SOCIAL THEORY AND SOCIAL SCIENCE

Leys, Colin. Total Capitalism. Market Politics, Market State. Merlin Press, London 2008. 144 pp. £10.95.

Professor Leys brings together in this collection three previously published essays that analyse contemporary capitalism. In “The Rise and Fall of Development Theory” (1996) he inventories how the rise of neo-liberalism has impacted upon critical development theory; in “Market-Driven Politics” (2001), the author explores how the end of capital controls from the 1980s affected the policies of “once-sovereign states”, in particular the United Kingdom; and in “The Cynical State” (2005) he analyses what happens to policy-making and the quality of public debate under what Professor Leys labels as “total capitalism”.

Marx, Karl. La guerre civile en France. Arrigo Cervetto. La forme politique enfin découverte. [Bibliothèque jeunes.] Éditions Science Marxiste, Montreuil-sous-Bois 2008. xiv, 146 pp. € 5.00.

This is the French version of a new, originally Italian, edition that appeared in 2007. It opens with an introduction by the French editors and translated texts by Arrigo Cervetto, which were first published in Lotta Comunista in the 1980s.

Metamorphosen des Kapitalismus und seiner Kritik. Hrsg. Rolf Eickelpasch, Claudia Rademacher, [und] Philipp Ramos Lobato. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2008. 254 pp. € 24.90.

The thirteen contributions to this volume, by critical German sociologists, address recent shifts and developments in the critical discourse and analysis of modern capitalism and its transformation into neo-liberalism and post-Fordism. The first five contributors explore trends in topical capitalism critique; the second five chapters look at new inequalities and lines of conflict in post-Fordist capitalism; the final three essays consider the potential political resistance and alternatives to global capitalism.

Rocker, Rudolf. Nationalisme et culture. Postface et bibliographies de Heiner Becker. Trad. de l'allemand par Jacqueline Soubrier-Dumonteil. Éditions CNT-Région parisienne [etc.] Paris [etc.] 2008. 667 pp. € 20.00.

Anarcho-syndicalist writer Rocker completed his famous theoretical work on the dangers of nationalism in 1933, the year he left Germany for the United States. Spanish and English editions preceded the publication of the original German version Die Entscheidung des Abendlandes in 1949. Now it appears in a French translation for the first time.

Tilly, Charles. Credit and Blame. Princeton University Press, Princeton [etc.] 2008. x, 183 pp. £14.95.

Following up on his philosophical book Why? on the truth about excuses people make and the reasons they give (see IRSH, 53 (2008), pp. 153), Charles Tilly (1929–2008) focuses here on how people assign credit and blame for things that go right or wrong. Professor Tilly, whose scholarly work mainly concerned large-scale political processes such as revolutions, social movements, and transformations of states (see Marcel van der Linden's Survey, IRSH, 54 (2009), pp. 237–274), draws examples from literature, history, courtrooms, social surveys, and experiments, as well as from pop culture, to show how people seek not only understanding through credit and blame, but also justice.

HISTORY

1968. Ein Blick auf die Protestbewegung 40 Jahre danach aus globaler Perspektive. 1968. A view of the protest movements 40 years after, from a global perspective. Hrsg. von Angelika Ebbinghaus, Max Henninger, und Marcel van der Linden, unter Mitarb. von Berthold Unfried, Eva Himmelstoss und Feliks Tych, im Auftrag der International Conference of Labour and Social History (ITH) [ITH-Tagungsberichte, Band 43.] Akademische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2009. 227 pp. € 25.00.

The contributions to this volume, based on the 43rd International Conference of Labour and Social History (Linz, September 2008), examine the protest movements of 1968 from a global perspective, stressing transnational processes of transfer and exchange. The authors explore the reception of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, as well as the Prague Spring, Potere operaio in Porto Marghera (Venice), student movements in Pakistan, American GIs in Europe, and Yugoslav worker management, as well as the influence of the Cuban revolution, second-wave feminism in Germany and Japan, and armed revolts in Germany and Italy, and compare May '68 to the alternative globalization movement today. The volume concludes with an assessment of the movements of 1968.

Alltag, Erfahrung, Eigensinn. Historisch-anthropologische Erkundungen. Hrsg. Belinda Davis, Thomas Lindenberger, [und] Michael Wildt. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt [etc.] 2008. 511 pp. Ill. € 45.00.

This volume in honour of “Alltags”-historian Alf Lüdtke brings together twenty-nine essays, in German and English, on a broad range of themes, by Geoff Eley, Sheila Fitzpatrick, Lyndal Roper, Jane Burbank, Jürgen Kocka, and Sandrine Kott, to name but a few contributors. The volume opens with an introduction, in which the editors explain the concepts in the title, and a programmatic text written in 1977 by Alf Lüdtke and Hans Medick (see also IRSH, 40 (1995), pp. 478, and IRSH, 41 (1996), pp. 459).

Brémand, Nathalie. Les socialismes et l'enfance. Expérimentation et utopie (1830–1870). [Collection Histoire.] Presses Universitaires de Rennes, Rennes 2008. 365 pp. € 20.00.

This is an edited version of a dissertation (Université Paris-IV Sorbonne, 2006) on the role of children in early socialist theories and experiments. In the first part of this book Dr Brémand explores views on childhood and education in the writings of Fourier, Louis Blanc, Cabet, Considérant, Pierre Laroux, Flora Tristan, Dézamy, Dejacque, and others. The second part deals with the actual position of children in experimental homes and communities organized by workers’ and teachers’ associations, in Fourierist phalanstères, the Icarien communities in the United States, Godin's familistère in Guise, as well as in other utopian communities in France, Brazil, and Algeria.

Cold War Kitchen. Americanization, Technology, and European Users. Ed. by Ruth Oldenziel and Karin Zachmann. [Inside Technology.] The MIT Press, Cambridge (Mass.) [etc.] 2009. viii, 415 pp. Ill. £24.95.

Taking as their starting point the kitchen exhibit in the American national exhibit at the Moscow fair of 1959, where Nixon lectured Nikita S. Khrushchev on the benefits of consuming under American-style capitalism, the editors of this volume argue that in studies on the history and sociology of technology, kitchens merit as much scholarly consideration as computers and nuclear missiles. Focusing on Europe, the fourteen contributions to this collection consider topics such as Soviet consumers’ responses to the American kitchen, the modernist “Frankfurt kitchen” of the interwar period, and an analysis of “kitchen debate” from an East German perspective.

Engels, Friedrich. Notes sur la guerre franco-allemande 1870–1871. Préface de Lev Trotsky. [Classiques.] Éditions Science Marxiste, Montreuil-sous-Bois 2008. xxxvi, 378 pp. Ill. (Incl. 3 maps.) € 30.00.

This is a new French edition of the Notes on the War by Friedrich Engels, a collection of articles on the Franco-Prussian war originally published in the London Pall Mall Gazette between July 1870 and February 1871. The editors have included the preface by Trotsky to the first Russian edition of Engels's articles, along with a few letters and other texts by Engels and Marx documenting their views on the war and its consequences.

Josephson, Paul R. Would Trotsky Wear a Bluetooth? Technological Utopianism under Socialism, 1917–1989. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 2010. ix, 342 pp. Ill. £34.00.

Within Soviet socialism there was a strong utopian vision of technology and its potential to make the world a better place. This study explores the place of technology and the role of technological utopianism in the Soviet Union, the newly socialist countries in eastern Europe and North Korea, and considers the actual consequences of technological change with respect to the position of and conditions for the workers. Professor Josephson aims to show how in comparison with capitalist countries, technology often caused working conditions to deteriorate instead of improving them. See also Lewis Siegelbaum's review in this volume, pp. 154–156.

Klimke, Martin. The Other Alliance. Student Protest in West Germany and the United States in the Global Sixties. Princeton University Press, Princeton [etc.] 2010. xvi, 348 pp. $39.50; £27.95. (E-book: $39.50.)

This study examines the strong transnational connections between American and German student movements and New Left groups during the 1960s and early 1970s. Dr Klimke aims to show how the Vietnam War played a central role in generating dissent on both sides of the Atlantic, and how American protest techniques became crucial components of student activism in West Germany. He also investigates the response of US and German government agencies to the student activism, and the extent to which student protesters posed a challenge to Cold-War alliances. See also Jacco Pekelder's review in this volume, pp. 162–164.

Leitenberg, Laurence. La population juive des villes d'Europe. Croissance et répartition, 1750–1930. [Population, Family, and Society, Vol. 8.] Peter Lang, Bern [etc.] 2008. xvi, 420 pp. Maps. € 45.00.

