General Issues
SOCIAL THEORY AND SOCIAL SCIENCE
Baronian, Laurent. Marx and Living Labour. [Routledge frontiers of political economy, Vol. 171.] Routledge, London [etc.] 2013. 234 pp. £80.00; € 89.99.
Professor Baronian in this book analyses the difference between Marx's theory of labour value and that of the classical economists; discusses themes such as the necessity of money, the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the role of labour in capital theory, the history of capitalist production as the history of labour management, the capitalist law of population growth and circulation of capital, and offers an interpretation of the current crisis based on Marx's theory. See also Stefano Bellucci's review essay in this volume, pp. 97–109.
Beyond Marx. Theorising the Global Labour Relations of the Twenty-First Century. Ed. by Marcel van der Linden and Karl-Heinz Roth. In collaboration with Max Henninger. [Historical Materialism Book Series, Vol. 56.] Brill, Leiden [etc.] 2014. xiii, 532 pp. € 159.00; $206.00.
A translation of Über Marx hinaus. Arbeitsgeschichte und Arbeitsbegriff in der Konfrontation mit den globalen Arbeitsverhältnissen des 21. Jahrhunderts (2009) this volume explores how Marx's analysis of global capitalism may be of use for a critical theory of today's capitalist world system. Nine contributions present findings of recent global labour history research in this respect (in chapters about seamen on eighteenth-century warships, the role of the military in the transition to capitalism, and workers in contemporary India, for example); another nine contributions discuss Marx's labour-value theory.
Dialectics of the Ideal. Evald Ilyenkov and Creative Soviet Marxism. Ed. by Alex Levant and Vesa Oittinen. Brill, Leiden [etc.] 2014. xii, 221 pp. Ill.€ 99.00; $128.00.
In the post-Stalinist period Evald Ilyenkov (1924–1979) was a major representative of “creative” Soviet Marxism, a current of thought which developed prior, alongside, and sometimes in opposition to, “official” Soviet Marxism. This volume features a translation of Ilyenkov's Dialectics of the Ideal (2009), a text which remained unpublished until thirty years after the author's death; an introduction to this work by the translator; essays providing a context for, and commentaries discussing specific aspects of, Ilyenkov's work; and a bibliography of Ilyenkov's writings.
The Elgar Companion to Marxist Economics. Ed. by Ben Fine and Alfredo Saad-Filho. With the ass. of Marco Boffo. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham [etc.] 2012. xiii, 419 pp. £145.00. (Paper: £39.00.)
This reference work, “a book by Marxists”, aims to review and assess the trajectory, achievements, shortcomings, and prospects of Marxist political economy. The sixty-one short articles (six to seven pages each) discuss theories, concepts, and themes within Marxist economics ranging from Marx's own contributions (e.g. value theory, capital, the rate of profit, class struggle) to issues that arose after Marx's lifetime (globalization, the environment, sex and gender relations, racism, the welfare state). The entries have no footnotes, but readers are referred to the www.marxist.org website for classic works of Marx and Marxism.
Fumagalli, Andrea. Lavoro male comune. Bruno Mondadori, Milano 2013. 134 pp. € 15.00.
After discussing conceptions of work (e.g. in the writings of Marx, Foucault, and classical economists) and analysing present-day work, especially in Italy, Professor Fumagalli concludes that traditional economic models, which do not consider precarious work and other modern forms of employment and unemployment, cannot explain the features of the current labour market, and that new models are needed. He suggests that the right to work should be replaced by the right to choose work and proposes introducing a guaranteed base income See also Stefano Bellucci's review essay in this volume, pp. 97–109.
Marx's Capital and Hegel's Logic. A Reexamination. Ed. by Fred Moseley and Tony Smith. [Historical Materialism Book Series, Vol. 64.] Brill, Leiden [etc.] 2014. vi, 336 pp. € 119.00. $154.00.
The seven economists and five philosophers in this collection (based on a conference held at Mount Holyoke College in August 2011) focus on the influence of Hegel's logic on Marx's economic theory in Capital. They deal with themes and controversies such as “systematic dialectics” as opposed to “historical dialectics”, Marx's “inversion” of Hegel's logic, the influence of Hegel's logic of the concept on Marx's theory of capital, Marx's capital as Hegelian subject, and idealism vs materialism.
Rosengarten, Frank. The Revolutionary Marxism of Antonio Gramsci. [Historical Materialism Book Series, Vol. 62.] Brill, Leiden [etc.] 2014. viii, 197 pp. € 104.00; $135.00.
In the eleven essays collected in this volume, which were originally published between 1968 and 2013, Professor Rosenberg examines various writings by Antonio Gramsci, including some texts about Marxist theory, the responsibilities of political leadership, and the theory and practice of literary criticism. He also discusses Gramsci's influence on the post-colonial world, comparing Gramsci with C.L.R. James, for example, and studying Gramsci's influence on Caribbean thinkers. Two chapters are devoted to the United States Gramsci specialists, Robert Dombroski and John Cammett.
Tombazos, Stavros. Time in Marx. The Categories of Time in Marx's Capital. [Historical Materialism Book Series, Vol. 61.] Brill, Leiden [etc.] 2014. xxiii, 327 pp. € 129.00; $167.00.
Closely reading the three volumes of Marx's Capital, Professor Tombazos aims to demonstrate in this book, an edited version of Le temps dans l'analyse economique. Les categories du temps dans le Capital (1994), that Capital's basic concepts come under different categories of time: “time of production” (which refers to the successive moments of the production process) in the first volume is linear; “time of circulation” in the second is circular; while in the third volume “organic time” is the unity of the two. Reading Capital from this perspective, Professor Tombazos argues, might contribute to understanding the present-day capitalist world.
Twiss, Thomas M. Trotsky and the Problem of Soviet Bureaucracy. [Historical Materialism Book Series, Vol. 67.] Brill, Leiden [etc.] 2014. x, 502 pp. € 139.00; $180.00.
More than any other problem, the political and theoretical issue of Soviet bureaucracy concerned Leon Trotsky during the last two decades of his life, according to the author of this book. Dr Twiss studies Trotsky's ideas on the problem of Soviet bureaucracy from the first years after the Bolshevik Revolution through the Moscow Trials of the 1930s. While examining the development of Trotsky's views of Soviet bureaucracy, Dr Twiss also aims to identify the sources of those views and influences from other thinkers.
Workers and Labour in a Globalised Capitalism. Contemporary Themes and Theoretical Issues. Ed. by Maurizio Atzeni. [Management, Work & Organisations Series.] Palgrave MacMillan, Basingstoke [etc.] 2014. xi, 254 pp. £28.99.
This volume about the significance of labour in the contemporary globalization process contains four chapters about theoretical issues, for example Marxist views on work and the capitalist labour process, the concept of “working class”, and the reproduction of labour power; three contributions about trade unionism, workers’ grass roots organizing, and workers’ efforts to control production in history, respectively; an article with anthropological reflections on labour value; a transnational overview of new forms of labour conflict; and a chapter on labour migration and resistance in the United States.
HISTORY
Bonded Labour and Debt in the Indian Ocean World. Ed. by Gwyn Campbell and Alessandro Stanziani. [Financial History, vol. 22.] Pickering & Chatto, London [etc.] 2013. xiii, 240 pp. £60.00; $99.00.
This collection is about the relationship between debt and human bondage in the area extending from east Africa to China, from the mid-eighteenth century to the present. The twelve chapters include case studies of debt and slavery in Madagascar, South Africa, southern China, and Japan; as well as essays on debt and enslavement in the Islamic legal tradition; debt and slavery in nineteenth-century east Africa; debt bondage in contemporary south India; and the relationship between debt and labour in Britain and in the colonial world. See also Michael Mann's review in this volume, pp. 115–118.
