SOCIAL THEORY AND SOCIAL SCIENCE

Bensaïd,Daniel. Les dépossédés. Karl Marx, les voleurs de bois et le droit des pauvres. Fabrique éditions, Paris 2007. 126 pp. € 9.00.

Based on a reinterpretation of Karl Marx’s articles in the Rheinische Zeitung of 1842 of the debates in the Rhineland Diet on the theft of firewood and communal lands versus private property, Trotskyite philosopher Dr Bensaïd (see also IRSH, 49 (2004), p. 324) aims in this booklet to relate the ideas on political economy of the young Marx to a philosophical critique of such diverse contemporary issues as intellectual property, patenting biotechnical inventions and the right to housing. The common denominator of these issues is the justification of resistance of the dispossessed against the ongoing global trend of privatization and the harsh logic of calculating egotism.

Feminist Interpretations of Emma Goldman. Ed. by Penny A. Weiss and Loretta Kensinger. [Re-reading the canon.] The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, Pennsylvania 2007. xvi, 343 pp. $35.00.

In this volume in a series that offers re-interpretation of canonical philosophical writings, the fifteen essays aim to examine the influence of Emma Goldman’s ideas on social, political and feminist theory by placing her work in its social, historical and philosophical context. Contributors identify central themes and concerns in Goldman’s writings; sources of and influences on Goldman’s work; and her impact on the theory and practice of political change.

Womack, John. Posición estratégica y fuerza obrera. Hacia una nueva historia de los movimientos obreros. [Ensayos.] Fondo de Cultura Económica, Fideicomiso Historia de las Américas, El Colegio de México, México 2007. 443 pp. € 17.00.

The well-known specialist on Mexican history advocates renewed study of what makes certain positions in the chain of production so strategically important that they have become a source of power to the workers. He reexamines the historical use and analysis of strategic thought in social sciences and among (Marxist) labour movements and intellectuals. He contrasts (and deplores) the way business formulates strategies with the discourse on dignity characteristic of present-day labour history. The book, more than half of which consists of notes and a bibliography, also serves as an introduction to two projected volumes on the labour history of the state of Veracruz.

HISTORY

Bayerlein, Bernhard H. “Der Verräter, Stalin, bist Du!” Vom Ende der linken Solidarität. Komintern und kommunistische Parteien im Zweiten Weltkrieg 1939–1941. Unter Mitarb. von Natalja S. Lebedewa, Michail Narinski und Gleb Albert. Mit einem Zeitzeugenbericht von Wolfgang Leonard. Mit einem Vorwort von Hermann Weber. [Archive des Kommunismus. Pfade des XX. Jahrhunderts, Band 4.] Aufbau, Berlin 2008. 540 pp. Ill. € 29.95.

In this study the author examines the Hitler–Stalin pact of August 1939 and its impact on international communism, especially the Comintern and its national sections. He documents the developments preceding Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany in June 1941. The book is a collection of sources with extensive commentaries, with the central part comprising the secret, often encrypted correspondence of the Comintern headquarters in Moscow with the communist parties in western and central Europe and the secret informal sources from Stalin’s inner circle.

Beaudoin, Steven M. Poverty in World History. [Themes in World History.] Routledge, Oxford [etc.] 2007. 124 pp. £15.99.

This textbook examines from a global perspective the changing attitudes towards poverty and poor relief from 1500 onward, when poverty increasingly became a global issue. Professor Beaudoin uses this perspective of globalization to examine the causes of this globalization of poverty; innovations in early modern poor relief; poor relief in the welfare states; and the issues of morality and poverty and the role of the state.

Benton, Gregor. Chinese Migrants and Internationalism. Forgotten histories, 1917–1945. [Chinese Worlds.] Routledge, London [etc.] 2007. xvi, 170 pp. £85.00.

In this study of transnational Chinese migrant experiences from 1917 to 1945, Professor Benton examines seven different cases where Chinese migrants were active, often with other non-Chinese migrants, in local and global radical, internationalist activism. Including case studies of Chinese migrants’ involvement in the Russian Revolution and Civil War; Weimar Germany; mid-twentieth century Cuba; the Spanish Civil War, seafarers’ labour activism; twentieth-century Australia; and the international Esperanto movement, the author aims to show how the image of Chinese migrants as clannish, inassimilable, xenophobic and introverted is belied by historical research.

Crossing Boundaries. Women’s Organizing in Europe and the Americas, 1880s–1940s. Ed. by Pernilla Jonsson, Silke Neunsinger, and Joan Sangster. [Uppsala Studies in Economic History, vol. 80]. Universitet Uppsala, Uppsala 2007. 206 pp.

The seven contributions to this volume examine a range of attempts by feminists and socialists in Western Europe and the Americas from the late nineteenth until the mid-twentieth century to establish transnational connections with fellow activists. These attempts served various intellectual and political objectives and occurred in diverse organizational forms. Included are essays on women in the Labour and Socialist International in the interwar period (Silke Neunsinger); the Pan-American Women’s Movement (E. Sue Wamsley); and the financial structure of women’s organizations in Sweden, England, Germany, and Canada (Pernilla Jonsson).

Faber, Sebastiaan. Anglo-American Hispanists and the Spanish Civil War. Hispanophilia, Commitment, and Discipline. Palgrave Macmillan, New York [etc.] 2008. x, 278 pp. £40.00.

The author, whose book on Spanish intellectuals in Mexican exile was annotated in IRSH, 50 (2005), p. 154, investigates how Hispanists, both “amateur” and academic, in Britain and the United States dealt with the tension the Civil War created between their professional dedication to the truth, their moral and political convictions, and their love of Spain. In addition to reviewing the origins and progression of Spanish studies in the two countries, he delves into the biographies of Herbert Southworth, Paul Rogers, Allison Peers, and Gerald Brenan. He discusses their stance against the background of the present situation, in which more facts have been established than ever before, but interpretative disagreements continue.

Horne, Gerald. The White Pacific. US Imperialism and Black Slavery in the South Seas after the Civil War. University of Hawai’i Press, Honolulu 2007. v, 253 pp. $29.00.

This study explores the rise of white supremacy and the trade and exploitation of bonded labour in the Pacific from the beginning of the American Civil War to the dawn of the twentieth century. Professor Horne, who recently published on American involvement in the labour and independence struggles in the British West Indies (see above), aims to show how the Civil War led production of sugar and cotton to shift to Australia and the South Pacific, in particular Fiji and Hawaii, and to a concomitant rise in the trade in unfree labour. He focuses on the role of US citizens in this trade and on the intertwined rise of threats to the sovereignty in Hawaii, the origins of white Australian policy and the rise of Japan as a Pacific power.

Humour and Social Protest. Ed. by Marjolein C. ’t Hart, and Dennis Bos. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2007. 305 pp. Ill. $36.99.

