Egypt

El-Shazli, Heba. Trade Unions and Arab Revolutions. Challenging the Regime in Egypt. [Routledge Research in Employment Relations.] Routledge, New York [etc.] 2019. xii, 246 pp. Ill. £115.00. (E-book: £36.99).

After thirty-two years of an authoritarian regime in Egypt, massive protests began in 2011 and forced President Mubarak to step down from his position. Professor El-Shazli examines the role of Egyptian independent labour organizations as a contentious social movement to challenge the regime. She compares two different movements, where workers who had been struggling for their rights for a decade prior to January 2011 experienced significantly differing outcomes. One showcases the municipal real estate tax collectors, who established a successful social movement and formed an independent trade union. The second case study examines an influential group of textile workers, who also developed an effective social movement but were unable to establish an independent union.

South Africa

Southern African Liberation Movements and the Global Cold War “East”. Transnational Activism 1960–1990. Ed. by Dallywater, Lena, Saunders, Chris, and Adegar, Helder Fonseca. [Dialects of the Global, Vol. 4.] De Gruyter Oldenbourg, Berlin 2019. xi, 202 pp. Ill. € 77.95; $89.99; £71.00.

The complex liberation of Southern Africa from colonialism and apartheid in the late twentieth century took place mainly during the Cold War. The authors of the eight contributions in this book argue that the links between the liberation movements and the Global East must be understood in their local contexts, including personal agendas and internal conflicts, rather than primarily in the traditional frame of Cold War competition. Building on archival sources and interviews, the case studies in this volume point to the agency of individual activists in both Africa and Eastern Europe and the lessons, practices, and languages that derived from their often contradictory encounters.

Tanzania

Tague, Joanna T. Displaced Mozambicans in Postcolonial Tanzania. Refugee Power, Mobility, Education, and Rural Development. [Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Africa.] Routledge, Abingdon [etc.] 2019. xii, 204 pp. Ill. Maps. £115.00. (E-book: £36.99).

During the war for independence from Portugal (1964–1974), two distinct communities of Mozambicans emerged in Tanzania. On the one hand, a minority of students and liberation leaders congregated in Dar es Salaam; on the other hand, the majority of Mozambicans settled in refugee camps. In the 1960s, Tanzania's open-door refugee policy was an organic, post-colonial expression of the agency possible in displacement. The policy emphasized the opportunities rather than the burdens and showed how being a refugee could be generative and productive. Using a diverse range of archival materials and oral interviews, Professor Tague argues that during decolonization the displaced acted as their own agents and strategized their own trajectories in exile.

Tanzanian Development. A Comparative Perspective. Ed. by Potts, David. [Eastern Africa Series.] James Currey [etc.], Rochester (NY) [etc.] 2019. xviii, 364 pp. Maps. £60.00.

Over the past thirty years, Tanzania has experienced a period of painful adjustment followed by relatively rapid and stable economic growth. The extent of progress in poverty reduction and the sustainability of the development process, however, are both open to question. In this book, fifteen contributors share a range of different perspectives on the development process over time and the issues facing a rapidly growing African economy: political economy; agriculture and rural livelihoods; industrial development; urbanization; aid and trade; tourism; and use of natural resources. Comparisons are presented with other African economies, as well with as with other developing countries, such as Vietnam.

Zimbabwe

Mujere, Joseph, Land, Migration and Belonging. A History of the Basotho in Southern Rhodesia c.1890–1960s. [Eastern Africa Series.] Boydell and Brewer, Woodbridge [etc.] 2019. xiii, 181 pp. Ill. Maps. £60.00.

Tracing the history of the Basotho, a small, mainly Christianized community of evangelists working for the Dutch Reformed Church, Dr Mujere examines the challenges faced by minority ethnic groups in colonial Zimbabwe and their efforts to balance between particularism and integration. Maintaining their own language and community farm, the Basotho used ownership of freehold land, religion, and a shared history to sustain their identity. The author analyses the challenges they faced in purchasing land and engaging with colonial administrators and missionaries, as well as the nature and impact of internal schisms within the community, and shows how their “unity in diversity” impacted their struggles to belong and shaped their lives.

Brazil

Klein, Herbert S. and Luna, Francisco Vidal. Feeding the World. Brazil's Transformation into a Modern Agricultural Economy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2019. xvii 453 pp. Maps. £74.99. (Paper: £24.99; E-book: $26.00).

Commercial agriculture in Brazil is, at present, highly mechanized, with access to abundant public and private credit. The aim of this study is to explain how this agricultural revolution occurred, and how Brazil has evolved in the past half century from the mono-production of coffee into a world agricultural power. In examining the causes of this agricultural revolution, Professors Klein and Vidal Luna analyse the massive mobilization of capital under the military regimes of 1964–1985 and the systematic development of modern research and national agricultural machinery programmes and a modern chemical industry, as well as the human capital emerging in the rural area and its impact on this modernization process.

