SOCIAL THEORY AND SOCIAL SCIENCE

Burke, Peter. Sociology and History. [Routledge Library Editions: Social Theory.] Routledge, Abingdon [etc.] 2015. 116 pp. £65.00.

In this book about sociology and history (an unrevised reprint of the 1980 edition) Professor Burke, aiming to bridge the gap between the two subcultures, examines how these disciplines drifted apart in the nineteenth century, and how they have re-converged. The author discusses leading concepts in sociology and social anthropology and suggests possible uses of these concepts in studying the past. He also discusses what sociologists may learn from history, especially in building models of social change.

Global Knowledge Production in the Social Sciences. Made in Circulation. Ed. by Wiebke Keim, Ercüment Çelik, Christian Ersche, and Veronika Wöhrer. [Global Connections.] Ashgate, Farnham [etc.] 2014. xi, 267 pp. £65.00.

Contributing to debates on the globalization of the social sciences, this volume about the international circulation of knowledge within the social sciences features thirteen theoretical articles and case studies from India, the Americas, South Africa, Australia, and Europe, exploring social science networks across the South, alternative social science perspectives from the South and the influence of the post-colonial transition on sociology worldwide. The collection also includes a chapter about Indian feminist studies and an essay on the reception of the social systems theory of Niklas Luhmann in Hispanic America.

Henderson, Willie. John Ruskin's Political Economy. [Routledge Studies in the History of Economics, Vol. 23.] Routledge, London [etc.] 2014 (Paper). xv, 200 pp. £115.00. (Paper: £30.00.)

Drawing on the insights from research on rhetoric in economics, Professor Henderson in this book offers a new reading of John Ruskin's economic and social criticism. The volume consists of nine essays, each one focusing on a different aspect of Ruskin, e.g. Ruskin on economic agency; how Ruskin used classical Greek and Roman texts to elaborate his economics; how Ruskin read John Stuart Mill; and how Ruskin influenced economists William Smart, John Bates Clark, and Alfred Marshall. The first chapter introduces Ruskin and his work.

Renault, Emmanuel. Marx et la philosophie. [Actuel Marx Confrontation.] Presses Universitaires de France, Paris 2014. 207 pp. € 24.00.

In this book Professor Renault addresses the question of how Marx theoretically and politically influenced philosophy. In the ten essays in this collection (seven of them previously published elsewhere between 1999 and 2012), Professor Renault examines the development of Marx's theoretical work from the period in which he was influenced by Young Hegelian philosophy to his critique of political economy. He concludes that Marx “deflated” philosophy by shifting part of its ambitions to a new critical theory.

Sraffa and Althusser Reconsidered. Neoliberalism Advancing in South Africa, England, and Greece. Ed. by Paul Zarembka. [Research in Political Economy, Vol. 29.] Emerald, Bingley 2014. x, 286 pp. € 98.47.

The opening chapter of this collection draws on research into Piero Sraffa's papers in the Wren Library at Trinity College, University of Cambridge, to shed light on Sraffa's work Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities (1960). Another chapter uses a system developed by Sraffa to study the economy of China from 1987 to 2000. Three articles address “neo-liberalism in action” in South Africa, Britain (examining marketization in secondary school teaching), and Greece, respectively; one essay re-evaluates the philosophical legacy of Louis Althusser for modern Marxism; and another considers the roots of working-class reformism and conservatism.

Turner, Jonathan H. Revolt from the Middle. Emotional Stratification and Change in Post-Industrial Societies. Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick (NJ) [etc.] 2014. xiii, 175 pp. $39.95.

While theories about conflict resulting from differing socio-economic groups usually focus on the arousal of negative emotions, Professor Turner, a sociologist, in this book explores the effects of positive emotions among the middle classes in industrial and post-industrial societies. He presents the distribution of positive and negative emotions in developed societies as another basis for stratification that may explain the commitment of the middle classes to the institutional systems and the ideologies legitimating these systems, as well as the lack of class-based social movements from the lower classes.

Vattimo, Gianni and Santiago Zabala. Hermeneutic Communism. From Heidegger to Marx. Columbia University Press, New York (NY) 2014. viii, 256 pp. $22.00; £15.00.

Arguing that communism no longer represents an appealing alternative to capitalism, Professors Vattimo and Zabala present “hermeneutic communism”, which encourages resisting neo-liberal capitalism but avoids violence and authoritarianism as a political alternative response for “the losers of history”. In this book, which is dedicated to Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and Evo Morales, the authors refer to contemporary South American democratically elected communist governments, which, in their view best represent the communism of the twenty-first century. This is the paperback edition of a work originally published in 2011.

AFRICA

Losing your Land. Dispossession in the Great Lakes. Ed. by An Ansoms and Thea Hilhorst. [African Issues.] James Currey, Woodbridge 2014. xiv, 218 pp. € 19.99.

This volume about historical and contemporary forms of involuntary or “non-transparent” land transactions in the African Great Lakes Region comprises ten case studies focusing on the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, south-west Uganda, Burundi, and Rwanda, each revealing the impact of “land grabbing” upon livelihood strategies of the populations concerned. Demonstrating that contested land transfers are not new in the Great Lakes Region, the contributors (social scientists and scholars in development studies) emphasize the importance of understanding contemporary struggles for land from a historical perspective.

Nigeria

George, Abosede A. Making Modern Girls. A History of Girlhood, Labor, and Social Development in Colonial Lagos. [New African Histories.] Ohio University Press, Athens (OH) 2014. x, 301 pp. Ill. $80.00. (Paper: $32.95.)

