SOCIAL THEORY AND SOCIAL SCIENCE

Bell, David M. Rethinking Utopia. Place, Power, Affect. [Routledge Innovations in Political Theory, vol. 71.] Routledge, New York [etc.] 2017. ix, 178 pp. Ill. £110.00. (E-book: £35.99).

Over five hundred years since it was named, Utopia remains a vital concept for understanding and challenging the world we inhabit, even in the supposedly permeating condition of “post-utopianism”. In this book, Dr. Bell offers a diagnosis of the present through the lens of Utopia. By rethinking the concept through engagement with utopian studies, a variety of radical theories, and the need for decolonizing praxis, he shows how Utopianism might work to provide hope for a better future. The author conjoins engaged theoretical analysis with political, performative, and pedagogical experience and delivers a deeply considered, dialectical refunctioning of the Utopian question.

Clark, J.C.D. Thomas Paine. Britain, America, and France in the Age of Enlightenment and Revolution. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2018. xviii, 485 pp. Ill. $38.95; £30.00.

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) was a revolutionary in England who wrote best-selling texts, such as Common Sense and Rights of Man. Professor Clark argues that Paine knew less about events in America and France than was once thought. His influence derived from brilliantly mobilizing widely-known political discourse, but Paine never sought to be an academic theorist. Paine’s formerly obvious association with the early origin and long-term triumph of natural rights, republicanism, and democracy merits reconsideration. The author therefore depicts radical and reforming movements as more indebted to the initiatives of large numbers of men and women than to the writings of a few individuals.

Contre la guerre 14–18. Résistances mondiales et revolution sociale. Textes choisis et présentés par Stéfanie Prezioso. La Dispute, Paris 2017. 417 pp. € 30.00.

In this period of commemoration of the First World War I, this book reflects on the place of this conflict and on the questions that arise about it. This selection of authors, comprising Kautsky, Luxemburg, Gramsci, Pankhurst, and many others, contributes to the story of those who objected to all aspects of the Great War. Central to the reflections are voices of resistance, from workers, the oppressed, and dominated people, as critics of the first world conflict. Based on the texts chosen and her comments, the author examines experiences and expectations from below in various places, from the United States to China, drawing a map of revolutionary resistance and outlets.

De Angelis, Massimo. Omnia Sunt Communia. On the Commons and the Transformation to Postcapitalism. [In Common.] University of Chicago Press, Chicago (IL) 2017. 456 pp. $95.00. (Paper: $26.95).

In this book, Professor De Angelis offers a radical political economy, describing the steps towards bringing about a post-capitalist world. By conceptualizing the idea of commons as a set of social systems, the author shows their pervasive presence in everyday life; he maps a strategy for total social transformation. Unveiling the commons as fields of power relations, shared space, objects, and subjects that expand the limits of daily life under capitalism and exposing attempts to co-opt the commons, the author reveals the potential for radical transformation rooted in social reproduction of our communities, life, work, and society as a whole.

Fine, Robert and Philip Spencer. Antisemitism and the Left. On the Return of the Jewish Question. Manchester University Press, Manchester 2017. viii, 135 pp. £70.00. (Paper: £18.99; E-book: £22.79.)

Although the Left has a tradition of confronting racism, its attitude towards antisemitism has often been problematic. To explain this phenomenon, Fine and Spencer elaborate on the presence within the Left of the “Jewish question”, a conceptual underpinning of modern antisemitism. They explore the corrosive influence the Jewish question has had on the radical tradition, from the Enlightenment through Marxism to contemporary critical theory, but also the countervailing critiques within that same tradition. Re-evaluating writings by e.g. Mendelssohn, Marx, Luxemburg, Adorno, Horkheimer, Arendt, and Habermas, the authors elaborate a dialectical approach to analyse the troubled relationship of the Left with antisemitism.

Kiesewetter, Hubert. Karl Marx und der Untergang des Kapitalismus. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2017. 462 pp. € 69.90.

Western capitalism has often been demonized in the Soviet Union, the Eastern Bloc countries, China and Cuba, and the Communist “Empire of Freedom” has been proclaimed. Many of these systems have collapsed due to economic incompetence. A younger generation of Marxist researchers claims that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels had no part in these totalitarian and economically bankrupt regimes. The theses and theories of Marx and Engels are examined and refuted here, based on concrete historical developments in the nineteenth century. Professor Kiesewetter shows that Marx advocated total annihilation of the capitalist system by social revolution, not the liberation of the working class.

Kumekawa, Ian. The First Serious Optimist. A. C. Pigou and the Birth of Welfare Economics. Princeton University Press, Princeton (NJ) 2017. x, 332 pp. Ill. $35.00; £27.95

The British economist A.C. Pigou (1877–1959), a founder of welfare economics, was one of the most important and original thinkers in the twentieth century and was instrumental in focusing economics on public welfare. Drawing from a wealth of archival sources, Dr. Kumekawa describes how Pigou reshaped the way the public thinks about the economic role of government and the way economists think about the public good. Presenting Pigou’s ideas in their personal, political, social, and ethical contexts, the author traces his evolution from a liberal Edwardian bon vivant to a reserved but reform-minded economics professor. See also Erwin Dekker’s review in this volume 350–352.

Love, John. Weber, Schumpeter and Modern Capitalism. Towards a General Theory. [Routledge Studies in Social and Political Thought.] Routledge, London 2017. xi, 249 pp. £76.00. (E-book: £35.99).

This book provides essential elements for a general theory of modern capitalism by reinterpreting the work of Max Weber on the origins and institutional underpinnings of modern capitalism and the ideas of Joseph Schumpeter on the mechanisms and functioning of the capitalist economy. The author contends that combining the theoretical frames of reference of Schumpeter and Weber offers a foundation for a unified overall theory of modern capitalism. Considering the theoretical connections between Weber and Schumpeter and their respective contributions on the nature and functioning of capitalism, he offers a systematic comparison and synthesis of the contributions by two central figures in social and economic theory.

Makin-Waite, Mike. Communism and Democracy. History, Debates, and Potentials. Lawrence and Wishart, London 2017. viii, 296 pp. £18.00.

The aim of this study is to recover some of the insights of the critical communist tradition, in the belief that they may serve the twenty-first century left. Organized in three parts, the first traces the origins of socialism and communism and their emergence as political movements, while the second addresses the short communist century 1917–1989, covering particular aspects of communist history, and in the last part, drawing on debates and analyses devised by communists in opposition between the 1950s and the 1980s, the author offers suggestions for rethinking socialism and radical politics today and outlines future prospects.