In this book, which is based on a doctoral dissertation (Geneva, 2005), Dr Leitenberg examines the distribution of the Jewish population in Europe. At the beginning of the nineteenth century Jews were a strong presence in the small towns and villages of eastern Europe. Statistical data from 816 towns suggest that during the pronounced urbanization of Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century, Jews migrated to larger urban centres more rapidly and in larger numbers than other population groups.

Lemke, Matthias. Republikanischer Sozialismus. Positionen von Bernstein, Kautsky, Jaurès und Blum. [Campus Forschung, Band 932.] Campus Verlag, Frankfurt [etc.] 2008. 433 pp. € 49.00.

This dissertation (Vechta/Paris, 2007) examines the works and ideas of two leading German socialists (Eduard Bernstein and Karl Kautsky) and two leading French socialists (Jean Jaurès and Léon Blum), focusing on their respective positions on democracy and totalitarianism in the context of the division between reformism and revolutionary socialism, both before and around the Bolshevist Revolution of 1917. Dr Lemke concludes that all four fundamentally supported republican democratic principles and therefore opposed the Bolshevist communist revolution and maintains that their arguments remain relevant to topical debates on democracy.

The Modern Girl Around the World. Consumption, Modernity, and Globalization. The Modern Girl Around the World Research Group (Alys Eve Weinbaum, Lynn M. Thomas, Priti Ramamurty [a.o.], eds) Duke University Press, Durham [etc.] 2008. x, 435 pp. £57.00.

This volume aims to demonstrate that the “new woman” was not merely a Western but a global phenomenon. During the 1920s and 1930s, in cities from Beijing to Bombay, Tokyo to Berlin, Johannesburg to New York, the “modern girl”, smoking and wearing sexy attire and lipstick, appeared in city streets and cafés, and in films, advertisements, and illustrated magazines. Contemporaries debated whether the modern girl (“flapper”, “garçonne”, or “neue Frau”, as she was also labelled) was looking for sexual, economic, or political emancipation, or whether she was little more than an image. In seventeen essays the contributors trace the modern girl's various colonial and national incarnations.

Ragon, Michel. Dictionnaire de l'anarchie. Albin Michel, Paris 2008. 661 pp. € 23.00.

In his dictionary of anarchist and libertarian thinkers, movements, newspapers, ideas, and concepts, anarchist poet, novelist, and art historian Ragon has included not only famous anarchists such as Bakunin, Goldman, Proudhon and Stirner but also lesser-known names (mainly French) and less obvious figures, such as Franz Kafka, Georges Simenon, and Jules Verne. The 370 entries vary in length, some covering more than 10 pages, others merely a single line of text. The volume concludes with an index of persons.

COMPARATIVE HISTORY

Colic-Peisker, Val. Migration, Class, and Transnational Identities. Croatians in Australia and America. [Studies of World Migrations.] University of Illinois Press, Urbana [etc.] 2008. xii, 252 pp. Ill. $45.00.

This ethnographic study compares the experiences of two groups of Croatian immigrants in Australia: an earlier group of working-class migrants arriving from communist Yugoslavia from the 1950s to the 1970s, and a later group of urban professionals arriving in the 1980s and 1990s as skill-based migrants. Dr Colic-Peisker argues in this comparison that class is a more salient aspect of immigrant identity than is often assumed in migration studies. She concludes that the two groups’ connection with their native Croatia can be understood by the concepts of “ethnic” and “cosmopolitan” transnationalism as two distinct experiences mediated by class.

Comparative and Transnational History. Central European Approaches and New Perspectives. Ed. by Heinz-Gerhard Haupt and Jürgen Kocka. Berghahn Books, New York [etc.] 2009. viii, 294 pp. $90.00; £55.00.

The aim of this book is to introduce readers not proficient in German to some of the major methodological debates and recent empirical research by German historians involved in comparative and transnational work. The selection of articles addresses comparative history and entangled history, which deals with transfer, interconnection, and reciprocal influences across boundaries. See also the review essay by Michael Hanagan in this volume, pp. 133–146.

Evans, Ivan. Cultures of Violence. Lynching and radical killing in South Africa and the American South. Manchester University Press, Manchester [etc.] 2009. x, 310 pp. £65.00.

Violence during the periods of racial segregation in the American South and in South Africa differed considerably. Whereas lynching as a form of unofficial communal violence was typical for the American South, it hardly occurred in South Africa. In this comparative study of cultures of racial violence in these two racially segregated societies, Professor Evans attempts to explain the differences by examining the labour market, the role of religion and the legal systems involved and argues that the distinction between the lynch culture in the American South and the bureaucratic one in South Africa continues to resonate in contemporary race relations in the respective countries. See also Karl von Holdt's review in this volume, pp. 147–149.

Hua, Shiping. Chinese Utopianism. A Comparative Study of Reformist Thought with Japan and Russia, 1898–1997. Stanford University Press, Stanford [etc.] 2009. xvi, 186 pp. £28.94.

By comparing the reform movements in China from the late nineteenth century through the Cultural Revolution to the death of Deng Xiaoping to contemporary reform movements in Japan and Russia, this study explains why Chinese reform movements have been so much more radical than the Japanese and Russian ones. Professor Hua aims to demonstrate how the concept of datong (“great harmony”), along with other elements of Chinese thought, have led to a distinct form of Chinese utopianism, which has influenced socio-economic and political developments. See also Baogang Guo's review in this volume, pp. 149–152.

Work in a Modern Society. The German Historical Experience in Contemporary Perspective. Ed. by Jürgen Kocka. [New German Historical Perspectives, Vol. 3.] Berghahn Books, New York [etc.] 2010. 221 pp. $60.00; £35.00.

This is a collection of original articles addressing cultural, social and theoretical aspects of the history of work, as distinct from the history of workers and the labour movement. It includes essays on relations between gender and work (Karin Hausen), work and trust (Ute Frevert), working and soldiering (Alf Lüdtke), views on work in the nineteenth-century German labour movement (Thomas Welskopp), the early anthropology of work (Gerd Spittler), forced labour in the World War II (Klaus Tenfelde), and global labour history (Andreas Eckert). See also the review essay by Michael Hanagan in this volume, pp. 133–146.

CONTEMPORARY ISSUES

Migration and Domestic Work. A European Perspective on a Global Theme. Ed. by Helma Lutz. [Studies in Migration and Diaspora]. Ashgate, Aldershot [etc.] 2008. xii, 212 pp. £55.00.

This volume explores the European perspective of “the global care chain” and the changing nature of the role, sources, and status of female migrant domestic workers. A range of chapters consider the gendered nature of domestic work, the irregular status of female migrant workers, and how different nation states address the problem. A striking phenomenon of recent patterns of migration is that of transnationalism and, with the refinement of modern technology, the practice of “mothering from afar”. Many of the thirteen contributions were first presented at a conference at the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Study in Wassenaar, May 2005.

AFRICA

Ethiopia

Kebede, Messay. Radicalism and Cultural Dislocation in Ethiopia, 1960–1974. [Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora.] University of Rochester Press, Rochester [etc.] 2008. viii, 235 pp. £40.00; $75.00.

In 1974 Western-educated students and intellectuals who had adopted a Marxist-Leninist ideology were pivotal in the downfall of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie. In this study Professor Kebede explores the socio-political and cultural factors that contributed to the radicalization of the intellectual elite during the 1960s and early 1970s. He examines Haile Selassie's educational policy, radicalism as a result of uprootedness and globality, the appeal of Marxism-Leninism, imitativeness and elitism, Ethiopian messianism, religion and social utopianism. He suggests that these factors have contributed to the country's continuous political crises and economic setbacks since the revolution of 1974.

South Africa

Biko lives! Contesting the Legacies of Steve Biko. Ed. by Andile Mngxitama, Amanda Alexander, and Nigel C. Gibson, [Contemporary Black History.] Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke [etc.] 2008. x, 294 pp. £14.99.

This volume brings together the work of both activists and intellectuals. Its fourteen contributions include philosophical reflections on Steve Biko's ideas, historical investigations of South Africa's Black Consciousness movement and Biko's legacy, as well as analyses of the present significance of his ideas. It includes an article on Black Consciousness philosophy and gender. The transcript of an interview with Biko held by Gail M. Gerhart in October 1972 is published here for the first time.