The sixteen essays in this volume, also published as IRSH Supplement 15, explore the possible role of humour as a tool in social protest. Combining recent developments in the field of social movement theory and recent insights from the study of humour, contributors explore under what conditions humour can serve the cause of the protesters; be an effective tool for contentious social movements; help build a collective identity in a social movement; and serve as a “weapon of the weak”. Historical and spatial settings vary from harsh repressive regimes to open democratic societies; and from sixteenth-century to late twentieth-century cases.

Hunt, Lynn Avery. Inventing Human Rights. A History. W.W. Norton & Company, New York [etc.] 2007. Ill. 272 pp. £15.99.

This is a study of the historical origins of the concept of human rights as it emerged in eighteenth-century Enlightenment. Professor Hunt argues that the concept is grounded in the rejection of torture as a means of finding the truth. In the concluding chapter she aims to explain why the concept of human rights in politics may succeed in the long run, and how it relates to the rise of mass movements, such as nationalism and related varieties of exclusion, socialism and communism.

Jünke, Christoph. Der lange Schatten des Stalinismus. Sozialismus und Demokratie gestern und heute. ISP, Köln [etc.] 2007. 207 pp. € 19.80.

Dr Jünke, who recently also published an extensive biography of Leo Kofler (see below), has brought together in this volume ten essays, all but two previously published, on the tension between socialism and democracy and the central role of Stalinism in the context of the end of socialism in actual practice. Included are essays on a critical analysis of Stalinism from a leftist socialist stance, as may be found in the work of Georg Lukács, Isaac Deutscher, Leo Kofler, and Werner Hofmann, and an essay by the East German historian and journalist Manfred Behrend on the critique of Stalinism and the history of the GDR.

Learning on the Shop Floor. Historical Perspectives on Apprenticeship. Ed. by Bert De Munck, Steven L. Kaplan and Hugo Soly. [International Studies in Social History, Vol. 12.] Berghahn Books, New York [etc.] 2007. viii, 232 pp. $75.00; £37.50.

The eleven contributions to this volume, based on a conference organized in Brussels in December 2000, examine apprenticeship in a variety of historical contexts, ranging from late medieval and early modern Japan, the Netherlands and Flanders, through France before the Revolution to eighteenth and nineteenth-century Vienna. The contributors adopt a broad perspective, reviewing not only the economic but also the social and cultural processes involved, to show how apprenticeship is associated with migration, family economy and household strategies, gender divisions, urban identities, and general educational and pedagogical contexts.

Migration in History. Human Migration in Comparative Perspective. Ed. by Marc S. Rodriguez and Anthony T. Grafton. [Studies in Comparative History.] University of Rochester Press, Rochester [etc.] 2007. xvii, 262 pp. £45.00.

Based on the seminars of the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies at Princeton University, the seven essays brought together in this volume explore the history of migration as a longstanding phenomenon. Included are contributions on the nature of migrant colonization, frontier societies and the contradiction of colonization schemes in medieval Europe, modern Latin America and post-Partition India and Pakistan; on the nature of community across the social, religious and artistic space of migration; and on the political and legal architecture of modern immigration policy and law in relation to the nation as a regulated and organized community.

AFRICA

Asante, Molefi Kete. An Afrocentric Manifesto. Toward an African Renaissance. Polity, Cambridge [etc.] 2007. v, 178 pp. £15.99.

This manifesto is a concise polemic of the highlights of the Afrocentricity theory. Asante considers the black perspective to be pivotal here. The concept is constructed in the course of debates with authors such as Cruse, Nkrumah, and Maulana Karenga. Afrocentricity is a response to black disorientation, decentredness, and lack of agency and is a theory of human liberation and intellectual critique. The term is central in black studies. As in many other works from his vast bibliography, “Kemet” (ancient Egypt as a black civilization) figures prominently here.

Ghana

Rahman, Ahmad A. The Regime Change of Kwame Nkrumah. Epic Heroism in Africa and the Diaspora. Palgrave Macmillan, New York [etc.] 2007. xiii, 250 pp. £40.00.

This is an intellectual and political biography of Kwame Nkrumah (1909–1972), who led the Gold Coast to become the first sub-Saharan country to gain independence as Ghana in 1957 and was one of the leading political theorists of Pan-Africanism before being forced into exile after a CIA-induced military coup in February 1966. Professor Rahman, who explicitly draws on his own experience as Black Panther activist as the dominant perspective, portrays Nkrumah as a prototypical epic hero. He focuses in part on Nkrumah’s experiences in the United States, where he was strongly influenced by C.L.R. James and the ideas of Marcus Garvey, laying the basis for his Pan-Africanism and non-aligned Marxism.

AMERICA

Horne, Gerald. Cold War in a Hot Zone. The United States Confronts Labor and Independence Struggles in the British West Indies. Temple University Press, Philadelphia 2007. 262 pp. $25.95.

Professor Horne, who recently also published a study on the role of American citizens in the slave trade in the South Pacific (see above), explores in this study the impact of the early Cold War in the struggle for independence of the – now former – British West Indies and the rising influence of the United States in this process. The author examines the role of the active labour movement on many of the islands concerned, organized in the Caribbean Labour Congress, and focuses in particular on the role and fate of Cheddi Jagan, whose democratically elected socialist government was overthrown with US support in 1953.

Brazil

Holston, James. Insurgent Citizenship. Disjunctions of Democracy and Modernity in Brazil. [Information Series.] Princeton University Press, Princeton [etc.] 2008. xvii, 396 pp. Ill. £19.95.

According to the author, citizenship is the central issue regarding democracy and is determined by contradictory processes. This study has entailed two field visits to São Paulo to the Jardim das Camélias and Lar Nacional neighbourhoods in the periods 1995–1997 and 2001–2002. These typical examples from the auto-constructed peripheries clearly reveal the contrast between the formal sphere of the law based on universal inclusion and the practice of exclusion according to gender, class, and race. Progressive democratization over the past quarter century has coincided with the rise of violence on the part of the police and the gangs, with both groups invoking human rights to legitimize their actions.

Mische, Ann. Partisan Publics. Communication and Contention across Brazilian Youth Activist Networks. [Princeton Studies in Cultural Sociology.] Princeton University Press, Princeton [etc.] 2008. xxi, 432 pp. £39.50.

Using participatory observation, interviews and surveys, the author has provided a detailed reconstruction of the Brazilian youth movement. The study covers the period 1977–1997, examining the intersection of multiple networks, and how activists coped with these dynamics. She performs a structural analysis of trajectories of micro-cohorts of activists. The main themes she covers are leadership and communication styles and the problem of “partisan” as opposed to “civic”. Embedded in this study based, among others, on academic social movement and institutional and network analysis, we find a more factual history of students and Catholic activism and the movement to impeach Collor de Melo.

Canada

Household Counts. Canadian Households and Families in 1901. Ed. by Eric W. Sager and Peter Baskerville, Peter Allan. University of Toronto Press, Toronto [etc.] 2007. xiii, 486 pp. $85.00; £42.00. (Paper: $45.00; £22.50.)

