Burkina Faso

Harsch, Ernest. Burkina Faso. A History of Power, Protest, and Revolution. Zed Books, London 2017. xiii, 287 pp. Maps. $95.00. (Paper: $29.95).

In October 2014, huge protests across Burkina Faso enabled the people to overthrow the regime of their authoritarian ruler. Defying all expectations, this popular movement went on to defeat a coup attempt by the old regime, making it possible for a transitional government to organize free and fair elections. Their struggle is recorded as one of the few instances of a popular democratic uprising succeeding in postcolonial sub-Saharan Africa. In this book, Dr Harsch provides a history from the French colonial period to the Compaoré regime and the movement that deposed him. The author has researched and reported from Burkina Faso, interviewing subjects ranging from local democratic activists to revolutionary icon Sankara.

Ghana

Crisp, Jeff. With a New Forew. by Gavin Hilson. The Story of an African Working Class. Ghanaian Miners’ Struggles 1870–1980. Zed Books: London 2017 [first ed. 1984]. $95.00. (Paper: $29.95).

Ghana’s gold miners were one of the earliest and most militant groups of workers in Africa. This reprinted edition with a new foreword details their struggle against exploitative mining companies, repressive governments, and authoritarian trade union leaders. Drawing on a range of original sources, the author explores the changing nature of life and work in the gold mines spanning 110 years, from the colonial era through the 1980s, and examines the distinctive forms of political awareness and organization that the miners developed in response to their conditions. He also provides a detailed account of changing techniques of labour control by mining capital and the state.

Mark-Thiesen, Cassandra. Mediators, Contract Men, and Colonial Capital. Mechanized Gold Mining in the Gold Coast Colony, 1879–1909. [Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora.] University of Rochester Press, Rochester (NY) 2018. xii, 217 pp. Ill. Maps. $110.00.

This study is about labour relations in the mines of Wassa in the Gold Coast Colony, in the period 1879 to 1909, particularly on the interactions of recruitment agents and migrant workers. Reconstructing the emerging colonial economic context, the author reveals how human geography and the pre-existing social conditions of work in West Africa shaped capitalist transformation, highlighting the dynamics of the fluid West African labour market during the early stage of colonialism, when migrants from various parts of West Africa, as well as casual and tributary labourers, were present and taking into account how different social groups responded to the opportunity of regular wage work in the mines.

West Africa

Domingues da Silva, Daniel B. The Atlantic Slave Trade from West Central Africa, 1780–1867. [Cambridge Studies on the African Diaspora.] Cambridge University Press, New York [etc.] 2017. xv, 231 pp. Ill. Maps. £75.00. (E-book: $80.00).

This study traces the inland origins of slaves leaving West Central Africa at the peak of transatlantic slave trade. Drawing on archival sources from Angola, Brazil, England, and Portugal, Professor Domingues da Silva traces the origins of the slaves, the commodities for which they were exchanged, and their methods of enslavement. He examines the evolution of the trade over time, its organization, and the demographic profile of those transported and sheds light on African incentives to participate in the traffic. The detailed geography of enslavement contributes to an understanding of the history of the African diaspora. See also Angus Dalrymple-Smith’s review in this volume, pp. 523–526.

South Africa

Callebert, Ralph. On Durban’s Docks. Zulu Workers, Rural Households, Global Labor. [Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora.] Boydell & Brewer, Rochester (NY) 2017. xvi, 235 pp. Maps. £80.00. (E-book: £19.99).

Durban, South Africa’s main port city and a crucial node in the trade networks of the Indian Ocean and the British Empire, relied heavily Zulu migrant dock workers in the first part of the twentieth century. Drawing on seventy-seven oral histories and extensive archival research, Dr Callebert examines the working and living conditions of Durban’s dock workers and the livelihoods of their rural households, which combined wage labour, pilferage, informal trade, and the rural economy. He considers the dynamics of gender within dock workers’ households, questioning the relevance of the predominant wage labour paradigm for Africa and for the Global South.

Skinner, Rob. Modern South Africa in World History. Beyond Imperialism. Bloomsbury Academic, London [etc.] 2017. vi, 206 pp. Maps. $79.20. (Paper: $24.26; E-book: $19.40).

This book provides a broad overview of key historical developments, including the emergence of an industrialized economy, the rise of systematic racial discrimination, and popular resistance to racial power, from the turn of the nineteenth to the twenty-first century. This narrative of events is underpinned by a transnational perspective that highlights the cosmopolitan nature of modern South Africa and the global influences that have enabled and constrained social, political, and economic experiences over the past two centuries. The influence of national and ethnic identities on political and social organization is described in relation to imperial and global influences.

Bahamas

Curry, Christopher. Freedom and Resistance. A Social History of Black Loyalists in the Bahamas. University of Florida Press, Gainesville (FL) [etc.] 2017. x, 256 pp. Ill. Maps. $74.95. (Paper: $19.95).

After the American Revolution, blacks who had been loyal to the British cause arrived in the Bahamas, drawn by promises of liberty and land. This book shows how Black Loyalists clashed with White Loyalists in their struggle for freedom, contributing significantly to Bahamian society through political activism and armed resistance, building churches and schools that became the foundations of self-reliant black communities, and participating in the emerging market economy. By comparing the experiences of these Bahamians to those of other Black Loyalist communities in Jamaica and Nova Scotia, Professor Curry adds a global dimension to the struggle for freedom that emanated from the American Revolution.

Brazil

Buckley, Eve E. Technocrats and the Politics of Drought and Development in Twentieth-century Brazil. [Justice, Power, and Politics.] University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill (NC) 2017. xiii, 295 pp. Ill. Maps. $90.00. (Paper: $17.20; E-book: $16.96).

