General Issues
SOCIAL THEORY AND SOCIAL SCIENCE
Arnon, Arie. Monetary Theory and Policy from Hume and Smith to Wicksell. Money, Credit and the Economy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2011. xxii, 424 pp. £68.00. (Paper: £25.99.)
In this survey of the major developments in monetary theory and policy from the 1770s to the 1870s, from David Hume and Adam Smith to Walter Bagehot and Knut Wicksell, the author seeks to explain in particular why a theory of central banking took so long to enter the mainstream thought. He investigates, for example, how major monetary theorists understood the roles of the invisible and visible hands in money, credit, and banking and highlights the work of Henry Thornton and other pioneering theoreticians. See also Fred E. Schrader's review in this volume, pp. 320–323.
Bourdieu and Historical Analysis. Ed. by Philip S. Gorski. Duke University Press Books, Durham [etc.] 2013. 422 pp. $99.95. (Paper: $27.95.)
The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002), a theorist of social reproduction and social transformation, was also interested in the question of historical change, according to the editor of this volume, which contains thirteen essays exploring these aspects of Bourdieu's ideas and their potential contribution to analysing large-scale social change and historical crisis. Some contributors invoke historical examples mainly for theoretical reflection, while others show how Bourdieu's concepts and methods may be used to illuminate historical issues, such as the United States New Deal policy and the emergence of sports fields in France.
Caffentzis, George. In Letters of Blood and Fire. Work, Machines, and the Crisis of Capitalism. PM Press, Oakland (CA); Common Notions, Brooklyn (NY); Autonomedia, Brooklyn (NY) 2013. 288 pp. $19.95.
This volume brings together thirteen essays, originally published between 1980 and 2010, in which Marxist concepts of labour are “stretched” to apply not only to waged workers but also to unwaged workers and their struggles, particularly housewives. Five essays examine the process of work in capitalism; another one the nature of machines. In four articles Professor Caffentzis discusses theories of war and economic crisis. Some essays have originated from discussions within the Midnight Notes Collective founded in 1979 in the United States as a “bridge” between historical workers’ movements and emerging new social movements.
Carlucci, Alessandro. Gramsci and Languages. Unification, Diversity, Hegemony. [Historical Materialism Book Series, Vol. 59.] Brill, Leiden [etc.] 2013. xvi, 256 pp. € 190.00; $141.00.
Antonio Gramsci's life (1891–1937) abounded with linguistic and cultural diversity, for example through his Sardinian-Italian bilingualism and the contacts with his Russian wife's multilingual emigré family. He studied linguistics at university, gained first-hand experience with dialects and national languages through his work as a journalist and translator, and was familiar with debates on language. In this book Dr Carlucci aims to explain the originality of Gramsci as a Marxist thinker by examining Gramsci's interest in language, especially in questions of linguistic diversity and unification.
Fournier, Marcel. Émile Durkheim. A Biography. Transl. by David Macey. Polity, Cambridge [etc.] 2013. viii, 866 pp. £45.00.
Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) was one of the founding fathers of sociology. Placing Durkheim's work within the intellectual, institutional, and political context of the years 1850–1920 and emphasizing the collective dimension of Durkheim's work, Dr Fournier in this chronologically arranged biography (originally published in French in 2007) discusses Durkheim's work and that of his collaborators, as well as the debates surrounding their publications, aiming to shed light on Durkheim's personality, his relationship with Judaism, his family life, his relations with friends and collaborators, his political and administrative assignments, and his political views.
Hosfeld, Rolf. Karl Marx. An Intellectual Biography. Berghahn, New York [etc.] 2013. 190 pp. $29.00; £18.00.
In this biographical essay, a translation of Die Geister die er rief. Eine neue Karl-Marx-Biografie (2009), Dr Hosfeld closely connects episodes in Marx's life with events and developments in European history and links Marx the politician and revolutionary to his work. The emphasis is on Marx's intellectual development, with the most space reserved for chapters on “Ideas” (until the 1848 revolutions) and “Deeds” (until the demise of the First International). The chapters on “Discoveries” and “Consequences” deal with Marx's final years and assess his merits.
Lachmann, Richard. What is Historical Sociology? Polity, Cambridge [etc.] 2013. 160 pp. £45.00; € 52.30. (Paper: £14.99; € 17.50.)
Sociology was devised by Marx, Weber, Durkheim, and others as a historical discipline to explain the emergence and consequences of rational, capitalist society. In this introduction to historical sociology Professor Lachmann sets out to explain how sociological analyses of historical change shed light on the origins of the contemporary world and the scope and consequences of current transformations. He examines exemplary works to demonstrate how historical sociologists have addressed the origins of capitalism, revolutions and social movements, empires and states, inequality, gender, and the family and culture.
Laruelle, François. Anti-Badiou. The Introduction of Maoism into Philosophy. Bloomsbury, New York [etc.] 2013. 246 pp. $27.95; £18.99. (E-book: £18.99.)
In this polemic against the French philosopher Alain Badiou, Professor Laruelle contends that Badiou represents the introduction of Maoism in philosophy. Badiou's project, he argues, is to “re-educate” philosophy through mathematics. Professor Laruelle counters Badiou's project with his own “non-philosophy”, a “true democracy of thought” that breaks philosophy's “enthrallment” with mathematics and seeks a way to instrumentalize it via less authoritarian procedures.
Moberg, Mark. Engaging Anthropological Theory. A Social and Political History. Routledge, London [etc.] 2013. xii, 360 pp. Ill. £80.00; $130.00. (Paper: £25.99; $41.95.)
In this textbook about the history of anthropological theory, Professor Moberg, arguing that anthropological ideas regarding human diversity are rooted in broader social forces (e.g. administration of colonial societies and movements for national independence), examines the historical context of anthropological ideas and the contested nature of anthropology along with key theorists and concepts. The book also includes text boxes on special subjects and a “Quiz yourself” feature following each chapter.
Myers, Ella. Worldly Ethics. Democratic Politics and Care for the World. Duke University Press, Durham [etc.] 2013. xi, 212 pp. $84.95. (Paper: $23.95.)
Observing an “ethical turn” in contemporary political theory, Professor Myers in this book offers a “sympathetic critique” of the quest for a democratic ethos. Analysing Michel Foucault's therapeutic model, based on a “care of the self”, and Emmanuel Levinas's charitable model, based on “care for the Other”, she argues that these approaches are unlikely to enhance democratic civic activity. Instead, Professor Myers proposes an alternative ethos based on Hannah Arendt's notion of amor mundi (love of the world).
Rehmann, Jan. Theories of Ideology. The Powers of Alienation and Subjection. [Historical Materialism Book Series, Vol. 54.] Brill, Leiden [etc.] 2013. viii, 350 pp. € 129.00; $167.00.
Why does the Tea Party, despite its overt hatred of organized labour, have so many supporters among blue-collar workers in the US? Taking this question as a starting point and discussing the concepts of “economism”, “false consciousness”, ideology-critique, and ideology-theory, Dr Rehman analyses in this book how ideology is treated in the works of Marx and Engels, Lenin, Lukács, the Frankfurt School, Althusser, Gramsci, Foucault, Bourdieu, Stuart Hall, Haug's Projekt Ideologietheorie, and others. He then takes on Hayek and neo-liberalism as a case for testing and comparing the various approaches.
History
Bahadur, Gaiutra. Coolie Woman. The Odyssey of Indenture. Hurst and Company, London 2014. xxi, 274 pp. Ill. £20.00.
In this book Ms Bahadur, an American journalist born in Guyana, tells the story of her search for traces of her great-grandmother, who, as a twenty-seven year-old Brahmin woman, pregnant and without a husband, sailed from India to Guyana in 1903. Using interviews as well as published and manuscript sources, the author also aims to shed light on the history of other Indian women who migrated to the Caribbean as “coolies”, investigating the reasons for their departure and describing the passage from India to the Caribbean and conditions on the plantations.
Commercial Agriculture, the Slave Trade and Slavery in Atlantic Africa. Ed. by Robin Law, Suzanne Schwarz and Silke Strickrodt. [Western Africa Series.] James Currey, Woodbridge 2013. xv, 272 pp. € 50.00.
From the beginnings of European maritime trade, the export of agricultural produce from Africa represented a potential alternative to the slave trade. In the context of the legal abolition of the slave trade, the promotion of commercial agriculture in Africa was seen as a means of suppressing the slave trade. This volume (based on a conference held in London in September 2010) features nine case studies of commercial agriculture in different regions of Africa from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, an essay on the slave trade and African commercial agriculture, and another on the origins of “legitimate commerce”.