This is a history of girls in twentieth-century colonial Lagos, Nigeria, as well as of those who set out to “save” them. The book focuses especially on efforts by Western-educated elite Lagosian women and colonial social workers to reshape the idea and experience of girlhood among the Lagosian working class. Using both oral and archival sources and drawing on gender studies and labour history, Professor George studies the practice and ideology of girlhood in relation to child labour, specifically girl hawkers, highlighting the roles of African women in promoting sociocultural changes within their own societies.

Tanzania

Schneider, Leander. Government of Development. Peasants and Politicians in Postcolonial Tanzania. Indiana University Press, Bloomington (IN) [etc.] 2014. viii, 234 pp. Ill. $28.00. (E-book: $27.99.)

This book is about the campaign of the Tanzanian state in the 1960s and 1970s to settle the country's rural population in socialist villages. Using Foucault's analytical framework of governmentality and examining the idea of ujamaa (Tanzania's particular variety of “African socialism”), the role of President Nyerere, and the Ruvuma Development Association (an independent organization of villages that was significant in the history of rural development in Tanzania), Professor Schneider describes how government officials thought about progress, modernity, and the future of Tanzania, its peasantry and their own situation.

Uganda

Decker, Alicia C. In Idi Amin's Shadow. Women, Gender, and Militarism in Uganda. [New African Histories.] Athens (OH), Ohio University Press 2014. 244 pp. Ill. Maps. £21.99.

Based on interviews and written sources such as human rights reports and newspapers, this book is about women's experiences in Uganda during Idi Amin's dictatorship from 1971 to 1979. Professor Decker argues that although they struggled with the violent legacies of militarism, Ugandan women have also played an important role in promoting military norms and values, as wives, daughters, and sisters of enlisted men and by serving the military state through their involvement in the police and security sectors. One chapter addresses the expulsion of the Asian population in 1972 and the economic and social consequences for Ugandan women.

Argentina

Poy, Lucas. Los orígenes de la clase obrera argentina. Huelgas, sociedades de resistencia y militancia política en Buenos Aires, 1888–1896. Imago Mundi, Buenos Aires 2014. xlvii, 334 pp. arg. $227.00.

Using a strike by railway workers in 1888 as a starting point, Dr Poy in this dissertation (University of Buenos Aires, 2013) traces the origins of the Argentine working class in the context of the economic, social, and demographic situation in the city of Buenos Aires at the end of the nineteenth century. He examines the dynamics of labour activism from 1887 to 1896, the first significant strikes, and the emergence of labour organizations and militant anarchist and socialist groups, and analyses the relationship between the formation of labour organizations and the economic and political crisis of the late nineteenth century.

Brazil

McCann, Bryan. Hard Times in the Marvelous City. From Dictatorship to Democracy in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Duke University Press, Durham [etc.] 2014. xi, 249 pp. Ill. Maps. $89.95; £64.00. (Paper: $24.95; £17.99.)

Between the late 1970s and the mid-1980s activists from the favelas of Rio de Janeiro campaigned for better public security, sanitation, education, formal employment, and municipal reform. In this book Professor McCann recounts the successes of this movement, as well as its ultimate failure due to natural disasters, corruption, and drug wars, arguing that while the reforms of the 1980s failed, current experiments to improve living conditions in the favelas seem promising. See also Serge Ollivier's review in this volume, pp. 305–308.

Speranza, Clarice Gontarski. Cavando direitos. As leis trabalhistas e os conflitos entre os mineiros de carvão e seus patrões no Rio Grande do Sul (1940–1954). Editora Oikos, São Leopoldo; Associaçao Nacional de História, Porto Alegre, 2014. 295 pp. Ill. R$40.00.

Based on a dissertation (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, 2012), this study focuses on disputes between coalminers and the Rio Grande do Sul mining companies over the enforcement of labour laws during the 1940s and 1950s. Dr Speranza examines more than 5,700 labour lawsuits filed in the Brazilian Labour Court (established in 1941), as well as a series of strikes during that period, to demonstrate how a group of brutally exploited miners used the law to secure rights for workers and to highlight culture and gender aspects among miners.

Guatemala

Komisaruk, Catherine. Labor and Love in Guatemala. The Eve of Independence. Stanford University Press, Stanford (CA) 2013. viii, 338 pp. $65.00.

Across Mesoamerica and the Andes, populations from three continents mingled during Spanish colonial rule. Native people and Africans became hispanized, and hispanized wage labourers replaced Indian tribute workers and African slaves as the main providers of labour to the Spaniards. Examining systems of tribute and labour, particularly native labour, paying attention to gender and culture, and focusing on ordinary individuals and families, this book explores the processes of hispanization and the transition to free labour in Guatemala in the late colonial period, from the 1760s to 1821.

United States of America

Children and Youth during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Ed. by James Marten. [Children and Youth in America.] New York University Press, New York (NY) 2014. xi, 296 pp. Ill. $27.00; £17.99.

The eleven chapters in this collection about children and youth in the United States from 1880 to 1920 include case studies about the Playgrounds Association of America; the educational programmes of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company; child workers in the South, and child the labour regulation (1899–1920); the school on Ellis Island in the early 1900s; changing definitions of childhood and debates about child marriage; sex and prostitution among girls in Chicago; and efforts by Scandinavian students to bring organized recreation and sports to their schools. The volume also reprints some primary sources, for example about child delinquency and the casualties of child labour.

Fuchs, Robert. Heirat in der Fremde. Deutschamerikaner in Cincinnati im späten 19. Jahrhundert. [Studien zur historischen Migrantenforschung, Band 29.] Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2014. 365 pp. € 44.90; Sfr. 57.80.

