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Labour/Le Travailleur

Reviews / Comptes Rendus

Volume 60, Fall 2007

URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/llt60rv01

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Publisher(s) Canadian Committee on Labour History

ISSN 0700-3862 (print) 1911-4842 (digital)

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Cite this review (2007). Review of [Reviews / Comptes Rendus]. Labour/Le Travailleur, 60, 249–332.

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Faith Johnston, A Great Restlessness: ted to romantic adventure and when the The Life and Politics of Dorise Nielsen communist movement in Canada could (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press no longer provide enough excitement to 2006) keep up her adrenaline levels, she re-emi- grated, upping the ante not only by going She was born Doris Webber in London, yet again to an arena that guaranteed an England in 1902 and died, with a long- uncertain future but somewhere where left husband’s surname and an affected she did not even speak the language. “e” added to her christened name, in Bei- Indeed, in the 23 years Dorise Nielsen jing, China in 1980. In between, she lived spent in China, she never really mastered 31 years in Canada (1926–57), filling the the language. She supported herself mod- roles of rural teacher, farmer, political eling the speaking of English to party activist, Member of Parliament, party workers being educated for international worker. contact and correcting fractured idi- What motivates someone like Dorise oms in documents and communications Nielsen? Certainly her experience as translated for official purposes. But it is unhappy wife to an unsuccessful dirt also clear that a major role Dorise played farmer in a place (northern Saskatch- in Beijing was that of a leading member ewan) and time (Depression) guaranteed of a showcase of resident and subsidized to leave only the moribund unpoliticized foreigners, westerners prized for their was a defining factor, but I think only in dedication to the cause and used as pub- terms of the direction she took, not in lic symbols of international support for terms of the general manner in which she Mao’s regime. The conclusion that she rel- lived her life. Johnston locates Nielsen’s ished this role as a figurehead committed modus operandi in a “great restlessness” to communist ideals is supported by the and provides information that indi- fact that she never seriously considered cates her family found her challenging leaving, rolled without great personal even before she left England. Her largely angst with the punches of the Cultural uninformed plan to emigrate to remote Revolution, and handily wrote off long Saskatchewan evoked distress from her friendships with people who could not mother, derision from her brother, and keep the faith, at least not without doubts stubborn determination from Dorise, and the asking of awkward questions. At once she became aware of their resistance. the end, she was given a memorial ser- For someone who spent her life working vice at the cemetery for revolutionary for that most intellectually identified heroes. In this, she managed a continuity of international movements – Marx- of acceptance not commonplace to others ism expressed in the political arena in in her expatriate community. variously named versions of communism I may have made her sound like an – Dorise always in the end stayed true adventuress, which of course she was, but to her feelings. Hers was a life commit- she could have chosen to live a life com-

Table of Contents for Reviews, pp. 5–6 .

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mitted to a less admirable ideal than that ful piece of luck that allowed her to sup- of everyone contributing what they can port her children and also to allow her to to their society and taking back only what use her god-given gifts in a way that was they need. Beyond that, Johnston con- meaningful to her. A talented and attrac- tends that Dorise likely incorporated little tive speaker, Dorise Nielsen became a from Marxism into her own intellectual political propagandist and for one term makeup, despite committed, decades- during World War II, was Canada’s first long study and note-taking. For this rea- Communist and third female to serve as a son, it is unlikely that she struggled much member of the House of Commons. with the wavering nature of the party It was the instability of Saskatchewan line. She probably did not have deep intel- political weather in the late thirties that lectual needs for clarity and logic. What provided the opportunity for Nielsen’s she did seem to understand instinctually election to the House of Commons in however was the importance of discipline March 1940 as a so-called “unity can- as an anchor for a, well, restless personal- didate,” meaning hers was a candidacy ity. Her dogged dedication to living out that had been negotiated among various the textbook life of a “communist” is her factions of the fractured prairie left out most apparent demonstration of aware- of which ccf predominance would even- ness of herself as someone who, if left to tually rise. She was more than able to drift, would do so. do justice to the job. Her stamina in the There were four children in all this, one face of endless car trips over bad roads, of whom died in the meaningless tragedy her ability to take enjoyment in deliver- too many prairie pioneers were doomed ing constant slight variances of the same to act out. The other three had erratic message in community after commu- childhoods and were pursued in adult- nity, her cheerfulness in times of little hood by the demons that unhappy child- food and poor accommodation, the fact hoods breed. Paternal alcoholism and that she cleaned up well on a non-exis- maternal restlessness reproduced them- tent budget for clothes and hygiene, her selves in various guises at various times acceptance without sentimentality that in Dorise and Peter Nielsen’s descen- her need to make a living for them must dants. Still, it is difficult to imagine a inevitably mean hard times for her chil- trouble-free life for children born into a dren, all these were of great worth to the grinding poverty that their parents had Communist Party of Canada, with which not prepared for, that their parents had she was first secretly and later openly no control over, and that precious few affiliated. Blessed with an acolyte’s abil- other people seemed concerned enough ity to follow the party line (which in this about to do anything. period included dancing to the changes of Describing the desperate circum- Stalin’s relationship with Hitler), Nielsen stances of parts of the prairies during seemed to be able to turn on a dime and the Depression is one of the many things to take just as much enjoyment in driving Faith Johnston does well in this biog- a point home one day that she had cheer- raphy. People were forced into taking fully and wittily refuted the day before. actions that were both distressing and That her speeches were a delight is not in necessary. Children were boarded out question. Even the Mounties who were with strangers, wives stayed with hus- spying on her said so in their reports. The bands who had lovers, fathers left and cpc had a good show woman and it used were virtually never heard from again. her in every way that it could. In all this, Dorise Nielsen had a wonder- “Use” was of course the operative

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word. As soon as Fred Rose entered the dian historiography. This book informs House by way of a by-election in Québec, us on aspects of women, the left, the west, Dorise found herself juniored. Failing to and on Canada’s place in international find re-election in 1945, Dorise had to communism. And, not least, it introduces accept being centred in Toronto as part us to a fascinating character, one whose of working for the party, despite her years restless life is worth the telling, in and of of effective service in the west. Faced itself. with a wide variety of issues it wanted to Janice Dickin talk about, the party relegated Dorise to University of Calgary women’s issues. All this, despite the fact that she was the big draw for public lec- tures. She pulled in the crowd but it was Carolyn Podruchny, Making the the boys who got to go for glory. Voyageur World: Travelers and Traders By 1955, by which time her youngest in the North American Fur Trade child was 21, Dorise left Canada looking (Toronto: University of Toronto Press for a more authentic revolutionary expe- 2006) rience. After a period in England, she and the man who had been for some time Most societies have created a series of her significant other, stumbled towards convenient stereotypes that represent in Beijing, where she found her last career. shorthand form crucial aspects of their Johnston comments on the loneliness shared history and sense of identity: John that marked Nielsen’s last years there Bull and Jolly Jack Tar do the job for Eng- but isolation was always a continuing land, while Uncle Sam and possibly G.I. theme in her life. She was at odds as a Joe or Huck Finn serve similar functions child with her family, frustrated in post- for Americans. In Canada, we seemingly wwi England with its dearth of men, an rely on Mounties most in this regard, but English urban immigrant who felt keenly voyageurs too are regularly invoked as the brutality of prairie life, estranged symbols of a larger Canadianness. in turn from a husband and two lovers, Carolyn Podruchny begins this book estranged repeatedly from her children, by exploring the voyageur’s “highly vis- estranged from her fellow communist ible profile in popular culture and his- expats. Estranged. tory.” Since at least the late 18th and early This was not a happy life but it was a 19th centuries, a succession of artists, purposeful one. Dorise Nielsen chose including fiction and non-fiction writers, her track and remained committed to it. have portrayed the voyageur in a number It was also madly interesting. Names of of enduring archetypes. Podruchny notes Canada’s left abound in the book: Buck, a few, such as the voyageur as a willing Rose, Kashtan, Lewis. And of course a workhorse, as a merry, reckless wastrel, host of others they dealt with. Johnston’s and as a living embodiment of frontier research has been painstaking and she freedom and lack of constraint. In fact, has presented the political story with- many voyageurs chose to portray them- out making it all sound like some sort of selves in similar ways when given the sporting tournament, a frequent fault of chance. For example, in the 1850s Alex- historians who ask us to confuse drudg- ander Ross quotes an old voyageur as ing through detail with watching the claiming, “There is no life so happy as a game. voyageur’s life; none so independent; no Faith Johnston has made a valuable place where a man enjoys so much vari- contribution to various streams in Cana- ety as in Indian country.” This voyageur

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also boasted that he had spent everything grain” of existing archival materials, and he had earned on “the enjoyment of plea- “unpacking the meaning” of voyageur sure,” that he had had 12 wives, 50 horses rituals and behaviours. (8–9) Using these and six running dogs over his career, methods, Podruchny offers a collective and given the chance he would “glory” in biography of an otherwise largely voice- doing it all over again. (10) less group, but it is one that relies more Despite this attention in popular cul- on Carlos Ginzberg than Karl Marx and ture and history, voyageurs have actu- Mikhail Bakhtin than Mikhail Bakunin. ally received very little serious scholarly Her approach suggests to Podruchny that attention. In 1931, Grace Lee Nute pub- voyageurs’ lives were shaped by three lished a study of voyageurs and their role major influences: their Canadien peas- in the fur trade, but since then academic ant roots, their close and almost continu- historians have really limited their atten- ous contact with Aboriginal peoples, and tion to a few very specific issues such as their workplace experiences. Together voyageur recruitment, the logistics of fur Podruchny argues these influences trade transportation, and more recently ensured that voyageurs lived in a near fur trade labour relations and marriage constant state of transition, or liminality, and family patterns. In the latter cases, that encouraged them to exhibit “fluidity, voyageurs occasionally enter the story inventiveness, and an openness to differ- but they are rarely central to it. This book ent cultural practices.” (15) then represents a long overdue reappraisal Podruchny uses the idea of transi- of the lives of a very significant group of tions and voyages to structure the book, working men who collectively made the which begins with a chapter on “leaving Montreal-based fur trade possible during home” – in essence voyageur origins and the period from the early 18th to the early recruitment. She then explores voyageur 19th centuries and especially between rites of passage and rituals, particu- 1763 and 1821. larly those that marked the transitions Podruchny’s goal is not simply to pro- as voyageurs traveled deeper into the vide a scholarly assessment of the rela- interior and more fully into a fur trade tionship between voyageur myth and way of life, voyageurs’ work and work reality, but to try to squeeze the meaning relations, the social life and activities of out of the various bits and pieces of his- voyageurs, post life, and voyageurs’ rela- torical evidence that have survived about tions with Aboriginal women. The book voyageurs and their world. The central finishes with a final substantive chapter problem is that there is precious little on the journey’s end – leaving the trade direct evidence from voyageurs them- to return home or take up a new life in selves about their lives. There are almost the North West as what fur trade compa- no letters, diaries, memoirs, or other nies called “freemen.” The latter, former forms of direct voyageur archival records fur trade employees who stayed on to and few archaeological or other material work as independent trappers, tripmen, culture objects with which to recreate and sometimes traders, have recently the voyageur world. Instead voyageurs attracted considerable attention from are largely seen through the eyes of other historians who see these “freemen,” who observers such as their employers. were often former voyageurs, as crucial to As a result, Podruchny suggests that the formation of a distinct Métis identity entry into their world can really only be in the North West. undertaken through a process of “reading The result is a rich and complex study beyond the words,” “reading against the with some interesting methodological

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implications for future fur trade schol- reviewers often focus upon. The point ars. It subtly rebukes generations of fur really is that while this book is not per- trade historians for their rather literal, fect and it will not appeal equally to all and unenterprising, readings of archival readers, it is a very good and very wel- materials, and suggests that there are come addition to scholarship on the fur ways to use available documentation to trade. It is also an excellent object les- reach deeper understanding of the lives of son to researchers that some old subjects ordinary people who have not left many are worth revisiting, and that fur trade archival records of their own creation. records can be used profitably by scholars In fact, despite a wide and very thorough with an interest in labour, social, sports, survey of available archival and published cultural and other types of history besides primary documentation, Podruchny only the analysis of trade and trade relations. found one letter written by a voyageur Michael Payne to his Canadien wife in 1830 in archival City of Edmonton Archives collections. Even this letter was probably penned by a clerk or missionary on behalf of its purported author, Jean Mongle. Martin Petitclerc, « Nous protégeons Probably the best feature of this book, l’infortune », les origines populaires however, is its willingness to explore new de l’économie sociale au Québec aspects of the voyageur’s world beyond (Montréal: VLB Éditeur 2007) the staple topics of different canoe types, trade routes, numbers of packs carried Cet ouvrage de Martin Petitclerc, inspiré on portages, and the vast quantities of de sa thèse de doctorat, constitue le pre- pemmican, corn, and pork fat voyageurs mier effort sérieux pour mettre en lumière consumed on their journeys. The range l’importance de la mutualité ouvrière of topics Podruchny covers in this book canadienne-française dans la deuxième is impressive, but the problem on occa- moitié du 19e siècle. En abordant le sujet en sion is that not all are equally susceptible tant que phénomène social et non comme to her reading beyond the words and une simple activité économique, il nous against the grain. For example, the short offre une réflexion audacieuse des débuts discussion of whether or not voyageurs de ces organisations au Québec. L’auteur could have engaged in homosexuality soutient que les sociétés de secours mutu- (196–98) seems forced. The documentary els ont « représenté une forme originale de evidence is all but non-existent, and the résistance populaire dans le contexte de la only conclusion Podruchny can reach transition à une société de marché. » (17) is that they might have – or maybe not. L’analyse se base principalement sur It seems hardly worth raising the topic. le cas de l’Union Saint-Joseph de Mon- Sharp-eyed readers may also note the tréal auquel s’ajoutent quelques exem- odd, very minor, error such as her claim ples d’associations québécoises. Son (76) that Le Rocher de Miette, or Roche argumentation se divise en huit chapitres, Miette, near Jasper means “small rocks.” à la fois thématiques et chronologiques. No one has actually identified the Miette Le premier et le deuxième chapitres of this considerable landmark, although nous présentent l’ascension de la mutu- the Lesser Slave Lake post journals men- alité ouvrière. Elle prit forme à la suite tion a freeman named Miyette, but the d’initiatives de la classe populaire pour name is almost certainly commemorative former leurs propres organisations de pré- rather than descriptive. voyance. La faillite de plusieurs banques These are the kind of minor issues d’épargne et l’immoralité du commerce

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de la vie relié à l’assurance avaient incité occasion beaucoup d’instabilité et même les travailleurs à s’organiser pour contrer la faillite de plusieurs d’entre elles. Cette l’adversité. De plus, les pionniers de la situation incita une nouvelle génération mutualité étaient encouragés par une lég- de mutualistes, issue de la bourgeoisie, à islation favorable aux mouvements asso- prendre en main les sociétés de secours ciatifs à partir des années 1850. Ainsi, mutuels vers les années 1880, changeant plus d’une centaine de ces associations le statut de cette forme de prévoyance furent fondées durant la deuxième moitié en la transformant en marchandise. Il du 19e siècle. en résulta la montée des sociétés frater- Les chapitres trois, quatre et cinq insis- nelles, formant ainsi une rupture impor- tent sur le caractère ouvrier des sociétés tante avec l’aspect social qu’avait connu de secours mutuels ainsi que leur résis- la mutualité jusqu’à ce jour. tance aux tentatives de contrôle des élites Par ce livre, Petitclerc fait deux pierres sociales et du clergé. Ces derniers pro- d’un coup, s’affichant comme pionnier mouvaient l’individualisme et le libéral- dans le domaine des sociétés de secours isme auxquels les travailleurs refusaient mutuels et traitant de la résistance de de se soumettre. C’est que la mutualité la classe populaire envers la transition ouvrière représentait une façon de lut- à une société de marché. L’originalité ter contre les valeurs individualistes de cette approche lui permet de parer reliées au développement de l’économie au manque de sources concernant les de marché. Son fonctionnement reposait sociétés de secours mutuels au 19e siè- sur l’entraide entre les membres, donnant cle. C’est d’ailleurs la concentration de lieu à la pratique de la mutualité pure, son argumentation sur le cas de l’Union c’est-à-dire à des cotisations égalitaires. Saint-Joseph de Montréal qui représente Ces associations dépassaient la sphère le point faible de la recherche, mais Petit- économique et se fondaient sur une socia- clerc en est conscient. (137) De ce fait, bilité, stimulée par de nombreuses activi- l’analyse s’applique difficilement aux tés obligatoires. Les membres formaient plus petits centres industriels avec un ce que Petitclerc qualifie de « famille fic- contexte socioéconomique différent, où tive. » Cette forme de solidarité permit certaines sociétés de secours mutuels se aussi « d’autodiscipliner » la classe ouvr- sont développées en étroite relation avec ière, favorisant une « éthique collectiv- le clergé et les élites locales. Ainsi, afin de iste » et ouvrant la voie au syndicalisme. comprendre les objectifs de l’association, Les chapitres six, sept et huit expli- une classification des sociétés de secours quent le déclin des sociétés de secours mutuels selon l’idéologie unificatrice de mutuels pratiquant la mutualité pure au ses membres serait nécessaire, à savoir si la profit d’une mutualité axée sur la gestion sociabilité reposait sur un idéal ouvrier, scientifique du risque. Les « techniques paroissial ou même national. La considéra- modernes » administratives, beaucoup tion de ces facteurs dans l’argumentation plus proches de l’assurance et de la société n’aurait pas changé la teneur de son anal- libérale, allaient à l’encontre des valeurs yse, mais aurait apporté plusieurs nuances d’entraide et de sociabilité, entraînant importantes, du moins en ce qui a trait une forte résistance au sein de ses asso- au développement de la mutualité. ciations face aux réformes de la mutu- Pierrick Labbé alité. Toutefois, la précarité financière Université d’Ottawa de la plupart des petites organisations locales les rendaient dépendantes des cycles économiques, causant par la même

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Eric Tucker, ed. Working Disasters: The themselves fighting against well rooted Politics of Recognition and Response assumptions that support a system of (Amityville, NY: Baywood Publishing labour in which workers are denied a 2006) stake in the product, process, or social- ity of the activity to which they devote People are shocked to hear about a the best part of their lives; or put another death on the street or in a public place, way, just as we accept the systemic subor- and even more shocked when they hear dination and powerlessness of workers as that the death resulted from an assault. normal, so do we accept as uneventful the When hundreds die in such circum- tragedy of workplace injury and death. stances, we call it a ‘disaster,’ and expect It was only recently, after all, that those the authorities to act with justice and who control the world of work were even urgency. expected to be concerned about the health When is the death of a worker in the and safety of their workers, and even now, workplace noticed? Or, more to the point, this official concern is still in a precarious when does the death of numbers of work- state. The social constructions governing ers attract enough attention to elicit recognition and response are fundamen- shock, outrage, and demand for change tally political, Tucker points out, because in working conditions or regulation to divergent social interests, motives, and protect these people? knowledge generate competing descrip- It mostly does not happen, even in tions of reality. Since capital is more pow- cases where hundreds of workers are erful and better organized than labour, it injured or die, and in Working Disasters: is much better able to have its versions of The Politics of Recognition and Response, reality accepted as dominant. Eric Tucker and his contributing authors This is the basis of a political economy analyze a number of high-profile ‘working of recognition and response, to which disasters’ to see why this is so. The book the book adds a penetrating analysis of is well researched, analytically rigorous industrial relations and institutions of and, above all, political. It lays bare the state that could be used to question even outlines of the social process of disaster the most ‘noble’ of disasters, e.g. those recognition and the political-economic that end tragically for such voluntary process of response through absorbing risk takers as police, firemen, soldiers examination of disasters connected to and astronauts. Are these ‘heroes’ really the variety of occupations and work- ‘voluntary risk takers?’ Tucker asks, or are ing conditions in which these disasters they workers who put too much faith in occurred. the care and competence of their man- The central thesis is that the recogni- agers? Even ‘natural disasters’ such as tion and quality of response to an inci- hurricanes raise questions about the vul- dent involving death or injury depends nerability of the community because of on prevailing ‘social constructions’ which contingent social or political conditions. dictate what qualifies as a ‘disaster.’ A study of long-haul truck transport When it comes to the workplace, these in Australia by Michael Quinlan, Claire constructions reflect a social context in Mayhew, and Richard Johnstone demon- which the death and incapacitation of strates, amongst other things, how rec- workers has been by and large accepted, ognition can be impeded where fatalities that is, normalized and legitimized. are incremental and widespread. In this Those who demand appropriate recogni- case, regulatory responses were based tion and response to such a disaster find on Highway Traffic rules, rather than

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occupational health and safety, and were by the community and union came up totally inadequate to address problems against a persistent pattern of minimal- created by a subcontracting system that ization, as the government of the day was caused excessive hours, speeding, and more concerned about economic conse- use of drug stimulants. A ‘blame the vic- quences that would follow from recogni- tim’ theme adopted by safety authorities tion. Not only did excessively high dust and media focused on driver behaviour, levels persist throughout, but many dis- and employed an increasingly influential abled miners died awaiting compensa- neo-liberal focus on individual agency, tion. The extent to which injury statistics responsibility, and risk management, are dependent on acceptance of claims rather than notions of collective welfare by a wcb reflects a ‘political economy of and state intervention. knowledge’ which determines whether a In another study, Andrew Hopkins problem will even surface in the public contrasts the lack of recognition and domain. appropriate response in road transport to Even where work-relatedness is admit- an epidemic of Repetitive Strain Injuries ted, as was the case of silicosis amongst (rsi) in Australia in which he illustrates Swedish metal workers in the post-war the importance of dominant vocabulary. period, the immediate response was to Recognition in this case was signaled begin monitoring workers rather than to by the term ‘injury’ rather than ‘occu- engage in prevention. Annette Thörnquist pational neurosis’ or even ‘regional pain provides a political economic analysis of syndrome,’ a term initially advocated by unequal power relations between workers some medical authorities. The cause of and employers to explain why authorities the epidemic was not just in new technol- chose this route, rather than regulating ogy, as is so often argued, but rather in exposure, which is under the control of a labour process shaped by speed-up and the employer, in the process legitimiz- staff cutbacks. In this case, recognition ing the continued exposure of workers led to response, as the Labour govern- to silica. She speculates that an effective ment drafted regulations on speed and response might also have been impeded regular breaks. Employees were reclassi- by the Swedish model of industrial rela- fied as administrative assistants, assigned tions, which emphasizes union-manage- broader duties, and provided ergonomi- ment co-operation and self-regulation in cally-designed furniture. In the United a heavily centralized collective bargain- States, however, where the prominent ing environment. explanation of the epidemic was based on When the Pemberton Mills building the concept of ‘neurosis,’ corresponding collapsed in Massachusetts in 1860 kill- explanations tended to take responsibil- ing over 100 workers, mainly women and ity away from the workplace, with the girls, and injuring many more, response result that workers’ compensation was was separated from recognition. While denied to many injured workers. the event was readily labeled a disaster by The role of Workers’ Compensation the press and community, and a disaster Boards (wcb) in shaping recognition and relief fund was established, there was no response is well-illustrated in the strug- response targeting either the insufficient gle of fluorspar miners in St. Lawrence, regulatory apparatus of the state, nor the Newfoundland to gain recognition for negligient employer. Patricia Reeve notes the lung diseases from which they were that a lack of an organized labour move- dying in the mid-20th century. Richard ment of mill workers and community was Rennie describes how political action partially to blame. Unfortunately, the

