Algeria

Byrne, Jeffrey James. Mecca of Revolution. Algeria, Decolonization, and the Third World Order. [Oxford Studies in International History.] Oxford University Press, Oxford [etc.] 2016. xv, 388 pp. £58.00.

Examination of Algeria's interactions with the wider world brings the Third Worldist perspective on the twentieth century into view. The chapters chart the evolution of the Third World project from its interwar beginnings to the inflection point of 1965, in which the transformation of Third Worldism from a transnational mode of cooperation into an international collaboration was crucial and legitimized the authority of the postcolonial state, imposing order and structural uniformity on the process of decolonization. Professor Byrne demystifies terms like Non-Alignment, Afro-Asianism, and Bandung, and sheds new light on the relationships between the emergent elites of Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America.

Cole, Joshua. Lethal Provocation. The Constantine Murders and the Politics of French Algeria. Cornell University Press, Ithaca (NY) [etc.] 2019. ix, 317 pp. Ill. Maps. $37.95. (E-book: $18.99).

French sovereignty in Algeria created many obstacles to political participation for Algeria's Muslims, as it offered citizenship for Algeria's Jews. Professor Cole reconstructs the 1934 riots in the city of Constantine, Algeria, in which tensions between Muslims and Jews were aggravated by right-wing extremists, resulting in the deaths of twenty-eight people. He tells the story of a small group of agitators, led by Mohamed El Maadi, who committed multiple murders with the intention of disrupting society by escalating the horror of the events, showing that this was not just a classic pogrom, but that these right-wing extremists deliberately sought authoritarian or fascist solutions to the political crisis of the 1930s.

Egypt

Close, Ronnie. Cairo's Ultras. Resistance and Revolution in Egypt's Football Culture. The American University in Cairo Press, Cairo [etc.] 2019. vii, 233 pp. Ill. £24.95.

The Ultras Ahlawy and the Ultras White Knights, fans of Cairo's main soccer clubs, became embroiled in the street protests that brought down the Mubarak regime. Tracing these social movements to explore their role in the uprising and the political dimension of soccer in Egypt, Dr Close conveys the unique subculture of the Ultras, exploring how football communities offer ways of belonging and meaning in everyday life, elaborating on what aesthetics can mean for football subcultures, and on how appearance is political. Group activities and the use of objects configure communal bonds of collective solidarity. The author concludes by showing how the Ultras have been crushed by the military state complex, along with other oppositional voices.

Ethiopia

Land Tenure Security. State-peasant Relations in the Amhara Highlands, Ethiopia. Ed. by Ege, Svein. [Eastern Africa Series.] James Currey, Rochester (NY)2019. xviii, 186 pp. Maps. £60.00.

As in other parts of Africa, the land issue dominates life in Ethiopia, where agriculture accounts for 80 per cent of employment. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in northern Ethiopia from the 1990s onwards, this is a local analysis of the impact of the land tenure system in the Amhara highlands. Complementing the macro research of international economists, the authors take a detailed look at the impact of the 1975 land reforms for those in the North Shäwa, Wälo and Gojam regions, where the peasantry depends upon the land not only for their homes but also their livelihoods. The nine contributions in this volume focus on peasant land rights, rural inequality and the development tendencies of the land tenure system.

Mains, Daniel. Under Construction. Technologies of Development in Urban Ethiopia. Duke University Press, Durham (NC) [etc.] 2019. xi, 226 pp. Ill. $99.95. (Paper: $25.95).

Over the past decade Ethiopia has had one of the fastest growing economies in the world, largely thanks to its investments in infrastructure. Yet, most urban Ethiopians struggle to meet their daily needs and actively oppose a ruling party associated with corruption and mismanagement. In this book, Professor Mains examines the conflicts surrounding the construction of specific infrastructural technologies: hydro-electric dams; asphalt roads; three-wheeled motorcycle taxis; and cobblestone roads. These projects, serving as sites for nation building and the means for the state to assert its legitimacy, while Ethiopians experience living with the disruption of construction zones, reveal the process of contestations between citizens and state over access to imagined futures.

Kenya

Česnulytė, Eglé. Selling Sex in Kenya. Gendered Agency under Neoliberalism. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2019. viii, 206 pp. £75.00.

This study on women selling sex in Mombasa, Kenya, reveals a range of gendered and gendering effects that neoliberal politics have on everyday socio-political realities. Based on interviews with women who identified as sex workers, Dr Cesnulyté explores the changes brought by neoliberal re-structuring to the Kenyan economy and its effects on the position of women in the already gendered labour markets. She explores the dreams of women in the sex industry and reveals how sex workers aim to improve their financial and social situation, while considering possible actors for promoting an exit from sex work: the Kenyan state, the NGO sector and the sex worker movement.

Senegal

Fredericks, Rosalind. Garbage Citizenship. Vital Infrastructures of Labor in Dakar, Senegal. Duke University Press, Durham (NC)2018. xi, 200 pp. Ill. $94.95. (Paper: $24.95).