Contributing to social migration history and debates surrounding acculturation, Dr Fuchs in this book studies marriage practices among German immigrants and their descendants in late nineteenth-century Cincinnati, Ohio, analysing the mechanisms underlying choice of partner as integral to the acculturation of migrants. He describes Cincinnati and its population, compares the German American community with other groups, and considers how regional origins, religion, social status, age, and place of residence shaped German-American marriage patterns.

Green, James. The Devil Is Here in These Hills. West Virginia's Coal Miners and Their Battle for Freedom. Atlantic Monthly Press, New York 2015. xii, 440 pp. Ill. $28.00.

Between 1890 and 1933 West Virginia experienced a series of violent labour conflicts between coalmining companies and miners over wage issues and unionization. In this book Professor Green recounts the history of the “coal wars” of West Virginia, highlighting the roles of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) and labour leaders such as Mother Jones, detailing the violence that was used on all sides (by the mercenaries employed by the mine companies, the miners, and the National Guard troops), and describing instances of solidarity between white mountaineers, black miners, and Italian immigrants.

Masuoka, Natalie and Jane Junn. The Politics of Belonging. Race, Public Opinion, and Immigration. [Chicago Studies in American Politics.] The University of Chicago Press, Chicago (IL) [etc.] 2013. xii, 254 pp. $85.00. (Paper: $27.50; £19.50.)

In American history race has been among the most important conditions for legal entry and abode in the United States, according to this book. After tracing the history of American immigration and naturalization law, institutional practices and the formation of the American racial hierarchy, Professors Masuoka and Junn (both political scientists) examine the influence of racial categorization and group identity on variations in public opinion about immigration through a comparative analysis of public opinion among white, black, Latino, and Asian Americans.

Schwartz, Michael. Class Divisions on the Broadway Stage. The Staging and Taming of the I.W.W. [Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History.] Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke 2014. 192 pp. £55.00.

This is not a history of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or “Wobblies”) but rather an account of how the IWW was staged on Broadway during the 1920s and shortly after World War II. Examining factual IWW activities (strikes, protests) and how Broadway audiences, critics, and playwrights perceived the Wobblies, as well as the legends which the Wobblies created themselves through songs and skits, the author aims to present a new perspective on the conflict between labour and capital in the United States.

White, Ann Folino. Plowed Under. Food Policy Protests and Performance in New Deal America. Indiana University Press, Bloomington (IN) [etc.] 2015. x, 306 pp. Ill. $75.00. (Paper: $30.00; E-book $29.99.)

The primary aim of the 1933 New Deal Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) was to improve circumstances among farmers by raising the prices of agricultural products, but many Americans decried the programme as unjust and immoral. In this book about the protests against the AAA from 1933 to 1939, Professor White applies insights from theatre history and performance studies to explore the moral issues raised by the AAA from the distinct perspectives of farmers, consumers, agricultural labourers, the federal government, and theatre artists.

Zumoff, Jacob A. The Communist International and US Communism, 1919–1929. [Historical Materialism Book Series, Vol. 82.] Leiden [etc.] Brill 2014. xi, 443 pp. € 129.00; $167.00.

Drawing on Comintern archives, Professor Zumoff in this political history of the American Communist Party (CP) relates the early history of the CP and especially the role of the Comintern in guiding the new movement. He explores inter alia the CP's work with the labour movement (the IWW, the anti-communist AFL, and the Farmer Labor movement) and examines how the Comintern influenced the CP's approach to the “Negro Question”, tracing how the party viewed black oppression and its efforts to recruit militant black Americans. The author concludes that the Comintern was significant in the “Americanization” of the CP.

New Zealand

Bosnia

Sel Turhan, Fatma. The Ottoman Empire and the Bosnian Uprising. I.B. Tauris, London [etc.] 2014. 410 pp. £68.00.

Many of the Ottoman empire's janissaries hailed from Bosnia. When Sultan Mehmet II abolished the janissary corps in 1826, Bosnia, led by Husein Gradaščević, began a war of independence against the Ottoman Empire. In this book, Dr Sel Turhan studies a series of Bosnian rebellions against the abolition of the janissary corps and more generally against the centralization and reform policies of the Ottoman state, which entailed a new land system, a new administration, and the introduction of greater state intervention. The author examines in particular in what measure the uprising can be considered a nationalist movement.

Eire – Ireland

Gmelch, Sharon Bohn and George Gmelch. Irish Travellers. The Unsettled Life. Indiana University Press, Bloomington (IN) [etc.] 2014. 208 pp. Ill. $40.00. (E-book $39.99.)

Until the 1960s most Irish travellers used to move around the countryside, by foot and in horse-drawn wagons, performing various trades and services. A poor and stigmatized minority group, they were commonly called “tinkers” (from the trade of tin-smithing) or “knackers” (from the practice of selling horses for slaughter). Based on anthropological fieldwork conducted in the early 1970s and in 2011, and featuring personal narratives and many illustrations, this book reflects how the lives of traveller families have changed, now that they are no longer nomads.

France

Candar, Gilles et Vincent Duclert. Jean Jaurès. Fayard, Paris 2014. 685 pp. € 27.00.

The last few months of the life of Jean Jaurès, before his assassination in 1914, were largely devoted to his fight for peace. The opening chapter of this biography of the French socialist leader relates this struggle. In the following chapters the authors study Jaurès’ life, ideas, and career within the context of French and European history, highlighting his democratic socialism, his support for Captain Dreyfus, his humanity, his commitment to solving the social question, and his anti-militarism. In two chapters the authors examine Jaurès’ memory and legacy in politics and historiography. The volume includes a thematically arranged bibliography.

