General Issues
Social Theory and Social Science
Geoghegan, Vincent. Utopianism and Marxism. [Ralahine Utopian Studies. Volume 4.] Peter Lang, Oxford [etc.] 2008. 189 pp. € 33.30.
This is a reissue of a text that was first published in 1987, in which the author, assuming that utopianism is ubiquitous in all political ideologies, examines the utopian aspects of Marxism that remained present within the tradition, despite the critique of the utopian by Marx and Engels, within the Second International and within various strands of Marxism throughout the twentieth century. In his introduction to this new edition, Professor Geogehan reflects on his own work twenty years later.
Linden, Marcel van der. Workers of the World. Essays toward a Global Labor History. [Studies in Global Social History, Vol. 1.] Brill, Leiden [etc]. 2008. viii, 469 pp. € 129.00; $192.00.
In the sixteen chapters in this volume, ten of which are based on previously published essays, Professor van der Linden aims to elaborate a concept of global labour history that avoids eurocentrism and methodological nationalism. In his arguments and conceptual tools for a labour history that integrates the history of slavery and indentured labour and incorporates diverging and yet interconnected developments in different parts of the world, the author considers the nature, definition, and composition of the working class; forms and logic of the collective action elaborated by the working class; and potential contributions of adjacent disciplines to the concept of global labour history. See also the review essay by Matthias Middell in this volume, pp. 515–527.
Panitch, Leo. Renewing Socialism. Transforming Democracy, Strategy and Imagination. Merlin Press, Pontypool 2008. viii, 226 pp. £14.95.
This is the second edition of a volume originally published in 2001, in which Professor Panitch brings together a selection of his contributions to the annual Socialist Register examining the failures of socialism in the twentieth century and aims to offer a new vision on a socialism for the twenty-first century. He calls for a change in focus from the accumulation of capital to the accumulation of political, economic, social, environmental, and human capacities. This second edition includes an interview with the author, in which he discusses, for example, whether social parties can avoid the mistakes of communist and social democratic parties in the twentieth century.
Poulantzas, Nicos. The Poulantzas Reader. Marxism, Law and the State. Ed. by James Martin. Verso, London [etc.] 2008. 437 pp. £60.00.
This anthology brings together a broad selection of writings in legal philosophy and political sociology by the Greek Marxist theorist Nicos Poulantzas (1936–1979), including a number of articles appearing here for the first time in English translation. The editor aims to present a representative selection from Poulantzas’s scholarly interest throughout his career, in which he became known above all for his theory of the capitalist state and its “relative autonomy” from class interests and for the ensuing debate with other Marxist theorists, such as Ralph Miliband. In his introduction, Dr Martin surveys Poulantzas’s evolving theoretical concerns.
Saint-Paul, Gilles. Innovation and Inequality. How Does Technical Progress Affect Workers? Princeton University Press, Princeton [etc.] 2008. xiv, 190 pp. £35.00.
Although technical innovation has led to considerable economic growth throughout the twentieth century, the last three decades have shown a worrying phenomenon: a rise in wage inequality that has left a substantial portion of the workforce worse off, despite the continuing productivity growth in the global economy. Professor Saint-Paul provides in this study a theoretical analysis of the most important mechanisms by which technical progress and innovation affect labour market systems and therefore income distribution. He argues that the nature of technical innovation and of information technology in particular, plays a major role in this process.
Souza, Jessé. Die Naturalisierung der Ungleichheit. Ein neues Paradigma zum Verständnis peripherer Gesellschaften. Mit einem Vorwort von Alex Honneth. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2008. 184 pp. € 29.90.
In this revised version of his Habilitationsschrift, Professor Souza elaborates a new, critical alternative to existing modernization theories, in which he transcends earlier alternative theories that acknowledge the possibility of multiple forms of modernity. Synthesizing the moralistic hermeneutics of the Canadian social theorist Charles Taylor and Bourdieu’s concept of various forms of social and cultural capital, he sketches a concept of a multiple modernity that incorporates the polarity of equality and inequality, applying it to present-day Brazilian society, devising a concomitant concept of “subaltern citizenship”.
Tilly, Charles. Contentious Performances. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2008. xvi, 235 pp. £45.00.
Historical sociologist Charles Tilly (1929–2008) developed the influential concept of repertoires of contention in the late 1970s. In this posthumously published study, Professor Tilly aims to explicate, verify, and refine the concept, twinned with the concept of contentious performance. Drawing on evidence from Great Britain between 1758 and 1834, he presents a logic and method for describing contentious events and aims to show, by means of detailed analyses of contentious events in Britain, how the logic of these twinned concepts yields superior explanations of the dynamics in contentious events. For an elaborate discussion of the concept, see also Marcel van der Linden’s Survey, IRSH, 54 (2009), pp. 237–274.
History
Cheng, Yinghong. Creating the “New Man”. From Enlightenment Ideals to Socialist Realities. [Perspectives on the Global Past.] University of Hawai’i Press, Honolulu 2009. x, 265 pp. $60.00.
This study opens by exploring the idea of human perfectibility during the Enlightenment and traces the development of the ideological framework for reshaping human nature by examining three culturally diverse socio-political experiments that introduced such ideas in practice: the Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin; China under Mao; and Cuba under Castro. Considering how these communist revolutions aimed to create a new, morally and psychologically superior human being, Professor Cheng examines how this goal was linked to specific political and economic programmes, and how it derived from respective national and cultural traditions. See also Jeffrey Brooks’s review in this volume, pp. 529–530.
Ishay, Micheline R. The History of Human Rights. From Ancient Times to the Globalization Era. With a New Preface. University of California Press, Berkeley [etc.] 2008. xxi, 450 pp. Ill. £16.95.
This is a second edition of a comprehensive overview of the history of human rights from its ancient origins in religious and secular notions of universalism, through the role of the Enlightenment and the socialist perspective, to the era of late twentieth-century globalization and its impact of human rights. In her preface to this new edition, Professor Ishay analyses recent debates about human rights, globalization, and the position of the United States and the question as to whether this nation should be regarded as the global guardian of human rights.
Karl Marx’s Grundrisse. Foundations of the critique of political economy 150 years later. Ed. by Marcello Musto. [Routledge frontiers of political economy, Vol 109.] Routledge, London [etc.] 2008. xxvi, 291 pp. £65.00.
The 32 chapters in this collection mark the 150th anniversary of the composition of Marx’s Grundrisse. After a foreword by Eric Hobsbawn, the first eight chapters deal with the main themes emerging from reading the Grundrisse: method, value, alienation, surplus value, historical materialism, ecological contradictions, socialism, and a comparison between the Grundrisse and Capital. In the next three chapters, the editor and Michael R. Krätke reconstruct the biographical and theoretical contexts in which Marx wrote these manuscripts, while the last 21 contributions offer a comprehensive account of the dissemination and reception of the Grundrisse in all languages into which it has been translated in full.
Tree of Liberty. Cultural Legacies of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World. Ed. by Doris L. Garraway. [New World Studies]. University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville [etc.] 2008. vi, 280 pp. £58.09.