Company Towns of the Bat'a Concern. History – Cases – Architecture. Ed. by Ondřej Ševeček and Martin Jemelka. Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2013. 307 pp. Ill. € 54.00; Sfr. 75.60.
In the 1930s the Bat'a (Bata) footwear company began establishing company towns in Czechoslovakia and other countries around the world, as part of a programme of social rationalization supported by visions of a new industrial culture and a new concept of organizing human labour. This volume features eight case studies of Bat'a towns in Germany, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, and North America; three articles on the history of Bat'a in general; and another three about architecture and urbanism, including a study of how companies such as Bat'a, Volkswagen, and Nike influenced urban spaces and communities.
A Global History of Anti-slavery Politics in the Nineteenth Century. Ed. by William Mulligan and Maurice Bric. Palgrave, Basingstoke [etc.] 2013. viii, 254 pp. £55.00; $58.00.
This book is about anti-slavery politics in Europe, the United States, Haiti, South America, Sierra Leone, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire. Examining abolitionist movements within the context of transnational networks and cultural exchange, the ten case studies shed light on how abolitionism, by connecting high-level politics, popular associations, and the agency of oppressed individuals, changed social institutions, labour, economic and commercial relations, and international politics. One chapter considers the legacy of nineteenth-century legal conventions in the development of international anti-slavery law today.
Kinealy, Christine. Charity and the Great Hunger in Ireland. The Kindness of Strangers. Bloomsbury, London [etc.] 2013. x, 411 pp. £63.00; $130.00. (Paper: £20.69; $39.95.)
The Irish Famine of 1845 was the first national disaster to attract international sympathy and large-scale financial donations, according to Professor Kinealy. Donations came from all over the world, from various religious, ethnic and social groups; not only from the rich and influential, but also from poor and marginalized groups such as former slaves, convicts and “fallen women”. This book traces the earliest efforts to assist the Irish poor, examining the roles of the Catholic Church, the Society of Friends, and other British and American organizations. It also reveals how, occasionally, relief efforts were connected with the transatlantic anti-slavery campaign.
Labour, Coercion, and Economic Growth in Eurasia, 17th–20th Centuries. Ed. by Alessandro Stanziani. [Studies in Global Social History, Vol. 11.] Brill, Leiden [etc.] 2013. ix, 326 pp. € 109.00; $152.00.
Forms of “free” and coerced labour were defined and practised with reference to each other, both within individual countries and regions and on a global scale. This is the main hypothesis underlying the twenty-two contributions to this volume which, juxtaposing historical settings and experiences that are usually studied separately (wage labour in France and Britain, Russian serfdom, slavery in China, and work discipline in India and Japan), examine continuities and connections between free and unfree labour, particularly in colonial empires, where links existed between the conditions of European wage earners and indentured immigrants, for example in Indonesia.
Ours to Master and to Own. Workers’ Control from the Commune to the Present. Ed. by Immanuel Ness and Dario Azzellini. Haymarket Books, Chicago 2011. x, 443 pp. Ill. $19.00.
The twenty-two contributions to this volume explore the various forms of workers’ control, councils, and self-management that have emerged around the world in the twentieth century. After four essays about the theoretical debate on the relation between workers’ councils and political revolution, contributions in subsequent sections present examples of workers’ councils in early twentieth-century revolutionary circumstances in Germany, Russia, Italy, and Spain; workers’ control under state socialism (Yugoslavia and Poland); the struggle for democratic workers’ control in the anti-colonial struggle; workers’ control against capitalist restructuring in the second half of the twentieth century; and cases of workers’ control from the 1990s to 2010 in the global south. See also Frank Georgi's book review in this volume, pp. 315–317.
The Oxford Handbook of the History of Nationalism. Ed. by John Breuilly. Oxford University Press, Oxford [etc.] 2013. xxx, 775 pp. Maps. £98.00.
This chronologically arranged handbook covers the history of nationalism in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas from the emergence of nationalist notions, sentiments, and cultural movements from before the era of nation-states to the nationalist ideas and politics of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. The thirty-six chapters include essays about the emergence of anti-western doctrines of nationalism; independence movements in the Americas; nationalism in relation to the French Revolution; fascism and racism; religion; identity and everyday life; socialist internationalism; globalization and historiography. Each chapter concludes with suggestions for further reading.
Points of passage. Jewish Transmigrants from Eastern Europe in Scandinavia, Germany, and Britain 1880–1914. Ed. by Tobias Brinkmann. Berghahn, New York [etc.] 2013. viii, 175 pp. $85.00; £53.00. (E-book: $85.00; £53.00.)
Illustrating the rise of migration restrictions across the world before 1914, this volume focuses on the journeys of Jewish migrants from eastern Europe through European countries to destinations on other continents between 1880 and 1914. Seven authors investigate aspects of transmigration such as medicalization of migration control in the United States, Germany, and Britain (1880–1920); transit through Scandinavia, Germany, and Britain; travel conditions for migrants crossing the North Atlantic (1900–1914); Russian-Jewish transmigration and the role of Scandinavian shipping companies; and the case of a group of German-speaking Russians stranded in Southampton.
The Routledge International Handbook of Migration Studies. Ed. by Steven J. Gold and Stephanie J. Nawyn. Routledge, London [etc.] 2013. xix, 613 pp. £140.00; $225.00. (Paper: £34.99; $59.95.)
The first part of this handbook discusses economic, psychological, and environmental aspects of international migration and outlines European, American, Asian, and African migration history. Part II focuses on refugees, forced migrants, and human trafficking. Part III, which addresses migrants in the economy, includes a chapter on unions and migrants. In Part IV aspects such as racism, ethnicity, and gender are examined. Part V is about identities; Part VI about family aspects and Part VII about the state. Part VIII includes chapters on transnationalism and return migration; and in Part IX methods for studying international migration are discussed, including the use of interviews and photography.
Slavery and Antislavery in Spain's Atlantic Empire. Ed. by Josep M. Fradera and Christopher Schmidt-Nowara. [European Expansion and Global Interaction, Vol. 9.] Berghahn Books, New York [etc.] 2013. x, 328 pp. Ill. $120.00; £75.00.
Based on a conference held in Barcelona in June 2009, this volume examines Spain's role as a colonial pioneer in the Atlantic world and its latecomer status as a slave-trading, plantation-based empire. The eleven chapters include an essay outlining the history of the slave trade in the Spanish empire (1501–1808); articles about the social connections between imperial and colonial Spain and slavery as an institution; the ideas of Portuguese missionaries about slavery; how litigation by slaves established legal rights in Cuba; the influence of the Haitian Revolution and the abolition of the British slave trade; the illegal slave trade; and the reasons for the mass appeal of British abolitionism.
Weiss, Holger. Framing a Radical African Atlantic. African American Agency, West African Intellectuals and the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers. [Studies in Global Social History, Vol. 14.] Brill, Leiden [etc.] 2014. xvi, 752 pp. € 199.00; $258.00.
The International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers (ITUCNW), part of the Comintern and the Profintern, was to serve as a platform for activating and coordinating agitation and propaganda among “Negro workers”. The organization focused on establishing links with and supporting African, African-Caribbean, and African-American radical trade-union activists. In this book Professor Weiss presents a history of the ITUCNW from its establishment in 1930 to its dissolution in 1937–1938, highlighting the roles of key figures such as Otto Huiswoud, James Ford, and George Padmore. See also Angelie Sens's review in this volume, pp. 331–334.
Comparative History
Ahlquist, John S. and Margaret Levi. In the Interest of Others. Organizations and Social Activism. Princeton University Press, Princeton [etc.] 2013. xvi, 315 pp. Maps. $95.00; £65.00. (Paper: $29.95; £19.95.)
Comparing four American and Australian trade unions in the transport sector, Professors Ahlquist and Levi study eighty years of organizational leadership and governance to explain why some organizations engage in actions that do not benefit their members directly, for example, assistance to freedom struggles overseas. Part of the answer, they argue, lies in how an organization defines its “community of fate”, i.e. those with whom members are willing to act in solidarity. See also Peter Cole's review in this volume, pp. 317–320.
Cox, Anthony. Empire, Industry and Class. The imperial nexus of jute, 1840–1940. [Routledge/Edinburgh South Asian studies series.] Routledge, London [etc.] 2013. xvi, 270 pp. £90.00.
In this study of the jute industry in Scotland and Bengal from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, Dr Cox explores the trajectory of labour-market formation, labour supervision, cultures of labour, and class formation in a comparative analysis of two regional textile industries, one in an imperial country, the other in a colonial one. The author challenges the historiography emphasizing that Indian colonial industrialization was exceptional and arguing that the imperial connection between the two economies provided an opportunity to test and improve ways of controlling the working classes in Dundee. See also Samita Sen's review in this volume, pp. 325–328.