United States of America

Crime and Punishment in the Jim Crow South. Ed. by Wood, Amy Louise and Ring, Natalie J.. University of Illinois Press, Urbana (IL) [etc.] 2019. 228 pp. Ill. $99.00. (Paper: $26.00; E-book: $19.95).

In the Jim Crow South, criminal justice reflected a distinctive development, not only because of white supremacist demands for racial control, but also because of distrust of centralized state power among white southerners. Elements of this criminal justice system eventually spread throughout the United States of America and are still discernible. Policing, incarceration, and capital punishment maintained racial power, giving rise to modern state bureaucracies that eclipsed traditions of local sovereignty. These nine essays about the carceral system and its development over time cover topics ranging from activism against police brutality to the peculiar path of southern prison reform to the fraught introduction of the electric chair.

Offenburger, Andrew. Frontiers in the Gilded Age. Adventure, Capitalism, and Dispossession from Southern Africa to the US-Mexican Borderlands, 1880–1917. Yale University Press, New Haven (CT) 2019. xvi, 299 pp. Ill. $45.00.

In the late nineteenth century, the US-Mexican borderlands constituted one stop of many where Americans chased capitalist dreams beyond the United States. Professor Offenburger examines how these frontier spaces expose the flawed and immoral strategies of profiteers and reveal the capacity for resistance and resilience that indigenous people summoned when threatened. Linking together a series of stories about Boer exiles who settled in Mexico, a global network of Protestant missionaries, and adventurers involved in the parallel displacements of indigenous peoples in Rhodesia and the Yaqui Indians in Mexico, he positions the borderlands of the Mexican North and the American Southwest within a global system.

Salinas, Cristina. Managed Migrations. Growers, Farmworkers, and Border Enforcement in the Twentieth Century. [Historia USA.] University of Texas Press, Austin (TX) 2018. xii, 272 pp. Ill. Maps. $45.00.

In South Texas, the dreams of Anglo-American farmers of forming a modern agricultural empire depended largely on continuous access to Mexican workers. While this was officially regulated by immigration laws and policy in Washington, D.C., in practice the migration of Mexican labour involved daily, on-the-ground negotiations between growers, workers, and the US Border Patrol. Professor Salinas examines these relationships, revealing that immigration policy was largely formulated at the local level, as well as the agency of Mexican farmworkers who managed to maintain their mobility and kinship networks, despite the constraints of grower paternalism and enforcement actions by the Border Patrol.

Striffler, Steve. Solidarity. Latin America and Left Internationalism in the Era of Human Rights. [Wildcat: Workers’ Movements and Global Capitalism.] Pluto Press, London 2019. viii, 241 pp. £75.00. (Paper: £17.99).

In this book, Professor Striffler attempts to understand recent solidarity efforts historically by tracing the ongoing evolution, relationship, and struggle between moderate and left-wing strands of internationalism within the broader current of Latin-American solidarity, and what this has meant for the US left as a whole. He traces the history of internationalism, from the Haitian Revolution, through the Cold War, to the present day, exploring the rise of human rights and, later, labour issues as the dominant currents of international solidarity, in addition to considering the limitations of the present solidarity movement, which inherited its organizational infrastructure from the human rights movements.

Trotter, Joe William Jr.. Workers on Arrival. Black Labor in the Making of America. University of California Press, Oakland (CA) 2019. xxiv, 296 pp. Ill. $29.95; £24.00. (E-book: $29.95; £24.00).

In this book, Professor Trotter Jr. documents the movement of urban black workers and examines the lives and labour of black workers within the broader context of urban capitalist development, community formation, and politics. Part One locates the roots of the black urban working class in the rise of the transatlantic slave trade during the colonial era and shows how a growing share of urban black workers helped construct the colonial city. Part Two examines the rise of the urban industrial working class under the impact of the Great Migration and its collapse in the face of deindustrialization and globalization during the final years of the twentieth century.

Wilkerson, Jessica. To Live Here, You Have to Fight. How Women Led Appalachian Movements for Social Justice. [The Working Class in American History.] University of Illinois Press, Urbana (IL) [etc.] 2019. xii, 255 pp. Ill. $99.00. (Paper: $27.95; E-book: $14.95).

Launched in 1964, the War on Poverty took aim at the coalfields of southern Appalachia. Professor Wilkerson documents the central role of working-class women in Appalachian resistance movements in the 1960s and 70s. Drawing on a tradition of family care and community support, mountain women brought to their activism an awareness of the connection between environmental, health, and economic justice that redefined class and gender issues in America and offered an alternative vision for their communities and the capitalist nation. The author introduces these activists and shows how lifetimes of caring for ailing coal miners and struggling Appalachian communities inspired both urgent demands for social justice and radical critiques of rampant capitalism.