The Spell of Capital. Reification and Spectacle. Ed. by Samir Gandesha and Johan F. Hartle. Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2017. 223 pp. Ill. € 95.00.

The ten contributions in this volume explore the tradition, impact and contemporary relevance of two key ideas from Western Marxism: Georg Lukács’s concept of reification, in which social aspects of humanity are viewed in objectified terms, and Guy Debord’s concept of the spectacle, where the world is packaged and presented to consumers in uniquely mediated ways. By showcasing the original theoretical contexts for these terms, the editors aim to offer a critical theory and practice addressing the metabolic rift between humanity and the natural world on the one hand and its corresponding subjective crisis on the other.

Algeria

Sedrata. Histoire et archéologie d’un carrefour du Sahara medieval à la lumière des archives inédites de Marguerite van Berchem. Ed. par Cyrille Aillet, Patrice Cressier et Sophie Gilotte. [Collection de la Case de Velázquez, vol. 161.] Casa de Velazquez, Madrid 2017. 497 pp. Ill. Maps. € 49.00.

This book is about the archaeological remains of medieval Sedrata, a town in the Algerian Sahara near Ouargla that flourished between the tenth and the thirteenth century. This crossroads of trans-Saharan trade provided the Mediterranean region with gold and slaves. It was also a centre for the Ibadites, a Muslim minority whose descendants visit the ruins every year. This richly illustrated volume intertwines archaeology, agricultural, social and economic history, and the history of migration. The rediscovery of Sedrata is based on Ibadi sources and on the unfinished manuscript of the excavations by Marguerite van Berchem (1950–1955), which is now published in this book.

Ghana

Slavery and its Legacy in Ghana and the Diaspora. Ed. by Rebecca Shumway and Trevor Getz. Bloomsbury, London 2017. vi, 264 pp. Ill. $114.00.

Ghana remains a nation plagued by inequalities, stemming from its history of slavery and slave trading. The ten contributions in this collection exploring the history of slavery in Ghana and its legacy are organized in three chronological parts. Part one focuses on the precolonial period, including the transatlantic slave trade, enslaved people from Ghana living in the diaspora, and political ideology in the immediate post-abolition era. The chapters in Part two cover the colonial period, focusing on the Ghanaian struggle for freedom and the roles of European missions and colonial courts. Part three examines contemporary Ghana, emphasizing the legacy of slavery and the slave trade.

Mozambique

Dhada, Mustafah. The Portuguese Massacre of Wiriyamu in Colonial Mozambique, 1964–2013. Bloomsbury Academic, London 2016. xxiii, 233 pp. Ill. $35.96. (E-book: $29.69).

In December 1972, Portuguese troops killed the inhabitants of the village of Wiriyamu in west-central Mozambique. Professor Dhada explores why the massacre took place, reconstructs social and economic life in Wiriyamu prior to the massacre, and describes how the events transpired and became known to the public, as well as the impact of the massacre, particularly for the Portuguese empire. Spanning the period from 1964 to 2013, this chronologically arranged book covers the liberation war in Mozambique and uses fieldwork, interviews, and archival sources to embed the massacre in its historical context.

Tanzania

Bedasse, Monique. Jah Kingdom. Rastafarians, Tanzania, and Pan-Africanism in the Age of Decolonization. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill (NC) 2017. xiii, 254 pp. Ill. $90.00. (Paper: $32.95; E-book: $19.99).

Since it was founded by the descendants of enslaved Africans in Jamaica in the 1930s, the Rastafarian movement has become a global presence. Professor Bedasse argues that repatriation to Africa represents the most important vehicle of Rastafari’s international growth. Shifting the scholarship on repatriation from Ethiopia to Tanzania, the author highlights Rastafari’s enduring connection to black radical politics and identifies Tanzania as a critical site for exploring gender, religion, race, citizenship, socialism, and nation. Based on oral and written sources, she demonstrates how Tanzanian state and non-state actors not only validated the Rastafarian idea of diaspora, but were also crucial in defining the parameters of Pan-Africanism.

Argentine

Bryce, Benjamin. To belong in Buenos Aires. Germans, Argentines, and the Rise of a Pluralist Society. Stanford University Press, Stanford (CA) 2018. xxi, 223 pp. Ill. Maps. $65.00.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, an immigration wave transformed the cultural landscape of Argentina. Speakers aimed to carve out a niche. The story of the German immigrants sheds light on how pluralist societies take shape, and how immigrants negotiate terms of citizenship and belonging. Focusing on social welfare, education, religion, language, and the importance of children, Professor Bryce examines the formation of a distinct German–Argentine identity. Even as Argentine nationalism intensified and the state urged a more culturally homogeneous citizenry, the leaders of the German community in Buenos Aires advocated reconciling retention of ethnic identity with being Argentine.

Lazar, Sian. The Social Life of Politics. Ethics, Kinship, and Union Activism in Argentina. Stanford University Press, Stanford (CA) 2017. xi, 243 pp. Ill. $27.95.

In this book, Dr. Lazar investigates the intimate, personal and family dimensions of two political activist groups in Argentina: the Union of National Civil Servants (UPCN) and the Association of State Workers (ATE). These two unions represent distinct political orientations within Argentina’s broad labour movement. Contextualizing the arguments within the anthropological study of social movements, the author shows how Argentine public sector union activism is best understood as a form of collective creation of ethical selves enacted through the idioms and practices of character essence, active self-cultivation, and kinship, and is revealed through the study of militancy and containment.

Semán, Ernesto. Ambassadors of the Working Class. Argentina’s International Labor Activists & Cold War Democracy in the Americas. Duke University Press, Durham (NC) 2017. xiii, 314 pp. Ill. $94.95. (Paper: $26.95).

This book tells the history of the Peronist worker attachés from their emergence in 1946 until 1955. Attachés joined a wide range of movements, promoting social reform and presenting the centrality of workers’ rights. Confrontation with the United States was a central component of Peronist labour activism. In the first decade of the Cold War, Peronism drove one of the most robust forms of anti-Pan Americanism, just when the United States’ efforts at regional dominance were taking new and concrete forms. Professor Semán argues that the rise of Peronism and its labour-based policy were not only the target of United States foreign policy, but also the source of crucial inputs in a hemispheric cultural exchange. See also Gabriela Scodellers’ review in this volume, pp. 361–364.