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nature of the response actually undercut the public that nothing is fundamentally the self-respect and confidence of work- wrong, i.e. that everything possible (and ers, as repeated narratives of employer practical) is being done to prevent future avarice and negligence produced an disasters. Even criminal prosecution, by image of employee susceptibility – indeed decontextualizing and individualizing helplessness – raising doubts about the events, can serve to legitimate inadequate fitness of workers to participate in social health and safety management and regu- and political life because of their vulner- lation by creating the impression that ability and lack of independence. there are only a few ‘bad apples’ in an oth- Even where a working disaster is rec- erwise healthy box. Susan Dodd traces ognized, response may be short-lived. the evolution of explanations produced David Whyte explains how public reac- by official enquiries into the long string tion to the 1988 North Sea Piper Alpha of coal mine disasters in Nova Scotia, to disaster that killed 176 momentarily dis- show how each drew attention away from rupted the ‘self-regulatory’ approach that the responsibility of both the employer had become dominant in a ‘hot’ British and the state. economy fueled by an oil boom. Costly This book performs a truly valu- preventive controls were introduced, but able service in drawing attention to the as soon as attention died, the oil industry political nature of responses to death mounted a campaign that led to a loosen- and injury in the workplace. Whether ing of regulatory controls combined with an incident is classified as a disaster is an intensification of the work process. of secondary importance, however; the British legislators accepted the industry’s book’s major contribution is to provide a arguments that it needed to become more political economy of occupational health ‘efficient’ to survive. and safety generally, as well as the closely Three chapters examine the 1992 related field of workers’ compensation. Westray Mine explosion that killed 26 In Canada, as in most of the industrial- miners in Nova Scotia, and led to a series ized world, information on work-related of public enquiries, reviews, criminal injury, disease, or death is heavily depen- prosecutions, and civil litigation that dent on recognition by Workers’ Compen- severely impugned the legitimacy of sation Boards. Only when they recognize the province’s Occupational Health and cases as ‘arising out of and in the course Safety regime. Fourteen years later, how- of employment,’ amongst other criteria, ever, not a single individual or organiza- do they gain reality as a work-related dis- tion had been held legally accountable ease, injury, or death. In this way, wcbs despite clear evidence of blatant disregard play a key role in shaping the social con- for safety by the company and the com- structions that normalize and legitimize plete failure of the inspectorate. In the death and injury in our workplaces,in end, public inquiries reaffirmed a model addition to removing them from the of occupational health and safety based criminal sphere in which they could be on internal responsibility that could have treated as the outcome of assaults. One been in severe jeopardy. has only to examine the decisions of case Richard Johnstone and Eric Tucker managers, appeal tribunals, and courts to show that when a disaster disrupts peo- appreciate the latitude that is enjoyed by ple’s unreflective acceptance of dominant wcbs, and to appreciate the significance social and productive relations, inqui- of Tucker’s book. ries can have the effect of reconstruct- Had this book devoted more space to ing the event in such a way as to reassure the more mundane world of occupational

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health and safety, it might have drawn Malek Khouri and Darrell Varga, eds. even more attention to the role that trade Working on Screen: Representations of unions play in all of this, as it is in their the Working Class in Canadian Cinema daily scrimmages with management and (Toronto: University of Toronto Press state authorities that trade unions chal- 2006) lenge the monopoly which employers, their managers, and public administra- Ideally, a collection of essays on a tors would otherwise enjoy in decid- cinematic genre or other related category ing what is work-related, and therefore (feminism, for example, or a national cin- requiring response. The breakthroughs ema) should accomplish a number of goals. that trade unions were able to make into The essays should collectively illuminate the joint administration of the workplace films most of us know well, introduce us to in the 1970’s and 80’s marked the height films we have missed or neglected, argue of this movement in Canada, as even non- for a new interpretation of films we have union workplaces enjoyed a degree of perhaps treated like poor relations, and representation in joint workplace occu- finally provide the collection with some pational health and safety committees. overarching themes. This collection of 13 Across North America, Europe, and essays edited by Malek Khouri and Dar- in other parts of the world, trade unions rell Varga (who also contribute essays of took action in their workplaces and com- their own and an introduction) succeeds munities, sponsored studies, and took admirably on all counts. part in commissions of inquiry to shape The essays are neatly divided into four countervailing explanations of work- categories: “Workers, History, and Histo- place injury and death that forced states riography,” with essays on labour films, and employers to respond. By not giving the Canadian Communist Party, and the trade union movement the atten- cbc’s landmark Canada: A People’s His- tion it deserves, some readers might be tory; “Work, Gender, and Sexuality,” with left with the notion that the solution for more narrowly focused essays on the sala- workers facing death and injury in the cious classic Valerie, hockey films, gay workplace lies in an outraged public, a themes in The Hanging Garden, and the vigilant press, concerned legislators, or well-known Margaret’s Museum; “Dirty even in academia. These certainly play Work,” with essays on the Women’s a role, but more often do not escape the Labour History Project and the Chinese- effect of unequal power relations in soci- Canadian Dirty Laundry; and “Working ety. Workers’ health and safety concerns on National Cinema,” with essays focused are primarily recognized and effective on Québécois cinema, top-down films responses are won when unions are in a (Final Offer and Canada’s Sweetheart: position to challenge the power of employ- The Saga of Hal C. Banks), class and race ers, or when progressive forces, including (especially Rude and Soul Survivor), and sympathetic academics, coalesce to form “metropolitan dystopias” (such as way- political alliances that compel employers downtown). And while this remarkable and the state to make needed changes. In survey may occasionally miss a Canadian the end, this is the conclusion that Work- film worthy of discussion it nonetheless ing Disasters demands. travels border to border in an impressive Winston Gereluk manner. Athabasca University One might add that this collection offers a bonus: it discusses Canadian films in such a way that Canadians

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encounter their national cinema with- Although some of these groups some- out being bored with the obvious, while times “misleadingly conceive of them- non-Canadians (like myself), even if they selves, and/or are conceived by others, to may have seen many of the films dis- be beyond class or as part of a grand ‘mid- cussed in the essays, benefit greatly from dle,’” (6) the editors strive to include the the context and nuance developed by the formerly excluded. contributors. This program is admirable and for the The lead essay after the editors’ intro- most part determines the success of this duction begins with a lament by labour volume, a readable compendium of forays and labour film historian David Frank into films about all those members of the that there exists no guide to Canadian working class the editors have defined. labour films. He proceeds to outline such Readers should be aware, however, that a guide with examples from both docu- this inclusiveness comes with a price that mentary and feature film genres, from I suspect most readers will be willing to 1919 through the 1990s. The reasons for pay, that is, the contributors have great the absence of such a guide, Frank makes latitude in defining how their particular clear, are not surprising when the (mas- film or set of films will fit into the elastic sive) cbc/Radio-Canada production of rubric, “working class.” To take what may Canada: A People’s History offers only be an obvious and I hope not too facetious an “underwhelming” presence of actual example: Valerie (1968) is a defining film labour history. (A separate essay in the of “films de fesse” (or to use an equally volume by Varga covers that cbc produc- wonderful term, “maple syrup porn”); yet tion.) Instead of a volume on labour films, it is not only Valerie as a sex worker or then, this volume moves through a series even as a member of the working class of essays with much greater aspirations. that is the primary focus of Rebecca Sul- The editors set out their task succinctly livan’s essay. (“Work It Girl! Sex, Labour, in their very helpful introduction: “What and Nationalism in Valerie”) Instead she is absent from Canadian film studies shows how such films inevitably and inad- … is substantial analysis of class rela- equately represent “the modern liberated tions.”(4) What is present instead, clearly, women” in “sexual rather than economic is an extensive body of study that defines terms” as this dramatizes the perceived Canadian cinema “through the connota- status of women in Québec society. Simi- tion of national cultural traits that were larly Bart Beatty’s essay on hockey films imagined as specific to the Canadian (“Not Playing, Working: Class, Masculin- experience.”(3) This virtually all-class ity, and Nation in the Canadian Hockey approach has led to studies of “national Film”) foregrounds “the social spaces or regional identity” while “marginal- of urban, middle-class, white men as izing other aspects” such as work, class, nationally normative,” (113) especially the gender, and ethnicity. relationship of hockey to the media (“the What is to be done? According to the history of the cbc is … linked to that of editors, we must undo the marginalization hockey”(113)), its essential role in defin- of the working-class Canadian majority ing Canadian nationhood, and its func- – “a whole host of workers – white col- tion (similar to that of the National lar, teachers, intellectuals, agricultural Basketball Association in the usA) as an workers, civil servants, and the informa- economic escalator for the talented few; tion and technology sector,” not to men- hockey players as workers (e.g. struggling tion “the unemployed, women, racial for a union in Net Worth) are therefore and ethnic minorities, and children.” (6) not quite as important a focus.

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This tension between the osten- Canadian Film Encyclopedia (Film Refer- sible subject of the volume – “represen- ence Library at www.filmreferencelibrary. tations of the working class” – and its ca). While Frank’s “search” for a guide to inevitable survey of numerous related Canadian labour films remains to date themes that transcend the actual work- unfulfilled, Khouri and Varga’s volume ing class runs through a number of other will admirably serve in the meantime in essays. Essays by Malek Khouri and that capacity, among others. John McCullough illuminate brilliantly Tom Zaniello numerous problems associated with the Northern Kentucky University representation of gay and Black Canadian characters respectively but it is the gay- ness and racism at the centre of the films Cynthia Comacchio, The Dominion of (The Hanging Garden for the former and Youth: Adolescence and the Making of both Rude and Soul Survivor for the lat- Modern Canada, 1920 to 1950 (Waterloo: ter) that lead the writers to lament the Wilfrid Laurier Press 2006) absence of adequate dramatization of class relationships. This should not come At first I expected Cynthia Comac- as a surprise since there are virtually no chio’s new book on youth to be a welcome workers in any of these films, except per- and much-needed Canadian version of haps for the wonderful media (radio) con- Kelly Schrum’s Some Wore Bobby Sox: struct Rude herself, the voice that sums The Emergence of Teenage Girls’ Cul- up the film as one in which “the Zulu ture 1920–1945 (New York 2004). In nation meets the Mohawk nation.” (263) that important book, Schrum traced the An essay collection has to deliver the emergence of American female teen cul- goods over and over again. For the most ture, arguing that teenaged girls helped to part this volume succeeds. Despite my shape an evolving consumer culture and occasional apprehension that the real that there was a stage between childhood Canadian working class is in danger of and adulthood recognized by pundits, slipping away from the authors’ grasp, the marketers, and manufacturers as early as contributions of Joseph Kispal-Kovacs, the 1920s. While reaching a similar con- Peter Urquhart, and David Frank admira- clusion about consumer culture on this bly bring to the foreground auto workers, side of the border, The Dominion of Youth miners, and other representative workers offers much more. One of the most obvi- featured in such sturdy and important ous differences between this book and its films as Margaret’s Museum, Final Offer, American counterpart is that it deals with and Canada’s Sweetheart, despite the both sexes, and while Schrum’s study perhaps inevitable drift in the latter two fails to account for how youth managed to working-class leaders and mis-leaders. to finance their newfound preoccupa- This is a welcome addition to the ever- tion with consumerism, Comacchio does growing library both in print and on-line not overlook the various forms of paid of work on Canadian cinema. Its empha- employment young Canadians took up sis on class will only help sharpen the during their teen years. Indeed, Comac- debate on the Canadianness of Canadian chio goes even further when she ties the films, already joined by such works as emergence of youth culture in Canada to William Beard and Jerry White’s North the country’s own maturation process. of Everything: English Canadian Cinema Her chapters cover a wide range of topics Since 1980 (2002), Bill Marshall’s Qué- including theories about modern youth, bec National Cinema (2000), or even the intergenerational relations, dating and

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mating, high school culture, paid work, established that while “the historical leisure trends and activities, and youth trend was an overall lengthening of youth organizations. dependency, the end of adolescence To establish that a separate youth was materially designated.” Comacchio culture was emerging, Comacchio pays means that “the family’s economic situ- particular attention to the experience ation … determined the options available of attending high school which became to the young.” (144) Unlike youth in the more important from 1920 to 1950 than roaring twenties and those who found ever before. Indeed, the author asserts ample employment opportunities during that school activities “reflected and pro- World War II, the so-called “idle youth” jected the new social meanings ascribed of the Depression years were definitely to adolescence and consequently to the hard-pressed to find work, and this case high school as the key formative insti- highlights the generational differences. tution in the lives of young Canadians.” Moreover, the author consistently recog- (128) Yet, Comacchio points out that the nizes that class and rural/urban differ- experience was by no means a universal ences were always at play and thus, she one. Rural youth still did not share equal avoids generalizations. access to high school, because “attendance The book is certainly not “all work and often involved considerable expense for no play,” as evidenced in the chapter on the many rural youth who had to board “Dating and Mating” where Comacchio in towns or cities.” (110) Overall more asks whether “there was new participation youth were attending high school than in sexual activity among young Canadi- ever before, but the experience of going to ans as a result of a new morality.” (98) She school for a longer period did not auto- concedes that while concrete measures matically translate into actually gradu- and solid evidence about private behav- ating from high school and Comacchio iours are very difficult to find, there was is careful to differentiate between the much attention and discussion given over two. She cites a 1943 survey that found to such questions, both by adult observ- while 40% of youth wanted to enter the ers and by youth. In the end, Comac- professions, “only 5 to 6 per cent of high chio concludes that “the first small steps school students … actually went on to the toward sexual revolution were taken, but university courses that the professions the persistence of such ‘traditional’ con- demanded” – the vast majority were siderations managed to ground enough headed for vocational training to enter of the ‘flaming’ youth and the succeeding other kinds of paid employment. (156) generations to hold it off until the 1960s. After school young Canadians worked. The new morality that slowly took shape Some worked on a part-time basis dur- during this earlier period was real, but ing the school years, to pay for the “fads, not so much realized, at least not among fashions and fun” that became symbols most adolescents.” (98) of their generation. Others left school Adult concerns about youth also permanently at the age of 16, to take up encompassed how young people were full-time paid work in order to contribute spending their leisure time in public, a to the family economy, or as a personal subject taken up in Chapter 6, “At Play.” strategy to facilitate leaving the paren- While commercial entertainments tal home as soon as possible. Historians became more widely accepted through- of labour will be particularly interested out the period under consideration, there in the chapter “On the Job: Training was a lingering concern about delin- and Earning,” where the point is firmly quency. The various youth organizations

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that proposed to remedy that threat and King’s government as Comacchio repeat- to teach citizenship lessons are the sub- edly asserts. (43, 94, 153, 190, 203) The ject of Chapter 7, “At the Club.” While cyc had a broad base of representation many youth groups initially emanated and was not technically a government from the churches, they increasingly also initiative, which serves to reinforce the came from community-minded parents fact that concerns over youth welfare, who took the initiative. Closer examina- social education, and citizenship initia- tion of these community clubs shows that tives were coming from several sources the youth who participated were younger including, but not limited to, government versions of their middle-class adult spon- bodies. sors, and organized activities did not usu- This book about the creation and social ally succeed in reaching the target group construction of adolescence in Canada of so-called “problem youth.” will appeal to historians who are increas- Comacchio’s title is meant to invoke ingly turning their attention to the sec- double meaning. By “dominion,” she ond half of the 20th century, where youth means to indicate the space and terrain experiences and youth culture surface that youth occupied in the years between as major themes. As Comacchio clearly their childhoods and coming of age as demonstrates, the 1950s and 1960s did adults. Yet, she also means to explore this not mark the emergence of a youth cul- in the context of the nation itself. Describ- ture in Canada because a separate youth ing the purpose with which she began her culture predated that period by as much book, she said she wanted “to consider as 30 years. The Dominion of Youth clearly the development of modern adolescence and convincingly establishes that fact within the context of a nation that was and therefore it should become a stan- suffering the ‘growing pains’ of becoming dard reference on 20th-century youth a mature participant in the modern world and popular culture. order.” (211) One’s teen years are charac- Linda M. Ambrose terized by the struggle to establish self- Laurentian University identity, and because Canada was making forays onto the world stage in this period, the parallel between the young domin- John Boyko, Into the Hurricane: ion and her young citizens seems partic- Attacking Socialism and the CCF ularly apt. (Winnipeg: J. Gordon Shillingford In presenting the convergence between Publishing 2006) youth’s experiences and the country’s emerging national identity, Comacchio There are many reasons to view the makes several references to the national Co-operative Commonwealth Federation surveys of youth conducted in the 1940s as a benign group of “liberals in a hurry,” by the Canadian Youth Commission. to use Louis St. Laurent’s famous quip. The cyc is a rich source for the history Yet such a judgment would be very much of Canada’s youth, but the book is some- at odds with the assessments made by its what misleading with regard to the cyc. enemies who viewed the ccf as a serious Although the Commission was in step threat in the 1930s and particularly the with the kinds of post-war planning 1940s. The nature of the threat varied studies that the government was under- according to the fears of the authors but, taking, the cyc was in fact, an indepen- by any measure, the language of attack dent commission of inquiry originating was unrestrained. John Boyko has exam- with the ymca; it was not initiated by ined the “hurricane” of abuse directed at

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the ccf from a phalanx of conservative placed considerable weight on the ability propagandists, business people, news- of these two to mobilize right-wing sen- paper editors, clergy, and even Commu- timent and, more broadly, create uncer- nists. He suggests that the cumulative tainty about the character of a potential effect of this unrelenting barrage was to ccf government. Boyko has carefully erode the ccf’s base of support and even- plotted their campaigns and provides a tually relegate it, and socialism generally, striking picture of both their reach and to the margins of Canadian society. the nature of the message. Most interest- The strength of this volume lies in ing is the precocious Cold War language Boyko’s documentation of the extraor- they used from the moment the ccf hit dinary campaign undertaken by several the peak of its popularity in 1943. Very sectors of Canadian capital to discredit quickly, they conflated the ccf with com- the ccf. The insurance industry is a munism and, significantly, fascism, sug- prime example. Speaking to a popular gesting that they all constituted similar distrust of the growing wealth and power threats to freedom. This was the mes- of finance capital, the insurance industry sage, for instance, of Trestrail’s tract had been singled out by the ccf in the Social Suicide that was mailed to every Regina Manifesto as a prime target for English-language household in Canada socialization. The industry, not surpris- as well as adapted for advertisements in ingly, defended itself with a sweeping newspapers across the country. On the propaganda campaign. Equally predict- day of the 1945 federal election, drawing able were the similar activities of any on still-intense wartime sentiments, he number of broader business organiza- ran a nation-wide advertisement argu- tions such as the Canadian Chamber of ing Canadians were facing another “D- Commerce. The seriousness with which Day” in which, should the ccf win, “we they took the ccf challenge can be mea- would lose our individual freedom just sured in the scale of their activities as as completely as though we had lost the hundreds of thousands of pieces of litera- war.”(82) ture were distributed across the country. Such hyperbole, and the political This impact was multiplied by the role of analogies of the moment, help explain the daily press. Not only did editors jump what several historians have considered on the anti-ccf bandwagon, they often the ccf’s greatest blunder. Ontario ccf refused to print ccf advertising during leader Ted Jolliffe denounced Ontario election campaigns and rejected letters Premier George Drew’s illegal clandes- to the editor responding to attacks on the tine use of the Ontario Provincial Police ccf. Canadian liberal historiography that to spy on the ccf as “Gestapo tactics.” His celebrates the role of high-profile Cana- evidence was overwhelming and Jolliffe’s dian journalists and their connections choice of language very much in keep- with those in power should pay particular ing with that of his adversaries. Yet the heed to the manner in which they man- ccf’s lack of access to the press allowed aged to squelch other voices by means of its enemies to paint both the accusation, slander and innuendo. and the language, as outrageous. Indeed, Special mention has to be made of Boyko carefully reconstructs some of Gladstone Murray and Burdick Trestrail, the connections between these profes- two individuals who could probably be sional red-baiters and the Conservative best described as propaganda entrepre- Party including those who are generally neurs who built careers as anti-socialist overlooked in this regard, such as John gurus. Standard accounts of the ccf have Diefenbaker.

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Less successfully explored here is the have, quite explicitly, rejected the “social Communist Party’s campaigns against democratic” label that Boyko assumes the ccf. This is simply a different kind of can be applied unproblematically to the issue than the class-based attacks of the ccf. In fact, anti-socialists had reason to ccf’s bourgeois enemies and it requires be wary of a potential new wave of radi- a different kind of discussion. Key to calism and labour unity. explaining this contest on the left is an Boyko makes much of the Commu- understanding of the histories of both nists’ support of other parties against the ccf and the Communist Party, and the ccf in the 1940s. The point is well the international movements with which taken and is crucial to understanding the each was associated. This is no small task, evolution of the Communist Party away and Boyko tends to oversimplify the issues from an earlier notion of principled class at stake. For example, while the Commu- politics. But how widespread, and public, nists’ response to the emergence of the were these alliances? And why was the ccf was, in many ways, sectarian, the Liberal Party not tarred with the same notion that the Regina Manifesto’s call red-baiting brush as the ccf? Most well for the eradication of capitalism “should known is the case of Windsor where the have” put Woodsworth “in good stead” Liberals, particularly Paul Martin, ben- (120) with the Communists ignores both efited directly from Communist support the histories and self-perceptions of both rooted in the automobile plants. But the parties. Similarly, the debate about the chapter reads as if there were a general possibility of a popular front between Liberal-Communist alliance to stymie communists, socialists, and liberals was the ccf, which more than overstates the an extremely complex one and requires situation. a much more nuanced understanding of Generally speaking, Boyko’s discussion both the Communists’ strategy as well of the Communists is extraneous to his as recognizing that the ccf was far from focus on bourgeois opposition to the ccf. a homogeneous entity. Boyko wrongly Given the general theme of the book, it assumes that red-baiting attacks on the would have made more sense to attend ccf were always effective and the ccf to more liberal anti-socialism and to the had little choice but to react defensively Liberal Party which generally eschewed to them. Boyko documents Communist the kind of attacks by the Gladstones slanders and questionable maneuvers, and Trestrails and instead, famously, but it is equally necessary to recognize fought the ccf by adopting elements of that these two parties had clashed dur- the ccf’s program around social secu- ing the Depression and the legitimacy of rity. As dramatic as the “hurricane” was, the Soviet Union as an ally in World War the main beneficiary of the ccf’s decline Two gave credence to Canadian Commu- was not the Conservatives or the Com- nists. Communist appeals for working- munists, but the Liberal Party. Studying class unity could have wide appeal and reaction to the ccf requires recognizing the increasingly narrow electoral strat- the growing hegemony of a welfare-state- egy of the ccf was incapable of challeng- identified liberalism in the decades after ing the Communists’ strengths in areas the Second World War. of the labour movement and elsewhere. The other consequence of failing to There were many in the ccf who were recognize the salience of the liberal highly critical of the Communist Party, opposition to the ccf is to ignore the but sought to turn the ccf to more active consequences of the ccf’s response to the extra-parliamentary struggles and would red-baiting attacks, for the ccf increas-