Clark, Gregory. The Son also Rises. Surnames and the History of Social Mobility. With Neil Cummins, Yu Hao, and Daniel Diaz Vidal [a.o.]. [The Princeton Economic History of the Western World.] Princeton University Press, Princeton (NJ) [etc.] 2014. xii, 364 pp. Ill. Maps. $29.95; £19.95.
Using surnames to track rich and poor through many generations in various societies – Sweden, the United States, England, India, China and Taiwan, Japan and Korea, and Chile – and among different social groups – Protestants, Jews, gypsies, Muslims, and Copts – Professor Clark in this book aims to demonstrate that social mobility rates are slower than conventionally estimated by sociologists and economists, and that economic growth and social policies have not increased social mobility. In the appendices Professor Clark explains his method of deriving mobility rates from surname frequencies. See also Mike Savage's review in this volume, pp. 111–113.
Ewing, Adam. The Age of Garvey. How a Jamaican Activist Created a Mass Movement and Changed Global Black Politics. [America in the World.] Princeton University Press, Princeton (NJ) [etc.] 2014. Ill. xi, 304 pp. $35.00; £24.95.
In this book about Marcus Garvey (1887–1940) and the movement that became known as “Garveyism”, Professor Ewing describes how Garveyism emerged from a tradition of pan-African politics among black intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic and spread in the 1920s and 1930s among labour activists in the Caribbean and Central America, community organizers in the urban and rural United States, millennial religious revivalists in central and southern Africa, welfare associations and church activists in Malawi and Zambia, and Kikuyu activists in Kenya.
Food Consumption in Global Perspective. Essays in the Anthropology of Food in Honour of Jack Goody. Ed. by Jakob A. Klein and Anne Murcott. [Consumption and Public Life.] Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke 2014. xiii, 230 pp. Ill. £65.00.
The ten ethnographic and historical essays in honour of the social anthropologist Jack Goody, the author of Cooking, Cuisine and Class: A Study in Comparative Sociology (1982), examine historical changes and regional differences (ranging from China to Ghana and from Portugal to Ecuador and Britain) in the relationship between culinary practice and social differentiation, as well as the influence of migration, trade, and other aspects of globalization on ritual and everyday practices of cooking, eating, sharing food, and talking and writing about food. One chapter studies the taste for milk in modern China; another London's Bengali community and Bangladeshi-style catering.
Global Goods and the Spanish Empire, 1492–1824. Circulation, Resistance and Diversity. Ed. by Bethany Aram [and] Bartolomé Yun-Casalilla. Palgrave MacMillan, Basingstoke [etc.] 2014. x, 322 pp. Ill. £68.00.
Focusing on the Spanish Empire from 1492 to 1824, this volume examines the circulation of commodities and ideas around the Atlantic, emphasizing in particular their reception in Europe. The fourteen chapters include case studies on the early modern food revolution; the dissemination of maize in Italy; the distribution of Asian silk and porcelain among elites in Seville and Mexico City; the export of Mexican cochineal; tobacco cultivation in Hispaniola; slave labour in Hispaniola; and the significance of chocolate in changing patterns of consumption. One chapter reflects on the Spanish Empire, globalization, and cross-cultural consumption from 1400 to 1750.
Høgsbjerg, Christian. C.L.R. James in Imperial Britain. [The C.L.R. James Archives.] Duke University Press, Durham [etc.] 2014. xiv, 294 pp. Ill. $89.95; £60.00. (Paper: $24.95; £16.99.)
This book about C.L.R. James's stay in Britain from 1932 to 1938 traces how during this period the Trinidadian intellectual and writer turned from liberal humanism to revolutionary socialism and became a leading anti-colonial activist and Pan-Africanist thinker. The author examines James's early identification with British imperial culture, his encounter with the English working-class movement, his transition to revolutionary politics, and his professional work as a cricket reporter. The book concludes with a discussion of The Black Jacobins and the play Toussaint Louverture.
Jünke, Christoph. Streifzüge durch das rote 20. Jahrhundert. [LAIKAtheorie, Band, 36.] Laika Verlag, Hamburg 2014. 319 pp. € 21.00.
The essays in this collection about the socialist labour movement in the twentieth century, from early twentieth-century “classic” socialism to 1989 and beyond, focus especially on movements and individuals looking for a third way beyond social-democratic “revisionism” and communist “dogmatism”, ranging from Karl Liebknecht to Pierre Bourdieu and from Trotskyists and the New Left to the “cynical intellectuals” of the 1990s. Sixteen of the nineteen essays have been published previously – some online. The essays on E.P. Thompson, Victor Serge, and Oskar Negt and Bernd Rabehl are published here for the first time.
Lubin, Alex. Geographies of Liberation. The Making of an Afro-Arab Political Imaginary. [The John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture.] The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill (NC) 2014. xiii, 233 pp. Ill. $29.95.
This is a history of African-American engagement with the Arab world within the context of shifting colonial borders and racial ideologies in the United States and the Arab world from the nineteenth century onwards. Professor Lubin examines the influence of European Zionism on early pan-Africanism; pan-Africanist and pan-Islamic politics in post-World-War-I Europe; African-American ideas about the partition of Palestine, including those of Ralph Bunche, who advocated a racially diverse labour movement; the Black Panthers and the PLO; and Afro-Arab political imaginary in the contemporary cultural politics of hip hop and poetry.
Mao's Little Red Book. A Global History. Ed. by Alexander C. Cook. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2014. xvi, 287 pp. Ill. £50.00; $80.00. (Paper: £17.99; $27.99.)
From the mid 1960s to the mid 1970s, Mao Zedong's Little Red Book, a compilation of the Chinese leader's speeches and writings, was the most frequently printed book in the world and one of the most visible and ubiquitous symbols of twentieth-century radicalism, according to this volume, which aims to explain Quotations from Chairman Mao Tsetung as a global historical phenomenon. Five contributors consider the Little Red Book in China; the remaining ten examine its circulation outside China, in e.g. Tanzania, Peru, India, and Albania, and its reception in the Soviet Union. See also Matt Galway's review in this volume, pp. 129–132.
Mundos de trabajo en transformación. Entre lo local y lo global. Coord. Rossana Barragán, Pilar Uriona. [Colección 30 aniversario.] CIDES-UMSA, [La Paz] 2014. 375 pp. $13.00.
Global labour history and changing labour relations as a result of neoliberal globalization are the main themes of this volume, which is based on a seminar held in La Paz, Bolivia, in December 2012. The fourteen chapters include contributions on precarious work and quality of work, domestic work, labour migration, and labour organizing and conflicts. Most contributions focus on South American countries, one on Calcutta, and another on Iran. Three contributors reflect on labour history as a research field: globally, as well as in Africa and in Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia.
Rediker, Marcus. Outlaws of the Atlantic. Sailors, Pirates and Motley Crews in the Age of Sail. Verso, London [etc.] 2014. Ill. £16.99.
In this volume Professor Rediker brings together slightly revised versions of conference papers and previously published essays and book chapters on the following themes: forms and functions of sailors’ storytelling; seaman Edward Barlow and the sea as a place of work; the life of the indentured servant Henry Pitman (who used the sea as a place of escape); early eighteenth-century pirates and the sea as a place of an alternative social order; rebellious multi-ethnic crews in the run-up to the American Revolution; suicide attempts and other forms of resistance among Africans on slave ships; and the Amistad rebellion.
Redmond, Shana L. Anthem. Social Movements and the Sound of Solidarity in the African Diaspora. Shana L. Redmond. New York University Press, New York [etc.] 2014. xi, 345 pp. Ill. $25.00.