Caribbean

Burnard, Trevor and John Garrigus. The Plantation Machine. Atlantic Capitalism in French Saint-Domingue and British Jamaica. [The Early Modern Americas.] University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia (PA) 2016. 350 pp. Ill. Maps. $45.00; £37.00. (E-book: $45.00; £29.50).

This book is about social, political, and economic transformations in eighteenth-century Jamaica and Saint-Domingue, two extremely profitable but socially horrific slave societies that came close to perfecting a global form of economic organization. Using a wide range of archival evidence, the authors traced the development of the social, economic, and political frameworks and noted striking similarities between these colonies, which fought each other throughout the period. Jamaica and Saint-Domingue both experienced a bitter feud between planters and governors, violent conflict between masters and enslaved workers, fateful tightening of racial laws, steady expansion of the slave trade, and criticism from the colonial power of cruelty by planters.

Mexico

Tutino, John. The Mexican Heartland. How Communities Shaped Capitalism, a Nation, and World History, 1500–2000. Princeton University Press, Princeton (NJ) 2018. viii, 499 pp. Ill. Maps. $39.50; £32.95.

This history offers insight into the long trajectory of global capitalism by exploring how it was shaped by people working across the basins surrounding the city of Mexico from the sixteenth through the twentieth century. Despite invasion, disease, and depopulation, Mexico’s heartland communities prevailed, adapting to sustain and shape the dynamic silver capitalism pivotal in Spain’s empire and world trade for centuries after 1550. They drove Zapata’s 1910 revolution, and although the revolt was defeated, adamant communities forced a land reform that put them at the centre of Mexico’s experiment in national capitalism. From the 1950s, population growth and technical innovations drove people from rural communities to a metropolis spreading across the land.

United States of America

Covington Jr., Howard E. Forew. by Darren Walker. Lending Power. How the Self-Help Credit Union Turned Small-time Loans into Big-time Change. Duke University Press, Durham (NC) [etc.] 2017. x, 211 pp. Ill. $27.95.

Established in 1980, the non-profit Center for Community Self-Help has grown from an innovative financial institution dedicated to civil rights into the nation’s largest home lender to low and moderate-income borrowers. In this book, Mr. Covington Jr. narrates the story of Self-Help’s founders and co-workers, as they built a progressive and community-oriented financial institution. Established to assist workers displaced by closed furniture and textile mills, Self-Help set up a credit union that expanded into providing home loans to those on the margins of the financial market. Self-Help shows that such a model may bring financial success for non-profits while serving the greater good.

Gilyard, Keith. Louise Thompson Patterson. A Life of Struggle for Justice. Duke University Press, Durham (NC) [etc.] 2017. xii, 302 pp. Ill. $94.95. (Paper: $26.95).

Born in 1901, Louise Thompson Patterson was a leading figure in radical African American politics. Throughout the twentieth century, she embodied dedicated resistance to racial, economic, and gender exploitation. Professor Gilyard based this biography on her unfinished memoir, her published writings, audiotapes and videos produced as part of the Louise Thompson Patterson memoir project, FBI records, and interviews. In the 1930s and 1940s, Patterson became central to the labour movement and steered proto-black feminist activities. She was crucial to the 1970s efforts to free political prisoners. In her final decades, she continued to work as a progressive activist and public intellectual.

Goldberg, David. Black Firefighters and the FDNY. The Struggle for Jobs, Justice, and Equity in New York City. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill (NC). x, 409 pp. Ill. $39.95. (E-book: $29.00).

For African Americans, getting a public sector job has historically been one of the few paths to middle-class financial stability. This book explores how black New Yorkers, black firefighters, and the Vulcan Society built, sustained, and advanced the struggle for racial representation, equal opportunity, and racial equality in the Fire Department of New York (FDNY), despite resistance from whites within and outside the fire department, from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present. Drawn from oral histories, discrimination suits and the archives of the Vulcan Society (the fraternal society of black firefighters in New York), Professor Goldberg describes the impact of black firefighters in the struggle for civil rights.

Harris, LaShawn. Sex Workers, Psychics, and Numbers Runners. Black Women in New York City’s Underground Economy. [The New Black Studies Series.] University of Illinois Press, Urbana (IL) 2016. ix, 260 pp. Ill. $95.00. (Paper: $28.00; E-book: $25.20).

In this book, Professor Harris examines the lives of New York City’s black women informal economy labourers during the first three decades of the twentieth century. Focusing on the labour patterns and economic activities of the profitable, yet illegal sexual economy, gambling enterprises, and supernatural consultancy business, she draws on a wide range of primary materials, newspapers, and period literature and argues that New York’s burgeoning underground economy served as a catalyst for working-class black women to devise employment opportunities, occupational identities, and survival strategies that provided financial stability. At the same time, urban black women experienced the conspicuous and hidden dangers associated with newly found labour opportunities.

Hollinger, David A. Protestants Abroad. How Missionaries Tried to Change the World but Changed America. Princeton University Press, Princeton (NJ) 2017. xiii, 390 pp. Ill. $35.00; £27.95.

Between the 1890s and the Vietnam era, thousands of American Protestant missionaries were sent to live throughout the non-European world. Their experiences led many missionaries and their children to criticize racism, imperialism, and religious orthodoxy. Professor Hollinger provides portraits of such figures (e.g. Pearl Buck and John Hersey), who aimed through literature and journalism to convince white Americans of the humanity of other peoples, and reveals here how these missionary-affiliated individuals made an impression on American public life, as the US government needed citizens with language proficiency and experience in Asian societies and catapulted dozens of missionary-affiliated individuals into prominent roles in intelligence and diplomacy.

Kiser, William S. Borderlands of Slavery. The Struggle over Captivity and Peonage in the American Southwest. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia (PA) 2017. 266 pp. Ill. Maps. $45.00; £35.00. (E-book: $45.00; £29.50).

According to the author, slavery in the United States is often assumed to have ended with the Civil War and the Thirteenth Amendment. In the Southwest, however, two coercive labour systems (debt peonage and Indian captivity) persisted after the Civil War and even prompted a new struggle to define freedom and bondage in the United States. In this book, Dr. Kiser presents a comprehensive history of debt peonage and Indian captivity in the territory of New Mexico after the Civil War. The author shows that these two intertwined systems were also of national importance and must be understood within the context of antebellum slavery, the Civil War, emancipation, and Reconstruction.