Over the last twenty-five years, garbage infrastructure in Dakar has taken centre stage in the struggles over government, the value of labour and the dignity of the working poor. Garbage activists critique the neoliberal mode of governing-through-disposability and assert rights to fair labour. In this book, Professor Fredericks traces Dakar's trash politics to recalibrate how we understand urban infrastructure by emphasizing its material, social, and affective elements. Demonstrating that labour is a key component of infrastructural systems, she describes how it is used by Dakar's residents as vital for forging collective identities and mobilizing political action, illuminating the myriad ways waste can be a potent tool of urban control and rebellion.

South Africa

Lilja, Fredrik. Whip of the Vine. Labour Relations and the Role of Alcohol in Western Cape Wine Farming from the 1940s to the 2010s. [Skrifter med historiska perspektiv, No. 20.] Malmö University Press, Malmö2019. 214 pp. (Open Access).

The Western Cape in South Africa is famous for its wine. For centuries, workers were paid partly in wine through the infamous dop system, which contributed to dependence on both alcohol and the farmers who supplied it. In the twenty-first century, such practices have become rare, but alcohol problems remain rampant among farm labourers. The purpose of this book is to analyse the role of alcohol in Western Cape wine farming by explaining the decline of the dop system, and how its replacement has impacted labour relations. Dr Lilja focuses also on what farmers, trade unions, non-governmental organizations, and the state have done to prevent alcohol abuse.

Bolivia

Goodale, Mark. A Revolution in Fragments. Traversing Scales of Justice, Ideology, and Practice in Bolivia. Duke University Press, Durham (NC) [etc.] 2019. xv, 299 pp. Ill. $104.95. (Paper: $27.95).

The years 2006 to 2015, when Evo Morales served as Bolivia's first indigenous president, have been described as a time of democratic and cultural revolution. In this book, Professor Goodale reveals the fragmentary and contested nature of Bolivia's radical experiments in pluralism, ethnic politics, and socio-economic planning, in each chapter covering key themes that emerged through multi-scalar research on justice, ideology, and practice. Privileging the voices of social movement leaders, students, indigenous intellectuals, women's rights activists, and many others, the author uses contemporary Bolivia as an ideal case study for theorizing about the role that political agency, identity, and economic equality play within movements for justice and structural change.

Colombia

López-Pedreros, A. Ricardo. Makers of Democracy. The Transnational Formation of the Middle Classes in Colombia. [Radical Perspectives.] Duke University Press, Durham (NC) [etc.] 2019. xvii, 341 pp. Ill. $104.95. (Paper: $28.95).

In this book, Professor López-Pedreros traces the ways in which a thriving middle class was a foundational marker of democracy in Colombia during the second half of the twentieth century. Drawing on sources ranging from training manuals and oral histories to school and business archives, he shows how the Colombian middle class devised a model of democracy based on free-market ideologies, private property rights, material inequality, and an emphasis on a masculine work culture. This model, which naturalized class and gender hierarchies, paved the way for later adoption of neoliberalism in Colombia and inspired the emergence of alternative models of democracy and social hierarchies that fomented political radicalization in the 1960s and 1970s.

Cuba

The Revolution from Within. Cuba, 1959–1980. Ed. by Bustamante, Michael J. and Lambe, Jennifer L.. Duke University Press, Durham (NC)2019. viii, 332 pp. Ill. $104.95. (Paper: $27.95).

Emphasizing a Cuba-centric historicist approach, the aim of this volume is to contribute to the work on the Revolution being produced within and beyond Cuba. Drawing on previously unexamined archives, the contributors explore the dynamics of socio-political inclusion and exclusion during the first two decades following the revolution. In the fourteen essays on agrarian reform, the environment, dance and fashion illustrating the experiences of Cubans from all walks of life, from ordinary citizens and bureaucrats to artists and political leaders, in their interactions with and contributions to the emerging revolutionary state, the authors explore the period beginning with the utopic mobilizations of the early 1960s and ending with the 1980 Mariel boatlift.

El Salvador

Gould, Jeffrey L.Solidarity under Siege. The Salvadoran Labor Movement, 1970–1990. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge2019. 262 pp. Ill. £69.99. (Paper: £22.99).

The civil war in El Salvador originated in the state repression against the militant Salvadorian labour movements. In this book, Professor Gould documents the port workers and shrimp fishermen who struggled, yet prospered under extremely adverse conditions during the 1970s, only to suffer discord, deprivation, and the demise of their industry and unions in subsequent decades. Based on union and court archives and interviews conducted with former plant workers and fishermen, the author portrays the rise and fall of the Salvadoran labour movement. Seeking to understand the transition to neoliberalism in Central America, he examines the (mis-)alliances between the urban working class and rural poor and focuses on failed encounters of social movements.

United States of America

Fink, Leon. Deliverance Revisited. Der Triumph von Trump, die liberalen Eliten und die weiße Zombie-Arbeiterklasse. [Re: Work. Arbeit Global – Historische Rundgänge, Bd. 2.] De Gruyter Oldenbourg, Berlin2019. vi, 39 pp. € 29.95; $34.99; £27.00. (E-book: € 29.95; $34.99; £27.00).