This book examines science and technology as instruments of social reform and economic development in drought-ridden, impoverished north-east Brazil. Scientists planned and supervised huge projects including dam construction, irrigation for small farmers, and public health initiatives. Professor Buckley reveals how physicians, engineers, agronomists, and technocrats working for federal agencies to combat drought, were pressured by politicians to seek a technological magic bullet that would end poverty and obviate the need for land redistribution to redress long-standing injustices. Over time, however, they all realized that, despite the promise of technology to end poverty, political clashes among competing stakeholders were inevitable.

Caribbean

Casey, Matthew. Empire’s Guestworkers. Haitian Migrants in Cuba during the Age of US Occupation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2017. xii, 313 pp. Ill. Maps. £64.99.

During the first four decades of the twentieth century, approximately 200,000 Haitians migrated seasonally and permanently to eastern Cuba. Reconstructing the lived experiences of Haitian guest workers, as they moved among the rural and urban areas of Haiti and the sugar plantations, coffee farms, and cities in eastern Cuba, Professor Casey offers a glimpse into the daily workings of empire, labour, and political economy in Haiti and Cuba. Efforts by migrants to improve their living and working conditions and engage in religious worship shaped migration policies, economic realities, ideas of race, and Caribbean spirituality in Haiti and Cuba, as each experienced US imperialism. See also Jon Curry-Machado’s review in this volume, pp. 529–531.

Rood, Daniel B. The Reinvention of Atlantic Slavery. Technology, Labor, Race, and Capitalism in the Greater Caribbean. Oxford University Press, New York [etc.] 2017. xiii, 272 pp. Ill. Maps. £47.00.

The period of the second slavery was marked by geographical expansion of zones of slavery into the Upper US South, Cuba, and Brazil and chronological expansion into the Industrial Age. Professor Rood shows how ambitious planters throughout the Greater Caribbean hired a transnational group of chemists, engineers, and other plantation experts to assist in adapting industrial technologies to suit their tropical needs and increase profitability. These experts depended on the know-how of slaves, alongside whom they worked. The reinvention of this plantation world in the 1840s and 1850s brought a renewed movement in the 1860s, especially by those enslaved in the United States and Cuba, to end chattel slavery.

Cuba

Cluster, Dick and Rafael Hernández. The History of Havana. OR books, New York [etc.] 2018. v, 344 pp. Ill. Maps. $22.00; £17.00. (E-book: $12.00; £9.00).

Founded in in 1519, Havana has drawn people from all over the world, including explorers, entrepreneurs, refugees, and the exiled, to create a melting pot of influences and cultures with a distinctive history. Authors Cluster and Hernández examine both continuities and discontinuities throughout the history of the city. Originally published in 2006, the authors have added to this edition an epilogue on the developments of the decade from 2006–2016, including the social effects of the restoration of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States. Drawing on oral histories, cultural artefacts, published works, travel reports, and journalism, the authors chronicle the city’s dynamic culture and politics.

Mexico

Ford, Eileen. Childhood and Modernity in Cold War Mexico City. Bloomsbury, London [etc.] 2018. xi, 243 pp. Ill. $102.60. (E-book: $82.08).

This book traces the transformations between 1934 and 1968 in Mexico through the lens of childhood. Drawing on sources ranging from oral histories to photojournalism, the author reconstructs the meanings of childhood in Mexico City during a period of changing global attitudes towards childhood and changing power relations in Mexico at several levels. She analyses the presence of children in different media to examine how they were constructed within public discourse, identifying the forces that would converge in the 1968 student movement. This book demonstrates the importance of children within Mexican society, as Mexico transitioned from a socialist-inspired government to one that embraced industrial capitalism in the Cold War era.

Illades, Carlos. Conflict, Domination, and Violence. Episodes in Mexican Social History. Transl. from Spanish by Philip Daniels. [Studies in Latin American and Spanish History, vol. 2.] Berghahn, New York [etc.] 2017. xxii, 182 pp. Ill. $110.00; £78.00.

This book deals with the history of diverse social movements, scattered throughout Mexico’s history and geography, originating as resistance and collective action intended to reverse inequities in the class-conscious society. Drawing on rich and varied historical sources, Professor Illades elaborates on the origins of the labour movement; the Pueblos Unidos’ rebellion in Querétaro and Guanajuato at the beginning of the Porfiriato; the attacks on Spanish-owned shops in Mexico City in 1915; cycles of social violence in the south of the country in the twentieth century; current urban neo-anarchism; public protest during the democratic transition; and the social mobilization stemming from the forced disappearance of forty-three students from the Ayotzinapa teacher training college.

Lenti, Joseph U. Redeeming the Revolution. The State and Organized Labor in Post-Tlatelolco Mexico. [The Mexican Experience.] University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln (NE) [etc.] 2017. xvi, 355 pp. Ill. $70.00. (Paper: $35.00; E-book: $35.00).

This book associates the Mexican state with the changing status of organized workers in the twentieth century. Professor Lenti elaborates on how the Mexican Revolution was rescued after 1968, linking the killing of hundreds of student protestors in the Tlateloco district of Mexico City on 2–3 October 1968 with the proclamation of the New Federal Labour Law of 1970, worker participation in mass political events, and the altered form of relations among the state, organized labour, and business in the subsequent period. While officials appeased union officials with discourses of revolutionary populism, conflicts arose, and repression ensued when rank-and-file workers criticized the chasm between rhetoric and reality.

Suriname

Snelders, Stephen. Leprosy and Colonialism. Suriname under Dutch Rule, 1750–1950. [Social History of Medicine.] Manchester University Press, Manchester 2017. ix, 276 pp. £75.00. (E-book: £84.00).

