Volume 50 part 1 (April 2005)
Bibliography
General Issues
Continents and Countries
- Africa
Egypt | Namibia | South Africa | Zimbabwe - America
Brazil | Canada | Costa Rica | Mexico | United States of America - Asia
India | Syria - Australia and Oceania
New Zealand - Europe
Denmark | Eire - Ireland | France | Germany | Great Britain | Italy | The Netherlands | Russia - USSR | Spain | Switzerland
Book descriptions consist of: author, title, publisher, place and year of publication, number of pages, original price; followed by a brief summary of the contents.
All listed books are available in the IISH library.
General Issues
SOCIAL THEORY AND SOCIAL SCIENCEArthur, Christopher John. The New Dialectic and Marx's Capital. [Historical Materialism, vol. 1.] Brill, Leiden [etc.] 2002. viii, 263 pp. € 48.00; $58.00.
Professor Arthur brings together in this volume ten revised or original versions of articles, previously published between 1988 and 2001, on the dialectic motifs in Marx's work and on attempts to elaborate these themes in the context of a recent philosophical current, known as "Systematic Dialectic" or "New Dialectic". Based on a re-evaluation of Hegel's philosophy and a rereading of Marx's and Hegel's major philosophical works, the author argues that what is needed is a method of articulating the dialectical relations characterizing a given social whole, in contrast to the dialectic of the rise and fall of social systems.
Freeman, Christopher and Francisco Louça. As Time Goes By. From the Industrial Revolutions to the Information Revolution. Oxford University Press, Oxford [etc.] 2001. xv, 407 pp. £57.50.
This analysis of economic changes from the Industrial Revolution to the present information revolution opens with a critique of purely quantitative methods in economic history, econometrics, and cliometrics, which the authors believe are in danger of fostering a reductionist view of history. In the second part, the authors take a cyclical view of economic history, applying in their analysis the concept of a relation between technical change and long waves in economic development as elaborated by, among others, Nikolai Kondratiev.
Jenseits des Eurozentrismus. Postkoloniale Perspektiven in den Geschichts- und Kulturwissenschaften. Hrsg. von Sebastian Conrad und Shalini Randeria. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main [etc.] 2002. 398 pp. € 24.90; SFR 42.30.
The twelve essays in this collection, deriving from the Berlin research project AGORA, aim to critique the theoretical and methodological foundations of Eurocentric social theory and historical research. All contributors share the conviction that in the present postcommunist, postcolonial era of globalization all national histories are interconnected with global history, and that social history and theory within European national contexts in particular need to be rethought from a postcolonial perspective. The topics covered in the contributions include: the European view on Africa (Steven Feierman); the origins of the "postcolonial" (Stuart Hall); postcolonial critique of history (Dipesh Chakrabarty); Foucault's history of sexuality from a postcolonial perspective (Ann Laura Stoler); and German colonialism (Andreas Eckert and Albert Wirz).
Kiesewetter, Hubert. Irreale oder reale Geschichte? Ein Traktat über Methodenfragen der Geschichtswissenschaft. [Geschichtswissenschaft, Band 50.] Centaurus Verlag, Herbolzheim 2002. 202 pp. € 20.90.
This historical-theoretical treatise features a critical analysis of the recent emergence within historical theory of conjectural, virtual, or counterfactual historiography. Professor Kiesewetter aims to refute the claims staked by this movement to epistemological benefit for historical research and to demonstrate the flaws in its methodological principles. The author advocates stronger integration and adoption of the theoretical and methodological progress in other social sciences.
Maset, Michael. Diskurs, Macht und Geschichte. Foucaults Analysetechniken und die historische Forschung. [Campus Historische Studien, Band 32.] Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main [etc.] 2002. 268 pp. € 34.90; SFR 58.60.
This study analyses the methodological reflection in the work of Michel Foucault and its epistemological and methodological potential for historical research. Dr Maset explores four central issues in this respect: the concept of power, as analysed in historical social sciences, in historical anthropology and in Foucault's work; the history of the historical sciences and Foucault's discourse analysis; the relation between history of ideas and social history, between discourse and social practices; and women's history and gender history.
HISTORY
Hautmann, Hans. Soziale Utopien und utopischer Sozialismus. Ein Vademekum zur Ideengeschichte des Sozialismus und Kommunismus von der Antike bis Marx. [Quellen und Studien, Sonderband 3.] Alfred Klahr Gesellschaft, Wien 2002. 420 pp. € 15.00.
This handbook aims to offer a general overview of the history of ideas in the field of social utopias and utopian socialism from antiquity to Karl Marx. Following an introductory chapter dealing with conceptual definitions, Professor Hautmann deals successively with egalitarian utopian ideas and movements in Asia and the Middle East during the last millennium; communist and egalitarian thought among the Ancient Greeks and Romans and their philosophers; via communist and egalitarian concepts among early Christians, medieval and early modern heretics in Europe (John Wyclif, Jan Hus etc.), through utopian and social movements of the early nineteenth century and the direct predecessors of Marx.
Heinz, Susanne. Englanderfahrung und Gesellschaftskritiek. Nathaniel Hawthornes English Notebooks und Our Old Home. [Studien zur Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Band 1.] Verlag Dr. Kovac, Hamburg 2002. ii, 346 pp. € 97.00.
From 1853 to 1857, the American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) resided in Liverpool as American consul. His experiences there served as the basis for the non-fictional texts Our Old Home (1863) and "English Notebooks" (published posthumously in 1870 as Passages from the English Note-Books of Nathaniel Hawthorn), which are analysed in this study for their critical view on English society and its class system and social stratification. According to the author, these texts clearly convey the widespread disapproval among American intellectuals of the antebellum generation of the rigid class structure of the "old world", in contrast with American society.
Pallares-Burke, Maria Lúcia G. The New History. Confessions and Conversations. Polity Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2002. 247 pp. £50.00.
In this volume, Professor Pallares-Burke has brought together interviews with nine leading scholars associated with the so-called New History, including Jack Goody, Asa Briggs, Natalie Zemon Davis, Keith Thomas, Daniel Roche, Peter Burke, Robert Darnton, Carlo Ginzburg, and Quentin Skinner. In the interviews the author aims to get the interviewees to justify their research methods, to reflect on their own intellectual and personal trajectories and to make explicit the experiences and ideas that underlie their work.
COMPARATIVE HISTORY
Benton, Lauren. Law and Colonial Cultures. Legal Regimes in World History, 1400-1900. [Studies in Comparative World History.] Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2002. xiii, 285 pp. £45.00; $65.00. (Paper: £15.95; $20.00.)
In this study, Professor Benton argues that colonial rule and the accompanying international order in the nineteenth century were shaped not only by the emergence of a global economy but also by cultural practice and institutions, in particular legal regimes. Examining the shift from the multicentric law of early modern empires to the state-centred law of modern colonialism, she considers both the broader institutional change in the field of law and legal regimes in colonial empires and comparative micro-studies of legal cases in places such as Bengal and West Africa, Cape Colony, and New South Wales and Uruguay.
Hofmeester, Karin M. Jewish Workers and the Labour Movement. A Comparative Study of Amsterdam, London and Paris, 1870-1914. [Studies in labour history.] Ashgate, Aldershot [etc.] 2004. xv, 346 pp. Ill. £57.50.
Comparing the collaborative and trade-union efforts of Jewish workers in the cities of London, Paris, and Amsterdam at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries, Professor Hofmeester explores the multi-layered and unique position of Jewish workers in the labour market. Integration into the general labour movement, though relatively successful in Amsterdam, was quite problematic in London and Paris. The author demonstrates how factors such as economic change, political upheaval, state intervention and anti-Semitism affected the pace of integration in these cities in various ways. See also John Bunzl's review in this volume, pp. 99-101.
Populismus. Ideologie und Praxis in Frankreich und Österreich. Hrsg. von Gabriella Hauch, Thomas Hellmuth und Paul Pasteur. [Studien zur Gesellschafts- und Kulturgeschichte, Band 12.] StudienVerlag, Innsbruck [etc.] 2002. 196 pp. € 19.00; SFR 33.10.
The nine contributions to this collection, the result of a joint Austrian-French research project, explore the historical foundations and diverse manifestations of recent forms of populism in France and Austria. Discussing different theories explaining the recent rise of populism and analysing the political and societal breeding ground in both countries, the authors seek a comparative explanation for the political success of right-wing populism in the past decade.
Urban Radicals, Rural Allies. Social Democracy and the Agrarian Issue, 1870-1914. Ed. by Aad Blok, Keith Hitchins, Raymond Markey and Birger Simonson. [International and comparative social history, vol. 7.] Peter Lang, Bern [etc.] 2002. 451 pp. € 63.80.
The eighteen contributions to this volume, most of which are based on a workshop organized in Amsterdam in September 1994 in the context of the "Determinants of the Development of Labour Movements, 1870-1914" project of the International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam, examine the attitudes of social democratic parties in Australia, Europe, and South America towards the peasantry and the agrarian issue in the period between the First International and World War I (see IRSH, 37 (1992), p. 128; 42 (1997), p. 117; 43 (1998), pp. 502 and 503; and 47 (2002), p. 323 for other volumes originating from this project). The contributors show how these attitudes and related ideologies varied greatly from one country to another, depending on socio-economic and political structures, the role of radical populism, and the situation within the social democratic party in the countries concerned.
CONTEMPORARY ISSUES
Seefahrt im Zeichen der Globalisierung. Hrsg. von Heide Gerstenberger und Ulrich Welke. Westfälisches Dampfboot, Münster 2002. 225 pp. Ill. € 20.50.
The modern shipping industry is one of the economic sectors where globalization is most pronounced. This collection of sixteen essays considers trends in the shipping industry in recent decades from this perspective of globalization. Themes covered include the changes in everyday experiences of seafarers aboard ships; structural changes in ports and in dock labour due to containerization and globalization; and the consequences of these globalization trends for the systems of international law and regulations for labour conditions and environmental protection.
CONTINENTS AND COUNTRIES
AFRICA
African Identities. Contemporary political and social challenges. Ed. by Pal Ahluwalia and Abebe Zegeye. [The Making of Modern Africa.] Ashgate, Aldershot [etc.] 2002. xiv, 175 pp. Ill. £42.50.
