Volume 53 part 1 (April 2008)
Bibliography
General Issues
Continents and Countries
- Africa
Algeria | Nigeria - America
Argentina | Brazil | Cuba | Mexico | Peru | United States of America - Asia
China | India | Philippines - Australia and Oceania
Australia - Europe
Belgium | Eire - Ireland | France | Germany | Great Britain | Italy | The Netherlands | Portugal | Russia - USSR | Spain | Switzerland
Book descriptions consist of: author, title, publisher, place and year of publication, number of pages, original price; followed by a brief summary of the contents.
All listed books are available in the IISH library.
General Issues
SOCIAL THEORY AND SOCIAL SCIENCEBidet, Jacques. Exploring Marx's Capital. Philosophical, Economic and Political Dimensions. Transl. by David Fernbach. Foreword to the English Edition by Alex Callinios. [Historical Materialism Book Series, Vol. 14.] Brill, Leiden [etc.] 2007. xxiii, 327 pp. $168.00; € 129.00.
This is an English translation of Que faire du "Capital", originally published in 1985, in which Professor Bidet aimed to offer a new interpretation of Marx's Capital. Adopting a history of science perspective, Professor Bidet argues that, contrary to traditional interpretations of Marx's work that consider successive drafts of Capital as complementary, Marx wrote new versions to correct the previous one, a process that Marx never completed. In his assessment of the constitutive categories in Capital and the difficulties Marx encountered elaborating them, he focuses in particular on the relationship between market mechanisms and capitalism. See also William A. Pelz's review in this volume, pp. 131-132
The Blackwell Companion to Social Inequalities. Ed. by Mary Romero and Eric Margolis. [The Blackwell Companions to Sociology]. Blackwell Publishing, Malden, MA [etc.] 2005. xiv, 612 pp. £85.00.
This volume in the Blackwell Companions to Sociology series (see IRSH, 50 (2005), p. 313 for earlier volumes) comprises 23 original essays that aim to provide a state-of-the-art overview of sociological scholarship on inequalities, focusing on those incorporating race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, citizenship and nationality. The contributions are organized around five themes: theoretical foundations and conceptual frameworks; epistemological and methodological concerns; sites of reproduction of social inequalities (e.g. families, communities, education); policy responses to inequalities; and the role of media and technology in maintaining or dismantling inequalities.
Burke, Peter. History and Social Theory, second edition. Polity, Cambridge [etc.] 2005. xi, 224 pp. $59.95; £50.00. (Paper: $19.95; £15.99.)
The first version of this essay on the use of social theory to historians and history to social theorists was originally published in 1980 as Sociology and History; the first edition of the enlarged revision of this study appeared in 1991. In this second edition, Professor Burke concludes that both in the historical discipline and in social sciences culture has become more important in part as a result of the "cultural turn". A new section has been added on the conflict between theorists who stress rationality (such as in "rational choice theory") and those who stress cultural relativism.
Castoriadis, Cornelius. Une société à la derive. Entretiens et débats, 1974-1997. Éd. prép. par Enrique Escobar. Éditions du Seuil, Paris 2005. 306 pp. € 22.00.
This volume brings together five interviews with the French-Greek radical philosopher and social theorist Cornelius Castoriadis (1922-1997) and twenty of his contributions to contemporary debates, all from the later part of his career, the period 1974-1977 (see IRSH, 49 (2004), p. 541). The interviews offer an overview of Castoriadis' entire intellectual career, and deal in particular with his involvement with Socialisme ou Barbarie and his concept of the "imaginary signification". The articles for discussion focus primarily on the issues of democracy and autonomy.
Eley, Geoff and Keith Nield. The Future of Class in History. What's Left of the Social? University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor 2007. 280 pp. $65.00. (Paper: $24.95)
In this discussion of the "cultural turn" in history and its consequences for social history and the use of the concept of class, Professors Eley and Nield focus primarily on British historiography in their examination of the use of class in social history as practised in the 1960s and 70s. They argue that the conceptual innovation brought about by the cultural or "linguistic" turn has led to cultural history radically displacing social history. They conclude with a plea for practitioners in the fields of cultural and social history to join forces to produce superior scholarship. See also Michael M. Hall's review in this volume, pp. 133-135.
New Keywords. A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society. Ed. by Tony Bennett, Lawrence Grossberg, [and] Meaghan Morris. Blackwell Publishing, Malden [etc.] 2005. xxvi, 427 pp. € 16.99.
Raymond Williams's Keywords: A vocabulary of culture and society, first published in 1976, offers a guide to the variety of past and present meanings of a range of pivotal terms in discussions about culture and society. The present volume features a revised vocabulary that includes many terms from the original list while presenting new discussions about their history and use and adds several new terms. The revision and expansion reflects, according to the editors, both the change in conduct and circulation of intellectual work (e.g. more collective) and the increased internationalization.
Stinchcombe, Arthur L. The Logic of Social Research. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, [etc.] 2005. xiii, 354 pp. $20.00; £14.00.
This textbook aims to introduce students to the logic of sociological research methodology. Professor Stinchcombe discusses a set of logical problems that all methods applied in sociology must address to study the fundamental issue of social causation. He examines how observation supports the theoretical link between cause and effect and argues that observations can refute or support causal theories with degrees of credibility. He discusses four types of methods - quantitative, historical, ethnographic and experimental - to support causal theories and assesses their use for different research purposes.
Tilly, Charles. Why? Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J. [etc.] 2006. xi, 202 pp. $24.95; £15.95. This study deals with the social relationships that dictate attributing reasons, and how these reasons help constitute such relationships. Using the works of, among others, Aristotle and the American pragmatists John Dewey and George Herbert Mead as a theoretical basis, Professor Tilly distinguishes four different types of explanations that people give for their own behaviour or for events that have happened: convention; narratives; technical cause-effect accounts; and codes of workplace jargon. He argues that people often convert one sort of reason into another sort.
HISTORY
Bodies in Contact. Rethinking Colonial Encounters in World History. Ed. by Tony Ballantyne and Antoinette Burton. Duke University Press, Durham, N.C. [etc.] 2005. xii, 445 pp. £67.00. (Paper £16.95.)
The 22 essays in this volume on colonial and imperial gender studies emphasize the centrality of human bodies as sites through which imperial and colonial power was imagined and exercised. Divided in three chronologically ordered sections and covering imperial regimes including the Ottoman, Mughal, Soviet, British, Han and Spanish ones, the contributions examine the place of race, gender and sexuality in empire building in the early modern period; local colonial encounters from the late eighteenth to the mid-century; and anti-colonialism and nationalism in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In their concluding chapter the editors chart courses for future world history research based on the notion of "bodies in contact".
Nordmann, Jürgen. Der lange Marsch zum Neoliberalismus. Vom Roten Wien zu freien Markt - Popper und Hayek im Diskurs. VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 2005. 397 pp. € 34.80.
This revised dissertation (University of Marburg, 2005) explores the origins and early history of neoliberal ideology by focusing on the common background of two of its principal ideologues (Friedrich von Hayek and Karl Popper) in the radical milieu of 1920s Vienna. Dr Nordmann argues that the sudden success in the 1970s of the neoliberal ideology in replacing Keynesianism as the dominant economic doctrine is attributable less to theories of alleged conspiracies than to radicalization within the liberal economic discourse through the influence of Popper's critical rationalism combined with Hayek's consistent opposition to state interventionism in the economy.
Silver, Beverly J. Forces of Labor. Arbeiterbewegungen und Globalisierung seit 1870. Aus dem Amerikanischen von wildcat & friends. Assoziation A, Berlin [etc.] 2005. 284 pp. € 18.00.
This is the German translation of Forces of Labor: Workers' Movements and Globalization since 1870 (2003), in which Dr Silver reviews reports of labour unrest from all over the world, culled from the New York Times and the London Times in the years 1870-1996. The original English version was reviewed in IRSH, 49 (2004), pp. 151-154, 162.
Villes en crise? Les politiques municipales face aux pathologies urbaines (fin XVIIe - fin XXe siècle). Sous la dir. de Yannick Marec. Creaphis, S.l. 2005. 756 pp. Ill. Maps. € 32.00.
This bulky volume comprises the proceedings of a scholarly meeting, organized in December 2002 in Rouen, on municipal politics as a response to problems of urbanization and "urban pathologies" from the end of the eighteenth to the end of the twentieth century in France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Spain and Italy, including comparisons with Canada and India. The 53 contributions are divided in four main themes, each opening with an introductory essay: urban disorders and their regulation; specific municipal responses to urbanization problems, such as the hygienist and urban reform movements; poverty and social relief; and experiences with urban social politics. In the concluding section, late twentieth-century urban politics are discussed.
COMPARATIVE HISTORY
Kury, Patrick, Barbara Lüthi [and] Simon Erlanger. Grenzen setzen. Vom Umgang mit Fremden in der Schweiz und den USA (1890-1950). Böhlau Verlag, Köln [etc.] 2005. xii, 220 pp. Ill. € 24.90.
In this comparative study, the authors explore the similarities and differences between Swiss and US immigration policies in the period of mass migration (1890-1950). Although both nations viewed themselves as culturally diverse sister republics, their views and policies became increasingly exclusionary and xenophobic during this period. The authors aim to show how in Switzerland these views and policies were directed predominantly against Eastern European Jewish immigrants, whereas in the United States, racist motives against non-whites prevailed.
Secret Gardens, Satanic Mills. Placing Girls in European History, 1750-1960. Ed. by Mary Jo Maynes, Birgitte Søland, and Christina Benninghaus. Indiana University Press, Bloomington [etc.] 2005. x, 312 pp. $55.00.
The eighteen essays in this volume, based on a conference organized in October 2000 in Columbus, Ohio, offer a comparative perspective on a variety of aspects of girlhood in Britain, France and Germany from in the period 1750-1960. Included are contributions on the changing experiences of girls in pre-industrial and industrial times in, for example, domestic service, the textile industry and the small metal industries; issues of socialization, morality and sexuality; discourses on girlhood and female adolescence and the increase in leisure time available to girls from the end of the nineteenth century onward.
CONTEMPORARY ISSUES
Child Labor and Human Rights. Making Children Matter. Ed. by Burns H. Weston, Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder [etc.] 2005. xxv, 541 pp. $65.00. (Paper $27.50.)
Child labour, defined as children working in situations harmful to their development, remains an enormous problem, with, according to a recent ILO estimate approximately 171 million children worldwide falling within this definition. The seventeen essays in this volume, originating from a colloquium organized in July 2003 by the University of Iowa Center for Human Rights and including contributors from a wide variety of disciplines, examine the problem of child labour and opportunities for its abolition from a historical and contemporary human rights perspective.
Guerre impériale, guerre sociale. Sous la dir. de Jacques Bidet. Avec le concours de l'Université de Paris X - Nanterre et de l'Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici. [Actuel Marx confrontation]. Presses Universitaires de France, Paris 2005. 195 pp. € 22.00.