The fourteen contributions in this volume use the 1901 Canadian census, and more in particular the database containing a 5 per cent random sample of dwellings pertaining to the Canadian Families Project, to explore the demographic context of families and households in Canada. All contributors adopt as their common perspective the family as a dynamic and adaptive social grouping and cultural construct at the turn of the twentieth century. Themes covered include family demography, urban families, generational relations, religion, and identity.

Kristofferson, Robert B. Craft Capitalism. Craftsworkers and Early Industrialization in Hamilton, Ontario, 1840–1872. [The Canadian Social History Series.] University of Toronto Press, Toronto [etc.] 2007. x, 326 pp. $70.00; £40.00. (Paper: $29.95; £20.00.)

Contrary to standard historiography on the effects of early industrialization on traditional craft workers, this study argues that in the case of Hamilton, Ontario, in the period 1840–1872, craft workers largely benefited from the introduction to industrial capitalism. Professor Kristofferson argues that various aspects of traditional craft culture, such as work arrangements and craft mobility networks were preserved, and that the majority of the city’s industrial entrepreneurs helped younger craftsmen achieve independence. As a result, class conflict was not yet pervasive. At the same time, the author argues, craft culture in Hamilton was not retrogressive.

Cuba

Pedraza, Silvia. Political Disaffection in Cuba’s Revolution and Exodus. [Cambridge Studies in Contentious Politics.] Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2007. xix, 359 pp. Ill. £40.00; $75.00.

This monograph explores the four groups of post-1959 Cuban refugees. The author has consulted research reports and statistics, conducted 120 in-depth interviews and has been a participating observer. Though mainly about the exile communities in Miami, the study covers those who remained behind on Cuba as well. The subdivision into four groups is based on Kunz’s concept of “vintage”. The social and ethnic composition shifts from white and middle-class to black and working-class. The last group of refugees (after 1989), known as “Balseros” for the flimsy little boats in which they undertook their dangerous escape, was the first group to be denied entry to the United States.

Ecuador

Becker, Marc. Indians and Leftists in the Making of Ecuador’s Modern Indigenous Movements. [Latin American Otherwise: Languages, Empires, Nations.] Duke University Press, Durham [etc.] 2008. xxv, 303 pp. $79.95; £50.00. (Paper: $22.95; £12.99.)

This study chronicles the development of indigenous activism in Ecuador from the establishment of the first local agricultural syndicates in the 1920s to the uprisings in June 1990 that paralysed the country for a week. Professor Becker aims to show how early collaboration with urban leftist intellectuals introduced rural activists to new tactics to defend indigenous languages, cultures and social organization and react adequately to local forms of exploitation. He examines a number of stages in the evolution of indigenous activism that reveal deeper roots than many contemporary observers have recognized. See also the author’s contribution to IRSH, 49 (2004), Supplement 12, pp. 41–64, and Victor Breton Solo de Zaldívar’s review in this volume, pp. 303–306.

Milton, Cynthia E. The Many Meanings of Poverty. Colonialism, Social Compacts, and Assistance in Eighteenth-Century Ecuador. Stanford University Press, Stanford (Cal.) 2007. xxi, 356 pp. $65.00.

Focusing on the urban society of the City of Quito in present-day Ecuador from the late colonialist period until the early years of Independence (c.1680–1810), this study examines how and why under colonialism many meanings of poverty existed, corresponding with the principle of a socio-racial hierarchy that prescribed who were, and who were not “deserving poor” entitled to claim assistance. Professor Milton analyses how the transformations in these various meanings affected the lives of the urban poor and the social compacts that underpinned colonial rule.

Puerto Rico

Baralt, Guillermo A. Slave Revolts in Puerto Rico. Conspiracies and Uprisings 1795–1873. Markus Wiener Publishers, Princeton 2007. x, 180 pp. Ill. £24.76.

This is the English translation of Esclavos Rebeldes: Conspiraciones y Sublevaciones de Esclavos en Puerto Rico (1795–1873), published in 1982. Based on extensive archival source exploration, Dr Baralt has provided evidence of over forty slave uprisings prior to the abolition of slavery in Puerto Rico, detailing them in this study. With this book, the author has adjusted the traditional image of the Puerto Rican slave population as docile and submissive. See also Juan-Giusti Cordero’s review in this volume, pp. 289–291.

United States of America

Alanen, Arnold R. Morgan Park. Duluth, U.S. Steel, and the Forging of a Company Town. With Photographs by Chris Faust. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis [etc.] 2007. xviii, 338 pp. Ill. $24.95.

In this richly illustrated book, Professor Alanen explores the origins and development of the company town Morgan Park, established in the early twentieth century as a neighbourhood in Duluth, Minnesota, by one of the major American steel companies, US Steel, to house the plant’s employees and their families. As an iconic example of a company town, it also became a centre of de-industrialization with the closing of the outmoded steel plant from 1946 onward. The author also describes the residents’ efforts to preserve the community’s historic character.

Benson, Susan Porter. Household Accounts. Working-Class Family Economies in the Interwar United States. Afterword by David Montgomery. Cornell University Press, Ithaca [etc.] 2007. xiii, 233 pp. $45.00.; £22.95.

Based on interviews with women wage earners conducted by agents of the Women’s Bureau of the Department of Labor, this study examines the consumption culture of working-class families in the United States in the interwar period. Professor Benson, who passed away shortly before completing the manuscript for this book, aims to show how working-class families lived in a context of scarcity and limited resources. She argues that working-class families did not share in the development of mass consumer culture. In his afterword, David Montgomery notes that class and gender relations are central in Professor Benson’s work.

Cole, Peter. Wobblies on the Waterfront. Interracial Unionism in Progressive-Era Philadelphia. [The Working Class in American History.] University of Illinois Press, Urbana [etc.] 2007. x, 227 pp. $40.00.

Focusing on one union local on the Philadelphia waterfront, affiliated with the International Workers of the World (IWW), Professor Cole examines in this study the union’s successful interracial, progressive policy during the 1910s and 1920s. He aims to show how the reasons for this success were both ideological (the IWW’s commitment to working-class solidarity) and pragmatic, as Local 8 understood how racial divisions helped reinforce employer dominance. He concludes that race was central not only to the union’s rise but also to its decline, as rising racial tensions were manipulated by employers and federal agents alike to weaken the union. See also Jon Bekken’s review in this volume, pp. 296–298.

Feminist Coalitions. Historical Perspectives on Second-Wave Feminism in the United States. Ed. by Stephanie Gilmore. Foreword by Sara M. Evans. Women in American History. University of Illinois Press, Urbana [etc.] 2008. x, 307 pp. $80.00. (Paper: $25.00.)

Whereas much scholarship on second-wave feminism has hitherto focused on divisions within the women’s movement and the dominance of white, middle-class, and politically rigid women, the thirteen essays in this volume aim to show that feminists in the 1970s formed numerous and diverse coalitions across lines of race, class and political ideology. The contributors review alliances in which feminists and other activists address issues such as reproductive rights, the peace movement, women’s health, Christianity and other religions, and neighbourhood activism.