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ingly took shelter under liberalism’s ideo- lence. Jiwani provides great insight into logical umbrella. In the face of red-baiting contemporary social relations on both attacks, the ccf leadership took great intimate and institutional levels by iden- pains to distinguish itself from Com- tifying and mapping the complex and munism. While this made sense – the interconnected terrain of racism, sexism, ccf did have a distinct political program and violence embedded in everyday nego- – they did so extremely defensively by tiations, discourses, and texts. minimizing the disruptions that a future Discourses of Denial is a rich and gen- ccf government might cause. Whereas erally succinct book, organized into four the ccf, in the 1930s, claimed, as a matter sections. The first addresses the theoreti- of course, that a ccf government would cal and methodological frameworks used “revolutionize” society (albeit, hopefully, in her analysis. Although Jiwani claims peacefully), such language could not be that she is not writing for an audience a part of the ccf’s defensive posture a “well versed” in theory, her book delves decade or two later. The missing element into postmodern, critical anti-racist, and here is an appraisal of the ways in which feminist theory with little mercy. Jiwani the “hurricane” helped sweep away an argues that discourses of morality and alternative politics. mobility are central in governing the James Naylor bodies of racialized women of colour, Brandon University and that the dominant media propagates these discourses. In doing so, the media obscures the violence of race and racism Yasmin Jiwani, Discourses of Denial: by “reflecting an imagined community, Mediations of Race, Gender and its hegemonic ideals, and its fictions of Violence (Vancouver: University of British assimilation.” (29) If this first section is Columbia Press 2006) somewhat dense, it is perhaps a neces- sary foray into a subject matter that is so Yasmin Jiwani offers a persuasive intangible and yet so intrinsic to our way interpretation of how media represen- of thinking. The reader is rewarded with tations of violence sustain hierarchies a sense of empirical balance in the fol- of dominance through what she calls lowing three sections. the discursive denial of systemic racism The second part of Discourses of Denial and sexism. Jiwani’s primary concern gives an analysis of media representations is the perpetuation of racial and gen- of the highly publicized murder of Reena der inequality in Canadian government Virk and the equally sensationalized policy and the mass media over the past Vernon “Massacre.” These two incidents 20 years. But Discourses of Denial is also occurred within a year of each other, in about identity, and how the normaliza- 1996 and 1997, and both in the province tion of these discourses of denial affects of British Columbia. Reena Virk was a the lived experiences of girls and women 14-year-old girl of South Asian origin of colour in Canada. Using a Foucauldian who was brutally beaten and drowned approach which focuses on “structures by a group of 14-to-16-year-olds. While of power and the discursive devices used this group of seven girls and one boy was to maintain them,” (xiii) Discourses of racially mixed, the two key instigators Denial reveals how news media and gov- of Virk’s murder were White. Through ernment policies are not only gendered the Reena Virk case, Jiwani clearly dem- and racialized, but are also the corollar- onstrates how the focus on girl-on-girl ies of colonization and its legacy of vio- violence in media representations stra-

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tegically obscured the role of racism and small town in British Columbia, and also the interconnectedness between race and involved an estranged spouse. However, gender. Jiwani argues that the privileging where race was central to media repre- of gender and the absence of any discus- sentations of the Gakhal case, it was not sion of racism in either the news cover- an issue at all in the Velisek case. age or the subsequent court proceedings Jiwani’s detailed exploration of these was made possible through the “common sensationalized cases clearly demon- sense” of “everyday racism,” in what is at strates the significance of the intersect- issue is as much what is being said as what ing influences of race and gender, but is not spoken. In contrast, the media cov- strays from her assertion that class plays erage of the Vernon “Massacre” provides an equally important role in shaping the an example of how racism and sexism lives of women of colour. The third sec- are deflected through what Jiwani calls tion of Discourses of Denial brings class culturalization. In this incident, Rajwar into the analysis in a substantial way Gakhal, a woman also of South Asian while at the same time foregrounding origin, was murdered along with eight the voices of girls and women of colour. of her family members by her estranged The two chapters in this section are, in husband. The media portrayed this vio- my opinion, the most powerful. Drawing lence in cultural terms, citing the Gakhal on interviews with immigrant girls and family’s Sikh religion and the practice young women of colour, Jiwani provides of arranged marriage as possible causes an aperture into a previously silent per- for violence. Culturalization, according spective. The big question being posed to Jiwani, refers to the use of categories here concerns identity, and what exactly such as language and religion to signify is required of racial/cultural Others to race. Cultural racism, as opposed to bio- fit in. Here, Jiwani perceptively argues logical racism, both naturalizes cultural that the constraints of poverty for many differences and situates these differ- immigrant girls and young women living ences against an invisible background of in a culture of consumption are intercon- White dominance. Where the privileg- nected with issues of race and gender. ing of gender obscured the issue of race Socioeconomic factors, then, as a specific in the Reena Virk case, the privileging correlate of immigration, play a signifi- of culture performed a similar function cant role in the experiences of immi- in the case of the Vernon “Massacre.” A grant girls in the public school system, notable strength in Jiwani’s approach is health care system, and more broadly, her use of comparison. She effectively in consumer culture. The analysis could, highlights the persistence and reality of however, be extended to ask how class White structures of dominance by com- differences among immigrant girls and paring the media and court characteriza- women of colour – not always one and the tions of Reena Virk with that of Kelley same category – result in differential pat- Ellard, Virk’s White murderer. In the terns of vulnerability to violence. Jiwani same way, Jiwani reveals how the natu- places as much stress on the ways that ralizing of cultural difference neutralized discourses of Whiteness, Otherness, Ori- and thus reinforced systemic racism in entalism, and the hierarchical binaries of her contrast of media interpretations of colonialism are imposed as on how these the Gakhal murders with the attempted discourses are internalized and normal- murder of Sharon Velisek. The Velisek ized by girls and women of colour. The incident occurred less than two weeks fol- idea of normalization implies that while lowing the Gakhal murders, in the same the “White/Other” binary is undeniably

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significant, there is also a more complex cal binaries of us versus them which serve hierarchy at work. to reinforce structures of patriarchal For example, in her discussion of the White dominance. health care system, Jiwani shows how The questions raised here are evidence immigrant women are particularly sus- that Discourses of Denial is undeni- ceptible to violence and abuse because of ably a provocative and innovative work. the constraints of immigration policies Jiwani’s most valuable contribution lies and patriarchal family structures. Immi- in the notion that the current status of grant girls and young women of colour are race relations in Canada, characterized similarly vulnerable to violence because by normalization and denial, both allows they are subject to the demands of two for the possibility of certain types of vio- competing patriarchal discourses. But lence and constitutes a powerful form how would these intersecting racialized of violence in itself. By identifying and and gendered discourses shape the lives explicating these discourses of denial, of those in interracial marriages, for sec- Jiwani provides a way of understanding ond or third generation girls and women racism that should be taken into consid- of colour, or for girls and women of eration by those interested in the study of mixed racial backgrounds? How do these race as well as, more generally, scholars discourses vary according to region, or in of Canada. rural as opposed to urban settings? LiLynn Wan In the final section of Discourses of Dalhousie University Denial, Jiwani does address a more spe- cific category of “Otherness” – the Mus- lim body – in a specific historical and Sheryl Nestel, Obstructed Labour: Race geographical context – the aftermath of and Gender in the Re-emergence of 9/11 in Montreal. Drawing from Said’s Midwifery (Vancouver: ubc Press 2006) work, Jiwani argues that the major Mon- treal newspapers embodied notions of Obstructed Labour is a brilliant and Orientalism and the binaries of coloniza- cogent case study of the profession of tion in their representations of the event, midwifery’s attempt to legitimize itself in and functioned not only to establish a the province of Ontario in the late 20th climate of terror but one which obscured century. The basic argument is that in an structures of White dominance. As effort to gain institutional and legal status Jiwani makes evident, the local context, for their profession, elite white midwives particularly the distinct mix of English, both excluded and ignored the issues of French, Jewish, and Muslim communi- women of colour and immigrant women ties in Montreal, shaped the dynamics of colour with respect to developing of media coverage of the events of 9/11. educational and training standards, and Jiwani’s key argument in this chapter is opportunities, and establishing licensing that the post 9/11 situation has empha- procedures. Nestel presents an “alternative sized the strategic use of discourses of telling” of Ontario midwifery’s “heroic” denial under the banner of terror. More story. She claims that white middle-class specifically, following 9/11, the Montreal women practicing midwifery were “unable news readership was bombarded by the to see past their own oppression and mainstream media with representations chose systems that marginalized other of the binaries of East versus West, Chris- women,” thus reproducing relations of tianity versus Islam, democracy versus domination based on race. Some Ontario oppression – essentially, those hierarchi- midwives also reproduced these relations

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of domination through their strategic use a convincing case for race-blindness, I of cross-border maternity clinics utilized wondered why issues of language and by Mexican women, to expand their own economic class, both of which block edu- expertise and obtain credentials for prac- cational and credential attainment, and tice standards set in Ontario. which proved to be the two major barri- Evidence was gathered through inter- ers to the midwifery profession for most views with 23 women of colour who were women, were not analyzed in intersection immigrant midwives, midwifery stu- with race but instead presented as subor- dents, and midwifery board members; dinate to it. The absence of data on white and through interviews with a handful of immigrant women in the study con- white women involved in the initial Task founds the argument about race blind- Force, the Interim Regulatory Council, ness. I would like to know more about and the College of Midwifery. In addi- the issues of economic status, language tion, ‘”hundreds of documents and pub- proficiency, and cultural knowledge lications linked to the development of as barriers to accessing basic informa- midwifery in Ontario between 1981 and tion, following required administrative 1996” were reviewed. procedures, or meeting admission and Nestel states in her introduction that licensing criteria as experienced by both the processes that created exclusivity in white immigrant women as well as immi- the midwifery profession resulted from grant women of colour. And because not both “deliberate choices” and “seemingly all women of colour were immigrants, benign inertia,” neither of which were or all immigrants women of colour, we necessarily intended to enact racism, but need a clearer understanding of the dif- simply are a part of “race-blind” episte- ferent constellations created by multiple mologies which guided action. Nestel barriers and discriminatory practices: makes clear that it was the omission of the individual experiences are often col- consideration of relations of domination lapsed in this study and the overall com- between women that creates a profession plexity of the concept of “other” is not that is non-inclusive. This situates the fully explored in the choice to prove race Ontario midwifery profession’s develop- blindness. Informants’ accounts describe ment historically, as its processes parallel “otherness” in relation to the expecta- the same processes of major organiza- tions for a midwife in terms of sexuality, tions of the Canadian feminist movement dress, gender norms, skin colour, social through the same decades. class, language, culture, poverty, and reli- The chapter on “Midwifery Tour- gion. But women’s narratives have been ism” is a fascinating analysis of relations pulled apart, partly I am sure from a con- of exploitation and hierarchy among cern for privacy and confidentiality. The women, under the disguise of a universal study would be well served by fuller nar- global sisterhood. It focuses on the expe- rative accounts which illustrate this com- riences of Ontario midwives working at plexity and the impact of the attribution maternity clinics for Mexican women in of diversely constituted “other” labels on the United States, and demonstrates the individual lives and aspirations. author’s skill at theoretical analysis of Nestel claims that in the push to gain complex and contradictory phenomena. credibility for midwifery as a licensed At the same time, I would like to have profession, the ideal midwifery candidate seen richer data presented in this chapter became a white, middle class, English- to support the analysis. speaking, well-dressed and impassive While Nestel’s counter-narrative makes female professional who behaves like a

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medical doctor. There are also echoes in is divided into four parts. The first two the study of normative gender require- deal with the period before 1950, and the ments for midwives similar to those found latter two with the period from mid-cen- in the early twentieth century opposition tury to the present. Most of the sections to European women as midwives, openly that deal with the pre-1930 years are expressed then through concerns about based on extensive secondary research, their lack of refinement and cleanliness. while those dealing with the post-1930 Skillfully describing how race-blindness period (which constitute the majority works in this specific case, and respect- of the almost 340 pages of text), draw able midwifery is constructed, Nestel is on extensive primary research as well. actually demonstrating more: how both Finkel covers a vast period and provides xenophobia and gender conformity are considerable detail about attitudes, insti- operative in a late 20th century multi-cul- tutions, and policies directed at the poor, tural society; and how they are so embed- the infirm, the aged, and the young. He ded in Canadian culture and the psyches does not, however, present his survey of Canadian women that they have as a compendium of “facts.” Instead, he become invisible instruments of both argues that social policy in Canada has domination and exclusion at individual, been the outcome of struggles between organizational, and institutional levels. elites and popular classes who exist in Nestel intends this study to be instruc- social realities in which gender and race tive, particularly to the midwifery pro- structure social experience. Accord- fession, of which she was a committed ing to Finkel, with some partial excep- member. And it could be, if the book was tions (particularly some groups on the made more accessible through its use of Pacific coast), Aboriginal peoples lived language and a careful re-organization. in fairly egalitarian societies in which the The challenge of turning a dissertation poor, infirm, and aged were cared for by into a book is evident. The experiences medicine men and were able to obtain and insights the midwives and students sustenance through customs of sharing. have to share are rich and important Europeans brought with them very dif- and could be an organizing focus for a ferent sorts of social structures. Far from future publication if the goal is to share egalitarian, they were “class divided and these findings beyond an academic audi- elite controlled,” and “featured wealthy ence. Still, this book is compelling and business people, professionals, govern- brave, and once I started it I couldn’t put ment officials, artisans, farmers, labour- it down. ers, and paupers.” (326) Nanci Langford Finkel traces the feudal arrangements Athabasca University in New France, and the impact of the Poor Law in British North America, and provides an overview of the gradual, post- Alvin Finkel, Social Policy and Practice Confederation emergence of a movement In Canada: A History (Waterloo: Wilfrid for the state to provide social services Laurier University Press 2006) and to redistribute wealth. He notes that while the government implemented some The product of over a decade of work, limited programs – for example, workers’ Social Policy and Practice in Canada compensation, mothers’ allowances, and traces the history of social policy in pensions for the elderly – before World northern North America from the pre- War II, no universal system existed until contact period to the present. The book after 1950. While the period from 1950

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to 1980 or so marked a high point of gov- provides clear outlines of debates – for ernment spending on social programs, instance, that surrounding the purpose the programs themselves were not about of workers’ compensation legislation, the altering significantly basic structures of development of universal health insur- inequality. Indeed, Finkel suggests that ance, issues of government housing pol- in general those responses tended to icy – in which he periodically involves leave in place the racism, patriarchy, and himself (see, 83, 169–89, and 221–43 inequality that have been and continue to respectively). He also compares Canada be central to bourgeois society in Can- with the United States, Britain, and other ada. Instead, policy makers developed European countries, and provides insight programs and institutions premised on into the international social, economic, continuous economic expansion. The and political contexts. This places policy idea was that by expanding the total makers and policies within, and makes wealth of Canadian society, the govern- accessible, aspects of the transnational ment could provide social programs to a context. Thus, while the book contrib- large portion of the populace by spending utes to scholarly debate about social pol- a larger amount (measured in absolute icy and the welfare state, it also provides terms) of wealth even while proportional those with little background a solid intro- distribution remained constant. By 1970 duction to the subject area, and would or thereabouts, when “stagflation” slowed make an excellent undergraduate text for growth, advocates of a neo-liberal creed courses in the history of reform and/or began to decry government overspend- social policy. ing. Balancing budgets without raising While I read the book, however, it taxes (and especially without raising did occur to me that placing reform and taxes on the rich) became the order of social policy, especially in the period from the day, and Canadians watched, though the mid-nineteenth century through often not passively, as ardently pro-busi- to the early 20th century, explicitly in ness governments reversed or seriously the context of a broader and longer his- curtailed many of the hard-won gains of tory of colonialism might have provided the previous 30 years. The book, however, interesting insights. Finkel is sensitive to is not a defeatist lament. Nor does it por- some aspects of Canada’s colonial past. tray the post-1970 retrenchment as a par- For instance, he provides insightful dis- ticularly striking development. Instead, it cussions of the often abysmal conditions places the post-1945 welfare state within in which Aboriginal people lived and how a broader and longer history of struggle racist social policies often disadvantaged between right and left, a struggle that is their communities (see, for example, 56– ongoing and from which more thorough- 59, 97–90, 119–21, 187–89). Yet, recent going solutions to the persistent, dehu- post-colonial-inspired scholarship, such manizing inequality of capitalist society as Adele Perry’s On The Edge of Empire: might materialize. Gender, Race, and the Making of British The book is clearly written. Its author Columbia, 1849–1871 indicates that in provides a cogent introductory dis- settler societies reform, and many of the cussion of the relevant international earliest movements toward socially-ori- literature. He also includes a lengthy ented liberal states, were not straightfor- bibliography which students and oth- ward responses to poverty in increasingly ers unfamiliar with writing about social urban-industrial societies. Instead, they policy in Canada and elsewhere may con- were complex responses to capitalism sult as a guide for further reading, and and colonialism, and were integral parts

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of liberal state formation. While Finkel in Canadian Culture,” the second “The notes the difference between Aboriginal Political Economy of Hockey.” and European societies, focusing on the In their superb introductory essay, multiple meanings and roles that reform which surveys and contextualizes writ- institutions and policies took on in set- ings about the game over the past half tler societies in this period might have century, Whitson and Gruneau challenge provided added insight into the role of the widespread assumption that hockey social policy and related institutions in represents a ‘natural’ expression of Cana- the transition itself. dian identity. Rather, the contributors In any event, this study provides a address hockey as “artificial ice,” i.e. as good synthesis of a wide array of pri- a cultural construction which served a mary and secondary material covering a number of different purposes over the host of temporal and spatial locations. It years and promoted the interests of some deserves the attention of those interested Canadians at the expense of others. Along in the history of social policy and the his- the way they confront the weakening of tory of the welfare state – student and assumptions about hockey as a signifier specialist alike. of Canadian nationality, and the ways in Kurt Korneski which hockey nostalgia naturalizes cor- Memorial University of Newfoundland porate capitalism and other vested inter- ests. In so doing, they suggest, the hockey myth interferes with dreams of a more David Whitson and Richard Gruneau, inclusive and democratic future. eds., Artificial Ice. Hockey, Culture and Jean Harvey’s lead essay analyzes the Commerce (Peterborough: Broadview altered meanings associated with pro- Press 2006) fessional hockey in Québec over the last century and the erosion of hockey’s Almost a decade and a half ago Richard privileged place in French-Canadian Gruneau and David Whitson’s landmark sporting culture in recent decades. Har- study Hockey Night in Canada: Sport, vey focuses on the Montreal Canadiens, Identities and Cultural Politics provided how they came to serve as standard bear- a trenchant analysis of the game’s devel- ers of French-Canadian identity in the opment as a commercial enterprise, con- years between the construction of the fronting hockey’s iconic stature within Montreal Forum (1925) and the Quiet the Canadian cultural universe and its Revolution of the 1960s, and how sub- reinforcement of hegemonic influences sequent changes in Québec society and within the contested terrain of class, within professional hockey weakened the race, and gender. This edited collection, relationship between the club and the drawing on recent scholarship in the people of Québec. Hockey expansion, the field of sport studies and revealing the introduction of the universal draft, the contemporary fascination with invented establishment of the Québec Nordiques, allegiances and the politics of cultural the influx of European players to the production, is a worthy sequel, deepening nhl, and the corporatization of hockey our appreciation of the ideological weight identities all contributed to the process. and contested meanings associated with But what makes this the most powerful hockey’s place within broader construc- essay in the collection are the connec- tions of Canadian identity. The dozen tions Harvey makes between hockey and essays included here are divided into larger processes of social transformation two sections: the first entitled “Hockey within Québec: les Canadiens, he sug-

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gests, served as an important rallying the romanticization of hockey’s rugged point for French-Canadians in an age masculinity trumps not only scientific dominated by the ideology of surviv- evidence about injury risks associated ance; but more recently – as Québecers with body checking in younger children, reflected confidence in their ability to but also the mission statement of Hockey run their own economic and political Canada to provide a safe and enjoyable affairs and as Francophone cultural life environment for kids. blossomed – hockey became but one way The second half of the volume focuses to express French-Canadian assumptions on the commercialization of hockey, of nationhood. changes in the hockey labour market, The essays that follow further decon- and the continentalization and globaliza- struct exaggerated and essentialist claims tion of the game. The initial essays in this about hockey’s embodiment of Cana- section are less engaging than the earlier dian nationality. Brian Wilson analyzes ones, more matter of fact and descrip- whether hockey is a powerful expression tive, and their conclusions somewhat of identity for Canadian youth amidst the predictable. Mark Rosentraub addresses global cultural processes that affect them, the difficulty small-market teams have and asks whether hockey marginalizes in “playing with the big boys,” and com- youth who do not share in the Canadian pares the different strategies that major hockey experience. Mary Louise Adams league baseball, the nfl, the nba, and the focuses on the gendered and racialized nhl employ to share revenues, enhance nature of hockey. She argues that the nat- competition, and to balance the inter- uralistic hockey myth and the idealiza- ests of owners and players. Robert Bel- tion of shinny – the so-called “game that lamy, Kelly Shultz, and Dan Mason cover belongs to all of us’ – privileges native- familiar ground in looking at the place of born white men and a “pernicious sense hockey in the United States, the evolution of male entitlement: to space, to status, of the game in an evolving television and to national belonging.” (71) Julie Stevens media marketplace, and the viability of and Robert Pitter also focus on gender the nhl’s sunbelt strategy. The remain- and race issues. Despite the growth of ing essays by John Hannigan, Hart Can- female hockey and the bounce in popu- telon, and Julian Amirante are fresher larity that accompanied the Canadian and more engaging, however. Hannigan women’s Olympic gold medal in 2002, looks at the move from Maple Leaf Gar- Stevens argues, women have not been dens to Toronto’s Air Canada Centre able to mount a significant struggle to and the relationship among commodi- influence “the values and future direction fied sport entertainment, community of the women’s game; nor is it clear how allegiance, and discourses of nostalgia. women might exercise a greater degree of Hart Cantelon analyzes alterations in the control…under current circumstances.” hockey labour market that have accom- (98) Pitter looks at the hockey experi- panied globalization, and the continu- ences of Blacks and Aboriginal peoples ing assumptions about the superiority over time, and how class and race serve of Canadian hockey and of the nhl. He as systemic barriers for non-whites who addresses as well the feasibility of a Euro- imagine a professional hockey future. pean ‘superleague’ emerging in the future. In the remaining essay in this section Julian Amirante’s concluding essay looks Michael Robidoux and Pierre Trudel at the creation of transnational sporting jump into the debate over body-check- and entertainment audiences, comparing ing in minor hockey. They show how and contrasting hockey and soccer, and

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calls for a historical understanding that and the Arts and Letters in Canada is situates sport within the broader process a good book. It is also deceptive. In the of global capitalism. “Preface” Brison suggests that this text In sum, this is a pathbreaking set of is designed to address a straightforward essays written for the most part by soci- issue: “the relationship between Ameri- ologists and social theorists. It represents can wealth [represented by the massive the most sustained critique to date of Carnegie and Rockefeller philanthropic the corporatization of hockey and the foundations] and Canadian culture in mythologies that sustain and natural- the days preceding the advent of consis- ize hegemonic authority. However, while tent federal support for the arts and let- effectively deflating the exaggerated pre- ters in Canada [in the form of the Canada sumptions of hockey mythology, the col- Council].” (ix) In reality, this book is a lection is rather less effective in explaining sustained engagement with two differ- the game’s continuing broad appeal. Are ent but, as Brison explains, intimately we to assume that fans of hockey, or of any inter-related narratives: the development sport for that matter, are simply cultural of professionalized intellectual and cul- dupes, unaware of the competing inter- tural work in Canada and the processes ests and ideological manipulations that of Canadian-American relations from the are part of its making? There is a tendency 1930s to the 1950s. What ties these two here to see hockey fans as the prisoners narratives together is the Carnegie and of nostalgia, robbed of agency because of Rockefeller foundations and the ways in their own “false consciousness” (although which Canadian intellectuals and artists that phrase is never used). There is much work with them to build a national cul- truth, of course, in the proposition that tural infrastructure in Canada. sport has often served as a handmaiden Methodologically, Rockefeller, Carn- of racism, hypermasculinity, milita- egie, and Canada is anything but simple. rism, and capitalist hegemony. Yet sport In Brison’s view, the foundations’ inter- is all of that and more, and has been so action with Canadian artists and intel- over time. Hopefully, the essays in this lectuals both was, and was not, a case of important critical collection will encour- American cultural imperialism. Drawing age further sustained historical analysis heavily on the work of the late Italian phi- of the complex processes that fashioned losopher Antonio Gramsci, Brison argues hockey’s development over time and its several key points. First, the creation – in prominent, though hardly uncontested, the United States – of large philanthropic place in Canadian sporting life. foundations represented a transforma- Colin Howell tion of wealth into cultural power in civil Dalhousie University society. Through their ability to channel resources, Rockefeller and Carnegie were able to influence a broad range of cul- tural processes from religious practice to Jeffrey D. Brison, Rockefeller, Carnegie, the development of scientific medicine. and Canada: American Philanthropy and Second, these foundations’ interests in the Arts and Letters in Canada (Montreal Canada represented an outward exten- and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University sion of American cultural practices. Press 2005) In effect, these foundations used their wealth to project upper-class American Jeffrey Brison’s Rockefeller, Carnegie, conceptions of medicine, scholarship, and Canada: American Philanthropy education, and artistic practice into other