The fourteen contributions in this volume were presented at a conference with the same title, organized by the French journal Actuel Marx in Paris in September 1994. The contributors offer a radical critique of neoliberal ideology and hegemony in the early twenty-first century. Themes addressed are "Neoliberalism and global war", "Empire or imperialism?", "Neoliberalism, social destruction", and "Violence from the authorities, power from below". Contributors are Gérard Duménil, Gilbert Achcar, Domenico Losurdo, David Harvey, Toni Negri, André Tosel, Jacques Bidet, Margaret Maruani, François Houtard, Armando Boito, Étienne Balobar, Christine Delphy, Alex Callinicos and Monique Chemillier Gendreau.
Threads of Labour. Garment Industry Supply Chains from the Workers' Perspective. Ed. by Angela Hale and Jane Wills. [Antipode Book Series]. Blackwell Publishing, Malden, MA [etc.] 2005. xv, 266 pp. £55.00.
The garment industry is a clear example of the mode of capitalist production associated with neo-liberal globalization, as the editors of this volume on the position of women workers in present-day garment industry supply chains argue. The nine contributions draw together empirical findings of action research carried out by NGOs, such as the Women Working Worldwide network, on the expansion of subcontracting in the industry and the negative impact of this trend on the rights and working conditions of women workers in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The contributors also propose measures for improving organization of workers to secure their rights.
CONTINENTS AND COUNTRIES
AFRICA
ROCKEL, STEPHEN J. Carriers of Culture. Labor on the Road in Nineteenth-Century East Africa. [Social History of Africa.] Heinemann, Portsmouth, NH 2006. xix, 345 pp. $29.95
In this study of the migrant labour of the Nyamwezi caravan porters in nineteenth-century East Africa, Professor Rockel aims to show that a unique way of life evolved among these workers in the long distance trades in ivory and imported cloth. He argues that the porters' way of life combed market values and experience with wage labour and the caravan safari with customary standards and notions of honour. Defying historiography of African labour dominated by the slave paradigm, he contends that the safari experience, commercial change and interactions with peasants along the trade routes contributed to the emergence of a unique East African modernity. See also Jan-Bart Gewald's review in this volume, pp. 145-147.
Algeria
SIMON, JACQUES. Le PPA (Le Parti du peuple algérien). (1937-1947). [Collections CREAC-Histoire - Politique et Société.] L'Harmattan, Paris [etc.] 2005. 270 pp. € 24.00.
This study examines the history of the Parti du people algérien (PPA), the Algerian people's party, founded in 1937 by the nationalist leader Ahmed Messali Hadji, after the French Popular Front government banned the independence movement Étoile Nord-Aficaine. Dr Simon, who recently published a number of studies on Hadji and the Algerian independence movement (see IRSH, 45 (2000), p. 518, and 51 (2006), p. 511), distinguishes three stages in the history of the PPA: from its establishment in 1937 until it was prohibited in September 1939; the period of total clandestinity during World War II and its postwar development until the start of the war of independence.
Nigeria
DIBUA, JEREMIAH I. Modernization and the Crisis of Development in Africa. The Nigerian Experience. [Interdisciplinary Research Series in Ethnic, Gender and Class Relations.] Ashgate, Aldershot [etc.] 2006. xvi, 372 pp. £60.00.
Using Nigeria as a case, the author elaborates the thesis that the crisis of development in Africa has been caused by the combination of Western modernization models and the continent's peripheral position with respect to world capitalism. Western adherents of developmentalism capitalized on traits that had carried over to the post-colonial state, such as centralism and authoritarianism. After 1980 the West adopted a different stand and came to regard the state as an obstacle to development. In both cases the Western modernization paradigm was central. Unlike Western Africa scholars, Dibua consistently aims to integrate the role of culture and gender in his analysis.
AMERICA
GOMÈZ, MICHEL A. Black Crescent. The Experience and Legacy of African Muslims in the Americas. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2005. x, 385 pp. Ill. £45.00; $65.00. (Paper: £16.99; $22.99.)
This study offers a history of African Muslims in the Americas, from the earliest phase of colonization in the sixteenth century to the twentieth century. Professor Gomez aims to show that the early Spanish settlers included Muslims, who were followed by African slaves, some of whom were Muslims as well. The first section of the book discusses the presence of African Muslims during periods of enslavement, when they were most visible in the Caribbean, Brazil and Latin America, after which their religious observance tended to be suppressed. The second section focuses on the developments in the United States, where interest in Islam was revived through the rise of a black nationalist sentiment.
Smith, Frederick H. Caribbean Rum. A Social and Economic History. University Press of Florida, Gainesville [etc.] 2005. xvi, 339 pp. Ill. $59.95.
Rum was a convenient by-product of sugar grown in the Caribbean. Professor Smith examines production and consumption of this alcoholic beverage over the course of five centuries. He addresses alcohol consumption by Indians and African slaves on sugar plantations. In both cases alcohol served a ritual purpose. The combination of alcohol and slaves was both feared and exploited by the planters. While rum led to a loss of inhibitions that could spark an uprising, it was also useful for bribing slaves. The abolition of slavery in the nineteenth century increased the cost of growing sugar cane. In addition, sugar cane faced rising competition from sugar beets. These factors made rum far more economically significant.
Argentina
Fascismo y antifascismo. Peronismo y antiperonismo. Conflictos políticos e ideológicos en la Argentina entre (1930-1955). Marcela García Sebastiani (ed.). [Biblioteca Ibero-Americana, Vol. 106.] Iberoamericana [etc.], Madrid [etc.] 2006. 243 pp. € 22.00.
This book comprises seven articles originally presented at the XXXIIIrd International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association in Washington, July 2001. The contributions cover a wide range of Argentine political and ideological topics ranging from the nationalist, pro-Nazi Enrique Osés (Marcus Klein) to the radical and socialist opposition to Perón in the early 1950s (Marcela García Sebastiani) and intellectual anti-Peronism (Flavia Fiorucci). Ricardo Pasolini examines anti-fascism and the role of Italian refugees in this movement; Jorge Nállim relates anti-fascism to anti-Peronism. Two other contributions address anti-Semitism under the military dictatorship 1943-1946 (Daniel Lvovich) and the relationship between technocracy and populism (Eduardo Elena).
Brazil
Trabalho e trabalhadores no Brasil. Cur. Alexander Fortes, Mônica Almeida Kornis e Paulo Fontes. CPDOC, Rio de Janeiro 2006. 159 pp. Ill.
This publication is the catalogue accompanying the homonymous exhibit featured in various places in Brazil in 2006. It relates to the Memory of Labor programme sponsored by the Ministry of Labor and Employment. The bilingual catalogue (English and Portuguese) consists primarily of photographs. Approximately 150 photographs, divided according to the chapters Building a Country, World of Labor and Labor and Citizenship, come from private and government archives and convey the role of labour and workers in Brazil. The catalogue aims to cover a broad spectrum, from slave labour on a coffee plantation in 1882 to work at a call centre in 1997.
Cuba
GAY-SYLVESTRE, DOMINIQUE. Être femme à Cuba. Des premières militantes féministes aux militantes révolutionnaires. [Horizons Amériques latines.] L'Harmattan, Paris [etc.] 2006. 265 pp. € 24.00.
This study is about the position of women on Cuba in the period 1959-1989. The author travelled to Cuba four times for this study between 1989 and 1999. The turnaround over the course of that decade is noticeable in the interviews conducted for the study. The author has also studied the vast body of literature. She describes the effect of the broad programme of the Federacion de Mujeres Cubanas. In Cuba women made spectacular progress catching up in many social fields. In the 1990s, although they maintained the ground they had gained, women suffered disproportionately from the increasing problems, poverty and unequal distribution of burdens and career opportunities.
Mexico
Aguilar Sanchez, Martin. Mouvements sociaux et démocratie au Mexique 1982-1998. Un regard du point de vue régional. [Logiques politiques.] L'Harmattan, Paris [etc.] 2005. 371 pp. € 30.00.
This study relates social movements to transformations in the political system and culture in Mexico in the period 1982-1998. Adopting a regional perspective by focusing on the states of Zacarecas, Veracruz and Tabasco, Professor Aguilar Sánchez aims to reveal regional variations in the impact of popular protest and mobilization on the transformation towards a more democratic election process and an extended social policy and to explain how various social groups (indigenous Mexican, peasant, smallholders and industrial workers) have had divergent interests and played different roles in the process.
MENTINIS, MIHALIS. Zapatistas. The Chiapas Revolt and what it means for Radical Politics. Pluto Press, London [etc.] 2006. xvii, 201 pp. $27.95; € 32.00.
This study aims to depict the Zapatistas from a new light. In 2001 the author spent nine months in the EZLN-controlled area while conducting his research. Dr Mentinis explicitly evaluates this movement from the perspective of the future revolution he desires. Based on theoretical concepts from Castoriades, Negri/Hardt, Badiou and Situationism, he developes the concept of the "evental situation". A chapter about the Indigenous Social Imaginary and the Zapatistas highlights the role of indigenous religious concepts, such as Naguals (animal co-essences with humans) in the political struggle. Subcomandante Marcos is, according to the author, regarded by some as a transformation of the mythical Quetzalcoatl.
Peru
Méndez, Cecilia. The Plebeian Republic. The Huanta Rebellion and the Making of the Peruvian State, 1820-1850. Duke University Press, Durham [etc.] 2005. xvi, 343 pp. Ill. £64.00. (Paper: £15.95.)
In the year following Bolivar's victory in 1824, Peru experienced an uprising that lasted until 1828. In the Huanta Province, approximately half-way between Lima and Cuzco, a motley coalition of farmers, Spanish officers, merchants, Mestizo hacendados and priests rebelled against the new regime. Professor Méndez argues that the royalist discourse of the insurgents was instrumental rather than ideological. This is apparent from the position of the former insurgents in the 1834 civil war, in which they sided with President Orbegoso. The Indian farmers were by no means passive and were in fact active agents in forming the constitution of the fragile Peruvian republic.
United States of America
Berg, Manfred. "The Ticket to Freedom". The NAACP and the Struggle for Black Political Integration. Foreword by John David Smith, Series Editor. [New Perspectives on the History of the South.] University Press of Florida, Gainesville [etc.] 2005. xx, 352 pp. $29.95.
In this study of the history of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and its pivotal role in the civil rights movement in twentieth-century United States, Professor Berg challenges criticism in recent decades that the NAACP was inefficient and half-hearted in the struggle for civil rights for African Americans. He argues that the NAACP was successful not only in bettering the position of African Americans at the grassroots level but also played a central and effective role in national politics.
A Companion to African American History. Ed. by Alton Hornsby, Jr. [Blackwell Companions to American History]. Blackwell Publishing, Malden, MA [etc.] 2005. xii, 564 pp. £95.00.; $124.95.