Merish, Lori. Archives of Labor. Working-class Women and Literary Culture in the Antebellum United States. Duke University Press, Durham (NC) [etc.] 2017. xii, 312 pp. $99.95. (Paper: $26.95).

In this book, Professor Merish presents working-class women as significant actors within literary culture in nineteenth-century US literary and cultural history. Delving into archives of working-class women’s literature, from autobiographies, pamphlet novels, and theatrical melodrama to seduction tales and labour periodicals, the author recovers working-class women as vital among writers and readers in the antebellum era. Her selection of texts by a diverse group comprising factory workers, seamstresses, domestic workers, and prostitutes challenges the purportedly masculine character of class dissent during this era and contests the traditional association of whiteness with the working class to document forms of cross-racial class identification and solidarity.

Pennock, Pamela E. The Rise of the Arab American Left. Activists, Allies, and their Fight against Imperialism and Racism, 1960s–1980s. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill (NC) 2017. xi, 316 pp. Ill. $85.00. (Paper: $29.95; E-book: $19.95).

Focusing on the ideas and strategies of key Arab American organizations and examining emerging alliances between Arab American and other anti-imperialist and anti-racist movements, Professor Pennock sheds light on the role of Arab Americans in social change of the era, detailing how their attempts to mobilize communities in support of Middle Eastern political or humanitarian causes often elicited suspicion among Americans. Cognizant that they would be unable to influence policy by traditional electoral means, Arab Americans slowly built coalitions over decades of activism to bring their central policy concerns and causes into the mainstream of activist consciousness.

Rabinowitz, Matilda. Immigrant Girl, Radical Woman. A Memoir from the Early Twentieth Century. With commentary and original drawings by Robbin Légère Henderson. Afterw. by Ileen A. DeVault. ILR Press, Ithaca (NY) [etc.] 2017. xv, 277 pp. Ill. $29.95.

This illustrated memoir was intended as a personal story for her grandchildren, Robbin Légère Henderson among them. Rabinowitz (1887–1963) describes how she and her contemporaries rejected the intellectual and social restrictions imposed on women as they sought political and economic equality in the first half of the twentieth century. Rabinowitz became an organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) from 1912 to 1917, before becoming a single mother in 1918. Henderson’s black-and-white scratchboard drawings illustrate Rabinowitz’s life in the Pale of Settlement, her journey to America, political awakening, and work as an organizer for the IWW and her struggle to support herself and her child.

Radical Gotham. Anarchism in New York City from Schwab’s Saloon to Occupy Wall Street. Ed.by Tom Goyens. University of Illinois Press, Urbana (IL) 2017. 258 pp. $95.00. (Paper: $28.00; E-book: $25.20).

For 150 years, the Gotham (i.e. New York City) cosmopolitan setting created a unique interplay between anarchism’s human actors and an urban space inviting constant reinvention. The editor has gathered essays that demonstrate the endurance of anarchism as a political and cultural ideology and movement in New York from the 1870s to 2011. The authors of the twelve contributions cover the gamut of anarchy’s emergence in and connection to the city, offering insights on German, Italian, Yiddish, and Spanish-speaking anarchists and exploring their influence on religion, politics, and visual and performing arts. The concluding essay addresses the roots of Occupy Wall Street in New York City’s anarchist tradition. See also Wolfgang Hochbruck’s review in this volume, pp. 345–345.

Romney, Charles W. Rights Delayed. The American State and the Defeat of Progressive Unions, 1935–1950. Oxford University Press, New York 2016. viii, 271 pp. $74.00; £47.99.

Progressive unions thrived in the 1930s by working alongside federal agencies established during the New Deal. Still, few progressive unions remained in 1950. Professor Romney argues that anti-communism and Congressional conservatism intensified the main reason for the decline of progressive unions: the New Deal policy’s focus on legal procedure. The first of the three parts in this book explains the initial success of progressive unions working with the state from 1935–1945. The second part examines the reversal of the victory by the Congress of Industrial Organizations between 1945 and 1946 by the American Federation of Labour Teamsters Union, and the third describes the end of progressive unions between 1946 and 1950.

Slavery’s Capitalism. A New History of American Economic Development. Ed. by Sven Beckert and Seth Rockman. [Early American Studies.] University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia (PA) 2016. viii, 406 pp. Ill. $59.95; £50.00. (Paper: $27.50; £22.99; E-book: $27.50; £18.00).

During the nineteenth century, the United States was one of the most advanced economies in the world. At the same time, the nation maintained an expansive and brutal system of human bondage. In the contributions in this collection, the authors argue that slavery was central in the emergence of American capitalism between the Revolution and the Civil War. Approaching the study of slavery as the catalyst for the Industrial Revolution and modern capitalism sheds new light on American credit markets, offshore investment practices, and understanding of human capital. Rather than seeing slavery as outside the institutional structures of capitalism, the essayists review its importance in American economic history. See also Jesse Olsavsky’s review in this volume pp. 342–345.

Walker, McWilliams, Marcia. Reverend Addie Wyatt. Faith and the Fight for Labor, Gender, and Racial Equality. [Women, Gender, and Sexuality in American History.] University of Illinois Press, Urbana (IL) 2016. ix, 266 pp. Ill. $95.00 (Paper: $28.00; E-book: $25.20).

As the Director of Civil Rights and Women’s Affairs of the United Food and Commercial Workers, Reverend Addie Wyatt was a top-ranking woman in the organized labour movement. She worked alongside Martin Luther King Jr. and Eleanor Roosevelt and appeared as one of Time magazine’s Women of the Year in 1975. Drawing on oral histories, interviews conducted with Wyatt’s co-workers and family, personal papers, and extensive archival data, Dr. Walker-McWilliams tells the story of Addie Wyatt and her times, describing how Wyatt’s own experiences with hardship and discrimination drove her work as an activist and leader.

Central Asia

Kim, Kwangmin. Borderland Capitalism. Turkestan Produce, Qing silver, and the Birth of an Eastern Market. Stanford University Press, Stanford (CA) 2016. Ill. Maps. $65.00.