The eleven contributions to this collection, based on the Australian African Studies Conference, organized in Adelaide in 2000, address the common theme of "the border". The contributors deal with boundaries of the state; race, identity and representation; women and armed struggle (in southern Africa); processes of democratization; and cooperatives and labour. Most contributions are about the recent past, although the collection opens with a comparative study of colonial identities in Java and South Africa. The two contributions about labour are about cooperatives in Zimbabwe and the importance of drinking beer at cooperative Xhosa work parties, respectively.
Local Perspectives on Globalisation. The African Case. Ed. by Joseph Semboja, Juma Mwapachu and Eduard Jansen. Mkuki na Nyota Publishers; Research on Poverty Alleviation, Dar es Salaam 2002. v, 154 pp. $11.50.
The nine papers in this collection, the proceedings of a workshop organized in September 1998 in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, are based on the common position that "Africa is being marginalized as it is catapulted into the global village". The contributors, coming from a variety of disciplines and countries, examine the effects of globalization in Africa at general, regional and national scales in economics, governance, culture, popular resistance and natural resources. One of the general conclusions is that empirical research and knowledge of local realities are necessary to mitigate the negative consequences of globalization.
Maloka, Eddy Tshidiso. Basotho and the Mines. A Social History of Labour Migrancy in Lesotho and South Africa, c. 1890-1940. Codesria, Dakar 2004. 259 pp. Maps. £14.95; $20.95.
In this study of labour migrancy in Lesotho and South Africa between 1890 and 1940, Dr Maloka examines the position of migrant workers from Basotho in South Africa, Lesotho's dependency on migrant labour, and the social and cultural consequences of this massive labour migration. Placing these issues in the context of colonialism in southern Africa and the more theoretical questions of structure and agency, the author deals with issues such as coping with the high casualty rates in the mining compounds, the social history of commercial beer brewing and commercial sex in Lesotho, the system of chieftainship, missionaries, and British colonial rule. See also Wessel Visser's review in this volume, pp. 109-112
Egypt
Ener, Mine. Managing Egypt's Poor and the Politics of Benevolence, 1800-1952. Princeton University Press, Princeton [etc.] 2003. xxx, 195 pp. Ill. $35.00; £22.95.
This study of poverty politics in Egypt during the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries examines the major transformations during this period in the role of the emerging state, philanthropic initiatives and religiously inspired charity in their efforts to provide poor relief, the benefits that poor people derived from these initiatives, and the emerging discourse on poverty and poor relief as political and societal problems. Comparing Egyptian poverty politics with those in other Middle Eastern and western societies, the author aims to show that the changes were not as unambiguously directed towards increasing social control of the poor as is often assumed. See also Roel Meijer's review in this volume, pp. 95-97.
Namibia
McKittrick, Meredith. To Dwell Secure. Generation, Christianity, and Colonialism in Ovamboland. [Social History of Africa.] Heinemann, Portsmouth (NH); James Currey, London; David Philip, Cape Town [etc.] 2002. xvii, 297 pp. Ill. Maps $24.95.
This study deals with the widespread conversion to Christianity in the northern Namibian region of Ovamboland. The author analyses the insecurities in precolonial society and the inequality arising from the generational system of "seniors" and "juniors". Precolonial merchant capitalism, based on raids on livestock, ivory, and slaves, gave rise to a growing group of young men unable to form their own households. Christianity, colonialism, and labour migration gave the "juniors" a new means to acquire social security. The author interviewed 100 Ovambo respondents. In addition to archives in Germany and Namibia, the Finnish Evangelical Lutherans in the National Archives of Finland were very valuable sources.
South Africa
Crais, Clifton. The Politics of Evil. Magic, State Power, and the Political Imagination in South Africa. [African Studies Series, vol. 103.] Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2002. xvi, 297 pp. Ill. £45.00; $60.00.
The author explicitly relates the moral and magical perceptions of the black population to the political changes during the establishment of the colonial segregated state and later under apartheid in South Africa. He analyses the European conquest as a crosscultural encounter. The widespread violence during the conquest, as well as within the black communities is a constant and a decisive factor in this history. This study reveals an extremely complex world, where black nationalists may be as removed from black eschatological hybrid forms of Christianity as white civil servants are, and where tribal customs are reinforced by the classifying colonial government. The continuity of the resulting structures has thus almost forced the local authorities to follow in the footsteps of apartheid after 1994.
Lange, Lis. White, Poor and Angry. White Working Class Families in Johannesburg. [Race and representation.] Ashgate, Aldershot [etc.] 2003. viii, 186 pp. £45.00.
This study examines the social and political development of a white working class in South Africa from the beginning of deep-level mining in Johannesburg to the miners' strike of 1922, known as the Rand Revolt. Dr Lange examines the formation of working-class families, working-class accommodations, the emergence of social networks in working-class neighbourhoods, and the effects of unemployment for working-class political and ideological identity. The author concludes that the ethnic differences between English and Afrikaner workers and their families were secondary to their sense of community as a result of their class experience. See also Lucien van der Walt's review in this volume, pp. 115-117.
Zimbabwe
Summers, Carol. Colonial Lessons. Africans' Education in Southern Rhodesia, 1918-1940. [Social History of Africa Series.] Heinemann, Portsmouth (NH); James Currey, Oxford; David Philip, Cape Town 2002. xxix, 212 pp. Ill. £45.00. (Paper: £16.95.)
The author has conducted a detailed investigation in the archives of missionary schools to analyse the importance of education for blacks in colonial Zimbabwe. In a world dominated by white civil servants and settlers, education provided a small group of indigenous children with a bit of leeway. In some areas, the group educated at these schools managed to set the colonial agenda. The black elite that emerged did not merely operate as instructed by the colonial government. The prestige that black schoolteachers had achieved was increasingly undermined by ongoing segregation and later on by the armed struggle for independence.
AMERICA
Brazil
Jinkings, Nise. Trabalho e resistência na "Fonte Misteriosa". Os bancários no mundo da eletrônica e do dinheiro. Editora da Unicamp, Campinas; Imprensa Oficial do Estado, São Paulo 2002. 402 pp. Ill. R$ 44.00.
This study of the Brazilian banking industry aims to reveal the major changes in this sector since the early 1980s. The market was gradually opened to foreign corporations, and the state banks privatized and merged. The orientation toward the world market plunged the sector into an ongoing reorganization. Of the 810,000 jobs in the late 1980s, only 410,000 remained in 2000. The position of women continued to deteriorate. Those employed in this sector are now permanently confronted with the effects of intensification and flexibilization on their position. The author demonstrates how the trade-union movement, which was very active in the 1980s, was forced on to the defensive in the 1990s.
Riethof, Marieke. Responses of the Brazilian Labour Movement to Economic and Political Reforms. [Thela Latin America Series.] Rozenberg Publishers, Amsterdam 2002. x, 240 pp. € 22.50.
This dissertation was completed before Lula won the presidential elections in October 2002. It deals with "new unionism", democratization, and Cardoso's reforms. The study attributes the uncertainty in the labour movement to the reform policies of the 1990s. The ambivalence of the trade-union movement is visible in the stand against state intervention in the trade union but in favour of such involvement with the corporations. The role of the state with respect to labour in the Brazilian process of neoliberal reforms is ambiguous in both practical and ideological respects. The author has based her research on printed sources and interviews with trade-union activists in Brazil.
Canada
Endicott, Stephen Lyon. Bienfait. The Saskatchewan Miners' Struggle of '31. University of Toronto Press, Toronto [etc.] 2002. xi, 180 pp. Ill. C$60.00; £40.00. (Paper: C$21.95; £14.00.)
In 1931 a thirty-day strike of miners in Saskatchewan, Canada, aimed at obtaining recognition of their union, ended in the shooting of three miners and the arrest of the militant leaders by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. In this study, Dr Endicott explores the social consequences of the restructuring of the Saskatchewan mining industry and the causes behind the failure of the miners' attempts to gain union recognition. Based on both oral history and written sources, the author explores the role of corporations, the regional and national government, courts, and the police in the events surrounding the strike and the shooting.
Costa Rica
Putnam, Lara. The Company They Kept. Migrants and the Politics of Gender in Caribbean Costa Rica, 1870-1960. The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill [etc.] 2002. xii, 303 pp. Ill. £38.50.
This study aims to explore the everyday experience of migrants working in the Costa Rica plantation economy in the period 1870-1960, with a focus on the position of women and the influence of state and employers' policies on changes in gender relations and family life among the transnational migrant plantation workers. Focusing on the banana plantation in Porte Limón, the birthplace of the United Fruit Company, Professor Putnam uses microhistorical sources, such as autobiographies and court transcripts, to portray the migrants' lives and to analyse the connections between political economy, popular culture, and everyday life.
Mexico
Schmidt-Eule, Matthias. Chiapas 1994-2001. Analyse eines Konfliktes im Süden Mexikos. [Hispano-Americana: Geschichte, Sprache, Literatur, Band 31.] Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main [etc.] 2002. 242 pp. €35.80.
The implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on 1 January 1994 coincided with the outbreak of a rebellion by the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN) in the Mexican south-eastern province of Chiapas. This dissertation (Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, 2002) explores the origins and background of this rebellion, which caused a worldwide stir, in part because the rebels used new media, such as the Internet and e-mail. Dr Schmidt-Eule analyses the role of the various parties at micro, meso and macro levels in the conflict, which is generally described as the first postmodern rebellion.
United States of America
Brown, Carrie. Rosie's Mom. Forgotten Women Workers of the First World War. Northeastern University Press, Boston 2002. xi, 240 pp. Ill. £27.50.
By the end of World War I, more than a million American women had become involved in wartime production. Whereas the role of women in the war economy during World War II has been explored extensively, the experiences of women workers in World War I have received far less detailed consideration, according to the author. In this copiously illustrated book, Mrs Brown sketches, among others, these women's daily life and work experiences, their contributions to the adoption of new health and safety measures in the workplace, and their trail-blazer function in women's voting rights.
Dain, Bruce. A Hideous Monster of the Mind. American Race Theory in the Early Republic. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.) [etc.] 2002. x, 321 pp. £19.95.
In this study of the emergence of modern racial consciousness in the United States from the American Revolution to the onset of the Civil War, Professor Dain not only focuses on well-known white figures such as Thomas Jefferson, but also examines self-aware "black" African American writers, such as Hosea Easton and James McCune Smith, to analyse how these various thinkers transformed late eighteenth-century European environmentalist "natural history" into race theories that combined culture and biology, and thus set the terms for controversies over slavery and abolition.