In this book, the history of leprosy in Suriname is studied within the context of Dutch colonial power and racial conflict. The book is divided into two parts. Part One considers leprosy, framing the disease in the context of the slave economy. Part Two deals with the modern colonial state after the abolition of slavery in Suriname in 1863 till the present day, investigating the Caribbean origins of modern framing and management of leprosy. Drawing from colonial sources, Dr Snelders explores the relationship between the modern stigmatization and exclusion of those with leprosy and the political tensions and racial fears originating in colonial slave society from the perspectives of both the colonial rulers and the ruled.

United States of America

Against Labor. How US Employers Organized to Defeat Union Activism. Ed. by Rosemary Feurer and Chad Pearson. [The Working Class in American History.] University of Illinois Press, Urbana (IL) [etc.] 2017. x, 269 pp. Ill. $95.00. (Paper: $28.00; E-book: $25.20).

This collection of nine essays focuses on how generations of employers have responded to expressions of working-class activism. Covering a spectrum of issues, essayists explore employer anti-labour strategies and portray people and organizations that aggressively opposed unions. Other contributors examine the anti-labour movement against the intersection of race and ethnicity and anti-unionism in the context of neoliberalism. Although the decline of organized labour in recent decades is often attributed to globalization, financialization, and right-wing politics, the essays in this volume show that, according to the contributors, the impediments the workers’ collective power derive from the concerted anti-union efforts of their employers.

Belew, Kathleen. Bring the War Home. The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA) [etc.] 2018. x, 339 pp. Ill. $29.95; £21.95; € 27.00.

The white power movement in America used their view of the Vietnam War to advance elements of their reactionary agenda and justify domestic terrorism. Its soldiers are highly organized cadres motivated by a coherent, deeply troubling worldview of white supremacy, anticommunism, and apocalypse. In this book, Professor Belew gives a full history of the movement that consolidated in the 1970s and 1980s around a potent sense of betrayal in the Vietnam War and made tragic headlines in the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building. They unified people from a variety of militant groups, including Klansmen, neo-Nazis, skinheads, radical tax protestors, and white separatists.

Benton-Cohen, Katherine. Inventing the Immigration Problem. The Dillingham Commission and Its Legacy. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA) 2018. 342 pp. Ill. $29.95; £21.95; € 27.00.

In 1907, Congress formed a commission to investigate the number of immigrants entering the United States. Across the nation, data were gathered on these new arrivals, shaping how Americans came to view immigrants, themselves, and their country’s place in the world. Within a decade of its launch, the commission’s recommendations, including a literacy test, a quota system, the Asian exclusion, and greater federal oversight of immigration policy, were implemented. This study describes the bureaucracy, broad administrative authority, and quantitative record-keeping arising from these regulations. The chapters comprise a collective biography and policy history.

Dawson, Kevin. Undercurrents of Power. Aquatic Culture in the African Diaspora. [The Early Modern Americas.] University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia (PA) 2018. viii, 351 pp. Ill. $45.00; £35.00. (E-book: $45.00; £29.50).

West Africans were adept swimmers, divers, and canoeists. Transported to the Americas, slaves carried with them these skills and cultural values. At the plantations, swimming and canoeing provided respite from agricultural bondage. In some instances, enslaved labourers exchanged their aquatic expertise for privileges, including wages, working without direct white supervision and, in exceptional cases, even freedom. Professor Dawson traces and untangles cultural and social traditions in Africa and in America. He builds his analysis, based on travel accounts, slave narratives, diaries, newspapers, plantation records, government documents, and ship logs, around a discussion of African traditions and the emergence of similar traditions within African diaspora communities.

Howard, Adam M. Sewing the Fabric of Statehood. Garment Unions, American Labor, and the Establishment of the State of Israel. [The Working Class in American History.] University of Illinois Press, Urbana (IL) 2017. xi, 154 pp. $95.00. (Paper: $24.95; E-book: $22.46).

Garment unions possessed the unique combination of political and financial assets to provide crucial resources for the building blocks of a Jewish state. Professor Howard explores how three influential garment unions acted in support of a new Jewish state between 1917 and 1948. He reveals a coalition at work on multiple fronts. Sustained efforts convinced the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations to support Jewish development in Palestine through land purchases for Jewish workers and encouraged construction of trade schools and cultural centres. Other activists channelled massive economic aid to the Histadrut, the General Federation of Jewish Workers in Palestine.

Minchin, Timothy J. Labor under Fire. A History of the AFL-CIO since 1979. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill (NC) 2017. xiii, 414 pp. Ill. $39.95. (E-book: $29.99).

From the Reagan years to the present, the labour movement has coped with hostile surroundings. This book provides the history of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) since the 1970s. With a membership of more than thirteen million, the AFL-CIO survived in its constant struggle for programmes, including social security, unemployment insurance, the minimum wage, and universal healthcare. Based on detailed research into the AFL-CIO’s papers, archival collections, and particularly the records of several presidential libraries, including those of Reagan and Bush, Professor Minchin uses personal papers as well and has interviewed crucial figures involved with the organization.

Moore, Louis. I Fight for a Living. Boxing and the Battle for Black Manhood, 1880–1915. [Sport and Society.] University of Illinois Press, Urbana (IL) [etc.] 2017. 240 pp. Ill. $95.00. (Paper: $27.95; E-book: $25.16).

Beginning in the 1880s, a shifting notion of middle-class masculinity and a consumer revolution generated a demand for prize fighters. Professor Moore draws on the life stories of African American fighters to explore working-class black manhood. Emphasizing the struggle for black working-class autonomy in boxing and how these men constructed their version of manhood in a racist society, he argues that prize fighting provided black men with a welcome alternative to the racist job market. Black fighters exhibited their masculinity in ways understood as manly in the sporting culture, according to accepted tenets of middle-class manhood. The author concludes that black pugilistic success helped shatter the myth of black inferiority.

