna documents the experience of Volga-Ural Muslims in the Russian Empire from the late eighteenth century to World War I. After introducing the Volga-Ural Muslim “domain” through the life stories of Islamic scholars who lived among the peasants, he examines the roles of religion; social networks; Russian state intervention in Muslim communities; infrastructural changes; and the ways that European modernity transformed both the state and Muslim society.

Volodarsky, Boris. Stalin’s Agent. The Life and Death of Alexander Orlov. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2015. xxxii, 289 pp. £22.50.

Alexander Orlov, whose real name was Leiba Lazarevich Feldbin, served as an NKVD officer in Spain during the Civil War. He was involved in an operation to send Spain’s gold reserves to the Soviet Union and in the assassination of POUM leader Andreu Nin. Orlov was also the Soviet handler controlling the British spy Kim Philby. In the late 1930s, Orlov fled to America. Examining KGB archives alongside files from American and British intelligence agencies, in this biography Dr Volodarsky aims to demonstrate that Orlov never truly defected to the West but remained a loyal Soviet agent until his death.

Spain

Jornaleras, campesinas y agricultoras. La historia agraria desde una perspectiva de género. Teresa María Ortega López (ed.). [Monografías de Historia Rural, 11.] Prensas de la Universidad de Zaragoza, Zaragoza 2015. 450 pp. € 28.00.

Aiming to shed light on the roles of women in Spanish and Argentine agriculture from the seventeenth century onwards, the fourteen contributions to this volume include articles on women and child labourers in the Mallorca olive harvest (1645–1680); rural women in the province of Buenos Aires (1869); family labour in Argentine sugar cane cultivation (1930–1960); women in Basque rural society; militancy among women workers in southwest Spain (1900–1935); and women selling ceramic clay in rural Galicia. One chapter is about women in agriculture in Roman Spain; another presents photographs conveying a visual history of women in agriculture.

Living the Death of Democracy in Spain. The Civil War and Its Aftermath. Ed., with an introduction, by Susana Bayó Belenguer, Ciaran Cosgrove, James Whiston. Routledge, London [etc.] 2015. xiv, 337 pp. £95.00.

In addition to five contributions on Spanish Civil War cinema and six about literature (e.g. views of the Civil War in Irish literature and in the works of Jorge Semprún and Dulce Chacón), this bilingual volume features ten articles on the history of the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath, discussing, for example, the return of the so-called Salamanca papers to Catalonia; Irish responses to the fall of the Second Republic; propaganda in Franco’s Spain; the role of Colonel Segismundo Casado in the end of the Republic; and Spanish refugee children in Britain, the Soviet Union, and France. These articles were originally published in Bulletin of Spanish Studies (2012).