Within the African diaspora, Professor Redmond argues, music functions as a method of rebellion. In this book she examines the music that organized black social movements around the world in the twentieth century, especially anthems. She portrays performer-activists (e.g. Paul Robeson, Miriam Makeba, and Nina Simone), and traces the social histories of songs such as “Nkosi Sikilel’ iAfrika”, “Lift Every Voice and Sing”, which mobilized the NAACP in the United States, and “We Shall Overcome”, which was significant during a tobacco strike led by women in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1945.
The Second Slavery. Mass Slaveries and Modernity in the Americas and in the Atlantic Basin. Ed. by Javier Laviña and Michael Zeuske. [Sklaverei und Postemanzipation, Band 6.] Lit, Wien [etc.] 2014. ii, 202 pp. € 29.90.
The “second slavery” emerged during the period when slavery and the slave trade were officially abolished. This collection of nine articles includes an essay about the arrival of slaves after abolition in the British Caribbean; another about former slaves of Guyana; a comparison between former slaves of the American South and brigands in southern Italy (1861–1865); a contribution about slavery and culture in Puerto Rico; another about the second slavery in Cuba; and an essay about sugar produced by slaves and the Atlantic division of labour (1783–1866) by Dale Tomich, who conceived the notion of the second slavery.
Unfried, Berthold. Vergangenes Unrecht. Entschädigung und Restitution in einer globalen Perspektive. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2014. 541 pp. € 46.00.
Beginning with a campaign concerning Nazi victims’ assets in Swiss banks in the early 1990s, a debate about the restitution of and compensation for seized property soon spread across Europe. Using interviews and written sources, Dr Unfried sets out to explain in this book the origins of this Millenniumsentschädigungsbewegung, situating them in the context of other movements for historical and transitional justice around the world, such as the South African Truth Commission, and examining aspects such as memory politics and the role of historians.
Wolff, Frank. Neue Welten in der Neuen Welt. Die transnationale Geschichte des Allgemeinen Jüdischen Arbeiterbundes 1897–1947. [Industrielle Welt, Band 86.] Böhlau Verlag, Köln [etc.] 2014. 558 pp. Ill. € 69.90.
In this transnational history of the Allgemeine Jüdische Arbeiterbund (Jewish Labour Bund) from 1897 to 1947, Dr Wolff concentrates on aspects such as identity, transfer, and network building. He discusses the origins of the Bund in Eastern Europe, traces the careers of Bund activists who migrated to the United States and Argentina, and explores Bundist labour, cultural and educational practices, depicting the Bund as a transnational network, emphasizing the significance of the Bundist activist concept of doikayt (“here-ness”) and of yiddiskayt as a social practice.
COMPARATIVE HISTORY
Arbeit und Recht seit 1800. Historisch und vergleichend, europäisch und global. Hrsg. Joachim Rückert. [Industrielle Welt, Band 87.] Böhlau Verlag, Köln [etc.] 2014. 389 pp. € 49.90.
This volume contributes to the history of labour and law from a comparative and global perspective. The introduction consists of two essays defining “labour” and “law”, and another discussing GDR definitions of labour. Part 1 contains three articles about labour dispute resolution in several countries; Part 2 contains two chapters examining labour law and occupational health; Part 3 has three articles about changing working conditions in France, Germany and globally; and Part 4 three contributions comparing state employment in Germany, Russia, and other countries. Each part concludes with a commentary essay.
Huberman, Michael. Odd Couple. International Trade and Labor Standards in History. Yale University Press, New Haven [etc.] 2012. xii, 237 pp. £45.00.
This book is about the interdependence of globalization and the welfare state. Comparing Belgium, Brazil, and Canada, Professor Huberman examines how workers, firms, and states dealt with issues such as the benefits and costs of social policy during the first wave of globalization between 1870 and 1914. Challenging the assumption that economic globalization and labour standards are incompatible, he sets out to demonstrate that globalization has benefited workers’ quality of life, and that improved labour conditions have advanced globalization. See also Christoph Scherrer's review in this volume, pp. 118–120.
Komlosy, Andrea. Arbeit. Eine globalhistorische Perspektive. 13. bis 21. Jahrhundert. Promedia, Wien 2014. 204 pp. € 17.90.
Starting from the idea that different labour relations coexisted in history and could be combined, in this book Professor Komlosy compares labour relations in various global regions in six periods from 1250 onwards. In the first part she discusses concepts, definitions, and categories of work and labour, including the difference between “work” (creative achievement) and “labour” (trouble and suffering); in the second she describes the labour relations that characterized each period. Her main argument is that capitalist rationality has robbed work of its dual nature and narrowed its scope to productive employment.
Marchetti, Sabrina. Black Girls. Migrant Domestic Workers and Colonial Legacies. [Studies in Global Social History, Vol. 16; Studies in Global Migration History, Vol. 4.] Brill, Leiden [etc.] 2014. xiii, 200 pp. € 99.00; $128.00.
Dr Marchetti examines in this dissertation (University of Utrecht, 2010) how legacies of the colonial past influenced the experience of post-colonial female migrants who arrived in the former colonizing country to work there as domestic and care workers. Drawing on interviews conducted in 2007 and 2008 with fifteen Afro-Surinamese women and fifteen Eritrean women who in the 1960s and 1970s migrated to the Netherlands and Italy respectively, and comparing their narratives, she reveals the different ways in which the two groups use the historical bonds with former colonizers.
Popular Justice in Europe (18th–19th Centuries). Ed. by Émilie Delivré [and] Emmanuel Berger. [Annali dell'Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento, Contributi 29; Jahrbuch des italienisch-deutschen historischen Instituts in Trient, Beiträge 29.] Società editrice il Mulino, Bologna; Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2014. 212 pp. € 20.00.
During the late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries the exercise of justice by the people (e.g. “ducking” and Rügegerichte) was increasingly questioned, but in the same period institutionalized forms of popular justice also emerged, such as the Justice of the Peace and the popular jury. Focusing on France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Britain, the seven contributions to this volume review the history of popular justice from a comparative perspective.
Wemheuer, Felix. Famine Politics in Maoist China and the Soviet Union. [Yale Agrarian Studies Series.] Yale University Press, New Haven (CT) [etc.] 2014. Maps. xi, 325 pp. $65.00; £39.00.
Comparing the Soviet famine of 1931–1933 with the Chinese Great Leap Forward famine of 1958–1961 and moving beyond “hard” statistical facts of the Soviet and Chinese supply systems, Professor Wemheuer in this book also studies political, social, and cultural responses to hunger, arguing inter alia that Soviet and Chinese models for rapid industrialization were based on the exploitation of the peasantry, and that the Soviet and Chinese governments protected cities at the expense of rural populations. The book also examines the impact of the Soviet and Chinese famines on Ukraine and Tibet.
CONTEMPORARY ISSUES
Chaignot, Nicolas. La servitude volontaire aujourd'hui. Esclavages et modernité. [Collections “Partage du savoir”.] Presses Universitaires de France, Paris 2012. 243 pp. € 24.00.
In the first part of this book (based on a dissertation, European University Institute, 2010), Dr Chaignot reviews the history of slavery from Graeco-Roman antiquity through the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade; in the second he analyses contemporary human labour under new forms of domination, arguing that while the rejection of slavery is characteristic of modernity, and that institutions today, notably the judiciary and legislation, aim to protect society against slavery, they are put to the test by “voluntary servitude”, a phenomenon that may be regarded as a reversal of modernity. See also Stefano Bellucci's review essay in this volume, pp. 97–109.
Continents and Countries
AFRICA
African Voices on Slavery and the Slave Trade. Ed. by Alice Bellagamba, Sandra E. Greene, [and] Martin A. Klein. With the ass. of Carolyn Brown. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2013. xxii, 563 pp. Ill. Maps. £65.00.