Hull-House Maps and Papers. A Presentation of Nationalities and Wages in a Congested District of Chicago, Together with Comments and Essays on Problems Growing out of the Social Conditions. By the Residents of Hull-House, a Social Settlement. Intr. by Rima Linun Schultz. University of Illinois Press, Urbana [etc.] 2007. 178 pp. Ill. $50.00.

The Hull-House in Chicago’s Near West Side was one of the most famous examples of the Progressive-Era settlements movement. Its residents believed that social-science-based information on the working-class neighbourhood where they lived was essential to educate people and inspire social reforms. This volume offers a new edition of the Hull-House Maps and Papers, originally published in 1895, and contains all the original papers, charts, maps, photographs and articles. Also included is Jane Addams’s prefatory note and paper on the role of social settlements in the labour movement, as well as a historical introduction by the editor.

Lang, Kevin. Poverty and Discrimination. Princeton University Press, Princeton [etc.] 2007. xiii, 407 pp. $60.00; £38.95.

Starting with a brief history of poverty and poverty policy in the US in the twentieth century, economist Professor Lang, co-editor of Labour Economics, aims to provide insight into how poverty has been defined and measured over time, what its relation is to discrimination, and how anti-poverty and anti-discrimination policies may be evaluated. Based on extensive empirical data, he covers topics such as the relation between economic growth and poverty, the effects of labour markets, education, and family composition. He also assesses the empirical evidence of racial discrimination in relation to these topics.

Lipin, Lawrence M. Workers and the Wild. Conservation, Consumerism, and Labor in Oregon, 1910–30. [The Working Class in American History.] University of Illinois Press, Urbana [etc.] 2007. Ill. Maps. xv, 213 pp. $60.00. (Paper: $25.00.)

Focusing on Oregon in the 1910s and 1920s, this study examines how working-class attitudes about the proper use of nature evolved together with changing ideas about consumerism and environmental and wildlife policy. Professor Lipin shows how in the early, pre-World-War-I period, labour’s attitude was dominated by a “producerist” idea that nature should be used productively, whereas in the 1920s, influenced by emerging consumerism, views that resources should be spared from development and made available for public and recreational use became more prominent within the labour movement. At the end of this period, the relationship with wildlife advocates became more important and complicated.

Lorence, James J. A Hard Journey. The Life of Don West. University of Illinois Press, Urbana, [etc.] 2007. xvii, 308p. $39.95.

This study offers a comprehensive biography of the life and work of the American labour organizer, activist, and literary writer Don West (1906–1992). West was an influential literary and political figure in the southern Appalachians in the mid-twentieth century. Professor Lorence’s portrait addresses both West’s literary work and his political and educational activities and explores the roots of his militancy and early involvement in the socialist and communist parties in the 1930s, as well as his advocacy on behalf of workers and rural poor in the region.

Minchin, Timothy J. From Rights to Economics. The Ongoing Struggle for Black Equality in the US South. [New perspectives on the history of the South.] University Press of Florida, Gainesville [etc.] 2007. xii, 211 pp. $39.95.

Professor Minchin, who recently published several studies on the civil rights struggles and African-American labour activism in the American South (see IRSH, 50 (2005), pp. 27–51; 52 (2007), p. 332; and 53 (2008), pp. 160f.), has brought together in this volume eight essays that explore a wide range of activism that occurred in the American South after the 1964 Civil Rights Act. After gaining legal equality, African Americans became more aware of their economic inequality. Using oral histories and case studies of black activism, the author focuses on the work of grassroots groups in the struggle with the economic dimensions of the civil rights movement.

Moore, Kelly. Disrupting Science. Social Movements, American Scientists, and the Politics of the Military, 1945–1975. [Princeton Studies in Cultural Sociology.] Princeton University Press, Princeton [etc.] 2008. x, 311 pp. £19.95.

Together with the rising prestige of science and scientists in the United States in the postwar decades, due to their contributions to social and technological progress, scientists have become subject to growing criticism for their ever closer relations with military and governmental power. This study examines how American scientists increasingly became a target for protesters, many from within the scientific community. Professor Moore focuses on the political and intellectual roots of that protest and on the rise and influence of scientist-led protest organizations, such as the Union of Concerned Scientists, and argues that this ultimately changed the way science and scientists were perceived.

Mumford, Kevin. Newark. A History of Race, Rights, and Riots in America. [American History and Culture.] New York University Press, New York [etc.] 2007. xi, 308 pp. $39.00.

This study offers a history of race relations and urban development in the city of Newark, New Jersey, from early to the late twentieth century. In the period 1940–1970 the African-American population in the city rose from 20 to 50 per cent. Applying the concept of public sphere to the problem of race relations, Professor Mumford explores the vibrant political culture of Newark marked by civic pride and a long tradition of protest by the black community and concludes that in the 1970s the nationalist school of Black Power ideology contributed to racial violence and the end of local democracy.

Saitta, Dean J. The Archaeology of Collective Action. Foreword by Michael S. Nassaney. [The American Experience in Archaeological Perspective.] University Press of Florida, Gainesville [etc.] 2007. xx, 140 pp. £24.95.

Based on an archaeological case study of the Colorado Coalfield Strike of 1913–1914 at Ludlow, Professor Saitta aims to show how archaeology can help in reconstructing collective social actions of the relatively recent past and considers the implications these reconstructions may have for present-day social struggles. According to the author, excavations of the strikers’ tent colony site at Ludlow, Colorado, provide new insights into the survival tactics and resistance strategies of the people struggling against state and company power, thereby offering food for thought about contemporary conditions of people engaged in social movement struggles.

India

Hardiman, David. Histories for the Subordinated. Seagull, London [etc.] 2007. viii, 396 pp. £55.00. (Paper: £19.99.)

This volume encompasses nine essays by Professor Hardiman, of which all but one have been previously published from 1984 onwards. The essays offer an introduction to the key issues he has focused on in two decades of scholarship on modern Indian history, in particular on Indian nationalism and the role of Gandhi, subaltern studies, transition to capitalism, environmental history, and the history of the “people without a history”.

Japan

Faison, Elyssa. Managing Women. Disciplining Labor in Modern Japan. University of California Press, Berkeley [etc.] 2007. xiv, 227 pp. Ill. £23.95.

With the increase of women’s work in the advancing industry since the turn of the twentieth century, Japan experienced the emergence of labour-management practices, through which managers tried to instil moral and civic values to prevent this female labour from undermining a newly imagined national moral order based on the family system. Using an integrated analysis of gender ideology and ideologies of nationalism and ethnicity, Professor Faison examines the origins and contexts of these practices in the textile industry in the 1920s and 1930s and the workers’ responses to them.

Austria

Lewis, Jill. Workers and politics in occupied Austria, 1945–55. Manchester University Press, Manchester [etc.] 2007. 224 pp. £55.00.

Between 1945 and 1955 Austria and its capital were occupied by the four Allied Powers. This study aims to place the social and economic difficulties that Austria encountered in this decade in their international context and examines how they were contained by the country’s political and economic elite through the promotion of a culture of political unity and harmony. This eventually led to the emergence of an Austrian model of corporatism known as social partnership. Dr Lewis shows how this harmony model was increasingly jeopardized by the competition for influence in the country between the US and the Soviet Union.

