Anthony Beevor, Stalingrad (London: Viking, 1998), 512 pp., £25.00, ISBN 0-670-87095-1. David Glanz, ed., The Initial Period of the War on the Eastern Front 22 June–August 1941 (London: Frank Cass, 1993, reprinted 1997), 511 pp., £22.50, ISBN 0-714-64298-3. David Glanz and Jonathan House, When Titans Clashed – How the Red Army Stopped Hitler (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1995), 414 pp., £14.50, ISBN 0-700-60899-0. Leonid Grenkevich, The Soviet Partisan Movement 1941–1944 (London: Frank Cass, 1999), 368 pp., £17.50, ISBN 0-714-64428-5. Mark Harrison, Accounting for war – Soviet production, employment and the defence burden, 1940-1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 338 pp., £40.00, ISBN 0-521-48265-8. Richard Overy, Russia's War (London: Penguin, 1997), 394 pp., £20.00, ISBN 0-713-99223-9. V. A. Zolotarev et al., Velikaia Otechestvennaia voina 1941–1945. Kniga 1 – Surovie ispitaniia (Moscow: Nauka, 1998), 542 pp., ISBN 5-020-10136-2. V. A. Zolotarev et al., Velikaia Otechestvennaia voina 1941–1945. Kniga 2 – Perelom (Moscow: Nauka, 1998), 499 pp., ISBN 5-020-09736-5.

Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 202 pp., ISBN 0-521-57649-0. Michael Forman, Nationalism and the International Labor Movement. The Idea of the Nation in Socialist and Anarchist Theory (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998), 212 pp., cloth $35.00, paper $17.95, ISBN 0-271-01727-9. Ilya Prizel, National Identity and Foreign Policy. Nationalism and leadership in Poland, Russia and Ukraine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 443 pp., hardback £50.00, paperback £16.95 ($54.95 / $24.95), ISBN 0-521-57697-0. Andrew Baruch Wachtel, Making a Nation, Breaking a Nation. Literature and Cultural Politics in Yugoslavia (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), 302 pp., cloth $55.00, paper $18.95, ISBN 0-804-73181-0. Yitzhak M. Brudny, Reinventing Russia. Russian Nationalism and the Soviet State 1953–1991, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 352 pp., ISBN 0-674-75408-5. Catherine Wanner, Burden of Dreams. History and Identity in Post-Soviet Ukraine (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998), 255 pp., cloth $50.00, paper $18.95, ISBN 0-271-01793-7.

Francine Friedman, The Bosnian Muslims: Denial of a Nation (Colorado: Westview Press, 1996), 288 pp., $35.00, ISBN 0-8133-2096-8. Eric D. Gordy, The Culture of Power in Serbia: Nationalism and the Destruction of Alternatives (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999), 230 pp., $17.95, ISBN 0-271-01958-1. Lorraine M. Lees, Keeping Tito Afloat: The United States, Yugoslavia, and the Cold War (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997), 246 pp., $40, ISBN 0-271-01629-9. Reneo Lukic and Allen Lynch, Europe from the Balkans to the Urals: The Disintegration of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union (Oxford: Oxford University Press and Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Monographs, 1996), 436 pp., £35.00, ISBN 0-19-829200-7. Viktor Meier, Yugoslavia: A History of its Demise, trans. Sabrina Petra Ramet (London and New York: Routledge, 1999), 279 pp., £16.99, ISBN 0-415-18596-3. Aleksandar Pavkovic, The Fragmentation of Yugoslavia: Nationalism and War in the Balkans, 2nd edn (London and New York: Macmillan and St. Martin's Press, 2000), 243 pp., £42.50, ISBN 0-312-23084-2. Sabrina Petra Ramet, Balkan Babel: The Disintegration of Yugoslavia from the Death of Tito to Ethnic War, 2nd edn (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996), 354 pp., $30.00, ISBN 0-8133-2559-5. Richard H. Ullman, ed., The World and Yugoslavia's Wars (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1996), 230 pp., $18.95, ISBN 0-87609-191-5. Susan L. Woodward, Balkan Tragedy: Chaos and Dissolution after the Cold War (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1995), 536 pp., $16.95, ISBN 0-8157-9513-0.