This volume brings together 31 original essays that together aim to give a comprehensive overview of the Black experience in the United States and its background in Africa and the African diaspora. The contributions appear partly in chronological sequence, with sections on the African roots, on the experience of Africans in early North America before the onset of plantation slavery, on slavery and on the Civil War and emancipation, and partly in more thematic sections on "transculturation", African American communities and institutions, gender and class and the recent search for a new African American identity.
A Companion to American Immigration. Ed. by Reed Ueda. [Blackwell Companions to American History]. Blackwell, Malden, MA. [etc.] 2006. xi, 570 pp. $149.95; £95.00.
The 25 essays in this companion volume aim to offer a state-of-the-art overview of the major topics and themes in the history of American immigration. Focusing on two periods when immigration had its greatest impact on American society - the Industrial Revolution and the era of globalization in the post-World War II period - the contributors adopt an interdisciplinary and explicit comparative perspective that reflects the variety of research methods applied in the field. Central themes include economic conditions, public policies, demographics, social structure, group identity, communal institutions and cultural life.
Gardner, Martha. The Qualities of a Citizen. Women, Immigration, and Citizenship, 1870-1965. Princeton University Press, Princeton [etc.] 2005. viii, 271 pp. £22.95.
In this study of the experiences of women immigrants in the United States from the 1870s to the 1960s, Professor Gardner aims to show how US immigration and naturalization laws were applied to women by linking racial concepts with gender notions. She explores how from the first federal immigration restrictions against Asian prostitutes in the 1870s to the immigration reform in the 1960s, issues of morality, family, marriage, poverty and nationality structured debates over women's immigration and citizenship and defined how women were welcomed in the country depending on their racial status, their roles in the family and their work skills.
Ginzberg, Lori D. Untidy Origins. A Story of Woman's Rights in Antebellum New York. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill [etc.] 2005. xiv, 222 pp. Maps. $49.95. (Paper: $19.95.)
Starting with a careful analysis of a petition written by six women in rural upstate New York in 1846 to their state's constitutional convention to demand the right to vote, Professor Ginzberg explores in this study women's struggle for full citizenship in mid-nineteenth century United States in the context of antebellum intellectual and political culture. Reconstructing these women's backgrounds from census records, deeds, wills and newspapers, she aims to explain how these women were able at this early stage of the struggle for women's emancipation to take for granted the notion of women as full citizens.
Minchin, Timothy J. "Don't sleep with Stevens!". The J.P. Stevens Campaign and the Struggle to Organize the South, 1963-80. [New Perspectives on the History of the South.] University Press of Florida, Gainesville [etc.] 2005. xvi, 239 pp. Ill. $59.95.
Between 1963 and 1980, textile trade unions in the United States targeted the largest textile firm in the American South, J.P. Stevens, to organize among the 40,000 employees. The persistent resistance of the management to union organizing led to a protracted struggle and a union-initiated boycott of the company's products in 1976 and ultimately to an agreement with the management in 1980. This study gives an account of that struggle, which acquired an enormous symbolic importance for labour relations in the United States. Dr Minchin explores the role that race played in the struggle and the ability to build grassroots interracial unions. See also IRSH, 50 (2005), pp. 27-51.
Ness, Immanuel. Immigrants, Unions, and the New U.S. Labor Market. Temple University Press, Philadelphia 2005. x, 230 pp. $22.95.
In last two decades, the US the labour market, especially in large cities such as New York, has experienced a dramatic increase in the number of low-wage, insecure service sector jobs, often held by immigrant workers, predominantly from Latin America and South Asia. Professor Ness uses ethnographic fieldwork, including interviews, to study the initiatives among greengrocery employees, delivery workers and black-car (for-hire vehicles) drivers to organize labour actions and unions to struggle for living wages, humane working conditions and respect. He argues that more traditional trade unions can learn from the example of these immigrant workers, which demonstrates the importance of solidarity beyond the workplace.
Pickens, William. Bursting Bonds. Enlarged ed. The Heir of Slaves. The Autobiography of a "New Negro". Ed. by William L. Andrews. [African American Intellectual Heritage Series.] University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, Indiana 2005. xxviii, 76 pp. $15.00.
This is a reprint of the second, extended edition from 1923 of the autobiography of Professor William Pickens, a leading member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Pickens, whose parents were liberated slaves, studied classics at Yale, became a professor at Talladega College in Alabama and was involved in the NAACP from its inception in 1910. In this second edition of his autobiography, the author has added five new chapters on his own experiences with racial tensions. In his introduction to this reprint the editor gives a concise overview of Pickens' prominent role in the civil rights struggle.
Stromquist, Shelton. Reinventing "The People". The Progressive Movement, the Class Problem, and the Origins of Modern Liberalism. [The Working Class in American History.] University of Illinois Press, Urbana [etc.] 2006. x, 289 pp. £50.00; £22.00.
In this study of social reformism in the United States during the Progressive Era, Professor Stromquist aims to show how the reformers shared a common ideology of social reconciliation and an imagined civic community which would transcend class and political divisions. Examining social reformism in various arenas of social reform, politics, labour regulation and "race improvement", the author argues that with this ideal of social harmony in which class had no place, Progressive reformers marginalized new immigrants and African Americans as being unprepared for civic responsibilities. See also Neville Kirk's review in this volume, pp. 135-137.
Vargas, Zaragosa. Labor Rights Are Civil Rights. Mexican American Workers in Twentieth-Century America. [Politics and Society in Twentieth-Century America.] Princeton University Press, Princeton [etc.] 2005. xvi, 375 pp. Ill. £18.95
In this study of the history of the Mexican-American labour movement in twentieth-century United States, Professor Vargas aims to offer a comprehensive overview of the struggles by Mexican American workers for union rights and civil rights in Southwestern agriculture and industry from the early 1930s to the postwar years. Examining strike actions, as well as tactics and strategies used, the importance of community-based unionism, the role of women and the role of racial, ethnic and national identity, the author argues that the Mexican American labour movement established the foundation for the modern Chicano movement in these years.
Walker, Charles Rumford. American City. A Rank and File History of Minneapolis. Foreword by Mary Lethert Wingerd. [The Fesler-Lampert Minnesota Heritage Book Series.] University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis [etc.] 2005. xli, 278 pp. Ill. $18.95.
This contemporary account of the events surrounding the labour unrest in the spring of 1934 in the city of Minneapolis was originally published in 1937. The author, journalist and labour activist Charles Mumford Walker describes how a series of strikes intended to break the prevalent anti-union position instigated violent opposition from employers and municipal authorities - culminating in Bloody Friday, when four unarmed strikers were killed by police fire - but eventually brought a decisive victory for the labour movement in the city. In her foreword, Professor Wingerd describes the context of Minneapolis labour activism and the role of Walker's activism and labour journalism.
Whites, LeeAnn. Gender Matters. Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Making of the New South. Palgrave Macmillan, New York [etc.] 2005. viii, 244 pp. ill. $79.95. (Paper: $26.95.)
Professor Whites has brought together in this volume eleven essays, part new and part previously published, that deal with the role of gender in the secession crisis between the North and the South, the American Civil War and the subsequent period of reconstruction and industrialization of the South. In the first six essays the author analyses how the Civil War destabilized the household structure based on gender order, rendering gender more visible; the last five chapters deal with the ways that industrialization threatened to change gender relations more permanently.
ASIA
The Emergence of Modern Southeast Asia. A New History. Ed. by Norman G. Owen. University of Hawai'i Press, Honolulu, Hawaii 2005. xxiii, 541 pp. Ill. $25.00.
As a follow-up to In Search of Southeast Asia (1969, revised edition 1987), this volume aims to offer a general overview of economic and social history, including gender and ecology, of the region encompassing the present-day states of Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Laos, Brunei and East Timor from the eighteenth century to the present. This jointly authored volume alternates between thematic chapters covering social, economic and cultural change and chapters dealing with developments in specific areas and countries.
China
Hung-yok Ip. Intellectuals in Revolutionary China, 1921-1949. Leaders, heroes and sophisticates. [Chinese worlds.] RoutledgeCurzon, London [etc.] 2005. xii, 328 pp. £65.00.
This study examines how communist intellectuals in China during the revolutionary period (1921-1949) constructed and presented identities for themselves. Using memoirs, recollections and literary works that have become available only recently, Professor Ip describes how they constructed their narratives of their role in the revolution, and how these narratives and resulting identities later allowed them to claim their place in a deserving elite. See also Timothy Weston's review in this volume, pp. 137-139.
India
Bahl, Vinay. What Went Wrong With "History From Below". Reinstating Human Agency as Human Creativity. K P Bagchi & Company, Kolkata 2005. xii, 348 pp. $30.00.
The eight chapters in this volume, based on previously published and unpublished essays, written by Professor Bahl over the past decade, attempt "to locate the problem of writing 'history from below' and suggesting to write history in a way that would open up the possibility within which the idea of emancipation and role of agency would thrive". Criticizing the cultural determinism in the work of, for example, scholars of the Subaltern Studies group, she proposes a new notion of human agency, interpreted as human creativity, to surpass binary concepts - such as traditional/modern, core/periphery and national/global. The last three chapters offer examples of Indian women's and working-class history in this vein.
BREMAN, JAN. Labour Bondage in West India from Past to Present. Oxford University Press, New Delhi [etc.] 2007. xi, 216 pp. Rs. 525.00.; £18.99.
In this study of historical roots of the subordinated position of rural labour in Gujarat, Professor Breman explores the social and political changes that affected the position of the rural population in the decades before and after independence. The reason why the problem of poverty has persisted in his region was, according to the author, that the underclass of agrarian poor was subjected to a strategy of exclusion: not only were agricultural workers landless, but they barely owned their own labour power, as employers decided how and when it would be used. See also Chitra Joshi's review in this volume, pp. 143-145.
DE NEVE, GEERT. The Everyday Politics of Labour. Working Lives in India's Informal Economy. Delhi, Social Science Press, 2005. xviii, 347 pp. Ill. $89.95.
Based on an ethnographic field study of three textile industries in Tamil Nadu in the period 1995-2000, Dr De Neve explores in this book everyday labour activism, trade unionism and individual forms of resistance and political culture on the shop floor. Unlike many studies, which solely address production relations, the author focuses on relations within production: the everyday dynamics of hierarchy, authority, class and gender at the workplace. He aims to show how these relations in production are influenced by the social mobility of some communities and increased feminization of some occupations, especially weaving.
Philippines
WIEGELE, KATHARINE L. Investing in Miracles. El Shaddai and the Transformation of Popular Catholicism in the Philippines. [Southeast Asia: Politics, Meaning, and Memory.] University of Hawai'i Press, Honolulu 2005. xi, 207 pp. $ 21.00.
This ethnographic study examines the rise of the "El Shaddai" Catholic renewal movement on the Philippines, which from the early 1980s onward has attracted millions of predominantly poor adherents under the charismatic leadership of Mariano Mike Velarde, known as "Brother Mike". Professor Wiegele analyses the reason for the movement's success, through its effective use of mass media and its huge outdoor rallies. She argues that the movement derives its strength from providing the poor with a common understanding of experiences with poverty, suffering and oppression.