Davranche, Guillaume. Trop jeunes pour mourir. Ouvriers et révolutionnaires face à la guerre (1909–1914). Préface de Miguel Chueca. L'insomniaque, Montreuil; Libertalia, Paris 2014. Ill. 543 pp. € 20.00.

Focusing on the Fédération communiste anarchiste (FCA), an organization run by young revolutionary workers, this book explores the emerging labour opposition to war in the context of the French labour movement history before World War I. The author examines FCA influence within the CGT and the debates about strategy and about women and migrant workers; chronicles the protests against the extension of military service; and discusses reactions to hotly debated issues such as the Mexican Revolution and the Bonnot gang, picturing a lively labour movement in a period often overshadowed in historiography by the Great War.

Heimmermann, Daniel. Work, Regulation, and Identity in Provincial France. The Bordeaux Leather Trades, 1740–1815. Palgrave McMillan, New York [etc.] 2014. xii, 298 pp. Ill. $95.00; £60.00.

Exploring artisanal culture and highlighting the organizational diversity and freedom that existed in the early modern French manufacturing economy, Dr Heimmermann in this study of the Bordeaux leather trades from 1740 to 1815 describes technical, economic, organizational, and social aspects, especially the role of the leather trade guilds. He aims to demonstrate that during the course of the eighteenth century corporate principles of hierarchy, discipline, paternalism, and collectivism were increasingly challenged by the steady rise of liberal views such as political equality, individualism, and freedom of enterprise.

Stracey, Frances. Constructed Situations. A New History of the Situationist International. [Marxism and Culture.] Pluto Press, London 2014. xiii, 173 pp. Ill. £63.00; $115.00. (Paper: £16.99; $29.00.)

This book brings together six previously published articles by Dr Stracey (1963–2009) about the Situationist International (SI): an essay that focuses on the book Memoires (1957) by Asger Jorn and Guy Debord to reconstruct the self-archiving strategies of the SI; another on the experimental practice called industrial painting; an essay about the SI group exhibition in Odense, Denmark, in June 1963; a fourth on an SI article (1966) about the Los Angeles Watts riots; another on the SI collaborative book project called Enragés et Situationistes dans le Mouvement des Occupations (1968); and an article about the situation of SI women.

Germany

Benz, Elisabeth. Ein halbes Leben für die Revolution. Fritz Rück (1895–1959). Eine politische Biografie. Klartext Verlag, Essen 2014. 440 pp. Ill. € 29.95.

Fritz Rück (1895–1959) was a socialist politician, journalist, and writer. He was a founding member of the USPD and prominent in the 1918 November Revolution in Württemberg. During the Weimar Republic he wrote for communist newspapers such as Die Rote Fahne and for the propaganda section of the KPD in Berlin. He left the KPD and joined the SPD and later on the SAP. In 1933 he went into exile, first in Switzerland, then in Sweden, returning to Germany in 1950 to become the editor of the IG Druck und Papier newspaper. This biography also includes a bibliography of Rück's writings.

Bois, Marcel. Kommunisten gegen Hitler und Stalin. Die linke Opposition der KPD in der Weimarer Republik. Klartext Verlag, Essen 2014. 613 pp. € 39.95.

This dissertation (Technische Universität Berlin, 2013) is about the anti-Stalinist and anti-fascist opposition of the left wing of the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands. Using personal documents (of Ruth Fischer and Karl Korsch, for example) and recently opened party archives, Dr Bois offers a comprehensive overview of left-wing communism in the Weimar Republic, tracing the careers, social, professional, and regional backgrounds of party members and listing left-wing communist books and periodicals. The appendix includes a communist “family tree” and a dictionary of left-wing groups.

Coles, Anthony. John Heartfield. Ein politisches Leben. Böhlau Verlag, Köln [etc.] 2014. 402 pp. Ill. € 39.90.

John Heartfield, born as Hellmuth Herzfeld in Berlin in 1891, is best known for his political photomontages through which he denounced the horrors of the Nazi regime. Between the wars he worked as an artist and graphic designer for the KPD, of which he was a member. In 1933 he fled to Czechoslovakia and then London. In 1950 he returned to East Germany, where he died in 1968. Featuring c.500 small black and white illustrations and including a list of exhibitions, this political biography relates Heartfield's work to his life and the political events of his time.

Hoffrogge, Ralf. Werner Scholem. Eine politische Biographie (1895–1940). UVK, Konstanz 2014. 500 pp. € 24.99.

After a short period of Zionist activity, Werner Scholem (1895–1940) became a socialist. He joined the SPD in 1913 and transferred to the USPD anti-war party after World War I. He then joined the KPD together with the USPD when the two parties merged but was expelled in 1926 for his opposition to Stalin. In 1928 he founded the left-communist Leninbund, which he soon left. As a Jew and a communist, he was arrested in 1933. In 1940 he was shot in Buchenwald. Based on a dissertation (University of Potsdam, 2013), this is a political biography of Werner Scholem.

Malycha, Andreas. Die SED in der Ära Honecker. Machtstrukturen, Entscheidungsmechanismen und Konfliktfelder in der Staatspartei 1971 bis 1989. [Quellen und Darstellungen zur Zeitgeschichte, Band 102.] Oldenbourg, München 2014. viii, 471 pp. € 59.95; $84.00; £44.99. (Ebook (PDF or EPUB): € 59.95; $84.00; £44.99; Print/Ebook: € 89.95; $126.00; £67.98.)

When Erich Honecker succeeded Walter Ulbricht as the general secretary of the SED, and the party leadership sought to stabilize the power of the SED by substantially expanding its social policy, conflicts arose within the party over its social and economic policies, especially its programme of “consumer socialism”. In this book Dr Malycha explores the political origins of these conflicts, analysing the structure of the party's central apparatus from 1971 to 1989, and closely examining decision-making processes to shed light on the various schools of thought and power relations within the party and to explain the party's ultimate collapse.