Shelton, Jon. Teacher Strike! Public Education and the Making of a New American Political Order. [The Working Class in American History.] University of Illinois Press, Urbana (IL) [etc.] 2017. xii, 251 pp. $95.00. (Paper: $27.95; E-book: $25.16).

A wave of teacher strikes in the 1960s and 1970s helped shatter the liberal-labour coalition in favour of the neoliberal challenge of urban education today. Professor Shelton shows that many working- and middle-class whites sided with corporate interests against public sector employees in viewing themselves as society’s only legitimate, productive members. Drawing on a wealth of research, ranging from school board meetings to TV news reports, the author chronicles the intense strikes in Newark, St. Louis, and three other cities where these debates and changing attitudes played out and demonstrates how the actions by teachers contributed to the growing public perception that unions were irrelevant and detrimental to American prosperity.

Watkins III, Jerry T. Queering the Redneck Riviera. Sexuality and the Rise of Florida Tourism. University Press of Florida, Gainesville (FL) [etc.] 2018. xii, 188 pp. Ill. $79.95.

This book relates the history of gay people in North Florida. In a state dedicated to selling an image of family-friendly paradise and in an era of rising moral repression, queer people were forced to negotiate their identities and their places in society. Professor Watkins has based this study on newspaper articles, advertising campaigns, oral history accounts, government documents, and interrogation transcripts. In chapters on cruising for sex and connections made in bars, the author draws conclusions on mobility, sex-based networks, and the transition to a liberation economy. The chapters on the Emma Jones Society beach parties show how gay men and lesbians were able to use the continually expanding tourist economy.

Windham, Lane. Knocking on Labor’s Door. Union Organizing in the 1970s and the Roots of a New Economic Divide. [Justice, Power, and Politics.] University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill (NC) 2017. xi, 295 pp. Ill. $32.95. (E-book: $24.99).

The power of unions in workers’ lives and in the American political system has declined since the 1970s. In this book, Dr Windham reveals how in the 1970s workers, especially women, people of colour, young workers, and southerners, increasingly combined old working-class tools, such as unions and labour law, with legislative gains from the civil and women’s rights movements to improve their prospects. Through close-up case studies of workers’ campaigns in shipbuilding, textiles, retail, and services, the author refutes widely accepted myths about labour’s decline, showing how employers manipulated weak labour law and quashed a new wave of worker organization.

Bangladesh

Ali, Tariq Omar. A Local History of Global Capital. Jute and Peasant Life in the Bengal Delta. [Histories of Economic Life.] Princeton University Press, Princeton (NJ) 2018. 272 pp. Maps. $39.95; £33.00.

In the nineteenth century, jute was the second-most widely consumed fibre in the world. In this book, the history of jute in the Bengal delta is examined, starting with its emergence as a global commodity in the mid-nineteenth century and concluding in the early postcolonial period. Professor Ali traces how the global connections wrought by jute transformed facets of peasant life: practices of work, domesticity, sociality; ideas and discourses of justice and political commitments and actions. He examines how peasant life was structured and restructured with fluctuations in global commodity markets, as the nineteenth-century period of peasant consumerism and prosperity gave way to debt and poverty in the twentieth century.

China

Szonyi, Michael. The Art of Being Governed. Everyday Politics in Late Imperial China. Princeton University Press, Princeton (NJ) [etc.] 2017. xv, 303 pp. Ill. Maps. $35.00; £27.00.

Ordinary people on China’s southeast coast in the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) fulfilled their obligations to the state by providing soldiers to the army. Using genealogies and family documents, Professor Szonyi examines how soldiers and their families minimized the costs and maximized the benefits of meeting government demands for manpower. The book consists of four parts. The first part is set in the late fourteenth century, when the Ming system of military households was established in the native villages. The second and third parts cover the operation of Ming military institutions in their maturity, and the fourth part returns to the garrisons after the fall of the Ming.

Georgia

Lee, Eric. The Experiment. Georgia’s Forgotten Revolution 1918–1921. Zed, London 2017. xxv, 259 pp. Ill. Maps. £20.00; $25.00.

Georgia’s declaration of independence from Russia in 1918 was a revolution that established the Georgian Democratic Republic, which lasted three years. Lee explores the country’s experiment in democratic socialism, detailing the turbulent events of this revolutionary history and elaborating on the men and women who struggled for a more inclusive vision of socialism that featured multi-party elections, freedom of speech and assembly, a free press, and a civil society grounded in trade unions and cooperatives. Despite its brief existence before it was crushed on orders from Stalin, the Republic offered a glimpse of a more humane form of socialism than the Soviet reality that was to come.

India

Ghosh, Durba. Gentlemanly Terrorists. Political Violence and the Colonial State in India, 1919–1947. [Critical Perspectives on Empire.] Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2017. xv, 275 pp. Ill. £69.99. (Paper: £23.99; E-book: $24.00).

In this book, Professor Ghosh reveals the critical place of revolutionary terrorism in the history of modern India, including how so-called Bhadralok dacoits – terrorists drawn from the elite – used assassinations and bomb attacks to accelerate the departure of the British from India, and how the colonial government responded by declaring a state of emergency, suspending the rule of law, and detaining hundreds of suspected terrorists. Increasingly, repressive legislation was seen as a necessary condition for British attempts to promote civil society and liberal governance in India. By placing political violence at the centre of Indian campaigns to gain independence, the author conveys how terrorism shaped the modern nation state in India. See also Franziska Roy’s review in this volume, pp. 548–551.