AUSTRALIA AND OCEANIA
Australia
BANIVANUA-MAR, TRACEY. Violence and Colonial Dialogue. The Australian-Pacific Indentured Labor Trade. University of Hawai'i Press, Honolulu, Hawaii 2007. Ill. x, 270 pp. $49.00.
From the abolition of slavery in 1863 to the early twentieth century, tens of thousands of men, women and children were transported from various islands in the southwest Pacific as indentured labourers to work in the sugar industry of northeast Australia. Exploring the impact this labour trade had on the people who were traded and focusing on the physical violence that was central to the experience of these indentured labourers, Dr Banivanua-Mar aims to show how brutality and racism were embedded in the structures of the colonial state. See also Roger Knight's review in this volume, pp. 147-150.
EUROPE
Black Africans in Renaissance Europe. Ed. by T.F. Earle and K. J. P. Lowe. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2005. xvii, 417 pp. Ill. £65.00; $110.00.
The sixteen essays in this richly illustrated volume address a broad spectrum of black African experience and representation in fifteenth and sixteenth-century Europe. Included are contributions on various types of slavery, experiences of black musicians and dancers and of writers of African descent, real and symbolic Africans at European courts, the views of the Catholic Church on black Africans and black African criminality. Contributors show how the black African experience in Europe was affected by firmly held preconceptions relating to the African continent and its inhabitants, reinforced by Renaissance ideas and conditions.
Elmir, François. Éducation ouvrière dans la Première Internationale (1864-1870). Editions Siress, Paris 2005. 350 pp. Ill. € 29.50.
This revised edition of a thèse de doctorat (Université de Lyon, 1988) deals with the role of education in the ideology and activities of the First International and affiliated organizations. Dr Elmir focuses on discussions about working-class education between Proudhonists, Marxists and Bakuninists at the congresses of Geneva (1866), Lausanne (1867) and Brussels (1868), highlighting the importance that all ideological currents within the First International attributed to education in the political, economic and social emancipation of the working class.
Fuchs, Rachel G. Gender and Poverty in Nineteenth-Century Europe. [New Approaches to European History.] Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2005. xi, 267 pp. Ill. $65.00; £40.00. (Paper: $22.99; £14.99)
Combining the perspectives of women's history, social history and cultural history, this textbook synthesizes the history of women and poverty in Europe in the extended nineteenth century, c. 1770-1914. Adopting a comparative approach to reveal differences and similarities among regions and nations in the processes of increasing urbanization, industrialization and migration and shifts in men's and women's responsibilities, Professor Fuchs examines social roles and behavioural patters of poor women and analyses representations, exhortations and prescriptions regarding the problem of poverty.
The Other Germany. Perceptions and Influences in British-East German Relations, 1945-1990. Hrsg. v. Stefan Berger and Norman LaPorte. [Beiträge zur England-Forschung, Band 52.] Wißner, Augsburg 2005. 343 pp. € 39.80.
Official international relations between Britain and the German Democratic Republic always seemed rather cold and distant. This collection of twenty essays examines various aspects of this relationship to reveal that the gulf between the two countries was in many cases less difficult to overcome than often perceived. Themes addressed include the international relations context, the framework of German-German relations and the GDR interest in the "Celtic fringe" of Great Britain: Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales; the relation of the British left with the GDR; and the cultural connections. Four personal reflections from British communists and journalists conclude the volume.
Twentieth-century housewives. Meanings and implications of unpaid work. Eds Gro Hagemann and Hege Roll-Hansen. Unipub forlag, Oslo 2005. 343 pp. € 49.00.
Housework has been an occupation of most adult women in Scandinavia and East and West Germany for most of the twentieth century. The fifteen contributions to this volume, by historians, ethnologists, media and scientists and sociologists explore cultural and economic interpretations of housework, as well as the political strategies following from these interpretations from a variety of perspectives: the social justice perspective, including the appreciation of housework; housewives as consumers; and the relation of housework and waged work.
Belgium
Van Ginderachter, Maarten. Het Rode Vaderland. De vergeten geschiedenis van de communautaire spanningen in het Belgische socialisme voor WO I. Lannoo, Tielt; AMSAB-ISG, Gent 2005. 494 pp. Ill. € 29.95.
This revised edition of a dissertation (Ghent University, 2005) is about how Flemish socialists viewed the Belgian nation state and Flemish nationalism in the period from 1885 to the beginning of World War I. Dr Van Ginderachter focuses on the Belgische Werkliedenpartij (BWP), the Belgian labour party, to show that tensions between Flemish and Walloon socialists were far greater than is commonly acknowledged in the historiography. He argues that Flemish socialists, despite their reputation for being internationalist and opposed to Flemish nationalism, identified more with Flanders as their fatherland than they did with Belgium. See also IRSH, 52 (2007), pp. 215-240.
Eire - Ireland
Politics and the Irish Working Class, 1830-1945. Ed. by Fintan Lane and Donal Ó Drisceoil. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke [etc.] 2005. xi, 295 pp. £55.00.
The fourteen essays in this volume, by historians and political scientists, examine the involvement of workers and working-class organizations in Irish politics in the period 1830-1945. Review essays on labour and politics, women workers, rural labourers and James Connolly are combined in this volume with case studies focusing, inter alia, on the co-operative movement in Belfast in the 1830s and grassroots socialism in Dublin in the 1940s. A recurring theme in most chapters is the failure of working-class, socialist politics to become prominent in Irish political life.
France
Action sociale et migration. Expérience et méthodes d'un service social spécialisé. Ouvrage rédigé sous la dir. de Suzanne Roux. L'Harmattan, Paris [etc.] 2005. 152 pp. € 14.50.
The Service Social d'Aide aux Émigrants (SSAE) is a specialized social service organization aimed at aiding immigrants in France. Created in 1924 and certified from 1932 as an association of public benefit, the organization has been assisting immigrants in various ways. This study combines an oral history approach using interviews with both immigrants and social workers of the SSAE and related French and international organizations, as well as written sources on the association's development.
L'altermondialisme en France. La longue histoire d'une nouvelle cause. Sous la dir. de Éric Agrikoliansky, Olivier Fillieule, [et] Nonna Mayer. Flammarion, Paris 2005. 370 pp. € 22.00.
The alter-globalization movement in France and French participation in the international anti- and alter-globalization movement have been particularly strong over the past decade. The authors of this study aim to show that this movement did not suddenly materialize at the end of the 1990s but reflects clear continuities with several strands of earlier militancy and social activism. They trace the roots of anti-globalism in different movements such as the Marxist critique of capitalism, international solidarity movements and tiers-mondisme, anarchism, social Catholicism, farmers' activism (e.g. José Bové), radical trade-unionism and the critical and alternative media, such as Le monde diplomatique.
Andolfatto, Dominique. PCF: de la mutation à la liquidation. [Démocratie ou totalitarisme.] Éditions du Rocher, Monaco 2005. 317 pp. € 21.90.
In this study of the recent history of the PCF (the French communist party) from the leadership of Georges Marchais (1972-1994) to the present, Dr Andolfatto sketches the general decline in terms of electoral results and membership and analyses the causes. Relating the party's organizational and ideological developments to the rupture of the left union in the 1980s, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the demise of the Soviet Union and the "mutation" in 1995 under the leadership of Robert Hue, the author considers in what measure these changes will be able to turn the tide of decline.
Ben Aissa, Hazem. Histoire des conditions de travail dans le monde industriel en France: 1848-2000. L'Harmattan, Paris [etc.] 2005. 195 pp. € 17.50.
In this history of industrial labour conditions in France from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, Dr Ben Aissa explores in the first part of the book the theoretical and political debate that arose around the issue of labour conditions. He provides a chronological overview, showing how labour conditions questions figure in labour activism and rationalization alike. In the second part, he considers current changes in terms of employment in a case study of the Renault automobile industry in the period 1898-2000.
Brousse, Vincent, Dominique Danthieux [ET] Philippe Grandcoing, et avec la coll. des membres de l'asssociation Mémoire ouvrière en Limousin. 1905 le printemps rouge de Limoges. Culture & Patrimoine en Limousin, Limoges 2005. 127 pp. € 19.00.
This volume offers an overview for a general readership of the events in the Spring of 1905 in the French city of Limoges, when a wave of strikes in the shoemaking and pottery industries, organized by the recently formed socialist trade union movement, escalated to a popular revolt and riots, eventually leading to violent confrontations with the police and military. The authors sketch the social and political context and depictions of the events in the press and in the arts and literature of the era and describe the long-term effects on the political and social identity of Limoges and the Limousin working class.
Burstin, Haim. Une révolution à l'oeuvre. Le faubourg Saint-Marcel (1789-1794). [Epoques.] Champ Vallon, Seyssel 2005. 923 pp. Ill. € 45.00.
This study offers a micro-history of the faubourg Saint-Marcel, a peripheral quarter of Paris, during the revolutionary years 1789-1794. Professor Burstin gives a detailed description of the social composition and developing political identity of this quarter, which was predominately a poor artisans' district and the centre of tapestry manufacturing. Chronologically ordered, the study aims to show how in the early revolutionary period the populace became more and more politicized and radicalized year by year.
Colombier, Roger. Le mouvement ouvrier dans le Mantois. L'Harmattan, Paris [etc.] 2005. 218 pp. Ill. € 19.50.
This study gives a chronological overview of the origins and rise of the syndicalist trade union movement in the Mantois region, an industrial region west of Paris. Mr Colombier, a former local trade union officer, focuses on the role of the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT), covering the 100 years from its establishment in 1895 until the widespread protest against the welfare reform plans of the Juppé government in 1995.
Conspiracy in the French Revolution. Ed. by Peter R. Campbell, Thomas E. Kaiser and Marisa Linton. Manchester University Press Manchester [etc.] 2007. xi, 222 pp. £50.00.
Nine experts study the conspiracy theories that captivated the French from the Ancien Regime through the Conspiracy of the Equals to shed new light on the dynamics of the French Revolution. Building on new approaches to early modern politics, they argue that conspiratorial thinking was evident at every political level, and that the Enlightenment's desire for transparency encouraged rather than obviated this mindset. As is also shown, some people did in fact conspire. Separate chapters deal with the run-up to the Revolution, the Constituent Assembly, Louis XVI, Paris, the rural South-West, the Jacobins, the émigrés and Gracchus Babeuf.
Émile Masson. Prophète et rebelle. Colloque international de Pontivy 26, 27 et 28 septembre 2003. Sous la dir. de J.-Didier Giraud et Marielle Giraud. Préface d'Edmond Hervé. Presses Universitaires de Rennes, Rennes 2005. 349 pp. Ill. € 20.00.
These are the proceedings of a colloquium, organized in September 2003 in Pontivy (Brittany), France, on the life and work of the Breton writer, anarchist and activist Émile Masson (1869-1923). The 22 contributions deal with Masson's intellectual backgrounds and connections with famous intellectual contemporaries such as Romain Rolland and Charles Péguy and the anarchist Élisée Reclus; his Breton nationalism; his personal life; his literary legacy; and his rebellious political views.