Mosambikanische Vertragsarbeiter in der DDR-Wirtschaft. Hintergründe – Verlauf – Folgen. Hrsg. Ulrich van der Heyden, Wolfgang Semmler, Ralf Straßburg. [Die DDR und die Dritte Welt, Band 10.] Lit Verlag, Berlin [etc.] 2014. 352 pp. € 39.90; Sfr. 63.90.

During the 1980s thousands of young people from Mozambique came to the GDR in pursuit of vocational training and employment. This volume aims to present an account of their experiences, countering accusations of exploitation. Four chapters provide a background history to the employment of Mozambican contract workers; while four others discuss various aspects of employing Mozambicans and other foreign workers in the GDR; and seven Mozambicans relate their GDR experiences. The four chapters in the final part describe the experiences of the Mozambican “guest workers” after the demise of the GDR.

Müller-Reiß, Brunhild. Antifaschistische Frauen in Hannover. Zwischen selbstständigem Handeln und Familiensolidarität. [Lo.g.o., Band 2.] Edition Assemblage, Münster 2014. 288 pp. Ill. € 19.80.

Based on interviews conducted in the 1980s and 1990s with thirty-three women and three men from Hannover, this is an oral history of the daily lives of women in Nazi Germany and women's roles in the anti-Nazi resistance. In the first part the author presents an overview of the history of German women and discusses theoretical, methodological, and ideological feminist issues. The second part contains accounts from women of their political education and activities in the Weimar republic, with comments by Ms Müller-Reiß. The third part consists of life histories of three women, based on in-depth interviews.

Pfahl-Traughber, Armin. Linksextremismus in Deutschland. Eine kritische Bestandsaufnahme. Springer VS, Berlin 2014. xiii, 248 pp. € 24.76. (E-book: € 19.99.)

Professor Pfahl-Traughber analyses in this book present-day left-wing extremism in Germany. After surveying contemporary scholarship on left-wing terrorism, he discusses its ideological foundations (ranging from Marxism to anarchism) and traces the history of German parties, organizations, and groups of the far left, as well as their aims, fields of activity, and the ways they operate. He examines the relationship between left-wing extremism and protest movements; briefly characterizes left-wing extremism in other European countries, and offers an assessment of the possible danger of left-wing terrorism in Germany and Europe.

Uellenberg-van Dawen, Wolfgang. Gegen Faschismus und Krieg. Die Auseinandersetzungen sozialdemokratischer Jugendorganisationen mit dem Nationalsozialismus. Klartext Verlag, Essen 2014. 225 pp. Ill. € 19.95.

An abridged and revised version of a dissertation from 1981, this book is about social democratic youth organizations confronting Nazism in the Weimar Republic. Focusing on the Jungsozialisten, the Sozialistische Arbeiterjugend, the Freie Gewerkschaftsjugend, the Arbeiterturn- und Sportbund, and other related social democratic associations, Dr Uellenberg-van Dawen examines how social democratic youth movements viewed the rise of Nazism and the increasingly militarized society, how they expected to defend themselves against the threat of fascism, and how they experienced the terror and the destruction of their organizations.

Weipert, Axel. Das Rote Berlin. Eine Geschichte der Berliner Arbeiterbewegung 1830–1934. BWV, Berlin 2014. 253 pp. € 29.00.

This is a history of the labour movement in Berlin from the early nineteenth century until the Third Reich. Drawing on archival materials and secondary sources, the author tells the multifaceted story of “Red Berlin”, highlighting the roles of leftist parties and trade unions, social democrats, anarchists, and communists, as well as other social movements, connecting their history with political and economic developments. Providing abundant background information and illustrating his account with many stories and quotations, the author aims to address general readers but also reveals lesser-known episodes in the history of Berlin.

Wienhaus, Andrea. Bildungswege zu “1968”. Eine Kollektivbiografie des Sozialistischen Deutschen Studentenbundes. Transcript Verlag, Bielefeld 2014. 297 pp. € 29.99.

This is a collective biography of members of the Sozialistische Deutsche Studentenbund (SDS), a student organization that, according to Dr Wienhaus, was central in the German student movement of 1968. Using enrolment registers from the Freie Universität Berlin as well as SDS membership lists, she investigates the social, regional, and educational backgrounds of c.180 SDS members, concluding that this group did not differ significantly from other students of this generation.

Great Britain

Anti-Social Behaviour in Britain. Victorian and Contemporary Perspectives. Ed. by Sarah Pickard. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke 2014. xx, 375 pp. £75.00.

The twenty-five chapters in this interdisciplinary collection include a comparison of the increasing intolerance of street activities during the mid-nineteenth century with New Labour attempts to curb anti-social behaviour; an article about anarchists and the recasting of political protest as anti-social behaviour; contributions about the evolution of blasphemy policing; student protests; social control of specific groups such as homeless people, gypsies, and travellers; and articles examining attempts by governments to reduce the “unrespectable” and “immoral” pleasures of the working class. See also Susan Finding's review in this volume, pp. 290–293.

Boucher, Ellen. Empire's Children. Child Emigration, Welfare, and the Decline of the British World, 1869–1967. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2014. xi, 292 pp. Ill. £65.00; $99.00.

Between 1869 and 1967 approximately 95,000 children, primarily from poor, working-class households in major cities, were selected by government-funded British charities for permanent relocation to the settler dominions of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Southern Rhodesia. Drawing on interviews and written sources alike, Professor Boucher examines the history of British child emigration, aiming to demonstrate the impact of the concept of a global British race on charity work, the evolution of child welfare, and the experiences of underprivileged children.