The shift of the electorate resulting in the Trump victory arises not from a global trend towards anti-politics or a sudden shift to the right but from a process that began in the US in the late 1960s. Professor Fink formulates two key objections. The first is that white worker voices would have made less of a difference if Hillary Clinton had not lost so many votes among African Americans, Latinos, and people of Asian descent. Second, he argues that the Democratic Party's loss of a voter base among white workers dates back to the years between 1968 and 1980.

Fox-Amato, Matthew. Exposing Slavery. Photography, Human Bondage, and the Birth of Modern Visual Politics in America. Oxford University Press, New York [etc.] 2019. xii, 343 pp. Ill. £25.99.

Within a few years of the invention of photography in 1839, American slaveholders were commissioning photographic portraits of their slaves. Professor Fox-Amato explores how photography altered and was in turn shaped by conflicts over bondage. Drawing on hundreds of unpublished and little-studied original photographs of slaves, ex-slaves, and abolitionists, as well as on written archival materials, he depicts visual culture as pivotal in understanding the experience of late slavery and author assesses how photography helped southerners to defend slavery, slaves to shape their social ties, abolitionists to strengthen their movement and soldiers to imagine and pictorially enact an interracial society during the Civil War.

Hirota, Hidetaka. Expelling the Poor. Atlantic Seaboard States and the 19th-Century Origins of American Immigration Policy. Oxford University Press, Oxford2017. xii, 302 pp. Ill. £27.99.

This book tells the story of Irish immigrants deported from the United States due to their poverty, based on an analysis of immigration policies in American coastal states, including New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Louisiana, and California. The influx of impoverished Irish immigrants over the first half of the nineteenth century led nativists in New York and Massachusetts to develop policies for prohibiting the landing of destitute foreigners and deporting those already residing in some states to Europe, Canada, or other American states. Locating the roots of American immigration control against the Irish, this book revises the history of American immigration policy, which has focused largely on anti-Asian racism on the West Coast.

Parker, Traci. Department Stores and the Black Freedom Movement. Workers, Consumers, and Civil Rights from the 1930s to the 1980s. [The John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture.] University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill (NC)2019. xiii, 328 pp. Ill. $90.00. (Paper: $27.95; E-book: $21.99).

In this book, Professor Parker examines the Department Store Movement to racially integrate white-collar work and consumption in American department stores and elaborates on historical transformations in African American class and labour formation. Building on the goals, organization, and momentum of earlier struggles for justice, the Department Store Movement channelled the power of store workers and consumers to promote black freedom in the mid-twentieth century. Sponsoring lunch-counter sit-ins and protests in the 1950s and 1960s and challenging discrimination in the courts in the 1970s, this movement ended in the early 80s with the conclusion of the Sears, Roebuck and Co. affirmative action cases and the transformation and consolidation of American department stores.

Perlmann, Joel. America Classifies the Immigrants. From Ellis Island to the 2020 Census. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA) [etc.] 2018. viii, 451 pp. $46.50; £37.95; € 42.00.

When more than twenty million immigrants arrived in the United States between 1880 and 1920, the government attempted to classify them according to prevailing ideas about race and nationality. American immigration policy built increasingly upon the belief that some groups of immigrants were desirable, others not. Dr Perlmann traces how debates on this policy institutionalized race distinctions in immigration laws that endured for four decades. Despite a gradual shift from “race” to “ethnic group” after the 1920s, the diffusion of this concept persisted. The book ends with the introduction of Hispanic origin (1980), the recognition of mixed racial origins (2000), and a rethinking of connections between race and ethnic group (proposed for 2020).

Smith, Zackary. Age of Fear. Othering and American Identity during World War I. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore (MD)2019. xi, 233 pp. Ill. $59.95.

In this book, Dr Smith, arguing that as World War I grew more menacing, and many white Anglo-Saxon Americans became increasingly concerned about the vulnerability of their race, culture, and authority, examines four factors that contributed to the wartime Othering of the German enemy. One is that rationalizations were often grounded in interpretations of real wartime events. Second, ideas about racial progress opened the possibility that an advanced white race like the Germans could devolve into a regressed state. Third, Americans had familiar Othering templates in the common view that African Americans were inherently untrustworthy, and, finally, the prevailing apocalyptic worldview was an example of deep-seated wartime paranoia.

Warren, Lenora. Fire on the Water. Sailors, Slaves, and Insurrection in Early American Literature, 1789–1886. [Transits: Literature, Thought and Culture 1650–1850.] Bucknell University Press, Lewisburg (PA)2019. 169 pp. $99.95. (Paper, E-book: $34.95).

Professor Warren examines representations of shipboard mutiny and insurrection in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Anglo-American and American literature focusing on four specific moments and using five real-life black sailors as point of entry. The moments are the formation of the British Abolitionist movement in the 1780s, the Denmark Vesey Conspiracy in 1821, the Amistad mutiny of 1839, the Creole mutiny of 1841, and the case of Washington Goode in 1849. The stories of sailors, both real and fictional, reveal how the history of mutiny and insurrection is both shaped by and resistant to the prevailing abolitionist rhetoric surrounding the efficacy of armed rebellion as a response to slavery.