The ten essays in this volume, half of which are based on papers presented at the symposium “The Haitian Revolution: History, Memory, Representation”, held at Northwestern University in October 2004, aim to interrogate the literary, historical, and political discourses that the Haitian Revolution has produced and inspired throughout the Atlantic region. Coming from French and francophone studies, English, comparative literature, history, Latin American and Caribbean studies, and African American studies, the contributors set out to reappraise not only the Revolution’s cultural legacies but also its importance for debates in postcolonial, Black Atlantic, Caribbean, and New World Studies.
Unfreie und abhängige Landbevölkerung. Hrsg. von Elisabeth Herrmann-Otto. [Sklaverei, Knechtschaft, Zwangsarbeit, Band 4.] Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim [etc.] 2008. xii, 173 pp. € 34.80.
The three contributions to this volume, based on a workshop organized at the University of Trier in July 2005, examine to what extent people working land they did not own should be considered personally (i.e. partially) unfree, serfs or even slaves? Karl-Wilhelm Welwei reviews the origins, distribution, and forms of the dependent rural population in Ancient Greece; Miroslava Mirkovič the position of the coloni (free land workers) and the consequence of Codex Theodosianus from 332; and Michael Zeuske considers a more extended perspective in his introductory exploration of the typology of the beginnings, conditions, and long-term developments of bondage of the dependent rural population in the Atlantic area and the Americas from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries.
Zancarini-Fournel, Michelle. Le moment 68. Une histoire contestée. [L’univers historique.] Éditions du Seuil, Paris 2008. 313 pp. € 22.00.
In this study of the history and the historiography of the global phenomenon of “May 68”, Professor Zancarini-Fournel offers a reinterpretation of the events, stripped of the mythology that quickly evolved around them. In the first section of the book she analyses the manifold ways that the crisis of 1968 was covered and subsequently appropriated in journalists’ writing, in memoirs, in social and cultural theory, and in historiography. Inventorying the wide variety of source material in the second section, she aims in the third and last section to reconstruct the course of events in different countries in all its complexity.
Comparative History
Finding the Way Home. Young People’s Stories of Gender, Ethnicity, Class, and Places in Hamburg and London. Hrsg. von Nora Räthzel mit Phil Cohen, Les Back, Michael Keith [u.a.]. [Transkulturelle Perspektiven, Band 7.] V&R Unipress, Göttingen 2008. 319 pp. Ill. € 34.90.
This collection of ethnographic studies brings together ten contributions that aim to compare the ways in which young people from different ethnic backgrounds in Hamburg and in London in the recent period relate to each other in spatial contexts at the level of the neighbourhood, cities, and nation states. Drawing on data from interviews, creative writing, art work, and experience from an exchange programme, the contributors explore how friendships, tensions, and adversities are negotiated, and how relations of ethnicity, class, and gender vary in different socio-spatial contexts.
Haggard, Stephan and Robert R Kaufman. Development, Democracy and Welfare States. Latin America, East Asia, and Eastern Europe. Princeton University Press, Princeton [etc.] 2008. xxvi, 473 pp. £21.95.
Following up on their earlier co-authored The Political Economy of Democratic Transitions (1995), Professors Haggard and Kaufman examine in this comparative study of welfare states in Latin America, east Asia and eastern Europe the historical origins of social policy in these regions to establish how the choices made then influenced the welfare reform following democratization and globalization at the end of the twentieth century. They conclude that the exclusionary system in Latin America led to more liberal social-policy reforms, that social entitlements in eastern Europe limited the scope of liberal reforms, and that high economic growth in east Asia offered opportunities for broader social entitlements.
Piquet, Nathalie. Charbon – Travail forcé – Collaboration. Der nordfranzösische und belgische Bergbau unter deutscher Besatzung, 1940 bis 1944. [Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für soziale Bewegungen, Schriftenreihe C: Arbeitseinsatz und Zwangsarbeit im Bergbau, Band 6.] Klartext Verlag, Essen 2008. 373 pp. € 34.95.
The coalmining districts in northern France and Belgium were put under one joint military administration during the German occupation from 1940 onward. This slightly revised edition of a dissertation (University of Bochum, 2007) compares the impact of the German occupation in both coal-mining areas, with regard to relations between the state, employers, and workers. Dr Piquet focuses in particular on comparing employment policies in the two mining areas.
Strobel, Christoph. The Testing Grounds of Modern Empire. The Making of Colonial Racial Order in the American Ohio Country and the South African Eastern Cape, 1770s–1850s. Peter Lang, New York [etc.] 2008. x, 195 pp. € 53.00.
Comparing the American Ohio country and the South African Eastern Cape, this study examines the effects of the intrusion of people of European origin on these two areas and their indigenous populations from the second half of the eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. Comparing processes of dispossessions, violence, dislocation, and undermining indigenous sovereignty, Professor Strobel explores the making of two colonial racial orders in the course of these processes of colonization and empire-building, and its consequences for the development of imperialism and the construction of race in the United States, southern Africa, and around the world.
Contemporary Issues
Bayat, Asef. Life as Politics. How Ordinary People Change the Middle East. [ISIM Series on Contemporary Muslim Societies.] Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2010. xi, 304 pp. € 39.90.
In this collection of essays on social change, agency, and contentious politics in the modern Muslim Middle East, Professor Bayat argues that dominant concepts from social-movement theory tend to obscure forms of agency and activism in the region that he labels “social nonmovements”. Raising a number of theoretical and methodological issues regarding agency and social change, he uses the concept of non-movements to refer to collective action of non-collective actors (the urban poor, international illegal migrants, etc.), who, in their daily struggle to survive and better their lives, trigger social change. See also Zachary Lockman’s review in this volume, pp. 534–537.
Khasnabish, Alex. Zapatismo beyond Borders. New Imaginations of Political Possibility. University of Toronto Press, Toronto [etc.] 2008. x, 300 pp. $75.00.; £48.00. (Paper: £22.50.)
Drawing on fieldwork with activists and his own experience with the struggle for social justice, Professor Khasnabish examines in this study the impact and significance of the Zapatista struggle that has been fought in the south-eastern Mexican state of Chiapas from 1994 onward and the political and social ideology (Zapatismo) that has evolved from it. He aims to show how thanks to its transnational resonance and dissemination, Zapatismo has become exemplary among grass-roots organizations and has been an inspiration to the anti-globalization movement at the turn of the twentieth and first decade of the twenty-first century.
Continents and Countries
America
Canada
Parnaby, Andrew. Citizen Docker. Making a New Deal on the Vancouver Waterfront, 1919–1939. [The Canadian Social History Series.] University of Toronto Press, Toronto [etc.] 2008. viii, 243 pp. Ill. $65.00; £40.00. (Paper: $27.95; £18.00.)
After years of industrial strife, Canadian employers on the Vancouver waterfront in the 1920s embarked on a comprehensive reform agenda to ease industrial relations, increase the efficiency of the port and recondition the longshoremen into citizens. This study examines how this programme of welfare capitalism was developed and implemented, and how the waterfront workers responded to it. Professor Parnaby also considers the collapse of this interwar consensus as a result of the Great Depression, and argues that at the same time welfare capitalism played an important role in the cultural transformation that took place after World War II.
Petrou, Michael. Renegades. Canadians in the Spanish Civil War. [Studies in Canadian Military History.] UBC Press, Vancouver [etc.] 2008. xxii, 282 pp. Ill. $85.00. (Paper: $24.95.)