L'entreprise socialiste 1905-1920. Histoire documentaire du Parti Socialiste, Tome 1. Textes réunis et présentés par V. Chambarlhac, M. Dury, T. Hohl [etc.] Editions Universitaires de Dijon, Dijon 2005. 312 pp. Ill. Maps. € 22.00.
This is a documentary history of the French socialist party, the Section Française de l'Internationale Ouvrière (SFIO), published in recognition of its centenary, from its foundation in 1905 upon the merge of the Parti socialiste de France (PSdF) with the Parti socialiste français (PSF), until 1920, the year of the historic rift between socialists and communists at the Congress of Tours. The editors have brought together a broad variety of selections from primary sources, covering themes such as the party's organization and its relation with the broader labour movement, the party in World War I and the role of Jean Jaurès.
Fortescue, William. France and 1848. The end of monarchy. Routledge, London [etc.] 2005. 215 pp. £ 18.99.
This textbook examines the economic, social and political crises around the revolutionary year 1848 in France. Using published writings of contemporaries and from the newspaper press of that period, both in Paris and in the provinces, Dr Fortescue aims to situate the 1848 revolution in France in the context of France's revolutionary and republican tradition and the country's unique political culture. He analyses why the institution of monarchy was undermined so much more there than in the rest of Europe.
France in the Era of Fascism. Essays on the French Authoritarian Right. Ed. by Brian Jenkins. Berghahn Books, New York [etc.] 2005. 232 pp. $60.00; £36.50.
French postwar historiography of the interwar period has long been dominated by the immunity thesis that France had been largely immune to the appeal of fascism. Foreign historians, such as Robert O. Paxton and Zeev Sternhell, have challenged this thesis since the 1970s. In this volume, five leading critics of the immunity thesis (in addition to Paxton and Sternhell, Robert Soucy, Michel Dobry and Kevin Passmore) present their position again in discussions about the nature of the French authoritarian right in this period. In his introductory essay, the editor places the debate in its historiographical context, while he notes future courses of the debate in his conclusion.
Lamblin, Robert. Une Vie. Autobiographie Sociale - Politique - Philosphique. L'Harmattan, Paris [etc.] 2005. 284 pp. € 25.20.
This is the autobiography of Robert Lamblin (born 1927), a French philosopher and an active member of the French communist party from the late 1950s to the late 1970s. After describing his childhood in a working-class milieu in a town near Lille and his unlikely route towards philosophy, he explains how he became involved with the French communist party and subsequently broke with the party in the late 1970s. In the second part, he focuses on the development of his philosophical ideas and his work on Kant, Fichte and Hegel.
Prothero, Iorwerth J. Religion and Radicalism in July Monarchy France. The French Catholic Church of the Abbé Chatel. [Studies in French Civilization, Vol. 36.] The Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston, New York [etc.] 2005. xxv, 362 pp. $119.95; £74.95.
In the wake of the July Revolution a movement of dissident Catholic priests under the leadership of Abbé Chatel established a new French Catholic church, where they sought to reconcile Catholicism with liberalism. This study explores the background and development of Chatel's religious movement, which experienced short-lived popularity in a number of regions but was also fiercely opposed by the Catholic Church and the government. Professor Prothero argues that Chatel's movement, which had also ties with early socialism, shows the connections between popular religious and radical movements under the July Monarchy.
La Révolution à l'oeuvre. Perspectives actuelles dans l'histoire de la Révolution française. Actes du colloque de Paris 29, 30 et 31 janvier 2004 (organisé par l'Institut d'Histoire de la Révolution française, avec le soutien de l'université de Paris I - Panthéon-Sorbonne et de la Société des études robespierristes et l'amitié du musée de la Révolution de Vizille). Sous la dir. de Jean-Clément Martin. [Collection "Histoire"]. Presses Universitaires de Rennes, Rennes 2005 . 375 pp. € 22.00.
This volume offers the proceedings of a colloquium, organized by the Institute d'Histoire de la Révolution française in Paris in January 2004, aimed at bringing together recent historical research on the French Revolution conducted since the bicentennial of the Revolution in 1989. The 23 contributions by leading scholars in the field deal with the broader themes of society and institutions; politics; the nation-state, conflict and violence; and the artistic and intellectual domains. Haïm Burstin offers a historiographical conclusion. An extended bibliography of recent literature is appended.
Scott, Joan Wallach. Parité! Sexual Equality and the Crisis of French Universalism. [Chicago Studies in Practices of Meaning.] University of Chicago Press, Chicago [etc.] 2005. xi, 191 pp. $55.00; £35.00. (Paper: $22.00.; £14.00.)
In June 2000, a law came into effect in France, popularly known as the "parité law", requiring equal representation of male and female candidates for almost every public office, which was the result of an effective campaign during the 1990s. In this study, Professor Scott analyses the origins of this campaign for parité and places it in the broader context of principal debates on political representation in French democracy, the struggle of women for political equality, and a generally perceived crisis about representation of social and other differences within the French universalistic parliamentary system.
Un siècle militant. Engagement(s), résistance(s) et mémoire(s) au XXe siècle en Limousin. Sous la dir. de Vincent Brousse [et] Philippe Grandcoing. Pulim, Limoges 2005. v, 262 pp. Ill. Maps. € 18.00.
Between January 2002 and February 2004, a series of conferences was organized in Limoges and Tulle to discuss the history of twentieth-century working-class militancy in the Limoges region. The eight contributions to this volume, based on the papers presented at these conferences, analyse the different types of militancy involvement, through politics, syndicalist action and the resistance during World War II. The contributors examine the construction of the historical memory of this militancy and how this memory influences present-day working-class identity in the region.
Toucas-Truyen, Patricia. Les coopérateurs: deux siècles de pratiques coopératives. Sous la dir. de Michel Dreyfus. Editions de l'Atelier [etc.], Paris 2005. 430 pp. Ill. € 50.00.
This volume combines a concise history of the co-operative movement in nineteenth and twentieth-century France, with a biographical dictionary both of the various "families" of co-operative organizations and of 135 leading persons in the movement in all its diversity. Covering both producers and consumer cooperatives, Dr Toucas-Truyen deals in his historical introduction with the co-operatives' relation to the state, trade unions, employers and social economic life in general. An extensive list of acronyms and a large collection of illustrations complete the volume.
Valentin-Mclean, Frédérique. Dissidents du Parti Communiste Français. La révolte des intellectuels communistes dans les années 1970. L'Harmattan, Paris [etc.] 2005. 234 pp. € 22.00.
In the 1970s, intellectuals within the PCF, the French communist party, including Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser and Eurocommunist historian Jean Ellenstein, formed a group of dissidents within the party. This study examines the origins of this group of dissident intellectuals and their views, as well as the type of criticism they expressed about the party leadership. The author analyses their role in achieving a unity of left-wing parties and the rise of Eurocommunism and taking distance from Soviet communist politics and ideology.
Viaud, Ronan. Le Syndicalisme maritime français. Les organisations, les hommes, les luttes (1890-1950). [Collection "Histoire".] Presses Universitaires de Rennes, Rennes 2005. 276 pp. € 19.00.
In this history of syndicalism in French merchant shipping and fishery from the end of the nineteenth century to 1950, Dr Viaud explores how an initial effort to form a national federation of sailors soon failed as a result of the different interests of the various categories of workers involved and due to the divisions emerging within French syndicalism in general. He shows how three sorts of syndicalism among French seamen evolved: a working-class syndicalism, representing the common sailors; a producers' syndicalism, representing the fishermen; and an executives' syndicalism of the merchant shipping officers.
Germany
Bonnell, Andrew. The People's Stage in Imperial Germany. Social Democracy and Culture 1890-1914. [International Library of Historical Studies, vol. 35.] Tauris Academic Studies, London [etc.] 2005. viii, 294 pp. £ 47.50.
Using the history of the Freie Volksbuhne (Free People's Theatre) in Berlin in the period 1890-1914 as case study, this study aims to reconsider the theoretical understanding of the relationship between class and culture that evolved in German Social Democracy in Imperial Germany. Professor Bonnell explores in detail the various political and ideological programmes guiding the Volksbuhne's work, examines how the largely working-class audience responded to the plays and depicts the theatre in the context of fin-de-siècle literary developments.
Boyer, Dominic. Spirit and System. Media, Intellectuals, and the Dialectic in Modern German Culture. University of Chicago Press, Chicago [etc.] 2005. x, 323 pp. Ill. $55.00; £35.00. [Paper: $22.00; £14.00.]
This study aims to analyse the German self-image and social knowledge of "Germanness" as it originated in nineteenth-century university culture and philosophy of history. Professor Boyer explores how this self-image was subsequently mediated through the media systems and redemptive cultures of the Third Reich and the GDR and eventually formed the background for present-day former East German journalists seeking to explain life in post-reunification Germany. Professor Boyer argues that a "dialectical social knowledge" (emphasizing a cultural tension between an inner "spirit" and an external "system" of social life) subconsciously modelled intellectuals' interpretations of the German nation and modernity and related tensions between alienation and utopianism.
Die "Krise" der Weimarer Republik. Zur Kritik eines Deutungsmusters. Hrsg. von Moritz Föllmer [und] Rüdiger Graf. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt [etc.] 2005. 367 pp. Ill. € 39.90.
The historiography of the Weimar Republic is dominated by the interpretative model of a "crisis" that inevitably led to the rise of Nazism. The thirteen essays in this volume, most based on contributions to a colloquium organized in July 2003 at the Humboldt University in Berlin, critique this interpretation model by examining how a discourse of crisis was constructed to serve the ends of several radical views on Germany's future. Themes covered include the crisis of justice and parliamentarianism, the reform movement, demographic scenarios of crisis and the position of young women.
Micheler, Stefan. Selbstbilder und Fremdbilder der "Anderen". Eine Geschichte Männer begehrender Männer in der Weimarer Republik und der NS-Zeit. [Konflikte und Kultur - Historische Perspektiven, Band 10.] UVK Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Konstanz 2005. 483 pp. Ill. € 49.00.
This study explores the self images and images among others of homosexuals in Weimar Germany and during the Third Reich. Based on social constructivism and queer theory, Dr Micheler explores the homosexual press, as well as criminal justice cases and medical, legal and political discourses in both periods to analyse how the concept of homosexuality took root in German language. He then examines the effects of the defamation and large-scale persecution of homosexuals by the Nazi regime, after the relative tolerance of the Weimar era.
Sperber, Jonathan. Property and Civil Society in South-Western Germany 1820-1914. Oxford University Press, Oxford [etc.] 2005. vi, 287 pp. £55.00.
Property and its disposition - both in the family and at the marketplace - were, according to the author of this study, a central element in nineteenth-century civil society. Examining the role of property in south-western German society from the end of the Napoleonic era to the eve of World War I, Professor Sperber analyses the culture of property ownership and property transactions within families and in the marketplace to show how property ownership helped shape various social distinctions between men and women and influenced the nature of civil society, social development and social conflict.