China

Fion Wai, Ling So. Germany's Colony in China. Colonialism, Protection, and Economic Development in Qingdao and Shandong, 1898–1914. [Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Asia.] Routledge, London [etc.] 2019. x, 165 pp. Ill. Maps. £95.00. (E-book: £35.99).

In this book, the author explores the economic development of the northern Chinese city of Qingdao, which was held by Germany as a colony from 1898 to 1914, focusing especially on the economic policies of the German colonial government and the provincial government of the neighbouring Chinese province of Shandong, considering, for example free trade and protection, the impact of the Gold Standard and assistance to particular companies. How the Qingdao and Shandong economies fit into overall East Asian and global trade patterns and during this period became more fully integrated into the world economy is shown as well.

U, Eddy. Creating the Intellectual. Chinese Communism and the Rise of a Classification. University of California Press, Oakland (CA) 2019. xix, 226 pp. Ill. $34.95; € 27.00.

This book redefines how we understand relations between intellectuals and the Chinese socialist revolution of the last century. Under the Chinese Communist Party, “the intellectual” was primarily a widening classification of individuals based on Marxist thought. The party turned revolutionaries and otherwise ordinary people into subjects identified as usable but untrustworthy intellectuals, an identification that profoundly affected patterns of domination, interaction, and rupture within the revolutionary enterprise. Drawing on a wide range of data, Professor U examines political discourses, revolutionary strategies, rural activities, urban registrations, workplace arrangements, organized protests, and theatre productions and describes the formation of new identities, forms of organization, and associations in Chinese society.

Wemheuer, Felix. A Social History of Maoist China. Conflict and Change, 1949–1976. [New Approaches to Asian History.] Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2019. xvi, 331 pp. Ill. Maps. £59.99. (Paper: £22.99; E-book: $24.00).

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

India

From Popular Movements to Rebellion. The Naxalite Decade. Ed. by Samaddar, Ranabir. Routledge, Abingdon [etc.] 2019. xv, 576 pp. Ill. £115.00. (E-book: £39.99).

The Naxalite decade was a period of popular movements that developed into insurgency in India from the mid-1960s to the mid-70s. Section One presents movements in the 1950s and 60s in West Bengal, with a focus on Calcutta. Section Two engages with some of the core aspects of the Naxalite decade: popular participation; the nature of insurgency; and the spread of the struggle in villages and towns of Bengal. In Section Three, issues of caste oppression in Bihar, the politics of social justice, corruption and legitimacy of rule, and the interface of class and caste politics are analysed. Section Four comprises six short stories written during the Naxalite period. The book ends with newspaper clippings from the period.

Hinchy, Jessica. Governing Gender and Sexuality in Colonial India. The Hijra, c.1850–1900 Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2019. xviii, 305 pp. Ill. £75.00; $80.00.

From the 1850s, colonial officials and middle-class Indians increasingly expressed moral outrage at feminine gender expression, sexuality, and public performances of the Hijras. For many colonial officials, Hijras were not only a danger to public morals, but also a threat to colonial political authority. Professor Hinchy seeks to explain the intense official concern with Hijras. In 1871, the colonial government passed a law that criminalized Hijras, explicitly aimed at causing their extermination. Based on extensive archival work in India and the United Kingdom, the author argues that Hijras were criminalized not simply because of imported British norms but due to a complex of local factors, including Indian elitism.

Indian Democracy. Origins, Trajectories, Contestations. Ed. by Nilsen, Alf Gunvald, Nielsen, Kenneth Bo, and Vaidya, Anand. Pluto Press, London 2019. viii, 176 pp. £75.00. (Paper, E-book: £24.99).

More than seventy years after its founding, with authoritarian Hindu nationalists in government, this volume examines the state of Indian democracy. India's pluralism has always posed a challenge to its democracy, with many believing that a clash of identities based on region, language, caste, religion, ethnicity, and tribe would bring about its demise. Twelve scholars, activists, and public intellectuals examine how class and caste power shaped the making of India's postcolonial democracy, the role of feminism, the media, and the public sphere in sustaining and challenging democracy and probe the contradictions of the Indian democratic project, examining its origins, trajectories, and contestations.

Japan

Jolliffe, Pia Maria. Prisons and Forced Labour in Japan. The Colonization of Hokkaido, 1881–1894. [Routledge Focus on Asia.] Routledge, London 2019. xvii, 82 pp. Maps. £45.00. (E-book: £15.00).

This book examines the assumption that the construction of prisons and the use of convict labour formed the basis of the colonization of Hokkaido between 1881 and 1894. Based on the analysis of archival sources such as prison yearbooks and letters, as well as other eyewitness accounts, Dr Jolliffe explores the institutionalization of convict labour on Hokkaido against the backdrop of political uprisings during the Meiji period noting a coincidence between colonial policy and mobilization of convict labour, as prisoners contributed to rural development through farming and industrial activities and were later used in road construction and extraction of coal and sulphur.