Wilentz, Sean. No Property in Man. Slavery and Antislavery at the Nation's Founding. With a New Preface. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA) [etc.] 2019. xvii, 350 pp. $18.95; £15.95; € 17.00.

As some historians have insisted that slaveholders enshrined racial slavery at the nation's founding, Professor Wilentz asserts that although the pro-slavery side won important concessions, antislavery impulses also influenced the work of the framers of the Constitution, which, far from covering up a crime against humanity, restricted the legitimacy of slavery under the new national government. In time, that limitation paved the way to antislavery politics that led to Southern secession, the Civil War, and Emancipation. The author describes the document as a tortured paradox that abided slavery without legitimizing it and underlay the great political battles that fractured the nation over the next seventy years.

China

Andreas, Joel. Disenfranchised. The Rise and Fall of Industrial Citizenship in China. Oxford University Press, New York [etc.] 2019. xii, 302 pp. £64.00. (Paper: £19.99).

Industrial employment in China has changed radically in recent decades, shifting from a system of permanent job tenure to one that depends largely on highly flexible precarious labour. Professor Andreas argues that the Chinese case is especially instructive because of the extensive variations in individual citizenship rights at the workplace and the critical impact of this situation on opportunities for democratic participation. Based on field research including interviews with both factory workers and managers, the author traces the changing political status of workers inside Chinese factories from 1949 to the present, analysing how much power they actually had to shape their working conditions.

Farley, James. Model Workers in China, 1949–1965. Constructing a New Citizen. [Routledge Studies in Modern History.] Routledge, Abingdon2019. xvi, 198 pp. Ill. £140.00. (E-book: £39.99).

Although ideology and economic policy changed in China following the death of Mao Zedong, the “Model Workers” persisted in propaganda and public relations campaigns. Model Workers were deployed at key points in recent Chinese history, symbolizing the Party vision of the ideal Chinese citizen. Although the messages Model Workers promote have largely changed, their continued use indicates that they are still considered an effective form of persuasion. In this book, Dr Farley analyses posters, cinema, and translations of related propaganda material to explore the influence of the Model Worker concept on both propaganda and national policy.

Wemheuer, Felix. A Social History of Maoist China. Conflict and Change, 1949–1976. [New Approaches to Asian History.] Cambridge University Press, Cambridge2019. xvi, 331 pp. Ill. Maps. £59.99. (Paper: £22.99; E-book $24.00).

Covering the period 1949 to 1976 and tracing the legacy of the Mao era through the 1980s, Professor Wemheuer presents a social history of Maoist China, focusing on questions of class, gender, ethnicity and the urban-rural divide. Analysing the experiences of a range of social groups under Communist rule: workers, peasants, local cadres, intellectuals, ethnic minorities, the old elites, and men and women, he uses three key dimensions: social change; classification; and conflict. Each chapter opens with an individual story to introduce the discussion. At the end of each chapter the author presents a wider selection of written sources from archives, internal reports, private collections, and databases. See also Jacob Eyffert's review in this volume, pp. 156–159.

India

Finkelstein, Maura. The Archive of Loss. Lively Ruination in Mill Land Mumbai. Duke University Press, Durham (NC) [etc.] 2019. x, 252 pp. Ill. $99.95. (Paper: $25.95).

Mumbai's textile industry is commonly understood to be an extinct relic of the past. In this book, Professor Finkelstein examines how textile mill workers experience living and working during a period of deindustrialization. The author argues that the archives she based her conclusions on are more than just a site, showing how mills are ethnographic archives of the city where documents, artefacts, and stories exist in the buildings and in the bodies of workers. The collection of five archives featured here includes the archive of the mill, of the worker, of the chawl, of the great textile strike, and of the industrial fire.

Kidambi, Prashant. Cricket Country. An Indian Odyssey in the Age of Empire. Oxford University Press, New York2019. xx, 423 pp. Ill. Maps. £25.00.

Drawing on a range of archival sources, this book is the story of the first “All India” cricket tour of Great Britain and Ireland in 1911. Professor Kidambi shows how the idea of India took shape on the cricket field at the high noon of empire, placing the tour of the Indian cricketer in the context of an intensified interplay between sport and imperial cultural diplomacy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The organizers of the venture regarded forming a national team as essential for India to gain entry to the Imperial Cricket Conference, founded in 1909 by representatives of England, Australia, and South Africa.

Indonesia

Bastide, Loïs. Habiter le transnational. Espace, travail et migration entre Java, Kuala Lumpur et Singapour. [De l'Orient à l'Occident.] ENS, Lyon2015. 305 pp. Maps. € 24.00.

Indonesia is one of the largest labour-exporting countries in the world. In this social anthropology of migration by Indonesian workers to Malaysia and Singapore, Dr Bastide shows that they are key to the transformation of Southeast Asian societies and the globalization of regional economies and describes their social, political, cultural, and historical backgrounds using an ethnographic approach and shedding light on transnational areas linked to the processes of this “globalized precariat.” Whilst societies are opening up as a result of migrations, lives are now being lived in a transnational setting.