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countries, most forcefully into Canada. ety, and Canada’s historical and on-going Third, American ideals were not simply relationship with the United States. In imposed on Canadians. Instead, these this work, Brison’s key target is essential- foundations worked with like-minded ist conceptions of Canadian/American Canadians who shared their basic values difference. In a number of places he refers to promote a Canadian cultural, intel- to the older fragment theory of cultural lectual, and educational infrastructure difference that posits foundational differ- that served the interests of both a “self- ences in Canadian and American national selected” Canadian elite and American worldviews. According to this theory, the cultural imperialism. circumstances of Canada’s foundational As Brison explains in his conclusions, “moment” made it into a state-oriented this is not a story of crafty Canadians paternalistic society in opposition to taking advantage of American money for American liberal individualism. It is, their own interests or wealthy American Brison notes, ironic that it was Ameri- institutions manipulating Canadians. can institutions – as opposed to Cana- Instead, it is a story about nation-build- dian – that established the infrastructure ing through which a small, self-appointed that was, late in the day, absorbed by the inter-locking continental elite fashioned Canadian state and that Canadians, in in Canada a particular type of cultural fact, looked to Americans for models of infrastructure. In Brison’s view, there cultural development. The fact that this is nothing inherent or natural in this history has been obscured, he believes, particular way of “imagining” Canada. is a product of nationalist mythology Instead, the professionalized cultural, that looks to define essential differences intellectual, and educational infrastruc- between Canada and the Untied States ture built by this self-selected Canadian and so to legitimate particular concep- elite with American foundation money tions of the Canadian nation-state. served to solidify elite influence over This irony, however, is not what is cultural and intellectual production and important about this book. The fact that educational processes in Canada. Bri- Canadian and American elites see eye-to- son’s point is that this was an intensely eye on a range of issues is not surprising. undemocratic process. Foundation staff Nor is the idea that nationalist mythol- was self-replicating and self-selecting, as ogy is … well … nationalist mythology. was the Canadian elite with which they What is important about this book is the worked. Not only was this elite highly way it opens up the question of the pro- unrepresentative of Canadian society cesses of Canadian cultural development but they enjoyed no popular sanction for and, by implication, the values and ide- their actions. als that animate the Canadian national Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Canada is experience. The idea that Canada is not not a book that “adds to our understand- some haven of leftist progressivism set ing” of a particular subject matter or next to a free-market America is also far “fills in an historiographic gap.” Rather, it from shocking. A now appreciable schol- challenges narratives of Canada’s devel- arly literature on different facets of Cana- opment as a nation-state and, as such, dian culture highlights both the limits of opens up new avenues of enquiry. It is a Canadian progressivism and the degree work that asks its readers to think again to which Canadian culture has been about the processes of Canadian cultural manipulated by elite groups to address formation, the organization of civil soci- their own interests. What Brison shows

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his readers is how we can study these pro- civil society infrastructure can address cesses. In this regard, he makes remark- human needs and aspirations. ably effective use of Gramsci’s heuristics. Andrew Nurse Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Canada passes Mount Allison University over simplistic descriptive assertions of hegemony as cultural leadership in favour of an engagement with the spe- Tina Loo, States of Nature: Conserving cific and concrete processes through Canada’s Wildlife in the Twentieth which cultural infrastructure was built, Century (Vancouver: University of British the negotiations that surrounded this, Columbia Press 2006) and the periodically blunt ways in which financial resources were translated into At first glance, writing the history cultural power. It is these complicated of Canada’s nascent wildlife conserva- and concrete material processes in which tion movement in the twentieth cen- an analysis of national development and tury might seem a trivial task. After all, civil society should be rooted. the care and supervision of wildlife in The next step is to look at oppositional Canada has largely been limited, some forces. Brison’s focus on elite cultural have argued, to the efforts of a few civil politics elides this issue. What did work- servants, game officers, and some natu- ers and left-wing intellectuals think about ral scientists working within the federal cultural institutions being built around and provincial bureaucracies. One could them? What uses did they make of them? further claim that these public adminis- If the logical – and intended – outcome trators confined their activities to a rela- of pre-Canada Council elite cultural tively narrow policy agenda, conserving politics in Canada was the creation of a wildlife whenever possible through gov- professionalized elitist cadre of cultural ernment regulation but failing to develop workers, what alternative conceptions a sustained critique of broader forces such of culture, civil society, education, and as industrialization and commercializa- the state were displaced by this process? tion that had brought some wildlife spe- Said differently: what alternative ways of cies to the brink of extinction. To those thinking Canada were marginalized by outside the field of environmental his- the developments Brison charts? tory, any attempt to chronicle the history As Brison notes in his epilogue, these of early wildlife conservation initiatives questions are not just historical. Over the in Canada might thus seem an overly nar- last decade the Canadian state has engi- row administrative history of a small and neered the construction of a new social relatively insignificant corner within the scientific and technological research federal and provincial bureaucracies. infrastructure designed to link the acad- The recent release of Tina Loo’s States emy more effectively to the needs of capi- of Nature will do much to dispel the talist political economy. Brison’s book notion of a limited historical significance gives us the tools to better understand for Canada’s wildlife conservation move- and assess the complex processes that ment. Although there have been a pleth- are reconstructing civil society. What ora of recent monographs on the complex we now need to think about is how an history of Canadian wildlife conserva- understanding of these processes – this tion, Loo’s beautifully written, lavishly history – can be used to imagine a dif- illustrated, and exhaustively researched ferent, more democratic Canada whose volume goes further than any of the oth-

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ers with its examination of wildlife con- instance, featured zoos to attract tour- servation as a broad social movement ists and commercial abattoirs to attract and as an outgrowth of popular culture. revenue for the cropping of surplus game Loo’s greatest achievement with this new until well past World War II. For Loo, volume rests with her ability to draw con- bureaucratic initiatives designed to con- nections between these diverse influences, trol wildlife and rural hunting were the effectively weaving together policy history logical outflow of state authorities bent with various accounts of popular environ- on dominating both humans and nature mentalism and grassroots activism. in hinterland regions. Loo begins her volume with an analy- Loo is at her best, however, when she sis of wildlife conservation as a medium describes the many individuals and orga- for the expansion of state power at the nizations outside of government who dawn of the twentieth century. Prior to contributed to the growth and develop- this period, Loo argues, conservation was ment of wildlife conservation in Can- pursued through informal local arrange- ada. She traces the contribution of early ments worked out by groups ranging from non-governmental organizations such Aboriginal hunters to hunting clubs. In as Ducks Unlimited to habitat protec- the early twentieth century, however, tion, and includes a fascinating account the federal and provincial governments of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s attempts began to usurp local authority over wild- to mobilize local Indigenous knowledge life, creating sanctuaries, hiring game and labour to the cause of fur conser- officers, and implementing regulations vation in the 1930s. Perhaps even more that, according to Loo, “had the effect of significant is her pathbreaking attempt marginalizing local customary uses of to create a pantheon of Canadian envi- wildlife, and in that sense was part of the ronmental heroes – in effect, an account colonization of rural Canada.” (6) Con- of our Muirs, Pinchots, and Leopolds servationists often framed this colonial – to match the voluminous literature on discourse in terms of race and class poli- major conservation figures in the United tics, singling out minority groups such as States. Some of the historical personali- Asians, working-class pot-hunters, and ties Loo introduces, particularly Farley especially Aboriginal people as particu- Mowat and Bill Mason, will be familiar larly destructive towards wildlife. More- to many readers. Others such as the out- over, the resulting crackdown on illegal fitter Tommy Walker, who campaigned hunting practices could have devastating passionately for the protection of the consequences for these groups as trapping northern British Columbia wilderness, equipment was confiscated, fines were or the filmmaker and wilderness guide handed out, jail sentences were issued, Andy Russell, who advocated habitat pro- and human communities were removed tection in Alberta’s grizzly country, are from parks and game sanctuaries. given a well deserved place alongside the The reader might find some solace in more canonical figures in the conserva- this litany of injustices if such hard-edged tion movement. Loo also rehabilitates policies had the effect of saving wildlife figures who were famous in their day but on the brink of extinction. Yet Loo argues are largely ignored today. Her chapter on that federal and provincial authorities Jack Miner – the man who invented bird often restricted local access to game banding – finally grants this working- merely as a prelude to managing wildlife class bird conservationist his due place populations for commercial purposes. as a key popular figure within North Several of Canada’s national parks, for America’s conservation movement. Loo’s

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account of Miner’s early family life, his from the effects of a collapse in their local Christian-inflected environmental eth- food supply. ics, his famous waterfowl sanctuary near These are trivial criticisms of an other- Kingsville, Ontario (established in 1904), wise fascinating and impressive volume. and his somewhat brutal approach to When I gave the book to one of my senior predatory birds is one of the most engag- students – perhaps the most important ing biographical portraits of a major fig- litmus test of a volume’s general appeal ure in the North American conservation – he suggested that it was one of the best movement that I have ever read. In broad historical works he had read in his uni- terms, Loo reveals that conservationist versity career. I certainly concur in this sentiment in Canada was manifest in a sentiment. States of Nature is an intelli- variety of social and cultural groups (e.g. gent, eloquent, and thoroughly entertain- elite sport hunters, working class farm- ing account of the wildlife conservation ers, Aboriginal fur trappers) and was movement in Canada. It stands as a major grounded in a diverse array of ethical contribution to fields of environmental traditions ranging from utilitarianism to and conservation history in this country Christian stewardship. and internationally. It is an instant clas- It is difficult to find fault with a book sic that will both educate and reward that was so engaging and difficult to put those who hope to learn more about the down. There were, however, some minor complex and multi-faceted ways in which points where I questioned Loo’s interpre- Canadians have attempted to come to tation of the available evidence. In her dis- terms with the wild creatures who live in cussion of the caribou crisis in the 1950s their midst. and 1960s, Loo argues that federal wild- John Sandlos life officials still framed their arguments Memorial University of Newfoundland for conservation at least partly in terms of the commercial value of the caribou. Although she provides some quotes to Paige Raibmon, Authentic Indians: back her claim, my own experience with Episodes of Encounter from the Late- the voluminous documentation on the Nineteenth-Century Northwest Coast caribou crisis suggests that the federal (Durham: Duke University Press 2005) government had largely abandoned com- mercial dreams that had been applied to In a few short pages in the introduc- the caribou in the 1910s and 1920s as the tion to Authentic Indians, historian Paige perception of an extreme conservation Raibmon deftly unpacks the key strands emergency gripped the federal bureau- of contentious debates – academic and cracy. I am also not convinced that rein- popular – about cultural identity and deer were introduced to the Mackenzie authenticity. Using the example of the Delta region in the 1930s as part of a 1999 return to whaling by members of the conservation initiative to divert hunt- Makah community of western Washing- ing attention from the caribou. Accord- ton State, Raibmon sketches very clearly ing to many government reports during the parameters of ideological clashes over this period, caribou were thought to have the “traditional” versus the “modern,” the largely disappeared from the Mackenzie ecological versus the wasteful Indian, Delta; the reindeer were established as an civilization versus barbarism. The ideol- industrial pilot project and to provide a ogy of authenticity, she forcefully shows, supplemental food supply to a population has held Aboriginal people to “impossible of Inuvialuit that were already suffering standards” of cultural purity – standards

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as ahistorical as they are unattainable. (9) subverted, and benefited from such expec- I write in the present tense here because tations. Yet her attention to agency is not Raibmon’s book, while grounded in case romanticized. The reader is regularly studies from the late-nineteenth to early reminded of the broader context in which twentieth-century Pacific Northwest, has the episodes play out: this was an era of such resonance with present-day expec- efficient and nearly final appropriation of tations of Native and other cultural Native lands and resources; of increas- communities. No culture adheres to an ing economic marginalization of Native unchanging check-list of definitive traits people; and of the rise of anthropology’s – yet this is precisely what has been salvage paradigm, with its zeal to rescue expected of indigenous communities the last vestiges of “doomed” Indian cul- across the globe as they seek to assert their tures. In this oppressive context, Native legal, economic, and cultural rights. One people found ways to serve their own of many strengths of Raibmon’s book is ends. The story of most interest to read- the way it captures both the tragic histori- ers of Labour/Le Travail might well be the cal story of such misplaced expectations, fascinating and multi-layered account of and the ongoing intellectual and practical seasonal migrant workers in the hop fields consequences of this binary thinking. The of western Washington. authentic-inauthentic dyad, she argues, The title of the book and its episodic is still a basic part of our thinking about focus might lead one to assume that it is cultural identity: we remain trapped on a work of cultural history – and it is that. its terrain. But it is also a work of labour history. As Authentic Indians is a study of “the Raibmon puts it, the episodes discussed in work that authenticity did” in defining the its pages “would misrepresent the histori- parameters of Indianness for non-Natives cal reality of Aboriginal life were they not and, in important ways, for Native people labour histories as well.” (11) The annual in the late-nineteenth-century Pacific participation of thousands of Native men, Northwest. Authenticity is not defined so women, and children in the hop harvest in much as characterized: it is a “powerful the Puget Sound region is an instructive and shifting set of ideas that worked in a and understudied moment in Native his- variety of ways toward a variety of ends.” tory. As early as 1885 a British Columbia (3) Raibmon at every turn undermines government agent reported that six thou- the received meaning of the term – the sand bc Native people were off working notion of “purity or timeless tradition.” in the hop fields – perhaps a quarter of (212) Rather, authenticity is a colonial the province’s Aboriginal population. For discourse, a set of colonizer assumptions many the late-summer hop harvest came and practices with important real-life close on the heels of work in the salmon implications for Native people. Raibmon canneries, a modern incarnation of the uses three episodes – Kwakwaka’wakw complex seasonal productive rounds that participation in the Chicago World’s Fair Native people had followed for millennia. of 1893, Aboriginal migrant labour in the The journey to Puget Sound would have Puget Sound hop industry, and 1906 legal been familiar to many people from Alaska proceedings against a Tlingit artist – to and bc, who had for some decades been investigate historically the implications making the trip to find work in sawmills of this ideology. and other operations. While those implications were often Hop harvesting had a labour hierar- dire, Raibmon is careful to attend to the chy, and some Aboriginal men were able many ways Native people made use of, to profit from this. Some became “hop

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bosses” and pole pullers, higher-pay- local train, streetcar, or hotel carriage. It ing positions that might allow them to was precisely the impulse of authentic- advance the interests of their own fam- ity – the notion among non-Natives that ily or community members. The more Natives were a romantic, vanishing cul- lowly pickers exercised autonomy in this ture to be glimpsed before it disappeared labour-intensive industry by leaving a – that opened these spaces for Native farm that didn’t provide proper housing innovation. or food for one that did, or by avoiding Raibmon acknowledges that being on the region altogether in a bad health sea- display and having to “play Indian” in this son. Work stoppages were another effec- way must have been a trial. Her primary tive method of getting demands met: in attention, though, is to the ways Native an industry heavily reliant on Aborigi- people used the interest to their own nal labour, their refusal to work could ends. Many men came to the area not threaten a whole year’s crop. to work in the fields but as hunting and Aside from direct work in the indus- fishing guides. Many women found a cap- try, Aboriginal people took advantage tive market for baskets and other favorite of many more economic and cultural tourist curios. A handsome basket could opportunities in the region, many of fetch as much cash as three days’ work these invisible to or misunderstood by in the fields. Posing for photographs was non-Native observers. The gathering of another important source of income: diverse Native peoples from across the Edward S. Curtis took some of his earli- Pacific Northwest was an opportunity est shots in the hop fields. for trade, feasting, visiting with extended Raibmon and the press deserve con- family, gambling, courting, and sport gratulations for generous use of visual – much like the massive inter-cultural material. Wonderful images bring another gatherings that had taken place in western dimension to Raibmon’s story. At times Washington long before the first fur trad- the reader would like a little more decod- ers arrived. Medicine men, shamans, and ing. Why, for instance, are the hop-pick- other healers found a niche in cramped ing women dressed in high Victoriana in labour camps where people were more the late-summer heat? (82) Are they play- than usually susceptible to disease. Raib- ing to contradictory expectations of femi- mon is writing about a period when inter- nine propriety and Native “showiness”? national and reservation boundaries, and What about those who made cash through legal constraints like the banning of pot- prostitution? Did they ply their trade in latches, sought to sharply restrict Native the makeshift tents and lean-tos of the movement: labour migration offered a encampments that dotted the Seattle and “short-term escape valve,” (103) although Tacoma waterfronts in the 1890s? (95) not without complications. Raibmon’s account of the Native peo- Most intriguingly in the context ple in the hop industry ends, as does the of Raibmon’s analysis of authenticity, book, on a more pessimistic note. Hop Native people in the hop industry found pickers reaped important economic ben- opportunity in spectacle. Hop pickers in efits, but “ultimately they paid out much their “bright, showy calicoes” and with more than they earned.” (133) Both the their “incessant song-singing and fun” Indianness they performed for the tour- made a very picturesque sight, as the ists and the wage labour they performed naturalist John Muir put it. Throughout for their employers helped to cement the picking season hundreds of tour- colonialist understandings of Native peo- ists daily made their way to the fields by ple as relics of a vanishing past. Aborigi-

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nal people were able to manipulate this were central to reconstruction and the ideology to their own benefit, but in the postwar public realm,” and she looks at end they could exert little control over its the meaning of reconstruction from the parameters. As Raibmon demonstrates point of view of families and their rela- through close and careful historical anal- tionship with various levels of govern- ysis, Native people could never get out- ment. Fundamental to her argument is side the dominant dichotomies of their the insight that during this period the day – authentic/inauthentic, Aborigi- boundaries between private and public nal/modern. In our own times, authen- were not just fluid and permeable, but ticity continues to act as “gatekeeper of that “the spheres themselves were under- Aboriginal people’s rights to things like going a transformation…the public was commercial fisheries, land, and casinos.” expanding under pressure from various (206) We remain trapped on authentici- groups of citizens, who, in demanding ty’s confining terrain. measures of social and economic secu- Elizabeth Vibert rity, made private matters public for University of Victoria political purposes.” Thus, “the family not only became absorbed into the public, but also fashioned the public.” (22) Magda Fahrni, Household Politics: Federal, provincial, and municipal gov- Montreal Families and Postwar ernments all shared the belief in the need Reconstruction (Toronto: University for social stability in the wake of years of of Toronto Press 2005) economic depression and war, but his- torians have paid most attention to the Magda Fahrni’s study of Montreal efforts of the King government to imple- families is the latest in a series of stud- ment a welfare state. Fahrni is convincing ies which have forced a re-thinking of the in demonstrating that these new public post-World War Two period in Canada. measures did not immediately take over In it, she extends and deepens our under- the task of providing for post-war fami- standing of the connection between the lies. Instead, she argues that in Montreal personal and the political as revealed in the 1940s there was a “mixed social in what she terms “household politics.” economy” in place, in which older forms The author takes us to Montreal in the of welfare co-existed with the new federal period from the last few months of the policies. Thus, Montrealers, whether fran- war to 1949 and tests how well our pre- cophone, anglophone, or Jewish, contin- conceptions of the period stand up to a ued to turn to private agencies, voluntary sustained examination. She shows that associations, and the Catholic Church for the immediate post-war period was not support, even though they often resented necessarily a time of prosperity; in fact the value judgments these agencies made many returning veterans struggled to about their housekeeping and parenting find employment and decent housing for skills. Wary of the interventionist federal their families. Nor did those families all state, they also looked to the provincial fit the ideal nuclear model; some had to government for assistance. incorporate children born as a result of Using the records of a variety of these wartime infidelity, some were single-par- organizations, Fahrni concludes that, as a ent families, others included grandpar- result of wartime experiences, both men ents and siblings. She debunks also the and women quickly displayed a sense of image of the stereotypically large Québec entitlement to a new array of benefits and family. Yet, she argues, “visions of family allowances. Not surprisingly, veterans

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felt their service to their country gave to be an exceptional city, she does enter them the right to jobs, housing, education into five specific historiographic debates. allowances, and pensions. One of Fahrni’s For instance, she agrees with recent argu- most interesting findings, however, is the ments that have challenged the notion attitude of women towards the emerg- of Duplessis’s reign in Québec as being ing welfare state and the nature of their an unremitting “Great Darkness.” She citizenship. Women’s social citizenship sees the discussions going on in Québec – their claim to allowances and benefits – about the role of government, private rested on their dependent status as wives charity, and professional social work as and mothers of service men, but their being very similar to those taking place in complaints if the cheque did not arrive other provinces. In addition, she contests on time, or their demands for allowances the idea that the Catholic Church was to be indexed to the rising cost of living, a monolithic institution, showing that clearly showed their sense of entitlement some groups, such as the Ligue Ouvr- both as newly enfranchised citizens and ière Catholique, were adapting to social family members. changes and attempting to keep them- Post-war prices were a major concern selves relevant in this new environment. for families from a variety of socioeco- Her research leads her to conclude that nomic and ethnic backgrounds; and here the Quiet Revolution was rooted in the Fahrni contests the American notion of modernization of Québec society already high post-war consumption. In Mon- underway in the 1940s. treal, families had to be very cautious Fahrni’s text is exemplary in its orga- in their consumption of necessities dur- nization and clarity. The Introduction ing this period. Poverty was not the would serve as an ideal model for both source of shame it had been and con- graduate and undergraduate students – sumers demanded a reasonable cost of for the former to emulate, and the latter living and turned to consumer activism to dissect. It is also a splendid example and demanded changes in government of a new generation of historical synthe- policy in order to assure a comfortable, sis which pays attention to differences of stable lifestyle. The author chooses spe- gender, class, and ethnicity as a matter of cific incidents to demonstrate that both course, and combines consideration of men and women were involved in this discourses with analysis of material con- form of “household politics.” The Squat- ditions and lived experience. In this well- ters’ Movement of 1946–7 illustrated the rounded study all the constituent parts importance fathers attached to being able of the family are considered: mothers, to provide decent housing for their fami- fathers, children, and even grandparents. lies, and in the Catholic school teachers’ Admittedly, middle-class families and strike of 1949 they articulated claims for Anglophone families do get less attention their children’s rights to education and than working-class and Francophone their right as fathers to a voice in their families, but Jewish families and Jewish children’s education. Women meanwhile social services are included. The plethora mobilized to organize consumers’ groups, of primary sources consulted results in boycotted high-priced produce, and lob- a bewildering number of acronyms, but bied government for cheaper alternatives the author can hardly be faulted for that, such as margarine. and in fact should be congratulated for While Fahrni does not attempt to over- the meticulous nature of her research generalize her findings, explaining from and citations. One shortcoming which the outset that she considers Montreal could be mentioned is that no trans-