Sarkar, Aditya. Trouble at the Mill. Factory Law and the Emergence of Labour Question in Late Nineteenth-Century Bombay. Oxford University Press, New Delhi [etc.] 2018. xii, 359 pp. Rs 1640.00; £37.99.

The Factory Act passed by the Government of British India in 1881 was amended in 1891, redefining factories as workplaces employing over fifty workers, raising the upper age limit of legal “protection”, setting weekly holidays, and including women mill workers in its ambit. In the late nineteenth century, two kinds of industrial relations regimes emerged in Bombay. The first was in labour legislation, the second concerned strikes and industrial conflicts and demonstrated the limits of the law. This book uses the Factory Acts to shed light on the early history of labour relations in India, specifically in the mill industry of Bombay.

Israel

Abramitzky, Ran. The Mystery of the Kibbutz. Egalitarian Principles in a Capitalist World. [The Princeton Economic History of the Western World.] Princeton University Press, Princeton (NJ) 2018. vi, 360 pp. $29.95; £17.00.

Challenging traditional economic theory, the kibbutz was a social experiment in collective living, sharing all income and resources equally among its members. In this book, Professor Abramitzky blends economic perspectives with personal insights to examine how kibbutzim maintained equal sharing for so long, until their decline. Weaving the story of his own family’s experiences as kibbutz members with extensive economic and historical data, the author describes the idealism and historic circumstances that helped kibbutzim overcome their economic contradictions, portraying how kibbutzim were structured to meet these challenges, thriving as enclaves in a capitalist world, and evaluates their success at sustaining economic equality.

Japan

Takeuchi-Demirci, Aiko. Contraceptive Diplomacy. Reproductive Politics and Imperial Ambitions in the United States and Japan. [Asian America.] Stanford University Press, Stanford (CA) 2018. xv, 318 pp. Ill. $29.95.

Margaret Sanger first visited Japan in 1922, for the purpose of birth control advocacy outside the United States. Dr Takeuchi-Demirci examines the development of ideas about birth control, contraceptive technology, and reproductive politics in the midst of imperial struggles between the United States and Japan by tracing the activism of Sanger and her Japanese counterpart Shizue. The birth control movement facilitated American expansionism and anti-communist policy and was welcomed in Japan as a hallmark of modernity. In the 1960s, a transnational coalition for women’s sexual liberation had been handed over to imperial machinations, enabling state-sponsored population control projects that, in effect, deprived women of reproductive freedom.

Nepal

Hoffmann, Michael. The Partial Revolution. Labour, Social Movements, and the Invisible Hand of Mao in Western Nepal. [Dislocations.] Berghahn, New York 2018. xiii, 214 pp. Ill. Maps. $120.00; £85.00.

Located in the far-western Tarai region of Nepal, Kailali has been the site of dynamic social and political change in recent history. Dr Hoffmann examines Kailali in the aftermath of Nepal’s Maoist insurgency, focusing on how revolutionary political mobilization changed social relations, how political mobilizations and labour relationships are reshaped by armed revolutionary conflict, and how a feudal system of bonded labour has been transformed into new forms of labour relations that involved neo-bondage. Part One is about town politics and Part Two about labour relations in a brick factory in the hinterland.

Palestine

Duke, Shaul. The Stratifying Trade Union. The Case of Ethnic and Gender Inequality in Palestine, 1920–1948. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke [etc.] 2018. xvii, 312 pp. Ill. $99.99; € 90.09. (E-book: $79.99; € 69.99).

The effects of trade unions on working-class inequality in Palestine in 1920–1948 are examined in-depth in this book. Dr Duke seeks to rethink how we should perceive trade unions in fragmented societies. Describing the trade unions that operated in Mandatory Palestine in terms of ethnicity, size, and period of operation, he identifies the groups most relevant for studying trade union effects during the mandate and charts both the extent to which each group influenced union policy and the effect of union policy on each group. Comparison of union experiences of Palestinian-Arabs, Jewish-Yemeni immigrants, and Jewish women offers a refreshing view of labour history and social stratification in Palestine. See also David De Vries’s review in this volume, pp. 539–542.

Southeast Asia

Lees, Lynn Hollen. Planting Empire, Cultivating Subjects. British Malaya, 1786–1941. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2017. xvii, 359 pp. Ill. Maps. £90.00.

In this book, the author explores the nature and development of colonial governance and the experiences of Malayan residents with British rule in towns and plantations. Professor Lees situates the history of British Malaya in its global context, recognizing its importance for the Indian Ocean areas, and demonstrates the complexity of colonialism, taking into account shared sovereignties, multi-ethnic populations, and different styles of governance. Using sources ranging from administrative files, court transcripts, and oral interviews to periodicals and material culture, she examines the stories of ordinary people and the mixed messages they got from harsh racial hierarchies regarding long-distance migration and economic opportunities to explore the internal workings of colonial rule.

Denmark

Heinsen, Johan. Mutiny in the Danish Atlantic World. Convicts, Sailors, and a Dissonant Empire. Bloomsbury Academic, London [etc.] 2017. vii, 224 pp. Ill. £85.00. (E-book: £73.44).

This book discusses how storytelling by the lower classes shaped antagonisms and struggles for agency. Professor Heinsen studies Denmark’s Atlantic empire, in particular the role of coerced labour in its making. At the heart of the book, he demonstrates how telling stories and transmission of rumour transformed the social worlds of ships (as well as prisons and colonies). Divided into two parts, the first explores the mutiny on the Havmanden and its dissonances, focusing on the ship and its complicated social world of rumours, plots, and thresholds, while the second situates the mutiny in a wider context of lower-class traditions and struggles.

Eire – Ireland

McNamara, Conor. War and Revolution in the West of Ireland. Galway 1913–1922. Irish Academic Press, Newbridge 2018. vii, 243 pp. € 44.99. (Paper: € 16.99).