Europe's 1968. Voices of Revolt. Ed. by Robert Gildea, James Mark, [and] Anette Warring. Oxford University Press, Oxford [etc.] 2013. xiv, 382 pp. £65.00.
This book about “1968” is based on interviews with nearly 500 former activists from 14 European countries (ranging from Spain to the Soviet Union and from Greece to East and West Germany), collected by an international team of historians. The contributors aim to present a comparative history of “1968”, highlighting nationally or locally specific forms of revolt, as well as instances of solidarity and networking across borders. The book's themes include the meanings of revolution, faith and radicalism, gender and sexuality, and revolutionary violence.
Górny, Maciej. The Nation Should Come First. Marxism and Historiography in East Central Europe. [Warsaw Studies in Contemporary History, Vol. 1.] Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main [etc.] 2013. 302 pp. € 54.20; £43.00; $70.95; Sfr. 66.00. (E-book: € 54.20; £43.00; $70.95; Sfr. 69.55.)
By the second half of the 1940s, Marxism became the publicly endorsed doctrine that defined the boundaries of history writing in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the GDR. In this comparative study Professor Górny analyses how Czech, Slovak, Polish, and East-German self-declared Marxist historians dealt with the traditions of national historiography in their countries, examining particular historical narratives in the collective memories, and concluding that historiography in those countries tended to revise and re-evaluate, rather than break away from, established traditions.
Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent [and] R. Bin Wong. Before and Beyond Divergence. The Politics of Economic Change in China and Europe. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.) [etc.] 2011. xi, 276 pp. $47.50; £35.95; € 43.00.
Why did sustained economic growth rise in Europe rather than in China? Questioning conventional cultural and environmental explanations of the nineteenth-century economic divergence between Europe and the rest of the world, but without rejecting all economic arguments, Professors Rosenthal and Wong argue in this book that political processes underlay the economic divergence between the two world regions. See also Eric Mielants's review in this volume, pp. 323–325.
Routes into the Abyss. Coping with Crises in the 1930s. Ed. by Helmut Konrad and Wolfgang Maderthaner. [International Studies in Social History, Vol. 21.] Berghahn Books, New York [etc.] 2013. Ill. vi, 224 pp. $70.00; £43.00. (E-book: $70.00; £43.00.)
Based on a symposium held in Vienna in February 2009 to mark the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Austrian uprising of February 1934 and aiming to provide insight into the contemporary global recession, this collection presents a global comparative perspective on the 1930s and the different responses to and political consequences of, the economic crisis. The thirteen chapters include contributions focusing on Germany, Italy, Austria, Spain, Sweden, Japan, China, India, Turkey, Brazil, and the United States. One chapter reflects on the reaction of the labour movement to the crisis, another on the significance of the 1934 Februarkämpfe.
Contemporary Issues
Gumbrell-McCormick, Rebecca, and Richard Hyman. Trade Unions in Western Europe. Hard Times, Hard Choices. Oxford University Press, Oxford [etc.] 2013. xx, 242 pp. £55.00; $89.95.
Exploring the challenges facing present-day trade unions and their responses in Britain, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and Italy, in this thematically organized book Dr Gumbrell-McCormick and Professor Hyman examine union initiatives in key policy areas, such as recruitment, representation, and mobilization; restructuring trade unionism; and international trade-union action. In the introductory chapters the authors review the varieties of industrial relations and trade unionism; in the final chapter they explore how unions can integrate strategic action with democratic involvement.
Continents and Countries
Africa
The Objects of Life in Central Africa. The History of Consumption and Social Change, 1840–1980. Ed. by Robert Ross, Marja Hinfelaar and Iva Peša. [Afrika-Studiecentrum Series, vol. 30.] Brill, Leiden [etc.] 2013. viii, 283 pp. Ill. Maps. € 46.00.
This volume is about consumption and social change in central Africa (including present-day Angola, Congo, Zambia, and Zimbabwe) from 1840 until 1980. The ten chapters include contributions about the trade in firearms before colonization; a Methodist Church and social mobility; railways and railway culture; the hidden agenda of colonial advertising; the introduction of the sewing machine; and the roles of Indian and African traders.
Eritrea
Zaccaria, Massimo. Anch'io per la tua bandiera. Il V Battaglione Ascari in missione sul fronte libico (1912). [Popoli, società e culture, 1.] Giorgio Pozzi Editore, Ravenna 2012. 263 pp. Ill. € 17.00.
Ascaris (or askaris) were indigenous soldiers who served in the armies of the European colonial powers in Africa. This study focuses on a battalion of Eritrean ascaris deployed to the Libyan front in 1912. Professor Zaccaria examines the formation and mission of the ascari battalion, the ascaris’ subsequent visit to Italy, the way they were celebrated in the media, and their celebratory return to Eritrea, shedding light on the impact of the war experience on Eritrea and highlighting how Italy sought to interpret its colonial role. See also Francesca Di Pasquale's review in this issue, 334–335.
Ghana
Mohr, Adam. Enchanted Calvinism. Labor Migration, Afflicting Spirits, and Christian Therapy in the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. [Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora.] University of Rochester Press, Rochester (NY) 2013. xiii, 234 pp. Ill. $80.00.
Using historical and ethnographic research, Professor Mohr analyses phenomena of spiritual affliction and healing among Ghanaian Presbyterians, particularly within the context of labour migration. The first part of this book focuses on the Presbyterian Church of Ghana from 1828 to 2010; the second on the Ghanaian Presbyterian immigrant community in present-day United States and Canada. The author argues that, contrary to Max Weber's thesis, Ghanaian Presbyterians became more attuned to spiritual explanations of and remedies for suffering, the more they were integrated into capitalist production modes.
South Africa
Bright, Rachel. Chinese Labour in South Africa, 1902–10. Race, Violence, and Global Spectacle. [Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies.] Palgrave, Basingstoke [etc.] 2013. x, 266 pp. £55.00; $95.00.
At the turn of the twentieth century “white” colonies around the world restricted Asian migration, arguing that it brought immorality, disease, and a threat to “white” labour. Between 1904 and 1907, however, South Africa imported around 63,700 Chinese indentured labourers to work in the Witwatersrand gold mines. By 1910 all of them had been forcibly repatriated to China. By investigating this local experimental employment of Chinese, Dr Bright also aims to shed light on the history of colonial violence, moral panics in relation to racial stereotyping, networks of labourism, and whiteness and economic imperialism.
Sudan
Nugud, Mohamed Ibrahim. Slavery in the Sudan. History, Documents, and Commentary. Transl. by Asma Mohamed Abdel Halim. Ed. by Sharon Barnes. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke [etc.] 2013. xxix, 184 pp. £55.00.
Originally published in Arabic (1993), this book is about slavery in the Sudan. Using secondary literature as well as archival materials, the author (an economist and communist politician who died in 2012) traces the history of slavery in the Sudan in the ancient kingdoms, under nineteenth-century Turco-Egyptian rule, in the Mahdist state (1885–1898), and during the period of European control which ended in 1955. The volume includes extensive explanatory notes and an introduction by the translator, who observes that the stigma of slavery as described in this book continues to affect the lives of those descended from slaves.
America
Cowling, Camillia. Conceiving Freedom. Women of Color, Gender, and the Abolition of Slavery in Havana and Rio de Janeiro. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill 2013. xiii, 326. Ill. $69.95. (Paper: $34.95; E-book $34.95.)
During the gradual process of emancipation in Brazil and Cuba in the 1870s and 1880s, numerous enslaved and freed people approached the law to obtain freedom for themselves or their children or to change the conditions of their enslavement. In this comparative study Professor Cowling examines the legal claims filed by women of colour in Rio de Janeiro and Havana, who, with the help of scribes, petitioned to obtain freedom for themselves or their children, in some cases using “free-womb” laws that declared the children of enslaved women to be legally free.
Marrero-Fente, Raúl. Trayectorias Globales. Estudios coloniales en el mundo hispánico. [Biblioteca Indiana, 36.] Iberoamericana, Madrid; Vervuert Verlag, Frankfurt [etc.] 2013. 177 pp. € 24.00.
Highlighting cases of transatlantic and global exchange, Mr Marrero-Fente analyses in this book how different geo-cultural areas in Africa, the Americas, and Asia are represented in legal, historical, and literary texts, such as the capitulación granted to Juan Ponce de Léon for the conquest of Florida; Fernán Pérez de Oliva's narrative of Columbus's expedition; and the Comentarios Reales de los Incas by Garcilaso de la Vega. The book opens with a postcolonial critique of legal reasoning in the conquest of America.