Muslim landowners in Central Asia, called begs, aligned with the Qing administration to promote the agenda of capitalist transformation of the economy and to provide access to the Chinese market. In control of food supplies, commercial goods, and human resources, the begs had dictatorial political power in the region. In this book, Professor Kim challenges the European exceptionalism model, which considers the development of imperialism and capitalism as a fundamentally unique European phenomenon that led to European hegemony in the world beginning in the sixteenth century. This book articulates the simultaneous (even coeval) paths to imperialism and capitalism in the colonies and borderlands taken by the European and Chinese empires.

China

Forster, Elisabeth. 1919 – The Year That Changed China. A New History of the New Culture Movement. [Transformations of Modern China, vol. 2.] De Gruyter, Berlin [etc.] 2018. viii, 260 pp. € 64.95; $74.99; £53.99.

1919 changed Chinese culture radically in a way that took contemporaries by surprise. Dr. Forster traces the mechanisms behind this transformation based on a rich variety of sources, including newspapers, personal letters, student essays, advertisements, textbooks, and diaries. Proposing a new model for cultural change that revolves around intellectual marketing, she retells the story of the New Culture Movement in light of the cultural change through academic infighting, rumours and conspiracy theories, newspaper stories, and intellectuals intent on selling agendas through powerful buzzwords.

Rosefielde, Steven and Jonathan Leightner. China’s Market Communism. Challenges, Dilemmas, Solutions. Routledge, London [etc.] 2018. xiii, 118 pp. £110.00. (Paper: £30.99; E-book: £27.89).

This book elaborates on China’s reforms and transformational possibilities to understand Beijing’s communist and post-communist options by investigating the lessons that leader Xi can learn from Mao, Adam Smith, and inclusive economic theory. After a retrospective account of the transformations that took place in the post-1949 economic system, the authors identify and describe the alternative economic, social, and political paths open to China in the next several decades and show the opportunities and risks. The investigation begins with a description and analysis of China’s communist systemic option and then considers the merits of three non-communist alternatives: Liberal Democracy, globalism, and Asia’s Confucian ideal.

Singaravélou, Pierre. Tianjin Cosmopolis. Une autre histoire de la mondialisation. Editions du Seuil, Paris 2017. 384 pp. Ill. € 24.00.

This book covers the brief period between 1900 and 1902, when an international municipal government took over the city of Tianjin, located one hundred kilometres from Beijing. Professor Singaravélou recounts the story of this provisional government through the lens of various urban reforms, implemented somewhat successfully during these two years, of police and security, urban planning, sanitation, and use of natural resources such as salt. The book is based on a wide range of sources, such as the provisional government’s tribunal archives, French and British diplomatic and military archives, personal testimonies, and press articles referring to occupied Tianjin, as well as on objects brought back by European soldiers.

India

Varma, Nitin, Coolies of Capitalism. Assam Tea and the Making of Coolie Labour. [Work in Global and Historical Perspective, vol. 2.] De Gruyter, Berlin 2017. vii, 242 pp. Ill. € 109.95; $154.00; £82.99. (E-book: € 69.95; $98.00; £63.99).

The tea plantations of Assam, like many other tropical plantations in South Asia, were inaugurated and formalized during the nineteenth century. Locals worked on the plantations, until, in the late 1850s, they were replaced by labourers imported from outside the province and designated as “coolies”. Dr. Varma explores the coolie labour relationship as a broader global process of disciplining labour in the nineteenth century, revealing deep lineages and linkages with slave labour and free wage labour. The case of producing coolies on the tea plantations of Assam reveals a deep and organic relationship between colonial state and private capital. See also Arun Kumar’s review essay in this volume pp. 321–334.

Yazdani, Kaveh. India, Modernity and the Great Divergence. Mysore and Gujarat (17th to 19th C.). [Library of Economic History, vol. 8.] Brill, Leiden 2017. xxxi, 669 pp. Maps. € 205.00; $246.00.

In this updated and revised version of his PhD thesis about India’s transition towards modernity and the rise of the West, Dr. Yazdani examines global entanglements alongside the internal seventeenth- to nineteenth century-dynamics in Mysore and Gujarat in comparison with other regions of Afro-Eurasia. This interdisciplinary survey enriches our historical understanding of South Asia, covering the intertwined worlds of modernizing rulers, wealthy merchants, curious scholars, Utopian poets, industrious peasants, and skilled artisans. Bringing together socio-economic and political structures, warfare, techno-scientific innovations, knowledge production, and transfer of ideas; the results of this study force us to rethink the reasons behind the emergence of the modern world. See also Girija Joshi’s review in this volume pp. 340–342.

Israel

Dynamics of Gender Borders. Women in Israel’s Cooperative Settlements. Ed. by Sylvie Fogiel-Bijaoui and Rachel Sharaby. De Gruyter, Berlin [etc.] 2017. viii, 340 pp. € 99.95; $114.99; £90.99.

The kibbutz and the moshav are collective, socialist-inspired forms of settlement arising from the Jewish national movement in Palestine, where gender equality was a founding principle. In the modern era, the separation of the private and the public spheres has been the mechanism for the unequal gender order, based on the assumption that men naturally inhabit the public spheres, while women’s sphere is private. The six contributions in Part one focus on challenges and limitations faced by the Utopian communities in the pre-state period. Part two, containing seven essays on the period after the state was founded, covers strategies women used to renegotiate gender borders in the context of political, social, and economic changes.

Middle East

Schayegh, Cyrus. The Middle East and the Making of the Modern World. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA) 2017. x, 486 pp. Maps. $49.95; £35.95; € 45.00.

In this study, Professor Schayegh presents a socio-spatial history that traces how different geographic areas and networks moulded the Middle East from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Focusing his study on an area coextensive with modern Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Israel and Palestine, the author examines the interplay of local and transregional forces. The major cities (Damascus, Aleppo, Jerusalem, and Beirut) wielded a measure of autonomy, even in the nineteenth century, when the Ottoman Empire attempted to exert greater administrative control, and the region became more integrated. After World War I, this territory became an umbrella region from which new nation states would emerge. See also Melle Monquil’s review in this volume pp. 347–350.

Turkey

Contested Spaces in Contemporary Turkey. Environmental, Urban and Secular Politics. Ed. by Fatma Müge Göçek. I.B. Tauris, London 2018. xv, 431 pp. Ill. Maps. $110.00; £75.00.