Middle East

Communist Parties in the Middle East. 100 Years of History. Ed. by Feliu, Laura and Izquierdo-Brichs, Ferran. [Europa Regional Perspectives.] Routledge, London 2019. xii, 310 pp. £115.00. (E-book: £92.00).

This book offers a comprehensive study of Communist parties in the Middle East, based on both theoretical analysis and substantial empirical research. In Part One, eleven case studies are presented by country, revealing the diversity of experiences and results and the influence of local contexts, examining Communist parties in different countries, and elaborating on their adherence to or independence from Marxist-Leninist Soviet ideological doctrine. The four essays in Part Two explore cross-sectional matters that have affected relations between communist parties and other political sectors, such as political Islam and the New Left, for example arguments about gender questions in the Arab world and in leftist circles.

Austria

Die Rätebewegung in Österreich. Von sozialer Notwehr zur konkreten Utopie. Hrsg. von Leder, Anna, Memoli, Mario, Pavlic, Andreas. [Mandelbaum Kritik & Utopie.] Mandelbaum, Vienna 2019. 243 pp. Ill. € 17.00.

After the collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy in 1918, hundreds of thousands of workers organized in councils, both as an act of social self-defence in the face of the misery caused by World War I and as a permanent emancipatory social alternative. This volume comprises eleven essays on the Austrian councils, resulting from a conference in Vienna held in 2018 and from an artistic interpretation by Papiertheaterkollektiv Zunder. Topics include their relation to the movements in Hungary and Germany, the role of women in the council movement, the psychoanalytical dimension of this “community of brothers”, contemporary autodidactic writing and publishing, and the connection with present-day social movements.

Belgium

Stutje, Jan Willem. Hendrik de Man. Een man met een plan. Polis, Kalmthout 2018. 530 pp. Ill. € 35.00.

Hendrik de Man (1885–1953) is inextricably linked to the illustrious Plan of Labour, Plan De Man for short. During the 1930s, the socialist De Man sought to use this approach to combat the defects of the Great Depression but the banks rejected the idea. Immediately after the German invasion in May 1940, he urged the population not to resist. In this biography, based on extensive archival materials, Dr Stutje examines how and why De Man shifted politically and ideologically from the left to the right. He elaborates on De Man's leadership and the circumstances that encouraged him to collaborate with the occupier, and how all this interacted with his personal life. See also Dirk Luyten's review in this volume, pp. 552–554.

Eire – Ireland

Leddin, Jeffrey, The Labour Hercules. The Irish Citizen Army and Irish Republicanism, 1913–23. Irish Academic Press, Dublin 2019. xii, 324 pp. Ill. Maps. € 24.95. (E-book: € 8.99).

The Irish Citizen Army was born from the Dublin Lockout of 1913. Faced with police brutality in response, three men established the ICA in the winter of 1913. Espousing the republican ideology, they fought alongside the Irish Volunteers during the Easter Rising. Dr Leddin explores the evolution of the ICA into a republican army and its enduring legacy to the present. He outlines the impetus for its use of force and, analysing the Military Service Pension files, provides new information on military and ideological developments. Leddin reveals the role of the ICA in gathering intelligence and arms during the War of Independence and shows how it became pivotal in Dublin's revolutionary movement.

Loughrey, Mark. Forew. by Doran, Liam. A Century of Service. A History of the Irish Nurses’ and Midwives’ Organisation, 1919–2019. Irish Academic Press, Newbridge 2019. xxx, 382 pp. Ill. € 24.95.

In February 1919, twenty nurses and midwives met in Dublin to discuss their poor working conditions and formed a trade union. Dr Loughrey examines the social and economic backdrop in which the INMO originated, putting names and faces to the founders and delving into the challenges they encountered. Based on a series of in-depth interviews, he details the organization's conservative middle years and its recent emergence as a vocal protagonist for nurses, midwives, and patients in Ireland, while exploring the vast and varied service that the Organisation provides to its members. The author looks closely at the national nurses’ strike of 1999 and the tension between the right to strike and patient welfare.

France

Maugendre, Maëlle. Femmes en exil. Les réfugiées Espagnoles en France 1939–1942. [Collection Migrations.] Presses universitaires François-Rabelais, Tours 2019. € 25.00.

During the “Retirada” (the anti-Franco exodus) almost 100,000 women and children crossed the Pyrenean border to seek refuge in France. Dr Maugendre analyses the period from January 1939 to November 1942, using archival material from Spain and France, and through interviews with thirteen women describing the violence many of these women suffered in concentration camps, while some found work in France, and others were deported back to Spain or to South America. The author aims to detail the heterogeneity of the situations of the Spanish women to analyse the policies of supervision and repression and to question the capacities of resistance, highlighting the political dimension of their experiences.

Rétat, Claude. Art vaincra! Louise Michel, l'artiste en révolution et le dégoût du politique. [La petite collection de bleu autour.] Bleu Autour, Saint-Pouçain-sur-Sioule. 271 pp. Ill. € 15.00.