Israel

Abu-Laban, Yasmeen and Bakan, Abigail B.. Israel, Palestine and the Politics of Race. Exploring Identity and Power in a Global Context. I.B. Tauris, London [etc.] 2019. x, 341 pp. $63.00. (Paper: $21.66; E-book: $15.32).

In this book, professors Abu-Laban and Bakan discuss the historic and contemporary dynamics in Israel/Palestine from the vantage point of race, racialization, racism, and anti-racism. Their argument is presented in three parts, each one offering a specific perspective on the hegemonic framework regarding Israel/Palestine and the politics of race. In Part One, the authors use political science and ethnic studies to examine how such hegemonic ideas are expressed in state security and surveillance in Israel/Palestine. Part Two is focused on the United Nations and the framework of human rights and the politics of race. In Part Three, the authors consider the politics of race within contemporary idea of growing opposition to the established racial contract.

Korea

Park, Alyssa M.Sovereignty Experiments. Korean Migrants and the Building of Borders in Northeast Asia, 1860–1945. [Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute.] Cornell University Press, Ithaca (NY)2019. xviii, 284 p. Ill. Maps. $49.95. (E-book: $24.99).

This story is set in the Tumen Valley, a borderland between Korea and China and, following boundary redrawing boundary in 1860, also the Russian empire. In the mid-nineteenth century, thousands of Koreans settled in the Russian Maritime and Chinese Jilin Province. Professor Park relates how authorities in Korea, Russia, China, and Japan competed to control Korean migrants through diplomatic negotiations, border regulations, legal categorization of subjects and aliens, and cultural policies. She contends that these processes were part of a broader push by various states to build modern sovereignty in Northeast Asia in the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. See also Mark Gamsa's review in this volume, pp. 155–156.

Vietnam

Neville, Peter. Ho Chi Minh. Routledge Historical Biographies. Routledge, London [etc.] 2019. xiv, 245 pp. Maps. £90.00. (Paper, E-book: £24.99).

This biography charts the life of Ho Chi Minh from his early years and education in Europe to his establishment of the pro-communist movement, the Viet Minh, and his rise to power. Dr Neville emphasizes his military role while stressing his preference for diplomatic solutions and analyses the failure to prevent the Franco-Viet Minh war in 1946. The author follows Ho's complex relationships with America, China, France, and Russia and explores the Vietnam War and its legacy and shares coverage of the 1954 Geneva Conference, details the rivalry between Ho and First Secretary Le Duan and the 1968 Tet Offensive and discusses his attitude towards women and their role within the communist party.

Czech Republic

Buresova, Jane Barbora. The Dynamics of Forced Female Migration from Czechoslovakia to Britain, 1938–1950. [Exile Studies, Vol. 18.] Peter Lang, Oxford [etc.] 2019. xxii, 326 pp. Ill. Maps. £48.00; $72.95; € 59.30.

This study links two totalitarian regimes (fascism and communism), the ramifications of the causal effect of major political upheavals and the resultant successive cohorts of migration. Dr Buresova explores the experiences, dilemmas, and contributions to Britain by these women within a socio-political context, commencing with the 1938 Munich Agreement that precipitated exile and continuing to the 1950s. Her aim is to research and document the reasons for forced migration by Czechoslovak women and their experiences in exile in Britain. Adopting a dual archival and oral history approach, the author presents a detailed and nuanced report on their experiences, including wartime roles in the armed services, the Czechoslovak Red Cross, women's organizations, and patriotic cultural societies.

Eire – Ireland

Whatmore, Richard. Terrorists, Anarchists, and Republicans. The Genevans and the Irish in Time of Revolution. Princeton University Press, Princeton (NJ) [etc.] 2019. xxix, 478 pp. Ill. $39.95; £34.00.

In 1798, United Irishmen were massacred by the British within the walls of a half-built town near Waterford in Ireland. Many of the Irish were republicans inspired by the French Revolution, and the site of their demise was known as Genevan Barracks. These Barracks were the remnants of an experimental community called New Geneva, a settlement of Calvinist republican rebels who fled the continent in 1782. Professor Whatmore brings to life a violent age in which powerful states like Britain and France intervened in the affairs of smaller, weaker countries, justifying their actions on the grounds that they were stopping anarchists and terrorists from destroying society, religion, and government.

France

Jarvis, Katie. Politics in the Marketplace. Work, Gender, and Citizenship in Revolutionary France. Oxford University Press, New York [etc.] 2019. xii, 334 pp. Ill. £29.99.

The market women of Paris (the Dames des Halles) sold foodstuffs to the residents of the capital and wielded great revolutionary influence. Professor Jarvis examines how these Dames des Halles invented notions of citizenship through everyday trade, conceptualizing a type of economic citizenship, in which individual activities such as buying goods, selling food or paying taxes positioned them within the body politic and enabling them to make claims on the state. Using judicial, police, legislative, visual, and print sources, the author interweaves their political activism and economic practices to reveal how marketplace actors shaped the nature of nascent democracy and capitalism through daily commerce.

Germany

Grünbacher, Armin. West German Industrialists and the Making of the Economic Miracle. A History of Mentality and Recovery. Bloomsbury, London2017. xii, 207 pp. Ill. £81.00. (Paper: £26.09; E-book: £25.04).