France

Aux marges de la mine. Représentations, stratégies, comportements autour du charbon en Nord-Pas-de Calais, XVIIIe–XXe siècles. Etudes réunies par Jean-François Eck et Didier Terrier. [Recherches Valenciennoises]. Presses universitaires de Valenciennes, Valenciennes 2007. 202 pp. € 20.00.

The six essays in this volume, based on a colloquium organized in November 2003, explore various social, economic, and cultural themes more remotely associated with the mining industry in north-west France (the Nord-Pas-de Calais region) from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. The contributors have dealt with financial speculation around investments in the resurging mining industry in the eighteenth century; the role of landowners in financing mining in the second half of the nineteenth century; the renaissance of miners’ syndicalism around 1900; shops and small businesses in the mining area, and the mining literature of Josée Cadoux.

Blais, Marie-Claude. La solidarité. Histoire d’une idée. [Bibliothèque des idées.] Éditions Gallimard, S.l. 2007. 347 pp. € 22.50.

This study examines the origins of the idea of solidarity as a political and social concept and its political usage in France from the mid-nineteenth century onward. Dr Blais traces the concept in early nineteenth-century romanticism and contends that the period around 1900 was a pivotal moment in the emergence of the concept as a third course between liberal individualism and collectivist socialism. From the 1980s the concept has again regained, according to the author, its central position in ideological and political debates in France.

Lewis, Mary Dewhurst. The Boundaries of the Republic. Migrant Rights and the Limits of Universalism in France, 1918–1940. Stanford University Press, Stanford, California 2007. Ill. xv, 361 pp. $24.95.

In the wake of World War I, the French government introduced Europe’s first guest worker program to manage the unprecedented number of immigrants and also encouraged family settlements. In the 1930s, however, the French government began to curtail immigration, despite France’s famous doctrine of universal rights. In this study, Professor Dewhurst Lewis examines the life stories of immigrants in this period to describe how French immigration policies and immigrant rights changed under the influence of dramatic reversals in the economy, politics and international affairs.

Mousset, Sophie. Women’s Rights and the French Revolution. A Biography of Olympe de Gouges. Transl. from the French by Joy Poirel. Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick [etc.] 2007. x, 108 pp. £21.87.

This study is the translation of the French original of one of the first biographies of Olympe de Gouges (1748–1793), author of the fundamental “Déclarations des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne” (1791), in which she challenged the concept and practice of male authority and denounced the notion of inequality of men and women. She was executed in 1793 by the Jacobins for questioning the legitimacy of Robespierre’s regime and her relations with the Girondists. Mrs Mousset emphasizes De Gouges’ pioneering role in her advocacy of women’s liberation and right to self-determination and her opposition to slavery.

Germany

Aly, Götz. Hitler’s Beneficiaries. How the Nazis Bought the German People. Transl. by Jefferson Chase. Verso, London [etc.] 2007. viii, 431 pp. Ill. £19.99.

This is the English translation of Hitlers Volksstaat: Raub, Rassenkrieg und nationaler Sozialismus, which following its publication in early 2005 instigated considerable debate in Germany on the tenability of Professor Aly’s central thesis. The author contends that support for national socialism among the German people was literally bought by generous social programmes, tax breaks and preferential legislation for the German population. These programmes were paid for with the proceeds of large-scale theft of Jewish property, crippling taxation, looting of occupied territories, and forced labour.

Chin, Rita. The Guest Worker Question in Postwar Germany. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2007. xi, 281 pp. £40.00; $75.00.

This study offers a history of the postwar labour migration to West Germany and the emerging public debate about guest workers. She aims to show how the original conception of guest workers as a “temporary labour supplement” in the 1950s and 1960s shifted towards a debate about “multiculturalism” from the 1980s onward, as it became clear that labour migrants, especially Muslim Turks, would stay in Germany permanently. Professor Chin argues that this shift forced a major rethinking of German identity, culture, and nation. See also Karin Hunn’s review in this volume, pp. 298–301.

Eumann, Ulrich. Eigenwillige Kohorten der Revolution. Zur regionalen Sozialgeschichte des Kommunismus in der Weimarer Republik. [Europäische Hochschulschriften, Reihe III, Geschichte und ihre Hilfswissenschaften, Band 1040.] Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main [etc.] 2007. 379 pp. € 52.80.

This dissertation (Universität zu Köln, 2004) offers a social history of the rank and file of the KPD (the German communist party) in the Weimar Republic through a comparative exploration of the everyday activities of the regional party organization in five districts. Dr Eumann uses theories from organizational sociology (the work of Michel Crozier and Erherd Friedberg) to examine how the regional grassroots KPD organization functioned in relation to the national policies of the central leadership. He concludes that the party was a much more standard, common political organization than hitherto assumed.

Fischer, Lars. The Socialist Response to Antisemitism in Imperial Germany. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2007. xix, 252 pp. £45.00; $80.00.

In this study of Social Democrats’ attitude towards political anti-Semitism in imperial Germany, Dr Fischer argues that German Social Democrats generally felt that anti-Semites were not so much wrong in what they thought about “the Jews” in German society but in what they believed to be the solution to the “Jewish Question”. Introducing the term “anti-anti-Semitism” for those who resisted the political views of anti-Semites, the author discusses the role of Karl Marx’s influential “Zur Judenfrage” in the social democratic debates and the positions of leading Social Democrats, including August Bebel, Eduard Bernstein, Wilhelm Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. See also Mario Kessler’s review in this volume, pp. 294–296.

Harsch, Donna. Revenge of the Domestic. Women, the Family, and Communism in the German Democratic Republic. Princeton University Press, Princeton [etc.] 2007. Ill. xvi, 350 pp. £22.95.

Covering the period between 1945 and the 1970s, this study explores the relationship of women with their families, on the one hand, and with the East German SED and the GDR communist state it founded, on the other. Professor Harsch argues that an important gap remained between a production-oriented party state and family-oriented women citizens, but that both sides adapted to one another’s positions. The changes this brought about in often contradictory state policies and the discourse of the SED contributed significantly, according to the author, to the fall of communism in the long run.

Jünke, Christoph. Sozialistisches Strandgut. Leo Kofler – Leben und Werk (1907–1995). VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 2007. 701 pp. € 39.80.

This dissertation (Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 2005) is an extensive political and intellectual biography of the German-Austrian sociologist and philosopher Leo Kofler (1907–1995). Dr Jünke, who chairs the German Leo Kofler society, aims to offer a comprehensive portrait of this important Marxist thinker and individualist (see also IRSH, 47 (2002), pp. 160 and 511). Placing Kofler in the historical and intellectual context of his time, the author discusses in chronological order Kofler’s Austrian youth and experiences in Red Vienna, the influence of Austro-Marxism, his Swiss exile during World War II, his brief stay in the GDR and his evolution into a transitional thinker towards the German New Left.