The thirteen contributions in this book examine the emergence and consequences of neoliberalism in Turkey, highlighting the contested spaces, where the impact of this economic system is challenged or negotiated, and the complexity of social, political and cultural practices, including the complexity of neoliberalism in Turkey, where the power of the market, the agenda of state, and the country’s past are shown to have shaped current economic practices and policies. The authors look beyond the neoliberal cities Istanbul and Ankara, taking into account the rest of the country and the groups most deeply affected, such as the Kurds, women, and migrants.

New Zealand

Belgrave, Michael. Dancing with the King. The Rise and Fall of the King Country, 1864–1885. University of Auckland Press, Auckland 2017. viii, 428 pp. Ill. Maps. NZ$65.00.

After the battle of Orakau in 1864, the Māori King Tāwhiao and his supporters were driven into armed isolation in the King Country. For the next twenty years, the King Country operated as an independent state. Professor Belgrave tells the story of the negotiations between the King and Queen Victoria that finally opened the area to European settlement. For twenty years, the King and the Queen’s representatives engaged in a dance of diplomacy involving gamesmanship, conspiracy, pageantry, and hard-headed politics, with an occasional act or threat of violence. Colonial negotiators even made Tāwhiao settlement offers that came close to recognizing his sovereign authority.

Eire – Ireland

Wilkins, Noel P. Humble Works for Humble People. A History of the Fishery Piers of County Galway and North Clare, 1800–1922. Irish Academic Press, Newbridge 2017. xv, 377 pp. Ill. Maps. € 29.99. (E-book: £9.99).

This richly illustrated book explores the history of the fishery piers and harbours of Galway and North Clare, during the hundred years from 1820 to national independence. Professor Wilkins discusses the legislation, social setting, characters, commissions, and personalities that dominated the fishery piers and the harbour scene, paying tribute to these structures as feats of engineering in a riveting account of the human aspect that shadowed their construction during the Great Famine and witness to emigration, as well as a rendition of the maritime activities: kelp-making, fishing, turf distribution, and sea-borne trade.

Germany

Boch, Rudolf. Arbeiter- Wirtschaftsbürger- Staat. Abhandlungen zur Industriellen Welt. Hrsg. von Frank-Lothar Kroll. De Gruyter Oldenbourg, Berlin [etc.] 2017. x, 291 pp. € 59.95; $68.99; £54.99.

On the occasion of the 65th birthday of Rudolf Boch, this volume presents fifteen papers on German industrialization by this historian. The book is divided into four thematic parts, the first of which contains essays on labour history, while the second part addresses the Rhenish mercantile middle class in the nineteenth century, the third industry, and factory history, and the last part economy and the state. All contributions reflect how Dr. Boch, known for critical historicism, treats economic history very broadly, incorporating modern theories and issues from social history and history of ideas and considering diverse regional and local historical interrelations.

Duncker, Käte, und Hermann Duncker. Käte und Hermann Duncker. Ein Tagebuch in Briefen (1894–1953). Hrsg. von Heinz Deutschland unter Mitarb. von Ruth Deutschland. [Geschichte des Kommunismus und Linkssozialismus, Bd 20.] Dietz, Berlin 2016. 605 pp. Ill. (incl. USB stick). € 49.90.

Nearly all letters in this correspondence, beginning in June 1894 and ending in the early 1950s, were preserved by Käte and Hermann Duncker. The two co-founders of the Spartacist group provided each other with information about their work in politics and workers’ education. The letters the husband and wife exchanged during their frequent periods apart reveal their views on events and developments in the first half of the twentieth century. Letters from and to third parties are added. Selections of the material are presented in the volume. The USB stick comprises another 5,722 pages, including 245 photographs and illustrations.

Hake, Sabine. The Proletarian Dream. Socialism, Culture, and Emotion in Germany, 1863–1933. [Interdisciplinary German Cultural Studies, vol. 23.] De Gruyter, Berlin [etc.] 2017. xiii, 370 pp. Ill. € 89.95; $103.99; £81.99.

As the most radicalized part of the industrial working class, the proletariat embodied critique of capitalism and the promise of socialism. As a collective imaginary, the proletariat also inspired the fantasies, desires, and attachments necessary for transforming the working class into a historical subject and an emotional community. This book, the first of two volumes, reconstructs this complicated and contradictory process. Some chapters focus on important socialist leaders (e.g. Ferdinand Lassalle) or an influential literary genre. Others organize their arguments around a particular communist habitus or visual motif. By emphasizing the formative role of the aesthetic, the eighteen case studies offer a new perspective on working-class culture as oppositional.

Kill, Susanne, Christopher Kopper, [und] Jan-Henrik Peters. Die Reichsbahn und der Strafvollzug in der DDR. Häftlingszwangsarbeit und Gefangenentransporte in der SED-Diktatur. Klartext, Essen 2016. 214 pp. Ill. € 14.95.

Exploitation of political prisoners in the German Democratic Republic is a depressing chapter in the history of the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands dictatorship. Not only was its prison system particularly backward, but convict labour was a fixture in the GDR planned socialist economy. The GDR Reichsbahn [state railway] was involved in the penal system by providing prison wagons for transporting prisoners. Less known is that since the 1950s many prisoners performed forced labour for the Reichsbahn. The book contains interviews with former convicts and eyewitnesses describing their experiences with this penal system.

Poverty and Welfare in Modern German History. Ed. by Lutz Raphael. [New German Historical Perspectives, vol. 7.] Berghahn Books, New York 2017.viii, 256 pp. $130.00; £92.00.

In this collection, the history of welfare and poverty in Germany is addressed in eight discrete case studies, covering the period from the eighteenth to the early twenty-first century. The first chapter presents differences in poor relief administration by Catholic and Protestant authorities. Chapter two offers insights into research on the so-called pauper letters. The next contributions are about welfare services around 1900, during the Weimar years and under the Nazi dictatorship. The final chapters deal with postwar Germany, concentrating on the new social question and new poverty in the Federal Republic in the 1970s and 1980s.

Weimar Communism as Mass Movement, 1918–1933. Ed. by Ralf Hoffrogge and Norman LaPorte. [Studies in Twentieth Century Communism Series.] Lawrence and Wishart, London 2017. xxi, 294 pp. £20.00.