Kenneth Dyson, The Politics of the Euro-Zone. Stability or Breakdown? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 311 pp., ISBN 0-199-24164-3. Kenneth Dyson and Kevin Featherstone, The Road to Maastricht. Negotiating Economic and Monetary Union (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 860 pp., ISBN 0-198-28077-7. Peter Henning Loedel, Deutsche Mark Politics: Germany in the European Monetary System (London: Lynne Rienner, 2000), 264 pp., ISBN 1-555-87835-0. Kathleen R. McNamara, The Currency of Ideas: Monetary Politics in the European Union, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998), 200 pp., ISBN 0-801-43432-7. James I. Walsh, European Monetary Integration and Domestic Politics. Britain, France, and Italy (London: Lynne Rienner, 2000), 182 pp., ISBN 1-555-87823-7. Amy Verdun, European Responses to Globalisation and Financial Market Integration (London: Macmillan, 2000), 260 pp., ISBN 0-333-71708-2.

James D. Herbert, Paris 1937: Worlds on Exhibition (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998), 207 pp., £31.50, ISBN 0-801-43494-7. Andrea Kupfer Schneider, Creating the Musée d'Orsay. The Politics of Culture in France (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998), 150 pp., $25.00, ISBN 0-271-01752-X. Juan Pedro Lorente, Cathedral of Urban Modernity. The First Museums of Contemporary Art, 1800–1930 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998), £47.50, ISBN 1-859-28383-7. Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication, Direction des Musées de France, Centre national de la Recherche Scientifique, Centre de Sociologie des Organisations, Musée National du Moyen Age, Publics et projets culturels. Un enjeu des musées en Europe. Actes des Journées d'étude 26 et 27 octobre 1998, Paris, Musée national du Moyen Age (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2000), price not given, ISBN 2-738-48645-2. Paul Rasse, Les Musées à la lumière de l'espace public. Histoire, évolution, enjeux (Paris: L'Harmattan, Logiques Sociales, 1999), 238 pp., price not given, ISBN 2-738-47769-0. Selma Reuben Holo, Beyond the Prado. Museums and Identity in Democratic Spain (Liverpool University Press, 1999), 222 pp., price not given, ISBN 0-853-23535-X. Brandon Taylor, Art for the Nation. Exhibitions and the London Public 1747–2001 (Manchester University Press, 1990), 314 pp., price not given, ISBN 0-719-05452-4.

Dominique Barjot, Rémi Baudouï and Danièle Voldman, eds., Les Reconstructions en Europe (1945–1949) (Paris: Editions Complexe, 1997), 342 pp., FF175, ISBN 2-870-27693-1. Matthias Kipping and Ove Bjarnar, eds., The Americanisation of European Business: The Marshall Plan and the Transfer of US Management Models (London: Routledge, 1998), 235 pp., £50.00, ISBN 0-415-17191-1. Jeffry M. Diefendorf, Axel Frohn and Hermann-Josef Rupieper, eds., American Policy and the Reconstruction of Western Germany, 1945–1955 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press and the German Historical Institute, Washington, DC, 1993), 537 pp., £45.00, ISBN 0-521-43120-4. Hans-Herbert Holzamer and Marc Hoch, eds., Der Marshall-Plan: Geschichte und Zukunft (Landsberg/Lech: Olzog, 1997), 214 pp., ISBN 3-789-29349-0. Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 50 Jahre Marshall-Plan (Berlin: Argon Verlag, Berlin, 1997), 140 pp., ISBN 3-870-24387-2. Günter Bischof, Anton Pelinka and Dieter Stiefel, eds., The Marshall Plan in Austria (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2000), 588 pp., ISBN 0-765-80679-7. Michael Kennedy and Joseph Morrison Skelly, eds., Irish Foreign Policy 1919–1966: From Independence to Internationalism (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2000), 352 pp., £39.50, ISBN 1-851-82404-9. Bernadette Whelan, Ireland and the Marshall Plan 1947–1957 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2000), 426 pp., £39.50, ISBN 1-851-82517-7. Charles Silva, Keep Them Strong, Keep them Friendly: Swedish–American Relations and the Pax Americana, 1948–1952 (Stockholm: Akademitryck AB, 1999), 376 pp., Kl.10.00, ISBN 9-171-53974-3. Chiarello Esposito, America's Feeble Weapon: Funding the Marshall Plan in France and Italy, 1948–1950 (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1994), 226 pp., £49.50, ISBN 0-313-29340-6. Fernando Guirao, Spain and the Reconstruction of Western Europe 1945–57 (London: Macmillan, 1998), 240 pp., ISBN 0-312-21291-7. Martin A. Schain, Marshall Plan Fifty Years After (Houndmills: Palgrave, 2001), £30.00, ISBN 0-333-92983-7 was published after this article went to press.