In this volume thirty-five Africanists present primary sources that illustrate both the external and the internal African slave trade. The collection encompasses sources from oral traditions; songs, prayers and proverbs; accounts written by Africans; reports by European travellers; administrative and legal records; life histories collected by missionaries and colonial officials; Islamic sources; and narratives from the descendants of slaves. Each source is introduced and accompanied by questions to consider and suggested additional reading. See also Paul Lovejoy's review in this volume, pp. 113–115.
AMERICA
Almeida, Paul. Mobilizing Democracy. Globalizing and Citizen Protest. [Themes in Global Social Change.] Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 2014. xvi, 198 pp. £19.50.
This is a sociological study of the largest protest campaigns that took place in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama between 1980 and 2013. Drawing on field research, archival data, and interviews with activists, and emphasizing the sub-national level, Dr Almeida examines how local protest movements composed from “multisectoral coalitions” of labour unions, students, teachers, indigenous groups, non-governmental organizations, women's groups, environmental organizations, and oppositional political parties are mobilized against unwanted economic changes associated with neoliberal globalization.
American Labor's Global Ambassadors. The International History of the AFL-CIO during the Cold War. Ed. by Robert Anthony Waters, Jr. and Geert Van Goethem. With a foreword by Marcel van der Linden. Palgrave Macmillan, New York [etc.] 2013. x, 302 pp. £ 60.00.
For AFL-CIO leaders during the Cold War, containing communism around the world was central to trade-union internationalism. Fostering free labour movements while promoting American-style “business unionism” often involved working in conjunction with the US government and even the CIA. Based on a workshop held in Ghent in October 2011, the fourteen contributions to this volume explore AFL-CIO activism in Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia. One chapter explores the origins of American trade-union interventionism; another how the AFL-CIO undermined the ICFTU Women's Committee. See also Michael Merrill's review in this volume, pp. 124–126.
Black Power in the Caribbean. Ed. by Kate Quinn. University Press of Florida, Gainesville (FL) [etc.] 2014. 281 pp. $74.95.
Focusing on the 1960s and 1970s, this volume offers an overview of Black Power in the Caribbean, outlining the national and international contexts in which the movement emerged, its local manifestations, and its ties with the Black Power movement in the United States. The eleven chapters include contributions about Black Power in Jamaica (e.g. the Abeng newspaper), Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Guyana, Antigua and Barbuda, Bermuda, the Virgin Islands (The Free Beach Movement, 1970–1975), and the Dutch Caribbean. See also Christian Cwik's review in this volume, pp. 132–135.
Cohen, Deborah. Braceros. Migrant Citizens and Transnational Subjects in the Postwar United States and Mexico. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill (NC) 2013 (Paper). 328 pp. Ill. $27.95
This study is devoted to the Mexican men who came to the United States to work as temporary farm labourers under the terms of the bracero programme, a series of agreements between Mexico and the United States in effect from 1942 until 1964. Drawing on interviews as well as on archival and printed sources, Professor Cohen describes the expectations that governments, farmers, and labourers had of the programme; the experiences of the braceros; the anxiety the migrants instigated in the United States; reactions from domestic farm workers; and the economic benefits the programme yielded for many participants.
Colonial Genocide in Indigenous North America. Ed. by Andrew Woolford, Jeff Benvenuto, and Alexander Laban Hinton. Duke University Press, Durham [etc.] 2014. x, 344 pp. Ill. Maps. £64.00. (Paper: £17.99.)
Expanding the geographic, demographic, and analytic scope of the term genocide to encompass the effects of colonialism and settler colonialism in North America, this interdisciplinary volume aims to demonstrate how colonists sought to destroy indigenous peoples as groups, notably by attempting to “civilize” or “assimilate” indigenous children. The fourteen chapters include several contributions on indigenous boarding schools in the United States and Canada, and on the removal of indigenous children from their families, as well as articles about the destruction of Native polities in the American South and West and Canadian land claims and dispossession.
The Great Depression in Latin America. Ed. by Paulo Drinot and Allen Knight. Duke University Press, Durham (NC) [etc.] 2014. 362 pp. £62.00. (Paper: £17.99.)
The ten essays in this volume (based in part on a conference held in London in July 2011) about the impact of the global economic collapse of the 1930s in Latin America examine the diverse economic, social, and cultural transformations brought about or accelerated by the slump in Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, Mexico, and Cuba. In the concluding chapter Professor Knight reviews the Great Depression in Latin America, stressing the state's increased role in labour relations and its relative indifference to the plight of the peasantry.
Indigenous Intellectuals. Knowledge, Power, and Colonial Culture in Mexico and the Andes. Eds Gabriela Ramos and Yanna Yannakakis. Duke University Press, Durham [etc.] 2014. xviii, 323 pp. Ill. Maps. $87.50; £57.00. (Paper: $24.95; £15.99.)
Highlighting the role of indigenous intellectuals, this interdisciplinary collection about the circulation of knowledge in the Spanish viceroyalties in Mexico and the Andes contains four chapters focusing on indigenous functionaries, including one on indigenous letrados in seventeenth-century Peru trained by Jesuits, and another on indigenous people, the law, and networks of translation in Oaxaca around 1700. Three chapters are about native historians (including Nahua historian Chimalpahin), and three others discuss indigenous genealogies, indigenous land maps, and indigenous archives.
James, C.L.R. The Life of Captain Cipriani. An Account of British Government in the West Indies. With the Pamphlet The Case for West-Indian Self Government. With a New Introduction by Bridget Brereton. Duke University Press, Durham [etc.] 2014. 193 pp. £54.00. (Paper: £14.99.)
Arthur Andrew Cipriani (1875–1945) was an officer in the British West Indies Regiment, a Trinidadian labour leader and politician, and an advocate for West Indian self-government. C.L.R. James's biography (first published in Nelson, Lancashire, in 1932) is not an account of Cipriani's personal life but a statement of West Indian nationalism. This volume contains the biography and an excerpt issued by Hogarth Press in 1933. In the introduction Professor Brereton considers both texts and the young C.L.R. James in relation to Trinidadian and West Indian intellectual and social history.
Neoliberalism, interrupted. Ed. by Mark Goodale and Nancy Postero. Stanford University Press, Stanford (CA) 2013. xvi, 317 pp. $90.00. (Paper: $27.95; E-book $27.95.)
In eight case studies (about Bolivia, Venezuela, Colombia, Argentina, Mexico, Ecuador, Chile, and El Salvador), anthropologists and sociologists examine in this volume how during the past decade Latin America has responded to the hegemony of neoliberalism in the region. While radical experiments in countries like Bolivia and Venezuela remain exceptions, merely “interrupting” the consolidation of the “neoliberal world order”, these interruptions have important consequences, according to the editors, and reveal new social, political, economic, and theoretical possibilities.
Queirolo, Rosario. The Success of the Left in Latin America. Untainted Parties, Market Reforms, and Voting Behavior. University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame (IN) 2013. xviii, 205 pp. $34.00.
Aiming to explain the leftist electoral successes in several Latin American countries since the late twentieth century, in this book Professor Queirolo explores the influence of market-oriented economic reforms on Latin Americans’ voting for left-leaning parties, and examines whether voters’ current preference for leftist parties results from ideological views or from discontent with traditional parties and poor economic performance. Analysing the micro foundations of voting behaviour, she concludes that left-of-centre parties took advantage of social and economic dissatisfaction, because they were “untainted”, i.e. outside the governing coalitions.
Sanders, James E. The Vanguard of the Atlantic World. Creating Modernity, Nation, and Democracy in Nineteenth-Century Latin America. Duke University Press, Durham (NC) [etc.] 2014. xi, 339 pp. Ill. Maps. $74.53; £60.00. (Paper: $25.95; £16.99.)