In the first section of this volume, the editors contextualize the German Communist Party (KPD) within the history of the Weimar Republic and its relation with the Communist International (Comintern). The other twelve contributions review the party’s revolutionary origins, the dilemmas of being a mass party in Germany and Stalinization, the process by which the party became dominated by Moscow. Other contributions include an appraisal of left-wing Communist opposition to Stalin, as well as the party’s changing relationship with the trade unions. Another section reveals how German communism aspired to transcend its core support among the working class, examining its outreach efforts to peasants, avant-garde artists, and pacifists.

Great Britain

Black, Jeremy. A History of Britain. 1945 to Brexit. Indiana University Press, Bloomington (IN) 2017. xv, 268 pp. $80.00. (Paper: $28.00; E-book $27.99).

In 2016, Britain voted to pull out of the European Union. Professor Black investigates the clues of modern British history that preceded this outcome, re-examining the social changes, economic strains, and cultural and political upheavals that led to Brexit. He traces Britain through the destruction caused by World War II, Thatcherism, threats from the IRA, the Scottish referendum, and the impact of immigration waves from the European Union. Deindustrialization and market growth of the service economy drove the emergence of a metropolitan liberal elite that dominated politics and led to disillusionment among those living in rural and old urban parts of the country.

Collingham, Lizzie. The Hungry Empire. How Britain’s Quest for Food Shaped the Modern World. The Bodley Head, London 2017. xvii, 367 pp. Ill. £25.00.

Dr. Collingham tells the story, in twenty meals, of how the British formed a global network of commerce and trade in foodstuffs that moved people and plants from one continent to another, re-shaping landscapes and culinary tastes. Millions of people were caught up in this expanding web, from West African slaves and Bengali opium farmers, to gauchos in Argentina and pioneers in the Americas. Her innovative approach offers a fresh perspective on the making of the Empire, uncovering its decisive role in shaping the modern diet and revealing how virtually every meal we eat still contains a taste of empire.

Davies, Aled. The City of London and Social Democracy. The Political Economy of Finance in Post-war Britain. [Oxford Historical Monographs.] Oxford University Press, Oxford [etc.] 2017. xii, 248 pp. £60.00.

This book covers the political economy of Britain’s financial centre, the City of London, in the two decades prior to the election of Thatcher’s first conservative government in 1979. The key argument Dr. Davies makes is that changes in the financial sector during the 1960s and 1970s undermined the capacity of the state to sustain and develop a modern industrial economy. Novel attempts to reconfigure social democratic economic strategy ultimately proved unsuccessful. The author relates the financial system to the social democratic pursuit of national industrial development and modernization and examines how a variety of fundamental changes to the City during this period challenged the norms of social democratic economic policy. See also John Davis’s review in this volume, pp. 356–358.

Hamling, Tara and Catherine Richardson. A Day at Home in Early Modern England. Material Culture and Domestic Life, 1500–1700. Yale University Press, New Haven (CT) 2017. 311 pp. Ill. $75.00.

Presented in a narrative form that follows the pattern of a typical day from early morning through the middle of the night, this richly illustrated book examines the profound influence that the domestic material environment had on structuring and expressing modes of thought and behaviour among relatively ordinary people. Using a multidisciplinary approach that considers both existent objects and documentary sources, the authors recreate the layered complexity of lived household experience and explore how a family’s investment in rooms, decoration, possessions, and provisions defined not only their status, but also the social, commercial, and religious concerns that imbued their daily existence.

Justice Denied. Friends, Foes & the Miners’ Strike. Ed. by David Allsop, Carol Stephenson & David Wray. Merlin Press, London 2017. xii, 200 pp. £15.99.

Written by and focused on those personally involved in the miners’ strike (1984–1985) and its aftermath as strikers, trade unionists, activists, filmmakers, witnesses, and researchers, this book explores the events, legacies, and controversies of the strike from the perspective of eyewitnesses. The three parts comprise twelve contributions, in which the opening chapters provide biographical insight into the personal experiences of individuals directly involved in the dispute. The following contributions examine the political controversies surrounding the strike and broader support, and the final part addresses issues that endure thirty years after the dispute ended.

Labour and Working-Class Lives. Essays to Celebrate the Life and Work of Chris Wrigley. Ed. by Keith Laybourn and John Shepherd. Manchester University Press, Manchester 2017. xix, 266 pp. Ill. £75.00. (E-book: £90.00).

British labour history has been one of the dominant areas of historical research in the last sixty years. This tribute to Professor Chris Wrigley offers a collection of essays in which British labour historians reflect on the wide range of Wrigley’s research and publications over the years. The twelve contributions in this collection focus on trade unionism, the co-operative movement, the rise and fall of the Labour Party, and working-class life, comparing the British and German labour movements, examining the social and political labour activities of the Lansburys and exploring the connection between the Communist Party and punk rock.

Milcoy, Katharine. When the Girls Come Out to Play. Teenage Working-Class Girls’ Leisure between the Wars. Bloomsbury Academic, London 2017. x, 166 pp. Ill. £58.50. (Paper: £17.99; E-book: £19.42).

This book provides a reassessment of the advent of teenage consumer culture by showcasing the experiences of working-class girls in England in the 1920s and 1930s. Dr. Milcoy demonstrates the persistence and ingenuity with which these teenagers gained access to the commercial leisure culture of the day. Focusing on the micro level, using oral testimonies from women who grew up in this period in Bermondsey in southeast London, she qualifies the material nature of class culture and shows that play, rather than work, became the primary mechanism for defining subjectivity and constructing femininity.

Ramsden, Stefan. Working-Class Community in the Age of Affluence. [Perspectives in Economic and Social History.] Routledge, London, 2017. x, 205 pp. Ill. £115.00. (E-book: £39.99).

Social investigators documented how the relative affluence of the 1950s and 1960s improved material quality of life for the working class, while eroding their commitment to the shared lifestyle in traditional communities. Dr. Ramsden constructs a historical analysis of the impacts of postwar affluence on the Yorkshire working-class community of Beverley to describe community life in detail in the three postwar decades. After an introductory essay, the author proceeds thematically, exploring change across areas of social life including family, neighbourhood, workplace, and associations. He concludes by rethinking assumptions about the decline of local solidarities and recognizes community as a key feature in twentieth-century working-class life.

Rappaport, Erika. A Thirst for Empire. How Tea Shaped the Modern World. Princeton University Press, Princeton (NJ) [etc.] 2017. xiv, 549 pp. $39.50; £32.95.