Gerald Stourzh, Um Einheit und Freiheit. Staatsvertrag, Neutralität und das Ende der Ost-West-Besetzung Österreichs 1945–1955 (4. völlig überarbeitete und wesentlich erweiterte Auflage), Studien zu Politik und Verwaltung 62 (Vienna/Cologne/Graz: Böhlau, 1998), 834 pp., ISBN 3-205-98383-1. Günter Bischof, Austria in the First Cold War, 1945–55. The Leverage of the Weak (Basingstoke/London: Macmillan/St. Martin's Press, 1999), 237 pp., ISBN 0-333-72547-6. Lothar Höbelt, Von der vierten Partei zur Dritten Kraft. Die Geschichte des VdU (Graz/Stuttgart: Leopold Stocker Verlag, 1999), 303 pp., ISBN 3-702-00866-7. Anton Pelinka, Austria. Out of the Shadow of the Past, Nations of the Modern World: Europe (Boulder/Oxford: Westview, 1998), 256 pp., ISBN 0-813-32918-3.

Alexander von Vegasack and Mateo Kries, eds., Automobility – Was uns bewegt (Weil am Rhein: Vitra Design Museum, 1999), exhibition catalogue, Vitra Design Museum, 551 pp., ISBN 3-931-936-17-1. Paride Rugafiori, ed., La capitale dell'automobile: Imprendatori, cultura e società a Torino (Venice: Marsilio, 1999), 262 pp., Lire 35,000. ISBN 8-831-77194-9. Ulrich Kubisch, Das Automobil als Lesestoff: Zur Geschichte der deutschen Motorpresse, 1898–1998 (Berlin: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz, 1998), 80 pp., ISBN 3-895-00072-8. David Thoms, Len Holden, and Tim Claydon, eds., The Motor Car and Popular Culture in the 20th Century (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998), 307 pp., ISBN 1-859-28461-2. Sean O'Connell, The Car in British Society: Class, Gender and Motoring, 1896–1939 (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1998), 240 pp., ISBN 0-71-905506-7

Ivan T. Berend, Central and Eastern Europe 1944–1993: Detour from the Periphery to the Periphery (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 414 pp., $64.95 (hb), ISBN 0-521-55066-1, $24.95 (pb), ISBN 0-521-66352-0. Valerie Bunce, Subversive Institutions: The Design and Destruction of Socialism and the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 206 pp., $54.95 (hb), ISBN 0-521-58449-3; $19.95 (pb), ISBN 0-521-58592-9. Helena Flam, Mosaic of Fear: Poland and East Germany Before 1989 (Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1998; distributed by Columbia University Press, New York), 283 pp., $50.00, ISBN 0-880-33406-1. Leszek Dziegiel, Paradise in a Concrete Cage: Daily Life in Communist Poland – An Ethnologist's View (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Arcana, 1998), 307 pp., ISBN 8-386-22517-3. András Gero and Iván Peto, Unfinished Socialism: Pictures From the Kádár Era (New York and Budapest: Central European University Press, 1999), 250 pp., $29.95, ISBN 9-639-11650-5.