In his book, the author investigates the mentality of post-war German industrialists by analysing their views on social, political and economic matters at the time and their perception of their own role in society against the backdrop of the “economic miracle” and the Cold War. The three parts in this book blend a chronological with a thematic approach, with Part One exploring how even before the Cold War had ended, industrialists began rehabilitating their public image, Part Two covering core issues in the self-perceptions of industrialists during Germany's reconstruction period, and Part Three addressing the influence of businessmen on politics and the role of industrial association in the post-war period.

Müller, Dirk H.Die revolutionären Obleute und der November 1918. Zur Verschränkung von institutioneller Revolution und Rätebewegung. Books on Demand, Norderstedt2019. viii, 339 pp. € 17.00.

Representing the local workers’ councils, the revolutionary Obleute wanted to take power in the German government in the November revolution of 1918. They lost to the SPD and the USPD, which formed a provisional government, agreeing to interlink their institutions with the workers’ and soldiers’ councils of Berlin. This arrangement was short-lived. By mid-December, the revolutionary leaders were in the minority and could not realize their conception of a Republic of workers’ councils. Dr Müller elaborates on the dispute between the Joint Council of People's Representatives and the Executive Council, the domain of the revolutionary Obleute. Through a chronological thematic presentation, the author describes the intricate storylines.

Schmidt, Jürgen. Brüder, Bürger und Genossen. Die deutsche Arbeiterbewegung zwischen Klassenkampf und Bürgergesellschaft 1830-1870. [Geschichte der Arbeiter und der Arbeiterbewegung in Deutschland seit dem Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts, Bd. 4.] Dietz, Bonn2018. 651 pp. Ill. € 68.00.

From a small group of artisans, workers, and intellectuals in the early nineteenth century to the period of German unification in the 1860s, an effective labour movement emerged. Dr Schmidt analyses its success during the development phase of this movement, while at the same time drawing attention to how fragile and endangered this ascent was. In addition to the social democratic associations, confessional and liberal organizations were established. Tracing the vibrancy and diversity of these parties and societies, the author describes them from different perspectives: as early civil society actors; as class-struggle organizations; and as centres of conflict, communication, culture, masculinity, and political work.

Great Britain

The Loes and Wilford Poor Law Incorporation, 1765–1826. “A Prison with a Milder Name”. Ed. by Shaw, John. [Suffolk Records Society, Vol. 62.] Boydell & Brewer, Woodbridge2019. liv, 501 pp. Ill. Maps. £40.00.

Between 1660 and 1841, some 149 corporations of the poor were formed in England through local acts. By uniting a number of parishes these corporations hoped to deal more effectively with the growing problem of pauperism. The editors of this volume, by focusing on the rural incorporation of thirty-three parishes in Loes and Wilford in East Suffolk, draw on a wealth of documents to chart: the zeal of the initial promoters in the 1760s; the construction and management of the House; the development of medical services; the problems faced by the economic crisis of the 1790s; and, as costs continued to rise, the gradual disillusionment of the local elites, leading to the institution's demise in 1826.

Paul, Tawny. The Poverty of Disaster. Debt and Insecurity in Eighteenth-Century Britain. [Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History.] Cambridge University Press, Cambridge2019. xiii, 285 pp. Ill. £75.00. (E-book: $80.00).

The eighteenth century was a time of economic growth and improving living standards in Britain. Yet, thousands of men and women were imprisoned for failing to pay their debts during this period. Dr Paul focuses on the experiences of the middle classes who enjoyed opportunities for success, but also faced the prospect of downward social mobility, examining the role that debt insecurity played within society and the fragility of the credit relations that underpinned commercial activity, livelihood, and social status and demonstrating how insecurity took economic, social, and embodied forms and shaped the work that people did, their social status, their sense of self, their bodily autonomy, and their relationships with others.

Thackeray, David. Forging a British World of Trade. Culture, Ethnicity, and Market in the Empire-Commonwealth, 1880–1975. Oxford University Press, Oxford2019. xiv, 230 pp. Ill. £60.00.

In this book exploring the emergence and decline of efforts to encourage trade between Britain and the Dominions between the 1880s and 1970s, Dr Thackeray studies three interconnected forms of networking (official, business and public) and examines how promoting a British World community competed with alternative forms of trade collaboration. At the beginning of the twentieth century, British politicians and business leaders invested significant resources in promoting trade with Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa. From the 1920s, colonized and decolonizing populations questioned and challenged the basis of British World networks, making use of alternative forms of international collaboration promoted first by the League of Nations and then by the United Nations.

Weston, Janet. Medicine, the Penal System and Sexual Crimes in England, 1919–1960s. Diagnosing Deviance. Bloomsbury Academic, London2018. ix, 205 pp. £76.50. (Paper: £26.09; E-book: £25.04).