Tea has been one of the most popular commodities in the world. In this book, Professor Rappaport demonstrates the connections between the formation of markets in Great Britain, its colonies and its trading partners. Organized in three parts, this book first traces how Chinese tea was absorbed into British imperial culture and its economy between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. In the second part, she focuses on how the producers of the new imperial teas from India and Ceylon found and maintained markets in Britain between the nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries and in the third on the impact of decolonization on this imperial industry and tea’s consumer culture. See also Chris Nierstrasz’s review in this volume, pp. 337–339.

Sunningdale, the Ulster Workers’ Council Strike and the Struggle for Democracy in Northern Ireland. Ed. by David McCann and Cillian McGrattan. Manchester University Press, Manchester 2017. xvii, 217 pp. £90.00.

The Sunningdale experiment of 1973–1974 was the first attempt to establish peace in Northern Ireland through power sharing, although its provisions proved overly ambitious. The experiment floundered amid ongoing violence, ultimately collapsing as a result of the Ulster Workers’ Council strike. Many of the ideas first articulated in this period would resonate in later attempts to achieve peace. In twelve contributions in this volume, political historians and political scientists elaborate on the experiment, reactions to the framework at the time, on what became of those ideas in subsequent years, and what lessons we can learn looking back on Sunningdale more than forty years later.

Hungary

Szapor, Judith. Hungarian Women’s Activism in the Wake of the First World War. From Rights to Revanche. Bloomsbury, London [etc.] 2018. xii, 207 pp. Ill. £76.49.

In this book, the author examines women’s activism during the period 1913–1919, describing the dynamics of the competing liberal, Christian–conservative, socialist, radical socialist, and right-wing nationalist women’s movements and devotes special attention to women activists of the Right. Using a wide range of archival, written and visual sources, Professor Szapor argues that illiberal ideas on family and gender roles of the right-wing women’s movement, combined with the extreme nationalist ideology of the interwar period, greatly contributed to the success of Horthy’s regime. The author also looks at the long shadow that anti-liberal, nationalist notions of gender and family cast on Hungarian society and provides an explanation for their persistent appeal in the post-communist era.

Italy

Bertolo, Amedeo. Anarchistes et fiers de l’être. Six essais et une autobiographie. Atelier de création libertaire / Réfractions, Lyon 2018. 236 pp. Ill. € 16.00.

Amedeo Bertolo (1941–2016) was a well-known activist and theorist of anarchism, one of the leading figures of the Italian libertarian movement at the end of the twentieth century. He organized and participated in international conferences and took part in militant activity within anarchist groups and tried to unite them. This volume brings together his main contributions to anarchist thought: “Pour une définition des nouveaux patrons”, “La mauvaise herbe subversive”, “L’imaginaire subversive”, “Pouvoir, autorité, domination”, “Au-delà de la démocratie, l’anarchie”, “Les fanatiques de la liberté”, and “Éloge du cidre”. All texts were originally in Italian and have been translated into French.

Oltre il 1945. Violenza, conflitto sociale, ordine pubblico nel dopoguerra. A cura di Enrico Acciai, et al. [I libri di Viella, 250.] Viella, Roma 2017. 225 pp. € 27.20.

World War II concluded a long period of political, military, and social conflict, although the hostilities, cultures, and practices of violence persisted in Italy and in many other European countries. Behaviour dictated by inertia and new aggression, simmering revenge, dashed hopes, old claims, and revived antagonisms instigated violence rooted in the conflict but reactivated in the context of the Cold War and the difficult transition to democracy that marked postwar Europe. Many of these twelve essays elaborate on social unrest and violence in Italy within the European context.

Russia – Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Bushnell, John. Russian Peasant Women Who Refused to Marry. Spasovite Old Believers in the 18th–19th Centuries. Indiana University Press, Bloomington (IN) 2017. vii, 339 pp. Maps. $85.00. (Paper: $40.00; E-book $39.99).

Analysis of church records and provincial archives reveals surprising marriage patterns in Russian peasant villages in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In some villages, the rate of unmarried women reached seventy per cent. The Old Believer Spasovite covenant was the religious group identified with peasant women averse to marrying. Professor Bushnell argues that some of these women might have had more agency in the decision to marry than peasant tradition ordinarily allowed and explores the social and economic impacts these decisions had on the villages, sometimes dragging entire households into poverty and dissolution.

Spain

Clase antes que nación. Trabajadores, movimiento obrero y cuestión nacional en la Cataluña metropolitana, 1840–2017. Ed. by José Luís Oyón and Juanjo Romero. El Viejo Topo, Barcelona 2017. 461 pp. € 24.00.

The labour movement and the European working classes showed little inclination towards nationalism until 1914. The eleven contributions in this volume examine the links between class consciousness and Catalan nationalism by considering changes in the composition of the world of work, the decline of the traditional factory proletariat, political fragmentation, and deterioration of class consciousness. The authors conclude that neither in the nineteenth century, nor during the twentieth century did workers in this area prioritize national or territorial questions over class interests. The results presented here indicate that the working class of metropolitan Barcelona has always placed its own class before the nation.

Lawrence, Mark. The Spanish Civil Wars. A Comparative History of the First Carlist War and the Conflict of the 1930s. Bloomsbury, London 2017. vii, 255 pp. Ill. £21.00.

This book provides a comparative history of the domestic and international nature of Spain’s First Carlist War (1833–1840) and the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), as well as the impact of both conflicts. Prefaced by a brief introduction, the book is arranged in two sections. One is devoted to domestic aspects of the Spanish civil wars, such as battlefronts, home fronts, and memory and legacy, while in the other international aspects figure, e.g. comparing the imperial origins of both civil wars, relating them to Latin America and Morocco, diplomatic and military interventions by foreign powers, the experiences of foreign volunteers, and the impact of defeat and exile.

Moradiellos, Enrique. Franco. Anatomy of a Dictator. I.B. Tauris, London 2018. x, 246 pp. Ill. Maps. £20.00; $30.00.

At the time of his death, Franco had been the head of a dictatorial regime for almost forty years. In this book, Professor Moradiellos redraws Franco in three dimensions: Franco the man, Franco the dictator, and Franco’s Spain, thereby reappraising Franco’s personality, his leadership style, and the nature of the regime he established and led until his death. A study of his regime and its historical evolution sheds new light on fundamental questions in European history, including the social and cultural bases for totalitarian or authoritarian challenges to democracy and sources of political legitimacy grounded in the charisma of a leader.