During the Spanish Civil War, almost 1,700 Canadians volunteered to fight in the International Brigades, thereby defying their government. Based on interviews with veterans and archival materials that recently have come available, in this study Mr Petrou examines the roles and fates of these volunteers, their backgrounds and reasons for volunteering, and the reaction of the Canadian government following their return. Individual biographical portraits of three individual volunteers are included.
Mexico
Brunk, Samuel. The Posthumous Career of Emiliano Zapata. Myth, Memory, and Mexico’s Twentieth Century. [Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Series in Latin American and Latino Art and Culture.] University of Texas Press, Austin 2008. x, 353 pp. Ill. $45.00.
Following his biography Emiliano Zapata: Revolution & Betrayal in Mexico (1995, see IRSH, 42 (1997), pp. 468–470, 493), Professor Brunk studies in this book the impact of the historical figure of Zapata and of the frameworks of myth and commemoration around this charismatic revolutionary upon Mexican politics and culture in the twentieth century. In the course of investigating a wide range of artistic, geographical, and militaristic applications of this icon, he analyses the character of the Mexican revolution spawned by Zapata’s rebellion.
Owensby, Brian P. Empire of Law and Indian Justice in Colonial Mexico. Stanford University Press, Stanford (Calif.) 2008. x, 379 pp. $65.00.
Focusing on colonial Mexico from 1590 to 1700, this study explores how Indians tried to apply Spanish legal principles and processes to gain a measure of control over their own lives and to establish a relationship with the colonizing power. Examining numerous cases involving indigenous men and women who brought petitions and filed lawsuits, Professor Owensby focuses on cases raising fundamental issue in the lives of these colonial subjects, including land ownership and labour relations disputes. He argues that these cases form the first early modern experience with cosmopolitan legality.
United States of America
Arredondo, Gabriela F. Mexican Chicago. Race, Identity and Nation, 1916–39. [Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Centennial Series.] University of Illinois Press, Urbana [etc.] 2008. xii, 255 pp. Ill. $60.00. (Paper: $25.00.)
In this study of Mexican immigrants in the city of Chicago in the years 1916–1939, Professor Arrendondo contends that Mexicans were not simply another ethnic group to be assimilated in a city with a long history of incorporating newcomers, but that because of their experiences with racializing prejudice and their own responses to such discrimination from a revolutionary and postrevolutionary Mexican context, they constructed their own “Mexicanness”. Exploring the repercussions of that identity formation process, the author also aims to highlight important differences and divisions among Mexicans themselves, in particular along the lines of class and gender.
Baker, Bruce E. This Mob Will Surely Take My Life. Lynchings in the Carolinas, 1871–1947. Continuum, London [etc.] 2008. Ill. xii, 242 pp. £25.00.
This is a detailed study of seven lynchings in North Carolina and South Carolina from the Reconstruction period to the start of the civil rights era in the 1940s. Professor Baker aims to analyse the deeper causes and broader contexts of these individual events that may explain how lynching marked the violent boundaries of race and class relations in the American South in this period, arguing that the power of narrative plays an important role at various levels in the history of mob violence and lynching.
Battista, Andrew. The Revival of Labor Liberalism. University of Illinois Press, Urbana [etc.] 2008. x, 268 pp. $45.00.
The author of this study uses documentary research and interviews with labour leaders and political activists to explore two interrelated developments in the history and politics of the labour-liberal coalition in the United States since 1968. Professor Battista argues that the divisive issues that fractured the alliance, which had led to the New Deal and the Great Society policies in the second third of the twentieth century, not only instigated numerous efforts to revive the coalition but also brought about internal division in the labour movement, causing an internal shift of power.
Dossett, Kate. Bridging Race Divides. Black Nationalism, Feminism, and Integration in the United States, 1896–1935. University Press of Florida, Gainesville [etc.] 2008. xvi, 268 pp. $59.95. (Paper: $29.95.)
This study explores the careers of a group of black women activists, clubwomen, writer-intellectuals and businesswomen, who between the founding of the National Association of Colored Women in 1896 and the National Council of Negro Women in 1935 contributed substantially to black feminist thought and helped shape debates about solutions to racial problems in the United States. Challenging demonizing interpretations that depict middle-class black women’s endeavours towards racial uplift as assimilationist, Dr Dossett positions these women and their social and cultural networks at the forefront in the struggle for black autonomy.
Frymer, Paul. Black and Blue. African Americans, the Labor Movement, and the Decline of the Democratic Party. [Princeton Studies in American Politics.] Princeton University Press, Princeton [etc.] 2008. xii, 202 pp. £14.95.
In this study of the fight for racial diversity within the US labour movement and union ranks during the twentieth century, Professor Frymer argues that institutions play a larger role in labour-movement racism than is commonly acknowledged. Focusing on the development of the Democratic Party in and after the New-Deal era, he taps into the broader debates on white working-class racism, American political development, and the role of the state and the courts to show how Democrats split the class and race issues into two sets of institutions, neither of which had enough authority to integrate the labour movement.
Gilmore, Glenda Elizabeth. Defying Dixie. The Radical Roots of Civil Rights, 1919–1950. W.W. Norton, New York [etc.] 2008. xii, 642 pp. Ill. £25.00.
This study aims to give a comprehensive historical overview of the origins of the civil rights movement of the 1960s in a broader movement in the American South consisting of variable coalitions and combinations of radicals, labour activists, newspaper editors, black workers, and intellectuals. Professor Gilmore distinguishes three periods and notes the international connections that activists (especially communists) had. In her concluding chapter, the author shows how this earlier history of the fight against racial oppression and segregation was effaced by Cold War anti-leftist ideology.
Hill, Rebecca N. Men, Mobs, and Law. Anti-Lynching and Labor Defense in U.S. Radical History. Duke University Press, Durham [etc.] 2008. x, 413 pp. Ill. £17.99.
Comparing anti-lynching and labour-defence movements in the late nineteenth and twentieth-century United States, Professor Hill aims to show that these protest movements are related and have substantially influenced one another. Focusing on famous cases, such as the trial and execution of the abolitionist John Brown, the NAACP’s anti-lynching campaigns, the IWW’s labour defence campaigns, and the Black Panther Party’s defence of George Jackson, she argues that in all these cases activists worked to build alliances through appeals to public opinion in the media, by defining the American state as a force of terror, and by creating a heroic identity for their movements.
Hodges, Graham Russell Gao. Taxi! A Social History of the New York City Cabdriver. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 2007. viii, 225 pp. Ill. $25.00.
This study offers a historical overview of New York cabdrivers, from their early origins as mid-nineteenth-century coachmen of carriages shuttling New York residents to the present day, when more than 12,000 licensed yellow cabs operate in Manhattan alone. In chronologically ordered chapters, Professor Hodges deals with issues such as the social and cultural backgrounds of cabdrivers, labour unrest, racial strife, competition, and political machinations among cabdrivers.
Johnson, Victoria. How Many Machine Guns Does It Take to Cook One Meal? The Seattle and San Francisco General Strikes. University of Washington Press, Seattle [etc.] 2008. xvi, 165 pp. £14.99.