Brazil
Langland, Victoria. Speaking of Flowers. Student Movements and the Making and Remembering of 1968 in Military Brazil. Duke University Press, Durham [etc.] 2013. xv, 326 pp. Ill. $89.95. (Paper: $24.95.)
In this history of student activism during Brazil's military dictatorship (1964–1985), particularly the massive student protests of 1968 and the subsequent repressions, Professor Langland also examines what the activism of that year meant to later generations of Brazilian students. She describes how they mobilized collective memories in the political struggles of the 1970s and 1980s, also tracing how the idea of a “student activist” was constructed, challenged, and redefined over time.
Cuba
Cuba Grafica. Histoire de l'affiche cubaine. [Collection Action graphique.] Dir. par Régis Léger. L’échappée, Montreuil 2013. 251 pp. Ill. € 34.00.
In twentieth-century Cuban history posters were important for disseminating ideas and culture, especially during the 1960s and 1970s, the golden age of political graphic art. The sample of 225 posters reproduced in this volume cover the period from c.1900 through the years of crisis after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when a new generation of designers emerged. The posters originate from Cuban public and private collections and are presented within the context of Cuban history by fifteen Cuban and French art historians.
Whitney, Robert and Chailloux Laffita, Graciela. Subjects or Citizens. British Caribbean Workers in Cuba, 1900–1960. University Press of Florida, Gainesville [etc.] 2013. x, 237 pp. $74.95.
In the twentieth century Cuba received large numbers of white immigrants (mostly from Spain) and black immigrants (mostly from Haiti and the British Caribbean). This study focuses on the British Caribbean immigrants, most of whom were employed in the sugar industry. Using interviews as well as archival sources, Professors Whitney and Chailloux Laffita examine the ways these immigrants came to Cuba, their living and working conditions, and issues of British and Cuban citizenship. See also Kirwin R. Shaffer's review in this volume, pp. 329–331.
Guatemala
From Silence to Memory. Revelations of the AHPN. Ed. by Archivo Histórico de la Policía Nacional (AHPN, Guatemala). Foreword by Carlos Aguirre. Preface to the English translation by Kate Doyle. University of Oregon, Eugene 2013. lx, 476 pp. Ill. $30.00.
In 2005 archives of the Guatemalan National Police were discovered that contained information on systematic human rights violations during the civil war in Guatemala. Using those records and focusing on the period from 1975–1985, this volume (a translation of the 2011 Spanish report) traces the history of the National Police and its role in suppressing social and political activists, as well as armed opposition groups. The report also sheds light on the role of the United States in moulding Guatemala's security apparatus. The Spanish digital version of this report and images of the documents cited can be viewed at: www.archivohistoricopn.org.
Mexico
Joseph, Gilbert M. and Jürgen Buchenau. Mexico's Once and Future Revolution. Social Upheaval and the Challenge of Rule since the Late Nineteenth Century. Duke University Press, Durham [etc.] 2013. x, 252 pp. Ill. $84.95. (Paper: $23.95.)
The Mexican Revolution is the defining event of modern Mexican history, according to Professors Joseph and Buchenau. In this chronologically arranged book covering the history of Mexico from Porfirio Díaz's dictatorship to the neoliberalism of the present day, they trace the Revolution's causes, dynamics, consolidation, and consequences from various perspectives, including those of rural campesinos and urban workers; politicians, artists, intellectuals, and students; ideologues on the Left and the Right; women and men; rich and poor. The book also includes a twelve-page bibliographic essay.
United States of America
Choy, Catherine Ceniza. Global Families. A History of Asian International Adoption in America. New York University Press, New York [etc.] 2013. xv, 229 pp. Ill. $23.00.
Children born of Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese women and United States servicemen comprised one of the earliest groups of adoptive children, according to Professor Choy. In this book she explores the history of Asian international adoption in the United States since World War II, offering an interpretation of Asian adoption as a history of race, foreign relations, immigration, and labour.
Cordillot, Michel. Utopistes et Exilés du Nouveau Monde. Des Français aux États-Unis de 1848 à la Commune. [Collection Chroniques.] Vendémiaire, Paris 2013. 379 pp. € 22.00.
Between 1848 and the late 1870s thousands of democrats and revolutionaries fled France to build a new life in America. Among them were disciples of Étienne Cabet, defeated rioters of the 1848 June uprising, republicans fleeing the country after Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte's coup d’état of 1851, fourieristes led by Victor Considerant in the 1850s, and exiled communards. In this study Professor Cordillot traces their history, also investigating their involvement in causes such as the abolition of slavery and their role in founding the French sections of the International Working Men's Association in America.
Heins, Marjorie. Priests of Our Democracy. The Supreme Court, Academic Freedom, and the Anti-Communist Purge. New York University Press, New York [etc.] 2013. x, 361 pp. $24.00.
In the early 1950s New York City's teachers and professors suspected of communist sympathies became targets of investigations by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. Those who refused to cooperate were fired. Teachers and professors who resisted the anti-communist witch hunt of the 1950s are the main focus of this book. After tracing the origins of academic freedom and describing the radicalism and red scares in New York politics, the author describes how the anti-communist excesses of the 1950s inspired the Supreme Court to recognize the vital role of teachers and professors in American democracy.
Howard, Ella. Homeless. Poverty and Place in Urban America. [Politics and Culture in Modern America.] University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia 2013. 276 pp. Ill. $45.00; £29.50. (E-book: $45.00; £29.50.)
Exploring the relationship between poverty and place and focusing on the Bowery in New York, “the nation's best-known skid row”, Professor Howard examines in this book how politicians, charity administrators, social workers, urban planners, and social scientists dealt with the problem of homelessness from the 1920s through the 1960s. As city centres became more valuable, she concludes, urban renewal projects and gentrification destroyed skid rows and with them the public housing and social services they offered.
Jobs with Justice. 25 Years, 25 Voices. Ed. by Eric Larson. Intr. by Larry Cohen. PM Press, Oakland 2013. x, 180 pp. Ill. $15.95.
Jobs with Justice (JwJ) is a coalition of labour organizations and community groups in the United States dedicated to protecting the rights of working people and supporting community struggles to bring about a more just society. In this collection of twenty-five interviews and essays, community, labour, immigrant, student, and other activists from various local chapters, as well as the national JwJ office, tell the stories of their participation in JwJ.
Katz, Michael B. The Undeserving Poor. America's Enduring Confrontation with Poverty. Second edition. Fully updated and revised. Oxford University Press, Oxford [etc.] 2013. xiii, 353 pp. £12.99; $19.95.
The idea that some poor people are “undeserving” of help, because they brought their poverty on themselves as a result of moral, cultural, or biological deficiencies, is a recurrent theme in American discussions of poverty, according to Professor Katz. Closely examining debates and policies relating to poverty, he argues that large numbers of poor people in American history deemed “undeserving” have been excluded from private and public assistance, and that although the identity of the undeserving poor has shifted with time and context, the category has endured. This book is a revision of the 1989 edition.
Lichtenstein, Nelson. A Contest of Ideas. Capital, Politics, and Labor. [The Working Class in American History.] University of Illinois Press, Urbana [etc.] 2013. 314 pp. $95.00. (Paper: $25.00.)
The twenty-one articles in this collection (originally published between 1988 and 2012, some of them revised) include three essays in which Professor Lichtenstein reflects on his own writings about the relationship between labour, capital, and politics, and five portraits of “activist intellectuals”, e.g. the sociologist C. Wright Mills, NAACP labour secretary Herbert Hill, and Jay Lovestone, who helped found the American Communist Party. The collection also contains essays about labour and the state, the Civil Rights movement, and the conservative turn in politics, law, and culture.
Martinez, Jaime Amanda. Confederate Slave Impressment in the Upper South. [Civil War America.] North Carolina University Press, Chapel Hill [etc.] 2013. 233 pp. Ill. Maps. $39.95. (E-book: $39.99.)
During the American Civil War white Virginians and North Carolinians temporarily surrendered control over portions of their slave populations to state authorities, military officials, and the Confederate government through impressment to meet the need for slaves to work on fortifications. In this detailed social and political study of slave impressment, Professor Martinez emphasizes that although slaveholders often objected to slave impressment for both practical and ideological reasons, thousands acquiesced to the recurring requisitions for slave labour.
Mitrani, Sam. The Rise of the Chicago Police Department. Class and Conflict, 1850–1894. [The Working Class in American History.] University of Illinois Press, Urbana [etc.] 2013. 254 pp. Ill. $50.00.