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lations are given for quotations from context within which such debates took French-language sources. While this place, Martel’s book adds to an under- should not be a problem for the expert or standing of complex political processes upper-level student, the extensive use of in Canada and contributes to a number untranslated quotations in chapter 6, for of scholarly fields, including the history example, might mitigate against the text of the Sixties in Canada, the history of being adopted for undergraduate courses. drug policies, and the study of political Translations of key passages given in the processes and policy debates. footnotes would have been an asset. In In his introduction, Martel clearly sets addition, the text is supplemented with out what he hopes to accomplish in this some well-chosen photographs which are book. He seeks to examine how various beautifully printed on glossy paper. Given groups and individuals “influenced the the high cost of printing, it’s understand- development and implementation of pub- able that these are grouped together in the lic policy on drugs.” (8) This he does quite centre of the book, but the opportunity to successfully throughout the monograph, make them contribute to the text is lost arguing that certain actors, including the because they are not referred to specifi- media, interest groups, bureaucrats, and cally or even cited at appropriate places. politicians, competed to shape the debate Nevertheless, these are small quibbles on the legalization of marijuana. To set about a study which contributes signifi- the stage, Martel examines how, through cantly to our understanding of the years the print media and the scientific com- between 1945 and 1949, and challenges munity, recreational drug use became us to re-think some of our assumptions framed as a social problem and a subject about the subsequent period. of political debate. He then moves on to Gillian Poulter discuss how various interest groups par- Acadia University ticipated in these debates and sought to influence the politicians who were ulti- mately responsible for any changes to Marcel Martel, Not This Time: public policy. Martel focuses here on four Canadians, Public Policy, and the interest groups whom he claims played an Marijuana Question, 1961–1975 important role in the debates: young peo- (Toronto: University of Toronto Press ple, and university students in particular; 2006) law enforcement officers; the medical establishment; and the pharmaceutical In recent years, especially following industry. As a central component of the the publication of Doug Owram’s Born overall argument, he states that these at the Right Time: A History of the Baby four interest groups had unequal access Boom Generation (1996), the Sixties have to centres of power and thus their influ- become an increasingly popular sub- ence over the public policy debates varied ject of historical study and debate. Mar- significantly.(73) Taking account of Can- cel Martel’s study of recreational drug ada’s political reality, in which power is policies in Canada during this period shared between the federal government contributes a great deal to these emerg- and the provinces, Martel also discusses ing debates and to a wider discussion of how four provincial governments, those of public policy development more gener- British Columbia, Ontario, Québec, and ally. Although questions remain about Prince Edward Island, participated in the the actual process of policy development, policy debates over marijuana, arguing and more could be said about the social that provincial politicians rarely agreed

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on recreational drug use policy and thus but this raises as many questions as it failed to cooperate with one another in answers. For example, Martel argues that the national debates. (118) As well, Mar- four groups were particularly important tel examines the federal government’s in the discussions – young people, law strategy to deal with the public debates enforcement officers, the medical profes- on recreational drug use, the establish- sion, and the pharmaceutical industry. ment of the Le Dain Commission, and Yet, he also points out that most of these the ways that federal politicians, bureau- groups played only a minimal role in the crats, and various international pressures Le Dain Commission. It is thus unclear affected the debates. Although these dis- why these four groups are singled out as cussions ultimately led to few changes important or, alternatively, why the Le in Canada’s drug policies, Martel con- Dain Commission is seen as a key part cludes by arguing that this should not be in the public policy debates. As well, the seen as a failure of those who pushed for category of youth is unclear throughout change. Rather, it illustrates the complex- the book. Martel argues that university ity of public policy debates, the strength students were seen as representatives of of the forces opposed to change, and the their generation and thus focuses on the internal divisions within the groups that role they played in the discussions. (39) sought new drug policies. Connecting However, this fails to recognize the com- these historical debates to the current plexity of youth as a category and the divi- debates over marijuana legalization and sions that existed within this incredibly decriminalization, Martel leaves us with diverse group. Martel also argues that some important questions about the the Le Dain Commission broadened the autonomy of the Canadian state and the debate over drug policy and enabled the complexity of the public policy process. Canadian public to participate,(120) but In the end, Martel successfully illustrates how can we judge the actual involvement how various actors sought to influence of the public and the degree to which the Canada’s drug policies, achieving what he government actually took the opinions set out to do in this study. of such people into consideration? Also, However, Martel’s work also raises are there other ways in which the public some important questions about method- was able to participate in the discussions, ology and the ways in which the complex such as through opinion pieces or letters process of public policy development can to the editor in local or national newspa- be understood. Through his in-depth dis- pers, or were other groups and individu- cussion of the various actors involved in als also involved in the debates? In other the debates over recreational drug policy words, how do we judge the participation in Canada, Martel illustrates the com- of actors in policy debates and the influ- plexities of public policy debates and the ence of such groups on public policy deci- power relations involved in such political sions? These are complex issues and, while negotiations. Yet, a number of important Martel acknowledges this fact, they should questions remain: how can we judge what remain central throughout the book. groups and individuals are most influential Another issue that is not dealt with in the discussions and how can we deter- sufficiently throughout the book is the mine the actual influence of such actors? social context within which such discus- One question relates to the role that sions were occurring. Although Martel various groups and individuals actually is clearly focused on the political history played in public policy debates. Martel of recreational drug use, more informa- points to what he sees as the key groups, tion on the social context surrounding

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these debates might have contributed to ways groups and individuals participate his study and clarified the roles played in public policy debates and their actual by various groups and individuals. His influence over those responsible for such introductory chapter includes an excel- policies, Martel’s book is an excellent lent overview of the influence of the Baby read and a useful addition to a number of Boom generation on society; he argues scholarly fields. this generational group forced a reevalu- Roberta Lexier ation of traditional values and mores University of Alberta related to drug use in Canada. However, much more could have been included on the widespread social and cultural chal- Jonathan Wagner, A History of Migration lenges that emerged during the Sixties, from Germany to Canada 1850–1939 placing the debates over drug policies (Vancouver: ubc Press 2006) in the wider context of the period. In a similar vein, Martel does not discuss the The author of the standard monograph periodization of the Sixties, although this on the phenomenon of German National is an important issue for Sixties histo- Socialism in Canada, who more recently rians. At times he seems to refer to the edited an interesting volume of letters Sixties as the decade between 1960 and written to and by emigrants from Ger- 1969, while on other occasions he seems many residing in this country between to extend the period into the 1970s. This the world wars, has now followed up both is an important question about context, these publications with a survey of migra- and Martel should clarify what he refers tion involving the same two nations over to as the Sixties and how his subject the near century from 1850 to 1939. Jona- relates to the other social and political than Wagner’s new study may surprise movements of the period. some readers, however, with regard to its On the other hand, Martel does an content and scope. excellent job of relating the drug policy Although German speakers comprise debates of the Sixties to present-day con- Canada’s third-largest group of immi- cerns in order to highlight some of the grants, during the period the author important themes that emerge from his examines only a small percentage of research, such as the complexity of public those who quit the Reich proper chose policy debates and the influence of inter- to come to – and fewer still to remain national pressure, and to illustrate that permanently in – the Dominion. The the discussion over recreational drug pol- vast majority who came were instead icy is by no means resolved. This provides so-called Volkdeutsche (ethnic Ger- an interesting opportunity to discuss the mans) from eastern European coun- implications of his study and to point to tries like Russia and Rumania; but from future areas of investigation. the very outset Wagner does not deal Overall, Marcel Martel’s study pro- with these. (12–13) Rather, he presents vides an important and useful discus- a parallel account of, on the one hand, sion of public policy debates regarding Bismarckian/Wilhelmian/Weimar/Nazi recreational drug use in Canada during and, on the other, Canadian policies deal- the Sixties. It contributes to an under- ing with emigration and immigration, standing of complex political processes respectively. Notwithstanding a general and of the various ways different actors reluctance on the part of governments of participate in such negotiations. While whatever stripe in Berlin to lose their citi- this raises further questions about the zens to movement overseas, and Canada’s

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contrasting desire to gain at least a share the reinstatement in 1923 of emigration of such individuals, albeit never in pref- from Germany after the hiatus occa- erence to British subjects, Wagner is at sioned by World War I and the lingering pains to demonstrate the wide-reaching hostile sentiment among the public dur- complementarity of German and Cana- ing its immediate aftermath, Canadian dian practices in this area. The dove-tail- recruiting agents went so far as to require ing of official behaviour and attitudes in prospective immigrants to furnish a cer- Ottawa and the Reich included the trou- tificate from the authorities in their home bled Depression years when the former district “confirming that they had indeed halted almost all immigration after 1930, farmed” in Germany or elsewhere. (211) while shortly afterwards Hitler tried to This stipulation was in keeping with what drive every “non-Aryan” from their place was, after all, the principal objective of of birth or naturalization. The fate of Jews Canada’s post-Confederation drive to who sought refuge in the country where secure immigrants, namely to settle the notoriously ‘none were too many’ is only newly established western prairie prov- alluded in passing by the author who also inces and thereby create a sufficiently decided to exclude any treatment of the dense population base to withstand any obverse Nazi goal of convincing racially possible imperialist ambitions emanat- acceptable Germans to return “Heim ing from south of the border. To this end ins Reich” from wherever they were liv- the same representatives abroad were ing. (214, 219, 232) One is left wondering specifically instructed to reject appli- just how frequent Rückwanderung (liter- cations from urban workers who were ally “reverse migration”), which earlier likely to seek similar jobs in Canadian regimes had encouraged but in the 1930s cities – and, especially in the wake of the became a full-fledged ideologically moti- Winnipeg General Strike, only add to the vated program, occurred with respect to prospect of political unrest there. Unfor- Canada. tunately, however, Germany’s much more Yet another self-imposed limitation extensive industrial revolution absorbed concerns the activities of Germans once precisely its excess rural labour in which they arrived in this country. This encom- alone Canada was interested. passes not only how they were “received by So it is not without irony that the larg- the non-German community” and “were est single contingent of refugees from integrated or assimilated into Canadian Nazism admitted before 1939 – the over- society,” (11) but also what kinds of work whelmingly Christian and social demo- they pursued here. Wagner emphasizes cratic Sudeten Germans – had also mainly repeatedly that in each of the time peri- dwelt as artisans and functionaries in ods into which he divides his investiga- Czech towns; moreover, they were settled tion (1850–1870, 1870–1890, 1890–1914, by their sponsors on virgin land in Brit- 1914–1939) the federal government ish Columbia and Saskatchewan where sought with greater or lesser exclusivity despite initial difficulties due to complete to attract men and women from just two inexperience in agriculture, along with occupational backgrounds. These were local anti-German resentment, the com- bona fide agriculturalists – that is, single munities eventually succeeded. (172, 234) males or families who were experienced in It would seem therefore that Canada’s farming either as landowners or labour- persistent difficulty in attracting Reich or ers – and females suitable for employ- for that matter other German immigrants ment as domestics (household servants, in anything comparable to the numbers mothers’ helpers, and the like). Following who emigrated to the United States had

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less to do with a harsher northern climate alisten means “socialists of the lectur- or the aura of greater excitement on the ing rostrum” or professorial chair. (94, 96, American frontier cultivated by writ- 108) ers of the ilk of James Fenimore Cooper However, it would be churlish to end and Karl May – among several explana- on so negative a note. The many passages tory factors Wagner analyzes to account from German-language sources are oth- for this wide discrepancy – than to fun- erwise accurately and smoothly trans- damentally misconceived socially and lated. Wagner’s discussions of the works politically conservative Canadian policy of such racially oriented authors as Karly in this field. Götz and Colin Ross who wrote about Though developments related to migra- Canada for Nazified audiences during tion history in Germany and in Canada the Third Reich are quite informative; he are accorded equal attention in Wagner’s might have mentioned in the same con- text, the sections relating to the latter are text the most prolific German writer on perhaps the more original. For example, Canadian themes, A. E. Johann. (178–181) he carefully parses the publicity materi- In less than 250 pages Jonathan Wagner als produced by the Canadian Pacific and has managed persuasively to describe the Canadian National Railways acting as parameters of a vital aspect of inter-state proxies for the government and intended relations between Canada and Germany, to interest potential migrants in purchas- a welcome reminder that their mutual ing properties owned by these compa- connection has by no means always been nies. Such propaganda brochures often martial and conflicted. considerably exaggerated the attractive- Lawrence D. Stokes ness of the country for newcomers and Dalhousie University downplayed the very severe hardships they would invariably encounter. Some agents violated German law by actively Serge Durflinger, Fighting from soliciting emigration rather than merely Home: The Second World War in Verdun, providing factual information about con- Quebec (Vancouver: University of British ditions, for which they were prosecuted; Columbia Press 2006) and Wagner recounts in some detail an outright scam aimed at administrators When I grew up in a southern Ontario and overseers in Germany (so-called bedroom community that fed most com- “landwirtschaftliche Beamten”), a species muters between Hamilton and Toronto, of farm manager virtually unknown in the family stories of my best buddy’s owner-run Canadian agriculture. (135– parents, almost as much as much as my 139) The impression left upon the reader own, became part of my imagined sense is that Canada’s side of the story is more of Canada’s past. They both grew up in thoroughly researched as well as authori- Verdun. Both were English Canadians. tatively presented. Certainly nobody His father had served overseas as an artil- named “Reichardt” was ever German leryman in Canada’s Italian campaign. foreign minister, and Robert von Puttka- They married afterwards, and moved on mer was interior minister in the state of to careers in engineering and local civic Prussia rather than of the Reich. As for service as they played their parts in Can- those whom the author labels “cathedral ada’s twinned booms of breadwinning (sic!) socialists,” these were not some sort and babies. But, like my own parents, of religious egalitarians, but instead aca- bits and pieces of their past, from the ‘no demics. The German term Kathedersozi- money’ days in the 1930s to their search

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for security after demobilization, began part in reaching ve and vj Days? Even if to fit together like a scattered jigsaw puz- just one locale is assessed, such exercises zle forming part of my national picture, can be ambitious as inquiries located at at least back then. For them, it had been micro/macro intersections. From his a long road from Verdun. What was its opening chapter, which sets the stage for major fork? The war, of course. September 1939, to his detailed account But memory, family stories too, are of the veterans’ return, Durflinger has only partial, uneven, even fictional snap- done both the research digging and the shots set against histories of locales, of writer’s job of crafting clear, succinct regions, and certainly of countries at narratives. It is a lucid, lively account. war. How do we approach intersections On the face of it, what made Verdun of memory and history? How do we unique, compared to anywhere else in reach conclusions about the meaning of Canada, was the fact that large numbers this war from a study of the responses of both French- and English-Canadians of its home front and overseas partici- shared conditions of urban poverty – a pants? My praise for Serge Durflinger’s basic push-factor for recruitment from new book is for an inspiring account of both populations. Unsurprisingly, Ver- Verdun’s place in Canada’s ‘last good dun’s ‘fair share’ in supplying men and war.’ I’m borrowing the phrase from Jack women was simply not exceeded – any- Granatstein’s new illustrated history of where. In assessing this, and many other Canada in the Second World War, a fine aspects of war service, from civic volun- memory-prompter for those who sur- teerism to the effects of rationing and vived the war and a good introduction family dislocations, both federal and local to it for those viewing, for the first time, sources are used very effectively. And the photographs of Canadians responding records deployed, from the Department to the dark period that followed Hitler’s of National Defence to Munitions and invasions or the bombing of Pearl Har- Supply and National War Services, have bour. Durflinger contributes to the ‘good been put to work by a scholar with broad war’ narrative. As a local case study his expertise in military history. Skilled, too, book is painstakingly researched, clearly is his use of local sources, from the Ver- written, often critical, yet implicitly dun and Montreal press, both French and patriotic – that is, motivated by a deeply English, as well as the partly bilingual felt sense of writing a community-based Messenger/Le Messager, to civic records, history from a place he grew up in that to oral history (a must in such projects). contributed in many positive ways to Durflinger was clearly up for this task. Canada’s war effort: Verdun’s ‘good war.’ To tell a locale-based story cast within “For me,” as Durflinger put it, “no walk the ‘good war’ framework brings in many down Wellington Street, the city’s main topics: enlistment rates, civic support for thoroughfare, can be separated from the the war effort, and civilian war service ghosts that are everywhere now plainly in the paid workforce. Durflinger does visible to me. They tell an important and justice to each. Throughout this book, inspired story in which the community’s he considers the manifest effects of war Second World War experiences figure endured by some 70,000 Canadians, most prominently.” (xi) As such, Fighting from of whom were working class and mainly Home, which began as a doctoral disser- of British or French origin, cramped tation, succeeds admirably. together in a mere six square kilometers How does Durflinger situate this city in adjacent to the Montreal metropolis. the midst of the horrific costs of Canada’s ‘Cramped,’ for readers not aware of local

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conditions in the war years, provides an military conflict the world has ever seen image of just how poor, densely housed, and observe what kind of responses and and socio-economically oppressed Ver- intracommunity dynamics develop. This dun was. Durflinger opens with a stage is what this book is about.” (x) setting portrait of housing conditions, Of workable lengths, Durflinger’s eight with family members and other resi- chapters explore how different groups dents, young and old, living “on top of within the social hierarchies of class and each other in nearly identical two- and ethnicity responded to military demands three-storey tenement flats where every- and economic change. He begins with the one knows everyone else’s business.”(x) consensus-based narrative of “forging He then describes how, after 1939 and a community,” sketching Verdun’s early as the war’s demands mounted, mainly history, its geography, its ‘proud’ record younger adults – men and women of in wwi, its spurts of population growth prime military age – mobilized Verdun driven by changing economies, and its into an urban space that provided better ‘pulling together’ in the grinding poverty conditions for many as the war dragged throughout the 1930s. Later, he sets his on. The war’s positive effects are, however, chapter themes within the broad pattern balanced with due consideration for its of economic oppression giving way to costs. Durflinger assesses the disruptions wartime recruitment and industrial wage and dislocations families experienced at employment. From political sociologist home as they faced the losses overseas. Leo Zakuta, who wrote just three years Durflinger could have been more after the war, Durflinger crafts a class- specific in responding to Ruth Roach based sense of solidarity and living envi- Pierson’s critical work on the gendered ronment. He writes about waterways, low patterns of these responses evoked in rental housing, and the constant search the public sphere, though he does high- for work drawing people together, at light shifting ethnic and class boundaries least in terms of a common experience. throughout his chapters. His descrip- Zakuta called Verdun “one of the stron- tions are often graphic. Evocative, for gest” areas where everyday life patterns instance, are his portraits of working- and space defined community identity, or class life in a city of so few services or “local self-consciousness.”(19) Of course, amenities. High urban density was char- for a city this size, we might consider acteristic of Verdun, from working fami- other evidence on such themes as ethnic lies to the unemployed and elderly, next division, class oppression, or of gendered to mighty Montreal. Unfortunately, Ver- relationships of masculine power or fem- dun remained a city with no railway link, inine resistance to it. This book does not. buses, hotels, industry, or licensed estab- Such topics do not fit Durflinger’s narra- lishments. Durflinger is prone to refer tive purpose. to the tenement housing and socio-eco- Instead we get a detailed analysis of nomically confined Verdun of the 1940s why so many men and women enlisted as a ‘community,’ though the theoretical (Verdun’s total came to approximately implications of this key concept are not 7,000); how city hall provided home front rigorously explored. French, English, and support; how both war industry work- other ethnic minorities lived cheek by ers and civilian volunteers played their jowl, with an aqueduct on one side, the St. parts. We learn how the city’s mayor, Lawrence on the other, and the Lachine Lancashire-born Edward Wilson, led a canal not far by. His task, as he puts it, municipal government that stood solidly was to “overlay” on this city “the greatest behind the war effort, endorsed by both

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French and English voters and property Wilson’s ‘Cigarette Fund For Verdun holders. More than most communities, Soldiers Overseas’ to city hall’s effort to Verdun’s patterns of participation in war mobilize civilian support for the hmcs service efforts by citizen volunteers, as Dunver, a Royal Canadian Navy ship compared to paid labour employment by named after Verdun, Durflinger often wage-earning men and women, did not conflates ‘community’ with overt displays neatly break down along class lines. Large of civic pride. Salvage drives, Victory Sav- numbers of citizens across the social ings and Loans campaigns, and civilian classes worked for pay and volunteered as home defence activities are described civilians on the home front. through newspaper sources that tend Durflinger pursues carefully Verdun’s to subsume signs of ethnic difference in answer to the question rooted in Québec’s describing local events through a boost- and Canada’s fundamental conundrum er’s sense of local pride. Durflinger does of uneven English and French partici- consider different social identities, but not pation in a war involving Britain – how as potential fissures that split Verdunites, many joined up from these groups and fundamentally, over the conscription why? Durflinger’s “by service and lan- crisis or other potential sources of local guage” chart for men and women shows conflict. Women’s volunteer service, for 5,126 English against 1,190 French. The instance, forms just part of the war effort estimated total for the city as a whole, a consensus Durflinger focuses on. In one tenth of all city residents across all ethnic case, he illustrates this through several groups, was even higher. verses from a patriotic poem written by And ‘against’ is really the wrong word. a Private Linstead, a year into the war. Durflinger examines carefully the impli- As a member of the Women’s Volunteer cations of francophone enlistees having Reserve Corps she cast herself as one of to choose among Québec regiments, over “just a bunch of women/Not expecting half of which were, by language and by praise/But raising dollars where we can/ identity traditions, ‘English.’ Verdun also to shorten Hitler’s Days.” (101) provided a high proportion of bilinguals. Does Durflinger cross the line toward English ‘with’ French, as he underscores, an overly sentimental account of Ver- is more accurate. Through useful case dunites during the war? I don’t think so. illustrations he also describes the local His consensus-based assessments of how experience of ‘disincentives’ for French the Canadian Legion, the ymca, and Ver- speakers, concluding that war service dun’s churches and schools got behind decisions were “not only about lan- Canada’s war are balanced with hard guage.”(34) Nonetheless and overall, for looks at family life disruption, crime, and Verdun, this was a ‘good’ war with respect juvenile delinquency. Durflinger’s cover- to recruitment and national unity. As age of the June 1944 Verdun ‘zuit-suit’ with the First World War, however, local riot, for example, I found fascinating, responses to enemy aliens (Germans and and nuanced. Tapping into newspaper Italians) proved divisive. Verdun’s enemy accounts, he describes how in one inci- alien proportion, however, was not high. dent the youth fad of ‘garish’ dress and According to the 1941 Dominion census, oppositional street culture, present in only 376 Germans and 295 Italians were other parts of Canada, the United States, resident in the city’s ethnically mixed and even Britain at this time, took a truc- neighbourhoods. ulent turn. At the Verdun Dance Palace, Unifying factors across Verdun are a waterfront hall next to Woodland Park, given much more attention. From Mayor at least 100 soldiers, most not much older

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than the zuit-suiters, clashed with about consider how quickly Canadian identity 60 civilian youths, “not all of whom were shifted in the middle of the last century. zooters,” Durflinger adds. “Dozens of English Canada (which, after all, was naval shore patrolmen, army provosts, most emphatically the dominant voice and Verdun police arrived to break up the within the ‘two nations’ paradigm), over melee, watched by large numbers of Ver- the course of the two-and-a-half decades dunites. The brawl lasted for more than following World War II, became some- an hour and was over by 11 p.m.” (161) thing other than what it had once been. As a teenager myself, years later, I The assumption of Britishness pervaded remember my father referring to my the idea of Canada until the 1950s, and dress as akin to a ‘zoot-suiter.’ ‘A what?’ so routine was this association of nation- I wondered then. Durflinger’s lively and hood with ethnicity and Empire that few well crafted account on Verdun’s place questioned it, even as it was being assailed in Canada’s war is a revealing and well- by various forces and developments. Igar- researched study of how an important tua shows how settled was this sense of working-class community came together a hybrid British-Canadian identity at to provide its youth, its energies, and its mid-century through scrutiny of debates organizational capacity to support the associated with a new Citizenship Bill, war effort overseas and at home. Readers responses to suggestions that the name will find significant and powerful signs of the national holiday be changed from of how this particular Québec and Cana- Dominion Day to Canada Day, proposals dian city took part in a bloody but neces- to develop a new Canadian flag, in which sary war. Verdun is a telling site of both national symbols such as the maple leaf memory and lived experience. It offers might be integrated with the Union Jack, the story of a place, time, and set of local and representations of Canada in public people’s reactions to a horrific era like no school textbooks. By 1970, however, an other. Durflinger tells their story, clearly ethnic national identity had been sup- inspired by much of it; clearly aware of its planted by a multicultural understanding harder edges. Years after I left my own of Canada premised, not on Britishness, hometown, I met a woman who became but on civic citizenships of equality. my marriage partner. Her mother, too, However much this Trudeauesque mul- grew up in Verdun during the war. ticulturalism and its shedding of ‘racial- Durflinger helps describe how. ized’ notions of nationhood might well Robert Rutherdale mythologize Canadianness as, indeed, Algoma University College had the prior attachment to Britishness, there is no denying that something fun- damental changed in terms of English José E. Igartua, The Other Quiet Canada’s self-conception as the 1960s Revolution: National Identities in English came to an end. Igartua charts this devel- Canada, 1945–1971 (Vancouver: ubc opment by looking at a series of bricks Press 2006) in the road to a Canada able to proclaim itself a “community of communities.” (14) This book is ordered by an elegant ana- Among the milestones in the making of a lytic simplicity. Igartua addresses what is rights-based Canadian citizenship would too often skirted in Canadian historiog- be post-war debates over Japanese intern- raphy. For all the discussion of represen- ments, immigration policy, and espionage tations of nationhood that now animates (the Gouzenko affair); Cold War imbro- historians, few have actually bothered to glios; the waning of Victoria Day and