In this small book featuring many black-and-white illustrations, Dr Rétat, who recently edited three annotated editions of Louse Michel's works (see IRSH, 61:2 (2016), p. 365), focuses on the artistic side of the historical figure of Louise Michel, aiming to offer readers a largely unknown perspective on Michel, revealing that the artist and the revolutionary are not two separate entities but one and the same in her work and her legacy. Included are a selection of hitherto unedited texts by Michel.

Germany

Ferrari, Vanessa. La fabbrica in versi. Nazionalsocialismo e letteratura operaia. [Lavori in corso. Collana di studi e ricerche di storia del lavoro, Saggi 1.] New Digital Press, Palermo 2019. xii, 412 pp. € 18.00. (Open Access).

National-socialist Arbeiterliteratur functioned as propaganda by the Nazi party to attract workers to National Socialism. Dr Ferrari demonstrates how this fundamental tool in Nazi strategy penetrated broad segments of German society in the 1920s and 30s, showing how Arbeiterliteratur adopted the lyric literary heritage and prose on the labouring and labourers of the socialist and Marxist matrix, highlighting the relations of the left wing with the Nazi party, with exponents of the national Bolshevism of the Weimar republic, while at the same time capturing and identifying the profound difference in the Nazi canon compared to its previous use by the socialist party.

Plan und Planung. Deutsch-deutsche Vorgriffe auf die Zukunft. [Zeitgeschichte im Gespräch, Bd. 27.] De Gruyter Oldenbourg, Berlin 2018. 215 pp. € 16.95; $19.99; £15.50.

In the 1960s, planning and preparing for the future was immensely important in both East and West Germany. This volume reflects on the visions of policymakers, describing the actions they took, and how they perceived modernization and progress. The ten contributions examine ideas and functions of planning and patterns of action in various fields of politics between the 1960s and the 1980s. The volume shows that planning concepts appeared to be indispensable to legitimize a future-oriented and science-based policy, especially in the competition of systems. Narrowed scope for action and fading recognizable limits of expertise led the high expectations of planning to disappear on both sides in the 1970s.

Comte, Emmanuel. The History of the European Migration Regime. Germany's Strategic Hegemony. [Routledge Studies in Modern European History, Vol. 47.] Routledge, New York [etc.] 2018. 234 pp. Ill. £105.00. (E-book: £35.99).

Drawing on national and international archives, the author shows that West Germany emerged as an important operator in the European migration system in the post-war decades. The book is divided into five chronological chapters that reflect the evolution of the European migration regime from the beginning of change in the wake of World War II, conducive to German reunification, the rollback of Russian influence from Central Europe and German economic expansion, up to the full-blown configuration that the new regime assumed after 1992. The book deals with all types of migration between and to European countries, examining both their access to economic activity and their social and political rights. See also Leo Lucassen's review essay in IRSH, 64:3 (2019), pp. 515–531.

Great Britain

Bailey, Victor. The Rise and Fall of the Rehabilitative Ideal, 1895–1970. Routledge, London [etc.] 2019. xix, 549 pp. Ill. £125.00. (Paper: £39.99; E-book: £35.99).

Spanning almost a century of penal policy and practice in England and Wales, this book is a study of the rehabilitative ideal, beginning in 1895, the year of the Gladstone Committee on Prisons, and ending in 1970, when the policy of treating and training criminals encountered challenges. Drawing on a wealth of source material, Professor Bailey examines a number of aspects of the British penal system, including judicial sentencing, law-making, and the administration of legal penalties. The theme of this book is the degree to which the rehabilitative ideal materialized. For juveniles and young adults, rehabilitation became increasingly standard, while for adults, implementation of rehabilitative ethic was severely restricted. See also Nabhojeet Sen's review in this volume, pp. 557–559.

Connell, Kieran. Black Handsworth. Race in 1980s Britain. [Berkeley Series in British Studies, Vol. 15.] University of California Press, Oakland (CA) 2019. xiii, 220 pp. Ill. $85.00; £66.00. (Paper, E-book: $34.95; £27.00).

In 1980s Handsworth, an inner-city neighbourhood of Birmingham, black residents looked towards African and Afro-Caribbean social and political cultures and drew upon them while navigating the inequalities of their locale. For those inhabitants, dominated in particular by people of Jamaican origin or descent and their British-born children, this diasporic inheritance became a core influence on cultural and political life. Dr Connell has conducted fieldwork in pubs, churches, political organizations, domestic spaces, and social clubs and sheds light on the experiences and everyday lives of black residents during this period. The book features rich case studies, including photographic representations of the neighbourhood, on black globality in the making of post-colonial Britain.

Growing Old with the Welfare State. Eight British Lives. Ed. by Hubble, Nick, Taylor, Jennie, and Tew, Philip. Bloomsbury, London 2019. x, 159 pp. £58.50. (Paper: £17.99; E-book: £17.26).