Focusing on the 1919 Seattle General Strike and the 1934 San Francisco General Strike, Professor Johnson examines the conditions that gave rise to these great strikes, and how the events were justified by the participants. She argues that, contrary to the usual explanations by labour historians, the strikers were much more inspired by distinctly American notions of workplace democracy. She traces these notions back to the political philosophies of Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine and argues that organized labour’s failure to draw on these traditions in later decades contributed to its failures and the increasing conservatism of American political culture.
Liberated Territory. Untold Local Perspectives on the Black Panther Party. Ed. by Yohuru Williams, and Jama Lazerow. Duke University Press, Durham [etc.] 2008. 303 pp. £17.99.
The five chapters in this collection explore various local manifestations of the Black Panther Party and related organizations in the United States from the late 1960s onward. Looking at party chapters, branches, and offshoots in New Bedford (Massachusetts), Alabama, Detroit, and Milwaukee, the contributors examine the often complex relationship between the above-ground activities, such as promoting literacy and heath care and the struggle for jobs and decent food, and underground wings dedicated to armed struggle, to show how the national party’s ideologies, goals, and strategies were taken up and adapted locally.
Mapes, Kathleen. Sweet Tyranny. Migrant Labor, Industrial Agriculture, and Imperial Politics. [The Working Class in American History.] University of Illinois Press, Urbana [etc.] 2009. xi, 307 pp. Ill. $80.00. (Paper: $30.00.)
The introduction of the sugar-beet industry in the American rural midwest at the end of the nineteenth century started the development of industrial agriculture, including the opening of large factories, contract farming, and foreign migrant labour. Professor Mapes explores in this study the roles and positions of various groups involved in this process, such as midwestern family farmers, agricultural industrialists, eastern and Mexican migrant workers, and rural reformers, and aims to relate local developments in the American midwest to the global development of the world sugar market, American imperialism, and immigration policies. See also Ulbe Bosma’s review in this volume, pp. 531–532.
Rivera, Lorna. Laboring to Learn. Women’s Literacy and Poverty in the Post-Welfare Era. University of Illinois Press, Urbana [etc.] 2008. x, 176 pp. Ill. $70.00. (Paper: $ 25.00.)
This is an ethnographic study of formerly homeless women in the United States, who in the past decades participated in adult literacy education classes before and after welfare reform. Professor Rivera argues that poverty is reproduced when women with low literacy skills are pushed into welfare-to-work programmes and denied education, and analyses how various neo-liberal discourses about individual choice and self-sufficiency compromise the goals of critical literacy programmes and influence women’s self-images.
Shaw, Randy. Beyond the Fields. Cesar Chavez, the UFW, and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century. University of California Press, Berkeley [etc.]. 2008. xv, 347 pp. Ill. £14.95.
This study combines a history of the rise and decline of the United Farm Workers (UFW), the influential movement of agricultural workers in the United States that peaked at the end of the 1970s under the inspiring leadership of Cesar Chavez, with an analysis of its impact as a role model for the progressive movement in the United States since the 1980s. Dr Shaw argues not only that the UFW became the leading incubator of young activist talent, but also that many of the ideas, tactics, and strategies from Chavez and the UFW are now commonplace in movements that advance social and economic justice.
Slavishak, Edward. Bodies of Work. Civic Display and Labor in Industrial Pittsburgh. Duke University Press, Durham [etc.] 2008. x, 354 pp. Ill. £57.00. (Paper: £13.99.)
Pittsburgh emerged at the end of the nineteenth century as the leading producer of steel, glass, and coal in the United States. As these industries were almost exclusively male, this study explores how competing images of the male workforce came to symbolize multiple, often contradictory and competing, narratives about the essential character of Pittsburgh and of industrial labour. Professor Slavishak combines labour history, cultural history, and visual culture studies to deal with issues such as the Homestead strike, the role of labour reformers, the presence of women in the workforce, workplace safety and accidents, and the marketing of artificial limbs.
Steensland, Brian. The Failed Welfare Revolution. America’s Struggle over Guaranteed Income Policy. Princeton University Press, Princeton [etc.] 2008. xii, 304 pp. £19.95.
During the 1960s and 1970s, revolutionary plans were developed in the United States to guarantee Americans basic economic security through a guaranteed annual income (GAI), plans that, surprisingly enough, received broad bipartisan support. This study sets out to uncover this largely forgotten episode in the history of the American welfare state. Professor Steensland looks at the partly culturally defined causes of the failure of these proposals and explores the consequences of this failure for the development of welfare reform strategies in the last two decades of the twentieth century.
Summerhill, Thomas. Harvest of Dissent. Agrarianism in Nineteenth-Century New York. University of Illinois Press, Urbana [etc.] 2008. xi, 287 pp. Ill. $25.00.
In this study of the character of agrarian movements in the state of New York during the nineteenth century, Professor Summerhill examines the farmers’ response to the emergence of capitalist market agriculture during this period. Looking at both local and national agrarian movements (such as the anti-rent movement and the Grange movement, respectively), he aims to demonstrate how the process of drawing farmers into capitalist markets was a protracted one, in which farmers alternately resisted and embraced capitalist market agriculture.
Asia
China
Clark, Paul. The Chinese Cultural Revolution. A History. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2008. xii, 352 pp. Ill. £45.00; $80.00.
Drawing on his own experience as an exchange student in Beijing from 1974 to 1976, Professor Clark explores in this study cultural life in China during the turbulent decade of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). Looking at a broad range of cultural forms, from film, opera, and dance to music, literature, and architecture, he argues against the standard characterization of this decade as one of chaos and destruction, and contends that innovation and creativity, promotion of participation in cultural production and promotion of the modern were typical of the Cultural Revolution.
India
Caste in History. Ed. by Ishita Banerjee Dube. [Oxford in India Readings.] Oxford University Press, New Delhi [etc.] 2008. lxiv, 303 pp. £19.99.
This volume brings together twenty-two contributions, of which fifteen were previously published between 1950 and 2005, on the diverse interpretations and understandings of caste in pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial India. Addressing different regions in India from the seventeenth century to the present, the chapters are organized thematically, covering caste in colonial times; the articulation of caste in practice in various periods and regions; the relation of caste and politics; and everyday experiences of caste.
Mazumdar, Dipak and Sandip Sarkar. Globalization, Labor Markets and Inequality in India. [Routledge Studies in the Growth Economies of Asia, Vol. 79.] Routledge [etc.], London [etc.] 2008. xx, 356 pp. Maps. £85.00.
The reforms and liberalization of economic policy implemented in India from the 1980s onward have had a huge impact on poverty, inequality, and employment. This study uses analysis of unit-level data sources to examine these aspects of post-reform India. The authors explore trends in poverty, inequality, employment and earnings; differences between economic sectors and regions; and the effects on labour-market institutions, in both the formal and the informal sectors.
Ray, Raka and Seemin Qayum. Cultures of Servitude. Modernity, Domesticity, and Class in India. Stanford University Press, Stanford (Calif.) 2009. xiv, 255 pp. Ill. $65.00. (Paper: $22.95; E-book $22.95.)
In this ethnographic study of domestic life and servitude in contemporary Kolkata, India, the authors explore the practices and meaning of servitude around the home and in the public sphere, with an emphasis on the social and in particular the class relations involved. Professor Ray and Dr Qayum aim to show how employers position themselves as middle and upper class through evolving methods of servant and home management, while servants seek to cope with the challenges of these relations of domination and inequality and the embedded cultural distinction. See also Marina de Regt’s review in this volume, pp. 537–539.