Dog Days. James P. Cannon vs. Max Shachtman in the Communist League of America 1931-1933. James P. Cannon, Max Shachtman, Leon Trotsky, and Others. Ed. by the Prometheus Research Library. Prometheus Research Library, New York, N.Y. 2002. xx, 715 pp. Ill. $30.00. (Paper: $19.50.)
This volume comprises 118 documents that bear upon the factional struggles between the American Trotskyist leader, James P. Cannon, and the younger Max Shachtman and his followers. Featuring statements, pamphlets, and circular letters, as well as correspondence between the various protagonists in the struggles, including Trotsky, from the period 1931-1933, this volume aims to shed a light both on the internal American factional struggles of the period, which culminated in the final split between the Cannon and the Shachtman factions in 1939, and on the related debates and factional struggles at the international level in these years. In their historical introduction, the editors openly side with the Cannon faction, representing the official party view of the Fourth International.
Gallay, Alan. The Indian Slave Trade. The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670-1717.Yale University Press, New Haven [etc.], 2002. xviii, 444 pp. Maps. $40.00. (Paper: $19.00.)
Examining the early colonial period of the American South in this study, Professor Gallay focuses on the role of the Indian slave trade in the emergence of the English colonial empire in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. He explores the operations of the trade in Native American slaves in detail, considers how Europeans and Native Americans became participants in this slave economy, and analyses how it changed notions of ethnicity and racism. According to the author, the development of traffic in and employment of Native American slaves was pivotal in the early stages of plantation slavery and economy in America.
Hickey, Georgina. Hope and Danger in the New South City. Working-class Women and Urban Development in Atlanta, 1890-1940. The University of Georgia Press, Athens [etc.] 2003. viii, 297 pp. Ill. £32.95.
In the last decade of the nineteenth and first four decades of the twentieth centuries, the city of Atlanta, Georgia, underwent rapid economic and social growth. In this study, Professor Hickey explores the role and position of working-class women in relation to the city's development, dealing with issues of social and moral order, public health, the economic status of working women, and the role of women in labour activism, and assessing the varying roles of gender, race, and class identities in the process.
Neither Lady nor Slave. Working Women of the Old South. Ed. by Susanna Delfino and Michele Gillespie. The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill [etc.] 2002. viii, 324 pp. £41.95 (Paper: £15.50.)
Whereas historiography on women in the American Antebellum South deals mostly with either plantation mistresses or slave women, this collection of thirteen essays focuses on the lives of white, free black, and Indian working women. Contributors examine the role of working women in the rural economy, as wage-earners in various trades and professions, in informal economic settings, and in early forms of industry, such as textile and mining.
Nicolaides, Becky M. My Blue Heaven. Life and Politics in the Working-Class Suburbs of Los Angeles, 1920-1965. [Historical Studies of Urban America.] The University of Chicago Press, Chicago [etc.] 2002. xviii, 412 pp. Ill. Maps. $41.00; $65.00. (Paper: $24.00; £15.50.)
Focusing on South Gate and neighbouring suburbs of Los Angeles, from their origins in the 1920s to the racial conflicts of the 1960s, this study examines the transformation of these communities from blue-collar suburbs into centres of working-class conservatism. Professor Nicolaides shows how, in the 1920s, white working-class migrants built these suburbs, and in the postwar economic prosperity struggled to assume a middle-class identity, and how the dynamics of class and race drove them towards conservative politics.
Schrupp, Antje. Das Aufsehen erregende Leben der Victoria Woodhull. Ulrike Helmer Verlag, Königstein 2002. 245 pp. Ill. €18.00.
Victoria Woodhull (1838-1927) was the first woman to be nominated as President of the United States (in 1872) and was in many other respects a remarkable and colourful figure in the American history of women's emancipation, radicalism, socialism, and the reform movement. This biography of Woodhull represents the first effort to offer a comprehensive account of her many-sided life story. Born in great poverty, she became wealthy overnight by playing the Wall Street stock market, and also publicized her views as an unorthodox socialist, feminist, and advocate of the free-love movement.
White, Shane. Stories of Freedom in Black. New York. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.) [etc.] 2002. 260 pp. £18.50.
Focusing on a black theatre company created in New York in the early decades of the nineteenth century after the abolition of slavery in New York state, Professor White explores the emergence of an African-American urban culture in the free black community in this period. Through this lens of performing culture he aims to show emancipation's impact on the everyday lives of black and white New Yorkers alike.
ASIA
India
Breman, Jan. The Making and Unmaking of an Industrial Working Class. Sliding Down the Labour Hierarchy in Ahmedabad, India. Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2004. ix, 315 pp. € 32.00.
From the 1980s onward, over 100,000 mill workers lost their jobs as a result of massive retrenchment in the textile mills of Ahmedabad. In this study, Professor Breman examines first, the rise and development of the textile industry in Ahmedabad from the 1850s onward, and the emergence of a strong trade-union movement that brought about labour legislation and gradual improvement in standards of living among the working class. In the second part, he analyses the results of de-industrialization from the 1980s onward, forcing a great number of jobless into the already crowded informal sector and leading to the disappearance of labour rights overnight and material impoverishment and social marginalization. See also Christopher Johnson's review in this volume, pp. 119-122.
Breman, Jan and Parthiv Shah. Working in the Mill No More. Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2004. 208 pp. Ill. € 27.50.
In this companion volume to The Making and Unmaking of an Industrial Working Class, annotated above, Professor Breman and photographer Parthiv Shah portray the rise and the decline of the industrial workforce in the textile industry of Ahmedabad. As a result of massive retrenchment in the 1980s, the once well-organized, self-assured members of the working class became impoverished and were driven into the informal sector. This volume aims to depict the impact of this process on people, households, and neighbourhoods, including the rise of communal tensions.
Datt, Ruddar. Lockouts in India. Manohar, New Delhi 2003. 184 pp
This study is one of the first to offer a comprehensive account of the problem of lockouts (withdrawal of work from employees enforced by the employer) in India in recent decades. In addition to providing a statistical overview of lockouts between 1961 and 1997 throughout India, Professor Datt focuses on lockouts in West Bengal, the state with the highest number of man-days lost due to lockouts. Analysing the causes of the phenomenon, he attributes it to the downsizing and casualization of labour, and the state's failure to provide economic justice to labour. See also Sjaak van der Velden's review in this volume, pp. 122-124.
Gooptu, Nandini. The Politics of the Urban Poor in Early Twentieth-Century India. [Cambridge Studies in Indian History and Society, vol. 8.] Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2001. xxiii, 464 pp. £55.00; $80.00.
In this study of the labouring poor and the politics and discourse about the poor in India in the interwar years, Dr Gooptu focuses on four towns in Uttar Pradesh to show what it meant to be poor in the urban environment, and how the poor became a major social and political factor. She combines a class-based analysis with a more culturally informed interpretation of the way the poor constructed their social identity through their modes of political action and perceptions. See also Ratna Saptari's review in this volume, pp. 112-115.
Syria
Reilly, James A. A Small Town in Syria. Ottoman Hama in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Peter Lang, Oxford [etc.] 2002. 155 pp. Maps. € 27.70.
This study is a social history of the Syrian town of Hama, located on the Orontes River, during the last two centuries of Ottoman rule. Professor Reilly explores the social and economic structures and networks of the town, which was an important way-station on the major north-south route through Syria, and an economic centre for the surrounding hinterlands. He reveals that, by the start of the twentieth century, a few elite and notable families had come to dominate political and economic life in the town and the surrounding villages.
AUSTRALIA AND OCEANIA
New Zealand
On the Left. Essays on Socialism in New Zealand. Ed. by Pat Moloney and Kerry Taylor. University of Otago Press, Dunedin 2002. 260 pp. Ill. $39.95.
This volume featuring eleven contributions aims to give a general overview of the origins and rise of the left in the history of New Zealand. Examining the ideas, political organizations and social action adopted by the left over the last century, the authors aim to show that socialism in its various forms has deeply influenced New Zealand's political culture, and that this influence has not been limited to the Labour Party. In a concluding contribution, Kerry Taylor interviews Erik Olssen, the leading historian of the left in New Zealand.
EUROPE
Politische Netzwerke durch Briefkommunikation. Briefkultur der politischen Oppositionsbewegungen und frühen Arbeiterbewegungen im 19. Jahrhundert. Hrsg. von Jürgen Herres und Manfred Neuhaus. [Berichte und Abhandlungen der Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Sonderband 8.] Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2002. 379 pp. € 69.80.
The twelve contributions in this collection, based on a colloquium organized by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and the International Marx-Engels Foundation in June 2001, examine the correspondence culture that existed among elites of the radical opposition and the early labour movement in the nineteenth century, and compare this culture to the one among scientists and artists. Thus, the contributors aim to establish the role of correspondence in the development of a network-style system within the realm of politics, science, and arts.
Denmark
Johansen, Hans Chr. Danish Population History 1600-1939. University Press of Southern Denmark, Odense 2002. 245 pp. Maps. DKK 275.00.
This study aims to offer a comprehensive overview of population growth in Denmark in the period before and during the demographic transition, i.e. from c.1600 to 1939. Based on both macro- and micro-sources and using advanced demographic methods, Professor Johansen explores the development of nuptiality, fertility, and mortality. He concludes that an early decline in mortality is identifiable from c.1775, whereas fertility remained high until very late in the nineteenth century.
Eire - Ireland
O'Connor, Emmet. James Larkin. [Radical Irish Lives.] Cork University Press, Cork 2002. x, 148 pp. € 16.50; £9.95.
This new biography of the prominent Irish labour leader James Larkin (1874-1947), based in part on new archival sources, including declassified Soviet and FBI files, aims to reassess Larkin's leading role in Irish trade unionism and the early communist movement in Ireland. In contrast to earlier portraits of Larkin (see, for example, IRSH, 10 (1965), p. 330), Dr O'Connor is far more negative about Larkin's personality, motivations, and leadership style, labelling him as a "reluctant and inferior trade unionist".
France
Botella, Louis. Force Ouvrière chez les cheminots. De la libération à 1954. La voie de l'indépendance. Le Petit Pavé, Saint-Jean-de-Mauvrets 2002. 489 pp. Ill. € 20.00.