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the increasing openness to new symbols hopes and aspirations springing eternal of Canadian nationality, culminating in from the deep well of British values and Lester B. Pearson’s final resolution of the Empire’s advances? Or, rather, might we flag issue in 1964; growing ambiguities in not see so many fissures in the multicul- English Canada’s response to and recep- tural edifice, and so much that is con- tion of the British monarchy; and the tested and problematic, that we might longstanding 1960s Royal Commission suggest that English Canadian remains a on Bilingualism and Biculturalism and national identity still very much in search the final adoption of new federal poli- of itself? In this sense the loss of English cies in these areas in 1971. On all of these Canada’s Britishness is undeniable, but developments and many more, Igartua is it might be argued that an alternative insightful and informative. identity has yet to be realized. Much of Not without reason, Igartua regards Canada’s post-1970 history, in which the changing nature of English-Canadian regional balkanization and competing, identity in these years as the equivalent even conflicting, identities, loom large, of Québec’s Quiet Revolution. Just as could well suggest that the ongoing ‘crisis French Canada shifted its understand- of Canada’ lies precisely in the failure of a ing of Québec’s historic identity rapidly national identity to congeal in the after- in the years reaching from the Asbestos math of the 1960s. Strike of 1949 through the rise of Jean Second, in focusing on specific events Lesage’s Liberals in the 1960s, resulting and political debates, most of which gen- in the implementation of a program of erated considerable editorial comment economic nationalism and rapid mod- in English-Canadian newspapers and in ernization, displacing the strangleholds Parliament (the sources on which this of tradition and the Catholic Church, book relies), Igartua has chosen a particu- English Canada, too, underwent a sig- lar path of argument. It takes him in spe- nificant “de-ethnicization.” But there was cific directions, and along the way much a difference that Igartua really does not is revealed. Other paths would, however, wrestle with: Québec’s Quiet Revolution have illuminated the subject in different unleashed the hounds of a not-so-quiet ways, and it is surprising that so little is revolutionary nationalist aspiration in made of the peculiarities of the 1960s ways that were not paralleled in English and the importance of youthful rebellion Canada, which perhaps suggests differ- in burying an antiquated past. English- ences in national identity that are skirted Canadian identity was destined to look in this book. very different after New Left campus There is little to quarrel with in the revolts, wildcat strikes, and second-wave general argument of The Other Quiet feminist manifestoes, not to mention Revolution. At particular points, how- readings of White Niggers of America and ever, questions might well be raised. As contending with the War Measures Act. examples only, I raise three. Third, Igartua relies on recent social First, Igartua’s sense that English- scientific writing on nations and nation- Canadian identity has settled easily into alism, especially the work of Anthony D. the space he labels civic equality might Smith, to claim that nations are a much well beg the question. Is this really an older phenomenon than nationalism. identity that English Canadians share Smith seems an appropriate commenta- and gravitate to in the same ways as ear- tor because Igartua borrows his language lier generations cultivated understand- of ethnic and civic nationalism, and ings of Canada as a northern nation, its Canada is such a young nation and a truly

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Canadian nationalism such a late arrival, Alberta. Instead, she proudly announces that it all seems to fit well with Igartua’s that her goal is to tell the story of the concerns. Yet there is a considerable province from her “idiosyncratic and body of challenging writing that flies in biased point of view.” (xi) And tell it she the face of Smith’s conceptualization, does: but does she tell it well is a matter including important books on nations of opinion. and nationalism by Eric Hobsbawm and Much like students writing essays in Ernest Geller, both of whom problema- first year university history courses, van tize and historicize nations and national- Herk tires to entice the reader with the ism in useful ways. That critical insight, it addition of two words, mavericks and seems to me, might well be related to the incorrigible, into a rather catchy title questions raised above, for had Igartua Mavericks: An Incorrigible History of grappled seriously with the arguments of Alberta. According to van Herk, Alber- Hobsbawm and Geller he could well have tans are mavericks because they step out- been less settled in his view that a post- side the box as it were, refuse to do what 1970 English-Canadian national identity they are told, are risk takers, display loud has indeed established itself, or that the laughter when they fall flat on their faces, editorial pages of newspapers and par- and then get up to proceed undaunted. liamentary debates provide the most But surely there are mavericks every- appropriate entre into national identity where in Canada’s past from Nova Scotia formation. to Manitoba to British Columbia. Being This latter query is really something of a maverick is not limited to an Albertan! a theoretical aside. The measure of any And the selection of the word incorri- book is the questions it makes us ask. gible is rather curious since its context Igartua’s pages give rise to many more is left to the reader’s imagination. Could than can be posed in a short review. It it then mean that the history of Alberta is a measure of his achievement that he is depraved, delinquent, and/or uncon- makes us see the obvious, when it has, for trollable? Perhaps the lack of defini- so long, been anything but clear, and then tion is warranted since incorrigible can allows us to rethink what he has made of now mean different things to different it all. Authors cannot be expected to do readers. much more than this. The book itself is divided into 14 chap- Bryan D. Palmer ters, more specifically vignettes, that can Trent University be read independently from each other. This format allows the reader the free- dom to pick and chose a chapter by topic Aritha van Herk, Mavericks: An and/or area of interest. Chapter headings Incorrigible History of Alberta (Toronto: range from the traditional “First Peo- Penguin Canada 2001) ples” and “Settlers” to the rather creative “Aggravating, Awful, Awkward, Awe- In the introduction to the book, van some Alberta” to the downright bizarre Herk issues a disclaimer. As a professor “Bread and Circuses, Culture and Big- of Canadian literature and creative writ- otry.” But by far the most odd chapter is ing in the Department of English at the the last one, titled “Buffalo and Beaver, University of Calgary, van Herk readily Bluster and Blood.” Arranged in alpha- admits she has “no historical training” betical order like entries in an encyclope- (xi) and as a result she cannot provide a dia, Chapter 14 reads like an afterthought historical perspective to the history of of ‘and now for a word about’ people

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(Eric Harvie), places (Lac Ste. Anne) and trained in the discipline. It allows the things (gophers and rats). Although there individual to make broad sweeping gen- is no concluding chapter to reinforce the eralizations without concern and in the mavericks theme laid out in the introduc- words of Captain Kirk in the original Star tion, this should be no surprise. Van Herk Trek series, to ‘boldly go where no man asserts that “history is a plot” (382) and has gone before.’ For example, in Chap- thus Alberta’s history is a work in prog- ter 13, “Ladies, Women and Broads,” van ress with no end in sight. Herk confidently asserts that Canada’s While Mavericks is not academic his- early feminists came from Alberta. Emily tory, one wonders if it is even good popular Stowe must be rolling over in her grave! history. Surely a certain level of research, Even a cursory glance of works in Cana- methodology, analysis, and referencing dian women’s history would indicate that is to be expected. After 25 years of grad- such is not the case. And how can one ing history papers, I found myself con- comment about the exploitation of the stantly frustrated with van Herk’s lack of West, the building of the railway, and even basic referencing to source material prairie settlement in Chapter 8, “Settlers,” used in the book. And the inclusion of a without having a basic understanding of selected bibliography just does not cut it. John A. Macdonald’s National Policy of Neither does the name dropping of J. G. the 1870s? MacGregor, Grant MacEwan, and Hugh This is not to say that Mavericks is a Dempsey with the comment that they are bad book or bad history. In fact, at times, fine historians. So what! Even first year it is quite entertaining, informative (in students know when you are using direct an odd way), fun, and even humorous. quotations from newspapers, it is simply Ralph Klein is characterized as “a like- not enough to put down the year. The day, able Dumbo-faced maverick” (227) while the month and the year must be given in R. B. Bennett “was another carpetbag- order to put the statement into context ging Easterner.” (238) And the picture of much like name, rank, and serial number the Northwest Mounted Police on page in the military. For example, on page 345 156 with the caption “nwmp, ready to in four separate instances only the year ride, not always sure where they were” is of the newspaper article was given. This sure to bring a smile to the face of even is not acceptable. The same comment can the most serious reader of the book. Van also be made with regards to captions Herk proves that history need not be for the pictures in the book. Why have dull and boring despite the perception of a picture of the Hop Wo Laundry being works produced by academically trained moved and say it took place in the 1920s? historians. (346) The most obvious question is: did Writing in a more conversational style, the move take ten years? And on page van Herk provides the reader with her 190, two males appear to be doing chores personal history, anecdotes, and observa- outside a building and the caption reads, tions at the beginning of each chapter. In “Bachelors enjoying domestic chores.” addition, her use of contractions, the first How on earth can we know that with any person narrative, and ordinary vocabu- level of certainty? More detail is needed lary highlights the story of Alberta’s his- on such matters and once over lightly will tory in this work that received the 2002 not do as then it becomes difficult for the Grant MacEwan Author’s Award. It is reader to get a sense of time and place. an easy read once you leave your PhD at Admittedly there is much to be said the door. Her discussion of the Calgary- about writing history without being Edmonton rivalry in Chapter 11, “Urban

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Rivals: Cities of the Plain” is worthy of Ann Laura Stoler, ed., Haunted by any game seven in the Battle of Alberta Empire: Geographies of Intimacy in between the Flames and the Oilers. North American History (Durham and As a home-grown Albertan, van Herk London: Duke University Press 2006) has attempted to answer two questions: what is an Albertan, and why are Alber- Haunted by Empire consists of 16 tans the way they are? She suggests that essays (and “Refractions” on these essays western grumbling is part of the Alberta by Linda Gordon, Catherine Hall, and psyche and Albertans quite like it. The Nancy Cott) that take as their starting 1885 Riel Rebellion serves as an example point and respond to anthropologist of the West pursuing its autonomy. As and historian Ann Laura Stoler’s call to true mavericks, Albertans have and will extend contemporary colonial studies continue to display “ a collective resis- to the history of the United States. Her tance to being caught, owned, herded, essay advocating a comparative approach taxed, or identified.” (394) But when all to European and us. colonialism, “Tense is said and done, van Herk says in order and Tender Ties: The Politics of Com- to truly understand Alberta one must live parison in North American History and there. On a personal note, I have lived in (Post) Colonial Studies,” is included in the Alberta since 1969 and I still do not get it. collection. Stoler’s comparative approach, But I was born and brought up in Ontario. using a broad definition of colonialism, Need I say more? challenges us exceptionalism and puts in Overall Mavericks is a welcome addi- question the deeply rooted notion among tion to Canadian history in general and many Americans that the United States Alberta history in particular. Is it aca- is not now, nor ever has been, an imperial demic history? No, of course not and it power. As Nancy Cott explains, the idea was not intended to be. Is it popular his- “goes against the grain.” tory? Well that is a matter of opinion. But This may seem a curious stance to let’s face it, any time a book on the history many Canadian readers, marked as we are of Alberta becomes a national best seller, by our historic relationship to, and geo- gets people talking about and excited graphic position between, two empires: about history in this country and prov- 19th-century Britain and the United ince is great! There is nothing wrong with States in the 20th and 21st centuries. popular history just as there is nothing Despite the many critiques of the notion wrong with academic history. The key is of American innocence in the long his- to blend the two forms. If van Herk ven- tory of western colonialism, outlined in tures into the world of history again it is part by Linda Gordon in her “Afterword,” hoped that she will incorporate the best the persistence of this idea is graphically of the popular and academic history to illustrated here. become comfortable in both worlds. The authors acknowledge the impe- Terry L. Chapman rial model but avoid engaging “empire” Medicine Hat College directly. Instead, they take up other aspects of Stoler’s rich and insightful exploration of colonialism. Stoler’s emphasis on “inti- macies” (sites where populations are pro- duced and reproduced) as a “transfer point of Colonial relations” is given particular attention. Not surprisingly, “intimacies” here are interpreted primarily through

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the lens of race and its various and shift- by drawing attention to varying degrees ing internal and external meanings and of colour, the census confirmed the exis- interpretations. Comparing us and other tence of sex across race boundaries, the imperial approaches to calibrating degrees most obvious example of the failure of of “colour” as a widely used colonial tech- the strict segregation that mechanisms nology for differentiating “insiders” and such as the census were intended to pro- “outsiders,” “colonizer” and “colonized,” duce. Lisa Lowe shows that concerns “included” and “excluded,” “citizen” and about inter-racial sex were not limited to “non-citizen,” “subject” and “non-subject” the us. In “The Intimacies of Four Conti- will be especially interesting to students nents,” she examines the ways in which of Canadian history. raced and “unfree bodies” were impli- Taking management systems as their cated in the rise of modernity, contra- interrogatory site, a number of essays dicting one of its central pillars: universal explore the role of colonial bureaucracies freedom. and managers in enumerating, classify- Other authors explore questions of ing, segregating, and assimilating various intimacies in the most personal of set- populations. The suggestion here is that tings, the home, asking how public these widely used approaches constitute manifestations of race and class tensions a “family” of colonial techniques. War- were negotiated in domestic settings. wick Anderson, “States of Hygiene: Race As Katheen Brown, “Body Work in the ‘Improvement’ and Biomedical Citizen- Antebellum United States,” argues in her ship in Australia and the Colonial Phil- examination of the relationship between ippines,” for example, finds similar logic wealthy employers and their black domes- and “political rationality” in approaches tic servants in mid-nineteenth century to “contaminated” Philippine lepers and Massachusetts, the politics of producing “savage” mixed-race children in Australia. bodies and homes reflected those of pro- Anderson and others show the extent to ducing empires. which anxieties over miscegenation and Given the overall focus on intimate “race suicide” underpinned the develop- relationships that certainly include, ment of elaborate taxonomies of race and although are not limited to, marriage, various attempts to fix social hierarchies family, domesticity, and sexuality it is based on an assumption of white suprem- surprising, even disappointing, that gen- acy which underpinned nation-building der is little noticed by these authors. This as well as imperialism. is made all the more puzzling by the fact This is graphically illustrated by Mar- that the title of the collection plays off of tha Hodes, “Fractions and Fictions in the Sylvia Van Kirk’s early work on fur trade United States Census of 1890.” Hodes marriages, Many Tender Ties. As Gordon reminds us that the 1890 census was points out, this silence or absence reflects the first and only time people of African a more general weakness in colonial/post- descent were divided into four categories: colonial studies in which gender “hides “black,” “mullato,” “quadroon,” and “octo- itself so easily, standing so often behind roon.” Using a real inter-racial family liv- racial and national and class conflicts, ing in the Grand Cayman Islands at the allowing those more assertive squabblers time, she imagines them in the us in 1890 the spotlight.” (450) as a means of exploring the contradic- The comparative approach taken by all tions and fictions in this state-sponsored of the authors is suggestive of new path- effort to enforce a definition of “white- ways toward a deeper and more nuanced ness” based on the “one drop” rule. Yet, understanding of colonization. But, as

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Emily Rosenberg, “Ordering Others: U.S. contribution to colonial studies. Many of Financial Advisers in the Early Twenti- the essays clearly resonate with questions eth Century,” rightly points out, there being asked by Canadian historians about are problems with applying imperialism the ways in which our past intersects with and colonialism with too broad a brush. and reproduces colonialisms. Haunted by She asks, for example, how we untangle Empire will be of interest to students and different meanings of “imperialism,” scholars alike. The book’s extensive bib- “internationalism,” and “modernization.” liography makes it a particularly useful Following Stoler’s lead, the essays here resource. suggest that by uncovering the cross- Catherine Cavanaugh currents of each of these we can better Athabasca University understand their enmeshments. Stoler recognizes the problems of comparing colonialisms across time and place, but, James Green, Death in the Haymarket: by rethinking what constitutes the colo- A Story of Chicago, the First Labor nial to include “concomitant ‘constella- Movement, and the Bombing That tions’ of practices and convergent effects” Divided Gilded Age America (New York: as a basis for “reenvisoning … circuits of Pantheon Books 2006) knowledge production,” (10) she promises a way forward that decentres the nation- The human scale of James Green’s well- state in order to render colonized “bod- constructed and solid narrative trans- ies” more visible. forms this dramatic confrontation into As these essays show, this can be a a vivid tableau of the social tensions challenging task. Since the state and state and aspirations of the Gilded Age. The management of the colonial Other lies at title centres on the death in Haymarket the heart of the imperial project there is Square in Chicago, and also those associ- nothing new in the study of colonial sys- ated with the events that took place there. tems and taxonomies. Attempts to reveal On May 4, 1886, a bomb exploded in what these can tell us about the people the ranks of the Chicago Police Depart- charged with enforcing them as well as ment then engaged in trying to dissolve their subjects often privileges imperial an anarchist-led rally for a nation-wide power over colonized voices. Rather than wave of strikes to establish the eight-hour bringing the bodily intimacies of empire workday. The damage of the bomb to the into sharper focus, as Warwick Anderson police was what mattered officially, as did points out, an emphasis on knowledge the execution of anarchist labour leaders production can have the opposite effect, for conspiracy to bring about an atmo- producing a “distancing, imperial optic.” sphere of violence leading to the death (112) A clearer picture of the often convo- of police officers. The extent of death luted and contradictory attempts to “fix” beyond becomes less tangible. The bomb- colonial bodies emerges but those bodies ing and subsequent gunfire in the square themselves are frequently obscured or certainly killed or mortally wounded an invisible. indeterminate number of demonstra- I found many of the essays in this col- tors and bystanders and left many more lection interesting, imaginative, and even injured, but the evidence grows weaker as provocative. But, overall, the authors’ we move away from the official sources. tentative approach to empire fails to ade- There were also four deaths that led to the quately address Stoler’s central challenge calling of the rally, but these, too, seem to to us historians. Still, this is an important be difficult to prove.

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In short, the case illustrates how the the deed.” The synchrony of these experi- very sources on which the historian ences brought many of the more radical depends necessarily reflect the social and proponents of electoral action to what institutional priorities of the society that scholars would later label “anarcho-com- generated them. Much of Green’s book munism.” Green rightly avoids drawing traces the emergence and escalation of the reader into ideological conflicts that what created those priorities, the social seemed important at the time but can tensions in Chicago that emerged from now leave the reader stranded in a dark the unifying experience of the Civil War labyrinth. to the polarizing realities of 1886. Most One conflict involved the Greenback- immediately, the mass responses to the Labor Party which built a united third official suppression of the general strike party campaign in 1880 that included the movement of 1877 – particularly brutal slp with results that provided another in Chicago – inspired a political insur- reason for the radicals to abandon elec- gency around labour and socialist candi- toral politics. After the glp raised issues dates. This coincided with the emergence like black disenfranchisement, the Dem- of similar mass movements across the ocratic press published an “exposé” alleg- country and in other industrial nations, edly proving the third party to have been but the efforts of the city fathers in Chi- mere pawns of the Republicans, using this cago to dismantle the movement sup- as justification for ending all coverage of pressed the possibility of a less violent the insurgent campaign. (The disturbed resolution of the issues at stake. In Chi- Dyer D. Lum penned this pro-Demo- cago, the Socialistic Labor Party drew off cratic “exposé,” subsequently meandering enough immigrant voters to tilt the bal- through the socialists to the anarchists ance of power to the Democrats. before taking his own life.) Green details how the city fathers The centerpiece of Green’s book is the sought to demobilize the insurgency. national push to impose an eight-hour Patronage courted leaders of the discon- limit on the workday as of May 1, 1886. tented, while vote fraud minimized the This offered a common focus to a frag- chances for electoral success, along with mented movement. It brought together the outright refusal of the government to anarchists, socialists, the new Ameri- accept socialist victories. All this capped can Federation of Labor, the declining the successive use of federal troops, the Knights of Labor, and various other bod- state militia, and an expanded and armed ies to focus on a goal for which organized city police force against the working workers had been agitating since the close class and immigrant residents of the city. of the Civil War. That first May Day mobi- Understandably, many of the most active lized three or four times as many workers radicals and labour militants began to nationally as the 1877 strike wave, and the despair of any peaceful solution to the movement closed hundreds of factories innately hierarchic and undemocratic and workplaces across Chicago. When system. strike leaders heard on May 3 that the Moreover, these developments coin- police had killed four workers locked out cided internationally with the response at the McCormick Harvesting Machine of the German government to the rise of Company, they called for a protest rally a mass socialist party by simply banning the next day on Desplaines Street, near it. This inspired the rise of a new kind of where Randolph Street emerged from anarchism that rejected hopes for elec- downtown and widened into Haymarket toral change in favor of “propaganda by Square.