Punishment, policing, and understanding of sexual crimes have changed considerably over the last century. Dr Weston traces the evolution of medical interest in the mental state of those convicted of sexual crime. As part of a broader interest in responses to crime, doctors offered new explanations for some sexual crimes and attempted to deliver new cures. Based on medical and criminological texts, trial proceedings, government reports, newspapers, autobiographies, and memoirs, the author reveals shifts in medico-legal practices and attitudes towards sex and health, highlighting the importance of prison doctors and psychologists, rehabilitative programmes and interactions between medical and legal systems as medical theories were put into practice.

Greece

Harlaftis, Gelina. Creating Global Shipping. Aristotle Onassis, the Vagliano Brothers, and the Business of Shipping, c.1820–1970. [Cambridge Studies in the Emergence of Global Enterprise.] Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2019. xxiv, 375 pp. Ill. Maps. £90.00. (E-book: £96.00).

Shipping has been the international business par excellence in many national economies. Professor Harlaftis explores the evolution of European shipping through the study of two Greek shipping firms exemplifying the regional European maritime businesses that evolved to serve Europe's international trade and, eventually, the global economy. By the end of the twentieth century, Greeks owned more ships than any other nationality. The story of the Vagliano brothers traces the transformation of Greek shipping from local shipping and trading to international shipping and ship management, while the case of Aristotle Onassis reveals how international shipping was transformed into a global business.

Italy

Luxury and the Ethics of Greed in Early Modern Italy. Ed. by Kovesi, Catherine. [Early European Research, Vol. 14.] Brepols, Turnhout2018. xxx, 305 pp. Ill. € 90.00.

In early modern Italy, luxury emerged as a core idea in the conceptualization of consumption. Simultaneously, greed, which manifested in new and unrestrained consumption practices, became subject to ethical scrutiny. As the buying power of new classes gained pace, these paradigms evolved and continued to influence and be influenced by other emerging global cultures through the early modern period. After defining luxury and greed in their historical contexts, the thirteen chapters elucidate new consumptive goods, from chocolate to official robes of state; they examine how ideas about and objects of luxury and greed were disseminated through print, diplomacy, and gift-giving, and they reveal how even the most elite of consumers could fake their luxury objects.

Roselaar, Saskia T.Italy's Economic Revolution. Integration and Economy in Republican Italy. Oxford University Press, Oxford [etc.] 2019. xiv, 297 pp. Ill. Maps. £70.00.

The Roman conquest of Italy in the Republican period (400 to 50 BC) led to widespread economic changes. Dr Roselaar analyses the integration of Italy during this period and explores the interplay between economic activities and unification in its civic, legal, social, and cultural senses. Throughout the Republican period Italians were able to profit from the expansion of the Roman dominion in the Mediterranean and the new economic opportunities it afforded. However, their economic prosperity and cultural sophistication did not lead to civic equality or to equal opportunities to exploit the territories the Italians had conquered. Eventually the Italians rebelled against Rome, after which they were finally granted Roman citizenship.

The Netherlands

Van den Bos, Maarten. Geloven in het ideaal. Geschiedenis en actualiteit van de Arbeidersgemeenschap der Woodbrookers. [Passage Reeks, 49.] Uitgeverij Verloren, Hilversum2019. 139 pp. Ill. € 19.00.

Founded in 1919, the Woodbrookers Workers Community was both a place for meeting, training and dialogue and a laboratory for ideas about politics, church and society. Based on the writings of the Community, Dr Van den Bos reviews the history of the Community and its intellectual leader for many years Willem Banning. The book consists of two parts, in which the first four chapters reflect a more or less chronological account of the history of the Community and the developing philosophies about politics, church and society and their influence on the broader social-democratic movement. The final chapter elaborates on the meaning of this intellectual tradition in debate about the future of social democracy.

Poland

Bender, Sara. In Enemy Land. The Jews of Kielce and the Region, 1939–1946. Transl. [from Hebrew] by Greenwood, Naftali and Sternberg, Saadya. [The Holocaust: History and Literature, Ethics, and Philosophy.] Academic Studies Press, Brighton (MA)2018 (2012). xxvi, 328 pp. Ill. Maps. $109.00.

This book on the Jewish community in Kielce and its surroundings opens with an account of history up to the beginning of World War II followed by chapters on the years of Nazi occupation, focusing on the pre-ghettoization period, life in the ghetto and the obliteration of the surrounding Jewish communities. Professor Bender recounts the fate of the last Jews in Kielce (who were taken to slave-labour camps), the question of rescue and the attitude of the Poles and concludes with the pogrom that Poles perpetrated in July 1946 against a group of Jewish survivors who had gathered in the city ahead of emigration to Israel.

Portugal

Varela, Raquel. A People's History of the Portuguese Revolution. Ed. by Peter Robinson. Transl. [from Portuguese] by Purdy, Sean. [People's History.] Pluto Press, London2019. 334 pp. Ill. £75.00. (Paper; E-book: £19.99).

On 25 April 1974, Portugal's fascist government was overthrown in a coup, as people flooded the streets of Lisbon. This became the Carnation Revolution, a coalition of working class and social movements, which also incited struggles for independence in Portugal's African colonies, rebellion by young military captains in the national army, and the uprising of the working classes. Through the organizing power of these diverse movements a popular-front government was instituted, and Portugal withdrew from its overseas colonies. Professor Varela explores the role of the voiceless men and women in trade unions, strikes, demonstrations, and occupations, providing a rich account of the challenges faced and the victories gained through revolutionary means. See also Daniela Melo's review in this volume pp. 159–162.