Bounds, Philip. Notes from the End of History. A Memoir of the Left in Wales. Merlin Press, London 2014. 200 pp. £14.95

In this partly fictionalized memoir Dr Bounds describes his personal experience of the left in Wales within the context of political and cultural events and developments of the 1980s and 1990s, such as the miners’ strike of 1984–1985, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the emergence of the anti-globalization movement. Explaining why many people retained their faith in Marxism after the collapse of “actually existing socialism”, he argues that Marxism, like Christianity and Islam, was central in shaping people's sense of who they were.

E.P. Thompson and the Making of the New Left. Essays and Polemics. Ed. by Cal Winslow. Monthly Review Press, New York (NW) 2014. 332 pp. $23.00.

The thirteen essays in this collection, written by labour historian E.P. Thompson between 1955 and 1963, include an appeal to the communist movement to support the Hungarian rebellion of 1956; a critique of Stalinism; two articles presenting Thompson's views of the New Left; two texts from Out of Apathy (1960); a lecture about William Morris; a tribute to Tom Maguire; and an essay about the English Jacobins, which also appeared as a chapter in The Making of the English Working Class. The detailed introduction provides a context for the essays.

Edward Upward and Left-Wing Literary Culture in Britain. Ed. by Benjamin Kohlmann. Ashgate, Farnham [etc.] 2013. xxii, 206 pp. £60.00; $109.95.

The British left-wing writer Edward Upward (1903–2009), author of The Spiral Ascent (1977), is often described as a doctrinaire communist, for example by his better-known friends and co-writers Christopher Isherwood and Stephen Spender. Placing Upward's life and works in their historical context and considering a broader range of texts than do previous studies, the twelve contributors to this volume aim to re-evaluate Upward's work and his place in twentieth-century British literary culture, highlighting the formal and thematic diversity of politicized writing.

Holmes, Rachel. Eleanor Marx. A Life. Bloomsbury, London [etc.] 2014. 528 pp. £25.00.

In this biography of Karl Marx's youngest daughter, Ms Holmes describes Eleanor's political work, her trade-union activities, journalism, and work as a translator. The emphasis, however, is on “Tussy's” personal life: her childhood, the domestic arrangements in the extended households of Marx and Engels, and, especially, her complicated relationship with Edward Aveling. Based largely on previous biographies, published sources, and secondary literature, and providing ample historical background information, this book about the “foremother of socialist feminism” is intended mainly for general readers.

Steinnes, Kristian. The British Labour Party, Transnational Influences and European Community Membership, 1960–1973. [Studien zur Geschichte der Europäischen Integration, Nr. 24.] Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2014. 217 pp. € 44.00.

Drawing on Scandinavian and Dutch sources in addition to British archives and official documents, and examining transnational networking as well as the reasons of British Labour Party leaders for joining the European Community, Professor Steinnes in this book analyses the European policy of the British Labour Party from 1960 to 1973. He concludes that Labour Party leaders were more enthusiastic about and more favourably disposed towards European integration than is often assumed.

Weeks, George. Dangerous Work. The Memoir of Private George Weeks of the Labour Corps 1917–1919. Ed. by Alan Weeks. History Press, Stroud 2014. 141 pp. £10.99.

In World War I British military labour grew from an ad hoc arrangement in 1914 into a labour corps comprising over 395,000 members assigned to non-combat work, such as maintaining roads and railways, and working at the docks. In this volume Private George Weeks, a docker before he enlisted in the armed forces, gives an account of his wartime experiences as a non-combatant on the battlefields of northern France and Flanders. The memoir is edited by Weeks's son, who has provided explanatory notes and comments.

Italy

Donne migranti tra passato e presente. Il caso italiano. A cura di Maria Rosaria Stabili e Maddalena Tirabassi. [Genesis. Rivista della Società Italiana delle Storiche, XIII/1.] Viella, Roma 2014. 224 pp. € 26.00.

This issue of the journal of the Italian Association of Women Historians is devoted to migrant women: migrating Italian women as well as female immigrants in Italy. The ten articles include essays about women migrants in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Rome and eighteenth-century Turin, respectively; articles about Italian women immigrants in Sao Paolo from 1890 to 1940; exiled anti-fascist women in France; and young immigrant women in Switzerland. One essay is about Bangladeshi immigrants in Italy, another about female migrant domestic workers in Italy. One article examines female participation in Italian migrant associations in Munich from the 1970s onwards.

Il fascismo in tempo reale. Studi e ricerche di Angelo Tasca sulla genesi e l'evoluzione del regime fascista 1926–1938. A cura di Gisueppe Vacca e David Bidussa. [Annali: Anno Quarantottesimo 2012.] Feltrinelli Editore, Milano 2014. xxxvi, 630 pp. € 60.00.

Angelo Tasca (1892–1960), a prominent member of the Italian communist party until he was expelled for his anti-Stalinist views in 1929, became an opponent of both communism and fascism. He went into exile in France, where he collaborated with the Vichy regime from 1940 to 1941. This volume comprises articles on European fascism that Tasca wrote between 1926 and 1938. Three accompanying essays introduce Tasca and his work, a fourth comments on the origins of fascism in Italian historiography, and a fifth gives an overview of the Tasca papers kept in the Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli in Milan.

Gramsci, Antonio. A Great and Terrible World. The Pre-Prison Letters 1908–1926. Ed. and transl. by Derek Boothman. Lawrence and Wishart, London 2014. 418 pp. Ill. £25.00.