Analysing competing discourses of modernity in nineteenth-century Latin America and their effects on society, and using four case studies (on Garibaldi in Uruguay and his local soldiers; the San Patricio Battalion in the war between Mexico and the United States; the Chilean letrado Francisco Bilbao; and the Colombian soldier and politician David Peña), Professor James traces the circulation of political discourse and democratic practice among urban elites, rural peasants, European immigrants, and slaves and freed blacks, arguing that during this period the hub of modernity was not Europe but the New World.
Brazil
A Justiça do Trabalho e sua história. Os direitos dos trabalhadores no Brasil. Org. Ângela de Castro Gomes [e] Fernando Teixeira da Silva. Editora Unicamp, Campinas 2013. 525 pp. R$60.00.
This volume about labour relations in various regions in Brazil from 1940 onward focuses on the work of the Brazilian Court of Labour, and addresses themes including conciliation, labour discipline, wage policy, rural labour, and forms of employment. The eleven chapters examine, for example, agreements with coalminers in Rio Grande do Sul between 1946 and 1954; disputes involving labour discipline in Salvador between 1943 and 1948; labour conflicts across the country shortly before and during the military dictatorship of 1964–1968; and contemporary slave labour. See also Oliver Dinius's review in this volume, pp. 126–129.
Canada
McCallum, Mary Jane Logan. Indigenous Women, Work, and History, 1940–1980. [Critical Studies in Native History.] University of Manitoba Press, Winnipeg 2014. xiv, 320 pp. Ill. $31.95; C$27.95.
This book consists of four case studies about Native domestic workers, hairdressers, community health representatives, and nurses in mid-twentieth century Canada. Drawing on interviews, government records, and print and audiovisual media, Dr McCallum aims to demonstrate how Aboriginal women's labour in Canada was influenced by the politics of modernity and the state, and to challenge commonly held views of Aboriginal displacement.
Chile
Harmer, Tanya. Allende's Chile and the Inter-American Cold War. The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill (NC) 2011. xvi, 375 pp. Ill. $45.00.
Incorporating Cuban, Chilean, and United States perspectives, Dr Harmer presents in this book a history of Chilean foreign relations during Salvador Allende's presidency (1970–1973) in the context of what she calls the “inter-American Cold War”, arguing that rather than a bipolar power struggle between Moscow and Washington, this inter-American Cold War was a multi-sided contest between regional proponents of communism and capitalism across the Americas, in which the Allende years were a significant chapter.
Cuba
Fountain, Anne. José Martí, the United States, and Race. University Press of Florida, Gainesville [etc.] 2014. Ill. xiv, 161 pp. $69.00.
Cuban national hero José Martí (1853–1895) lived in the United States from 1880 to 1895, staying in the home of a black family, teaching at a black school, and interacting with people of colour from all classes, including former slaves. In this book Professor Fountain studies Martí's writings about race (including the 1893 essay “Mi raza”, which aimed to unite all Cubans – blacks, whites and mulattoes – in the cause of Cuban independence) to reveal how Martí's sojourn in the United States affected his ideas about race and his attitudes toward racial politics.
Grenada
Scott, David. Omens of Adversity. Tragedy, Time, Memory, Justice. Duke University Press, Durham [etc.] 2014. 219 pp. $84.95; £57.00. (Paper: $44.95; £15.99.)
At the core of this study is the demise of the Grenada Revolution (1979–1983), which, in the anglophone Caribbean, presented the possibility of a break from colonial and neo-colonial oppression, and offered hope of egalitarian change and social and political justice. Rather than reconstructing the history of the Revolution, the author examines aspects of its collapse, contributing to a wider critical discussion about the ethical-political experience of the temporal “afterness” of the post-colonial, post-socialist present.
United States of America
Diouf, Sylviane A. Slavery's Exiles. The Story of the American Maroons. New York University Press, New York [etc.] 2014. x, 393 pp. Ill. $29.95.
The maroons studied in this book were people who escaped from slavery and hid in the southern wilderness of the United States, living on their own or setting up communities in swamps or other areas where they were unlikely to be discovered. Using archival and published sources, and focusing on Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Louisiana, Ms Diouf examines who the maroons were, how they organized themselves to survive, and how their experience fits into the larger narrative of slave resistance.
Extremism in America. Ed. by George Michael. University Press of Florida, Gainesville [etc.] 2014. 348 pp. £74.95.
Political extremism has a long tradition in the United States, according to the editor of this book, which features ten case studies of contemporary single-issue extremism in the United States: the Tea Party and the far right; the contemporary anarchist and anti-globalization movement; the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense; the Chicano separatist movement; Islamic extremism; terrorism by Jewish extremists; the Christian Identity movement; anti-abortion activism; radical environmentalist and animal-liberation movements; and prison gangs based on race, religion, and ethnicity. One chapter on post-World-War-II American domestic terrorism proposes a typology identifying American forms of terrorism.
Kahana, Jeffrey Steven. The Unfolding of American Labor Law. Judges, Workers, and Public Policy across Two Political Generations, 1790–1850. [Law and Society. Recent Scholarship.] LFB Scholarly Publishing, El Paso 2014. ix, 376 pp. $85.00.
In the first part of this book Dr Kahana considers the influence of independence on American labour law by examining how American judges and legal commentators transformed and rejected the received tradition of English common law concerning the master–servant relationship and employment conditions. He argues that their legal reasoning was influenced by republican and Enlightenment ideas. In the second part he focuses on Massachusetts Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw (1781–1861) and his contributions to American labour law.
Little ‘Red Scares’. Anti-Communism and Political Repression in the United States, 1921–1946. Ed. by Robert Justin Goldstein. Ashgate, Farnham [etc.] 2014. xxiii, 356 pp. Ill. £75.00.
In the United States the years between the two great “red scares” of 1919–1920 and 1946–1954 were also marked by frequent instances of anti-communist political repression. Covering this “interim” period, this volume features thirteen case studies of anti-communism and political repression, focusing on, for example, the FBI's involvement in monitoring radical activists; anti-communist attacks on education; employers and employers’ organizations fighting the “Red Danger”; labour and socialist groups both as opponents of communism and as victims of anti-communist campaigns; and anti-communist campaigns against Spanish aid activities.
Poucher, Judith G. State of Defiance. Challenging the Johns Committee's Assault on Civil Liberties. University Press of Florida, Gainesville [etc.] 2014. xvi, 217 pp. Ill. $24.95.
The Florida Legislative Investigation Committee, also known as the Johns Committee after its creator Senator Charlie Johns, was a McCarthy-era investigating group that especially targeted integrationists, suspected communists, homosexuals, and liberal teachers in Florida from 1956 to 1965. Professor Poucher focuses in this book on five individuals who stood up to the Johns Committee: NAACP activists Virgil Hawkins and Ruth Perry; University of Florida professor Sig Diettrich; lesbian bartender G.G. Mock; and University of South Florida administrator Margaret Fisher, illustrating the Johns Committee's abuse of civil rights and civil liberties.
Ryan, Yvonne. Roy Wilkins. The Quiet Revolutionary and the NAACP. [Civil Rights and the Struggle for Black Equality in the Twentieth Century.] University Press of Kentucky, Lexington 2014. 285 pp. Ill. $40.00.
Roy Wilkins (1901–1981) was a prominent civil rights activist in the United States. He was secretary of the NAACP and co-founded and led the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), a loose coalition of religious, fraternal, civil, and labour groups. This is a biography of this lesser-known but influential lobbyist, who spent much of his life lobbying in Washington, using his command of congressional procedure and networking expertise to secure equal rights for all Americans.