AMERICA

Aftershocks. Earthquakes and Popular Politics in Latin America. Ed. by Jürgen Buchenau and Lyman L. Johnson. [Diálogos Series.] University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque 2009. xi, 230 pp. Ill. $29.95

The essays in this collection examine the impact of earthquakes on the political, economic, and cultural history of Latin America since the mid-eighteenth century. The seven contributions to this volume focus on the earthquakes that struck Lima, Peru, in 1746, Caracas and La Guaira, Venezuela, in 1812, Valparaiso, Chile, in 1906, San Juan, Argentina, in 1944, Managua, El Salvador, in 1972, Guatemala in 1976, and Mexico City in 1985. The editors argue that earthquakes lay bare essential economic, political, and social structures, providing space for popular movements to question and reshape them.

Robinson, William I. Latin America and Global Capitalism. A Critical Globalization Perspective. [Johns Hopkins Studies in Globalization.] The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 2008. xix, 412 pp. Ill. £29.00.

In this study Professor Robinson employs a critical theory of globalization and global capitalism developed recently (in his A Theory of Global Capitalism, published in 2004) to explore and explain the changes that have swept Latin America in recent decades. Focusing on issues like the rise of non-traditional agricultural exports, the explosion of maquiladoras, transnational tourism, and the export of labour and the import of remittances, the author uses three case studies to explain the causes of regional socio-political tensions: the struggle of the region's indigenous peoples, the immigrant-rights movement in the United States, and the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela.

Brazil

Mattos, Marcelo Badaró. Escravizados e livres. Experiências comuns na formação da classe trabalhadora carioca. Bom Texto, Rio de Janeiro 2008. 239 pp. R$28.00.

Using the work of E.P. Thompson as a point of departure, Professor Mattos traces the formation of Rio de Janeiro's working class from the second half of the nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. In the first chapter he examines living and working conditions, in the second, organizations, associations, and trade unions. The third chapter, entitled “Resistance and Struggle”, deals with strike actions, the abolitionist movement, and repression. The closing chapter deals with class, identity, and consciousness among the workers: artisans, free labourers, slaves, and ex-slaves. See also IRSH, 55 (2010), pp. 193–213.

Muitos caminhos, uma estrela. Memórias de militantes do PT. Volume 1. Organizadores Marieta de Moraes Ferreira [y] Alexandre Fortes. Editoria Perseu Abramo, São Paulo 2008. 447 pp. Ill. R$60.00.

This volume, the first of a planned trilogy, sketches the history of the Brazilian left and the Partido dos Trabalhadores, based on interviews with ten men and two women who helped found the party in 1980: Antonio Candido, Manoel da Conceição, Djalma Bom, Paulo Rocha, Avelino Ganzer, Raul Pont, Hamilton Pereira, Benedita da Silva, Irma Passoni, Luiz Dulci, Apolonio de Carvalho, and Olívio Dutra. The volume includes eighty pages of biographical notes and a glossary of political organizations.

Ondetti, Gabriel. Land, Protest, and Politics. The Landless Movement and the Struggle for Agrarian Reform in Brazil. Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park (Penn.) 2008. xviii, 281 pp. $60.00.

This book traces the development between 1978 and 2006 of the landless movement in Brazil, which revolved around the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST). Using interviews as, well as government and NGO written sources, Professor Ondetti tries in each of the five chapters to provide information about the movement's internal organization processes, tactical initiatives, and external socioeconomic and political environment. The book's opening chapter sets out the theoretical framework and addresses the longstanding debate about Mancur Olson's classic economic theory of collective action.

Cuba

Horowitz, Irving Louis. The Long Night of Dark Intent. A Half Century of Cuban Communism. Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick [etc.] 2008. xxi, 599 pp. £40.33.

In this volume the author brings together a selection of forty-seven essays, articles and speeches originally published between 1965 and 2008 to explain the absence of internal opposition and the persistence of external support for the dictatorship of Fidel Castro. The collection covers themes such as the Stalinization of Cuba, Marxist revisionism, the missile crisis, the role of Cuba in the pacification of Central America, American policies towards Cuba, Castro's self-analysis of his life, and transition scenarios for a post-Castro Cuba.

Guatemala

Offit, Thomas A. Conquistadores de la Calle. Child Street Labor in Guatemala City. University of Texas Press, Austin 2008. xi, 228 pp. Ill. £55.00.

Based on the findings of ethnographic research in the streets of Guatemala City, this is a detailed study of the city's working children, their jobs and income, their families, education, and their future. Carefully distinguishing these young workers from the more widely studied homeless children and gang youth, Professor Offit aims to demonstrate that the region's child workers are not solely victims, and that their labour situations are not entirely the result of poverty and family breakdown. In an appendix the author deals briefly with Guatemalan and international legislative responses to child labour.

Mexico

Martínez, María Elena. Genealogical Fictions. Limpieza de Sangre, Religion, and Gender in Colonial Mexico. Stanford University Press, Stanford (Calif.) 2008. xiv, 407 pp. Ill. $65.00.

In this book Professor Martínez explores the role of notions of race and caste in the development of early modern Mexican society. She examines the relationship between the Spanish concept of limpieza de sangre (purity of blood), initially invoked in early modern Spain against Jewish converts to Christianity, and colonial Mexico's sistema de castas, a hierarchical system of social classification based primarily on ancestry. Her book also deals with the intersections of the notions of purity, gender, and sexuality and the linkages between religion, race and patriotic discourses.

United States of America

Atkins, Joseph B. Covering for the Bosses. Labor and the Southern Press. Foreword by Stanley Aronowitz. University Press of Mississippi, Jackson 2008. xiii, 264 pp. $45.00.

This study of the labour movement in the American South since World War II explores the role of the media in keeping the South the least unionized part of the United States. Professor Atkins, a veteran journalist, situates the difficult development of the labour movement in the context of the socio-economic developments in the region and focuses on the difficult relationship between the media and organized labour to conclude that the press has been a key partner in the powerful alliance of business and political interests that have kept the South the least unionized region in the United States.

Fletcher, Bill, Jr. [and] Fernando Gapasin. Solidarity Divided. The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice. University of California Press, Berkeley [etc.] 2008. xiii, 304 pp. £14.95.

The authors of this study, both experienced labour activists and insiders to the US trade-union movement, aim to offer an analysis of the current crisis of the American labour movement and a plan for renovating the movement based on a broad reassessment of the ideological and practical foundations of the labour movement. Leading questions in their analysis are: What led to the split in the AFL-CIO in 2005?, What caused the present crisis in the US labour movement?, and What could be a new and possibly winning strategy?

Forrant, Robert. Metal Fatigue. American Bosch and the Demise of Metalworking in the Connecticut River Valley. [Work, Health, and Environment Series.] Baywood Publishing Company, Amityville, 2009. x, 201 pp. Ill. £38.95.

In this study of the economic collapse of the metalworking industry in the Connecticut River Valley region in the 1970s and 1980s, Professor Forrant focuses on the developments that led to the closure of the American Bosch manufacturing plant in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1986 to analyse the wider impact of this de-industrialization process on local and regional economic and social structures. The author, a former Bosch worker and union representative, draws on his personal recollections of the developments. See also his article in IRSH, 47 (2002), Supplement 10, pp. 113–136.

Labor's Cold War. Local Politics in a Global Context. Ed. by Shelton Stromquist. [The Working Class in American History.] University of Illinois Press, Urbana, Ill. [etc.] 2008. ix, 304 pp. $70.00. (Paper: $25.00.)

The nine essays in this volume are intended to contribute to a reorientation of Cold War historiography by recovering and reassessing the impact of American Cold War anti-communism within the local political cultures. While the anti-communist movement was both more diverse and more deeply rooted than historians have often acknowledged, the contributions also demonstrate that at a local level the movement still faced workers and their allies prepared to fight pragmatically for fair employment, open housing, anti-discrimination in and outside the workplace, rights to union representation, and a say in wage and price controls.

McMillen, Sally G. Seneca Falls and the Origins of the Women's Rights Movement. [Pivotal Moments in American History.] Oxford University Press, Oxford [etc.] 2008. x, 310 pp. Ill. $16.95.

This history of the American women's rights movements, with the Seneca Falls Convention, where the women's rights movement was launched in the United States, at its centre, covers fifty years of women's activism, from 1840 to 1890, focusing on Lucretia Coffin Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, and Susan B. Anthony. By examining antebellum reform efforts, of which the anti-slavery movement had the greatest impact, Professor McMillen provides a framework for understanding what happened at Seneca Falls.