The letters in this collection, some of which are published here for the first time, cover the period up to Gramsci's arrest by the Italian fascist regime in November 1926. The c.200 letters, translated by the editor, include letters that Antonio Gramsci wrote to his family as a schoolboy and university student; political letters from Turin, Moscow, Vienna, and Rome; and letters to the Schucht sisters, including Jul'ka, whom he married in Moscow. This edition also features explanatory notes, a small guide to relevant people and organizations, and a select bibliography.

The Netherlands

Mierlo, Henk van. Tabakswerkers, landbouwers en patroons. Ondernemersmacht en arbeiderskracht in een industrialiserende gemeenschap. Valkenswaard 1850–1920. Verloren, Hilversum; Tilburg, Zuidelijk Historisch Contact 2014. 544 pp. Ill. € 39.00.

Valkenswaard, a town in the southern Netherlands, became a cigar-making centre from c.1865 onwards, employing the majority of the local population at its peak around 1900. This dissertation (Tilburg University, 2014) is a detailed study of how Valkenswaard, once a famous centre of falconry, became an industrial community, describing demographic, social, and financial changes, and highlighting the roles of tobacco workers, peasants and farmers, entrepreneurs, and the local elite. The book includes an English summary.

Touwen, Jeroen. Coordination in Transition. The Netherlands and the World Economy, 1950–2010. [Library of Economic History, Vol. 5.] Brill, Leiden [etc.] 2014. xiv, 385 pp. € 119.00; $154.00.

In this book about the evolution of the institutional structure of the Dutch political economy since 1950, Dr Touwen traces the origin and economic role of coordination in the Netherlands, as well as the continuous adaptation of deliberative institutions in corporate industry, labour relations, and welfare policy. Comparing Dutch economic development with other OECD countries by using the “varieties of capitalism” theory and distinguishing coordinated from liberal market economies, he investigates how successfully the Dutch economy combined coordination with the market mechanism.

Poland

Dynner, Glenn. Yankel's Tavern. Jews, Liquor, and Life in the Kingdom of Poland. Oxford University Press, New York [etc.] 2014. xi, 249 pp. Ill. $74.00; £47.99. (Paper: $24.95; £16.99.)

This is a history of the Polish-Jewish liquor trade in nineteenth-century eastern Europe, especially Poland. Although Jewish-run taverns were integral to local economies and social life, reformers and government officials, blaming Jewish tavern keepers for peasant drunkenness, attempted to expel Jews from the liquor trade. Using various Polish archival collections, including petitions to a Rabbi named Elijah Guttmacher (1796–1874), Professor Dynner aims to reveal that with the help of Polish nobles Jewish-run taverns continued as an underground trade.

Russia – Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Everyday Life in Russia Past and Present. Ed. by Choi Chatterjee, David L. Ransel, Mary Cavender, and Karen Petrone. Afterword by Sheila Fitzpatrick. [Indiana-Michigan Series in Russian and East European Studies.] Indiana University Press, Bloomington (IN) [etc.] 2015. x, 430 pp. Ill. $90.00. (Paper: $35.00; E-book $34.99.)

The seventeen chapters in this interdisciplinary collection include four contributions on past scholarship on Russian everyday life and suggestions for new approaches; an essay on women academics; another about representations of motherhood under Brezhnev; four essays on living space under Khrushchev and in post-Soviet Russia; three articles about representations of Russian everyday life; one on Chinese revolutionaries in Moscow military schools (1927–1930); another on the reintegration of Soviet Afghan veterans; and a chapter about consumerism (1917–1939). One essay examines how Russian citizens experience the sale of properties previously for common use to private developers.

Hartnett, Lynne Ann. The Defiant Life of Vera Figner. Surviving the Russian Revolution. Indiana University Press, Bloomington (IN) [etc.] 2014. xvii, 324 pp. Ill. $35.00. (E-book: $29.99.)

Born into a land-owning Russian family, Vera Figner (1852–1942), after studying medicine in Zurich (where she radicalized), became involved in the terrorist organization Narodnaja Volja (People's Will) and the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881. After more than two decades in prison, she resumed her revolutionary activities, joining the Socialist Revolutionary Party. Using Figner's own memoirs as well as Russian archival sources and periodicals, Professor Hartnett describes in this biography how Figner became a revolutionary and how she survived incarceration, the Bolshevik Revolution, and Stalin's purges and died a revolutionary heroine.

Koenker, Diane P. Club Red. Vacation Travel and the Soviet Dream. Cornell University Press, Ithaca (NY) [etc.] 2013. x, 307 pp. Ill. $39.95.

Aiming to shed light on the relationship between the Soviet state and its subjects, and to explain the resilience of the communist regime and its values, Professor Koenker explores the history of socialist vacation spending and tourism in the Soviet Union from the 1920s, when health resort networks emerged, to the expansion of Soviet tourism in the mid-1980s. This book illustrates the transition from a producer to a consumer society; highlights the blend of purpose and pleasure in Soviet vacation policy and practice; and investigates why an authoritarian regime promoted the individual autonomy of its subjects through vacations and tourism.

Kotkin, Stephen. Stalin. Vol I. Paradoxes of Power, 1878–1928. Penguin Books, London [etc.] 2014. xiii, 949 pp. Ill. Maps. £30.00; $20.40.

This book, the first of three projected volumes on Stalin, focuses on his life from his childhood until the beginning of the collectivization of Russian agriculture. Drawing on both international scholarly literature and original archival research in Russia and the United States, Professor Kotkin details the early career of “the man who would become Stalin” within the context of the history of imperial and Soviet Russia, aiming to demonstrate how Stalin was shaped by the imperial Russian state and autocracy.