In this book Professor Mitrani examines the history of the Chicago Police Department from the 1850s through the 1880s within the context of the economic and social transformation of Chicago into an industrial city with a population of immigrant wage labourers who sought to improve their situation through strikes and riots. Through disturbances such as the 1855 Lager Beer riot, the 1867 strikes for the eight-hour workday, and the Haymarket bombing, he explores how the various political and economic groups in Chicago shaped the Police Department, and how the police influenced relations between those groups.
Venezuela
Ciccariello-Maher, George. We Created Chávez. A People's History of the Venezuelan Revolution. Duke University Press, Durham 2013. xi, 320 pp. Ill. $94.95. (Paper: $25.95.)
Moving beyond the figure of the Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, Professor Ciccariello-Maher in this book uses interviews with grassroots organizers, former guerrillas, members of neighbourhood militias, and government officials to narrate the history of social movements and revolutionary groups from 1958 to the present, aiming to provide a broader, more nuanced account of Chávez's rise to power and a new interpretation of the Bolivarian Revolution.
Asia
Explorations in the Social History of Modern Central Asia (19th–Early 20th Century). Ed. by Paolo Sartori. [Brill's Inner Asian Library, Vol. 29.] Brill, Leiden [etc.] 2013. xiii, 333 pp. Ill. € 112.00; $146.00.
Challenging assumptions about traditional institutions and social practices that, according to the editors, merely reflect the bias of Tsarist-era and Soviet historiography, the nine case studies in this volume aim to offer new insights into property relations, resource management (e.g. control over the water of the Amu-Darya river in 1913–1914), forms of local administration (e.g. nineteenth-century Bukharan systems of taxation), the constitution of new social groups, the construction of identity categories, Islamic practices among nomads, and other themes in the social history of the region.
Guha, Sumit. Beyond Caste. Identity and Power in South Asia, Past and Present. [Brill's Indological Library, Vol. 44.] Brill, Leiden [etc.] 2013. xviii, 236 pp. Maps. € 98.00; $127.00.
Tracing the history of “caste” (the term was coined by the Portuguese in sixteenth-century Asia and America), a complex politicized form of ethnic ranking shaped by socio-economic power, connected with occupational guilds and associated with notions of purity, pollution, and danger, Professor Guha in this book aims to present a new understanding of society and the state in south Asia, as well as ethnic politics in the last millennium.
Bangladesh
The Bangladesh Reader. History, Culture, Politics. Ed. by Meghna Guhathakurta and Willem van Schendel. Duke University Press, Durham [etc.] 2013. xiv, 550 pp. Ill. Maps. $99.95. (Paper: $27.95.)
Intended for travellers, students, and scholars, this volume chronicles the history and culture of Bangladesh over two and a half millennia in more than fifty documents, including eyewitness accounts (e.g. of work in a clothing factory), investigative reports (e.g. a campaign for garment workers’ rights), newspaper articles, historical documents, blogs, essays (e.g. one from 1976, on Bangladesh as a test case of development), photographs, posters, maps and even a recipe. One section is devoted to development issues; another includes entries illustrating international labour migration. The editors provide introductory notes to individual entries and suggest additional reading.
China
Kim, Jaesok. Chinese Labor in a Korean Factory. Class, Ethnicity, and Productivity on the Shop Floor in Globalizing China. Stanford University Press, Stanford (Calif.) 2013. xii, 290 pp. Ill. $45.00. (E-book: $45.00.)
Drawing on anthropological fieldwork conducted from 2002 to 2003 in a multinational garment corporation in the Chinese city of Qingdao, where a small group of expatriate Korean managers supervised more than 700 Chinese workers, most of them young, unmarried Han-Chinese women from rural backgrounds, Professor Kim in this case study aims to show how this corporation, negotiating confrontations in the workplace between Korean and Chinese cultures, traditions, and classes, struggled with the pressure to be increasingly profitable in a global market.
India
Bryant, G.J. The Emergence of British Power in India, 1600–1784. A Grand Strategic Interpretation. [Worlds of the East India Company.] The Boydell Press, Woodbridge [etc.] 2013. xv, 350 pp. £75.00.
Until the 1740s the merchants of the British East India Company had generally pursued a peaceful trade in India, recognized by local Indian princes as mutually beneficial. Over the next forty years, however, Company men began fighting against the French and the Indian princes. Using surviving private letters from individuals, mainly from the Company's governing bodies of Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta, Dr Bryant aims in this book to demonstrate how the foundations for British domination of India were laid between the 1740s and 1784.
Japan
L'internazionalismo in Giappone. Dagli esordi del movimento operaio alla controrivoluzione staliniana 1897–1930. Antologia a cura di Alfio Aloisi. Edizioni Pantarei, Milano 2013. 520 pp. Ill. Maps. € 20.00.
This anthology features texts concerning the history of the Japanese labour movement from its beginnings in 1897 to the emergence of socialism and from the founding of the communist party in 1922 to its political and organizational defeat in the early 1930s. The collection comprises annotated writings by both contemporaries and historians, for example Sen Katayama, Hyman Kublin, John Crump, Stephen Marsland, George M. Beckmann, and Kazuo Nimura. Chronological tables and lists of Japanese trade unions, periodicals, associations and parties, and individuals are included as well.
Konishi, Sho. Anarchist modernity. Co-operatism and Japanese-Russian Intellectual Relations in Modern Japan. [Harvard East Asian Monographs, Vol. 356.] Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.) 2013. 411 pp. Ill. $49.95; £36.95; € 45.00.
Russian and Japanese intellectuals such as Leo Tolstoy, Peter Kropotkin, Lev Mechnikov, Saigo Takamori, and Tokutomi Roka maintained unofficial cross-border relationships through correspondence, travel, and networking. In this book Professor Konishi explores Japanese–Russian transnational networks from c.1850 to 1930, revealing a current in Japanese intellectual and cultural life that he describes as “co-operatist anarchist modernity”: a commitment to realizing a modern society through mutual aid and voluntary activity that later crystallized into such movements as the Nonwar Movement, Esperantism, and the popularization of natural sciences.
North Korea
Kim, Suzy. Everyday Life in the North Korean Revolution, 1945–1950. Cornell University Press, Ithaca [etc.] 2013. xiii, 307 pp. Ill. $45.00.
During North Korea's social revolution from 1945, when Korea was liberated from Japanese colonial rule, to the onset of the Korean War in 1950, village life underwent major transformations, according to Professor Kim. In this book she describes the lives of peasants and villagers during the formative years of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea using autobiographies, court documents, minutes from organizational meetings, educational materials, women's magazines, and other documents seized by American military forces during the Korean War.
Europe
Buschak, Willy. Die Vereinigten Staaten von Europa sind unser Ziel. Arbeiterbewegung und Europa im frühen 20. Jahrhundert. Klartext, Essen 2013. 378 pp. Ill. € 29.95.
Many ideas and proposals for a social and democratic Europe were already put forward in the 1920s and 1930s by the social democratic parties of the European continent, trade unions, and pacifist organizations. These suggestions included plans for a European industrial, economic, and monetary policy, for creating jobs and improving living and working conditions, and for a European Constitution. In this book the author examines the commitment of socialist parties and trade unions to European integration in the early decades of the twentieth century.
Hazan, Eric. La barricade. Histoire d'un objet révolutionnaire. [Collection Leçons de choses.] Éditions Autrement, Paris 2013. 169 pp. Ill. Maps. € 15.00.
Barricades are a symbol of street fighting. Built from materials found in the streets, such as cobblestones, carts, planks, and barrels (the term “barricade” comes from the French word for “barrel”), barricades have provided urban protesters with a means of defence from the sixteenth century, when the use of barricades was first recorded, to the present day. This book traces the history of the barricade from the French Wars of Religion through the rebellions and insurrections of the nineteenth century, mainly in France, ending with a discussion of the Paris Commune.
Lenger, Friedrich. Metropolen der Moderne. Eine europäische Stadtgeschichte seit 1850. C.H. Beck, München 2013. 757 pp. Ill. € 49,95; Sfr. 66.90. (E-book: € 41.99.)
Opening with a discussion of the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London, Haussmann's redesign of Paris, and the Paris exposition universelle of 1867, Professor Lenger in this chronologically arranged book presents a comprehensive history of modern European cities. He considers economic, demographic, social, political, and cultural aspects, and topics such as: world fairs and urban planning; migration; urban society and urban space; popular culture and media; urban conflict and violence; cities as war scenes; public housing; avant-garde art and architecture; ethnic conflict; and youth protest movements. Sixty-four coloured illustrations are included.