This study deals with the genesis of the Confédération Générale du Travail-Force Ouvrière (CGT-FO), in particular among French railway workers in the period 1945 to 1954. Mr Botella, a former Secretary of the Federation of Railway Workers and Engineers, and a member of the CGT-FO, gives a chronological overview of general trends within the French labour movement that led to the split between the CGT and the CGT-FO in 1947/1948 and the role of the Federation of Railway Workers in the conflict and its organizational development. In the second part, he presents biographical information on several hundred activists of this period.
Bourguinat, Nicolas. Les grains du désordre. L'État face aux violences frumentaires dans la première moitié du XIXe siècle. [Civilisations et Sociétés, 107.] École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris 2002. 542 pp. Maps € 42.00.
This study offers a comprehensive analysis of the contentious relation between the French state and the French people over the issue of food supply in the first half of the nineteenth century, the immediate postrevolutionary period. Dr Bourguinat explores first the economic and agricultural developments that influenced the food-supply situation in this period, then examines the traditions and attitudes of the state and local authorities and of the public toward food supply and contention, finally bringing these two lines together in an analysis of the repertoires of contention connected with food supply discernible in France in this period.
Lemasson, Lionel. Eymoutiers (1898-1939). Un exemple de l'implantation socialiste et communiste en Haute-Vienne. [Identités limousines, no 2.] Pulim, Limoges 2002. 104 pp. € 10.00.
This essay examines how the town of Eymoutiers, located near the city of Limoges, became a renowned centre of socialism and communism in the four decades between 1898 and 1939. The author retraces the establishment of a local and regional tradition of socialist and communist dominance that gave rise to the legend of "the red Limousin" amid the emergence of the political climate of the Third Republic during that period, and analyses the main elements that led to this dominance.
Vierling, André. Un siècle de syndicalisme chrétien en Alsace-Moselle (1902-2002). Avant-popos d'Alain Deleu. Editions Coprur, Strasbourg 2002. 262 pp. Ill. € 18.50.
This study examines the origins and development of the Christian trade-union movement in the region of Alsace-Moselle in the century from the foundation of the Confédération française des travailleurs chrétiens (CFTC), the French Confederation of Christian Workers, in 1902 until 2002. The author sketches the differences between French and German attitudes towards social issues and the early social policies at the end of the nineteenth century, as well as the unique position of Alsace in this respect, as it alternated between the German and French spheres of influence in the beginning of the twentieth century, and the specific elements of a Catholic social doctrine that were determinative for Christian syndicalism in the region.
Wang, Nora. Émigration et Politique. Les étudiants-ouvriers chinois en France (1919-1925). Les Indes Savantes, Paris 2002. 373 pp. € 33.00.
Numerous young Chinese labour militants emigrated to France as students in the period after World War I, including persons who later became leading communists, such as Chen Duxiu, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping. This study examines the various trajectories these young people followed and relates their emigré experience in France to their political activities and careers, whether as nationalists, anarchists, socialists, or communists. Appended are short biographical sketches of twenty-four leading figures among these emigré students.
Germany
Baranowski, Shelley. Strength Through Joy. Consumerism and Mass Tourism in the Third Reich. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2004. xvii, 254 pp. Ill. £40.00; $65.00.
The Nazi leisure and tourism agency Kraft durch Freude (KdF), "Strength through Joy", aimed to ease the tension between the regime's collective goals and individual consumer desires. In this study of the KdF's history, Professor Baranowski explores its various activities, including its factory beautification, organized sports, cultural events, and mass tourism. Analysing the reasons for its popularity among both the working class (for which it was originally intended) and the middle class, the author concludes that, although the motives of its constituencies often diverged from the original Nazi ideals, KdF's accommodation of consumer expectations made it the regime's most popular institution. See also Karsten Linne's review in this volume, pp. 106-109.
Germany. A New Social and Economic History. Volume III. Since 1800. Ed. by Sheilagh Ogilvie and Richard Overy. Arnold, London [etc.] 2003. 430 pp. £50.00. (Paper: £18.99.)
This is the third volume of a three-volume series on social and economic development in Germany from the Middle Ages to the present. This volume deals with the explosive economic transformation after 1800 with its relatively late industrialization, the effects of two world wars and dictatorship, and the economic miracle after 1950. The editors characterize the overall situation as one of rapid change with recognizable long-term continuities: enduring tensions between regional diversity and political unification, between welfare provision and social exclusion, between tradition and technology, and between rural allegiances and urban diversity.
Judentum und Aufklärung. Jüdisches Selbstverständnis in der bürgerlichen Öffentlichkeit. Hrsg. von Arno Herzig, Hans Otto Horch und Robert Jütte. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2002. 244 pp. € 28.00.
The eight contributions in this collection, all but one originating from a long-term research project of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation), offer case studies of the Jewish Enlightenment in Germany (Haskalah), with an emphasis on the transformation within the Jewish communities in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The contributors review the social and cultural results of this transformation and explain the Haskalah as a part of the general European Enlightenment.
Lamberti, Marjorie. The Politics of Education. Teachers and School Reform in Weimar Germany. [Monographs in German History, vol. 8.] Berghahn, New York, [etc.] 2002. ix, 272 pp. £47.00.
In this study of the educational and cultural politics and educational reform in the Weimar Republic, Professor Lamberti examines how from 1918 onward an influential group of left-wing liberals and social democrats in the Deutscher Lehrerverein (the German Teachers' Association) tried to reform the German elementary school system to reinforce and defend republican democracy. This reform movement met with strong opposition from the traditionalist right, leading to culture wars over the schools in Weimar Germany. The author reveals how the traditionalists' opposition to school reform led certain sections of the teaching profession to embrace the Nazi ideology.
Mayer-Ahuja, Nicole. Wieder dienen lernen? Vom westdeutschen "Normalarbeitsverhältnis" zu prekärer Beschäftigung seit 1973. Sigma, Berlin 2002. 359 pp. € 24.90.
In this revised edition of a dissertation (University of Göttingen, 2002), Dr Mayer-Ahuja focuses on the cleaning service sector in West Germany from 1973 until 1998 to explore the role of the emerging economic crisis and subsequent deregulation of the labour market in making employment relations more precarious for low-skilled and unskilled workers, particularly women. Contrary to expectations, the drop in wages and deterioration of legal rights has not brought about substantial increases in the number of jobs.
Prüfer, Sebastian. Sozialismus statt Religion. Die deutsche Sozialdemokratie von der religiösen Frage 1863-1890. [Kritische Studien zur Geschichtswissenschaft.] Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2002. 391 pp. € 42.00.
The labour movement and its political parties are generally seen as pioneers in the secularization of state and society in Europe in the nineteenth century. This dissertation (Freie Universität Berlin, 1999) reviews the identity-forming discussion of the "religious question" within German social democracy between 1863 and 1890. Examining the discourse around religion that emerged at party rallies and congresses and from the correspondence and publications of leading representatives both locally and nationally, Dr Prüfer concludes that a majority of German socialists considered socialism to be a substitute for religion.
Puschnerat, Tânia. Clara Zetkin: Bürgerlichkeit und Marxismus. Eine Biographie. [Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für soziale Bewegungen, Schriftenreihe A: Darstellungen, Band 25.] Klartext Verlag, Essen 2003. 463 pp. Ill. € 29.90.
Already during her lifetime, and still more after her death, the leading socialist and, later, communist Clara Zetkin (1857-1933) was widely presented as an appealing political example by various political movements. She was idolized both as a true companion of the Soviet Union during the GDR and, after 1989, as a courageous opponent of Stalin and an leading advocate of the socialist women's movement. In this dissertation (Ruhr-University Bochum, 1999), Dr Puschnerat explores Zetkin's political and private life, and concludes that Zetkin's political actions were based far more on authoritarian and antidemocratic attitudes and ideas than the myths surrounding her reveal. See also Jie-Hyun Lim's review in this volume, pp. 101-103.
Sneeringer, Julia. Winning Women's Votes. Propaganda and Politics in Weimar Germany. The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill [etc.] 2002. xi, 365 pp. Ill. £21.50.
With the enfranchisement of women in Germany in November 1918, women voters constituted the majority of voters, and political parties on both the left and the right of the political spectre struggled to address women by giving special consideration to what were perceived as women's issues. In this study, Professor Sneeringer analyses the written and visual propaganda aimed at women, and concludes that emphasizing women's issues had only limited success. She states that the debates about women in propaganda mirror the larger anxieties in Weimar Germany, and that the opportunities for women to assume a public role diminished amid the political instability, economic crises, and rise of fascism.
Soziale Ungleichheit in der DDR. Zu einem tabuisierten Strukturmerkmal der SED-Diktatur. Hrsg. von Lothar Mertens. [Schriftenreihe der Gesellschaft für Deutschlandforschung, Band 82.] Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2002. 201 pp. € 54.00; SFR 93.00.
The six contributions to this collection, based on a colloquium organized in April 2000 in Tutzing, explore various forms and expressions of social inequality in the GDR. Social inequality was, according to the editor, deeply embedded in GDR society, despite the official rhetoric. The issues covered include divorce as social problem (Lothar Mertens), inequality in consumption patterns (Annette Kaminsky), unequal treatment of religious people (Peter Maser), and regional differences in material wealth and social status (Siegfried Grundmann).
Towards an Urban Nation. Germany since 1780. Ed. by Friedrich Lenger. [German Historical Perspectives, vol. XVI.] Berg, Oxford [etc.] 2002. ix, 186 pp. Ill. Maps. £42.99.
The eight contributions to this volume explore the nature and impact of urbanization in Germany during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Included are essays on urbanization as a central aspect of social change in Germany (Klaus Tenfelde); the importance of "burghers" for the constitution of an urban middle class and the role of elites in the modernization of urban society in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Gisela Mettle, Sylvia Schraut); environmental problems in cities resulting from industrialization (Franz-Josef Brüggemeier); the emergence of urban societies and urban politics in the Weimar Republic and in the Third Reich (Hans-Ulrich Thamer); and urban reconstruction and development after 1945 (Axel Schildt).
Vick, Brian E. Defining Germany. The 1848 Frankfurt Parliamentarians and National Identity. [Harvard Historical Studies.] Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.) [etc.] 2002. 320 pp. £33.50.