Israel
Piterberg, Gabriel. The Returns of Zionism. Myths, Politics and Scholarship in Israel. Verso, London [etc.] 2008. xvii, 298 pp. £60.00. (Paper; £16.99.)
This study investigates the origins of Zionism in late nineteenth-century central-eastern European nationalism and settler movements and argues that Zionist’s founding texts can be placed within a wider discourse of western colonization. Exploring the works of Theodor Herzl and Gershom Shalem, as well as other, lesser-known scholars and thinkers influential in the formation of Zionism, Dr Piterberg aims to show that Zionist ideology expressed a consciousness and imagination typical of colonial settler movements of the time, but that in the process of constructing its own view of the world, excluded the voices of the indigenous people of Palestine.
South Korea
Mi Park. Democracy and Social Change. A History of South Korean Student Movements, 1980–2000. Peter Lang, Oxford [etc.] 2008. 291 pp. € 47.30.
In the transition process from authoritarianism to democracy, the radical student movement played a major role in mobilizing a strong opposition to the Chun administration that finally led to democratic political reforms. This study examines the roots of the radical student movement, paying attention to the organizing methods, patterns of changing ideologies and political tactics. Dr Park has used extensive interview materials from former student activists.
Europe
Bandelj, Nina. From Communists to Foreign Capitalists. The Social Foundations of Foreign Direct Investment in Postsocialist Europe. Princeton University Press, Princeton [etc.] 2008. xviii, 303 pp. £19.95.
This study considers the process of foreign direct investments in central and eastern European countries after the fall of communism and the rise of globalization from a sociological perspective. Based on an examination of how eleven post-socialist countries have treated direct foreign investments as integral to their market transition, Professor Bandelj concludes that the inflow of foreign capital resulted less from the withdrawal of states from the economy than from the active involvement of post-socialist states in institutionalizing and legitimizing and thus facilitating economic transformation.
Clark, Linda L. Women and Achievement in Nineteenth-Century Europe. [New Approaches to European History, vol. 41.] Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2008. ix, 300 pp. Ill. £40.00; $80.00. (Paper: £15.99; $24.99.)
Surveying women’s achievements in literature, art, music, theatre, charity, education, medicine, law and public administration, this textbook examines women’s professional activities and organizational roles in Europe during the long nineteenth century. Looking into the relationship between women’s professional and philanthropic activity and the rise of feminist organizations, Professor Clark argues that, despite all sorts of obstacles, thousands of women pursued professional activities for reasons that often combined economic need with aspirations to do meaningful work and gain public recognition.
Guilds, Innovation and the European Economy, 1400–1800. Ed. by S. R. Epstein and Maarten Prak. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2008. vi, 352 pp. $99.00.
The eleven essays in this volume, originating from a workshop organized at the University of Utrecht in January 2000, trace the manifold ways in which craft guilds in the early modern period in a variety of industries in Italy, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Britain fostered innovation, technological change and entrepreneurship to an extent that contradicts the traditional negative view on the role of guilds in the early modern European economy. Shortly before finalizing this volume, Professor Epstein (1960–2007) passed away unexpectedly (see also IRSH Supplement 16 (2008), “The Return of the Guilds”, dedicated to his memory).
Imagining Europe. Europe and European Civilisation as Seen from its Margins and by the Rest of the World, in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Ed. by Michael Wintle. [Multiple Europes, No. 42.] Peter Lang, Brussels [etc.] 2008. 245 pp. € 33.90.
The nine contributions to this collection revolve around the question of what Europe is, what its values and its geographical borders are, and what it stands for, according to what others think of Europe. “Others” include not only people in other parts of the globe, but also in other parts of Europe or periods of its history, which for one reason or another have become marginalized, such as the Balkans and Turkey, or Stalin’s Russia and Hitler’s Germany.
Kulturrevolution als Vorbild? Maoismen im deutschsprachigen Raum. Hrsg. Sebastian Gehrig, Barbara Mittler, [und] Felix Wemheuer. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main [etc.] 2008. 221 pp. Ill. € 36.40.
The ten contributions to this volume, partly based on a workshop organized at the University of Heidelberg in January 2007, explore the reasons why so many people in German-speaking countries in the 1970s were strongly attracted to the Chinese Cultural Revolution and Maoist ideology. Contributors look at issues such as the attraction of Maoism to quite different radical groups, from the so-called K-Gruppen to the early Rote Armee Fraktion, and the connection between Maoism and the Third World solidarity movements. Included are contributions from contemporaries looking back on their own Maoist past.
Lynn II, John A. Women, Armies, and Warfare in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2008. xii, 239 pp. Ill. £13.99.
The role of women in early modern European armies included female individuals assuming male identities to serve in the ranks, but women predominantly marched in the train of the armies, as prostitutes and to do the sewing, cooking, and nursing. This study examines the roles of women in European armies between 1500 and 1815. Dr Lynn argues that armies regarded women as essential to the well-being of the troops, and that before 1650 women were also fundamental to armies because they were integral to the pillage economy that maintained troops in the field.
Mittelalterliche Bruderschaften in europäischen Städten. Medieval Confraternities in European Towns. Funktionen, Formen, Akteure. Functions, Forms, Protagonists. Hrsg. Monika Escher-Apsner. [Inklusion/Exklusion, Band 12.] Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main [etc.] 2009. 382 pp. Ill. € 55.90.
In this twelfth volume in a series on foreignness and poverty over the course of history (see IRSH, 51 (2006), p. 508; 54 (2009), pp. 549ff.; this volume, p. 357 for previous volumes) the fifteen essays – in German, English, French, and Italian – deal with confraternities and similar organizational forms and their role as basic structures of European medieval society. Offering both general surveys and more local and regional perspectives, the contributors explore how these fraternal associations acted to promote various religious-charitable, economic, social, and political interests of their members, and how in their organization and activities moments of inclusion and exclusion are perceptible.
Postwar Mediterranean Migration to Western Europe. Legal and Political Frameworks, Sociability and Memory Cultures [La migration méditerranéenne en Europe occidentale après 1945. Droit et politique, sociabilité et memoires]. Ed. by Clelia Caruso, Jenny Pleinen, [and] Lutz Raphael. [Inklusion/Exklusion, Band 7.] Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main [etc.] 2008. 261 pp. € 42.50.
The thirteen contributions to this volume are the proceedings of the conference “The Social Spaces of Mediterranean Labour Migration: Legal and Political Frameworks, Migration Careers and Networks, and Memory Cultures”, held at the University of Trier in March 2007. The contributors to this volume – the seventh in a series on foreignness and poverty over the course of history (see the annotation on Volume 12 above for other volumes) – deal with the opportunities for inclusion and risks of exclusion of Mediterranean labour migrants in France, Germany and Belgium after 1945. They explore the legal and political frameworks of this labour migration; the labour conditions and social lives of the migrants; and the memory cultures of both individual migrants and collectives.
Austria
Maderthaner Wolfgang and Lutz Musner. Unruly Masses. The Other Side of Fin-de- Siècle Vienna. [International Studies in Social History, Vol. 13.] Berghahn Books, New York [etc.] 2008. 176 pp. Ill. $90.00; £45.00. (Paper: $27.95; £15.00.)