Volkserhebung gegen den SED-Staat. Eine Bestandsaufnahme zum 17. Juni 1953. Hrsg. von Roger Engelmann [und] Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk. [Analysen und Dokumente, Band 27.] Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2005. 478 pp. € 32.90.
The twenty essays in this volume, based on papers presented at a colloquium organized in Berlin in recognition of the fiftieth anniversary of the 17 June uprising, deal with a number of broader themes around this crucial popular revolt in the German Democratic Republic to review current historical research on this topic. Themes include the causes and motives behind the uprising and the events itself; the international dimension; the uprising as a crisis in the repressive system; social and regional dimensions; and the June uprising in collective memory. In the last contribution, Walter Süss compares the 17 June uprising with the 1989 revolution.
Zwangsarbeit im Bergwerk der Arbeitseinsatz im Kohlenbergbau des Deutschen Reiches und der besetzten Gebiete im Ersten und Zweiten Weltkrieg. Band 1: Forschungen, Band 2: Dokumente. Hrsg. von Hans-Christoph Seidel und Klaus Tenfelde unter Mitarb. von Jens Adamski. [Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für soziale Bewegungen. Schriftenreihe C: Arbeitseinsatz und Zwangsarbeit im Bergbau]. Klartext, Essen 2005. 2 Bändep. € 79.90.
Charcoal and brown coal were the basic raw material for the German war economy in World Wars I and II. Over the course of both wars, Germany gained control of the main coalfields in the rest of continental Europe. Since labour power was vital for using this resource, foreign and forced labour was applied abundantly in the coal industry. The eighteen contributions to the first volume deal with labour relations and conditions among foreign workers in German coalmining and the manifold forms of forced labour in the industry both in Germany and in the occupied territories during World Wars I and II. In the second volume, over 400 documents are selected from German and foreign archives relating to the organization and everyday praxis of forced labour in the German coalmining industry and the coalmining industry in occupied territories during World Wars I and II.
Great Britain
Beaven, Brad. Leisure, citizenship and working-class men in Britain, 1850-1945. [Studies in Popular Culture.] Manchester University Press, Manchester [etc.] 2005. xii, 258 pp. £55.00.
This study of working-class male leisure pursuits in Britain from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century contends that despite changing socio-economic contexts, throughout this period male working-class culture continued to draw from a tradition of active participation and cultural contestation, one that was both class and gender exclusive. Dr Beaven aims to show how for middle-class social reformers popular leisure in this period became connected with debates on the emerging mass society and the potential role of leisure in forging a bond between the recently enfranchised male worker and the nation.
La classe ouvrière britannique XIXe-XXe siècles. Proscrits, patriotes, citoyens. Dir. Gilbert Millat. L'Harmattan, Paris [etc.] 2005. 290 pp. € 25.00.
The ten essays in this volume explore changing perceptions of the British working class from the 1830s until the closing decades of the twentieth century. Included are contributions on the representation of the working class among paternalistic liberals in the 1830s (Patrice Boche); working-class culture as represented in The Bee-Hive in the 1860s and 70s (Nelly Graziani); iconography of working-class women during World War I (Claire Bowen); and representations of the British working class during World War II (Antoine Capet).
Fortier, Mark. The Culture of Equity in Early Modern England. Ashgate, Aldershot [etc.] 2005. vii, 217 pp. £94.95; $47.50.
Equity, and its attendant notions, was widespread in intellectual life in early modern England, as this study aims to show. Dr Fortier examines how writers from the early sixteenth century until 1660 and from a wide variety of backgrounds applied notions of equity to discuss major social issues. He argues that a culture of equity manifested in this period, in part as a basic component of a model for Christian society; as the justification for a justice system superseding common law; as a nascent grounding for broadly cast social justice; and as a cry for revolution and individual rights and freedoms.
Howell, Chris. Trade Unions and the State. The Construction of Industrial Relations Institutions in Britain, 1890-2000. Princeton University, Princeton [etc.] 2005. xi, 243 pp. £26.95.
In this study of the history of industrial relations in Britain from the end of the nineteenth to the beginning of the twenty-first century, Professor Howell analyses the role of the state in the rise of the three industrial relations systems he identifies for this period. Contesting traditional interpretations, which regard British industrial relations institutions mainly as the outcome of a laissez-faire system of labour relations, he argues that successive governments have resorted to a combination of administrative and judicial action, legislation and a narrative of crisis to construct new forms of labour relations, which would also explain why the Conservative governments of the 1980s were so easily able to crush the hitherto dominant position of the trade unions.
Mutch, Deborah. English Socialist Periodicals, 1880-1900. A Reference Source. [The nineteenth century series.] Ashgate, Aldershot [etc.] 2005. xxxvii, 439 pp. £55.00.
This reference source provides an introduction to the literature and journalism of thirty-nine socialist periodicals from the last two decades of the nineteenth century. Covering a range from long-running and well-known periodicals such as the Social Democratic Federation's Justice and the Clarion to shorter-lived papers like Labour Union Journal and Fiery Cross, the volume aims to give a comprehensive overview of all creative writing and journalism directly addressing the theory of socialist politics in this period. The chapters are arranged by genre, from serialized fiction through drama, children's columns, to cartoons, manifestos and advertisements.
Redfern, Neil. Class or Nation. Communists, Imperialism and Two World Wars. [International Library of Political Studies, Vol. 2.] Tauris Academic Studies, London [etc.] 2005. x, 257 pp. £47.50.
In this study of British communists during World War I and World War II, Dr Redfern focuses on the relationship of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) with British imperialism. The author explores why the CPGB enthusiastically supported the British war effort in World War II, while most of its leaders had been militant opponents of World War I. Tracing the British communists' gradualist roots, he concludes that the CPGB remained Euro-centred and reformist rather than revolutionary and even supported the post-1945 Labour government.
Scot, Marie. La London School of Economics et le welfare state. Science et politique 1940-1979. [Collection "Inter-National".] L'Harmattan, Paris [etc.] 2005. 288 pp. € 25.00.
As a case study of the relation between science and politics, this study explores how the London School of Economics (LSE) has contributed to the theoretical foundations and practical political implementation of the British welfare state in the period 1940-1979. Mrs Scot covers the origins of the involvement of the LSE in social reform theory and policy, the creation of the Beveridge report and the discipline of social administration, LSE's role as a training institution for social work and LSE's position during the crisis of the welfare state from the late 1960s onward.
Scottish Society. 1500-1800. Ed. by R.A. Houston and I.D. Whyte. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 1989. xii, 298 pp. £40.00; $65.00. (Paper £20.99; $32.00.)
This volume aims to offer a comprehensive overview of recent research on the social history of Scotland in the early modern period, the three centuries before the Industrial Revolution. The nine contributions to the volume consider population and mobility issues; food; urbanization; the role and position of women; poverty and the Poor Law; and social organization and the role of clans. The last two essays compare Scottish social development in this period with that of Ireland and Britain as a whole.
Strange, Julie-Marie. Death, Grief and Poverty in Britain, 1870-1914. [Cambridge Social and Cultural Histories.] Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2005. x, 294 pp. £48.00; $85.00.
This study examines working-class responses to death in terms of grief and mourning in Britain in the period 1870-1914. Whereas studies of death and bereavement in the Victorian and Edwardian eras often have been focused on materialist paradigms and dichotomies between respectable and pauper funerals, Dr Strange emphasizes the complexities of responses to death alongside the inarticulacy of bereavement to show that in this period poverty accentuated rather than deadened the expression of grief among the working class. She illustrates mourning practices of the working classes by dealing with issues as care of the corpse, the funeral, the cemetery, commemoration and high infant mortality rates.
Thompson, Andrew. The Empire Strikes Back? The Impact of Imperialism on Britain from the Mid-Nineteenth Century. Pearson, Harlow [etc.] 2005. xvii, 374 pp. Ill. £39.95.
This study explores the nature and extent of imperial influences on British domestic society from the mid-nineteenth to the late twentieth century. Dr Thompson looks both at the society as a whole and more specifically at politics and political culture, economics and regional and national identities. He concludes that the domestic impact of the empire was complex and even contradictory, and that different social groups contested the meaning of imperialism for domestic society. In the concluding chapter, the author examines contemporary issues of British imperialism, such as the Falklands conflict and the impact of immigration on British society.
Todd, Selina. Young Women, Work and Family in England 1918-1950. Oxford University Press, Oxford [etc.] 2005. xiii, 272 pp. £50.00.
Between 1918 and 1950 young women between the school-leaving age and 24, the average age of first marriage, accounted for over 45 per cent of the female workforce in Britain. This study examines how young women's employment opportunities changed over the course of this period. While at the end of World War I, domestic service was the largest employer, by 1950 many more young women held far more lucrative retail or clerical jobs. Dr Todd analyses how these changes gave rise to growth in youth culture, familial relationships and friendship networks and led young women to become agents of change within working-class households and communities and at the workplace. See also the author's article in IRSH, 52 (2007), pp. 57-87.
Understanding Social Change. Ed. by Anthony F. Heath, John Ermisch, [and] Duncan Gallie. Oxford University Press, Oxford [etc.] 2005. xi, 364 pp. £45.00.
In the twelve essays in this volume the authors aim to analyse and explain the major changes that British society has experienced in recent years, looking in particular at the variety of causal mechanisms of social interaction that underlie these changes. Issues dealt with include extra-marital childbearing; persistence of class inequalities in education; paradoxes in modern working conditions; the problem of long-term unemployment; gender inequalities in rates of pay; ethnic minority disadvantages on the labour market; problems associated with an ageing population; social origins of depression; new religious movements; and criminality and victims' rights.
Whitlock, Tammy C. Crime, Gender and Consumer Culture in Nineteenth-Century England. [The history of retailing and consumption.] Ashgate, Aldershot [etc.] 2005. 244 pp. Ill. £45.00.
This study explores the changing role of the female consumer and of retail in the context of the expanding consumer culture in nineteenth-century England. Professor Whitlock uses judicial records, advertising materials and newspapers to convey both the rapid progress in retailing before the advent of the large department stores at the end of the nineteenth century and the concomitant changing image of the female shopper and rising concerns over retail crimes like shoplifting, consumer fraud and retailer fraud.
Williamson, Lori. Power and Protest. Frances Power Cobbe and Victorian Society. Rivers Oram, London [etc.] 2005. viii, 277 pp. Ill. £20.00.
This is a biography of the Anglo-Irish writer, journalist, social reformer, feminist and anti-vivisectionist Frances Power Cobbe (1822-1904). Dr Williamson portrays Cobbe as an outspoken and often controversial figure, as well as a prolific writer in Victorian England, whose concerns included a range of causes, from opposition to the Poor Laws and workhouse regime, through feminism and suffragettism to animal rights. In this latter capacity, she founded two organizations in Britain: the Society for the Protection of Animals Liable to Vivisection (SPALV) (in 1875) and the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) (in 1898).