German nationalism is often described as prototypical of a xenophobic, exclusionary cultural form of nationalism, opposed to more inclusive political forms. In this study of German nationalism during the first half of the nineteenth century, and the efforts of deputies at the Frankfurt Constituent National Assembly to construct a German national state, Dr Vick aims to show how German nationalists in Frankfurt interwove cultural and political strands of the German national ideal to propagate equal citizenship for both the German-Jewish minority and non-German-speaking nationals within its boundaries.
Zwangsarbeit im Dritten Reich. Erinnerung und Verantwortung. Juristische und zeithistorische Betrachtungen = NS-Forced Labor. Remembrance and Responsibility. Legal and Historical Observations. Hrsg. von Peer Zumbansen. Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden-Baden 2002. 428 pp. € 68.00.
The eighteen contributions to this collection deal with the history of forced and slave labour in the Third Reich, related issues of postwar treaties, and legislation and litigations in the United States and Germany. These include the legal and diplomatic changes leading to the Foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility and the Future", established by the German government and a group of major German enterprises to organize compensation payments for former workers and their heirs.
Great Britain
The British Migrant Experience, 1700-2000. An Anthology. Ed. and Introd. by P.J. Leese, B. Piatek and I. Curyllo-Klag. Foreword by C.K. Steedman. Palgrave, Basingstoke [etc.] 2002. xxviii, 329 pp. £60.00. This is an anthology of personal accounts as well as related commentaries on migration within and immigration into mainland Britain from the eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries. Including autobiographies, Poor Law relief statements, and oral history interviews, this selection of sources covers immigrant experiences of transitions, settlement and work; childhood and home life, as well as community; issues of cultural differences and identity; and migrants' stories from various regions of mainland Britain.
Callaghan, John. Cold War, Crisis and Conflict. The History of the Communist Party of Great Britain 1951-68. Lawrence & Wishart, London 2003. 320 pp. £13.99.
This history of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) in the period 1951 to 1968 is the fifth volume of a comprehensive history of the CPGB. The period covered is characterized by the Cold War at its most intense, the events of 1956, with Khrushchev's critique of Stalin, the Hungarian Uprising and the Suez Crisis, and then the 1960s with its new radicalism, leading up to May 1968. Professor Callaghan explores the nature of the CPGB and its Soviet "ecology", its response to the events of 1956 and 1968, its involvement in anticolonial struggles, its relations with the Labour Party and the trade unions, and the changes in the CPBG in the 1960s.
Huneault, Kristina. Difficult Subjects. Working Women and Visual Culture, Britain 1880-1914. [British Art and Visual Culture since 1750: New Readings.] Ashgate, Aldershot [etc.] 2002. xiv, 255 pp. Ill. £57.50; $109.95.
In this study of the representation of British working women in the Victorian era, Professor Huneault explores the variety of ways in which artists, photographers, and illustrators visualized female employment in this period of growing labour unrest, demands for women's suffrage, and appeals for greater social justice. Focusing on paintings of servants in middle-class households, representations and romantic portrayals of flower-makers, imaging of women's work in the factory, of social injustice and poverty, and women in the visual culture of trade unionism, she concludes that visual representation was important in the emerging identity of working women.
Labour Forces. From Ernest Bevin to Gordon Brown. Ed. by Kevin Jefferys. Tauris, London [etc.] 2002. xi, 258 pp. Ill. £25.00.
This collection brings together thirteen biographical portraits of leading figures in the British Labour Party since World War II. The contributors assess the personalities and political careers of key figures who rose to the highest ranks of the Labour Party but never became party leader. Included are portraits of Ernest Bevin, Nye Bevan, Tony Benn, Anthony Crosland, Denis Healey, Barbara Castle, and Roy Jenkins.
Roberts, F. David. The Social Conscience of the Early Victorians. Stanford University Press, Stanford, (Cal.) 2002. x, 569 pp. $65.00.
Between 1830 and 1860 Victorian Britain, according to Professor Roberts, experienced a major change in social outlook - from a predominantly paternalistic view to a laissez-faire vision of society. Exploring the emerging political economy, he aims to show in this study how in this period paternalism and a laissez-faire vision both continued to figure in the social conscience, although their comparative weight and influence shifted, together with other elements, such as a revived philanthropy, a new humanitarianism and voluntarism, and reluctant acceptance of expanded government power.
Shesgreen, Sean. Images of the outcast. The urban poor in the Cries of London. Manchester University Press, Manchester 2002. xi, 228 pp. Ill. £49.99.
This richly illustrated study, including ten full-colour plates, is a social history of images of city characters of the "lower orders", the underclass, outcasts and marginal figures of London from the time of Elizabeth I to the Victorian age, as collected in what is commonly referred to by the metaphorical term "Cries". Sketching the iconographic tradition and analysing trends in the genre over the centuries, the author argues that the images making up the London Cries represent a unique means of understanding the social world of England's lower classes at the time.
Taylor, Avram. Working Class Credit and Community since 1918. Palgrave, Basingstoke [etc.] 2002. x, 218 pp £50.00.
This study examines the various forms of consumer credit historically associated with the British working class. Comparing the periods before and after World War II, Dr Taylor looks at different forms of credit, including pawnshops, "ticket" or tallymen, and various types of retail credit, and reveals that some of these forms declined in the postwar period, whereas others survive until the present day. He analyses the effect of credit on working-class communities and relates this to the debate about community.
Italy
Borruso, Paolo. L'Africa al confino. La deportazione etiopica in Italia (1937-39). [Strumenti e Fonti, 27]. Piero Lacaita Editore, Manduria [etc.] 2003. 178 pp. € 12.00.
From 1885 Italy repressed resistance in its colonies through deportations that claimed many lives. Within Italy, house arrest in remote places was used to suppress opposition from 1863. This book is the history of the deportation of 400 men, women, and children from the leading class of the colony of Ethiopia to imprisonment in Italy between 1937 and 1939 in retaliation for an assault. Based on archival materials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Archive, the first part covers the affair and sketches its political context. The second part reproduces letters from the hostages to the government and relatives.
La cultura delle riforme tra otto e novecento. A cura di Maurizio Degl'Innocenti. [Società e Cultura, 30]. Piero Lacaita Editore, Manduria [etc.] 2003. 403 pp. € 18.00.
This collection comprises sixteen contributions to a scholarly gathering organized by the Fondazione Filippo Turati in 2002. The contributions cover a very wide variety of subjects and together convey the broad range of problems associated with the innovations in Italian society in the decades before and after the previous turn of the century. The reforms are examined top-down and bottom-up, focusing on the democratic socialism associated with Filippo Turati. The topics covered include Filippo Turati, municipal administration, the socialist journal Critica Sociale, the Consiglio Superiore del Lavoro, history of science, and the modernization of agriculture and public transport.
Degl'Innocenti, Maurizio. Gaetano Pieraccini. Socialismo, medicina sociale e previdenza obbligartoria. [Strumenti e Fonti, 24]. Piero Lacaita Editore, Manduria [etc.] 2003. 103 pp. € 8.00.
This biographical essay about the socialist industrial physician Gaetano Pieraccini is a revised version of the keynote speech delivered at the scholarly gathering "Gaetano Pieraccini, 1864-1957. L'uomo, il medico, il politico" organized in Florence in 2003. This colloquium figures within the broader context of a research project about politics, reform, and competence in Italy at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In this essay Professor Degl'Innocenti focuses on the relationship between socialism, social medicine, and the origins of the Italian welfare state, revolving around the central theme of social services and the role of Pieraccini, who was also mayor of Florence.
Degl'Innocenti, Maurizio, Angelo Varni, Renato Zangheri [e.a]. Solidarietà e mercato nella cooperazione italiana tra Otto e Novecento. [Società e Cultura, 28]. Piero Lacaita Editore, Manduria [etc.] 2003. 162 pp. € 12.00.
The six contributions to this collection are revised versions of papers presented at a scholarly gathering organized in 2003 at the initiative of the Fondazione Filippo Turati and the Associazione per gli studi e la cultura cooperativa "Camillo Prampolino". The contributions explore characteristics of the cooperative movement from around the turn of the previous century: the movement's origins in mutual-aid organizations, the central role of the participants, and the like. The authors describe the success of the bodies set up, such as housing associations, as well as the choice between market demand and organizational continuity.
Dizionario biografico degli anarchici italiani. Volume primo A-G. A cura di Maurizio Antonioli, Giampietro N. Berti e Santi Fedeli. BFS, Pisa 2003. xxii, 790 pp. Ill. € 80.00.
This is the first volume of the biographical dictionary that includes about 10 per cent of the 26,626 anarchists registered with the Casellario Politico Centrale. The time frame runs from the mid-nineteenth century until the 1960s. Data in entries on comparable persons are geared to one another to make the biographies as coherent as possible. Statistical analysis of the data enables conclusions about e.g. geographic origins, the federalist nature of the movement, integration of anarchists in their social surroundings, and the socioprofessional structure that refutes stereotypes about anarchism. The work derives from a database that is periodically updated: http://www.dbai.it.
Gazzetta, Liviana. Giorgina Saffi. Contributo alla storia del mazzinianesimo femminile. [La società moderna e contemporanea : analisi e contributi, 87]. FrancoAngeli, Milano 2003. 180 pp. € 19.00.
This study explores Mazzini's political ideas on women's emancipation in the context of Italian liberation. The role he envisaged for women included elements of altruism and self-denial as well as activism. Giorgina Saffi (1827-1911) personified this ambivalent nature of Mazzinianism. Born Giorgina Craufurd, she hailed from enlightened British circles; her mother was a friend of Mazzini's. She married his confidant Aurelio Saffi and became involved in the organizational aspects of the struggle for Italian unification. The author intends this political biography about her to fill a gap in women's history around the time of the Risorgimento.
Granata, Ivano. In difesa della terra. L'Ufficio Agrario della Sociètà Umanitaria 1905-1923. FrancoAngeli, Milano 2003. 322 pp. € 28.00.
This is the history of the Uffizio Agrario, which was the agrarian executive body of the Società Umanitaria founded in 1893 as an institution for charitable causes, social services, and support for the cooperative movement. The organization was dedicated to reformist-socialist principles. The aim of the Uffizio was to promote emancipation of farmers and agricultural workers in the area around Milan through cooperatives, a labour exchange, schools of agriculture, credit institutions, etc. The organization served as a model for similar initiatives elsewhere in Italy. The study is based largely on the minutes of the Società Umanitaria and other documentation in the archive.