Shtakser, Inna. The Making of Jewish Revolutionaries in the Pale of Settlement. Jewish Community and Identity during the Russian Revolution and its Immediate Aftermath, 1905–07. [Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements.] Palgrave McMillan, Basingstoke [etc.] 2014. xvii, 205 pp. £60.00.

Based on the letters and autobiographies of revolutionaries from the archives of the Society of Former Political Prisoners and Exiles (Moscow), this book is about the emotional aspects of revolutionary experience among young Jewish working-class revolutionaries who rebelled against both class and ethnicity-based discrimination during the Russian Revolution of 1905. When pogroms swept through the Pale of Settlement from 1905 to 1907, young Jews who had previously left their communities of origin returned to protect their families. Dr Shtakser argues that their revolutionary experience often made them more effective leaders than the traditional Jewish communal authorities.

Siegelbaum, Lewis H. and Leslie Page Moch. Broad is My Native Land. Repertoires and Regimes of Migration in Russia's Twentieth Century. Cornell University Press, Ithaca [etc.] 2014. xiv, 421 pp. Ill. Maps. $75.00.

Drawing on the personal documents of migrants, institutional archives, and interviews, Professors Siegelbaum and Moch present a history of voluntary and coerced migration within late imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet Russia. Their book is arranged around a typology of migrants: settlers (the colonizers of Siberia, the Kazakh steppe and the Far East); seasonal migrants (for work in fields, mines, and cities); migrants to the city; career migrants and military migrants; refugees and evacuees; deportees; and itinerants (prison and labour camp escapees, homeless orphans, Roma, and the nomads of Kazakhstan and the far North).

Sound, Speech, Music in Soviet and Post-Soviet Cinema. Ed. by Lilya Kaganovsky and Masha Salazkina. Indiana University Press, Bloomington (IN) [etc.] 2014. viii, 299 pp. Ill. $90.00. (Paper: $35.00; E-book: $29.99.)

Examining “audiovisual texts” as well as discourses, technologies, institutions, and practices of “audio-vision”, the fourteen chapters in this interdisciplinary volume about aspects of sound in the context of Soviet and post-Soviet film culture include contributions about early talking pictures in the Soviet Union; use of multiple untranslated languages in early Soviet sound film; replacement of original voice-overs from World-War-II-era Soviet documentaries; simultaneous translation of foreign films in the Soviet Union; and Soviet film music.

Spain

Memory and Cultural History of the Spanish Civil War. Realms of Oblivion. Ed. by Aurora G. Morcillo. Brill, Leiden [etc.] 2013. xvii, 571 pp. Ill. Maps. € 185.00; $240.00.

This anthology about the cultural memory of the Spanish Civil War comprises fifteen contributions: a history of the Movement for the Recovery of Historical Memory; an essay on the Francoist monument El Valle de los Caídos; a survey of economic repression and social control in Andalusia; three articles on gender archetypes; two others on the languages of domesticity; three on the trauma (e.g. starvation, gendered repression) of the Civil War in memory; two about autobiographical testimonies; and two about myths of Hispano-Arabic identity.

Mujeres esclavas y abolicionistas en la España de los siglos xvi al xix. Eds. Aurelia Martín Casares y Rocío Periáñez Gómez. [Tiempo Emulado. Historia de América y España.] Iberoamericana, Madrid; Vervuert, Frankfurt am Main 2014. 266 pp. Ill. € 24.00.

Highlighting two aspects of the history of women and Spanish slavery between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, this volume features six articles about female slavery, e.g. representations of women slaves in works of art; female slave labour in Spain; devotion to female black saints in Spain; the destinations of freed slaves; and enslaved women's prospects for manumission. The second part of the collection is about women and abolitionism, containing two essays on abolitionist novels written by women, and two others on women abolitionists, including the feminist Concepción Arenal.

Preston, Paul. The Last Stalinist. The Life of Santiago Carrillo. William Collins, London 2014. xiii, 432 pp. Ill. $27.99; £30.00.

This biography of Santiago Carrillo (1915–2012), the general secretary of the Spanish Communist Party (PCE) from 1960 to 1982 and a subject of controversy in Spanish history (especially the Spanish Civil War), was first published in Spanish as El zorro rojo. La vida de Santiago Carrillo, 2013 (see IRSH, 59 (2014), p. 179). The English edition contains a few more illustrations than the Spanish version.

Preston, Paul. The Spanish Holocaust. Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century Spain. Harper Press, London 2013 (Paper). xx, 700 pp. Ill. Maps. £30.00. (Paper: £10.99.)

In this book Professor Preston aims to describe and explain what happened to civilians during the Spanish Civil War. He explores the origins of hatred and violence on both sides, contrasting institutionalized violence in the rebel zone with spontaneous mass violence in the Republican zone; highlights the siege of Madrid and the Paracuellos massacre as “the bloodiest episodes in the Civil War”; analyses the conflict between anarchists and communists in the Republican camp; and describes the systematic post-war persecution of schoolteachers, liberal doctors and lawyers, and trade unionists who did not attend Mass.

Sennett, Alan. Revolutionary Marxism in Spain, 1930–1937. [Historical Materialism Book Series, Vol. 70.] Brill, Leiden [etc.] 2014. ix 346 pp. € 119.00; $154.00.

Taking as its central theme Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution and drawing on the writings and activities of POUM leaders Andreu Nin and Joaquín Maurín, this book is about Trotsky's writings on Spain and the influence of his ideas on Spanish dissident communists. Dr Sennett examines the origins of the revolutionary Marxists in Spain, their participation in the Spanish labour movement, the founding of the POUM, the popular front, and the destruction of the POUM. An overview of modern Spanish history up until the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939 provides a historical background.