Italy
Battente, Saverio. Alfredo Rocco. Dal nazionalismo al fasciscmo 1907-1935. FrancoAngeli, Milano 2005. 461 pp. € 32.00.
This study of the man who as Italy's Minister of Justice from 1925 to 1932 wrote the fascist criminal code and much of the country's labour legislation builds on the author's dissertation at the Università degli Studi di Pavia (2002). The author aims to enhance understanding about Italian modernization and state building by following Rocco's biography from radicalism through nationalism to fascism, concentrating on a careful reading of his statements and publications. The book elucidates how a particular strand of Risorgimento ideas evolved into the modernist theory of the corporate state.
Della Peruta, Franco. Società e classi popolari nell'Italia dell' '800. [Studi e ricerche storiche.] Franco Angeli, Milano 2005. 254 pp. € 22.00.
This is a reissue of the 1985 volume that comprised eight studies by this well-known specialist on the Risorgimento, all written during the preceding decade. They cover a wide variety of topics, from the social aspects of the Restoration to the emancipation of the Jews and from health care to journalism. Two articles deal in particular with Lombardy society in the nineteenth century.
Guerra, Adriano. Comunismi e comunisti. Dalle "svolte" di Togliatti e Stalin del 1944 al crollo del comunismo democratico. [Strumenti/Scenari, 53.] Edizioni Dedalo, Bari 2005. 348 pp. € 17.00.
The author, a former Moscow correspondent of l'Unità who has written extensively on the Soviet Union and its demise, explores why "democratic communism", which he sees embodied in the Italian Communist Party from as early as 1943-1944 and in the various forms of "dissent" that arose in Central and Eastern Europe from the mid-1960s, was never successful and disappeared together with the system it dissented from. In this context, he re-examines relations between the PCI and the CPSU, concentrating on the political choices faced by Palmiro Togliatti in his dealings with Stalin and Khrushchev.
La nazione in rosso. Socialismo, comunismo e "Questione nazionale": 1889-1953. A cura di Marina Cattaruzza. [La ragioni degli storici, 9.] Rubbettino, Soveria Mannelli 2005. 334 pp. € 18.00.
Nine authors study the various views of the "national question" and nationalism in the socialist and communist movements. In addition to the editor's introduction, two essays depict social democracy in the Interbellum and the differences between the Second and Third Internationals, respectively, from an international perspective. Other contributions discuss the positions of Austromarxism, Amadeo Bordiga, the Italian Communist Party and the attitude of the French and Italian Communist Parties toward Stalin's pact with Hitler. Of special interest are two articles on the way Czech and Polish communists dealt with the German populations in the post-World War II states they came to dominate.
Terpstra, Nicholas. Abandoned Children of the Italian Renaissance. Orphan Care in Florence and Bologna. [The Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science.] Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 2005. xii, 349 pp. Ill. $50.00.
In this study about care for homeless children in the late Renaissance city-states of Bologna and Florence, Professor Terpstra compares the different ways that government and private institutions in both cities rose to the challenge presented by the large numbers of abandoned and orphaned children. Concluding that the politics, charity and economics involved in founding and running these orphanages were closely linked to the development of the early modern state, he finds that Bologna's orphanages were better run, looked after the children more effectively and were more successful in reintegrating these children into society.
The Netherlands
Schoonheim, Marloes. Mixing Ovaries and Rosaries. Catholic religion and reproduction in the Netherlands, 1870-1970. Aksant, Amsterdam 2005. 280 pp. € 29.90.
During the twentieth century, Catholics in Europe and the United States alike were relatively slow to adopt family planning. To analyse how Catholic reproductive behaviour came about, this dissertation (Nijmegen University, 2005) explores the mechanism behind the influence of religion on Catholic fertility behaviour in the Netherlands between 1870 and 1970. Dr Schoonheim focuses on six Catholic municipalities to show how religion came to constitute a nationwide social structure, and how socio-economic and cultural circumstances either encouraged or discouraged the introduction of family planning.
Portugal
As revoluções contemporâneas. Coord. científica de Fernando Martins e Pedro Aires Oliveira. [Cursos de verão.] Edições Colibri [etc.] Lisboa 2005. 258 pp. € 13.65.
The nine contributions to this volume, originally written for the 2002 Summer School of the Instituto de História Contemporânea, are intended to offer an overview of present interpretations of the major political revolutions from the eighteenth century onward. Apart from the American, French and Russian revolutions, those in Portugal (1910-1911 and 1974-1975), the Islamic world, Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe (1989) receive special consideration. An introductory essay examines the concept of "Atlantic revolutions".
Russia - Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Derluguian, Georgi M. Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus. A World-System Biography. University of Chicago Press, Chicago [etc.] 2005. 406 pp. Ill. $25.00; £17.50.
Professor Derluguian combines in this study a biographical reconstruction of the life story of Musa Shanib (Shabinov), a prominent leader in the Chechen nationalist revolution, with an account of the developmental dynamics that figured in the collapse of Soviet socialism. Discussing Shanib and his keen interest in the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, the author contextualizes his personal trajectory from de-Stalinization through the nationalist rebellions of the 1990s, to the recent rise in Islamic militancy, arguing that the example of Shanib's career illuminates the role of human agency in shaping history. See also Touraj Atabaki's review in this volume, pp. 140-143.
L'économie souterraine. L'exemple de la Russie. Sous la dir. de Jacques Fontanel et Liliane Bensahel. [Les idées et les théories à l'épreuve des faits.] L'Harmattan, Paris [etc.] 2006. 103 pp. € 11.00.
This book is based on papers presented during the international colloquium Régions et globalisation, organized in June 2002 in St. Petersburg by the universities of St. Petersburg and Grenoble. The six articles examine judicial and socio-economic aspects of the informal economy in Russia and review methods for evaluating the importance of the informal economy. St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad are the geographic focus.
Ertz, Simon. Zwangsarbeit im stalinistischen Lagersystem. Eine Untersuchung der Methoden, Strategien und Ziele ihrer Ausnutzung am Beispiel Norilsk, 1935-1953. [Zeitgeschichtliche Forschungen, Band 31.] Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2006. Ill. 273 pp. € 48.00.
This revised and expanded version of the authors' dissertation (Freie Universität Berlin, 2004) aims to reconstruct and analyse the inner mechanisms of the Gulag system and the political and economic aspects of forced labour. The author focuses on the administrative bodies and on means and methods of organizing forced labour in the Norilsk kombinat and labour camp in North East Siberia, where 270,000 prisoners built and ran a large industry of nickel and copper mines. The study is based on archival materials and memoires of former prisoners.
Late Stalinist Russia. Society between reconstruction and reinvention. Ed. by Juliane Fürst. [BASEES/Routledge series on Russian and East European studies, Vol. 29.] Routledge, London [etc.] 2006. xi, 287 pp. £75.00.
This book deals with late Stalinism, addressing it not as a chronological concept but as a phenomenon in its own right. The twelve articles in the volume examine subjects such as the impact of the war on poverty, corruption, rural disobedience and other phenomena, the population policy and the 1944 Family Law and the housing crisis. Separate articles focus on population groups, such as Red Army disabled soldiers, veterans, children and youth. The authors make extensive use of the newly opened Soviet archives, which proved very rich and informative about this postwar period.
Reinterpreting Revolutionary Russia. Essays in Honour of James D. White. Ed. by Ian D. Thatcher. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke [etc.] 2006. vii, 219 pp. £45.00.
This book is a collection of twelve essays in honour of historian James D. White, written by former students, colleagues and other scholars interested in the Russian revolution. Subjects addressed include ethics and tactics of terrorism in 1905-1907, questions about historiography of the Russian revolution, Trotsky's role in the civil war, the "historical" and the "mythical" Lenin, Krupskaya's position in the shadow of Lenin as an example of gender roles of female Russian Marxists and Marxism-Leninism as the guiding principle for rearranging the Tretyakov Gallery permanent display between 1928 and 1932.
Vozvrashchen ie 'Smolenskogo arkhiva' (The return of the 'Smolensk Archive'). ROSSPEN, Moskva 2005, 350 pp. $23.95.
This publication comprises six articles, some based on the materials of the Return of the Smolensk Archive round table at the 2002 AAASS conference in Toronto. The Smolensk Archive contains a small part of the Communist Party documents (28 linear feet) removed from Smolensk during the German occupation and stored at the National Archives in Washington until it was returned to Russia in 2002. All articles (except for one about the content and description of the archive) deal with the peregrinations of this archive and the complicated negotiations and political and legal battles between Russia and the United States over this collection. All texts are in Russian and English.
Spain
25 años del Estatuto de los Trabajadores (1980-2005). Eds: Antón Saracíbar, Jesús Caldera [y] Fernando Valdés. Fundación Francisco Largo Caballero, Madrid 2005. 245 pp. Ill. € 20.00.
In the wake of the adoption of the Spanish Constitution of 1978 a new labour law (the Estatuto de los Trabajadores) was introduced and ratified in 1980, replacing the last remaining legislation from the Franco era. The sixteen contributions to this volume, published for the Unión General de Trabajadores, reflect on the history of the law and its subsequent amendments, the role of the trade unions and changes in labour relations in Spain. The book features a chronology and a bibliography.
Berg, Angela. Die Internationalen Brigaden im Spanischen Bürgerkrieg 1936-1939. [Rheinisch-Westfälische Hochschulschriften: Reihe Geschichte, Band 3.] Klartext, Essen 2005. 306 pp. Maps. €29.90.
This dissertation (University of Duisburg-Essen, 2005) examines the history and development of the International Brigade (IB) during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) highlighting the German community within the IB. Dr Berg aims to refute the myths surrounding the history of Germans in the IB, first, by examining the founding of the IB, how it related to its surroundings, and how it was perceived; second, by examining the leaderships aims and claims and to what extent these were realized; and third, by exploring the everyday life of common soldiers.
Cabrera Pérez, Luis Alberto. Mujer, trabajo y sociedad (1839-1983). Fundación F. Largo Caballero, Madrid 2005. 296 pp. Ill. € 25.00.
This richly illustrated volume offers an overview of the position of women and women's labour from the year the first photograph was taken in Spain to the transición period following Franco's death. Though intended for a general public, this is a scholarly work with references to the relevant literature, including on the web. A chronology and a bibliography are appended.
Casanova, Julián. Anarchism, the Republic and Civil War in Spain 1931-1939. [Routledge/Cañada Blanch Studies on Contemporary Spain.] Routledge, London [etc.] 2005. xi, 229 pp. € 55.00.
This is the English translation of De la calle al frente. El anarcosindicalismo en España (1931-1939), published in 1997 (see IRSH, 43 (1998), p. 344).
Cobo Romero, Francisco [y] Teresa María Ortega López. Franquismo y posguerra en Andalucía oriental. Represión, castigo a los vencidos y apoyos sociales al Régimen Franquista, 1936-1950. Granada 2005. 449 pp. € 15.00.