Nystrom, Derek. Hard Hats, Rednecks, and Macho Men. Class in 1970s American Cinema. Oxford University Press, Oxford [etc.] 2009. x, 251 pp. Ill. $24.95.

Exploring a range of iconic American films from the 1970s, Professor Nystrom argues in this study that a main theme in many of these films (white, working-class masculinity) was a powerful class fantasy, reflecting middle-class anxieties instigated by the period's social and political upheavals. By analysing how these films depict the American working class, the author aims to identify cultural investments behind this fascination with white, working-class men. See also Andrew Dawson's review in this volume, pp. 160–162.

China

Gao, Mobo. The Battle for China's Past. Mao and the Cultural Revolution. Pluto Press, London [etc.] 2008. xi, 270 pp. £18.99.

Arguing that “the narrative of atrocity” of the Cultural Revolution can be seen as an act of identification with certain hegemonic Western political and cultural values, this book challenges the view commonly held by both Chinese and Western historians that the Cultural Revolution was a catastrophe for the Chinese population. Professor Gao argues that Mao's policies in fact benefited the wellbeing of the Chinese, especially the rural population, which is being reversed now that China embraces capitalism. He bases his argument on an analysis of Chinese language e-media debates, as well as on memoirs and autobiographies from the Mao era.

Seifert, Andreas. Bildgeschichten für Chinas Massen. Comic und Comicproduktion im 20. Jahrhundert. Böhlau, Köln [etc.] 2008. viii, 309 pp. Ill. € 46.20.

In this book the author traces the history of Chinese comics in the twentieth century by examining the structure of the medium and its relation to historical events. Lianhuanhua, as the traditional Chinese comics are known, originated as a new form of entertainment in Shanghai in the mid 1920s. Since the founding of the People's Republic in 1949, they have been both an entertainment medium and an education and propaganda instrument in the hands of the state. After their circulation peaked during the 1980s, sales decreased, and they were replaced by Japanese and American forms of comics. See also Stefan Landsberger's review in this volume, pp. 152–154.

Australia

Richards, Eric. Destination Australia. Migration to Australia since 1901. UNSW Press, Sydney; Manchester University Press, Manchester [etc.] 2008. xiii, 431 pp. Ill. £19.99.

In 1901 most Australians originated from Britain and Ireland. Within a century the Australian population was one of the most ethnically diverse on earth. In his historical survey of twentieth-century Australian immigration, Professor Richards, focusing occasionally on individual life stories, aims to explain how Australia's changing immigration policies, initially after World War II, when large numbers of non-British migrants from Europe entered the country, and later on, when migrants from other parts of the world, such as Vietnamese refugees, were admitted, transformed the social and cultural fabric of Australia without leading to major integration problems.

New Zealand

Kiwi Compañeros. New Zealand and the Spanish Civil War. Ed. by Mark Derby. Canterbury University Press, Christchurch 2009. 304 pp. Ill. NZ$45.00.

This book, based on new archival evidence and a seminar held in 2006, lists the names of forty-six individuals who either came from New Zealand to take part in the Spanish Civil War or settled there after it ended. The fifteen contributors provide biographical sketches of thirty-two of them, most with portraits. In addition, a section on “The Domestic Response” describes the political reactions of the Communist Party, the Labour Party, the Catholic Church and the trade unions and the activities of the Spanish Medical Aid Committee.

Senka Božić-Vrbančić. Tarara. Croats and Maori in New Zealand. Memory, Belonging, Identity. Otago University Press, Dunedin 2008. 268 pp. Ill. £16.99.

On the gumfields of the far north of New Zealand, Maori and immigrants from Croatia worked together between 1880 and 1950 in what has become famous as a harmonious relationship, marked by a significant degree of intermarriage. This study aims to explore how the contacts and relationships between the two groups developed, how this ethnic relationship entered official memory, and how a particular Croatian identity was formed.

EUROPE

Armenfürsorge und Wohltätigkeit. Ländliche Gesellschaften in Europa, 1850–1930. Poor Relief and Charity. Rural Societies in Europe, 1850–1930. Hrsg. Inga Brandes [und] Katrin Marx-Jaskulski. [Inklusion/Exklusion, Band 11.] Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main [etc.] 2008. 316 pp. € 46.50.

Mapping out a field of research long neglected by historians, the articles in this collection, which results from an international conference in Trier in October 2006, deal with rural as compared to urban poor relief. They examine poverty and charity in Westphalia, Ireland, and Belgium, charity practised by the Sisters of St Joseph in Scandinavia, by Catholic congregations in West Flanders, and by the aristocratic Arenberg family, poorhouses in Munsterland, private charities in eastern France and Luxembourg, restrictive policies against the itinerant poor in the South Rhine province, and the Magdalen asylums in Ireland.

France

Les 31 séances officielles de la Commune de Paris. Édition des comptes rendus. Augmentée de Avant, pendant et après la Commune. Croquis & Caricatures par Pilotell. Ressouvenances, Coeuvres-et-Valsery 2008. 278 pp. € 22.00.

This volume contains facsimile reprints of the minutes of the thirty-one meetings of the Paris Commune originally published by the Revue de France and E. Lachaud in 1871. It includes a set of cartoons by Georges Pilotelle (signing them as Pilotell), originally published in London in 1879 where he lived in exile.

Armand, E. La révolution sexuelle et la camaraderie amoureuse. Avant-propos de Gaetano Manfredonia. Zones. [Éditions La Découverte.] Paris 2009. 189 pp. € 15.00.

E. Armand is the pseudonym of Ernest-Lucien Juin (1872–1962), an individualist anarchist writer and founding editor of L'en dehors, in which he shared his ideas about sexual freedom. Countering the exclusiveness of the family, he proposed a form of egalitarian amorous companionship he called camaraderie amoureuse. He also founded a society against sexual jealousy and the Compagnons de L'en dehors, a club for subscribers dedicated to applying camaraderie amoureuse in practice. In this book, originally published in 1934, Armand brings together most of his writings on sexual matters. In the forty-page introduction to this new edition, Gaetano Manfredonia offers an assessment of Armand and his work.

Ayme, Jean-Jacques. Jeunesses socialistes, 1944–1948. Essai. Editions Amalthée, Nantes 2008. 510 pp. € 23.50.

In this volume, which on its cover also features the subtitle Socialisme contre social-démocratie, Jean-Jacques Ayme tells the story of the Parti socialiste SFIO (Section Française de l'Internationale Ouvrière) youth organization during the period of national reconstruction just after the Liberation. The French government, in which the SFIO participated, banned strikes and any other actions that might hamper reconstruction. The Jeunesses socialistes gradually came to oppose this reconstruction policy, supporting strikes, resisting colonial warfare, and drifting away from the party they were supposed to represent. This period of radicalization ended with their exclusion from the SFIO.

Beik, William. A Social and Cultural History of Early Modern France. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2009. xvii, 401 pp. Ill. £55.00; $99.00. (Paper: £18.99; $29.99.)

In this book Professor Beik sets out to explain how the French social system operated in the period of royal rule during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, while at the same time conveying an appreciation of the lives and experiences of the working majority. The chapters deal with aspects such as rural communities, seigneurial power, peasant life, the rise of the new judicial-financial class, warfare and society, and group solidarities and conflicts. The culture in the title is meant in the anthropological sense of customary behaviour, belief systems, and ritual practices. Rather than emphasizing conflicting interpretations, the author aims to offer a single coherent descriptive interpretation.

Bouhey, Vivien. Les Anarchistes contre la République 1880 à 1914. Contribution à l'histoire des résaux sous la Troisième République. [Histoire.] Presses Universitaires de Rennes, Rennes 2008. 491 pp. Ill. € 24.00.

This abridged version of a dissertation (Université Paris-X Nanterre, 2006) challenges the assumption prevailing among historians that the French anarchist movement during the period of the bloody attacks by Vaillant, Emile Henry, and Ravachol was nothing but an amorphous grouping of individuals and transitory groups shut off from the rest of the world, with anarchist journals as the only means of communication between them. Based on systematic research in police files from Paris and regional archives, Dr Bouhey aims to show that they formed a genuine anarchist network with international extensions and financing channels.

Boulouque, Sylvain and Franck Liaigre. Les listes noires du PCF. Calmann-Lévy, Paris 2008. 260 pp. € 23.00.

The French communist party compiled and published 28 blacklists between 1933 and 1945. The names of 2,300 activists branded as traitors for their behaviour, their relationships, or the political choices they made were listed in booklets distributed to party officials. Before World War II, the blacklisted activists were discredited as potential enemy agents, and during the Occupation some were killed or injured. This book is concerned less with documenting the fate of the victims than with tracing the origins of such denunciation in the history of Moscow-oriented communism.