In this study of social and political change in Galway from 1913 to 1922, the author examines how rural communities coped with the unprecedented upheaval of the revolutionary period known as the Irish revolution. The Easter Rising of 1916 facilitated the emergence of new revolutionary forces and the eruption of guerrilla warfare, reciprocated by violence by the Crown Forces. Dr McNamara explores the interior conflicts of the republican campaign, as ordinary nationalists and younger republicans were deeply divided. Meanwhile, conflicts over land, an enduring grievance among the poor, revealed an economic chasm between the rural poor and strong farmers and landowners.

Eastern Europe

Communism’s Jewish Question. Jewish Issues in Communist Archives. Ed. by András Kovacs. [Europäisch-jüdische Studien Editionen – European-Jewish Studies Editions, vol. 3.] De Gruyter Oldenbourg, Berlin 2017. x, 371 pp. € 119.95; $168.00; £109.00. (E-book: € 119.95; $168.00; £109.00).

This volume features commentaries on a selection of papers published here and emerging from the recently opened Communist archives, stemming mostly from Hungarian archives from the period 1957–1989. Documents from the post-Stalinist era provide insights into the institutional system, ideology, and language used by representatives of the communist regime in relation to the Jewish communities. The documents are organized around important cases, events, and affairs. Part One is about the communist policies and the Jewish State, Part Two about the Eichmann affair, and Part Three about the Six-day War and its aftermath. Part Four covers international Jewish organizations, the Jewish community, and the State and Part Five mechanisms of repression.

France

Auzias, Claire. Préface de John Merriman. Trimards. “Pègre” et mauvais garçons de Mai 68. Atelier de création libertaire, Paris 2017. 490 pp. Ill. € 18.00.

The Trimards were an elusive group of wanderers in different towns in France, who played a hidden but important role in the Revolution. In this book, Dr Auzias examines this dispersed group in-depth, sharing an abundant unpublished archive, and recalling who they were and their direction or ambitions (anarchist or casual, organized or unorganized). The countless interviews with actors and relatives make this work a field history. The last part of the book comprises unpublished documents, e.g. the original manuscript from 1971 of the book Comité de lutte pour la libération des prisonniers politiques, prefaced by Françoise Routhier.

Chuzeville, Julien. Un court moment révolutionnaire. La création du Parti communiste en France (1915–1924). [Ceux d’en bas.] Libertalia, Paris 2017. 529 pp. Ill. € 20.00.

At the Socialist Party Congress of Tours, the majority of the participants voted for scission and to establish the French International, which became the French Communist Party in 1921. Based on recently opened archives, Dr Chuzeville examines the dynamics that led to this result. Who were the activists, what were their political goals, how was the Party organized, and what were the links with Moscow? In his answers, the author relates the course of events to the perspective of the Russian revolution researching the formation of the Communist Party in conjunction with social struggles, massive strikes, and revolution attempts in other European countries.

Germany

The Cultural Legacy of German Colonial Rule. Ed. by Klaus Mühlhahn. De Gruyter, Berlin [etc.] 2017. xii, 191 pp. Ill. € 49.95; $57.99; £44.99.

This edited volume addresses central questions about the historical memory and cultural heritage of German colonial history. Based on multidisciplinary research presented at the symposium in May 2016 in Berlin, this book is designed to contribute to and expand the ongoing discussion of German colonialism by focusing on the agency of those affected by German colonialism in Africa, Asia, and Oceania. Together, the ten papers included here demonstrate that the legacy of colonialism continues to define relations between Europe and the formerly colonized world, yielding an ambivalent legacy that persists in subtle but important ways in the international political arena.

Eiden-Offe, Patrick. Die Poesie der Klasse. Romantischer Antikapitalismus und die Erfindung des Proletariats. Matthes und Seitz, Berlin 2017. 460 pp. € 30.00.

As capitalism and industrialization continued in the early nineteenth century, so-called proletarians and their dreams and desires surfaced in new forms of storytelling in romantic short stories, reports, social-statistical investigations, and monthly bulletins. Labour movement deprecated this literature as reactionary and anarchic, because these stories, held to be nostalgic, violent, utopian, and deceptive, were incompatible with the great linear vision of progress. In his study, Dr Eiden-Offe examines the suppressed romantic anti-capitalism in social and literary history of the nineteenth century and makes clear that this genre is surprisingly similar to current depictions of precariousness after the end of the old work society. See also Friedrich Lenger’s review in this volume, pp. 532–533.

Herzer, Manfred. Magnus Hirschfeld und seine Zeit. De Gruyter Oldenbourg, Berlin 2017. viii, 456 pp. Ill. € 59.95; $68.99; £49.99. (E-book: € 59.95; $68.99; £49.99).

Commemorating the 150th anniversary of his birth, this biography narrates the life and work of the Jewish social democrat and openly gay physician Magnus Hirschfeld (1868–1935), who launched the world’s first emancipation movement for homosexuals at the end of the nineteenth century. Hirschfeld was a pioneer in sexology and opened the first Institute of Sexology in Berlin after the First World War. Forced by the Nazis to emigrate, he witnessed from his exile in France, the destruction of his life’s work, the plundering of the institute, and the banning and burning of his books.

Milder, Stephen. Greening Democracy. The Anti-Nuclear Movement and Political Environmentalism in West Germany and Beyond, 1968–1983. [New Studies in European History.] Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2017. xvii, 279 pp. Ill. £75.00.