Lutz, Helma. Vom Weltmarkt in den Privathaushalt. Die neuen Dienstmädchen im Zeitalter der Globalisierung. Unter Mitarb. von Susanne Schwalgin. Verlag Barbara Budrich, Opladen [etc.] 2007. 226 pp. € 19.90.

Based on a large empirical research project, this study explores the experiences of labour migrants from Eastern Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa employed as domestic workers in Germany in recent decades. Against the background of an increasing demand for cheap domestic labour in Germany in the era of globalization, Professor Lutz examines the relations of domestic workers with their employers in a context of in many cases illegal or semi-legal status; the identity these workers derive from their labour; and the transnational life courses of the domestic workers.

Madden, Paul and Detlef Mühlberger. The Nazi Party. The Anatomy of a People’s Party, 1919–1933. Peter Lang, Oxford [etc.] 2007. 329 pp. € 69.20.

The historical debate on the social background of the members and electorate of the NSDAP (the Nazi party) has long been dominated by the “lower-middle-class thesis”. Professors Madden and Mühlberger have been prominent in refuting this thesis from the 1970s onward by demonstrating, using empirical, statistical evidence, that the Nazi party drew its support from all social layers. In this volume they have brought together revisions of five essays on this issue that were published from 1980 onward, together with three chapters based on more recent research on regional and local levels.

Mellies, Dirk. Trojanische Pferde der DDR? Das neutralistisch-pazifistische Netzwerk der frühen Bundesrepublik und die Deutsche Volkszeitung, 1953–1973. [Europäische Hochschulschriften, Reihe III, Geschichte und ihre Hilfswissenschaften, Band 1039.] Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main [etc.] 2007. 181 pp. € 36.40.

An influential network of political writers gathered around the Deutsche Volkszeitung (DVZ), a small weekly originating from a minor pacifist group, in the 1950s. This study, based on an M.A. thesis, uses social network theory to examine the personal network around the DVZ that encompassed authors such as Renate Riemeck, Martin Niemöller, Wilhelm Elfes, Wolfgang Abendroth, and Günter Wallraff. The author aims to establish in what measure this network was used by the GDR regime to influence the pacifist, Third Way part of the political spectrum in the FRG.

Schildt, Axel. Die Sozialgeschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland bis 1989/90. [Enzyklopädie deutscher Geschichte, Band 80.] R. Oldenbourg Verlag, München 2007. xii, 156 pp. € 19.80.

This concise textbook, volume 80 in the ambitious Encyclopaedia of German History series, offers an overview of the social history of the Federal Republic of Germany from the end of World War II to German reunification in 1989/1990. Professor Schildt sketches the transition from basic reconstruction to genuine modernization of German society, followed by a post-industrial transformation from the late 1960s onward. This last phase is also characterized by “modern” phenomena, such as structural unemployment and environmental and demographic problems.

Great Britain

Belchem, John. Irish, Catholic and Scouse. The History of the Liverpool-Irish, 1800–1939. Liverpool University Press, Liverpool 2007. xii, 364 pp. £45.00. (Paper: £14.95.)

Before British society became multi-cultural in second half of the twentieth century, the Irish in Liverpool constituted the most significant ethnic group in nineteenth- and earlytwentieth-century Britain. Professor Belchem emphasizes in this study the role of ethnic agency among Catholic Irish migrants in finding a place of their own, leading to an increasingly assertive autonomy in pre-W-W-I Liverpool. He describes the Liverpool Irish with comparative references to other migrants, both compatriots who continued on to further destinations and other and migrants from Europe and from across the black Atlantic and other regions.

Bronstein, Jamie L. Caught in the Machinery. Workplace Accidents and Injured Workers in Nineteenth-Century Britain. Stanford University Press, Stanford 2008. x, 222 pp. $55.00.

In this study of occupational deaths and injuries during the heyday of industrialization in nineteenth-century Britain, Professor Bronstein examines the incidence of accidents at the workplace, advances in treatment and options for injured workers, and the cultural meaning of accidents. Using, among others, autobiographies, songs and public announcements as sources, she argues that over the course of this period, Britain experienced a shift from a strong laissez-faire attitude to forms of workers’ compensation. Comparing Britain with the United States in this period, she concludes that in both countries workplace accidents were ideologically reconstructed from individual tragedies into a social problem.

Chase, Malcolm. Chartism. A New History. Manchester University Press, Manchester [etc.] 2007. x, 421 pp. £60.00.

In this study, Dr Chase aims to offer a comprehensive history of Chartism, Britain’s first mass movement for democratic rights, by covering the movement’s entire geographic and chronological scope, from 1838 to 1858, and its sweeping influence on politics, gender, language and class identity. The chronologically organized narrative and analysis is interspersed with biographical sketches of influential persons in the movement, including Abram and Elizabeth Hanson, Patrick Brewster, Thomas Powell, John Watkins, Samuel Holberry, Elizabeth Neesom, Richard Pilling, Ann Dawson, and William Cuffay.

Cowman, Krista. Women of the Right Spirit. Paid Organisers of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) 1904–18. [Gender in history.] Manchester University Press, Manchester [etc.] 2007. xi, 248 pp. Ill. € 55.00.

In this study of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), the British militant organization formed in 1903 to obtain parliamentary votes for women, Dr Cowman examines how the WSPU established itself as a political organization, and how it built and sustained its campaign from 1904 to 1918. Describing the ways paid organizers were recruited and deployed, the author reveals the diverse class background of the organizers and the effects their militant activities could have on their lives. She also explores the subsequent course of the activists’ lives after suffrage for women was won in 1918.

Francis, Mark. Herbert Spencer and the Invention of Modern Life. Acumen, Stocksfield 2007. xiv, 434 pp. £25.00.

This is an intellectual biography of the English philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820–1903), who remains known primarily for coining the phrase “survival of the fittest” but has otherwise lapsed largely into oblivion. Professor Francis shows how the present-day ignorance about Spencer and his work contrasts with his great reputation is his own day and aims to portray Spencer’s personal life as a pivotal background to his work. See also Gregory Claeys’s review in this volume, pp. 292–294.

Honeyman, Katrina. Child Workers in England, 1780–1820. Parish Apprentices and the Making of the Early Industrial Labour Force. [Studies in Labour History.] Ashgate, Aldershot [etc.] 2007. xii, 340 pp. £60.00.

In this study of the development of parish apprenticeship and its relation to the early phase of industrialization in England in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Dr Honeyman aims to show how the practice of pauper children moving from poor law houses to apprenticeships with early industrial textile entrepreneurs became an important part of the labour supply. Reviewing sources from a great number of parishes and companies, she observes, for example, that conditions for these children were not always as harsh as is commonly assumed in historiography. See also Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk’s review in this volume, pp. 287–288.

Linehan, Thomas. Communism in Britain 1920–39. From the cradle to the grave. Manchester University Press, Manchester [etc.] 2007. 213 pp. £55.00.