Bourdieu, Pierre. The Bachelors’ Ball. The Crisis of Peasant Society in Béarn. Transl. by Richard Nice. Polity Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2008. vi, 205 pp. £14.99.

This collection is the English translation of Le bal des célibataires (2002), in which the pre-eminent French sociologist and anthropologist Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002) brought together three major articles written in three different phases (1962, 1972, and 1989) in his career on the enforced bachelorhood of eldest sons in traditional French rural society. In his introduction, the author reflects on his own evolution as a sociologist and ethnographer, and traces his theory of practice, from structuralist to the mature conceptual theoretical and methodological apparatus that analyses the interrelations of field, symbolic capital, and habitus.

Briano, Alexandre. Les travailleurs coloniaux. Les oubliés de l'histoire. 1916–1920 et 1939–1953. Les Presses du Midi, Toulon 2008. 128 pp. Ill. € 30.00.

The discovery at a flea market of a map from the French navy for a camp near Toulon designed for “colonial labourers” sent the author on an expedition to trace the experiences of the people who had come to France from all over the French colonial empire, most of them involuntarily, to contribute to the French war effort in World War II. The result of his search is presented here: historical information on the labourers’ recruitment, transport, accommodation, and eventual repatriation, illustrated by old and recent photographs, posters, and letters, some of which, according to the author, have not been published before.

Cespedes, Vincent. Mai 68. La philosophie est dans la rue! Larousse, Paris 2008. 287 pp. € 17.00.

This book offers philosophical reflections about the significance of the May 1968 uprising in France by Vincent Cespedes, a writer born five years after the events. Included are sections about the Marxist philosopher Henri Lefebvre and his role in the revolt, a log of the events in 1968, and some observations on linguistic usage and spelling.

Couderc-Morandeau, Stéphanie. Philosophie républicaine et colonialisme. Origines, contradictions et échecs sous la troisième République. [Epistémologie et Philosophie des Sciences.] L'Harmattan, Paris 2008. 292 pp. € 26.00.

French colonialism experienced its heyday during the Third Republic, beginning in the 1870s, when republican philosophy, inspired by Enlightenment ideals of progress, justice, and equality, were most fully expressed. Using a philosophical rather than an historical approach, Professor Couderc-Morandeau examines how successive republican governments dealt with slavery and other colonial matters, which philosophical principles they applied, and how they constructed a philosophy of colonialism.

Cuenot, Alain. Pierre Naville (1904–1993). Biographie d'un révolutionnaire marxiste. Éditions Bénévent, Nice 2007. 686 pp. € 26.00.

This is a chronological account of the life and activities of Pierre Naville, Marxist social scientist and surrealist. As an editor of Révolution surréaliste, he attempted to reconcile the ideas of André Breton with revolutionary political action. After visiting Trotsky, he became a leading member of the Trotskyist movement. Breaking with Trotskyism in 1945, he entered academia, where, as a labour sociologist, he attempted to combine Marxism with sociological research. Naville was a founding member of the Parti Socialiste Unifié.

Dictionnaire biographique mouvement ouvrier, mouvement social. Tome 3. Période 1940–1968. De la Seconde Guerre Mondiale à Mai 1968. Publié sous la dir. de Claude Pennetier, Éric Belouet, Jean-Pierre Besse, [e.a.]. Les Éditions de l'Atelier, Paris 2007. 462 pp. (Incl. CD-Rom.) € 65.00.

Dictionnaire biographique mouvement ouvrier, mouvement social. Tome 4. Période 1940–1968. De la Seconde Guerre Mondiale à Mai 1968. Publié sous la dir. de Claude Pennetier, Éric Belouet, Jean-Pierre Besse, [e.a.]. Les Éditions de l'Atelier, Paris 2008. 460 pp. (Incl. CD-Rom.) € 65.00.

These are volumes III and IV of the new series of Le Maitron, the biographical dictionary of the French labour movement that covers the period from 1940 to May 1968 (for the first two volumes see IRSH 53, (2008), p. 552). Volume III contains 630 biographies, and its accompanying CD-Rom offers 1,777 additional biographical annotations; Volume IV contains 668 biographies and its CD-Rom 2,209 additional biographical annotations. The CD-Roms are therefore indispensable, both because some biographies partly cover the period before 1940, and because in some cases the entries in the paper version give only an abstract and refer to the CD-Rom for the full biography.

Dictionnaire de Mai 68. Sous la dir. de Jacques Capdevielle et Henri Rey. Larousse, Paris 2008. 479 pp. € 22.00.

This one-volume reference work seeks to take stock of May '68 and its place in French contemporary history. The editors have aimed at a panoramic view, offering essays on, for example, theoreticians (Guy Debord, Herbert Marcuse), iconic figures (Rosa Luxemburg, Che Guevara), activists (Angela Davis, Rudy Dutschke), cultural events (Woodstock), places (Nanterre, Carnaby Street) and methods of action (sit-ins, mass strikes, throwing street cobblestones). The volume opens with two introductory essays and concludes with a chronology, a bibliography, and an index. It is published in a series of similar dictionaries of political movements of the left and right.

Fiction et engagement politique. La représentation du parti et du militant dans le roman et le théâtre du XXe siècle. Éd. Jeanyves Guérin. Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris 2008. 277 pp. € 22.00.

This volume brings together contributions to a conference held in Paris, Université nouvelle, in 2007, on representations of political and labour activism in twentieth-century French works of fiction. Twenty-one chapters examine the work of the classics of the littérature engagée (Malraux, Sartre, Aragon, Camus) and other more or less politically oriented writers, such as Paul Nizan, Jorge Semprun, Maurice Clavel, Jules Romains, Panaït Istrati, and Marguerite Duras. The volume opens with an article on the occurrence and use of collective labels such as parti, mouvement, syndicat, and union.

La France des années 68. Dir. Antoine Artous, Didier Epsztajn [et] Patrick Silberstein. Éditions Syllepse, Paris 2008. 901 pp. € 30.00.

This “encyclopaedia of protest” contains eighty articles by different authors on social, political and cultural topics from the years around 1968, ranging from “autogestion” (self-management) to “revolutionary violence”, from “CGT” (the communist General Confederation of Labour) to “Solidarnosc”, from “abortion” to “psychiatry” and from “Maspero” (the famous publishing house) to “Lip” (the strike and brief period of self-management by the watchmakers in Palente). The focus is on France, but political events and social movements in other parts of the world are dealt with as well. It includes a chronological overview from 1965 to 1981, as well as thematic and geographical indices. Some of the entries conclude with a small bibliography.

Guicheteau, Samuel. La Révolution des ouvriers nantais. Mutation économique, identité sociale et dynamique révolutionnaire (1740–1815). [Histoire.] Presses Universitaires de Rennes, Rennes 2008. 370 pp. € 19.00.

In the second half of the eighteenth century, Nantes, an industrial town with a large working population, underwent sweeping modernization. During this first stage of the Industrial Revolution the French Revolution broke out as well. In this study Professor Guicheteau, focusing on the well-developed and diverse textile industry, explores how the workers of Nantes responded to both revolutions. He deals first with the industrial boom at the end of the century, working conditions, and the increase in labour conflicts caused by new employer demands and describes how they shaped working-class identities. In the second part he examines how the workers of Nantes took part in the different stages of the French Revolution.

Jainchill, Andrew. Reimagining Politics after the Terror. The Republican Origins of French Liberalism. Cornell University Press, Ithaca [etc.] 2008. xii, 317 pp. $45.00; £22.95.

This book is a study of the political culture of the French Revolution during Thermidor, the Directory, and the Consulate (1794–1804), and the “republican centre”, a group of politicians and intellectuals at or near the hub of power, such as Benjamin Constant, E.-J. Sieyès, and Germaine de Staël. By examining the debates about constitutional power, foreign policy, personal liberty and public morality and by analysing political language and conceptual categories, the author aims to demonstrate that classical republicanism was the dominant political language of post-Terror France, and that French liberalism, contrary to current interpretations, arose as a transformation within republicanism.

Loiseau, Dominique. Marre d’être sages! Éditions du Centre d'Histoire du Travail, Nantes 2008. 111 pp. Ill. € 23.00.