Grandi, Aldo. La generazione degli anni perduti storie di Potere Operaio. Einaudi, Torino 2003. vi, 356 pp. € 15.50.
This is the history of the radical leftist movement Potere Operaio. The author bases his work on archival sources (e.g. police records) and dozens of interviews with former members. Organized in cells, Potere Operaio was the smallest of the radical leftist groups and the most inclined toward violence. Around 1972 the movement had a few hundred members. They tended to be young, except for a few leaders, such as Toni Negri, and most were middle-class. Their quest for a new type of communism was based on a mystical conception of "the working class", but drew few adherents at the large corporations located mainly in the north. The group existed until 1973.
L'idea partecipativa. A cura di Filippo Carli e Giano Accame. [Contra. Argomentazioni antieconomiciste, Tomo 16.] Settimo Sigillo, Roma 2003. 61 pp. € 7.00.
This is a republication of two articles from the journal Le Industrie Italiane Illustrate (1918) entitled: "Workers' Participation in Companies" and "The Double Post-War Treaty: The Alliance between Capital and Labour". They are in fact proposals from nationalist circles, initially welcomed by the fascists as well, to give workers joint responsibility in the companies where they worked. In 1928 Filippo Carli became professor of political economics in Pisa. The articles have also appeared in the collection Democrazia futurista (1919) by the futurist F.T. Marinetti. The appendix features a response from 1919 to Carli's article.
Labriola, Antonio. Carteggio. III. 1890-1895. A cura di Stefano Miccolis. Bibliopolis, Napoli 2003. xxxiv, 646 pp. € 65.00.
This is the third volume in the annotated edition of the correspondence of Antonio Labriola (1843-1904), published under the auspices of the Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici and the Istituto Universitario Orientale in Naples (see IRSH, 47 (2001), p. 168 for the first volume; 48 (2002), p. 327 for the second volume). This third volume includes all the letters from Labriola to Engels (Engels's replies, as well as those from Bernstein and Kautsky and most of Croce's were lost); the continuation of the correspondence with Croce and Costa; and the correspondence with other Italian and European socialists. This volume consists of 494 letters he wrote or received, among which are 22 unpublished, including 14 from Labriola.
Malatesta, Errico. Autobiografia mai scritta. Ricordi (1853-1932). [Risveglio, 3.] A cura di Piero Brunello e Pietro Di Paola. Edizioni Spartaco, Santa Maria Capua Vetere 2003. 268 pp. € 12.00.
Errico Malatesta never complied with the request from Nettlau and his younger friends Fabbri, Borghi and Berneri that he write his memoirs. As a man of action, he channelled his energies toward the revolutionary moment in the future, in which he continued to believe into old age. The editors of this collection have gathered and annotated sections from Malatesta's work that together form a type of memoir. The collection opens with a biographical essay by Piero Brunello and an essay by Pietro di Paola about Malatesta's exile in London.
Marrone, Antonella [e] Piero Sansonetti. Né un uomo né un soldo. Una cronaca del pacifismo italiano del Novecento. Baldini Castoldi Dalai editore, Milano 2003. 297 pp. € 15.20.
This is the history of Italian pacifism from the moment that the socialist delegate Andrea Costa cried out during a parliamentary debate about colonial escapades in Africa in 1887: "Not a man and not a penny". The authors are two journalists for Unità. They trace the highlights and polemics concerning pacifism and the biographies of leaders such as Teodoro Moneta and Danilo Dolci. They regard pacifism today as an important part of the "no-global movement" and consider the role of the Internet in international pacifism. The book concludes with a list of postal and web addresses of Italian organizations.
Negri, Antonio. Luciano Ferrari Bravo. Ritratto di una cattivo maestro. Con alcuni cenni sulla sua epoca. Manifestolibri, Roma 2003. 150 pp. € 16.00.
This is a biographical essay about Luciano Ferrari Bravo, a fellow student and political ally of Antonio Negri. The booklet is intended as an account of Bravo's theoretical work from the 1960s to the 1990s concerning class struggle and the history of the Italian labour movement, the issue of southern Italy, imperialism theory, and analysis of globalization and its opponents.
Pagano, Alessandra. Il confino politico a Lipari 1926-1933. [Studi e ricerche storiche.] FrancoAngeli, Milano 2003. 302 pp. € 24.50.
This is the first exhaustive analysis of a specific internment camp in Italy during the fascist period. Based on research in government archives, Mrs Pagano has compiled a list of 1,401 internees on Lipari, with personal data that provide information about their socio-professional backgrounds, geographic origins, and political affiliations. The list appears in the appendix. She has also examined the divisions that ran the camp, as well as conditions there, based on memoirs of former prisoners, such as Emilio Lussu, the Rosselli brothers, and Francesco Nitti.
Politica, valori, idealità. Carlo e Nello Rosselli maestri dell'Italia civile. A cura di Lauro Rossi. [Studi storici Carocci, 35]. Carocci editore, Roma 2003. 245 pp. € 19.00.
This collection comprises the ten papers presented at the workshop "Carlo e Nello Rosselli maestri dell'Italia civile", which was organized in Campidoglio in honour of the hundredth anniversary of their birth in 2000. Those present at the event included leading connoisseurs of their work and focused primarily on their theoretical achievements, favouring Carlo (1899-1937), the politician, over Nello (1900-1937), the historian, whose work is less subject to different interpretations. Arturo Colombo has provided an account of recent historiography about the two. The book concludes with a bibliography (featuring an index of names) of the writings by the two (1917-1937) and of studies about them (1937-2001).
Puglielli, Edoardo. Abruzzo rosso e nero. [Biblioteca del "Pensiero", 4]. Centro Studi Libertari Camillo Di Sciullo, Chieti 2003. 265 pp. € 12.00.
This is the history of anarchism and anarchists in the province of Aquila in Abruzzi and the movement's associations with left-wing socialism. The period covered comprises the first two decades of the twentieth century until the rise of fascism. The author also devotes a chapter to Carlo Tresca, who was murdered by unknown assassins in New York in 1943. The sources for this study include private papers, the police records in L'Aquila, and the local press.
Ragusa, Andrea. I comunisti e la società italiana. Innovazione e crisi di una cultura politica (1956-1973). [Società e Cultura, 29]. Piero Lacaita Editore, Manduria [etc.] 2003. 245 pp. € 15.00.
This work, according to the author in his introduction, is an interpretative essay about communist political culture during Italy's years as an emerging industrial superpower, characterized by widespread domestic migration and changing lifestyles. In this context the party's ideological principles, such as internationalism, Gramsci's legacy, and the desire to counteract consumer urges, came under attack. The author investigates the confrontation between political culture (or ideology) and modernization, based on the debates in the journals Rinascita, Studi Storici, Critica Marxista, Politica ed economia, and on archival research in somewhat lesser measure.
Raia, Ciro. Gaetano Arfé. Un socialista del mio paese. [Uomini e cose della nuova Italia, 50]. Piero Lacaita Editore, Manduria [etc.] 2003. 246 pp. Ill. € 15.00.
Gaetano Arfé (Naples 1925) served in the resistance in a contingent of Giustizia e Libertà, studied history, became a member of the socialist party and ran the journals Mondo Operaio and Avanti. He taught history and was a member of the Italian and European parliaments. He published about the Risorgimento, the resistance, European federalism, and especially about European and Italian socialism. In 1984 he left the socialist party for the Sinistra Independente. This book describes his life based on lengthy interviews, research, and accounts from friends.
Schiavi, Alessandro. Carteggi. Tomo primo: 1892-1926. A cura di Carlo De Maria. Saggio introduttivo di Dino Mengozzi. [Strumenti e Fonti, 25] Piero Lacaita Editore, Manduria [etc.] 2003. 694 pp. € 25.00.
Inventari delle carte e bibliografia degli scritti di Alessandro Schiavi negli archivi forlivesi. A cura di Fabrizio Monti e Carlo De Maria. [Strumenti e Fonti, 26] Piero Lacaita Editore, Manduria [etc.] 2003. 629 pp. € 25.00.
Alessandro Schiavi (1872-1965) studied under Antonio Labriola in Rome, where he learned about Marxism, sociology, and statistics. From 1896 until 1903 he was the editor of Avanti. He belonged to the reformist circles around Turati, and from 1903 served successively as director of the Uffizio del Lavoro of the Società Umanitaria and of the Istituto Autonomo Case Popolare in Milan. From his period with Avanti onward, Schiavi maintained close ties with the Second International. He translated Marx and classical social-democratic authors, published in Italy and abroad, and issued the Turati-Kuliscioff correspondence.
Under the auspices of the Istituto Filippo Turati an academic committee is publishing his work in seven volumes: an inventory, two volumes of letters, two volumes of writings, one volume of political propaganda, and one volume of diaries and assorted notes, which is now in print as well. The inventory comprises the inventory of the Schiavi Fund at the National Archive in Forlì; the inventory of the 5,944 letters; the inventory of the Schiavi Fund in the Biblioteca Comunale Aurelio Saffi in Forlì (printed items and manuscripts); and a bibliography of his writings in his collection of pamphlets there. The first volume of the correspondence comprises 379 of the nearly 800 letters selected, reflecting his activities and relations in Italy and abroad.
The Netherlands
Schrover, Marlou. Een kolonie van Duitsers. Groepsvorming onder Duitse immigranten in Utrecht in de negentiende eeuw. Aksant, Amsterdam 2002. 416 pp. Ill. € 23.00.
German immigrants were the largest group of migrants into the Netherlands for several centuries up until the second half of the twentieth century. In this study of group-formation among German immigrants, Dr Schrover focuses on the city of Utrecht in the nineteenth century. She examines the lives of immigrants, their geographic and social origins, their marriage customs, their spatial distribution in the city, and their occupations and leisure activities, as well as the various traces their presence left in Dutch society and culture.
Russia - Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Allen, Robert C. Farm to Factory. A Reinterpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution. [The Princeton Economic History of the Western World.] Princeton University Press, Princeton [etc.] 2003. xv, 302 pp. £29.95; $45.00.
Contesting the widely accepted view that Soviet communism brought economic failure for Russia, Professor Allen argues in this reinterpretation of Soviet economic history, that the Soviet Union was one of the most successful developing economies of the twentieth century. Based on recalculations of national consumption and using economic, demographic, and computer simulation models, he concludes that the success of the Five-Year Plans and the focus on heavy industries accelerated growth and raised living standards during the 1930s, despite the horrors of Stalinism, and that that economic development stagnated only after 1970. See also Gijs Kessler's review in this volume, pp. 104-106.