This study explores the everyday experience of communist party membership in Britain in the interwar years and the efforts of the British Communist Party (CPGB) to define that experience. Dr Linehan analyses in what measure the CPGB functioned as a “political religion” for its members by examining how the Party sought to influence virtually all aspects of life, lifestyle, and personal and interpersonal development by advising on mothercraft and childrearing, on marital and kinship relations, on personal conduct, moral codes, health and diet, personal hygiene, and aesthetic judgements.

Richards, Eric. Debating the Highland Clearances. [Debates and Documents in Scottish History.] Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 2007. xiii, 241 pp. £55.00. (Paper: £16.99.)

This textbook offers an anthology of documents illustrating the historical foundation of the debate on the Highland Clearances in late eighteenth-century Scotland. Professor Richards reviews historical and contemporary debates among historians, novelists, politicians and economists and places these debates in their historical and historiographical contexts. He argues that the debate on the Clearances is an example of a classic historical problem that remains important, not just for Scottish patriotism but for history in general.

Italy

Calabrò, Carmelo. Il socialismo mite. Rodolfo Mondolfo tra marxismo e democrazia. [Politica, 5.] Editioni Polistampa, Firenze 2007. 229 pp. € 18.00.

This is an intellectual biography of Rodolfo Mondolfo (1877–1976), a history of philosophy professor in Bologna from 1914 to 1938 and a socialist. The book is mainly about his philosophical contributions to socialist culture and covers the period until his emigration to Argentina in 1939, after which he contributed little to socialist theorization anymore. Mondolfo became interested in Marxism while studying classical works of modern political philosophy, from Hobbes to Rousseau. The author traces his development chronologically to a Marxist who based his course on the Second International and had to take a stand on the developments in Italy after World War I.

Caracausi, Andrea. Dentro la bottega. Culture del lavoro in una città d’età moderna. Marsilio, Venezia 2008. 271 pp. € 26.00.

This study is an expanded version of a Ph.D. thesis defended at Bocconi University in Milan. In this study of Padua’s wool industry in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the author aims to demonstrate that the guilds did not reject market logic, and that labour market relations were not subject to hierarchical stratification or a rigid system of prices and wages imposed by the guild. This work examines the internal functioning of the workplace and the influence on the production process of the supervisory body, the Università dell’arte della lana, of which the author has consulted the archive, especially that of the tribunal.

Giulianelli, Roberto. L’industria carceraria in Italia. Lavoro e produzione nelle prigioni da Giolitti a Mussolini. [Temi di storia.] FrancoAngeli, Milano 2008. 224 pp. € 20.00.

Research on Italy’s penitentiary system has been largely restricted to legal aspects and to the nineteenth century. This book addresses the economic aspects of the prison system. The two fundamental questions that Dr Giulianelli asks are: how did production function in Italian prisons in the first half of the twentieth century, and how did it relate to the market? His sources include the annual prison statistics and the archive of the General Administration of the Penitentiary System. The first chapter reconstructs legislation regarding sentencing and imprisonment from the unification to fascism, while the second discusses work inside and the third work outside prison (agriculture).

Il socialismo fiorentino. Dalla Liberazione alla crisi dei partiti 1944–1994. A cura di Luigi Lotti. Edizioni Polistampa, Firenze 2008. 202 pp. € 16.00.

According to the author, this is the first and thus far the only book on the history of the post-war Partito Socialista Italiana in Florence. In Florence the PSI had fewer members than the Communist and the Christian-Democratic parties. Luigi Lotto examines the PSI in national and local politics; Massimo Nardini reports about the revival of Florentine socialism (1945–1957) in the local party periodical, La Difesa; and Donatella Cherubini wrote the biographical profiles of 21 MPs, mayors, and other local and regional dignitaries. The memoirs from this period of one of them, Lelio Lagorio, who held several ministerial posts, are included here.

The Netherlands

Meulen, Dick van der. Rondje om de kerk. Collectieve opstand bij de Nederlandse Spoorwegen. Aksant, Amsterdam 2007. 215 pp. Ill. € 14.90.

In 2000 a large part of the personnel of the recently privatized Dutch railway company went on strike to protest the proposed organizational changes. This wildcat strike, initially not supported by the trade unions, is described in this book by one of its initiators. Dick van der Meulen not only deals with the events and course of the strike and the roles played by the various participants in the conflict but also reflects on the underlying causes of the strike and the emotions that influenced it.

Russia – Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Bittner, Stephen V. The Many Lives of Khrushchev’s Thaw. Experience and Memory in Moscow’s Arbat. Cornell University Press, Ithaca [etc.] 2008. xi, 235 pp. Ill. $39.95; £20.50.

The period after Stalin’s death known as the thaw (after the title of Ehrenburg’s short story published in 1954) may be seen as a period of relatively free expression and artistic rebirth, but also as one of great confusion and contestation. The author of this study examines this phenomenon from different angles, concentrating on the Arbat neighbourhood in central Moscow, home to writers, artists, and scholars, and a few leading cultural establishments. He describes the period as a lived experience, seen differently by successive generations, but also emphasizes the central role of the past, of coming to terms with Soviet history before 1953.

Caroli, Dorena. Un Welfare State senza benessere. Insegnanti, impiegati, operai e contadini nel sistema di previdenza sociale dell’Unione Sovietica (1917–1939). Eum, Macerata 2008. 346 pp. € 22.00.

This is a reconstruction of the history of reforms of the pre-World War II Soviet-Russian system of social services. The author analyses its orientation and basic features, as well as its impact on the social system and on the standard of living. Her approach is interdisciplinary: institutional, legislative, and social-economic. She complements this macro level with micro-level research, focusing on Moscow’s insurance fund, on the large automotive factory ZiL in Moscow and on Moscow’s model school No. 25. In an introductory chapter the author lists the many archives she has consulted.

Dobrenko, Evgeny. Political Economy of Socialist Realism. Transl. by Jesse M. Savage. Yale University Press, New Haven [etc.] 2007. xxi, 386 pp. £40.00.

Dobrenko, Evgenij. Politekonomija socrealizma. Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, Moskva, 2007. 586 pp.

In this book the author attempts to understand the Soviet historical experience as the product of socialist realism. He sees socialist realism as a factory that produced and gave material form to “real existing socialism”. He examines a wide array of art forms – novels, films, songs, painting, architecture, and advertising (the Russian version even features a chapter about stamps) – to demonstrate that socialist realism was Stalinism’s most effective sociopolitical institution. The English version has an index and a bibliography, which are lacking in the Russian original.

Epstein, Barbara. The Minsk Ghetto 1941–1943. Jewish Resistance and Soviet Internationalism. University of California Press, Berkeley [etc.] 2008. xiv, 351 pp. Ill. £23.95.

This study chronicles the history of a communist-led resistance movement inside the Minsk ghetto, which enabled thousands of ghetto Jews to flee to the surrounding forests, where they joined partisan units. Comparisons with resistance movements in the Warsaw, Vilna, and Kovno ghettoes help readers discover why the Minsk movement was able to rely on cooperation from the population outside the ghetto. One chapter is devoted to the negative view that the postwar Soviet authorities adopted towards the participants in this movement.