Marre d’être sages! (Sick of Being Obedient) is a personal selection of black and white snapshots and film stills by a historian whose interest lies at the intersection of women's and labour history. In nine chapters she combines two or three images, for example of demonstrating men on strike and women demonstrating in support of their husbands; Spanish militia women, and a woman with a shaved head being arrested; longshoremen leaving work and a woman participating in a fishing competition. Each chapter concludes with brief image descriptions, a short bibliography, and some explanatory notes.

Oriol, Philippe. L'histoire de l'Affaire Dreyfus. I: L'affaire du capitaine Dreyfus 1894–1897. Stock, Paris 2008. 392 pp. € 20.50.

The literature available on the Dreyfus affair (about the Jewish army captain falsely convicted of high treason) is already voluminous. The author, who has published on this subject matter before (see IRSH, (2006), p 160, for his biography of Dreyfusard Bernard Lazare), justifies this book on the ground that no comprehensive historical account of the affair is recent enough to reflect the wealth of detailed research published over the last twenty years. This is the first of three projected volumes.

Pardigon, François. Episodes des journées de juin 1848. Présentation d'Alix Héricord. La Fabrique éditions, Paris 2008. 896 pp. € 17.00.

Law student François Pardigon was one of the few students at the Paris barricades fighting alongside the anonymous proletarians during the Revolution of 1848. He was taken prisoner but managed to escape and write about his experiences. His story is a rare eyewitness account, not so much of the fighting on the barricades but rather of the atrocities committed against the insurgents incarcerated in the basements of the Tuileries and other makeshift prisons. Now republished for the first time since 1852, it features an extensive introduction and supplementary source materials.

Pinson, Jean-Claude. Drapeau rouge. Champ Vallon, Seyssel 2008. 152 pp. € 15.00.

Drapeau rouge (Red Flag) recalls the “scarlet years” before and after May '68, through the adventures and disappointments of a narrator who, like the author, a Nantes University professor of art philosophy born in 1947, was recruited to the ranks of “Marxist-Leninists”, as they were called at the time. Not a linear memoir but an assembly of text fragments, notes and reflections, this book examines the present meaning of the red flag.

Quarante ans après: mai 68. Regards intergénérationnels croisés. Sous la dir. de Martine Lani-Bayle et Marie-Anne Mallet. Téraèdre, Paris 2008. 166 pp. € 19.00.

This is a collection of thirty memoires of and reflections on May '68 by three generations of average French men and women. Some experienced the events directly, but most were separated from them by one or even two generations. The book includes transcribed interviews with Edgar Morin, André de Peretti, and Gabriel Cohn-Bendit, Daniel's brother. The editors specialize in the study of intergenerational transmission.

La Révolution 1789–1871. Écriture d'une Histoire immédiate. Sous la dir. de Phillippe Bourdin. Presses Universitaires Blaise Pascal, Clermont-Ferrand 2008. 334 pp. Ill. € 29.00.

This collection on the historiography of revolutionary France between 1789 and 1871 brings together sixteen contributions from a conference organized by the Centre d'Histoire “Espaces et Cultures” and the Musée de la Révolution française in 2005. They examine the works of Joseph Fiévée, Marie-Louis Prudhomme, Jean Charles Dominique de Lacretelle, and others. Other articles deal with emigré history writing, the Tableaux de la Révolution française, and the French Revolution in English caricature. The volume opens with two essays on historiography and immediacy, the writing of history by authors who were witnesses to the events they describe.

Salmon, André. La terreur noire. L’échappée, Montreuil 2008. 334 pp. Ill. € 25.00.

The author (1881–1961), a poet, journalist and art critic, published his “chronicle of the libertarian movement” in 1959. A narrative of violent episodes in the history of the anarchist movement during the period between the Paris Commune and the end of World War I, it features bomb-throwing anarchist figures such as Ravachol, Auguste Vaillant, and Émile Henry. This new edition reprints Salmon's original text with a few rectifications and corrections, explanatory notes, and many illustrations taken from contemporary newspapers.

Le syndicalisme dans la France occupée. Sous la dir. de Michel Margairaz et Danielle Tartakowsky. [Histoire.] Presses universitaires de Rennes, Rennes 2008. 508 pp. € 22.00.

The thirty-three articles in this volume are edited versions of contributions to a conference on trade unionism and corporatism in occupied France, organized in 2005 by research teams from the Université de Paris VIII and the HIS CGT, the historical Institute of the CGT (General confederation of labour). Three contributions offer a legal and ideological framework, the others are case studies dealing with individual trade unions, the trade union federations CGT and CFTC (French Christian Workers’ Federation), employers’ associations, civil servants’ unions, and how they operated under the Vichy regime. The editors, labour historians Michel Margairaz and Danielle Tartakowsky, tentatively conclude that trade-union practices were ultimately determined by the economic pressures of war rather than by ideological convictions.

Germany

Abendroth, Wolfgang, Gesammelte Schriften. Band 2. 1949–1955. Hrsg. und eingel. von Michael Buckmiller, Joachim Perels und Uli Schöle. Offizin, Hannover 2006–2008. 610 pp. € 34.80.

This is the second volume in a series projected to include eight volumes comprising a complete collection by the writings of the German political scientist and constitutional lawyer Wolfgang Abendroth (1906–1985) (see IRSH, 52 (2008), p. 357). The present volume features Abendroth's writings from the period 1949–1955 and encompasses such themes as the reform of higher education and universities in West Germany; the development of political science in the fledgling West German democracy; the role and function of trade unions, strikes, and legislation in constitutional reform; and the concept of a democratic and social constitutional state.

An American in Hitler's Berlin. Abraham Plotkin's diary, 1932–33. Ed. and with an introd. by Catherine Collomp and Bruno Groppo. University of Illinois Press, Urbana [etc.] 2009. xlix, 206 pp. Ill. $60.00. (Paper: $25.00.)

This is the first published edition of a diary kept by the American labour activist Plotkin, who visited Berlin from November 1932 to May 1933 and witnessed the downfall of the Weimar Republic, Hitler's repression of the German labour movement, and the beginning of the Third Reich. He investigated Berlin's social conditions with the help of German social democratic leaders, including Franz Joseph Furtwängler, Martin Plettl, and Robert Schultz, whose analyses of the situation he records alongside his own.

Brandt, Peter. Soziale Bewegung und politische Emanzipation. Studien zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung und des Sozialismus. Zum 60. Geburtstag von Peter Brandt hrsg. von Wolfgang Kruse, Eva Ochs und Arthur Schlegelmilch. [Politik- und Gesellschaftsgeschichte, Band 80]. Dietz, Bonn 2008. 544 pp. € 48.00.

This volume published in recognition of the sixtieth birthday of Peter Brandt, historian of the German labour movement and presently specializing in European constitutional history, brings together twenty-three essays Professor Brandt published between 1971 and 2008. They are organized in five sections covering themes such as the revolutionary period 1917–1920, the confrontation with National Socialism, organization of social and economic life after the war, German rearmament and German unification, and the German labour movement and political left in an international context.

Bremkens, Tobias. Arbeitsschutz im Kaiserreich. Sozialpolitik zwischen Staat und Unternehmern um 1900. Tectum Verlag, Marburg 2008. 123 pp. € 24.90.

This concise study examines the development of social security and labour policies in Germany between 1900 and 1914. The author explores how public and employers’ social policies, including sickness and unemployment funds, were mutually supportive in securing a stable social climate and addresses the heightened interest in safety policies in the workplace and the role of factory inspections in that respect.

d'Almeida, Fabrice. High Society in the Third Reich. Transl. by Steven Rendall. Polity Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2008. x, 294 pp. £55.00. (Paper: £16.99.)

This is the English translation of La vie mondaine sous le nazisme (2006), in which Dr d'Almeida aims to explore systematically the relations between German high society and the Nazis. The author shows how high society in the Weimar period, consisting of the old imperial aristocracy and a new republican aristocracy of government officials and wealthy businessmen, were pivotal in Hitler's ascent to power, receiving many favours in return. Dr d'Almeida presents a disturbing picture of a group that let their cynical enjoyment of pleasures prevail over all else.

Geraubte Leben. Zwangsarbeiter berichten. Hrsg. von der Stiftung “Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft”, bearb. von Kathrin Janka, and Stiftung “Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft”. Böhlau Verlag, Köln [etc.] 2008. 357 pp. € 22.90.

This volume brings together memories from survivors of forced labour under the Nazi occupation between 1939 and 1945, mainly from central and eastern Europe. The thirty-five texts in this collection were selected from applications to the Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future”, an organization established primarily to issue payments to former forced labourers.