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In the wake of the bomb, an extensive the Pinkerton detectives) began regularly official repression also aimed at breaking finding explosives in the hands of strik- the eight-hour movement and the unity ers and radicals, although, when closely it briefly inspired. The police swept up examined, there is often little of what hundreds for questioning but focused on we would today call a chain of evidence. removing eight anarchist labour leaders, Interestingly, Avrich took issue with this convicting all of them, and hanging four view of defeat in the wake of Haymarket on November 11, 1887. Although sections and discussed the mass labour parties of of the movement initially backed away 1886–87 and the revived radicalism of from the charged men, what became an the 1890s as an extension of what he saw extensive defence campaign blossomed as the gains of the Haymarket episode. into an amnesty movement that, among Green’s assumptions are more tradi- other things, inspired the new Social- tional than those of Avrich, but he aims ist International to declare May Day an for a much broader readership and cov- international labour day. In contrast, ers this terrain without cultivating the the city created an official view (which almost unavoidable nostalgia for radical almost nobody ever believed) that the movements lost. It is recommended as a police essentially turned back an immi- sound introduction to the labour issues nent revolution at the “Haymarket Riot.” of the period and a demonstration of why Although Henry David, Bruce Nelson, Haymarket is a subject worth frequently Paul Avrich and others have told this tale revisiting. of an uphill fight against the forces of Mark A. Lause power and authority, Green does this in University of Cincinnati a particularly engaging and expert fash- ion. With other scholars, he shares the contemporary liberal assessment that John Barnard, American Vanguard: The the authorities had behaved miserably, United Auto Workers During the Reuther inflicting “judicial murder” on labour Years (Detroit: Wayne State University leaders, inaugurating a wave of repression Press 2004) that further fragmented the labour move- ment and postponed the serious drive From the outset of this book, John Bar- towards industrial unionism for decades. nard leaves no doubt about his sympathy Green’s narrative required no more than and support for the United Auto Workers, a simple recitation of theories as to what and particularly longtime President Wal- brought death to the Haymarket, though ter Reuther and his allies. He acknowl- Avrich had no real doubts but that one edges the encouragement and financial or another of these understandably frus- grants he received from a number of uaw trated workingmen actually made and leaders, although he also makes clear that threw the bomb. this “is not in any sense an ‘authorized’ or Green’s epilogue describes the after- ‘official’ history.” (xiii) math of Haymarket and its impact on The greatest strength of Barnard’s study the labour and radical movements in the is his massive research base. He makes familiar terms of defeat and demise, start- extensive use of union archives and con- ing with the repression of labour and rad- ducted interviews with a wide array of icalism in Chicago. The authorities and uaw leaders. Barnard also makes good use the press would fan its flare into a full- of the secondary literature on the uaw, blown panic that reached far beyond Chi- particularly Nelson Lichtenstein’s mag- cago. Police officials (with assistance by nificent biography of Reuther, The Most

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Dangerous Man in Detroit. Barnard is cer- account of the battles among different tainly aware that much of the scholarship factions within the union. His enthusi- on Reuther and the uaw is far from favour- asm for the union is an especially valu- able, but he rarely engages these critics, or able asset in this regard, as he shows how interpretive debates of any kind. these were not merely petty squabbles Rather, Barnard devotes himself to but rather high stakes struggles for con- building a narrative that emphasizes the trol of a powerful organization. Barnard achievements and contributions of the also shows a keen eye for incidents that union. To be sure, Barnard pays much bring his story to life. For instance, Bar- attention to the many controversial nard provides an engaging description aspects of the union’s history, including of the tactics that Homer Martin, the the internal divisions, political machina- uaw’s unsteady and often autocratic tions, and the numerous unfulfilled goals. first president, employed to keep control But in Barnard’s account, the accomplish- of the 1937 convention. Barnard writes ments of Reuther and company greatly that “Martin kept a small metal box on outweigh the failures. the podium, an ‘applausograph,’ that he Barnard provides no shortage of evi- claimed could record the volume of voice dence to support his perspective. He is votes with scientific accuracy.” (122) Sure especially effective in bringing home the enough, “with the president announcing extent of the struggle required to estab- the results, the close votes went in favor” lish the union in the major automakers’ of his side. (122) plants. For instance, he emphasizes how Not surprisingly, Barnard seems most precarious the union remained, and how assured in his analysis of the prosperous much work was still left to be done, after years that followed World War II, when the initial breakthroughs of the 1937 sit- Reuther won and then consolidated power down strikes. He outlines how internal and the uaw made its greatest gains on discord and employer resistance nearly wages and benefits at the bargaining drove the uaw out of gm plants, and only table. Barnard traces in impressive detail Reuther’s decision to mount a risky strike the union’s advances, which allowed the for recognition by the tool and die mak- weekly wages (inflation-adjusted) of the ers allowed the union to regain its orga- average auto worker to triple from $56.61 nizing momentum. (141–6) in 1946 to $170.07 in 1960. (260) The dedication of Reuther and his com- Regarding political matters, Barnard rades in building the union is one of many portrays Reuther as a principled leader parts of the book that is enriched by some and a shrewd tactician. While acknowl- compelling pictures. Barnard includes edging many unfulfilled goals and a few well-known photographs just before and key errors in judgment, Barnard describes after the 1937 “Battle of the Overpass” in Reuther as a tenacious and creative force which Reuther, future uaw vice-president leading labour’s efforts to influence the Richard Frankensteen, and other orga- broader political landscape. He also gener- nizers were brutally beaten by a group of ally stands behind Reuther’s (mostly suc- Ford “servicemen.” (107–8) Altogether, cessful) tactics in defeating rival factions in the book features more than 75 images, the uaw, including in cases that have been mostly from the Reuther library, includ- flashpoints for critics. The best example is ing photographs of pickets, sit-downers, Barnard’s treatment of the “crackdown” demonstrations, parades, conventions, on leaders of Local 600, based in Ford’s and of course key union leaders. massive set of plants at Rouge River. He Barnard also provides a thorough concedes that the decision to put the local

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in the hands of an administrator “smacked especially shop-floor militancy, shifts of revenge,” and that some key opponents depending on the circumstances. In of Reuther were lumped together with discussing the strikes that helped estab- communists and driven out of positions of lish the union, he credits average work- influence. (245–6) ers “on the shop floor” for creating “the But Barnard insists that there is more initial commitment to union action.” to the story than Reuther taking “political He contends that while organizers and advantage” of “the “Red Scare” hysteria future leaders could give some assistance, of the times. He argues that Reutherites “nothing happened unless workers them- were also motivated by, among other selves stepped forward, asserted their things, a “principled objection to Com- rights, and drew up an agenda.” (95) But munism,” and a deep conviction that the his view changes after the union becomes “democratic left, of which they were a increasingly secure and a stable collective part” had to prevail over the “totalitarian bargaining system is in place. Indeed, left” in the “struggle to shape humanity’s Barnard almost takes it for granted that future.” (246) Reuther and other top uaw leaders were This is one of a number of cases for justified in viewing shop-floor-initiated which Barnard needed to do more than actions as destructive and disruptive. give his account of events and address in There is also a conspicuous regional detail some key historiographic issues bias. One can hardly quibble with a study about the uaw. As it is, some of his state- of the auto industry focusing on the mid- ments about controversial events – such as west region, especially the state of Michi- his claim that Reuther was “both an anti- gan and the city of Detroit. But the book communist and an opponent of extrem- would have been enriched by giving more ist anti-communism” (247) – cry out for consideration to industrial growth and further explanation and justification. union activity in other areas, particularly Social historians will find a number Canada (since the uaw was an interna- of underdeveloped themes in Barnard’s tional union in the period covered by the study particularly noticeable. After an study) and the American South. early chapter on the auto industry before On the whole, however, Barnard’s work the union, Barnard tends to neglect the succeeds in its most basic goal of making lives and experiences of autoworkers, readers appreciate the achievements of and particularly the social factors such Reuther and other leaders who built and as race and gender that helped to shape led the uaw through its greatest years. them. The importance of women and For scholars in Canada, where the field gender issues in the union, let alone in the of institutional labour history remains broader community, especially needed underdeveloped, Barnard has provided further examination. For instance, the another valuable service. He also shows contribution of women to the sit-down just how much the field has to offer when strikes, which has been well explored served by a dedicated historian. elsewhere, is given only a few paragraphs. David Goutor While Barnard does devote considerable McMaster University attention to race relations, especially in the 1960s, his analysis would have profited from drawing on insights from recent scholarship on racism and racial identities. Barnard’s approach to other themes,

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Clayton Sinyai, Schools of Democracy: critics are portrayed as undermining the A Political History of the American Labor labour movement’s capacity to construct Movement (Ithaca: Cornell University their own proper “governments whose Press 2006) jurisdictions were defined by trade rather than territory.” (28) For Sinyai, Gompers’ Clayton Sinyai’s Schools of Democ- lack of concern for the material and polit- racy provides a unique discussion of the ical clout of the industrial working class American labour movement’s politi- is overlooked in favour of his attempt to cal history from the late 1800s through “create labor organizations that would to the 1968 presidential election, with a themselves cultivate and preserve civic brief postscript which surveys contempo- virtues that the political economy could rary labour politics in the United States. no longer provide.” (26) Sinyai outlines the broad contours of Sinyai’s nostalgic analysis presup- American labour history using liberal poses, incorrectly in my view, that the democratic political theory as his narra- material and political demands of Gomp- tive. Specifically, Sinyai argues that the ers’ radical critics were inconsistent with American labour movement’s conception the development of civic virtue within of democracy and republicanism was trade unions. Admittedly, more progres- inspired by the political thought of Jeffer- sive segments of the labour movement son, de Tocqueville, and Lincoln. Sinyai envisioned building schools of socialism, contends that unions sought to trans- or social democracy, rather than schools form their organizations into “schools of of liberal democracy, but Sinyai’s nar- democracy” in an effort to infuse the us row interpretation of democracy hurts working class with the strong civic vir- his overall analysis. For example, in tues deemed necessary in a democracy by Chapter 4, Sinyai sharply criticizes the Aristotle and his philosophical succes- industrial-based Committee for Indus- sors in the United States. trial Organization (cio), for breaking Theoretically, Sinyai attempts to stake with the American Federation of Labor out a middle ground between “socialist (afl), on the basis that the cio ought to radicals” and “supply-side Republicans.” have respected the democratic majority This theoretical middle ground uses Jef- in the Federation who decided against fersonian conceptions of democracy and actively pursuing aggressive industrial republicanism as the lens through which organizing. Although Sinyai does not to study the labour movement’s politi- deny the practical importance of the cio cal trajectory. However, this approach, in extending the collective benefits of in a field dominated by social democrats unionization to industrial workers, his and Marxists, falters based on the lack primary concern is with the theoreti- of empirical evidence Sinyai provides in cal idea that the division of the afl and support of his argument. cio represented an end to democratic The American democratic tradition, self-government within the labour move- according to Sinyai, informed the labour ment. Again, Sinyai’s limited definition movement’s conception of democracy as of democracy, which stresses its outward embodying individual liberty, the rule appearance (democracy as a formal vote of law, and civic virtue. This contention taken by delegates at union convention), leads Sinyai to develop some bewildering and not its substance (democracy as a conclusions. For example, Samuel Gomp- tool to build working-class capacities ers is depicted as a Jeffersonian democrat and extend the bonds of class solidarity of heroic proportions, while his radical as widely as possible), allows him to dis-

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pense with radical critiques too easily. and 1928. Her interest in this particular For example, in defending the afl’s deci- group derives from both her scholarly sion to exclude unskilled workers from focus on immigration and her Sicilian its ranks, on the basis that the Federation background and desire “to understand was guided by civic notions of self-rule, what being Sicilian meant, and why it Sinyai does not fully come to grips with seemed so powerful.” ( 9) the practical limitations of union democ- Using community studies and oral racy or the fact that the overwhelming history as primary modes of investiga- majority of workers in the United States tion, McKibben’s work adds to a steady were not represented in the afl’s deci- stream of books on Italian immigration sion-making process. published in recent years, contributing In addition, Sinyai fails to engage in a particularly to the literature of Italian serious discussion of gender, and does not settlements in the west and gender analy- consider race or ethnicity in any compre- sis. Her story, however, differs from other hensive way until Chapter 7, wherein he accounts in one regard: her protagonists offers a thorough account of organized are neither peasants nor factory or sea- labour’s important role in educating its sonal labourers, as were the majority of members around the issue of civil rights. Italians who settled in the United States. It is certainly noteworthy that a book Instead they are fishers. They fished for about the labour movement relies more their livelihood in Sicily and continued to heavily on liberal democratic theory identify themselves as fishers in Califor- than on class analysis. In writing such nia as well. a book, Sinyai is sure to ruffle ideologi- According to McKibben’s research, cal feathers. This, in and of itself, is not a the first Sicilian fishers came to Mon- bad thing. Sinyai’s Schools of Democracy terey before World War I, but the major- does provide us with a unique analysis ity arrived between 1920 and 1930, when of organized labour’s political develop- California’s economy seemed to explode. ment in the United States, but it suffers The census listed 972 Italians living in from a breakdown between its theoreti- Monterey in 1920. By 1940, they had cal approach and the insufficient empiri- grown to 3,000, constituting one-third cal evidence Sinyai uses to support it. of the total population. (17–18) Like It is this conceptual flaw that critically other Italian immigrants, they came to detracts from the author’s arguments. California through migration and fam- Larry Savage ily networks, often landing in Monterey Brock University by way of other American cities such as Pittsburgh, Detroit, San Francisco, or New York. Carol Lynn McKibben, Beyond Cannery To Sicilian fishers, Monterey was an Row: Sicilian Women, Immigration, and ideal destination. It bore a striking resem- Community in Monterey, California, blance to their native villages in climate, 1915–99 (Urbana and Chicago: University coastline, and landscape. But unlike Sic- of Illinois Press 2006) ily where fish had become scarce by 1900, sardines and salmon were profuse in Carol McKibben’s monograph tells Monterey. Word had it that “the fish were the story of a specific group of Italian so plentiful” that they “are coming into immigrants from three villages in the the houses.” ( 16) Seizing the commer- northwestern coast of Sicily who settled cial opportunities that Monterey fishing in Monterey, California, between 1915 offered, some Sicilians also purchased

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boats and canneries, quickly gaining a cally active. They fit indeed a much more foothold in the town’s economy. traditional profile of Italian immigrant McKibben argues that fishing gave the women: conservative, religious, anti-union, Italian community in Monterey a char- overly concerned with family and their acter and culture of its own. For Sicil- insular community. At the same time, ians, she explains, “fishing in Monterey however, they defy traditional stereo- became a ‘way of life,’ a part of who they types of submissive, docile, and reticent were, not merely an occupation.”( 6) southern Italian wives. McKibben shows Fishing entailed great communal effort that Monterey Sicilian women not only and solidarity, and Monterey Sicilians controlled the domestic sphere, but also established widespread family and kin made important social and economic networks. They relied on each other for decisions. support and aid with childcare, food, and For example, the majority of Sicilian work; they promoted marriages between women in Monterey worked in the sar- Sicilians of the same villages; and they dine canneries. “Good” Italian women organized feasts that strengthened cul- were expected to stay home but Sicilian tural and social ties among themselves Monterey wives challenged conventional and to their homeland. In doing so, perceptions of decorum and honour, argues McKibben, they created a dis- insisting that “their work was both neces- tinct, insular community, recalling and sary and respectable.” ( 49) Resisting their reinventing “their identity in a powerful husbands’ objections to their workforce way that fused ethnicity with fishing, and participation, they pointed out that they with Monterey itself.” (1) needed to work for the good of the family. McKibben maintains that women Indeed they were proud of contributing played a leading role in building this com- to the finances of their households and munity and ethnic identity. They made “felt that their labor was integral to the important decisions about migration and labor of the fishermen.” (36) settlement; they contributed to the work Monterey Sicilian women proved also of fishing and fish processing; they pro- to be great entrepreneurs, using their moted kinship through countless visits extra wages to invest in real estate and to relatives and fellow Sicilians; and they the fishing industry as a means to access arranged social and religious gatherings, middle-class status. According to McK- such as the rosary groups, which helped ibben, largely thanks to the initiatives promote and preserve Sicilian values and of their women, by 1951 Sicilians owned culture. “fully one-third of Monterey’s homes and Indeed, as recent scholarship on gen- small businesses.” (55) der and migration has made clear, Italian As Mike Maiorana, one of McKibben’s immigrant women were far from invis- interviewees, succinctly put it, the Sicil- ible, passive, or silent. A recent collection ian woman was “the brain of the family;” of essays edited by Donna Gabaccia and she “made all the decisions” and really Franca Iacovetta, among others, shows for dominated the home. ( 20) Female power example that Italian immigrant women in Monterey, however, was more a result played an important role in local labour of fishing life than women’s own struggle struggles and in building and sustaining for liberation. Fishermen went to the sea the networks of working-class solidarity for extended periods of time leaving their and political consciousness. women to fend for themselves. In the The women in McKibben’s book, how- absence of men, women were expected to ever, are far from revolutionary or politi- make all kind of decisions and were held

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accountable for them. As a result they when they entered white-collar and pro- developed a strong sense of independence fessional jobs. After all, as the book indi- and determination, which they used to cates, they chose not to relocate to other shape the economic and social affairs of fishing towns after sardines disappeared their home and community. in Monterey in the 1960s. What they World War II marked a turning point retained was just a sense of nostalgia for for the Monterey Sicilian community their homeland, a longing for a culture and Italian Americans at large. Ameri- uncorrupted by materialistic concerns can entry into the war forced Italians in – genuine, simple, and communitarian. the United States to confront their ethnic While McKibben makes a convincing identity and ultimately redefine them- case for female power, she also underesti- selves as American citizens. Labeled mates the role that class plays in affecting “enemy aliens,” about 1,400 Italians were identity. Even though she acknowledges forced to move out of Monterey. (84) Even that “class differences divided Sicilians though they resented the humiliation of as much as ethnicity and fishing united being identified as a national threat, Sicil- them,” (121) she fails to explore the impli- ians responded to evacuation orders with cations of class conflict on the process of compliance and stoicism. They also tried ethnicization. to redeem their image by making public The anecdotes emerging from the oral displays of their loyalty, giving generous interviews are fascinating. However, the donations to the war effort, joining the story of Monterey Sicilians could have army, and, above all, struggling to acquire been enriched by other sources, such as citizenship and blend into mainstream local Italian language newspapers and American culture. immigrant literature and texts, allowing A case in point of this transformation for a more complex picture of immigrant is the celebration of the festa of Santa and community life. Rosalia, the Sicilian patron saint of fish- These criticisms notwithstanding, ing. Initially meant to bring the Sicilian Beyond Cannery Row is a significant con- fishing community together and cherish tribution to the study and understanding native religious values and traditions, of the processes of migration and settle- after World War II Santa Rosalia became ment, and a compelling reminder of the a political feast. Whereas it was originally crucial role of gender in shaping them. modest and exclusive, it became ostenta- Marcella Bencivenni tious and inclusive. As McKibben points Hostos Community College, out, it “began to look more like an Ameri- City University of New York can-style parade,” celebrating Italian pride rather than Sicilian culture. In this respect, the story of Sicilian fish- Biju Mathew, Taxi! Cabs and Capitalism ers in Monterey is neither unique nor dis- in New York City (New York: New Press tinct, but rather echoes the experiences 2005) of other Italian immigrants. It is a “suc- cess” story of assimilation and upward Taxi driving is a common form of work mobility, but also a story of cultural and that receives little recognition from the ethnic loss. Contrary to what McKib- public or attention from scholars. As a ben argues, Sicilian fishers stopped see- member of the organizing committee ing themselves as fisherpeople after they of the New York Taxi Worker Alliance, achieved middle-class status, just as Ital- Mathew brings an insider’s knowledge of ian factory workers stopped being radical the labour struggles he describes in Taxi!

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For research methods, the book combines The cost of a medallion remained rela- recounted interviews with taxi drivers as tively low and was regulated by the City well as fellow labour organizers, notes until the late 1960s. Since then, the worth from observations, and analysis of vari- of a medallion has increased 2,000 per cent ous policies that impact on taxi work. The in a 25-year period, driving up medallion book does a first-rate job of communicat- lease costs for drivers. ing the solidarity that binds members of The illusion is that taxi drivers are inde- the New York Taxi Worker Alliance and pendent contractors, but nothing could taxi drivers more generally. Scholars and be more counter-factual. Taxi drivers in lay persons interested in labour struggles, New York City do not own the means of automobilities, globalization theory, and production (the medallion) and so the the sociology of work will enjoy Taxi! economic risks of the taxi business are There are few books that focus on issues shouldered solely by drivers. The driver of labour struggle in the taxi industry. must pay the medallion lease plus car pay- Able to articulate complex ideas through ments and cost of maintenance. Medallion elegant and easy-to-read prose, Mathew owners pocket money without taking any conveys a sense of the many exploitative risk while drivers often have not even cov- layers New York City taxi drivers must ered the lease 8 hours into their shift. This maneuver through if they are to keep blatant exploitation exists aside another themselves on the road, driving to live. form of regulation taxi drivers are subject For instance, until recently, drivers on to: fines. A stringent code of regulations average earned less than $500 but worked regarding the cleanliness of the taxi keeps upwards of 72 hours in a week. This is drivers under constant duress: they can because of the hidden costs associated be fined for something as small as having with taxi driving. Drivers must lease cars a bubble gum wrapper in their back seat. from garages and brokers for $100 a day or The aftermath of September 11, 2001 also more. The general public, as well as City greatly affected taxi drivers. Many lost administration and related regulatory upwards of 80% of their daily income, and bodies, fail to understand taxi drivers 3/5 of drivers amassed over $5,000 of debt only take home a small fraction of what as a direct result. they generate in income during a shift, The New York Taxi Worker Alliance the majority of the money going back to has scored some major victories in labour the garage owners and brokers. A few lost struggles, however. On May 13 and 14 hours stuck in a traffic jam without a fare in 1998, for instance, 24,000 New York can have dire consequences for drivers. City Yellow Cab drivers (98% of the active The exploitative relations between driv- work force for Yellow Cabs) struck for ers and brokers/owners have deeper his- 24 hours. To contextualize the size of torical roots according to Mathew. Early this major success (and the size of the in the 20th century New York taxis served taxi industry in New York City), in all of as a legitimate front for the mob, providing Canada there are a bit over 38,000 people cover for liquor transportation. In 1937, who make a living driving taxi (plus lim- Mayor La Guardia introduced the Haas ousine). The strike, initiated in relation to Act to wrestle control of the taxi indus- new safety rules passed down from the try back from the mob. The Act required Taxi and Limousine Commission, was owners to have a permit if operating taxis, spread through organizers distributing which came in the form of a medallion pamphlets at taxi cab stands, the airport, issued by the City. Yet many of the mob red lights, and traffic jams. Further, in bosses were the ones buying medallions. 2004, the New York Taxi Worker Alli-

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ance successfully negotiated a reorgani- drivers in Vancouver, Winnipeg, and zation of taxi fares so that more money Halifax are highly victimized –20 times would reach taxi driver pockets. more than the average Canadian. “Fare- Mathew convincingly argues that, jumping,” vandalism, and assault are the despite the liquidity of capital under neo- more common forms of victimization. liberal economic regimes, globalization One third had been robbed. Fifteen per- is full of restrictive borders for those who cent reported having had a weapon used labour. Money moves, people get stuck. against them. Taxi drivers face a disturb- Many drivers in New York immigrated to ingly high rate of occupational homicide the United States in the late 1970s look- – four to five times higher than police. ing for greater economic opportunity. Drivers do not often report victimization Some moved with their families. But because they feel the incident is not seri- others did not, and they now rarely see ous enough (it is normalized in the occu- their families because of the costs asso- pation); the police will not do anything; ciated with travel (though many loyally or the time it takes to file a complaint is still send money home). Linked to this time off the road. A Dutch study by Anee immobility, Mathew says many drivers Elzinga, also in 1996, found similar pat- now live a life of serial bachelorism, eking terns in the Netherlands. out their existence isolated in their taxi, With regards to health problems, sometimes socializing briefly in the night increased rates of diabetes, circulation with other drivers. problems, higher blood pressure and cho- Mathew does well to ground the con- lesterol levels are reported. These health temporary labour struggle of New York problems are usually incurred by people City taxi drivers in historical antecedents in their late fifties; yet they develop in as well as antagonism from municipal gov- drivers in their late thirties. Such health ernment. Taxi! also opens up space to ask problems stem from sitting in the cars for other questions of the taxi driving industry. long hours, not leaving their seats for fear For instance, what is the plight of female they will miss a fare from dispatch. This taxi drivers? Taxi! does not offer much in brings up the question of how new labour terms of the lives of female taxi drivers in movements attempt to deal with work- New York, but it would be important to related health problems in an era of quasi- know how female taxi drivers’ experiences contracts and benefit slashing. Risky at work differ from male drivers (Mathew issues related to victimization and health does state that women make up less than have as much to do with the pressures of 1% of the industry, though this number being a cab driver in a capitalist system was higher in the past). as economic risk. So Mathew could have Another issue is the idea of risk. In explicated these problematics further. Taxi! Mathew treats risk predominantly Taxi! is nevertheless an important as something having to do with econom- contribution to the field of labour stud- ics and business. While the financial ies, and should be widely read by diverse hardships (e.g. licensing fees, car mainte- audiences. nance) associated with taxi work are risky, Kevin Walby victimization and health problems asso- Carleton University ciated with taxi work are also important forms of risk Mathew could have investi- gated in more detail. As regards victim- ization, a Department of Justice Canada study by P. Stenning in 1996 found taxi