Field, Deborah A. Private Life and Communist Morality in Khrushchev’s Russia. Peter Lang, New York [etc.] 2007. x, 147 pp. € 45.00.

Focusing on the Khrushchev years from the mid 1950s to the early 1960s, this study explores the Soviet government’s attempts to supervise and regulate private life and enforce communist morality, as well as the diverse responses to these policies by the people. Professor Field aims to show how the extremely crowded living conditions of most Soviet citizens and the ideological constraints created by the official policy on morality made private life a very different and far more restricted notion than in Western society, and at the same time how people responded to these constraints with a combination of partial acceptance, rejection, and appropriation. See also Sofia Tchouikina’s review in this volume, pp. 301–303.

Finkel, Stuart. On the Ideological Front. The Russian Intelligentsia and the Making of the Soviet Public Sphere. Yale University Press, New Haven [etc.] 2007. viii, 338 pp. £35.00.

This book deals with the shifts in the composition, character, and function of the intelligentsia between 1917 and the late 1920s. The author argues that during the NEP (the New Economic Policy, 1921–1928) intellectuals and their academic, cultural, and professional institutions became subject to significant restraints, and that civil society in this period existed only in an external and formal sense. Two chapters address the expulsion from the country in 1922 and 1923 of nearly 100 prominent intellectuals and their families, which has come to be known as the “Philosophers’ Steamboat”.

Kelly, Catriona. Children’s World. Growing up in Russia, 1890–1991. Yale University Press, New Haven [etc.] 2007. xxii, 714 pp. Ill. $45.00.

This study by cultural historian Catriona Kelly is about daily life experiences by Russian children over the course of the twentieth century. Children in European Russia receive the most extensive consideration, and Jews and Tatars are special focus areas. The author covers a broad variety of subjects, including shifts in perceptions of childhood from decade to decade, variations in child-care practices according to social status and experiences of orphans and street waifs. In addition to sources such as archives and newspapers, this work is based on a large-scale interview project carried out in large and small Russian cities and villages and among émigré Russians in the UK.

Shulman, Elena. Stalinism on the Frontier of Empire. Women and State Formation in the Soviet Far East. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2008. xiv, 260 pp. Ill. £55.00; $99.00.

In the late 1930s Soviet authorities launched a campaign to attract female settlers to the frontiers of the Soviet Far East. Some 25,000 women (called Khetagurovites after the campaign’s main activist Valentina Khetagurova) migrated there within a couple of years. In this study the author examines the history of this phenomenon and the ideas and fates of its participants, considering Soviet women’s roles in state formation, the role of frontier Stalinism in structuring gender ideals and the nature of Soviet society in the 1930s.

Spain

Guía de fuentes para el estudio de la emigración española. Coord. Centro de Documentación de la Emigración Española en Europa. Fundación 1° de Mayo, Madrid 2008. 246 pp.

This is a global guide to the holdings on Spanish migrants at the Fundación 1 de Mayo in Madrid. As is often the case, determining whether the migrants in question were chiefly economically or politically motivated is not always easy, though most of the archival collections date from the period of organized labour migration from the late 1950s onwards. Not surprisingly, organizations that operated in a communist context have received emphasis. Of special interest are the collections of photographs and posters as well as the bibliographies, including one of serials published abroad.

Hamilton, Carrie. Women and ETA. The gender politics of radical Basque nationalism. Manchester University Press, Manchester [etc.] 2007. vii, 256 pp. £55.00.

This is a study of women’s participation as members and supporters of the radical Basque nationalist organization Euskadi ta Askatasuna (ETA – Basque Homeland and Freedom) during the organization’s first two decades (1959–1982). Based on oral history interviews and archival and published sources, Dr Hamilton analyses women’s collaboration and direct participation in ETA, the role of adjacent cultural movements, the role of motherhood, and feminism. She also compares the circumstances of women in the ETA with those of women in other nationalist and armed liberation movements.

Lenstra, Rinze. Anarchisme en syndicalisme in Spanje, 1868–1939. Ideaal en werkelijkheid, continuïteit en verandering. Aspekt-Monografie onder red. van Perry Pierik. Aspekt, Soesterberg 2007. 590 pp. Maps. € 24.95.

This is a popular history of Spanish anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism based on non-Spanish secondary literature. The author reviews these movements from the beginnings of the International Working Men’s Association at the end of the 1860s through the Spanish Civil War, covering the various periods he identifies in almost equal measure.

Martínez de Baños Carrillo, Fernando. El Maquis. Una cultura del exilio español. Delsan Libros, Zaragoza 2007. 407 pp. € 20.00.

The author, who is both a historian and a colonel in the Spanish Army, has used public and private archives, as well as interviews with survivors, to write a detailed military history of the communist-inspired operation, “Reconquista de España”, in the central Pyrenees in October 1944. Driven by illusions about the insurrectionary spirit of the population and a possible Allied intervention in Spain, a group of several thousand veterans of anti-fascist combat invaded the valley of Arán in order to lay the basis for a “Third Republic”, only to be expelled in a matter of days. The author reconstructs what happened on both sides and mentions one unintended result, Santiago Carrillo’s rise in the Spanish Communist Party.

Romero Salvadó, Francisco J. The Foundations of Civil War: Revolution, Social Conflict and Reaction in Liberal Spain, 1916–1923. [Routledge/Cañada Blanch Studies on Contemporary Spain, vol. 14.] Routledge, New York [etc.] 2008. xviii, 410 pp. £65.00.

This is a major study of the final years of the Liberal regime in Spain that existed between the coups of Generals Martínez Campos (1874) and Primo de Rivera (1923). Using archival sources and a host of recent studies, the author argues that the regime survived for several years after the crisis that hit Spain in the middle of World War I, mainly because no replacement appeared. The anarcho-syndicalists of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, whose mobilization power grew dramatically, failed to set a political agenda. At the same time, an alliance between Catalan industrialists, caciques and the Army operated increasingly outside the state, until nobody remained to defend the old parties.

Tant pis si la lutte est cruelle. Volontaires internationaux contre Franco. Sous la dir. de Stéfanie Prezioso, Jean Batou et Ami-Jacques Rapin. [Histoire: enjeux et débats.] Éditions Syllepse, Paris 2008. 559 pp. € 30.00.

A thoroughly reworked offshoot of a conference held at the University of Lausanne in December 1997, the thirty-two contributions to this book, written by an impressive array of specialists, cover as many aspects of the history of the International Brigades. Clustered in seven parts, they deal with the role of the Communist International, Spanish perspectives on the Brigades, foreign volunteers outside the Brigades, a comparative sociology of the volunteers (or at least those from France, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Canada, and the US), the participation of exiles and migrants from European dictatorships as well as Japan, the participation of women, and the contribution of Latin-American, Maghrebian, Afro-American and Chinese volunteers. A useful international cinematography and bibliography are appended.