Thanks to the combined effect of the welfare state and medical advances, more people now live longer than ever before in history. As a consequence, the experience of ageing has been transformed. Yet, our cultural and social perceptions of ageing remain governed by increasingly dated images and narratives. This book challenges these stereotypes by bringing together eight stories of ordinary British people born between 1925 and 1945 to show contemporary ageing in a new light. These biographical narratives, six of which were written as part of the Mass Observation Project, reflect on and compare the experience of living in two post-war periods of social change, World War I and World War II.

Hanser, Jessica. Mr. Smith Goes to China. Three Scots in the Making of Britain's Global Empire. Yale University Press, New Haven (CT) [etc.] 2019. xiii, 240 pp. Ill. $45.00.

Though the East India Company had a monopoly on trade east of the Cape of Good Hope, many entrepreneurs chose to ignore the Company's monopoly rights. This book tells the story of three Scottish private traders, each named George Smith, operating between India and China during the second half of the eighteenth century. Professor Hanser uses them as lenses through which to explore the inner workings of Britain's imperial expansion and global network of trade, showing a wide array of actors, including Chinese and Indian mercantile and political elites. Studying the George Smiths provides insight into the process of globalization and its consequences for and connections with a variety of participants in Britain, India, and China.

Ince, Onur Ulas. Colonial Capitalism and the Dilemmas of Liberalism. Oxford University Press, New York [etc.] 2018. x, 216 pp. £53.00.

By the mid-nineteenth century, Britain celebrated its empire of liberty that propagated private property, free trade, and free labour across the globe. On the other hand, the British were aware that this empire was built by conquering territories, trading slaves, and extorting tribute from other societies. Professor Ince argues that British political and economic thought was marked by this tension between the illiberal origins of global capitalist relations and examines the theoretical efforts of liberal thinkers to explain, navigate, and justify the coercion inherent in colonial economic relations and to relate this to the liberal ideology of capitalism as an economic system of market freedom and equality.

Newsinger, John. Hope Lies in the Proles. George Orwell and the Left. Pluto Press, London 2018. vi, 208 pp. £75.00. (Paper: £12.99).

George Orwell was one of the most significant literary figures on the left in the twentieth century. Professor Newsinger offers a critical account of Orwell's political thinking and its continued significance today. For Orwell, socialism meant a classless society with freedom of speech and civil liberties as essential requirements, and the working class was the agency of socialist transformation. The author also elaborates on whether Orwell's anti-fascism was eclipsed by his criticism of the Soviet Union, explores his ambivalent relationship with the Labour Party and considers Orwell's shifting views on the United States and his relationship with the progressive Left and feminism. See also Stephen Ingle's review in this volume, pp. 554–557.

Roddy, Sarah, Strange, Julie-Marie and Taithe, Bertrand. The Charity Market and Humanitarianism in Britain, 1870–1912. Bloomsbury, London 2019. ix, 224 pp. Ill. £85.00. (E-book: £73.44).

Over the period 1870–1912, between the rise of the British Red Cross movement and the sinking of the Titanic, Victorian and Edwardian charities experienced vast expansion and consolidation. In this book, the business of charity is examined, including fundraising, marketing, branding, and financial accountability. The vitality of multiple charitable organizations was to some a worrying indication of the scale of unanswered needs, to others a demonstration that a modern capitalist society would thrive on its Christian heritage. The authors draw on a wide range of archival research and explore how charities appropriated features associated with commercial enterprises to compete for and obtain money, manage and account for that money and monetize compassion.

Greece

Akrigg, Ben. Population and Economy in Classical Athens. [Cambridge Classical Studies.] Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2019. xi, 272 pp. £75.00. (E-book: $80.00).

The aim of this book is to provide an account of the historical demography of classical Athens: the size and structure of its population and how this changed over time. Professor Akrigg analyses demographic change in the city, discussing citizens and non-citizens, over the fifth and fourth centuries BC and demonstrates that the Athenian population grew very large in the fifth century BC, before falling dramatically in the final three decades of that century. While the author focuses mainly on the economic impact of that demography, he presents conclusions that also have profound implications for our understanding of Athenian society and culture.

Kotouza, Dimitra. Surplus Citizens. Struggle and Nationalism in the Greek Crisis. Pluto Press, London 2019. x, 291 pp. £75.00. (Paper, E-book: £21.99).

The crisis in Greece has instigated a vast spectrum of responses. Based on participant observations, interviews, and analysis of documentary material Dr Kotouza questions the terms of the debate by demonstrating how the national framework of social contestation presented obstacles to transformative collective action, as well as the challenges it has faced. Analysing the increasing superfluousness of subordinate classes in Greece as part of a global phenomenon with racialized and gendered dimensions, the author questions the strengths, contradictions, and limitations of collective action and identity in the crisis, from the movement of the assemblies on squares and in neighbourhoods to new forms of labour activism, environmental struggles, immigrant protests, anti-fascism, and pro-refugee activism.