Taylor, Gregory S. The Life and Lies of Paul Crouch. Communist, Opportunist, Cold War Snitch. University Press of Florida, Gainesville [etc.] 2014. 326 pp. Ill. £ 30.00.
This is a biography of Paul Crouch (1903–1955), an American communist who from 1924 onwards worked as an organizer of the CPUSA. He travelled to the Soviet Union, trained Party members to infiltrate the American military, organized strikes, encouraged union activism, and published many diatribes against American capitalism. During World War II, however, he left the party, and in 1949 became a government informant, testifying against the party and naming Robert Oppenheimer, Charlie Chaplin, and many others as communists, and claiming that the civil rights movement was communist inspired.
Wright, Gavin. Sharing the Prize. The Economics of the Civil Rights Revolution in the American South. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.) 2013. xii, 353 pp. £25.95.
Focusing on the American South, Professor Wright explores in this book whether the American civil rights movement was an economic as well as a moral and legal revolution, and whether it opened new opportunities in education, employment, and occupational status for African Americans. He concludes that the civil rights movement had economic motivations and goals, that the federal legislation of 1964 and 1965 was essential for the success of the revolution, and that the civil rights revolution benefited both white and black southerners.
ASIA
India
Legg, Stephen. Prostitution and the Ends of Empire. Scale, Governmentalities, and Interwar India. Duke University Press, Durham [etc.] 2014. xi, 281 pp. Ill. $94.95. (Paper: $25.95.)
Officially confined to red-light districts, brothels in British India were tolerated until the 1920s. In this book about the regulation of prostitution in interwar India, Professor Legg, focusing on Delhi, examines legislation such as the Suppression of Immoral Traffic Acts, the campaign of the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene, and the influence of the League of Nations to explain the shift from policies encouraging the segregation of brothels and prostitutes to the advocacy of suppressing brothels.
Sinha-Kerkhoff, Kathinka. Colonising Plants in Bihar (1760–1950). Tobacco Betwixt Indigo and Sugarcane. Partridge, n.p. [Gurgaon] 2014. xvii, 464 pp. £16.22. (Paper: £9.04.)
Contributing to the history of commodities, colonial history, and the agrarian history of south Asia, Dr Sinha-Kerkhoff in this book studies the production of tobacco, sugar cane, indigo, and poppy in colonial Bihar, focusing mainly on tobacco improvement schemes in the context of a great “plant colonization project” of the British empire. She traces changes in tobacco cultivation and consumption, aiming to demonstrate the power of cash-crop production systems and their reciprocal influences. The book includes a glossary of agricultural and administrative terms.
Working Lives and Worker Militancy. The Politics of Labour in Colonial India. Ed. by Ravi Ahuja. Tulika Books, New Delhi 2013. xvi, 328 pp. Ill. Maps. Rs 695.00.
Based in part on an international workshop held in Göttingen in 2011, this volume contains seven case studies of worker militancy in India, focusing on, respectively, plague riots in Bombay (1896–1898); a railway strike following the Rowlatt Satyagraha agitation in Punjab; the 1928 municipal sweepers’ strike in Calcutta; the Bengal jute workers’ strike of 1929; workers’ resistance in the Indian leather industry, c.1860–1960; and the Indian crew (“lascars”) on a British cargo ship (1916). The volume concludes with the memoirs of trade unionist Bashir Ahmed Bakhtiar. See also Janaiki Nair's review in this volume, pp. 121–124.
Indonesia
Ferares, M. De revolutie die verboden werd. Indonesië 1945–1949. Abigador, Amsterdam 2014. 290 pp. € 29.50.
Drawing on both archival and published sources, the author gives an account of the nationalist movement in Indonesia from its beginning in the early twentieth century until independence in 1945, examining the roles of the Dutch government and Indonesian political movements and highlighting the roles of the Comintern, the Communist Party of the Netherlands, and the Dutch Labour Party. He argues that the Indonesian struggle for independence, unlike those of other Asian countries, did not result in a social revolution, mainly for lack of a revolutionary socialist party to guide the Indonesian peasants and labourers.
AUSTRALIA AND OCEANIA
Australia
Wise, Nathan. Anzac Labour. Workplace Cultures in the Australian Imperial Force during the First World War. Palgrave MacMillan, Basingstoke [etc.] 2014. xi, 183 pp. £55.00.
Based on letters, diaries, and memoirs, this book is about non-combat work (such as trench-digging and maintenance) by Australian soldiers serving with the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) in World War I. Dr Wise describes AIF soldiers’ work experience and workplace cultures in the training camps of Australia, during the Gallipoli campaign, and on the battlefields of France, Belgium, and the Near East, contributing to the growth in international literature on work within the military.
EUROPE
The Welfare State and the ‘Deviant Poor’ in Europe, 1870–1933. Ed. by Beate Althammer, Andreas Gestrich and Jens Gündler. Palgrave MacMillan, Basingstoke [etc.] 2014. xi, 277 pp. £60.00.
Based on a conference held in London in 2010, this volume is about the shifting perceptions, representations, and treatments of the “deviant” poor in the formative phase of modern welfare policies, between the 1870s and 1930s, in the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, England, Scotland, and Ireland. Four chapters deal with conceptions and perceptions of poverty; three other contributions are about approaches to vagrancy and begging; and another two about the mentally disabled and the criminal poor. In the introduction the concepts of “deviance”, “inclusion”, and “exclusion” are discussed.
Der Wiener Kongress. Die Erfindung Europas. Hrsg. Thomas Just, Wolfgang Maderthaner, Helene Maimann. Carl Gerold's Sohn Verlagsbuchhandlung, Wien 2014. 447 pp. Ill. € 90.00.
Published in recognition of the bicentennial of the Congress of Vienna, the twenty-three contributions to this large, lavishly illustrated volume include chapters on the history of the Congress itself, the new balance of power in Europe, key personalities such as Napoleon and Metternich; essays on cultural themes (e.g. elite culture, fashion and popular culture); the organization of the Congress, the Austrian secret police and censorship, the American colonial question and the slave trade; as well as a chronology of the period from 1789 to 1815.
France
Fontaine, Marion. Fin d'un monde ouvrier. Liévin, 1974. [Collection “Cas de figure”, no 36.] Éditions EHESS, Paris 2014. 238 pp. € 16.00.
On 27 December 1974 a serious mining accident occurred in Liévin in northern France, killing forty-two men. Drawing on interviews and written sources, Ms Fontaine explores in this book how the Liévin disaster was dealt with by politicians, activists, courts of law, and the media, considering the political myths surrounding the heroic figure of the miner and arguing that the disaster happened during a period of transition marked by the end of the prosperous postwar period, the onset of de-industrialization, the disappearance of the traditional working class, and the rise of new forms of mobilization.
Frigerio, Vittorio. La Littérature de l'anarchisme. Anarchistes de lettres et lettrés face à l'anarchisme. [Archives critiques.] ELLUG, Grenoble 2014. 390 pp. € 25.00.
This book describes the relationship between anarchism and literary circles in France from 1848 until the late 1930s. Drawing on literary works, periodicals, and unpublished sources, and considering important themes in anarchist thought (e.g. education, women's liberation, free love and prostitution, anti-clericalism, pacifism, and neo-Malthusianism), Professor Frigerio examines images of anarchists and anarchism in works by mainstream authors (e.g. Henry de Montherlant and Anatole France), cultural debates among libertarians, and literary works by authors unknown outside libertarian communities, such as Han Ryner, Jehan Rictus and Fernand Kolney.
Hastings-King, Stephen. Looking for the Proletariat. Socialisme ou Barbarie and the Problem of Worker Writing. [Historical Materialism Book Series, Vol. 71.] Brill, Leiden [etc.] 2014. 345 pp. € 119.00; $154.00.