Fin-de-siècle Vienna has generally been treated in the historiography as a paragon of innovative modernism in high culture. This study aims to broaden, qualify, and correct this image by exploring the social history of the Viennese suburbs at the turn of the century. Examining the misery and radicalism of the masses in the suburbs that contrasted sharply with the urban social order of the elites, Drs Maderthaner and Musner argue that the culture of the suburban masses, with its irrationality that manifested in nationalism and anti-Semitism, was an integral part of modernity.
Novotny, Martina. Die Revolution frisst ihre Eltern. 1968 in Österreich: Kunst, Revolution und Mythenbildung. [Wissenschaftliche Beiträge aus dem Tectum Verlag. Reihe Geschichtswissenschaft, Band 4.] Tectum Verlag, Marburg 2008. 184 pp. € 24.90.
This study examines the way the revolutionary year 1968 impacted Austria, and to what extent its revolutionary character was only a myth. Despite the common prejudice that the revolution of 1968 never materialized in Austria, the author concludes, based in part on three interviews with contemporary witnesses, that drastic and lasting changes in Austrian society and culture may be traced to this mythical year, predominantly in the fields of arts and literature.
Eire – Ireland
McGuire, Charlie. Roddy Connolly and the Struggle for Socialism in Ireland. Cork University Press, Cork 2008. x, 318 pp. € 49.00; £33.00.
This is a political biography of Roddy Connolly (1901–1980) a significant political figure on the Irish political left, and son of the socialist leader and Irish independence activist James Connolly (1868–1916). This biography chronicles how Connolly founded Ireland’s first Communist party (CPI) in 1921 and then joined the Irish Labour Party after the CPI’s dissolution in 1926 and became a Labour member of the Irish parliament. In the 1970s he returned to the fore as Labour party chairman.
France
The Great Anger. Ultra-Revolutionary Writing in France from the Atheist Priest to the Bonnot Gang. Ed. and transl. by Mitchell Abidor. The Marxists Internet Archive, Pacifica 2009. 337 pp. $25.00.
This collection brings together tens of texts by and about revolutionary anarchists in France from the late seventeenth century to 1968 that the editor has captured under the common denominator of “The Great Anger”, a largely atheist and anti-theorist movement in French revolutionary anarchist activity. Mr Abidor has provided a short biographical and contextual introduction of people and movements such as Jean Meslier (1678–1729), Jacques Hébert (1757–1794), Gracchus Babeuf (1760–1797), Louis Auguste Blanqui (1805–1881), the Propagandists of the Deed (1890s), Victor Serge (1890–1947), and the International Situationists (1968).
Kalman, Samuel. The Extreme Right in Interwar France. The Faisceau and the Croix de Feu. Ashgate, Aldershot [etc.] 2008. x, 265 pp. £60.00.
Professor Kalman aims to contribute in this study to an understanding of the programmatic elements of the interwar extreme right in France, focusing on the Faisceau and the Croix de Feu, the largest and most influential organizations of the 1920s and 1930s. He examines five components of these organizations’ designs for political, economic, and social reform: renewal of politics and government; the establishment of a new economic order; a revaluation of gender and family relations; the role of youth in the new order; and the explicit politics of exclusion inherent in the doctrines of both organizations.
Koufinkana, Marcel. Les esclaves noirs en France sous l’Ancien Régime (XVIe–XVIIIe siècles). [Études Africaines.] L’Harmattan, Paris 2008. 164 pp. € 16.00.
In this posthumously published thesis, Dr Koufinkana aims to give a comprehensive chronological overview of the presence of black African slaves in France in the period of the ancien régime (sixteenth to nineteenth centuries). He shows how the number of black slaves rose significantly with the rise of the Atlantic slave trade, which was why black slaves and freedmen appeared predominantly in the Atlantic ports of France. He also considers the role of black Africans in the French army.
Nicolas, Jean. La rébellion française. Mouvements populaires et conscience sociale 1661–1789. [Folio histoire.] Gallimard, Paris 2008. 1076 pp. Ill. € 12.10.
This is the paperback edition of a study that was originally published in 2002 and offers a comprehensive historical overview of popular rebellious movements and violence and the concomitant rise of a general awareness of social equality and rights in France from the end of the Fronde uprising in 1661 to the French Revolution. Professor Nicolas has organized by theme this exploration of major issues such as: the spatial scope of rebellions, regional variations, and urban and rural dimensions; the role of various social and occupational groups; the importance of famines and food supply; the connection with work and labour relations; the political dimension; and the generational aspect.
Ott, Sandra. War, Judgment, and Memory in the Basque Borderlands, 1914–1945. [The Basque Series.] University of Nevada Press, Reno [etc.] 2008. xxii, 252 pp. Ill. £36.19
This anthropological-historical study explores the impact of war and occupation on four Basque communities in the Basque Pyrenean province of Xiberoa between 1914 and 1945. Conscription, labour unrest, class conflict, the rise of fascism, and economic depression, the arrival of large numbers of refugees from the Spanish Civil War, and the consequences of the Vichy regime and the German occupation all tested the resilience of local values and institutions. Professor Ott concludes that Basque traditional culture both helped restore intra-community harmony after the wars and shaped private and public remembrance of these events.
Socialistes et radicaux. Querrelles de famille. Actes de la journée d’étude “Socialistes et radicaux au XXe siècle. Confrontations, satellisation, acculturation”, organisé par le Centre d’histoire de Sciences Po, le vendredi 30 septembre 2005. Dir. Noëlline Castagnez et Gilles Morin. L’OURS, Paris 2008. 190 pp. € 16.00.
The fifteen contributions to this volume, the proceedings of a colloquium “Socialistes et radicaux au XXe siècle. Confrontation, satellisation, acculturation”, organized in September 2005 by the Centre d’histoire de Sciences Po in Paris, explore the discordant relationship between the French Radical Party and the socialists over the twentieth century. The contributors deal with the various conflicts, similarities, and forms of cooperation of these two political forces on the left of the French political landscape in various episodes of the twentieth century.
Les socialistes français et la Grande Guerre. Ministres, militants, combattants de la majorité (1914–1918). Sous la dir. de Vincent Chambarlhac et Romain Ducoulombier. [Collection Sociétés.] Editions Universitaires de Dijon, Dijon 2008. 200 pp. € 20.00.
This collection brings together in the first section six essays and in the second section an anthology of edited source selections on the history of the French socialists during World War I. After the assassination of Jaurès, on 31 July 1914, the majority of the socialist party, which was originally pacifist, switched to supporting the wartime government of national unity. The essays as well as the documentary anthology deal with the background and main protagonists of these events and the development of relations inside the party.
Les socialistes français et l’Europe. Documents et analyses. Textes réunis et presentés par Thierry Hohl avec la participation de Maxime Dury. Editions Universitaires de Dijon, Dijon 2008. 183 pp. € 20.00.
This collection brings together four essays (three previously published between 1984 and 1995) and twenty-two documents that deal with the relation between the French socialist movement and the origins and development of the European Union. Organized in three chronologically ordered sections, the volume aims to show the traditionally strong ties between French socialist policies and ideology and the ideal of European unification, originating from the interwar years and the early postwar period. Included are a variety of internal party reports as well as publications by French socialists.