During the 1970s in West Germany, nuclear energy became a political issue that motivated new democratic engagement. Using interviews and archives of environmental organizations and the Green party, Professor Milder traces the rise of anti-nuclear protest from grassroots levels to parliaments, exploring the link between environmentalism and politics by arguing that, after the government expressed firm support for nuclear energy, concerns about specific nuclear reactors gave rise to a widespread anti-nuclear movement. Questioning the state of their democracy, activists in West Germany started to cooperate with activists in other countries, and anti-nuclear protests led citizens to grow increasingly involved in self-governance, expanding their conception of democracy well beyond electoral politics.

Reininghaus, Wilfried. Die Revolution 1918/19 in Westfalen und Lippe als Forschungsproblem. Quellen und offene Fragen. Mit einer Dokumentation zu den Arbeiter-, Soldaten- und Bauernräten. [Veröffentlichungen der Historischen Kommission für Westfalen, Neue Folge 33.] Aschendorff Verlag, Münster 2016. 392 pp. Ill. € 39.00.

In 1918, the Empire ended, and the First Republic began in Germany. In 1919, all men and women were granted equal, secret, and free suffrage. After opening with a summary of research addressing these dramatic events in Westphalia and Lippe, the author in the next chapter cites several pending research questions on workers, soldiers, and farmers’ councils, the opponents of the revolution, election campaigns, etc. In the final chapters, relevant archival sources and literature are listed, while in the appendix, over 800 councils of workers, soldiers, peasants, and the bourgeoisie councils based in these regions are documented. See also Rüdiger Graf’s review in this volume, pp. 533–536.

Von Hodenberg, Christina. Das andere Achtundsechzig. Gesellschaftsgeschichte einer Revolte. C.H. Beck, Munich 2018. 250 pp. Ill. € 24.95. (E-book: € 19.99).

Fifty years after 1968, Professor Von Hodenberg evaluates the well-known Sixty-Eight legends based on the new sources in the Data of Bolsa (Bonner Längsschnittstudie des Alters), comprising 3,600 hours of interviews with elderly people about daily life. She reveals that Sixty-Eight concerned not only young male students in large cities such as Berlin and Frankfurt, but also female students and included those outside the large cities, that the Nazi past was not the main driver, and that parents showed greater consideration for the concerns of their children than the previous generation had.

Great Britain

Kennedy, Dane. The Imperial History Wars. Debating the British Empire. Bloomsbury Academic, London [etc.] 2018. 232 pp. £58.50. (Paper: £21.99; E-book: £18.99).

The history of the British Empire has instigated heated debate about the causes, character, and consequences of empire. In this volume, Professor Kennedy offers the main schools of thought that have transformed our view of the British Empire and the world it helped bring about. The author brings together his most important writings, as well as new material in chapters five and six, which address recent historiographical debates about exploration to the large colonial settlements in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa and those about British decolonization, explaining how this process has led to Brexit and the election of Donald Trump.

Snape, Robert. Leisure, Voluntary Action and Social Change in Britain, 1880–1939. Bloomsbury Academic, London [etc.] 2018. xii, 244 pp. Ill. £76.50. (E-Book: £73.44).

In the final decades of the nineteenth century, modernizing interpretations of leisure interested social policymakers and cultural critics. This book focuses on the historical theorization of leisure as an agent for social change in a period of rapid technological advancement. The free time of British citizens increasingly came to be seen as a sphere of social citizenship and community-building, with major social thinkers theorizing leisure and voluntarism in terms of the good society. This volume documents the parallel cultural shift from charitable philanthropy to social service and from rational recreation to leisure, teasing out intellectual influences that included social idealism, liberalism, and socialism.

Hungary

Horváth, Sándor. Stalinism Reloaded. Everyday Life in Stalin-City, Hungary. [Transl. from Hungarian by Thomas Cooper.] Indiana University Press, Bloomington (IN) 2017. x, 298 pp. Ill. $80.00. (Paper: $35.00; E-book: $34.99).

The Hungarian city of Sztálinváros, or “Stalin-City” was intended to be the paradigmatic urban community of the new communist society in the 1950s. In this book, Dr Horváth explores how the city was built and stabilized by the state and its inhabitants alike and shows that citizens had significant agency in shaping the political policies applied by those governing them. In the first part of the book, the author deals with the transformation of social identities, examining the various myths of Sztálinváros, who devised them and why. The second part is about the conflicts that emerged at the micro level, from the point of view of the inhabitants, as well as the effects of Stalinist policies on interpersonal relationships.

Pittaway, Mark. From the Vanguard to the Margins. Workers in Hungary, 1939 to the Present. Selected Essays by Mark Pittaway. Ed. by Adam Fabry. [Historical Materialism Book Series, vol. 66.] Brill, Leiden [etc.] 2014. x, 333 pp. € 134.00; $165.00. (E-book: € 128.00; $168.00).

This book is dedicated to the work of the late British historian Dr Mark Pittaway (1971–2010). Contrary to readings on Eastern bloc regimes that use the totalitarianism paradigm of the Cold War era, the twelve essays in this volume show how dynamics of class, gender, skill level, and rural versus urban location shaped politics in that period. Two central interconnected themes are the historical and social origins, contradictory nature, and aftermath of the pre-1989 Eastern bloc regimes and the significance of labour in the politics of post-war and contemporary CEE. The volume also offers insights on historical and sociological roots of fascism in Hungary and the politics of legitimacy in the Austro-Hungarian borderlands. See also Eszter Bartha’s review in this volume, pp. 545–547.

Italy

Portelli, Alessandro. Biography of an Industrial Town. Terni, Italy, 1831–2014. [Palgrave Studies in Oral History.] Palgrave Macmillan, Cham 2017. xxii, 400 pp. £72.00. (E-book: £52.99).