In this history of the French revolutionary group Socialisme ou Barbarie from 1949 to 1957, Dr Hastings-King focuses on the problem of worker writing. He studies Socialisme ou Barbarie's analyses of the 1953 East Berlin June Days and how workers re-appropriated the language of revolutionary Marxism; traces the group's efforts to solicit workers in France to write about their own experiences, taking the Detroit-based worker newspaper Correspondence as a model, and reflects on Socialisme ou Barbarie member Jacques Gautrat, who wrote about his experience at the Renault factory in Billancourt between 1956 and 1957 using the pseudonym Daniel Mothé.
Germany
Andresen, Knud. Triumpherzählungen. Wie Gewerkschaftererinnen und Gewerkschafter über ihre Erinnerungen sprechen. [Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für soziale Bewegungen. Schriftenreihe A: Darstellungen, Band 57.] Klartext Verlag, Essen 2014. 240 pp. € 24.95.
This book records the memories of West German men and women trade unionists from the city of Hamburg and two smaller towns. Dr Andresen analyses how fifteen interviewed men and women, all born between 1929 and 1948 and active mainly in the 1970s and 1980s, experienced the changing day-to-day operations, working environment, and trade-union activities. This oral history highlights narrative patterns and explores, for example, how the interviewees describe their experiences and present their personal histories and achievements.
Beachy, Robert. Gay Berlin. Birthplace of a Modern Identity. Alfred A. Knopf, New York (NY) 2014. xix, 312 pp. Ill. $27.95.
Challenging Foucault's image of a laboratory test tube in which medical professionals concocted new sexual identities, Professor Beachy situates the invention of “homosexuality” in the context of German history. In addition to examining the careers of pioneers such as K.H. Ulrichs, R. von Krafft-Ebing, and Magnus Hirschfeld, he explores homosexual subcultures and policing strategies in late nineteenth-century Berlin; the world's first homosexual rights movement in Berlin; Hans Blüher's history of the Wandervogel movement, and his German nationalist and anti-semitic theory of the homoerotic Männerbund; prostitution and sex tourism in Weimar Berlin; and Berlin's three major homosexual rights organizations.
Delivré, Emilie. Le catéchisme politique allemand de 1780 à 1850. Un prêche pour la formation du citoyen. Préface de Jean-Clément Martin. [Les Mondes germaniques.] L'Harmattan, Paris 2014. 522 pp. Ill. € 49.00.
Based on a dissertation presented at the European University Institute in 2010, this study offers an analysis of some 250 German political catechisms, broadly defined. The texts were published chiefly during the Napoleonic era, the Vormärz, and the revolutionary years of 1848–1849. The author discusses them in the contexts in which they arose and those they were intended to bring about, and highlights how this literary genre both differed from and depended on its religious models. She demonstrates how the long-established relationship between religious and political forces in the German lands became increasingly complex but endured nonetheless throughout the period.
Forner, Sean A. German Intellectuals and the Challenge of Democratic Renewal. Culture and Politics after 1945. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2014. Ill. xi, 383 pp. £65.00; $99.00.
Reconstructing a social network among democrats (ranging from liberal political scientist Dolf Sternberger to Marxist theorist Ernst Bloch, from left-Catholic resister Eugen Kogon to Jewish re-émigré Alfred Kantorowicz, and from social democratic sociologist Alfred Weber to communist philosopher Wolfgang Harich), Professor Forner traces their endeavours to formulate a participatory vision of democratic renewal, which, although thwarted by internal tensions and the Cold War, fuelled critique and dissent in the GDR and the FRG during the 1950s and thereafter. The book concludes with a chapter on 1968 and 1989 and an appeal for stronger participation.
Gabriel, Elun T. Assassins and Conspirators. Anarchism, Socialism, and Political Culture in Imperial Germany. Northern Illinois University Press, DeKalb (IL) 2014. 302 pp. $50.00.
In the early 1870s the German socialist movement was a marginal one with a radical and violent reputation; by 1912, however, the German Social Democratic Party was the largest party in the Reichstag. Examining the public debate about social democracy's compatibility with German social and political institutions, especially concerning the question of revolutionary violence, Professor Gabriel aims to demonstrate in this book how the German social democrats refashioned their own public image by discarding their revolutionary image from the past, emphasizing their commitment to peaceful reform and democratic procedure, and contrasting themselves with anarchists.
Hoffrogge, Ralf. Working-Class Politics in the German Revolution. Richard Müller, the Revolutionary Shop Stewards and the Origins of the Council Movement. Transl. by Joseph B. Keady. Ed. by Radhika Desai. [Historical Materialism Book Series, Vol. 77.] Brill, Leiden [etc.] 2014. xiv, 253 pp. € 109.00; $141.00.
Richard Müller (1880–1943), a labour leader representing Berlin's metalworkers, was the main organizer of the “revolutionary stewards”, a network that staged a series of strikes between 1916 and 1918 and was, according to the author, the driving force of the German Revolution of 1918. In the revolutionary government of 1918, Müller became chairman of the Executive Council of the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Council. In this political biography (an enlarged version of the original German edition, Berlin 2008), Dr Hoffrogge reconstructs the motives and practices of Müller and his group, the “forgotten but truly representative organization of the German working class”.
Ziemann, Benjamin. Veteranen der Republik. Kriegserinnerung und demokratische Politik 1918–1933. Aus dem Englischen von Christine Brocks. Dietz, Bonn 2014. 381 pp. Ill. € 24.90.
Memories of the Great War dominated German society after 1918, but social democrat war veterans had their own voice in the war commemorations, according to this book, a translation of Contested Commemorations: Republican War Veterans and Weimar Political Culture (2013). Using the few remaining veterans’ archives, newsletters, and other periodicals, and analysing the symbolism and language of public commemoration, Professor Ziemann aims to show that social democrat war veterans had their own pacifist interpretation of the war, which they defended against the heroic nationalism of the right.
Great Britain
The Ashgate Research Companion to Popular Culture in Early Modern England. Ed. by Andrew Hadfield, Matthew Dimmock, and Abigail Shinn. Ashgate, Farnham [etc.] 2014. xii, 382 pp. Ill. £85.00.
This volume reviews various practices, behaviours, and experiences in early modern English popular culture and proposes new approaches in this field. Seven chapters focus on, respectively, speech acts, reading and writing, youth culture, religious belief, festivals, myths, and visual culture. Eight others examine popular culture in relation to sex and marriage, food and drink, work, gendered labour, crime, xenophobia, and needlework. Eight essays explore how people have experienced politics, rebellion, time, property, medicine, witchcraft, military culture, and urban life. Each chapter concludes with a select bibliography.
Bailey, Mark. The Decline of Serfdom in Late Medieval England. From Bondage to Freedom. The Boydell Press, Woodbridge 2014. ix, 373 pp. £60.00.
In the first part of this book Professor Bailey surveys existing literature about the decline of serfdom in England between c.1300 and c.1500, and considers the arguments for the causes of the decline, focusing on economic influences, on attempts to impose a “second serfdom”, and on peasant resistance. In the second part he proposes a more carefully circumscribed and reliable methodology for charting and explaining the decline of serfdom, which he uses as a basis for original research on a sample of thirty-eight manors in the south Midlands and East Anglia.
Houston, R.A. Peasant Petitions. Social Relations and Economic Life on Landed Estates, 1600–1850. Palgrave MacMillan, Basingstoke [etc.] 2014. ix, 313 pp. Ill. £60.00.
Using around 2,000 petitions from tenants to their landlords, and examining the authorship, form, and style of these estate petitions, as well as their content, Professor Houston explores the diverse material and social lives of peasants in late seventeenth-, eighteenth-, and early nineteenth-century Britain and Ireland, their relations with the owners of the land they worked, and with fellow members of small-town communities.