Cinnella, Ettore. Makhno et la révolution ukrainienne (1917-1921), suivi de Quarante jours à Goulia-Polié journal de Galina, compagne du batko Makhno. Atelier de Création Libertaire, Lyon 2003. 133 pp. € 12.00.
This text by Cinnella, previously published in Italian in Rivista Storica dell'Anarchismo (Pisa), deals with the role of Nestor Machno, his partisan army consisting largely of foreigners, and the political and social movement named after him "Machnovshchina", during the revolution and civil war in the Ukraine from 1917 to 1921. The diary of his companion Galina, Forty Days in Guljaj-Pole, written in 1920 and first published in Russian in 1990, is included as an appendix.
Gorham, Michael S. Speaking in Soviet Tongues. Language Culture and the Politics of Voice in Revolutionary Russia. Northern Illinois University Press, DeKalb 2003. x, 266 pp. $40.00.
This study offers a comprehensive, interdisciplinary analysis of the society-wide debate in the early years of Bolshevik rule about the appropriate voice of the new Soviet state and its citizenry. It demonstrates how language ideologies and practices were invented, contested, and redefined. The author has made use of archival and other sources from various disciplines - linguistics, education, journalism, and imaginative literature.
Hedeler, Wladislaw. Chronik der Moskauer Schauprozesse 1936, 1937 und 1938. Planung, Inszenierung und Wirkung. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2003. xxxviii, 695 pp. € 69.80.
This detailed chronicle of the Moscow show trials of 1936, 1937, and 1938 documents the run-up to, and course of, the purges within the party and state apparatusm and the related propaganda campaigns in the central and regional press. Although the direct sources on the subject, which are in the Presidential Archive (APRF) and the Central Archive of the FSB, are still largely restricted, this chronicle is based in part on archival records from Bucharin, Ezhov, Kamenev, Stalin, and Zinov'ev in RGASPI, diaries and memoirs, and topical scholarly literature published since 1989. Various appendices and indexes, including an extensive annotated index of names, complete this reference work.
Hill, Fiona [and] Clifford G. Gaddy. The Siberian Curse. How Communist Planners left Russia out in the Cold. Brookings Institution Press, Washington, D.C. 2003. xxii, 303 pp. Maps. $46.95. (Paper: $18.95.)
The massive relocation of population and industry by the Soviet regime into Siberia, through the GULAG prison-camp system, resulting in more people and cities in remote cold areas than in any other country in the world, has burdened and continues to burden Russia with astronomical transportation costs across great distances and the effort to keep warm under frigid conditions. This study, using the tools of economic statistics and economic geography, as well as historical analysis, deals with the consequences of this legacy for Russia today.
The Landscape of Stalinism. The Art and Ideology of Soviet Space. Ed. by Evgeny Dobrenko and Eric Naiman. [Studies in Modernity and National Identity.] University of Washington Press, Seattle [etc.] 2003. xvii, 315 pp. Ill. $50.00; £38.00.
Landscape, or, more broadly, space figured prominently in the expression of Stalinist ideology. This volume brings together twelve essays by authors with backgrounds in history, art history, literary studies, and philosophy. They explore how producers of various art forms used space and landscape to express "a cartography of power", and a "hierarchy of spheres of relative sacredness" (Katerina Clark), with Moscow at the centre, in objects ranging from postage stamps, posters, and advertisements to films and musicals.
Lee, Stephen J. Lenin and revolutionary Russia. [Questions and Analysis in History]. Routledge, London [etc.] 2003. xv, 153 pp. £45.00. (Paper: £7.99.)
This textbook in the Routledge Questions and Analysis in History Series examines the background to and the course of the Russian Revolution and Lenin's regime from 1903 to 1924. It explores the key aspects, such as the emergence of the Bolsheviks as a revolutionary party, the 1905 and 1917 revolutions, and the Russian civil war. Each chapter features a selection of source texts and a discussion of different interpretations on the issue under review.
Marten-Finnis, Susanne. Vilna As a Centre of the Modern Jewish Press, 1840-1928. Aspirations, Challenges, and Progress. Peter Lang, Oxford [etc.] 2004. 197 pp. € 37.10.
The city of Vilna (now Vilnius) was the traditional centre of Jewish intellectual life in the Russian Empire. This study explores how in the second half of the nineteenth century, Vilna became, against the background of modernizing Imperial Russia, an important centre of the emerging Jewish press. Dr Marten-Finnis focuses in particular on the Jewish socialist movement, the Bund, demonstrating how in the years until the Revolution of 1905, Bundist journalism sponsored a Jewish cultural ideology known as Yiddishism. See also Rena Fuks-Mansfeld's review in this volume, pp. 97-99.
Northrop, Douglas. Veiled empire. Gender and Power in Stalinist Central Asia. Cornell University Press, Ithaca [etc.] 2004. xvii, 392 pp. Ill.$57.50 (Paper: $25.95.)
This study, drawing on research in archives of Russia and Uzbekistan, is a reconstruction of the turbulent history of the Soviet campaigns in the 1930s to end the seclusion of Muslim women in central Asia, focusing on the effort to eliminate their heavy horse-hair veils, in Northrop's view emblematic of the overall Soviet effort to bring the proletarian revolution to central Asia. It gives ample consideration to the rural Muslim peasants' widespread resistance to the idea of unveiling, developing into a broader anti-Soviet animosity, and leading to bitter and often violent confrontations over the next quarter-century.
Redefining Stalinism. Ed. by Harold Shukman [Totalitarian movements and political religions]. Frank Cass, London [etc.] 2003. 178 pp. £45.00 (Paper: £18.50.)
This collection of seven articles examines different aspects of Stalin's regime. Topics range from a survey of recent western views of social and cultural aspects of Stalin's Russia to his politics of obligation, the cult of the dead, analyses of totalitarianism, and of revisionist interpretations of Soviet society, and the de-mythologizing of Stalin after his death. The volume is part of the Cass series, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions. Jeffrey Brooks, John Keep, and Robert Service are among the contributors.
Women in the Khrushchev Era. Ed. by Melanie Ilic, Susan E. Reid and Lynne Attwood. [Studies in Russian and East European History and Society.] Palgrave, Basingstoke [etc.] 2004. xiv, 254 pp. Ill. £50.00.
This collection of eleven essays provides an analysis of the changing roles and status of women under Khrushchev. Among the themes explored in the volume are women in the virgin lands, sex and propaganda, mothers and family in Soviet cinema, housing and the home, and the contradictions inherent in the reforms of the Khrushchev period. The study makes use of oral testimonies and original contemporary reports. It is part of Palgrave Macmillan's Studies in Russian and East European History and Society.
Spain
Alquézar i Aliana, Ramón, Albert Balcells y Joan Barril. La pàtria dels humans història del socialisme català. Edhasa, Barcelona 2003. 381 pp. Ills. € 11.50.
This collection was published following an exhibition in honour of the 25th anniversary of the Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya, featured in 2003. Seven contributions, mainly by professors at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, review various periods in the history of Catalan socialism from the end of the nineteenth century until the reunification of the different socialist factions after the restoration of democracy. Socialist involvement in restoring the Catalan regional government and party history since 1978 are examined as well. The book also comprises several interviews, a chronology and an appendix with lists of MPs.
Amorós, Miguel. La revolución traicionada. La verdadera historia de Balius y Los Amigos de Durruti. Virus memoria, Barcelona 2003. 444 pp. € 19.00.
This is a history of the origins and rise of the radical anarchist group, Los Amigos de Durruti, and of the central figure in this movement, the journalist Jaime Balius (1898?-1980?). During the Civil War the group united a few thousand revolutionaries who objected to the policies of the CNT-FAI, such as government participation. In addition to reviewing the group's history, the author deals extensively with their writings and those of others, in the context of the debate about political and social-economic issues during the social revolution. The book concludes with a bibliography of publications by and about the Amigos.
Arias González, Luis. Socialismo y vivienda obrera en España (1926-1939). [La cooperativa socialista de casas baratas "Pablo Iglesias"]. [Estudios Históricos & geográficos, 120.] Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca 2003. 333 pp. Ill. € 23.04.
This book is based on a Ph.D. thesis defended at the Universidad de Salamanca. Following his introductory chapter about housing among Spanish workers at the start of the twentieth century, the author explores the history of the socialist low-cost housing cooperative "Pablo Iglesias" established in the province of Córdoba in 1926 and operating throughout the country by 1930. He then examines the internal operations of the cooperative and related firms. The book concludes with an analysis of the prewar socialist debate in Spain about social housing projects, as well as an richly illustrated overview of this co-operative's housing projects.
Corteguera, Luis R. For the Common Good. Popular Politics in Barcelona, 1580-1640. Cornell University Press, Ithaca [etc.] 2002. xvi, 231 pp. Ill. Maps. £22.50.
Exploring the origins of the Catalan Revolt (1640-1652), the longest rebellion in seventeenth-century Spain, this study focuses on the political actions, ideas, and language of Barcelona's artisans, and on their pivotal role in the genesis of the insurrection against the Spanish monarchy. Professor Corteguera argues that the craftsmen in Barcelona, who made up over half of the population of Barcelona, the political and economic centre of Catalonia, sought to defend what they perceived as the ancient liberties of their homeland. The rebellion was therefore, he contends, not so much a social revolution as a political action.
Faber, Sebastiaan. Exile and Cultural Hegemony. Spanish Intellectuals in Mexico, 1939-1975. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville, Tenn. 2002. xviii, 320 pp. $39.95.
This study explores the ideological evolution of Spanish intellectuals in exile in Mexico in the period 1939-1975. Professor Faber focuses on the intellectuals' embrace of nationalism and illusions of pan-Hispanist ideals. This nationalism, together with the increasingly authoritarian regime in Mexico and the international climate of the Cold War, caused them to abandon the Gramscian ideal of the intellectual as a political activist in favour of a more liberal, apolitical stance, as represented by the philosopher José Ortega y Gasset and others.
Graham, Helen. The Spanish Republic at War 1936-1939. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2002. xiv, 472 pp. Ill. Maps. £50.00; $70.00. (Paper: £19.95; $26.00.)