Hübner, Peter [und] ChristaHübner. Sozialismus als soziale Frage. Sozialpolitik in der DDR und Polen 1968–1976. [Zeithistorische Studien, Band 45.] Böhlau Verlag, Köln [etc.] 2008. 520 pp. € 59.90.

In 1970 massive protests against price increases in Poland forced party leader Gomulka to resign; in the same period Walter Ulbricht lost power in the DDR. The respective new party leaderships under Edward Gierek and Erich Honecker saw the use of economic growth to improve the standard of living as their main task, securing the loyalty of their citizens in the process. This study focuses on socio-political decision-making in East Berlin and Warsaw in response to growing economic and social pressure. A separate chapter by Christoph Boyer on the process of “normalization” in Czechoslovakia is included for comparative purposes.

Könczöl, Barbara. Märtyrer des Sozialismus. Die SED und das Gedenken an Rosa Luxemburg und Karl Liebknecht. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt [etc.] 2008. 361 pp. Ill. € 34.90.

In the GDR Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg were commemorated as martyrs every year, the SED manifesting as their immediate successor. By analysing SED publications, films about Liebknecht and Thälmann, and the iconography of socialist memorial sites, Dr Könczöl sets out to demonstrate the construction of a myth that was central to the SED identity and legitimization of its power: the story of the founders of the communist party, their struggle for the cause of the working class, and their violent deaths, which were seen as acts of self-sacrifice for the victory of the working class.

Leidinger, Christiane. Keine Tochter aus gutem Hause. Johanna Elberskirchen (1864–1943). UVK Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Konstanz 2008. 479 pp. Ill. € 24.90.

This is the first complete biography of the German feminist, socialist writer, homeopathic practitioner, and sexual reformer Johanna Elberkirchen. The title refers to the unprivileged background of this remarkable woman, who was openly lesbian. Dr Leidinger traces her life in the context of the political, scientific, and sexual culture in imperial and Nazi Germany.

Meskill, David, Optimizing the German Workforce. Labor Administration from Bismarck to the Economic Miracle. [Monographs in German History, Vol. 31.] Berghahn Books, New York [etc.] 2010. xi, 276 pp. £55.00.

In this history of the German Labour Administration (Arbeitsverwaltung) from its late nineteenth-century origins to the Wirtsschaftswunder of the 1950s, Professor Meskill aims to explain how this system of job placement, vocational counselling, and indeed complete control of all movement on the labour market, of which the basic structure was determined in World War I, survived into the 1960s, throughout such different regimes as the imperial, Weimar, Nazi, and postwar West Germany. He argues that political policies of corporatist compromise and national security, as well as evolving industrial production strategies, are important explanatory elements. See also Dieter Maier's review in this volume, pp. 156–160.

Riedel, Tanja-Carina. Gleiches Recht für Frau und Mann. Die bürgerliche Frauenbewegung und die Entstehung des BGB. [Rechtsgeschichte und Geschlechterforschung, Band 9.] Böhlau Verlag, Köln [etc.] 2008. xviii, 547 pp. € 69.90.

This dissertation (Hamburg 2008) is a detailed and richly documented history of the German non-socialist women's movement, in particular the Allgemeine Deutsche Frauenverein, during the second half of the nineteenth century. At its core was the debate about the legal status of women in the new German civil code (Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch) of 1900.

Rubin, Eli. Synthetic Socialism. Plastics and Dictatorship in the German Democratic Republic. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill 2008. 286 pp. Ill. £44.60; $39.80.

This book explores the history of the German Democratic Republic from the perspective of its consumer culture. Short on natural resources, the communist government turned to plastic technology to synthesize a modern socialist alternative to Western consumer society. It equipped pre-war chemical factories with new machines to produce synthetic materials for clothes, kitchen utensils, car bodies, and many other products, insisting that plastic products were not cheap substitutes for cotton, wool, or crystal but quality goods, symbolizing socialism's scientific and economic superiority over capitalism.

Schöler, Uli. Die DDR und Wolfgang Abendroth. Wolfgang Abendroth und die DDR. Kritik einer Kampagne. Offizin, Hannover 2008. 128 pp. € 12.80; S.fr. 19.20.

Throughout his career from the late 1940s onward, the German political scientist and constitutional lawyer Wolfgang Abendroth (1906–1985) was regularly targeted by slander campaigns, in which he was accused of being a secret agent of the East German SED and, as such, of having influenced leftist politics in West Germany from the late 1960s onward. In this study Dr Schöler, co-editor of Abendroth's collected writings (see above and IRSH, 52 (2008), p. 357), scrutinizes these accusations meticulously, based in part on hitherto unknown source materials and concludes that the charges lack any factual substance.

Great Britain

Barlow, Keith. The Labour Movement in Britain from Thatcher to Blair. Extended and Updated Edition. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main [etc.] 2009. 304 pp. € 43.00.

This revised edition of The Labour Movement in Thatcher's Britain, published in 1997 (see IRSH, 44 (1999) p. 342) aims to explain how the Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher succeeded in transforming industrial relations in the British economy of the 1980s. This new edition has been extended to cover the 1990s and to suggest how Conservative policies influenced the economic and social policy of “New Labour” after the Conservative election defeat in 1997. According to the author, “New Labour” continued some of the restrictions imposed upon the trade unions by the Conservative government, thus breaking with some traditional Labour commitments.

Ben-Amos, Ilana Krausman. The Culture of Giving. Informal Support and Gift-Exchange in Early Modern England. [Cambridge Social and Cultural Histories.] Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2008. xi, 426 pp. £55.00; $99.00.

Combining historical research with insights drawn from theories of gift-giving, this study focuses on gift-giving, informal support, and charity in England between the late sixteenth and early eighteenth centuries. The first section deals with informal support in families and domestic settings, within social networks, parishes, and associations. The second analyses the “economy of giving”, examining voluntary giving and personal obligations, the reputations of those involved in offering support, and the limitations and perils of giving. The third section traces the adaptation and transformation of varied forms of informal help in a period of state and market expansion.

Bibbings, Lois S. Telling Tales About Men. Conceptions of Conscientious Objectors to Military Service During the First World War. Manchester University Press, Manchester [etc.] 2009. x, 259 pp. Ill. £55.00.

This book sets out to consider conscientious objectors to compulsory military service in England during World War I within a socio-cultural context. It explores the ways in which objectors were regarded and treated by their families, friends, employers, the government, the legal system, and the military, and how they were depicted in the press and in fiction. The author examines attitudes to war and soldiering, as well as ideas about nationality, race, gender, criminality, and mainstream Christianity. Among these different aspects, he considers masculinity to be the most significant.

Bridgen, Paul. The Labour Party and the Politics of War and Peace, 1900–1924. [Studies in History New Series.] The Royal Historical Society. The Boydell Press, Woodbridge [etc.] 2009. 223 pp. £50.00. $95.00.

This book traces the development of Labour's foreign policy from its formation as the Labour Representation committee (LRC) in 1900 until the end of its first period of government in 1924. The objective is to decipher the main ideological and interest influences on the party's approach to foreign affairs, focusing on the party's response to the European war, paying particular attention to the 1917 Memorandum on War Aims. Dr Bridgen aims to demonstrate that the development of Labour's foreign policy during this period was more sophisticated than previously believed.

Italy

I 120 anni della Società operaia du mutuo soccorso di Magione. I protagonisti e la memoria (1888–2008). A cura di Anna Angelica Fabiani e Sandro Tiberini. [Segni di civiltà, no. 28.] Soprintendenza archivistica per l'Umbria, Perugia 2008. 347 pp. Ill. No price.

This reference work, published in recognition of the 120th anniversary of the Mutual Aid Society of Magione, Umbria, consists mainly of the Society's annual membership and officer lists from 1888 until 2008, indicating the file locations in the archive. In his introduction co-editor Tiberini presents a historical overview of the Society. The volume includes an inventory of the archive of the Society and associated archives.

Badarello, Rodolfo. Cronache politiche e movimento operaio del savonese 1850–1922. Edizioni Pantarei, Milano 2008. xxii, 454 pp. € 25.00.

In the second half of the nineteenth century Savona changed from a small artisanal and commercial town into one of the main seats of the Italian iron industry. Thousands of peasants from the surrounding area came to work in the foundries and related industries, more than doubling Savona's population by the end of the century. This book, a revised and expanded version of the original edition of 1987, traces in great detail the history of the labour movement in Savona from its first organizations in the 1850s until 1922.