Italy

Alfani, Guido and Di Tullio, Matteo. The Lion's Share. Inequality and the Rise of the Fiscal State in Preindustrial Europe. [Cambridge Studies in Economic History.] Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2019. xii, 232 pp. Maps. £31.99. (E-book: $32.00).

Using data from the archives of the Venetian Terraferma, Professor Alfani and Dr Di Tullio attempt to measure inequality and the prevalence of both poverty and wealth in a pre-industrial society while exploring the inner workings of distributional change from c.1400 through the entire early modern period. After explaining the fiscal system in connection with the rise of the fiscal-military state, the authors describe social stratification, long-term trends in inequality, and social polarization in the Terraferma, in comparison to other European areas. In the statistical appendix, they detail how they reconstructed the wealth distribution across the Terraferma.

Parlare d'anarchia. Le fonti orali per lo studio della militanza libertaria in Italia nel secondo novecento. A cura di Acciai, Enrico, Balsamini, Luigi e De Maria, Carlo. [Storia, politica, società, 44.] Biblion, Milan 2017. 219 pp. € 18.70.

In the present volume, the vicissitudes are examined of the anarchist-libertarian movement in Italy between the 1950s and the 1980s in ten contributions by scholars of different generations who rely mainly on oral sources. This period marked a profound transformation of the anarchist movement, introducing theories of social liberation, militant practice, and adoption of positions within, against or outside contemporary political dialectics. A substantial part of the book is about framing the methodological questions that underlie production, the use of oral sources, and the non-impartial contribution of the researcher and dealing with the mechanisms of memory and subjective filters that intertwine past with present.

Latvia

Philip, Ruff. A Towering Flame. The Life and Times of the Elusive Latvian Anarchist Peter the Painter. Breviary Stuff Publications, London 2019. xxix, 249 pp. Ill. £25.00. (Paper: £17.00).

The Houndsditch murders of three London policemen in 1910 and the ensuing “Siege of Sidney Street”, in which Latvian anarchists took on Winston Churchill and the British Army, have become part of East London folklore. The leader was the mysterious Peter the Painter, who escaped from the burning house during the battle. Dr Huff reveals his identity and tells the story of his life and revolutionary career in relation to the history of Latvian anarchism. In 1905, he took part in the revolution in the Baltic and the subsequent armed resistance to Russia. In this chronological account, the author examines how anarchist cells were formed, how they operated, and what their aims were.

The Netherlands

Alexanderson, Kris. Subversive Seas. Anticolonial Networks across the Twentieth-Century Dutch Empire. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2019. xiii, 300 pp. Ill. Maps. £75.00. (E-book: $80.00).

During the 1920s and 30s, Dutch ships flowed along global maritime networks connecting Java and Europe with the rest of the world. Port cities such as Jeddah, Shanghai, and Batavia were rife with nationalism, communism, pan-Islamism, and pan-Asianism and became important centres of opposition to Dutch imperialism through the circulation of passengers, labourers, and religious pilgrims. In response to growing maritime threats, the Dutch government and shipping companies attempted to secure oceanic spaces and maintain hegemony abroad through a web of control. Based on archival material, Professor Alexanderson discloses how anti-colonialism crystallized not only within the terrestrial confines of the colony, but also across the transoceanic spaces between colony and motherland.

De Vries, Jan. The Price of Bread. Regulating the Market in the Dutch Republic. [Cambridge Studies in Economic History.] Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2019. xix, 515 pp. Maps. £34.99.

How to maintain fair market relations was the most important economic reality of daily life in early modern Europe. Professor De Vries uses the Dutch Republic as a case study of how the market functioned, and how the regulatory system evolved and functioned. Tracing regulatory practices and their consequences for producers, consumers, and the state, the author discovers that “bread” is not represented by a single price but denotes a category of consumption with a broad price range, with major implications for the standard procedures used by economic historians to measure economic welfare. The loaf serves as a prism through which major developments in early modern European society may be explored.

Oude Nijhuis, Dennie. Religion, Class, and the Postwar Development of the Dutch Welfare State. Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2018. 340 pp. € 105.00.

This book examines how the Netherlands established and sustained one of most generous and inclusive welfare systems in the world despite being dominated by Christian-democratic, rather than socialist governments. The central argument is that middle-class groups have largely covered the costs of this system. Dr Oude Nijhuis investigates the reasons why the middle-class groups have supported welfare initiatives that successfully redistributed resources among different societal groups. One factor was the prevalence of Christian democracy and the emphasis on social justice and solidarity. Another was the organization of labour unions in federations to support welfare initiatives that redistribute income and risk among different categories of wage earners. See also Mara A. Yerke's review in this volume, pp. 560–562.