Angelo Varni, ed., Il mondo giovanile in Italia tra Ottocento e Novecento (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1998), 252 pp., £38.00, ISBN 8-815-06779-5. Frank Mort, Cultures of Consumption: Masculinities and Social Space in Late Twentieth-century Britain (London: Routledge, 1996), 280 pp., ISBN 0-415-03052-8. Andrew Blake, The land without music: music, culture and society in twentieth-century Britain (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), 256 pp., ISBN 0-719-04299-2. Bill Osgerby, Youth in Britain since 1945 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), 256 pp., ISBN 0-631-19477-0. Christoph Bernhardt and Gerd Kuhn, Keiner darf zurückgelassen werden! Aspekte der Jugendhilfepraxis in der DDR 1959–1989 (Münster: Votum, 1998), 176 pp., ISBN 3-930-40595-4. David Fowler, The first Teenagers: The Lifestyle of Young Wage-earners in Interwar Britain (London: The Woburn Press, 1995), 212 pp., ISBN 0-713-04018-1. Alfons Klenkmann, Wilde Jugend. Lebenswelt grossstaedtischer Jugendllcher zwischen Weltwirtschaftkrise, Nationalsozialismus und Waehningsreform (Essen: Klartext, 1996), 480 pp., ISBN 3-884-74283-3. Paola Ghione and Marco Grispigni, eds. Giovani prima della rivolta (Roma: Manifestolibri, 1998), 252 pp., £28.00, ISBN 8-872-85172-6.

Benjamin Stora, Imaginaires de guerre: Algérie-Vietnam en France et aux Etats Unis (Paris: Decouverte, 1997), 252pp., FF 125, ISBN 2-707-12667-5. Benjamin Stora, Le transfert d'une mémoire – de ‘l'Algérie française’ au racisme anti-Arabe (Paris: Découverte, 1999), 148pp., FF 75, ISBN 2-707-12968-2. Martin Evans, The Memory of Resistance: French Opposition to the Algerian War (Oxford: Berg, 1997), 250pp., ISBN 1-859-73927-x. Charles-Robert Agéron, ed., La guerre d'Algérie et les Algériens, 1954–1962 (Paris: Armand Colin 1997), 346pp., ISBN 2-200-01895-9. Jean-Jacques Jordi and Mohand Hamoumou, Les harkis, une mémoire enfouie (Paris: Autrement, 1999), 139pp., FF 120, ISBN 2-282-60866-1.

Vivien A. Schmidt, From State to Market? The Transformation of French Business and Government (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 476pp., £19.95 (pbk), ISBN 0-521-55553-1. Nikolaos Zahariadis, Markets, States and Public Policy (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995), 229pp., $37.50, ISBN 0-472-10542-6. Jim Tomlinson, Democratic Socialism and Economic Policy. The Attlee Years 1945–1951 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 331pp., £40.00, ISBN 0-521-55095-5. Martin Chick, Industrial Policy in Britain 1945-1951. Economic Planning, Nationalisation and the Labour Governments (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 1998, 221pp., £35.00, ISBN 0-521-48291-7. Jonathan Boswell and James Peters, Capitalism in Contention. Business Leaders and Political Economy in Modern Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 251pp., £45.00, ISBN 0-521-58225-3. Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello, Le nouvel esprit du capitalisme (Paris: Gallimard, 1999), 843pp., FF 195, ISBN 2-070-74995-9. Richard Sylla, Richard Tilly and Gabriel Tortella, eds., The State, the Financial System, and Economic Modernization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 1999, 295pp., £40.00, ISBN 0-521-59123-6.

Michèle and Jean-Paul Cointet, eds., Dictionnaire historique de la France sous l'Occupation (Paris: Tallandier, 2000), 732pp., FF 290, ISBN 2-235-02234-0. Hanna Diamond, Women and the Second World War in France 1939–1948: Choices and Constraints (Harlow: Longman, 1999), 231pp., £45.00 (hb), £14.99 (pb), ISBN 0-582-29909-8. Sarah Fishman, Laura Lee Downs, Ioannis Sinanoglou, Leonard V. Smith, Robert Zaretsky, eds., France at War: Vichy and the Historians (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2000), 336pp., £45.00, ISBN 1-859-73299-2. Bertram M. Gordon, ed., Historical Dictionary of World War II France: The Occupation, Vichy, and the Resistance, 1938–1946 (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1998), 433pp., £73.95, ISBN 0-313-29421-6. Miranda Pollard, Reign of Virtue: Mobilizing Gender in Vichy France (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 285pp., £31.50 (hb), £14.00 (pb), ISBN 0-226-67349-9 and 0-226-67350-2. Lynne Taylor, Between Resistance and Collaboration: Popular Protest in Northern France, 1940–45 (Basingstoke: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000), 195pp., £40.00, ISBN 0-333-73640-0.