Brunello, Piero. Storie di anarchici e di spie. Polizia e politica nell'Italia liberale. [Storia e scienze sociali]. Donzelli Editore. Roma 2009. xvi, 175 pp. Ill. € 25.00.

The author starts with the arrest of nine anarchists in a tavern outside Padua in 1881 (and their prompt release because the police spy among them was due on a foreign mission) to investigate the formation of a modern Italian police force at the time. To this end, he meticulously reconstructs the network of people in and around the First International in north-east Italy and identifies the secret agents working in their midst. He shows the extraordinary extent to which the Italian police sought to document and control the political opposition, both at home and abroad.

Chinello, Cesco. Un barbaro veneziano. Mezzo secolo da comunista. Il Poligrafo, Padova 2008. 502 pp. € 25.00.

This is the “political autobiography” of Ivone “Cesco” Chinello (1925–2008), former resistance fighter, communist politician, and historian. It covers his career in the PCI, the Italians communist party, from the years just after the Liberation, when he was a young militant party member, until 1993, when he left the party. He was secretary of the Federazione comunista veneziana of the PCI in the 1960s and later a member of the Italian Parliament. He published several books on the social and economic history of industrial Porto Marghera and Venice in the twentieth century and the labour movement in that area.

Gianni, Emilio. L'Internazionale italiana fra libertari ed evoluzionisti. I congressi della Federazione Italiana e della Federazione Alta Italia dell'Associazione Internazionale dei lavoratori. 1872–1880. Edizioni Pantarei, Milano 2008. 754 pp. Ill. Maps. € 25.00.

This is the second in a series of works intended as a combination of a biographical dictionary and a prosopography of the Italian labour movement (see IRSH 53 (2008), p. 561 for the first volume in this series). The first part of this volume deals extensively with the history of the Italian labour movement in relation to the International Working Men's Association (IWMA), from 1864, when the IWMA was founded, until the end of the nineteenth century. The second part is a comprehensive biographical dictionary, featuring entries on several hundred individuals, including Andrea Costa, Errico Malatesta, and Anna Kuliscioff.

Gianni, Emilio. La parabola romagnola del “partito intermedio”. I congressi del Partito Socialista Rivoluzionario Romagnolo (1881–1993). Edizioni Pantarei, Milano 2008. 478 pp. Ill. € 25.00.

This is the third in a series of works intended as a combination of a biographical dictionary and a prosopography of the Italian labour movement (see IRSH 53 (2008), p. 561 for the first volume in this series). The first part of this volume deals with the history of the anarchist and socialist movements in the Romagna region, the second is a 100-page biographical dictionary featuring entries on individuals such as Andrea Costa, Carlo Monticelli, and Luigi Musini.

Modernità totalitaria. Il fascismo italiano. A cura di Emilio Gentile. [Storia e società]. Editori Laterza, Roma [etc.] 2008. xx, 244 pp. Ill. € 18.00.

Edited by the foremost innovator of the study of Italian fascism, this volume contains ten essays divided into three sections. The first, on “Faith and Repression”, discusses fascism as a modern alternative to both liberalism and communism that appealed to millions. The second, on “Aesthetics and Propaganda”, considers the contribution of modern art to fascist urbanism and the politicizing of everyday life, including picture postcards. The third section, “Either Rome or Moscow”, studies fascism's impact on Rome, its relation to the monarchy, and its attitude to the Soviet Union. Most of the papers were originally presented at a conference held in Rome in 2006.

Serbia

Daugsch, Walter. Internationalismus und Organisation. Studien zur Entstehung und Entwicklung der Serbischen Sozialdemokratie. [Studien zur Geschichte Ost- und Ostmitteleuropas, Band 8.] Gabriele Schäfer Verlag, Herne 2008. 278 pp. € 39.50.

This study aims to explore the origins and course of the social democratic movement in Serbia and among Serbian migrants from the 1890s to its demise in 1914, in the context of its relation to the Second International. Dr Daugsch examines how the Srpska socijaldemokratska stranska/partija (SSDP) from its founding in 1903 was oriented predominantly toward the German SPD, an orientation that also determined its position toward competing political currents on the left, such as anarchism and syndicalism. Special attention is given to the influence of associations of south Slavic workers abroad.

Spain

Carrillo-Linares, Alberto. Subversivos y malditos en la Universidad de Sevilla (1965–1977). Centro de Estudios Andaluces, Sevilla 2008. 677 pp. Ill. € 25.00.

Between 1965 and 1977, Seville became one of the main centres of student protest against the Francoist regime, together with Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, and Bilbao. The student movement was one of the most important factors in the opposition to the regime. In this edited version of a doctoral dissertation (University of Seville, 2007), Dr Carillo-Linares presents a detailed examination of this movement during the final years of the Francoist dictatorship, based on interviews with its main actors and source materials, some of which have not been used before.

Orr, Lois.Letters from Barcelona. An American Woman in Revolution and Civil War. With Some Materials by Charles Orr. Ed. by Gerd-Rainer Horn. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke [etc.] 2009. xiv, 209 pp. Ill. £50.00.

Lois Orr (1917–1985) and her husband Charles travelled to Barcelona on their honeymoon in 1936 and took part in the Spanish Civil War, joining the ranks of the Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista. After the May Days of 1937 they were arrested by the Stalinist-controlled police but were released and allowed to leave Spain unharmed. In over fifty excerpts from Lois's letters to family members and friends, she vividly describes her life and the events in which she became involved. The editor adds reflections on the revolution in Catalonia, the importance of women's autobiographies, and the specific perspective of foreigners who did not understand Spanish.

Parody, Manuel Ángel García. El Germinal del sur. Conflictos mineros en el Alto Guadiato (1881–1936). Centro de Estudios Andaluces, Consejería de la Presidencia, Sevilla 2009. 266 pp. Ill. (Incl. CD-Rom.) € 18.00.

The first half of the book – the “Germinal” in the title refers to Zola's novel on a French miners’ strike of the 1860s – is a history of the Sociedad Minera Metalúrgica de Peñarroya, its mines in the northern part of the province of Córdoba, the trade union of its miners, and their conflicts with the company, most notably in the strikes following the end of World War I. The second half reprints a number of articles published on those conflicts in 1922–1923 in El Socialista, the newspaper of the Partido Socialista Obrero Español. Several interesting photographs are included.

La previsión social en la historia. Actas del VI Congreso de Historia Social de España, Vitoria, 3–5 de julio de 2008. Coords. Santiago Castillo [y] Rafael Ruzafa. Siglo XXI, Asociacion de Historia Social [etc.], Madrid 2009. xv, 588 pp. Ill. (Incl. CD-Rom.) € 26.00.

This volume contains twenty reports presented at a conference on welfare in Spain (plus an additional fifteen on the accompanying CD-Rom). They cover in almost equal measure the periods from antiquity until 1900 and from 1900 to the present. Four contributions on France, Italy, Great Britain, and international conferences in the field provide a comparative perspective. Subjects addressed include mutual benefit societies, cooperatives, and the Instituto de Previsión Social founded in 1908, on which Santiago Castillo edited a separate volume (see IRSH, 55 (2010), p 184).

Sweden

Svanberg, Johan. Arbetets relationer och etniska dimensioner. Verksadsföreningen, Metall och esterna vid Svenksa Stålpressnings AB i Olofström 1945–1952. Linnaeus University Press, S.l. 2010. 394 pp. € 25.00.

This dissertation (Linnaeus University, Växjö, 2010) examines labour migration to Sweden in the period 1945–1952 by focusing on the Swedish metal industry. Reviewing relations between the Swedish Engineering Employers’ Association and the Swedish Metalworkers’ Union and including a local workplace study of the Swedish Steel Pressing Company SSAB, Dr Svanberg aims to explore how immigration by and active recruitment of workers in other countries affected and was affected by the relative strengths of the parties on the labour market in the context of the evolution of Sweden's corporative labour-market model.

Switzerland

Streckeisen, Peter. Die zwei Gesichter der Qualifikation. Eine Fallstudie zum Wandel von Industriearbeit. UVK Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Konstanz 2008. 363 pp. € 39.00.

Focusing on work in a pharmaceutical factory in Switzerland, this dissertation (Basle, 2007) explores developments and changes in contemporary industrial labour to analyse the role of occupational credentials. Using theoretical insights from the work of the French Marxist sociologist Pierre Naville, Dr Streckeisen aims to show that despite the fashionable lack of interest within labour sociology in industrial work, occupational credentials offer a critical lens for observing the ways society assesses the value of employees and analysing the resulting social and economic inequalities.