Migration, Settlement, and Belonging in Europe, 1500–1930s. Comparative Perspectives. Ed. by Steven King and Anne Winter. [International Studies in Social History, Vol. 23.] New York [etc.] Berghahn Books, New York [etc.] 2013. viii, 317 pp. $110.00; £68.00.
Citizenship, identity, and entitlement to welfare benefits and other communal resources depended on the question of who “belonged” to a community. The ten articles in this volume, which covers the period from 1500 to the 1930s, analyse settlement laws and practices in Austria, Belgium, France, Prussia, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and England and Wales to explore how migrants and others sought access to relief, how communities defined “belonging”, and how they dealt with the welfare expectations of an increasingly mobile population.
Oldenziel, Ruth [and] Mikael Hård. Consumers, Tinkerers, Rebels. The People Who Shaped Europe. [Making Europe: Technology and Transformations, 1850–2000.] Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke [etc.] 2013. xxi, 416 pp. £55.00; $95.00.
Focusing on Europe and considering class, gender, and ethnicity, in this social history of technology and consumption from the 1850s to the present Professors Oldenziel and Hård describe how consumers adopted, used, or resisted modern technologies. They discuss topics such as fashion, home furnishing, travel, food and cooking, home inspection, and waste and the environment. Their examples range from sewing machines and paper patterns to bicycles and toys (e.g. Meccano and the Barbie doll) and personal computers. The book concludes with a chapter about the internet.
Austria
Maccaroni, Giuseppe. Sociologia, stato e democrazia solidale in Max Adler. [Mimesis Filosofie, N. 228.] Mimesis, Sesto San Giovanni [etc.] 2013. 190 pp. € 16.00.
Max Adler (1873–1937) was the “philosopher” of Austro-Marxism, which tried briefly to offer an alternative to communism developing into Stalinism and social democratic reformism losing out to fascism. Through the story of Adler's intellectual development, this is a study of the originality of his sociological and political ideas, from his Neo-Kantian conception of scientific socialism to his discussion of the possibilities of and conditions for a democratic state and insistence on the need to educate the working class. One chapter deals specifically with Adler's ideas on war and peace.
France
Michel, Louise. Trois Romans. Les Microbes Humains. Le Monde Nouveau. Le Claque-dents. Textes établis, presentés et annotés par Claude Rétat et Stéphane Zékian. [Louise Michel: Œuvres.] Presses universitaires de Lyon, Lyon 2013. € 26.00.
This is a critical edition of three novels by Louise Michel: Les Microbes humains (1886), Le Monde nouveau (1888), and Le Claque-dents (1890). The volume also includes press reviews of the novels, the first part of an unfinished serial story, poems and other texts Michel published in the periodical L'Attaque, and four unpublished manuscripts from the Louise Michel collection at the International Institute of Social History, including the unpublished text of a lecture Michel delivered in 1880 about the communards returning from New Caledonia.
Germany
1968 und die 68er. Ereignisse, Wirkungen und Kontroversen in der Bundesrepublik. Hrsg. Gerrit Dworok [und] Christoph Weißmann. Böhlau Verlag, Köln [etc.] 2013. 227 pp. € 29.90.
In the history of West German culture, mentality, and democracy, 1968 is considered a key year, with the protest movements of “1968” regarded as heralding a new, more open, and liberal era. The seven articles in this volume about the history of 1968 focus on the Sozialistische Deutsche Studentenbund (SDS), Hans Magnus Enzensberger's periodical Kursbuch, reactions from conservative students to “68”, conceptions of fascism in the 1960s, the national question, and attitudes towards the United States. The final article is an assessment of the movements of the 1960s.
Bartels, Almuth. Monetarisierung und Individualisierung. Historische Analyse der betrieblichen Sozialpolitik bei Siemens (1945–1989). [Beiträge zur Unternehmensgeschichte, Band 32.] Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2013. 408 pp. € 62.00.
Focusing on the electrical engineering firm Siemens, in this dissertation (Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, 2011–2012) Dr Bartels contributes to the study of corporate social policies of large German companies after World War II. Examining the aims and motives of Siemens's social policy from 1945 to 1989, she argues that rising economic prosperity as well as increased individualization led to a shift from non-monetary benefits (e.g. profit sharing, pension schemes, health promotion, and recreational activities) to monetary benefits.
Becoming East German. Socialist Structures and Sensibilities After Hitler. [Spektrum: Publications of the German Studies Association, Vol. 6.] Ed. by Mary Fulbrook and Andrew I. Port. Berghahn, New York [etc.] 2013. x, 303 pp. $95.00; £60.00. (E-book: $95.00; £60.00.)
Focusing on sociocultural developments at the grassroots level rather than on high-level politics and repression, the twelve contributors to this volume explore the complex nature of power and state–society relations in the GDR. One chapter in the section about memory and identity after Nazism discusses the First German Writers’ Congress of 1947; the section about food and health care practices includes a chapter on efforts to eliminate tuberculosis. The third and final section, about disciplinary practices, includes a comparison of working-class behaviour in Nazi Germany and the GDR and an article about football and everyday life in the Honecker era.
Briatte-Peters, Anne-Laure. Citoyennes sous tutelle. Le mouvement féministe “radical” dans l'Allemagne wilhelmienne. [Convergences, Vol. 70.] Peter Lang, Bern [etc.] 2013. xiv, 461 pp. Ill. € 97.30.
Dr Briatte-Peters focuses in this book (based on a dissertation, Strasbourg 2011) on the radical wing of the German “bourgeois” feminist movement between 1888 and 1919, especially on the association Frauenwohl, radical feminists Minna Cauer, Anita Augspurg, and Lida Gustava Heymann, and on the periodical Die Frauenbewegung. The author examines the fields of action and strategies of the radical feminists, aiming to demonstrate how this political movement invented female citizenship. The book includes brief biographies of key figures.
Clarkson, Alexander. Fragmented Fatherland. Immigration and Cold War Conflict in the Federal Republic of Germany, 1945–1980. [Monographs in German History, Vol. 34.] Berghahn Books, New York [etc.] 2013. xiv, 231 pp. $95.00; £60.00. (E-book: $95.00; £60.00.)
Between 1945 and 1980 numerous students, refugees, ex-soldiers, and workers from various countries migrated to West Germany, where many engaged in widespread and sometimes violent political action. Focusing on the socially different Ukrainian, Croatian, Algerian, Spanish, Greek, and Iranian communities, Dr Clarkson examines in this book how West German state and party-political institutions responded to the political movements of immigrants. He explores how diaspora politics affected the position of immigrants in West German society, and how immigration was connected with other major social and political trends that shaped the Federal Republic.
Gustav Landauers Briefe an Clara Tannhauser 1892. Bearb. von Christoph Knüppel. Hrsg. von Irmtraud Betz-Wischnath. [Documenta suevica, Band 22.] Edition Isele, Konstanz 2013. 275 pp. Ill. € 25.00.
In 1892 the German anarchist writer and activist Gustav Landauer (1870–1919) was secretly engaged to Clara Tannhauser, whom he knew from childhood. This volume features thirty-nine unpublished letters from Landauer to his fiancée and one from Clara to Landauer. The letters, which are kept at the IISH, document Landauer's views on politics and literature, reveal a difficult relationship (he proposed free love, but she clung to traditional values), and shed light on life in a small village in Württemberg, where in c.1900, 324 out of 710 villagers were Jewish.
Kaiser, Beate. Die Pionierorganisation Ernst Thälmann. Pädagogik, Ideologie und Politik. Eine Regionalstudie zu Dresden 1945–1957 und 1980–1990. [Studien des Forschungsverbundes SED-Staat an der Freien Universität Berlin, Band 19.] Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main [etc.] 2013. 434 pp. € 71.95.
In 1989 around 98 per cent of all East German children between six and fourteen years of age were members of the Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organization. Centrally organized and controlled by the FDJ and SED, this mass organization for children was designed to ensure the ideological education of young people in the GDR. Focusing on Dresden during two periods (1945–1957 and 1980–1990), Dr Kaiser explores in this dissertation (Freie Universität Berlin, 2013) whether the educational work of the pioneer organization in reality corresponded with the ambition of its leaders, and whether it produced the desired attitudes and behaviours.
Great Britain
Blackshaw, Tony. Working-Class Life in Northern England, 1945–2010. The Pre-History and After-Life of the Inbetweener Generation. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke [etc.] 2013. vii, 247. pp. £55.00.