Ian Bremmer and Ray Taras, eds., New States, New Politics: Building the Post-Soviet Nations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 743 pp., ISBN 0–521–57101–4

Bruno Coppieters, Alexei Zverev and Dmitri Trenin, eds., Commonwealth and Independence in Post-Soviet Eurasia (London: Frank Cass, 1998), 232 pp., ISBN 0–714–64480–3

Leslie Holmes, Post-Communism: an Introduction (Oxford: Polity Press, 1997), 260 pp., ISBN 0–745–61311–x

Michael Mandelbaum, ed., Post-Communism: Four Perspectives (US Council of Foreign Relations, 1996), 208 pp., ISBN 0–876–09186–9

Ilya Prizel, National Identity and Foreign Policy: Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia and Ukraine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 443 pp., ISBN 0–521–57157–x

Richard Rose, William Mishler and Christian Haerpfer, Democracy and Its Alternatives: Understanding Post-Communist Societies (Oxford: Polity Press, 1998), 270 pp., ISBN 0–745–61926–6

Barnett R. Rubin and Jack Snyder, Post-Soviet Political Order (London/New York: Routledge, 1998), 201 pp., ISBN 0–415–17068–0

Graham Smith, Vivien Law, Andrew Wilson, Annette Bohr and Edward Allworth, Nation-Building in Post-Soviet Borderlands: The Politics of National Identities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 304 pp., ISBN 0–521–59045–0

Vladimir Tismaneanu, Fantasies of Salvation: Democracy, Nationalism, and Myth in Post-Communist Europe (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 217 pp., ISBN 0–691–04826–6

Gordon Wightman, ed., Party Formation in East-Central Europe: Post-Communist Politics in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Bulgaria (Vermont: Edward Elgar, 1995), 270 pp., ISBN 1–858–898132–8

It is now about 10 years since the communist bloc ceased to exist (1989 is the year when communism was defeated in central-eastern Europe, and in 1991 its bastion – the Soviet Union – fell). What it left behind are a couple of die-hard communist survivor-states, an urge to ‘rethink’ or ‘re-define’ many fundamental concepts of political science, and a large swathe of land that is still to be properly categorised in registers of comparative political science. ‘Post-communism’ is the most popular term to cover this territory. But does it refer to something real today, or does it just express some kind of intellectual inertia? How much do the ‘post-communist countries’ still have in common with each other and to what extent are they different from any others?

James Loughlin, The Ulster Question since 1945 (London: Macmillan, 1998), 151 pp., £10.99 (pb), ISBN 0–333–60616–7.

David Harkness, Ireland in the Twentieth Century. Divided Island (London: Macmillan, 1996), 190 pp., £9.99 (pb), ISBN 0–333–56796–X.

Thomas Hennessey, A History of Northern Ireland, 1920–1996 (London: Macmillan, 1997), 347 pp., £12.99 (pb), £40.00 (hb), ISBN 0–333–73162–X.

Brian A. Follis, A State Under Siege. The Establishment of Northern Ireland, 1920–1925 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995), 250 pp., £35.00 (hb), ISBN 0–198–20305–5.

Dermot Keogh and Michael H. Haltzel, eds., Northern Ireland and the Politics of reconciliation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 256 pp., £35.00 (hb), ISBN 0–521–44430–6.

William Crotty and David Schmitt, eds., Ireland and the Politics of Change (London/New York: Longman, 1999), 264 pp., £17.99 (pb), ISBN 0–582–32894–2.

David Miller, ed., Rethinking Northern Ireland. Culture, Ideology and Colonialism. (London/New York: Longman, 1999), 344 pp., £17.99 (pb), ISBN 0–582–30287–0.