The authors, both experts in the field (see also IRSH, 45 (2000), p. 363), analyse the repression by and institutionalization of Franco's regime in the eastern Andalusian provinces of Granada and Jaén. They present the "relative modernization" of Andalusia in the first third of the twentieth century and the locally disparate presence of conflicts as major elements for understanding the men and women who fought the Civil War in this region and the vengeful but equally differentiated reaction in its wake. Separate chapters deal with the institutionalizing roles of the Falange, the municipalities, the Church and the economy.
En el nombre del oficio. El trabajador especializado. Corporativismo, adaptación y protesta. Ed. Vicent Sanz Rozalén [y] José A. Piqueras Arenas. [Coleccíon Historia Biblioteca Nueva]. Biblioteca Nueva, Madrid 2005. 399 pp. € 24.00.
The editors (whose survey of The Social History of Work in Spain appeared in IRSH 50 (2005) pp. 467-483) bring together fifteen articles on chiefly Spanish artisans and skilled workers during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They explore how the crafts and artisans adapted their organizations to changing circumstances, and how they influenced the new democratic, anarchist and socialist movements and organized resistance to economic and political pressure. Three contributions discuss contemporaneous developments in Mexico City. The volume covers a broad range with regard both to the crafts and the cities discussed and features a bibliography.
Esenwein, George Richard. The Spanish Civil War. A Modern Tragedy. [Routledge Sources in History.] Routledge, New York [etc.] 2005. xii, 302 pp. £19.99.
This textbook on the history of the Spanish Civil War aims to offer an analysis of both the domestic and the international aspects of the war and includes primary sources from contemporary media accounts, diplomatic records and political propaganda. Professor Esenwein has also looked into the impact of gender and race on the events and has included a critical overview of the main historiographical issues regarding the Civil War.
Figueras i Sabater, Arnau. Història de la FNEC. La Federació Nacional d'Estudiants de Catalunya de 1932 a 1986. Publicacions de l'Abadia de Montserrat, Barcelona 2005. 314 pp. € 15.00.
This is the first history of the National Federation of Students of Catalonia, founded in 1932 and prohibited by Franco, together with all other Catalan manifestations, in 1939. The author chronicles the life of the organization through the political struggles of the 1930s, dealing at length with the Civil War period, when the FNEC briefly joined the Unión General de Trabajadores. The book ends with the story of exile, clandestinity and the FNEC's resurrection in 1982.
Girón Sierra, Álvaro. En la mesa con Darwin. Evolución y revolución en el movimiento libertario en España (1869-1914). [Estudios sobre la ciencia, 40.] Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid 2005. 450 pp. € 33.65.
The author, who wrote about the topic previously in Evolucionismo y anarquismo en España (1996) (see IRSH, 43 (1998), p. 192), shows how the various evolutionary theories spawned by Darwin's work and transmitted chiefly by others such as Petr Kropotkin or Herbert Spencer influenced two generations of Spanish anarchists. In the first part he analyses the impact of the new vision of Nature, Man's simian origins and notions like the "struggle for life" and "survival of the fittest". In the second part he discusses how evolution and heredity have affected opportunities for equality and progress. While Anselmo Lorenzo, Federico Urales and Ricardo Mella are covered in detail, this study covers a broad scope.
Heredia Urzáiz, Iván. Delitos políticos y orden social. Historia de la cárcel de Torrero (1928-1939). Mira editores, Zaragoza 2005. 379 pp. € 18.99.
Based on the well-preserved records from Zaragoza's Torrero prison, which was opened in 1928 and demolished in 2005, the author explores its history to shed new light on the penal systems of the Second Republic and its successor, the military rebels who seized power in this left-wing city in July 1936. The author retraces the reforms instigated by Victoria Kent, the results of the public order and vagrancy legislation of the early 1930s and the use of the prison records to identify leftists after Franco's coup. He is particularly detailed in his analysis of life and death at Torrero during the Civil War.
Manuel Buenacasa. Militacia, cultura y acción libertarias. Miscelánea de textos, 1917-1964. Ed. by Jesús Cirac Febas, Jesús [y] José Luis Ledesma Vera. Centro de estudios comarcales del bajo Aragón de la Institución "Fernando el Católico", Caspe 2005. 320 pp. Ill. € 14.00.
Manuel Buenacasa Tomeo (1886-1964) was an important militant of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo and the author of a well-known history of the Spanish labour movement (1928). This book, above all an anthology of his writings collected from periodicals such as Solidaridad Obrera and El Productor (about 200 pages), also features a substantial biographical sketch and several interesting photographs.
Manuel Monleón. Diseño y vanguardia. (Disseny i avanguarda.) Ed. a cura d'Antoni Paricio. Pentagraf Editorial; Fundació Salvador Segui; Biblioteca Valenciana, Valencia 2005. 181 pp. Ill. € 36.00.
This is the catalogue from an exhibition of the work of Manuel Monleón Burgos (1904-1976) organized in Valencia on the centenary of his birth. From the early 1930s, Monleón worked as a designer for various progressive publishing houses and, during the Civil War, for several different political organizations, most notably the Partido Sindicalista. Imprisoned from 1939-1942, he resumed his work after his release but left Spain for Columbia in 1950, returning only in 1962. Many colour reproductions illustrate his work throughout his life. A documentary film on DVD accompanies the book.
Martínez Leal, Juan. Los socialistas en acción. La II República en Elche (1931-1936). Publicaciones de la Universidad de Alicante, Alicante 2005. 166 pp. Ill. € 15.00.
Elche was governed by socialists for most of the duration of the Second Republic. Using local and regional archives and newspapers, the author examines the vicissitudes of their administration of this city of about 40,000 inhabitants and discusses the social and political struggles, increasingly radical and polarized, and the ensuing politicization of public life, from the first quarrels about the celebration of religious festivals in 1931 through the bitter strikes of 1934 to the eruption of violence following the elections of February 1936, as the country lapsed into the Civil War.
Olaya Morales, Francisco. Las Verdades Ocultas de la Guerra Civil. Las conspiraciones que cambiaron el rumbo de la República. Belacqva, Barcelona 2005. 398 pp. €23.00.
The author, an anarchist militant and historian born in 1923, adds to his earlier publications on the policy of non-intervention in the Civil War, the Negrín government and related topics. In this book he reviews events from the fall of Primo de Rivera to Franco's pronunciamiento to understand the causes of the Civil War better. Amply quoting from contemporary documents, he concentrates on how the Church, the military and the political organizations on the Right reacted to the reforms attempted by the Left.
Peloille, Manuelle. Fascismo en ciernes. España 1922-1930. Textos recuperados. Prólogo de José-Carlos Mainer. Presses Universitaires du Mirail, Toulouse 2006. 175 pp. Ill. € 22.00.
Derived from the author's doctoral dissertation on La Représentation du fascisme dans la presse espagnole (Bordeaux, 2001), this book is divided in almost equal parts between an anthology of newspaper articles that presented Italian fascism to a Spanish readership just before and during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera and an introduction discussing why fascist reverberations did not materialize earlier in Spain. After exploring keywords of the period (including cirujano de hierro), the author points out the initial fascination that Mussolini exuded toward both conservative and liberal newspapers, the slowly evolving doubts of the liberals and the reservations of the Catholic Right.
Pérez Brito, Raquel. El Anarquismo y los orígenes del movimiento obrero canario (1900-1910): la influencia de las ideas libertarias en la formación de la conciencia obrera. Edita Asociación Beecham, La Laguna 2005. 254 pp. € 12.00.
This is a study of the difficult beginnings of working class movements on the Canary Islands, chiefly (but differently) in Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, and of the anarchist grupos de afinidad that soon emerged alongside or within them. The author has used and quotes at length from whatever newspapers were available. Separate chapters deal with the "centre of social studies" Luz y Vida and the eponymous journal, with its interest in naturism and neo-malthusianism; the association Trabajo y Voluntad, which created a "rational school"; the periodical En Marcha; the role of women; and the debate on violence.
Pobreza, marginación, delicuencia y politicas sociales bajo el franquismo. Ed. Conxita Mir, Carme Agustí [y] Josep Gelonch. Edicions de la Universitat de Lleida, Lleida 2005. 229 pp. € 15.00.
One outcome of the Civil War was the emergence of large marginalized groups, with high proportions of women and children, in a society dominated by vindictive victors. The seven contributions to this volume review various legal and social aspects of the position of such groups, whose situation was all the more precarious given the prevailing economic circumstances, as discussed in one of the essays. Special attention is paid to the problem of prostitution, the charitable activities of Auxilio Social and the Acción Católica and the attitude of the majority of the population, as compared with contemporaneous Germany. A bibliography is appended.
Retrato de la resistencia Carlos Soriano. Un anarquista en la posguerra española. Coord. Alfonso Salazar y Javier Benítez. La isleta del Moro, Granada 2005. 250 pp. € 18.00.
Carlos Soriano Águila (1905-1980) was an Andalusian anarchist who figured prominently in the underground reorganization of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo in Spain after his release from prison in 1946. Some of the sixteen contributions to this volume are devoted to his biography, others to the more general context of his life. Apart from two interviews with Soriano, the articles address anarchism in Andalusia on the eve of the Civil War, anarchism and violence, the Republican special forces nicknamed Niños de la Noche, the concentration camp at Albatera, Ramón Acín and anarchist tactics after the Civil War.
Romero Marín, Juanjo. La construcción de la cultura del oficio durante la industrialización. Barcelona, 1814-1860. [Collecció Historia del Treball, Volum 1.] Icaria Editorial, Barcelona 2005. 318 pp. € 17.00.
Basing himself on notarial records, as well as on other evidence, the author reconstructs the history of artisans and journeymen ("the great orphans of social history") in Barcelona before and after the liberal labour laws of 1834 changed their world forever. He uses a labour-culture approach to analyse their survival strategies in the new society that was emerging together with modern capitalism, paying special attention to those working in the food, cloth, timber, metal and leather trades. A separate chapter is devoted to the intricate links of the craft trades with the city and the impact of change on family life.
Switzerland
Fremd in Zürich - fremdes Zürich? Migration, Kultur und Identität im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Hrsg.: Peter Niederhäuser und Ulrich, Anita. [Mitteilungen der Antiquarische Gesellschaft in Zürich, Band 72]. Chronos, Zürich 2005. 198 pp. Ill. € 38.80. The fifteen essays in this volume deal with the experience of migration and of migrants in the city of Zurich in the last two centuries. Adopting a broad perspective, encompassing migrants from both within and outside Switzerland, contributors write, for example, about the assimilation of Jews in Zurich in the second half of the nineteenth century (Robert Kaufmann); the experiences of Italian and Czechoslovakian guest workers in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s (Elisabeth Joris, Sarah Bolleter, Dana Landau) and Zurich as a central base for German social democrats during the Sozialistengesetz (1878-1890) (Markus Bürgi).