Poland

Protassewicz, Irena. A Polish Woman's Experience in World War II. Conflict, Deportation and Exile. Ed. by Zawadzki, Hubert with Knott, Meg. Transl. [from Polish] by Zawadzki, Hubert. Bloomsbury, London 2019. xxxv, 257 pp. Ill. Maps. £76.50. (Paper, E-book: £73.44).

This first-hand eyewitness account tells the story of the privileged Polish woman Irena Protassewicz, giving insight into the life of the landed gentry of interwar northeast Poland, a rural idyll shattered by World War II, when she was deported to Siberia and sentenced to forced labour. Later in the war, she was a military nurse with the Polish Army. The account concludes with Irena's search to discover the fate of her family and friends on both sides of the Iron Curtain and the challenges of life as a refugee in Britain and is interwoven with letters and depositions and complemented by commentary and notes for historical context.

Russia - Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Mobility in the Russian, Central and East European Past. Ed. by Healy, Róisín. [Routledge Studies in Modern European History, 67.] Routledge, Abingdon 2019. ix, 189 pp. Ill. £115.00. (E-book: £36.99).

The new mobilities paradigm is the movement across space by means of transport. This volume demonstrates the role of the journey as a key driver of human development in Russia and in Central and Eastern Europe in the modern period by means of twelve case studies that examine different types of mobility, ranging in scope from the flight of serfs from Russia to Poland-Lithuania on foot in the eighteenth century to adventure tourists from Britain exploring Russia on motorbikes since the turn of the new millennium. The case studies highlight the numerous motives for travel in the region, the many modes of transport used, and the personal, social, and political implications of such journeys.

Scandinavia

The Changing Meanings of the Welfare State. Histories of a Key Concept in the Nordic Countries. Ed. by Edling, Nils. Berghahn Books, New York [etc.] 2019. viii, 343 pp. Ill. $130.00; £92.00. (E-book: $34.95).

In discussions of economics, governance, and society in the Nordic countries, “the welfare state” is a well-worn analytical concept. In this volume, scholars from Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland chronicle the historical trajectory of “the welfare state”, tracing variations in how it has been interpreted, valued, and challenged over time. The first chapter gives an overview of welfare state developments in Germany, the United States, and Britain. The goal of the five other contributions is to map for the Nordic countries the new concepts and ideas of the welfare state that were invented abroad and later imported from 1870 to 1940.

Popular Struggle and Democracy in Scandinavia 1770–Present. Ed. by Mikkelsen, Flemming, Kjeldstadli, Knut, and Nyzell, Stefan. [Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology.] Palgrave Macmillan, London 2018. xi, 457 pp. € 116.59. (E-book: € 91.62).

This book focuses on popular struggles in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden from 1700 to 2015, revealing how popular struggle in the form of hunger riots, tax rebellions, petition drives, strikes, demonstrations, public meetings, and social movements paved the way for the introduction and development of civil liberties and political rights. The author portrays social and political mass mobilization of ordinary people as vital to the construction of democracy and essential for the formation of the Scandinavian welfare states. The transnational connections between Denmark, Norway, and Sweden and between Scandinavia and the rest of Europe are shown, and the book contains a comparison of popular struggle in Scandinavia with the broader European perspective.

Spain

Torres, Maggie. Anarchism and Political Change in Spain. Schism, Polarisation, and Reconstruction of the Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo, 1939–1979. [The Cañada Blanch/Sussex Academic Studies on Contemporary Spain.] Sussex Academic Press, Brighton [etc.] 2019. xxiii, 379 pp. £85.00; $109.95. (Paper: £40.00; $55.00).

In this history of the anarcho-syndicalist trade union the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, Dr Torres analyses the organization from the end of the civil war in 1939 to the period of democratic change from 1976 to 1979. The Franco years were characterized by extraordinary division and by bureaucratization of the organization now partially in exile in France. In the 1960s, local activists in Spain wanted to reconstruct the CNT, on the condition that the organization was renewed. The exiled CNT opposed such ideas and used all possible means to undermine this movement. The subsequent irrevocable division of the CNT sheds lights on the political, social, and economic fractures that Spain still experiences today.

Ukraine

Herlihy, Patricia. Odessa Recollected. The Port and the People. [Ukrainian Studies.] Academic Studies Press, Brighton (MA) 2018. ix, 256 pp. Ill. Maps. $42.00.

Odessa, a Black Sea port founded by Catherine the Great in 1794, became a boomtown on the southern edge of the Russian Empire. The early administrators of the city promoted settlement by Europeans in addition to the Greeks, Italians, and Jews who came of their own volition, lured by economic opportunities in the robust grain trade with Europe. With the decline of the lucrative grain trade by the time of the Soviet Union was proclaimed, Odessa lost much of its significance. Changing regimes, shifting economic interests, ethnic tensions, and international crises marked the history of Odessa. The book brings together research on culture, community, and commerce, published by the author over several decades of her work.