Discussing the work of Richard Hoggart, David Kynaston, B. Rogaly, B. Taylor, and Zygmunt Bauman, and using the concept of generation and generational change, Dr Blackshaw aims to shed light on the history of northern English working-class life in the second half of the twentieth century. In the first part of this book he discusses theoretical and methodological issues; the “empirical study” of the second part consists of fragments of unspecified, uncredited, interviews and comments by the author.
Bloom, Clive. Victoria's Madmen. Revolution and Alienation. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke [etc.] 2013. ix, 309 pp. £20.00.
Intended for a general readership, this book tells the story of various nineteenth- and early twentieth-century social visionaries, artists, radicals, revolutionaries, nationalists, anti-imperialists, and seekers of spiritual enlightenment considered eccentric, dangerous, or morally corrupt during their lifetimes. The individuals featured include Oscar Wilde, T.E. Lawrence, H.G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, Mohandas Gandhi, Karl Marx, Eleanor Marx, Annie Besant, Charles Bradlaugh, Bernard Shaw, Beatrice Webb, and Oswald Mosley, as well as the environmentalist pacifist youth movement Kibbo Kift.
Burkett, Jodi. Constructing Post-Imperial Britain. Britishness, ‘Race’ and the Radical Left in the 1960s. Palgrave MacMillan, Basingstoke [etc.] 2013. viii, 250 pp. £55.00.
The idea of Britishness after the end of empire is the theme of this book, in which Dr Burkett describes how some of the most influential left-wing extra-parliamentary organizations of the 1960s (the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the Anti-Apartheid Movement, the National Union of Students, and the Northern Irish Civil Rights Movement) helped inform views of what post-imperial Britain's international place should be; how – through education – the “ideal” British society should be created; and how some parts of the radical left regarded racial discrimination as an issue that did not directly affect them or their work.
Childhood and Child Labour in Industrial England. Diversity and Agency, 1750–1914. Ed. by Nigel Goose [and] Katrina Honeyman. Ashgate Publishing, Farnham [etc.] 2013. xii, 358 pp. £70.00.
Children in industrial England should be seen as participants in the process of historical change, not simply as victims, according to the editors of this volume about child labour between 1750 and 1914. Emphasizing social, economic, geographical, and cultural diversity, the thirteen contributions include chapters about the sexual abuse of child labourers and apprentices; the role of children in the 1833 Ten Hours’ campaign; the experiences of parish apprentices in early nineteenth-century textile mills; the opportunities for chimney-sweep apprentices to influence their own conditions; children's experiences in workhouses; Victorian elementary schools; and changing conceptualizations of children's rights.
Cohn, Samuel K., Jr. Popular Protest in Late Medieval English Towns. With the assistance from Douglas Aiton. Cambridge University Press, New York [etc.] 2013. xiii, 375 pp. Maps. $99.00.
Urban revolt in late medieval England was more frequent and important than historians have assumed, according to Professor Cohn, and revolts in English towns correspond more closely to models of “pre-industrial revolt” in early modern west European states than with late medieval ones on the continent. Drawing mainly on chronicles and patent rolls, he examines popular protest in English towns, from the London revolt led by William FitzOsbert (called Longbeard) of 1196, to Jack Cade's rebellion in 1450, describing the varieties of popular protest and considering the extent to which they differed from those in Italy, France, and Flanders.
Di Paola, Pietro. The Knights Errant of Anarchy. London and the Italian Anarchist Diaspora (1880–1917). [Studies in Labour History, Vol. 2.] Liverpool University Press, Liverpool 2013. 244 pp. £70.00.
Nineteenth-century exile was significant in disseminating revolutionary ideas in Europe and overseas. Italian anarchists, together with Spaniards and Jews, played a major role in this process. Combining an examination of anarchist political organisations with a study of the everyday life of militants, Dr Di Paola in this book sheds light on the world of Italian anarchist refugees (Pietro Gori and Errico Malatesta among them) in London from 1880 to 1917. He investigates how they built an international revolutionary network and reconstructs the anarchists’ social life and their political and cultural activities. The book includes twenty-two biographical sketches.
Gildart, Keith. Images of England through Popular Music. Class, Youth and Rock ‘n’ Roll, 1955–1976. Palgrave MacMillan, Basingstoke [etc.] 2013. ix, 209 pp. £55.00; $85.00.
Pop music and associated youth subcultures such as Teddy Boys, Mods, Rockers, and Punks are the subject of this book, which explores the relationship between working-class youth and popular music between 1955 and 1976. Using interviews as well as archival and printed sources, along with critical readings of songs and performances by musicians such as Georgie Fame, The Beatles, Pete Townshend, Ray Davies, David Bowie, and the Sex Pistols, Professor Gildart examines the role of popular music in shaping social identities and working-class cultures. See also Melanie Tebbutt's review in this volume, pp. 336–338.
Hilton, Matthew, James McKay, Nicholas Crowson, and Jean-François Mouhot. The Politics of Expertise. How NGOs Shaped Modern Britain. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2013. xvi, 317 pp. Ill. £35.00; $65.00.
Emerging as a new form of expert knowledge and political participation, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as Oxfam, Amnesty International, and Greenpeace have contributed to the professionalization and privatization of politics, according to the authors of this book about the social and political role of NGOs in contemporary Britain. Using case studies of homelessness, the environment, and international aid and development sectors, the authors examine the origins, roles, influence, and growth of NGOs, as well as the reasons why the public supports them. A database of NGOs may be consulted at www.dango.bham.ac.uk.
Hinton, James. The Mass Observers. A History, 1937–1949. Oxford University Press, Oxford [etc.] 2013. xiv, 401 pp. £31.00.
Mass Observation (MO) was an independent social research organization, which, combining anthropological fieldwork, opinion surveys, and written testimony solicited from hundreds of volunteers, documented the attitudes, opinions, and everyday lives of the British people between 1937 and 1949, thereby contributing significantly to historians’ understanding of mid-twentieth-century British social history. In this history of MO, Professor Hinton describes the relationship between MO founders Tom Harrison and Charles Madge, the organization, the staff, the research methods, the struggle for funding, and MO's characteristic “voice”.
Kirby, Peter. Child Workers and Industrial Health in Britain, 1780–1850. [People, Markets, and Goods: Economies and Societies in History, Vol. 2.] The Boydell Press, Woodbridge [etc.] 2013. $29.95.
Professor Kirby in this book examines British children's working conditions within the context of social and technological change between 1780 and 1850. Questioning assumptions by contemporary observers and historians of the Industrial Revolution, who depict child workers as mere victims of avaricious employers and an inherently brutal system of production, and drawing on studies of child workers’ health in modern developing economies, he presents a critical study of the occupational health of child workers, the industrial injuries reported, and the physical ill-treatment long associated with child labour in factories.
Mansfield, Nick. Buildings of the Labour Movement. English Heritage, Swindon 2013. x, 154 pp. Ill. £30.00.
Featuring photos accompanied by explanatory texts, this volume provides a survey of labour movement buildings in England, ranging from the communal buildings of trade societies, Wesleyans, Owenites, and Chartists, the Arts-and-Crafts-influenced socialist structures of the late Victorian and Edwardian period, the department stores of the consumer cooperative movement, and the clubhouses of the Clarion movement, to the buildings of the TUC and the Labour Party. The volume also includes a chapter on preservation and interpretation and a list of sites to visit.
Hungary
Sakmyster, Thomas. A Communist Odyssey. The Life of József Pogány/John Pepper. Central European University Press, Budapest [etc.] 2012. ix, 249 pp. £45.00.
József Pogány (1886–1938), a Hungarian journalist and leading figure in radical left-wing parties before and after World War I, was significant in the Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919. As a Comintern officer, he undertook assignments on three continents and played major roles in the “March Action” in Germany in 1921 and (under the name of John Pepper) in the rise of the American Communist Party. He was arrested in Moscow in 1937 and executed. Based on newly available sources from Hungary, Russia, and the United States, this is his first comprehensive biography.
Italy
Berta, Giuseppe. L'Italia delle fabbriche. La parabola dell'industrialismo nel Novecento. Società editrice il Mulino, Bologna 2013. 331 pp. € 24.00.
In this history of Italian industrial culture Professor Berta examines the establishment of large-scale industry in the early twentieth century and considers how both industrialists (notably Adriano Olivetti) and trade unionists (e.g. Rinaldo Rigola and Fausto Pagliari, who envisioned trade unions as workers’ enterprises) responded to the rise of mass production and the American Fordist model. The book concludes with a description of the gradual decline of twentieth-century industrialism and a sketch of globalization and the present economic crisis. Originally published in 2001, this expanded edition features an updated, annotated bibliography.