This book is a condensed and rewritten version of two earlier books the author published in 1985 and 2008. In this study, Professor Portelli tells a story spanning two centuries about how the steel town Terni in Central Italy progressed from its rural origins to a post-industrial society, reviewing the industrial revolution and how the multi-sector industrial conglomerate (the company-town model) came about and describing how it fell apart. The author recorded songs, stories, myths, and memories from 230 people listed in this book, which combines oral history with a wealth of archival material.

Rakopoulos, Theodoros. From Clans to Co-ops. Confiscated Mafia Land in Sicily. [The Human Economy, vol. 4.] Berghahn, New York [etc.] 2018. x, 229 pp. Ill. $95.00.

Based on careful fieldwork and thorough ethnographic research, in this account of the anti-mafia co-op project in Sicily intended to transform landholdings previously owned by mafia families into functioning cooperatives, Professor Rakopoulos explores the social, political, and economic relations conducive to forming co-operatives, with an ethnographic focus on access to resources, divisions of labour, ideologies of community and food, and the material changes that co-operatives entail in terms of kinship, work and land management. He highlights the complex internal differentiations common to politicized co-operatives, which, despite delivering degrees of social change, contain different ideas, practices, and morals.

Social Mobility in Medieval Italy (1100–1500). Ed. by Sandro Carocci and Isabella Lazzarini. [Viella Historical Research, vol. 8.] Viella, Rome 2018. Ill. 426 pp. € 63.75.

This volume aims to investigate the complex theme of social mobility in medieval Italy, both by comparing Italian research to contemporary international studies in various European contexts and by analysing a broad range of themes and specific case studies. The twenty-one essays in the book address several crucial problems, such as how classic mobility channels such as the Church, officialdom, trade, the law, the lordship, or diplomacy contributed to shaping the many variables at play in late medieval societies and to changing and challenging inequality. Others investigate how movements and changes in social spaces become visible, and what their markers were.

Russia – Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Slezkine, Yuri. The House of Government. A Saga of the Russian Revolution. Princeton University Press, Princeton (NJ) 2017. xv, 1104 pp. Ill. Maps. $39.95; £30.00.

Completed in 1931, the House of Government is an enormous Moscow apartment building where top Communist officials and their families lived. Professor Slezkine relates how the residents lived in their apartments and ruled the Soviet state until some 800 of them were evicted from the House and led to prison or their deaths. Drawing on letters, diaries, and interviews and featuring hundreds of rare photographs, the author uses three strains in every chapter. First is the family saga involving numerous residents, then comes the analytical part about the development of Bolshevism. Each episode is accompanied by a discussion of the literary works the residents sought to interpret and mythologize.

Sprau, Mirjam. Kolyma nach dem Gulag. Entstalinisierung im Magadaner Gebiet 1953–1960. De Gruyter, Berlin [etc.] 2018. ix, 408 pp. Ill. Maps. € 99.95; $114.99; £81.99.

By 1953, the entire northeast USSR (Kolyma up to the Bering Strait, with the capital Magadan) was classified as a large labour camp, where goldmining was carried out exclusively by forced labour and dominated by the organs of the secret police. Upheavals after Stalin’s death led to the dissolution of the gulags, with major consequences, including power struggles, raw materials now extracted without contract labour, growth of infrastructure and bureaucracy, mobilization campaigns, and social policy interventions. In this dissertation, Dr Sprau examines the sweeping consequences of the changes for the Magadan area and positions the role of camp dissolution in the dynamics of Union-wide de-Stalinization.

Spain

Faber, Sebastiaan. Memory Battles of the Spanish Civil War. History, Fiction, Photography. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville (TN) 2018. x, 241 pp. Ill. $69.95. (Paper: $19.76).

While forgetting the violent twentieth-century past was long seen as a virtue in Spain, increasing numbers of Spaniards today want to know what happened. By engaging with the work of scholars, activists, photographers, film-makers, and writers, Professor Faber shows that each helped narrate the changing stories that Spain tells itself and the world about its complicated past. In five sections, respectively addressing archives, debates, interviews, polemical texts, and narrative fiction, the author examines how fiction and photography shaped memory, and how media producers and academics are committed to ensuring that Spain progresses as a unified democracy.

Gallega, Teófilo. La guerrilla antifranquista en la comarca Requena-Utiel (desde sus orígenes hasta 1947). Crónica rural de la posguerra. [Estudis Comarcals, 8.] Institució Alfons el Magnànim, Valencia 2018. 614 pp. Ill. Maps. € 18.00.

This book is about the armed anti-Franco resistance (or guerrilla warfare) in the Requena-Utiel region. Based on a wide range of archival, bibliographic, and oral sources, Professor Gallega chronicles hundreds of people on the scene from July 1936 onwards, facing the military uprising against the Government of the Republic. After the defeat of April 1939, they opposed the dictatorship of General Franco through clandestine militancy in parties and unions. The author examines the political and vital trajectory of the guerrillas and their collaborators, the actions they carried out, the violence exerted by the repressive forces, and the negligent and arbitrary action of the administrative and judicial apparatus.

Pérez Sarrión, Guillermo. Transl. [from Spanish] by Daniel Duffield. The Emergence of a National Market in Spain, 1650–1800. Trade Networks, Foreign Powers and the State. Bloomsbury, London 2016 (2012). xxi, 331 pp. £26.09. (E-book: £15.65).

This study analyses the development of the Spanish domestic market from 1650 to 1800, which transformed the country into a significant European power. Situating Spain in a European context, Professor Pérez Sarrión addresses as one of the central themes the restructuring of the Spanish state in the first half of the eighteenth century, in relation to its ability to promote economic activity and devise a mercantile policy capable of keeping British and French dominance in check. In response to this rivalry, the Spanish state actively promoted the conditions for economic development, aided by the long-standing French trade networks and the new Catalan ones.