Sonenscher, Michael. Sans-Culottes. An Eighteenth-Century Emblem in the French Revolution. Princeton University Press, Princeton, [etc.] 2008. x, 493 pp. Ill. £32.50.
Following his recent study of the debates about public debt in the decades preceding 1789 (see IRSH, this volume, p. 172), Dr Sonenscher in this study explores the origins of the name Sans-culottes and its transformation into a republican, Jacobin emblem as a perspective to offer a revisionist interpretation of the intellectual origins and political history of the French Revolution. He examines the role of debates in the salons over moral and political philosophy, property, and human nature to show how these helped shape a political philosophy of which the Sans-culottes became the prototypical, cultural expression.
Steiner, Anne. Les en-dehors. Anarchistes individualistes et illégalistes a la “Belle Époque”. [Dans le feu de l’action.] Éditions L’Échappée, Montreuil 2008. 254 pp. € 17.00.
This study examines the group of French individual anarchists and illegalists that emerged in the Belle Époque period, more or less directly connected to the influential magazine L’Anarchie. Part of the group became notorious in particular as a result of their criminal activities in what came to be known as the Bonnot gang that operated in 1911/1912. Mrs Steiner deals with the ideological background as well as with the personal networks involved, which included people like Albert Libertad (Joseph Albert), Rirette Maitrejean (Anna Estorges), and Victor Serge (Victor Kibalchich). Short biographies of the main protagonists and other members of the network are included.
Germany
Arbeit und Leistung – gestern und heute. Ein gewerkschaftliches Politikfeld. Hrsg. Hilde Wagner. VSA–Verlag, Hamburg 2008. 254 pp. € 16.80.
Within the German trade-union movement the debate on labour conditions in relation to growing pressure on productivity and efficiency has resurfaced on the agenda in recent decades, under the influence of globalization and increased international competition. The fifteen contributors to this collection, mostly from an active trade-union background, use the historical background of a national research project in the 1970s, “Humanisierung der Arbeit” (humanization of work), to discuss the different elements that have increased pressure on productivity and how, from a trade-union perspective, the negative consequences for workers might be averted.
Beattie, Andrew H. Playing Politics with History. The Bundestag Inquiries into East Germany. [Studies in Contemporary European History, Vol. 4.] Berghahn Books, New York [etc.] 2008. xiii, 292 pp. $90.00; £45.00.
In 1992 and 1995, the Deutscher Bundestag, the German Federal Parliament, established two commissions of inquiry to investigate the divided past after 1945, its effects on the divided Germany, and the role and complicity of the East German communist party, the SED, in this. The study examines the history and significance of these commissions, explores the ensuing debates in German politics, and analyses the politics of history involved, including the relation of the GDR past and the history of Nazism. Dr Beattie considers how and for what purpose Germany’s political and intellectual elite on the right and the left evaluated and utilized its postwar history in the 1990s.
Brückenschläge. Stiftung Bibliothek des Ruhrgebiets und Institut für soziale Bewegungen. Hrsg. von der Stiftung Bibliothek des Ruhrgebiets und dem Institut für soziale Bewegungen. Bearb. von Jürgen Mittag und Thomas Urban. Klartext Verlag, Essen 2008. 83 pp. Ill. € 12.95.
This richly illustrated book offers a documentary of the history and activities of the Stiftung Bibliothek des Ruhrgebiets, the Foundation Library of the Ruhr area, and the Institut für Soziale Bewegungen (the Institute of Social Movements), housed together in the Haus der Geschichte des Ruhrgebiets in Bochum. Apart from an overview of the organizational structure, their activities and the services offered, the book deals with the formation and development of both organizations and their role in the transformation of the Ruhr area over the past decades.
Frohmann, Larry. Poor Relief and Welfare in Germany from the Reformation to World War I. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2008. x, 257 pp. £50.00; $85.00.
In this synthetic study of poor relief, charity, and social welfare in Germany from the period of the Reformation to World War I, Professor Frohman analyses the changing cultural frameworks through which the poor came to be considered needy; the institutions, strategies, and practices devised to assist, integrate, and discipline these people; and the mixed political approaches by which the middle classes attempted to reconcile individual with community needs. He argues that traditional poor relief formed an important basis for modern preventive social welfare programmes, and that progressive reformers and local voluntary initiatives were highly influential in this process.
Küpker, Markus. Weber, Hausierer, Hollandgänger. Demografischer und wirtschaftlicher Wandel im ländlichen Raum: das Tecklenburger Land 1750–1870. [Studien zur historischen Sozialwissenschaft, Band 32.] Campus Verlag, Frankfurt [etc.] 2008. 484 pp. Maps. € 48.00.
This revised edition of a dissertation (Westphalian Wilhelms-Universtät Münster, 2002) explores the demographic and structural economic developments in the Westphalian region of the Tecklenburger land in the period 1750–1870. Like in many regions in Europe in this era, the population increased dramatically, while pivotal sectors (especially the cottage industry of textile products) declined. Drawing on a large set of quantitative data, Dr Küpker examines the responses of the population to these developments, with consequences such as re-agrarianization of the region, and concludes that this response was far more flexible and rational than demographic theories and historiography hitherto have understood.
Oltmer, Jochen. Migration im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. [Enzyklopädie Deutscher Geschichte, Band 86.] R. Oldenbourg Verlag, München 2010. x, 174 pp. € 34.80 (Paper: € 19.80.)
This volume of a long-standing encyclopaedic series of textbooks on German history (see IRSH, 51 (2006), p. 342) offers a comprehensive overview of the background, forms and consequences of migration in Germany from the late eighteenth century to the present, including the mass transatlantic emigration, forced migration in the period 1918–1945, and the growing immigration and integration problems since the 1950s. In a separate section, Professor Oltmer deals with the scholarship, sources, and literature on migration, which have increased significantly from the 1990s onward.
Schwitanski, Alexander J. Die Freiheit des Volksstaates. Die Entwicklung der Grund- und Menschenrechte und die deutsche Sozialdemokratie bis zum Ende der Weimarer Republik. [Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Soziale Bewegungen. Schriftenreihe A: Darstellungen, Band 39.] Klartext Verlag, Essen 2008. 522 pp. Ill. € 49.90.
This revised dissertation (Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 2006) examines the origins and development of ideas and concepts on the legal safeguarding of personal freedom within German social democracy during the Weimar Republic. Starting by distinguishing the concept of democratic, civic freedom, which includes the collective right to vote, from that of individual, personal freedom, Dr Schwitanski examines the relevance of human rights as a political and legal norm in Germany in this period.
Die sozialen Bewegungen in Deutschland seit 1945. Ein Handbuch. Hrsg. Roland Roth [und] Dieter Rucht. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt [etc.] 2008. 770 pp. € 49.90.
This voluminous handbook offers an encyclopaedic overview of social movements in Germany since 1945, covering both West Germany and East Germany. In the first six chapters, the historical political context is sketched. In the following twenty-one chapters a broad range of social movements is presented, from the labour movement, women’s movement, and peace movement in West Germany, and civil and human rights movements in East Germany, to the more recent movements of the unemployed, and protest movements against biotechnology and genetic engineering. In the concluding chapter, the editors reach general theoretical and empirical conclusions. A chronology of movements and related major events is appended.