Anthony D. Buckley and Mary Catherine Kenney, Negotiating Identity: Rhetoric, Metaphor, and Social Identity in Northern Ireland (Washington: Smithonian Institution Press, 1996), 270 pp., £34.75 (hb), ISBN 1–560–98520–8.

John D. Brewer, with Gareth I. Higgins, Anti-Catholicism in Northern Ireland, 1600–1998: the mote and the beam (London: Macmillan, 1998), 248 pp., £16.99 (pb), ISBN 0–333–74635–X.

During the last three decades, and accompanying the ‘troubles’, the literature on Northern Ireland has mushroomed. Within the last ten years two surveys have attempted to summarise and categorise the major interpretations. John Whyte's Interpreting Northern Ireland covered the 1970s and 1980s and came to the conclusion that traditional Unionist and nationalist interpretations, with their emphasis on external, that is British and Irish, forces as the cause for the problem, had begun to lose out to ‘internal conflict’ interpretations. He felt, however, that this approach, too, was coming to the end of its usefulness, and he expected the emergence of a new paradigm shortly.

Marc Olivier Baruch, Servir l'Etat français: L'administration en France de 1940 à 1944, preface by Jean-Pierre Azéma (Paris: Fayard, 1997), 737 pp., FF 180, ISBN 2–213–59930–0.

François Bloch-Lainé and Claude Gruson, Hauts Fonctionnaires sous l'Occupation (Paris: Editions Odile Jacob, 1996), 283 pp., FF 130, ISBN 2–738–10419–3.

Claude Singer, L'Université libérée, l'université épurée (1943–1947) (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1997), 430 pp., FF 185, ISBN 2–251–38037–x.

Bureaucracies are so famously capable of destroying the best-laid plans of reformers that historians often take their power to resist or collaborate for granted. In the burgeoning field of Vichy France, for example, we have studies of the ideologies of the well-known collaborators and of Vichy's ’National Revolution‘ as well as studies of the havoc those ideologies wreaked on the country and the growing opposition to both the ideas and the consequences. What we do not have is a very clear picture of how those ideas became consequences. The question is important because, unlike eastern European countries where Nazi occupation was naked and brutal, the French ended up amply serving the German cause almost despite themselves and at remarkably low cost to the Germans in terms of personnel. The French were not terrorised into turning over their Jews, their young people, or their crops at gunpoint in the way that, say, the Poles were. And yet they turned them over. Were the French, then, Nazis willing to give their all for the cause? Certainly not: far too many heroic men and women preferred to die as resistants rather than help the Germans.

Gordon Cherry, Town Planning in Britain since 1900 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 260 pp., £12.99, ISBN 0–631–19994–2.

Mark Clapson, Invincible green suburbs, brave new towns (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998), 242 pp., £45.00 (hb), ISBN 0–719–04135–X.

Mark Clapson, Mervyn Dobbin and Peter Waterman, eds., The Best Laid Plans. Milton Keynes since 1967 (Luton: University of Luton Press, 1998), 142 pp., ISBN 1–860–20556–9.

Gilles Massardier, Expertise et aménagement du territoire. L'Etat savant (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1996), 286 pp., 160 FF, ISBN 2–738–44903–4.

Danièle Voldman, La reconstruction des villes françaises de 1940 à 1954. Histoire d'une politique (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1997), 488 pp., 270 FF, ISBN 2–738–45194–2.

About one century ago, a movement was born which aimed at reforming the physical environment of cities in order to reform society. It greatly broadened the scope of the former, piecemeal Improvement Commissions which had begun to beautify the cities. Five recent and varied publications will be reviewed here, originating from both British and French academics and planners. We shall use them to make a second reading of ideas and processes contributing to the (re)shaping of town and country in two west European countries. Often described as entities with distinct political, social and economic agendas, both countries nevertheless developed strong confidence in the planning role of the state in cities as well as in ‘town and country’.

Jean-Louis Briquet, La tradition en mouvement. Clientélisme et politique en Corse (Paris: Belin, 1997), 303 pp. ISBN 2–701–12079–9.