Steedman, Carolyn. An Everyday Life of the English Working Class. Work, Self and Sociability in the Early Nineteenth Century. Cambridge University Press, New York [etc.] 2013. xi, 298 pp. Ill. $90.00; £55.00. (Paper: $32.99; £19.99.)
This book is about the private diaries and accounts of Joseph Woolley (c.1773–1840), a stocking-maker, and the official records of Sir Gervase Clifton, Bart (1744–1815), a magistrate, who both lived in a small Nottinghamshire village. Professor Steedman uses the magistrate's writing to contextualize Woolley's thoughts on everyday life and labour, reading and drinking, sex, the law, and social relations, aiming to provide insight into how the law framed everyday life in a Midlands county at the turn of the nineteenth century.
Virdee, Satnam. Racism, Class and the Racialized Outsider. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke 2014. x, 188 pp. £26.99.
In this book Professor Virdee examines social relations between the English working-class and minority groups (Irish Catholics, Jews, Asians, and the African diaspora), investigating the significance of racism in those relations. He traces the origins of working-class racism back to the 1830s and 1840s, and argues that after those years racism was consolidated among English workers. He also identifies and analyses episodes of class solidarity and anti-racism, emphasizing the significance of an internationalist socialist leadership for anti-racism to emerge within the working class.
Hungary
Pittaway, Mark. From the Vanguard to the Margins. Workers in Hungary, 1939 to the present. Selected essays by Mark Pittaway. Ed. by Adam Fabry. [Historical Materialism Book Series, Vol. 66.] Brill, Leiden [etc.] 2014. x, 333 pp. € 119.00; $154.00.
Mark Pittaway (1971–2010) was a historian of postwar and contemporary central and eastern Europe with a special interest in Hungary. The twelve essays by Dr Pittaway collected in this volume (revised and updated versions of previously published texts) are about the origins, contradictory nature, and aftermath of the pre-1989 eastern bloc regimes and the significance of labour in the politics of postwar and contemporary central and eastern Europe, particularly Hungary. The collection also includes an article on the 1956 revolution and another on conducting research in Hungarian archives on post-1945 history.
Italy
Matteotti, Giacomo. Scritti e discorsi vari. A cura di Stefano Caretti. Pisa University Press, Pisa 2014. 323 pp. € 30.00.
In this collection, the concluding volume of a series of works by the Italian socialist politician and anti-fascist Giacomo Matteotti (1880–1924), Professor Caretti brings together various writings by Matteotti, including several articles he wrote in La Lotta and La Lotta Proletaria between 1907 and 1912 under the pseudonym “Eliomi”, and some parliamentary questions and interventions. In the introduction Professor Caretti briefly discusses how Matteotti has been remembered both in Italy and abroad.
The Netherlands
Altena, Bert. Machinist en wereldverbeteraar. Het leven van A.J. Lansen, 1847–1931. Verloren, Hilversum 2014. 272 pp. Ill. € 29.00.
Abraham Johannes Lansen (1847–1931) was a steam engineer, freemason, socialist, freethinker, and poet. The socialist association he founded in Vlissingen in 1879 was one of the first in the Netherlands during the period after the First International. Drawing on Lansen's poetry and other writings, public records, private collections, periodicals, and interviews, Dr Altena in this biography describes Lansen's work, his family life, and his worldview, also shedding light on the early history of socialism in the Netherlands, and reflecting on the merits and shortcomings of the biographical genre.
Handen uit de mouwen. 150 jaar verpleegkundig uniform in Nederland. Red. Cecile aan de Stegge, Catharina Th. Bakker, Kitty de Leeuw. Verloren, Hilversum 2014. 141 pp. Ill. € 19.95.
Changes in nurses’ uniforms closely parallel the history of the nursing profession, according to this richly illustrated book tracing the history of nurses’ uniforms in the Netherlands over the past 150 years, from the oldest known nuns’ habits and Protestant deaconesses’ nursing attire to district nurses’ dress and male army nurses’ uniforms. The six chapters review the origins of nurses’ uniforms, as well as various aspects and functions, such as identifiability, status, discipline, hygiene, and morality. One chapter considers the rising opposition to nurses’ uniforms from the 1970s onwards, especially in psychiatry.
Norway
Høidal, Oddvar K. Trotsky in Norway. Exile, 1935–1937. NIU Press, DeKalb (IL) 2013. xii, 414 pp. Ill. $39.95.
This is an account of Trotsky's stay in Norway from June 1935, when he was welcomed by the Norwegian socialist Labour Party, to December 1936, when Trotsky had become the centre of a major political controversy and was deported to Mexico. Drawing on both interviews and written sources and relating Trotsky's Norwegian exile to the political situation of his host country, Professor Høidal describes Trotsky's efforts to establish a Fourth International that would challenge Stalin's leadership of world communism, and the repercussions of his stay on Norwegian politics even after his expulsion to Mexico.
Portugal
Varela, Raquel. História do Povo na Revolução Portuguesa 1974–75. Bertrand Editora, Lisboa 2014. 535 pp. Ill. € 24.40.
In this thematically organized volume, Dr Varela aims to present a people's history of the Portuguese Carnation revolution. She chronicles strikes and other labour protests in Portugal in 1974 and 1975, self-management efforts by workers, land occupations, and tenants’ actions. She discusses themes such as workers’ control, the right to work and the welfare state, art and the revolution, women's rights, and the significance of the Carnation Revolution. One chapter focuses on Portuguese servicemen deserting the colonial army in Africa in the 1960s and early 1970s, another on Spanish responses to the Portuguese revolution.
Russia – Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Schrad, Mark Lawrence. Vodka Politics. Alcohol, Autocracy, and the Secret History of the Russian State. Oxford University Press, New York [etc.] 2014. Ill. xvii, 492 pp. $35.00; £22.99.
Although Marx and Engels condemned drunkenness as a consequence of capitalist oppression, according to Professor Schrad, Soviet leaders and Russian tsars alike relied on alcohol both as a source of state revenues and as a means of keeping the people drunk, passive, and unable to challenge state power. In this book he studies Russian history from the eighteenth century to the present “through the bottom of the vodka bottle”, aiming to explain in the process why the “liquor question” remains important in present-day Russian politics.
Spain
El trabajo infantil en España (1700–1950). Ed. José María Borrás Llop. [Collecció Història del Treball, Vol. 6.] Icaria editorial, Barcelona 2014. 511 pp. Ill. € 25.00.
This collection features a survey of child labour in the Spanish agriculture, fishing, manufacturing, mining, and service industries from the eighteenth to the mid-twentieth century, highlighting the contribution from children toward economic growth. Examining medical as well as economic, social, and cultural aspects, the twelve chapters include contributions on the age of access to wage labour in eighteenth-century Spain, the medical impact of child labour, minimum-age regulation in mining, gender aspects of child labour, the contribution of children's earnings to family incomes, and views of child labour among workers’ organizations. The volume includes English summaries.
Switzerland
Deshusses, Frédéric. Grèves et contestations ouvrières en Suisse 1969–1979. [Collection “Présents du passé”.] Éditions d'en bas, Lausanne; Archives contestataires, Carouge-Genève 2014. 135 pp. Ill. Sfr. 22.00; € 14.00
Between 1969 and 1979 Switzerland experienced a series of strikes, which, according to Mr Deshusses, have been largely overlooked by historians. In this book he reconstructs the histories of these strikes (many of which were not supported by trade unions), examining the roles of migrant workers, the student movement, and the New Left, and arguing that the traditional unions in the 1970s saw their legitimacy challenged by younger militants. The book also includes a case study of a wildcat strike by seasonal construction workers in Geneva in 1970 and a list of strikes from 1969 to 1979.