Spurlin, William J. Lost Intimacies. Rethinking Homosexuality under National Socialism. [Gender, Sexuality, Culture, Vol. 4.] Peter Lang, New York [etc.] 2009. xii, 152 pp. € 21.34.
Using queer theory as the theoretical perspective, this study examines the persecution of gays and lesbians in the Third Reich to show that homophobia under Nazism operated in conjunction with other axes of power, including race, gender, eugenics, and population politics. Dr Spurlin aims to show how the accepted view that Nazi fascism’s persecution of homosexuals can be attributed to latent homosexuality negates this connection, with important implications for contemporary culture. He also challenges the received wisdom that lesbians were not as systematically persecuted under National Socialism. See also Anna Tijsseling’s review in this volume, pp. 532–534.
Streiken gegen den Krieg! Die Bedeutung der Massenstreiks in der Metallindustrie vom Januar 1918. Hrsg. Chaja Boebel [und] Lothar Wentzel. VSA–Verlag, Hamburg 2008. 143 pp. Ill. € 10.80.
This collection features the proceedings of a conference organized in recognition of the ninetieth anniversary of the mass strike in the German metal industry in January 1918, when about one million German workers laid down their work to protest the war. Apart from five contributions, including papers on the organization of the strike, its role in the German peace movement, and its remarkably minor significance in the collective memory of the German labour movement, the volume comprises eight source documents from the context of the strike, including the memoirs of some of the strike leaders, protocols and speeches.
Great Britain
Fowler, David. Youth Culture in Modern Britain c.1920–c.1970. From Ivory Tower to Global Movement. A New History. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke 2008. xviii, 301 pp. Ill. £19.99.
In this historical overview of British youth culture in the twentieth century, Dr Fowler challenges the usual interpretation that youth culture was a by-product of the affluent 1950s and 1960s. Locating the roots of British youth culture in the student communities of the interwar years, he contends that university students were indeed the ones who shaped British youth culture as a creative force for much of the time, and that this culture developed from there, crossing class boundaries, and in the longer run also spread throughout Europe and the rest of the world.
Griffiths, Paul. Lost Londons. Change, Crime, and Control in the Capital City, 1550–1660. [Cambridge Social and Cultural Histories.] Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2008. xvii, 544 pp. £50.00.; $99.00.
In this social history of sixteenth and seventeenth-century London, Professor Griffiths explores the rapid transformations taking place in this period generally perceived as signs of decline: the growth of poverty and crime. After delineating the spatial and chronological contexts, he quantifies the change in terms of the growth of the city, its population and the concomitant crime rate and then explores the response of the ruling elite in terms of policing and prosecution. Focusing on petty crime, the author examines the key roles of Bridewell prison, hospitals, medical provision, and penal practices.
Managing the Modern Workplace. Productivity, Politics and Workplace Culture in Postwar Britain. Ed. by Joseph Melling and Alan Booth. Ashgate, Aldershot [etc.] 2008. xiv, 169 pp. £55.00.
The six essays in this volume examine the diverse and complex world of the workplace and Britain’s production cultures in the third quarter of the twentieth century, against the background of recurring debates about the failure of British manufacturing industry and the record of disorder and conflict in the industrial workplace. In his own essay, the first editor offers a comparative examination of labour relations and supervisory trade unionism in the American and British automobile industries (see also IRSH, 48 (2003), pp. 245–271). Other contributions included explore the railway and gas industry and the relation between technological change and gender in retail banking.
Roberts, Stephen. The Chartist Prisoners. The Radical Lives of Thomas Cooper (1805–1892) and Arthur O’Neill (1819–1896). Peter Lang, Oxford [etc.] 2008. 198 pp. € 37.30.
This study brings together biographical studies of two working men who were active in the Chartist movement in the 1840s, and who remained friends throughout their lives from the time they were imprisoned for seditious offences in 1843 as supporters of Chartism. Dr Roberts sketches the social and cultural backgrounds of Thomas Cooper (1805–1892) and Arthur O’Neill (1819–1896), their careers in the Chartist movement, and their respective developments as a literary writer and active apologist of Christianity, and an activist in the network of the international peace movement.
Italy
Choate, MarkI. Emigrant Nation. The Making of Italy Abroad. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.) [etc.] 2008. x, 319 pp. $33.95; € 31.50; £45.00.
With around thirteen million Italians leaving their homeland between 1880 and 1915, the young Italian state witnessed the largest recorded migration from any country in world history. This study examines the effects of mass emigration upon the newly united nation and the efforts of the Italian state to build networks among Italian communities abroad – leading to “Little Italy” neighbourhoods in many places – through a variety of programmes and organizations that would create a global “Greater Italy”. Professor Choate aims to show how this project instigated heated debates in Italy over priorities and the emigrants’ best interests, and how these debates shaped the Italian nation both at home and abroad.
Storey, Tessa. Carnal Commerce in Counter-Reformation Rome. [New Studies in European History.] Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2008. xvi, 296 pp. Ill. £55.00.; $99.00.
This is a study of the daily lives and material culture of ordinary prostitutes and their clients in Rome in the century after the Counter-Reformation (1566–1656). Dr Storey explores how and why women became prostitutes, the relationship between prostitutes and clients, and what could be earned. She argues that, despite reforms and energetic attempts at social disciplining by Counter-Reformation popes, prostitution continued to flourish and remained lucrative for many women.
Spain
Fraser, Ronald. Napoleon’s Cursed War. Spanish Popular Resistance in the Peninsular War, 1808–1814. Verso, London [etc.] 2008. xxxviii, 587 pp. Maps. £29.99.
In this study of the Peninsular War that Napoleon waged against Spain from 1807 to 1814, the author examines the crucial role of popular resistance to Napoleon’s attempt to seize Spain. Mr Fraser focuses on the anonymous masses, among them artisans and peasants, who after the anti-Napoleonic uprising in 1808 became pivotal, in part through their use of guerrilla tactics, managed to defeat the French army.
Switzerland
Anderegg, Urs. Der 1. Mai in der Schweiz. Vom Traum einer besseren Welt… [Geschichtswissenschaften, Band 3.] Tectum Verlag, Marburg 2008. 692 pp. Ill. € 39.90.
This slightly revised version of a dissertation (University of Bern, 2007) offers a comprehensive examination of May Day celebrations in Switzerland from their origins in the 1890s to the present. Dr Anderegg combines social history with a cultural-studies perspective to analyse how the May Day celebrations and the connected rituals evolved, and how this can be understood as a barometer of the development of culture values and views on the future within the labour movement. A comparison with the May Day celebration traditions in Germany and France is included.
Leimgruber, Matthieu. Solidarity without the State? Business and the Shaping of the Swiss Welfare State, 1890–2000. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2008. xi, 318 pp. £45.00; $90.00.
This study explores the long-term development of social insurance and occupational provision in Switzerland over the long twentieth century, and aims to establish to what extent the Swiss three-pillar pension system is truly unique. Dr Leimgruber charts the battle waged between the state, employers, and employees over the boundaries of state and private pensions and compares the path taken in Switzerland with the ones followed in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands.