In this study Dr Graham aims to offer a comprehensive analysis of the leftist forces in the Spanish Civil War, using two basic propositions. The first is that the wartime responses of the broadly defined left (including republicans, socialists, communists, and anarcho-syndicalists) should be considered in relation to their prewar experiences, world views, and organizational structures and development. The second is that the Civil War itself and its destabilizing international conditions shaped the evolution between 1936 and 1939. See also Frank Schauff's review in this volume, pp. 118-119.
Illion, Régine. Mujer, política y sindicalismo. Zaragoza, 1931-1939. [Colección estudios historia]. Institucion "Fernando el Católico", Zaragoza 2002. 345 pp. Ill. € 12.00.
The objective of this study is to determine in what measure the new constitution of the Second Republic and women's suffrage since 1931 improved the position of women in the city of Zaragoza. The first part of the book addresses the political participation of women in the elections of 1933 and 1936. The second part deals with living conditions among women in the labour force and their trade-union activism. The sources the author has consulted include newspapers, statistical yearbooks, corporate reports, and employment contracts. The book concludes with various annexes featuring charts of party and union officials, testimonies, and a list of the women murdered in 1936.
Ledesma, José Luis. Los dias de llamas de la revolución. Violencia y política en la retaguardia republicana de Zaragoza durante la guerra civil. [Colección estudios historia]. Institucion "Fernando el Católico", Zaragoza 2003. 362 pp. Ill € 16.00.
This study addresses the violence against supporters of the nationalist uprising in the republican zone of the province of Zaragoza. The limited geographic scope has enabled the author to study the repression in detail and to identify its specific social context and determine concrete motives and consequences. The study included compiling a list of 742 victims for statistical analysis. The author has used government records (e.g. population registers), newspapers, army bulletins, periodicals of political parties, and a wealth of oral reports. The book concludes with an appendix featuring document facsimiles.
Lluís Companys i la seva època. Coord. por Jordi Casassas i Ymbert. [Collecció "Els Juliols/Biblioteca Universitària", 5]. Editorial Pòrtic, Barcelona 2002. 174 pp. € 13.30.
This collection consists of seven essays that pertained to the university course "Lluis Companys and his time" at the University of Barcelona in 2001. The course aim was to present the highlights of Companys's life (1882-1940) and to enhance the analysis of Catalan society during those years based on the course of his life. The topics covered include a biographical sketch up to his presidency of the Generalitat, democracy and fascism in Europe, his relations with the Catalan farmers' league and the CNT, antifascism, repression following the fall of the republic, and the war council that sentenced him to death.
Monjo, Anna. Militants. Participació i democràcia a la CNT als anys trenta. Pròleg de Josep Fontana. Editorial Laertes, Barcelona 2003. 536 pp. € 18.00.
This is the published version of a Ph.D. thesis defended at the University of Barcelona. The author focuses on the internal processes within the unions affiliated with the anarcho-syndicalist CNT trade-union federation, and on relations between the militants and the rank and file, and explores the motives for those who were not ideologically motivated for joining the CNT. The study concerns Barcelona and the period of the Second Republic and the Civil War. The author has performed a content analysis of a vast selection of minutes and other archival items of the unions affiliated with the CNT and interviewed twenty individuals in the course of her research.
Montero Barrado, Jesús Maria. Anarcofeminismo en España. La revista Mujeres Libres antes de la Guerra Civil. [Mujeres, 2.] Fundación de Estudios Libertarios Anselmo Lorenzo, Madrid 2003. 195 pp. € 12.00.
In the spring of 1936 several anarchist women launched the women's journal Mujeres Libres, dedicated to combining the struggle for social justice with women's liberation. This study about the origins and early history of the journal is based on correspondence between the editors and contributors or readers in the country from March until July 1936. Following an analysis of 158 letters stored at the Archivo Histórico Nacional, Sección Guerra Civil in Salamanca, the appendix features 33 letters; the dates, names of senders and recipients, and reference locations are provided for 72 letters.
Padilla Bolívar, Antonio [y] Vidal, César. Pablo Iglesias. [Cara y Cruz]. Ediciones B, Barcelona [etc.] 2003. 251 pp. Ill. € 14.90.
In this book two historians present their opposing views about Pablo Iglesias (1850-1925), founder and foreman of the socialist party, PSOE. In 1976 Padilla Bolívar published a thesis about Pablo Iglesias and his parliamentary efforts. He also uses older biographies to depict the man who led the Spanish proletariat. In the conclusion to his biographical sketch, the second author criticizes Iglesias's Marxism, his lack of respect for democracy, and his faith in the superiority of the socialist ethic.
La pluma y el yunque. El socialismo en la historia valenciana. Ed. by Manuel Chust and Salvador Broseta. [Col?lecció Oberta Història]. Universitat de València, Valencia 2003. 204 pp. € 11.50.
This collection comprises ten of the contributions to a scholarly gathering organized by the Universidad Jaume I in Castellón in 2001 and entitled "El socialismo en la historia valenciana: conflictos, alianzas y reformas, 1868-1995". In his introductory study, Santiago Castillo analyses the general attributes of early Spanish socialism. The other contributions deal with relations between republicans and workers in Alicante in the nineteenth century; agrarian socialism; agrarian syndicalism in the 1930s; the casas del pueblo; subjects from the period of exile, opposition to the dictatorship and the transition to democracy; the role of propaganda and theory in socialism.
Pradas Baena, Maria Amàlia. L'anarquisme i les lluites socials a Barcelona 1918-1923. La repressió obrera i la violència. [Biblioteca Abat Oliba, 248.] Publicacions de l'Abadia de Montserrat, Barcelona 2003. 343 pp. € 21.25.
This abridged version of a Ph.D. thesis (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, 2001) analyses the causes and successive stages of social violence in Barcelona following a general strike in 1919. Next came severe repression of the anarcho-syndicalist trade-union confederation CNT by the authorities, armed gangs hired by the employers and the "yellow" trade unions. The book concludes with an exhaustive list of the victims, their affiliations, and the origin of the perpetrators, as well as a statistical breakdown of the data.
Rodrigo, Javier. Los campos de concentración franquistas. Entre la historia y la memoria. Siete Mares, Madrid 2003. 251 pp. € 18.00.
This is a study about the organization and military and economic functions of the concentration camps in Francoist Spain in the period 1936-1942; during that final year the division running the camps was shut down. The book examines three topics from an international comparative perspective: the origins of the camp system in Spain, the organizational structure, and the historical sources. The author has used published and unpublished memoirs to compensate for the absence of information in government records about life in the camps. This is a preliminary publication of a thesis the author is preparing.
Roselló, Josep Maria. La vuelta a la naturaleza. El pensamiento naturista hispano (1890-2000): naturismo libertario, trofología, vegetarismo naturista, vegetarismo social y librecultura. Próleg. del Dr. José Vicente Martí Boscà. [Colección memoria.] Virus editorial, Barcelona 2003. 321 pp. Ill. € 19.00.
Naturism, a movement that emerged in the late nineteenth century in response to unnatural lifestyles in the modern era, was very advanced in Spain prior to the Civil War and recovered following the dictatorship of Franco. This study primarily reviews the theoretical expressions of various schools that the author identifies, including anarchist naturism, which was a major force within the movement. The author has consulted the complete collections of forty-five periodicals of the movement and has interviewed several individuals. The book concludes with a comprehensive bibliography of periodicals, books, and leaflets of the movement, in addition to an extensive secondary bibliography of books and articles.
Sánchez Lubián, Enrique. Besteiro años de juventud, Toledo [1898-1912]. Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha, Toledo 2003. 221 pp. € 9.77.
This book traces the years that Julián Besteiro (1870-1940) spent in Toledo, where he became a professor of psychology, logic and ethics in 1899. The book describes social-economic conditions in the city and his rapprochement to socialism. Besteiro came from a liberal background in Madrid and served as council member for the Unión Republicana from 1904 to 1909. While residing in Germany (1908-1910), he became convinced of the importance of socialism for Spain and joined the PSOE. The book features an extensive selection from his political, scholarly, and (in part hitherto unpublished) literary output from this period.
Yusta Rodrigo, Mercedes. Guerrilla y resistencia campesina. La resistencia armada contra el franquismo en Aragón (1939-1952). [Ciencias Sociales, 49]. Prensas Universitarias de Zaragoza, Zaragoza 2003. xi, 292 pp. € 20.00.
This study, based on a dissertation (University of Zaragoza, 2000), examines the guerrilla movement in Aragón against the Franco dictatorship. This guerrilla movement, which started with infiltrations from France in 1944, has been overlooked in European literature on antifascist resistance, although its strategy and objectives corresponded with those of other resistance movements, and ties with the French resistance existed as well. The author has explored public and private archives and the records of the Communist Party. She interviewed thirty-eight people to trace the guerrilla movement's day-to-day operations, and pays particular attention to the supportive role of women.
Switzerland
Von der Barmherzigkeit zur Sozialversicherung. Umbrüche und Kontinuitäten vom Spätmittelalter bis zum 20. Jahrhundert = De l'assistance à l'assurance sociale. Ruptures et continuités du Moyen Age au XXe siècle. Hrsg. von Hans-Jörg Gilomen, Sébastien Guex und Brigitte Studer. [Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte. Société Suisse d'histoire économique et sociale, Jg.18:18.] Chronos, Zürich 2002. 422 pp. € 46.90.
The twenty-eight contributions in this volume examine two periods of sweeping change within poor relief, charity, and social security in Switzerland: the transition from the late Middle Ages to the early modern period, and the period of the origins and rise of the Swiss social welfare state between 1880 and 1970. In the thirteen essays in the first part on the early period, the emphasis is on local and regional developments and variations; the fifteen contributions on modern welfare reveal the national perspective and international influences.
Zweig-Strauss, Hanna. David Farbstein (1868-1953). Jüdischer Sozialist - sozialistischer Jude. Chronos, Zürich 2002. 281 pp. Ill. € 28.00.
This is a biography of the Polish-Swiss socialist lawyer, politician, and Zionist David Farbstein (1868-1953). Born in Warsaw, he emigrated to Switzerland in 1881 and became a solicitor for the Swiss labour movement, a member of local, regional, and national parliaments and one of the organizers of the first Zionist congress in Basel in 1897. According to Mrs Zweig, Farbstein's class consciousness permeated his life, as did his efforts to help Jews (especially the ones who were emigrants from eastern Europe), the working class, and women.