Russia Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Bergman, Jay. The French Revolutionary Tradition in Russian and Soviet Politics, Political Thought, and Culture. Oxford University Press, New York [etc.] 2019. xxi, 543 pp. £85.00.

Professing a Marxist worldview that considered history a linear process, in which seemingly discrete events were part of a larger and unifying development, Lenin and the Bolsheviks needed revolutions prior to the October Revolution to justify their view and guide the construction of the new society that followed. The revolutions in France in 1789, 1830, 1848, and 1871 comprised what for the Bolsheviks was a genuine Revolutionary Tradition. Professor Bergman considers Bolshevik beliefs about the revolutions in France and the roles of these beliefs in the mythology they devised that would legitimize the nascent Soviet state and justify the entire enterprise of establishing socialism in the Soviet Union.

Martov, Julij O.Un punto di svolta nella storia del movimento operaio ebraico. A cura di Andrea Panaccione. [La Biblioteca Menscevica, 1.] Biblion edizioni, Milan2019. 136 pp. € 15.00.

This is a translation of Martov's speech to the Vilna socialist revolutionaries in 1895, a founding document of one of the first exponents in the history of the main socialist organization of the Russian Empire. Martov (1873–1923) disagreed with Lenin on the concepts of the movement and the revolutionary process, becoming the main Menshevik political leader. His speech, which reflects many of the issues that marked his relationship with the Russian socialist movement until the revolution of 1917 and after, is followed by an article by Martov on Jewish workers against Jewish capitalists and an essay by Andrea Panaccione. A biographical note on the author concludes the volume.

Sahadeo, Jeff. Voices from the Soviet Edge. Southern Migrants in Leningrad and Moscow. Cornell University Press, Ithaca (NY) [etc.] 2019. xiii, 273 pp. Ill. $42.95. (E-book: $20.99).

This book focuses on the hundreds of thousands of Uzbeks, Tajiks, Georgians, Azerbaijanis, and others who arrived towards the end of the Soviet era, seeking opportunity at the privileged heart of the USSR. Based on extensive oral histories, alongside official statistics and press and archival sources, Professor Sahadeo shows how these migrants transformed the lives of their families and formed inter-republican networks. The ties of Leningrad and Moscow to transnational trends of core-periphery movement mark them as global cities. As the author demonstrates, the two cities benefited from migration in the 1980s, but also became communities where racism and exclusion coexisted with citizenship and Soviet identity.

Scandinavia

Silver, Butter, Cloth. Monetary and Social Economies in the Viking age. Ed. by Kershaw, Jane and Williams, Gareth, Consultant Ed. Sindbæk, Søren and Graham-Campbell, James. [Medieval History and Archaeology.] Oxford University Press, Oxford2019. xvi, 306 pp. Ill. £75.00.

While the early Viking Age was dominated by a display economy, in the ninth century, silver was increasingly used as a means of exchange. This volume explores how silver and other commodities figured in monetary and social economies across the Scandinavian world (c. 800–1100) before and alongside the widespread introduction of coinage. Uniting archaeological, numismatic, and metallurgical analyses, the fourteen contributions examine the uses and sources of silver in both monetary and social transactions, addressing topics such as silver fragmentation, hoarding, and coin production and re-use and in addition considering in detail for the first time the monetary role of butter, cloth, and gold in the Viking economy.

Spain

Bottai, Alessio. Tra amicizia e solidarietà antifranchista. Giorgio Agosti, Franzo Grande Stevens e José Martínez. [Testimoni della Libertà, 12.] Franco Angeli, Milan2019. 255 pp. € 30.00.

José Martinez, who fought in the Spanish Civil War, founded Ruedo Ibérico, one of the most significant publishers of the anti-Franco exile in Paris. In the 1960s, he met Giorgio Agosti, regional political commissioner of the Giustizia e Libertà partisan group during the Resistance and the Quaestor of Turin for Liberation, who launched the magazine Resistenza, thereby appealing to young readers such as Franzo Grande Stevens. Bonding through anti-fascism and solidarity, Martinez, Agosti, and Grande Stevens interacted with Spanish exiles, also supporting them financially, as emerges from the second part of the book, which features a vast selection of correspondence covering more than two decades.

Prada Rodríguez, Julio. The Plundering of the Vanquished. The Economic Repression during Early Francoism. Peter Lang, Berlin [etc.] 2019. 198 pp. € 37.40; £31.00; $45.95.

Economic repression became a cornerstone in the dictatorship's social exclusion policies, which were already implemented during the coup, fulfilling its mission flawlessly within the repressive network: beyond its utility in provisioning the warfronts and enabling proper functioning of the rearguard, it became a valuable deterrent and intimidation tool that smothered any expression of non-conformity. Professor Prada Rodríguez reveals that economic repression was remarkably efficient, because it did not exist in isolation but was projected on the social body that had already suffered the combined effects of the Civil War, physical repression, and other coercive and social control mechanisms of the regime.