Barbara Loyer, Géopolitique du Pays basque. Nations et nationalismes en Espagne (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1997), 416 pp. ISBN 2–738–45089–X.

Carl Levy, ed., Italian Regionalism. History, Identity and Politics (Oxford/Washington, DC: Berg, 1996), 197 pp. ISBN 1–859–73156–2.

Peter Mackridge and Eleni Yannakis, eds., Ourselves and Others. The Development of a Greek Macedonian Cultural Identity since 1912 (Oxford/New York: Berg, 1997), 259 pp. ISBN 1–859–73138–4.

Claude Hauser, Aux origines intellectuelles de la Question jurassienne. Culture et politique entre la France et la Suisse romande (1910–1950) (Courrendelin: Editions communication jurassienne et européenne (CJE), 1997), 528 pp. ISBN 2–940–11204–5.

Any examination of political movements that claim a basis in territorial and cultural identity tends to come up against a major obstacle, the problem of tracing the reasons for their emergence. There are two competing approaches: the ’culturalist‘, which considers cultural differences among communities as being themselves the chief cause of conflict; and the ’instrumentalist‘, which holds that those differences are exploited and manipulated by individuals or groups seeking to acquire or maintain a position of power.

Mike Hawkins, Social Darwinism in European and American Thought 1860–1945. Nature as Model and Nature as Threat (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 348 pp., £19.95, ISBN 0–521–57434 X.

Carl Ipsen, Dictating Demography. The Problem of Population in Fascist Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 281 pp., £35, ISBN 0–521–15545–7.

Simon Szreter, Fertility, Class and Gender in Britain 1860–1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976, 704 pp., £50, ISBN 0–521–34343–7.

Alain Desrosières, La politique des grands nombres, histoire de la raison statistique (Paris: La Découverte, 1993), 437 pp., FF 220; ISBN 2–707–12253–X; English translation by Camille Naish, The Politics of Large Numbers. A History of Statistical Reasoning (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 416 pp., $45, ISBN 0–674–68932–1.

Paul Weindling, Health, Race and German Politics between National Unification and Nazism 1870–1947 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 641 pp., £22.95, ISBN 0–521–42397–X; French translation by B. Frumer, L'Hygiène de la race (Paris: La Découverte, 1998), 301 pp., FF 160, ISBN 2–707–12706–X.

Over the last ten years a series of social historians have published studies of the link between the definition of scientific categories and the implementation of demographic policies in Europe. This discussion of the classification of populations in terms of social class, race or location (rural, urban, underprivileged areas) has complicated the traditional theories of the scientist and politician, Max Weber, and the student of ‘bio-power’, Michel Foucault. Now, historians of political ideas are finding living examples to illustrate recent advances in the sociology of science, establishing themselves at the interface between the history of human health and that of population policies. The aim is to throw light on the exchange between scientists and population management: among the themes to be treated are natalism, populationism, hygienism and eugenics.

Victoria E. Bonnell, Iconography of Power. Soviet Political Posters under Lenin and Stalin (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 364 pp., 8 colour plates, 92 b/w illustrations, £38, ISBN 0–520–08712–7.

Enrico Sturani, Mussolini. Un dictateur en cartes postales (Paris: Somogy, 1997), 240 pp., 284 colour illustrations, FF 189, ISBN 2–850–56292–0.

The rhythm of the history of human societies is determined by the constitution of the powers which organise them. Violence, persuasion, acquiescence might be adduced as the three stages of a broad schema whereby a coherent system of reference, based on rules which are respected by most (if not all) people, succeeds in establishing itself on a lasting basis of political constitution, civil law, and a legal system to govern systems of work and exchange. Individuals, whose primeval subjection was to the law of family, tribe or gens, do not readily submit to absorption into an entity which does not coincide with this original cell. Therefore, by definition, the history of the creation of political systems in Western societies must be set in a context of permanent tension between the interests of the individual, or the primordial group, and those of new institutions or bodies which are more abstract, and therefore harder to identify, recognise and, eventually, accept. But it is also the history of how peoples view the world, of their common points of reference: in short, a history of mental representations, which can partly be written by studying their translation into figurative images – into political iconography developed for purposes of mass propaganda.