Gianni, Emilio. Un socialismo di rito Ambrosiano-Emiliano. I congressi costituenti del Partito Socialista Italiano (1891–1893). [Biografie individuali e colletive del movimento operaio italiano borghese e proletario, 5.] Pantarei, Milano 2013. xii, 335 pp. Ill. € 25.00.
This book, the fifth in a series of works intended as a combination of a biographical dictionary and a prosopography of the Italian labour movement (see IRSH, 53 (2008), p. 561 for the first volume), features almost 300 biographies of participants in the 3 founding congresses of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) that took place between 1891 and 1893. In the first part the author discusses the ideas of Philippo Turati and Antonio Labriola, the rift in Italian socialism and the founding of the PSI.
Hajek, Andrea. Negotiating Memories of Protest in Western Europe. The Case of Italy. Palgrave MacMillan, Basingstoke [etc.] 2013. x, 220 pp. Ill. £50.00.
A left-wing student named Francesco Lorusso was shot dead by police during student protests in Bologna in March 1977. Taking this incident as a starting point Dr Hajek in this book explores the transmission of memories of European protest movements in the late 1960s and the 1970s. Concentrating on Italy and drawing on interviews, as well as former activists’ papers and other written sources, she describes commemorative rituals, memory sites, and other forms of “memory work”, aiming to explain how official memories of conflict relate to unofficial ones and to reveal Italy's troubled relationship with the 1970s.
Matteotti, Giacomo. Socialismo e guerra. A cura di Stefano Caretti. Pisa University Press, Pisa 2013. 300 pp. € 35.00.
In this volume, the tenth in a series of writings and correspondence of the socialist politician and anti-fascist Giacomo Matteotti (1880–1924), Professor Caretti brings together newspaper articles, party publications, and parliamentary questions and interventions from 1912–1917, in which Matteotti addresses the issue of war and the economic consequences of the Versailles peace treaty.
The Netherlands
Adlington, Robert. Composing Dissent. Avant-garde Music in 1960s Amsterdam. Oxford University Press, New York [etc.] 2013. xiii, 366 pp. Ill. $65.00; £41.99.
Professor Adlington studies in this book the activities of avant-garde musicians such as Louis Andriessen, Peter Schat, Willem Breuker, Reinbert de Leeuw, and musicians of the Instant Composers’ Pool within the context of 1960s social movements, mainly in Amsterdam. He examines their collaborations with counter-cultural and protest groups, their campaigns against established music institutions, their political concerts, and their advocacy of new, more “democratic” relationships with both performers and audiences. Special icons in the text refer to an accompanying website featuring sample recordings, images, and excerpts from scores.
Poland
Bloom, Jack M. Seeing Through the Eyes of the Polish Revolution. Solidarity and the Struggle Against Communism in Poland. [Historical Materialism Book Series, Vol. 50.] Brill, Leiden [etc.] 2013. xi, 428 pp. € 129; $167.00.
In August 1980, Polish workers went on strike, demanding and securing an independent union named Solidarity (Solidarność). Drawing primarily on interviews with 150 Solidarity activists and leaders, journalists, academics, leaders of the reform movement within the Communist Party, as well as some people from “the other side”, including Mieczysław Rakowski, the last leader of the communist state, Professor Bloom shows in this book how Solidarity was built, and how people on all sides experienced and perceived the events that ultimately forced the Communist Party out of power.
Portugal
Freire, João e Maria Alexandre Lousada. Roteiros da Memória Urbana – Setúbal. Marcas deixadas por libertários e afins ao longo do século XX. [Movimento Social Crítico e Alternativo.] Edições Colibri, Lisboa 2013. 87 pp. Ill. € 7.50.
Freire, João e Maria Alexandre Lousada. Roteiros da Memória Urbana – Porto. Marcas deixadas por libertários e afins ao longo do século XX. [Movimento Social Crítico e Alternativo.] Edições Colibri, Lisboa 2013. 122 pp. Ill. Maps. € 10.00.
Freire, João e Maria Alexandre Lousada. Roteiros da Memória Urbana – Lisboa. Marcas deixadas por libertários e afins ao longo do século XX. [Movimento Social Crítico e Alternativo.] Edições Colibri, Lisboa 2013. 193 pp. Ill. Maps. € 15.00.
These three volumes take the reader on a tour of the towns of Setúbal, Porto, and Lisbon, respectively, highlighting sites that are significant in the history of the Portuguese anarcho-syndicalist movement in the twentieth century. Each book features photographs with explanatory texts of the meeting places of libertarians, buildings of cooperatives, printing offices, trade-union bureaux, newspaper offices, and similar sites; road maps; brief biographies of militants and histories of libertarian groups and associations; descriptions of newspapers and periodicals; bibliographies; and timelines.
Russia – Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
The Anatomy of Terror. Political Violence Under Stalin. Ed. by James Harris. Oxford University Press, Oxford [etc.] 2013. x, 333 pp. $65.00.
Based on a conference held in Leeds in August 2010, this volume presents recent research on the origins and dynamics of political violence under Stalin, particularly the mass repression of 1936–1938. The sixteen chapters include examinations of the evolution of the Soviet political police (Cheka – OGPU – NKVD); Stalin's role in the Great Terror; Stalin's relationship with the Party; the social engineering argument; official Party explanations of the Great Terror; terror and Soviet legality; the Kirov murder; the role of factory newspapers; and Terror statistics.
Spain
Aroca Mohedano, Manuela. El sindicalismo socialista en Euskadi, 1947–1985. De la militancia clandestina a la reconversión industrial. [Collección Historia Bibliotheca Nueva.] Fundación Francisco Largo Caballero, Madrid 2013. 374 pp. Ills. € 24.00.
This is a detailed history of the Spanish Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT) in the Basque country under the Franco regime and during the transition period. Dr Aroca Mohedano traces the development of the socialist-oriented UGT from the formation of the first clandestine organizations in the late 1940s through the modernization of the Basque industries in the 1980s. Each chapter consists of a descriptive part followed by transcribed interviews with labour activists.
Freán Hernández, Óscar. A revolución escrita. A prensa obreira galega (1866–1936). Prefacio de Gérard Brey. Editions Orbis Tertius, Binges 2013. 257 pp. Ill. € 19.90.
The labour press in Galicia, Spain, is the subject of this volume, which consists mainly of a bibliography describing around 120 anarchist, syndicalist, socialist, republican, communist, and Catholic periodicals that appeared between 1866 and the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. Professor Freán Hernández provides information about the ideological orientation, language, and repository of each periodical, as well as other bibliographic details. The author also offers an analysis of the labour press in the context of the history of the Galician labour movement.
Lorenzo Rubio, César. Cárceles en llamas. El movimiento de presos sociales en la transición. Virus editorial, Barcelona 2013. 438 pp. Ill. € 19.00.
After Franco's death, when political opponents of his dictatorship were released from prison, ordinary (or “social”) prisoners, who were not included in the amnesty measures, staged protests against the harsh conditions in Spanish prisons. Through increasingly violent actions, which included hunger strikes, self-mutilation, and rioting, they forced the government to undertake prison reforms. Focusing on the COPEL (Coordinadora de Presos en Lucha, founded in 1976), the organization that coordinated the protests, in this detailed study Dr Lorenzo Rubio examines the slow transformation of Franco's prisons into the present system.
Mintz, Frank. Anarchism and Workers’ Self-Management in Revolutionary Spain. Transl. by Paul Sharkey. AK Press, Oakland [etc.] 2013. 327 pp. $19.00.
In the first part of this book, a revised and translated version of L'autogestion dans l'Espagne révolutionnaire (1970), the author discusses Spanish anarcho-syndicalism and examines the organization of self-management in Barcelona and other regions across Spain. The second part consists of sixteen short analyses of and documents about various themes, for example the Spanish people's “superficial Catholicism”, the uprisings of the early 1930s, monetary reform, the CNT and the FAI, various workers’ and peasants’ collectives, historical interpretations of revolutionary Spain, and Francoism and the Transition.
El paro general del 14 de diciembre de 1988. Causas, desarollo y consecuencias de la huelga con mayor seguimiento de la democracia. Ed. Fundación Francisco Largo Caballero. Fundación Francisco Largo Caballero, Madrid 2013. 187 pp. Ill. € 20.00.
In 1988 a general strike was jointly organized by the socialist Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT) and the communist-oriented Comisiones Obreras to protest the liberalization of the Spanish labour market. To mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of this event, the Fundación Francisco Largo Caballero, the historical institute of the UGT, brings together ten articles by academics and union leaders analysing and reflecting on this strike, noteworthy not only for its massive turnout but especially because it was directed against a socialist government.
