This excellent study of gender, globalization, and postsocialism in the Czech Republic is a welcome addition to feminist international relations and comparative politics theory and the literature on transitions in Central and Eastern Europe. In the 1990s, such edited collections as Marilyn Rueschemeyer's (1994) Women in the Politics of Post-Communist Eastern Europe and Chris Corin's (1999) Gender and Identity in Central and Eastern Europe provided early accounts of how the social, economic, and political transformations after the fall of the Berlin Wall affected women. Many of the studies in these collections pointed to the disproportionate burden carried by women in the transition process, but few discussed the degree to which larger forces of globalization determined, as well as were shaped by, gender relations at home, work, and in the political arena. Some women's studies and feminist international relations theory, such as Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan's (2002) Introduction to Women's Studies: Gender in a Transnational World, have explored larger global questions of the relationship between gender and transnational forces, but they have missed what may be a more nuanced account of women's experiences at the domestic level. No recent research on women in Central and Eastern Europe has been as in-depth on one country, or as theoretically grounded and aware of international interconnections, as Jacqui True's book.

True focuses on two key questions: First, how are changing gender relations transforming and being changed by marketization and liberalization? And second, to what degree are women able to find empowerment and political space in fluid social, economic, and political contexts? With these questions in mind, she uses a case study of women in the Czech Republic to illuminate the complexity of women's day-to-day lives and to give us a powerful insight into the various local and international social, political, and economic forces at work.

The book is organized into seven chapters. True begins by briefly sketching the Czech experience with communism and democratization. The reader is presented with a lucid overview of the origins of the state of Czechoslovakia in the interwar period; the socialist revolution; activities of reform during the “Prague Spring” and Warsaw Pact invasion of 1968; the founding of Charta 77; the Velvet Revolution of 1989; and transitions to capitalist democracy. She then explores and evaluates the various interpretations of postsocialist transformations coming from neoliberalist, Marxist, institutionalist, and feminist perspectives.

The author's own theoretical contribution is a synthesis of neo-Gramscian, institutionalist, and feminist theories. She draws on the “bottom up” notion of social change from neo-Gramscian theory, the historical focus and analysis of political institutions from the institutionalists, and finally a concept of gender as both a “superstructure” and a material “base.” As stated on page 26, she views historically specific, “common sense ideas about male and female human nature as being encoded in social practices. In turn, these encodings shape state and civil society, and the forces of production and reproduction in transitions to capitalist democracy.” This synthesis allows her to argue that an examination of gender relations is key to understanding micro- and macroprocesses of change and continuity in political economy, culture, and politics.

The remaining chapters of the book focus on what the author sees as four important sites of transformation and gendered processes of globalization: the redefinition of the family; the establishment of local labor markets and the gender dynamics within them; the changing, globalized consumer market and reconstruction of gender identities; and finally the gendering of informal and formal politics where men control formal political democratic institutions and women participate in nonprofits supported by transnational nonstate actors. Throughout her study of women and the Czech Republic, she convincingly demonstrates that gendered processes and globalization are a “two-way street.” Globalization, democratization, and marketization shape—and at the same time reflect—gender relations.

One of the great strengths of the book is True's use of empirical research and detailed examples to illuminate her arguments. For instance, in the chapter on gendering state socialism, the author examines the official Communist Party women's magazine, Vlasta, to demonstrate the early democratic awakening of Czech women. She analyzes the role played by the publication and the themes it presented from 1968 to 1969. Another interesting example is presented in the chapter on labor markets where she uses a discussion of sexual harassment cases to show the growing efforts of women's groups to raise awareness about the maltreatment of women in the workplace. True also examines the ever-expanding sex trade and trafficking of women and girls in Europe, and the Czech Republic in particular, to illuminate further the failure of the Czech government to deal with developments resulting from globalization and capitalist transitions in the labor market. Two photos (on pp. 145 and 167) also provide stunning visual references to how women are portrayed and often exploited in the public sphere.

If any flaw at all exists in this excellent work, it is True's claim on page 27 that her book “does not take the collective identity of ‘women’ for granted.” While she does examine the “paradoxical nature of female and male agency” after the fall of communism in the Czech Republic, she fails to analyze fully the experiences of women who have different ethnic backgrounds or sexual orientations. Only in passing does she acknowledge Romany Gypsy women who may be working in low-paid jobs or at the margins of the economy, and no mention is made of the degree of discrimination experienced by lesbian women in the workforce or elsewhere. Therefore, even if unintended, some assumptions of collective identity permeate her analysis and lump together experiences of women when they may not be entirely all the same.

Gender, Globalization, and Postsocialism is highly readable and well organized. About halfway through each chapter, True gives a summary of her arguments, followed by more examples to prove her points. Her writing is clear, direct, and uncluttered with excessive jargon; charts and tables show important trends and statistics. The overall construction of the book and its accessibility make it useful for undergraduates as well as experts in the fields of international relations and comparative politics. Finally, her theoretical framework is effective not only for giving a detailed study of the Czech Republic but for giving scholars a model for more extensive comparative studies of gender, democratization, and globalization among several Central and East European states.