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Tom Sito, Drawing the Line: The Untold through to the present day labour chal- Story of the Animation Unions from lenges faced by animators contending Bosko to Bart Simpson (Lexington: The with the effects of new technologies University Press of Kentucky 2006) such as cgi (computer graphic imag- ing). Relying heavily on oral sources, Sito Writing in the 1930’s the Marxist is especially effective at outlining the philosopher Antonio Gramsci evoked dire working conditions of early anima- the hyper-rationalized, atomizing char- tors who laboured in conditions not far acter of Fordism as the singular feature removed from the pre-World War I sweat- of modern Americanism. Gramsci’s cri- shop. While such attempts at organizing tique was especially prescient in its high- ultimately proved futile in the politically lighting of the hegemonic implications conservative climate of the Jazz Age, the of such standardized production beyond coming of the Great Depression and the the industrial sphere in which the Model comparatively pro-labour policies of the T and Mickey Mouse ostensibly consti- New Deal such as the 1935 Wagner Act tuted two sides of the same Fordist coin. provided the impetus for a much more In Drawing the Line, Tom Sito, a 30-year vigorous labour presence. For Sito, the veteran of the animation industry and landmark strikes at Fleshcier studios past president of America’s largest ani- in 1935, Disney in 1941, and the record mation union, Motion Picture Screen twenty-eight week Terrytoons walkout of Cartoonists (MPSC), Local 839, crafts 1947, in their respective attempts to relate an appealing analysis of the heretofore workplace grievances to larger issues of undocumented tensions resulting from social justice, represented the high-water the production process of one of Ameri- marks of animation unionism. ca’s most enduring cultural media. The seminal 1941 Disney strike was For Sito, “animation is the strangest of particular importance because it of art forms” in which the imperatives witnessed the temporary eclipse of the of mass production and the mass mar- increasingly corporatist iatse by respec- ket combine with the vicissitudes of the tively the liberal Screen Cartoonists creative mind to “produce dreams by the Guild (scg) and radical Conference of yard.”(47) Certainly one could see such Studio Unions (csu). While such a trend a process as evincing a Fordism of the was seemingly beneficial in winning con- imagination, in which the individual cre- cessions for animators in the short term, ative consciousness is deconstructed into its disastrous long-term implications standardized parts and subsumed into became clear with the passage of the the rationalized ‘wholeness’ of produc- corporatist 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, the tion. Although invested in the production 1948 Paramount decision (in which the of the absurd, animators have not found Supreme Court declared the studio sys- themselves exempt from the workings tem to be in violation of anti-trust prac- of capitalist production and have often tices, thereby hastening the decline of turned to unionism as a means to protect the short cartoon) and the rise of McCar- their livelihood. thyism and huac in the early 1950’s. Much of Sito’s analysis of animation Like many of their contemporaries in unions follows an explicitly linear path, the artistic and intellectual worlds, ani- beginning in the 1920’s with the first mators suddenly found that attempts at attempts at unionization of the nascent industrial democracy were constrained industry by the iatse (International Alli- on almost all fronts by those wishing to ance of Theatrical and Stage Employees)

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purge American society of even the faint- rationalized efficiency, paternalism in the est progressive taint. animation context, while not totally dis- Following the general trend of Ameri- similar, often evinced a character akin to can labour in the 1960’s and 70’s, ani- traditional guild craftsmanship with its mation unions, cowed by the ascendant attendant notions of apprenticeship and conservative backlash and sated with meritocracy. Studio heads and ex-anima- the material rewards of neo-Fordism, tors such as Walt Disney, Don Bluth, and eschewed issues of socio-economic jus- the team of Hanna-Barbera (pioneers tice and moved closer to a moderate of the ‘runaway production’ of the late liberal consensus. However, such compla- 1970’s) often made appeals to recalcitrant cency exacted harsh retribution when the workers via the rhetoric of a common corrupt, pliant unions of the late 1970’s artistry, thereby weakening much of the and 80’s proved utterly impotent in the overtly coercive character of corporate face of rising production costs, techno- paternalism. Yet the ostensible absence logical change, and widespread outsourc- of coercion along with the aforemen- ing which were beginning to engulf the tioned autonomous ‘artistic mentality’ industry. combined to prevent the development The inability or unwillingness of ani- of a consistently oppositional unionism mation unions to confront the “runaway amongst animators. production” (outsourcing large parts of Drawing the Line is a fine analysis of the final production process overseas) an intriguing aspect of labour history of the late 1970’s resulted not only from made all the more so by the author’s obvi- the general effects of the post-war labour ous passion for the subject and its actors. economy but from specific contingences Thanks to the nature of the subject mat- of the animation industry relating to ter, the reader is treated to a plethora of issues of worker consciousness and cor- rare and humorous cartoons and photos porate paternalism. (253) Although sensi- which give the narrative a real human tive to the material economic imperatives dimension. An appendix detailing the rel- which underwrote animation unionism, evant, and disproportionately Canadian, Sito employs an almost Thompsonian Dramatis Personae, along with a glos- social analysis to argue that an artistic sary of technical industry terms is espe- moral economy was also at work in this cially helpful to the animation neophyte. process. Like most workers, animators Moreover, like much of the now greying derived a strong sense of self from their ‘new’ labour history, the book possesses labour, yet were unique in believing that a distinctly utilitarian political character, the artistic nature of their medium set from which Sito clearly hopes current and them on a plane exempt from the pedes- future animators, as well as the public at trian realm of economics. large, will draw inspiration. In many ways While labour historians such as Dan this accessible book is a mea culpa on the Rodgers and Lisa Fine have explored part of the author (which stops short of the nature of 20th century corporate the polemical), for what he describes as paternalism in decidedly industrial set- his initial ambivalence toward anima- tings, Sito’s analysis of the process in the tion unionism. Written as “part history, animation industry demonstrates the in part a memoir and in part a personal unique rhetorical devices employed to reflection on my specialized field,” (5) justify this ideology in an artistic labour Sito brings a level of intimacy to his work context. Whereas modern industrial which is rare in historical scholarship. paternalism focused on producing a mass Yet to describe this book as a work of

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academic scholarship would perhaps be respondences and memoirs, and govern- misguided. While admittedly making no ment documents (including immigration claims to the contrary, Sito’s work is of forms, birth certificates, and death certif- limited use to the academic historian due icates). Furthermore, these sources origi- to its near total lack of engagement with nate from European, Asian, and Oceanic the larger literature of labour and cultural as well as North and South American history. Too often the anecdotal stands in countries. They combine to present a for the analytical and attempts to place comprehensive picture of the produc- events in a larger historical context prove tion, exhibition, and reception of Wong’s unsuccessful. Only superficial mention transnational work. The author also does is made of the larger trends in political the reader a great favour by carefully cat- economy and cultural politics of the last egorizing and documenting these sources 80 years (such as the commodification of in his selected bibliography. leisure) which drove the mass production Some of the most useful details that of animation that made unions necessary Hodges successfully tracks down regard- in the first place. Nevertheless, Drawing ing Wong’s life and work include: Wong’s the Line provides an invaluable point of earnings as an actress in comparison entry for professional scholars who wish with those of her Caucasian Hollywood to further investigate the intriguing field counterparts; reviews from Scandinavia, of artistic unionism. Cuba, Japan, and the Philippines, in addi- Paul Lawrie tion to the more well-known Western University of Toronto European, North American, and Chinese commentaries; details of some of Wong’s obscure films as well as radio shows and Graham Russell Gao Hodges, Anna May tv appearances; her elaborate costumes Wong: From Laundryman’s Daughter to and body language; her hobbies and pub- Hollywood Legend (New York: Palgrave lic activities as a transnational sophis- Macmillan 2005) ticate, her personal correspondences (especially with Carl Van Vechten) and As a biography, Graham Russell Gao intricate interactions with a wide range of Hodges’s volume came at a most oppor- artists, writers, and politicians in Europe, tune moment – the eve of the centennial America, and China; and finally, images of Anna May Wong’s birthday. Hodges’s of her palm print from Charlotte Woolf’s is not the only work that brings Wong palm-reading book and her immigration back to the spotlight. Two other impor- document (Form 430) from 1927. tant books published around this time All these bits and pieces that animate are Anthony Chan’s Perpetually Cool the entire book, often to the reader’s (Lanham, MD, 2003) and Philip Leibfried delightful surprise, demonstrate the and Chei Mi Lane’s Anna May Wong: labourious research the author conducted A Complete Guide to Her Film, Stage, in preparing for the biography. The end Radio, and Television Work (Jefferson, result is a delightfully comprehensive and NC, 2004). informative coverage of Wong’s half-cen- What characterizes Hodges’s biogra- tury of life and work, which, unsurpris- phy is his use of substantial archival mate- ingly, constitute the two emphases of the rials meticulously gleaned and compiled author’s project. from a wide spectrum of sources such as Hodges’s focus on Wong’s life and work fanzines, posters, newspapers, newsreels, complies with the genre of biography. A film studio files, personal interviews, cor- unique challenge in this case, though, is

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that his subject, an early 20th century of full realization due to two weaknesses. Chinese-American actress active prior to First, as the title suggests (“from laun- the late 1960s canonization of the term dryman’s daughter to Hollywood leg- “Chinese American” or “Asian Ameri- end”), the structure unproblematically can,” has been historically obscured and follows that of an “American Dream” reduced to what Maxine Hong Kingston (from rags to riches) hybridized with Bil- calls a “No Name Woman” (xvi) or what dungsroman (from a self-centered child Wong self-referentially alluded to as the to a socialized adult). Both formats pre- “Half-Caste Woman.” (149) Given her sume a teleological trajectory predicated obscurity that resulted from her uncat- upon illusory causal linkages. In Hodges’s egorizable identity, accounts of her story biography, this predetermined trajectory are necessarily fragmented, at times con- translates into Wong’s predictable trans- tradictory, leaving her a mystifying fig- formation from a rebellious third-genera- ure, even for her contemporaries. How tion Chinese American child who desired to fully address the contradictions and Americanization, via the opposite swing assess what Hodges calls Wong’s “Janus- to a Chinese identity, toward “becoming faced” legacy (234) become the crux not Chinese American.” only of an individual biography, but also The second weakness has to do with of the historiography of Asian Americans the author’s shifting position vis-à-vis in general. his archival materials. On the one hand, If Wong’s contemporaries failed to he perspicuously points out that Orien- meet the challenge, or more accurately, talism is inscribed in some ostensibly failed even to see this as an issue, because positive European writings on Wong. A they suffered from Orientalism and/or Portuguese review of Wong’s Daughter of narrow-minded nationalism, how then the Dragon (Paramount, 1931), for exam- does Hodges redress this situation which ple, states that many people “adore the involves recovering Wong and critiquing yellow [skin]” and will “long for the Chi- historical discourses on Wong? Facing nese, dreaming of oriental scenes, full of such a “Janus-faced” legacy “with mean- opium-smokers and peaceful faces.” (115) ing inside and outside of Asian American Hodges rightly criticizes the review as an society,” Hodges suggests that “recasting instance of “pure Orientalism, made up of her memory requires more breadth and Portuguese unfamiliarity with Anna May, subtlety than is needed for the worthy and with Chinese people in general, racial men and women who were pathbreakers fantasies derived from skin conscious- in other fields.” (234) His goal is to “move ness, and blatant stereotyping.” (115) beyond negative perceptions of Anna On the other hand, however, he tends to May as solely the product of Orientalism” see the more dominant European media (235) by showing that her “cinematic and (from Germany, Britain, and France) as personal reputations translated differ- more capable of appreciating what Wong ently among the world’s myriad nation- had to offer. Thus, English girls’ imita- alities.” (xx) tion of the “Wong complexion” (by tint- Hodges laudably critiques the mode of ing their faces ivory with ochre color) and argument that fits everything into a set the “Wong haircut” (or the China Doll theoretical grid. His labourious excava- bangs) are seen as evidence of Wong’s tion and weaving together of wide-rang- star impact in Europe (which was denied ing archival materials clearly demonstrate to her in America). Such an uncritical his commitment to “breadth and sub- approach to Western European reactions tlety.” Nevertheless, his project falls short to Wong prevents the author from fully

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diagnosing the Orientalist fetishization media in self-promotion, as Hodges use- of the Asian female mystique. fully highlights throughout the book. This blind spot stems from a more fun- With that understanding, we come to damental problem, that is, the tendency see the “American Dream” or Bildung- to fetishization does not only character- sroman model as a counter-productive ize the Orientalist reviewers contempo- model. It fails to address Wong’s strate- raneous with Wong; rather, it might also gic negotiation insofar as it presumes an underlie the tributes by Wong’s modern individual’s self-sufficiency and inevi- admirers, even Hodges’s own project table success story against societal odds to an extent. This is highlighted in the while occluding the multiple registers of fact that the tributary efforts described Wong’s situation. in Hodges’s epilogue mostly hinge upon Hodges’s biography succeeds in build- appropriating, stylizing, even exoticiz- ing an impressively rich and accessible ing Wong’s image without however pay- collection of Anna May Wong materials. ing sufficient attention to the complexity By providing such excellent groundwork, of Wong’s situation as a labourer/actress it encourages readers to further explore with an uncategorizable nationality. the significance of biography in recovering Hodges’s own project, as he acknowl- and redressing repressed legacies, indi- edges, is triggered by one of Wong’s auto- vidual and collective. One way to deepen graphed photographs, which piqued his such an exploration is to reconceptualize “interest” that turned into “fixation” and the genre of biography so as to develop “obsession.” (ix) a more useful structure for addressing The challenge, for Wong’s contempo- subversive identity formation. In this rary reviewers, modern admirers, and new model, identity formation is an open the author, is therefore to come up with process susceptible to the interactions strategies of moving beyond fetishization, of variegated determinants, rather than beyond pat celebration of “an individual’s a teleological trajectory that marches will and strength against hegemonic toward an a priori status (be it American, powers” (xxiii) toward a structure of sub- Chinese, or Chinese-American). versive dynamic. To achieve this level of Yiman Wang “subtlety” (to borrow Hodges’s term), one University of California, Santa Cruz needs to learn from Wong. By that I mean that one should not simply describe and eulogize her personal virtues matter-of- Dana Frank, Bananera: Women factly, but should rather see those virtues Transforming the Banana Unions of Latin as consciously constructed strategies America (Cambridge, MA: South End that Wong mobilized in negotiating her Press 2005) disadvantageous position under Western colonialism and Orientalism. In other Since the late 1980s, there has been words, to assess Wong’s legacy more a proliferation of studies on women and adequately, we need to problematize the social movements in Latin America. reductive scenario of heroic individual vs. Despite the plethora of work on women’s evil society, and focus upon Wong’s inter- activism south of the us border, there actions with the socio-political apparatus is a paucity of scholarship on their role of her time, oftentimes conducted on the in transforming contemporary trade institutional level. For example, note her unions, which risks creating the false effective mobilization of transnational impression that women’s involvement in trade unions is a relic of the past. This

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engaging, accessible book by labour his- pation in union life is that they have to torian Dana Frank is therefore a welcome ask permission from male partners to and much needed addition to the litera- even leave the house, thus making it diffi- ture on women and the labour movement cult for women to become trouble makers in Latin America. in the male-dominated labour move- The author takes us on a journey that ment. The sixth chapter describes the begins in a pick-up truck barrelling international alliances and organizations down a treacherous road from Hondu- that have supported the banana women’s ras, packed with three women (plus the activities in raising gender consciousness author) who are going to give a workshop and building women’s identity as trade on the difference between sex and gen- unionists. der to fellow women banana workers in One compelling part of the book Guatemala. Frank explains that she was recounts how the rise of women’s activism able to gain the trust of her travelling in banana unions was facilitated by inter- companions, or the mujeres bananeras nal democratization within sitraterco. (“banana women”)����������������������� as they call themsel- Since the 1960s when women entered the ves, due to the close personal friendships banana industry, work has been divided that she formed working as a consultant by a sexist division of labour in which for the us Labor Education in the Ame- men work in the fields and women are ricas Project, which helped to create a confined to the packinghouses, where union label for Central American banana the pay is much lower even though the unions in 2002. The result is a sensitive working conditions are equally harsh. portrait of the struggles that women Since the field workers always outnumbe- banana workers have waged to gain full red the packers by four to one, it was dif- access to their own unions. ficult for women to gain access to union The book is divided into six short chap- office. In 1975, however, a Left-affiliated ters plus an introduction and conclusion. male leadership overthrew the conser- The first three chapters describe the ups vative leadership that was affiliated with and downs of the banana export industry the Cold War afl-cio, and the new lea- in Latin America, the gendered division dership changed the union’s internal of labour at both work and at home, and structure. They established two rank- a brief history of the unions that emer- and-file committees – one for the male- ged in the mid-1950s to defend the rights dominated agricultural division, and one of banana workers, focusing on the case for the female-dominated packinghouse. study of sitraterco, the oldest banana Although empowering women was not union in Honduras. The fourth chap- necessarily the intention of these men ter describes the activities of colsiba, a at the time, as Frank argues, the esta- federation of banana unions from Costa blishment of two rank-and-file commit- Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, tees “finally opened the door for women Panamá, Ecuador, and Colombia that was to fully enter the union.” (24) Women’s founded in 1993 to strategize support organizing blossomed from there. for embattled banana unions. The fifth By the mid-1980s, “the winds of Central chapter describes the “War at Home” and American Left feminism were blowing the personal ordeals that women banana across the border” (25) from Nicaragua, workers have gone through due to their El Salvador, and Guatemala. Women’s involvement in unions. In very macho frustration with the sexism that per- societies such as Honduras, one of the vaded the revolutionary movements in main barriers limiting women’s partici- these countries also stiffened the resolve

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of women banana workers in Honduras banana workers’ struggles fit into the to demand equal access to union office. broader context of the Central American As Frank notes, the bitter experience or Latin American labour movements. A of the Sandinista Revolution and other few comparisons of the strategies chosen guerrilla movements demonstrated that by banana women with workers in other just because women were encouraged sectors would help illuminate why there to fight along their male counterparts has been revitalization within the banana did not mean the latter were willing to sector and not elsewhere. For example, share power. As in the revolutionary Linda Bickam Méndez´s work on women movements, women had to fight against workers in the maquiladoras in Nica- the patriarchal leadership for access to ragua suggests that women have found resources and representation in their the leadership of trade union centrals to unions. be so patriarchal and impenetrable that The call for action within the sitra- they opted to form the María Elena Cua- terco union occurred in the mid-1980s, dra organization, which the organizers when the predominantly male union define as an “alternative” to a trade union. leadership suddenly appropriated an ilo By contrast, Frank states clearly that “at educational grant intended for women’s every turn,” the mujeres bananeras “fra- organizing. In 1986, women members med their struggle for women’s equality of sitraterco launched a campaign to and empowerment in terms of union create a Women’s Committee with offi- power.” (30, her emphasis) I was left cial status and its own officers. The pro- wondering whether the birth of women’s posal was initially defeated, but thanks activism in the Honduran banana unions to the women’s persistence, it passed in was simply an unintended consequence 1988. A little more than a decade later, of earlier democratization within the workshops and activities geared towards union or if there was something parti- the particular needs of women are now cular in the way that the international part of the unions’ daily activities. In solidarity networks in the banana export 2005, Adela Torres, a Colombian woman, sector have developed to help support was elected as General Secretary of the women’s struggles to transform their largest banana union in Latin America. unions rather than work outside of them. Since the book is so short (137 slim Perhaps Frank will enlighten us on these pages), it left me wanting more infor- questions in her forthcoming book on mation on a couple of key issues. Frank international labour solidarity, expected explains clearly how women’s struggles in 2007. to raise gender consciousness have trans- Nonetheless, there is such a great deal formed men’s and women’s lives and their of information packed into a short space visions of trade unionism. It is less clear, that these comments should not be read as however, how women’s involvement in the a criticism but as a call for more research union has affected collective bargaining, on the role of women in trade unions in if at all. It would be interesting to know Latin America. Among other important more about what demands have been put lessons, Frank’s study underscores the on the table as a result of women’s acti- importance of internal democratization vism, how this has affected women’s per- for union revitalization. ception of their own unions, and in turn, South End Press has made this book the mobilizing capacity of the union to available in an affordable paperback and defend workers against employers. it is written in accessible, engaging prose. Frank also talks little about how the For these reasons and many more, it

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would be a welcome addition to course by women make this collection poten- syllabi on issues related to social move- tially very useful for teaching in a semi- ments, women’s studies, and Latin Ame- nar setting. This collection would be rican labour history, particularly at the helpful for encouraging students to think undergraduate level. not only about the conflicting and fluid Susan Spronk ways in which different types of work York University performed by women were represented and understood, but also about different approaches to the craft of history. Krista Cowman and Louise A. Jackson, The twelve essays in the book are eds., Women and Work Culture: Britain divided into five sections: “What do c.1850–1950 (Aldershot: Ashgate We Mean by Work?,” “Factory Labour,” Publishing 2005) “Youth,” “Science and Medicine,” and “Women and War.” Two of the three Women and Work Culture: Britain, essays in the first section demonstrate c.1850–1950, edited by Krista Cowman the important role of religion in shaping and Louise A. Jackson, is a collection of the meaning of work for different groups essays developed from a 2002 conference of women. Joyce Senders Pederson uses of the same title. A difficult challenge the writings and biographies of a number faced by editors of such books is bringing of prominent Victorian feminists to illu- unity and cohesion to essays that cover minate how their conception of work was a wide range of research questions over infused with Protestant religious con- an extended time frame. In this instance, victions, liberal thought, and the public however, Cowman and Jackson use the service ethos of professionalism. For edited collection format to its best advan- these feminists ‘useful’ work, both paid tage with essays that address common and unpaid, if undertaken in an altruistic themes and issues, while at the same time spirit, answered a godly calling to all and providing a sampling of the richness and fostered communal integration and indi- diversity of the scholarship being done vidual moral development. While this in the broad field of the cultural history idea of work was initially thought to be of women’s work in Britain. Their useful inclusive, by the end of the century more introduction and clear organization help materialist and secular perspectives to draw out the common threads run- on work began to emerge, opening up a ning though each of the essays. Some of divide between the economic necessity of the similar themes touched upon by the working-class and middle-class women. book’s twelve contributors include the Religion also informed the meanings variety of contested meanings carried of work for four generations of middle- by the different types of work done by class Quaker women among the Bright women, the identities created by women circle, as demonstrated in Sandra Stanley in association with work, and the ways Holton’s contribution to the collection. in which women negotiated masculine The Quaker stress on good works, inner cultural practices and discourses related light, and oppositionism with respect to to work in order to create feminine or the established order informed the atti- feminist space. The assortment of his- tudes of these women to class, work, and torical and interdisciplinary methods wealth. These principles also guided their and approaches that inform the authors’ labour over the generations in operating exploration of the experiences, negotia- businesses, caring for kin and commu- tions, and understandings of work done nity, and political activism through cam-

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paigns against slavery, alcohol, and the testimonies drawn from autobiographies corn laws, as well as their active involve- and archival collections to investigate the ment in radical politics. experiences and interpretations of the As the editors point out, few subjects high proportion of young women aged have received as much attention from 14–24 who were involved in paid employ- historians of women’s work in Britain ment in the inter-war years. Despite the as the “factory girl.” Emma Liggins and historiographical emphasis on the youth- Emma Robertson are able to offer fresh ful consumer, Todd finds that young perspectives on this frequently explored women’s work and employment patterns topic by focusing on the role of women in were driven by family necessity and con- the construction of female factory worker nections, and their wages were essential identities. Emma Liggins examines the to the family budget. narratives produced by the research of The essays of Kaarin Michaelsen and female social investigators like Clara Claire Jones show some of the ways in Collet, and of feminists like Clementina which women negotiated involvement Black, comparing them with, and tracing in the fields of medicine and science, their influence upon, fictional accounts which were dominated by masculine of the London work girl written by writ- cultures, discourses, and institutional ers such as George Gissing and Margaret forms. Michaelsen looks at the strug- Harkness in the 1880s and 1890s. Social gle and strategies of women physicians investigators like Collet were important in Britain to overcome discrimina- in producing identities for the work girl, tion within the profession. Specifically, and in raising concerns about the moral- Michaelsen examines the work of the ity and sexualities of women workers Medical Women’s Federation (MWF) in in the public sphere. Emma Robertson advancing the professional interests and uses 13 oral interviews with women who helping to shape the identities of female worked at the Rowntree Chocolate Fac- physicians between 1917 and 1930. She tory between 1936 and 1989 to look at shows that the MWF used ideas of both women’s workplace cultures, and the equality and difference in the construc- centrality of friendships and interac- tion of professional identities, arguing for tions between women workers in shaping greater assimilation into the profession, how they understood their experiences while protecting the unique interests in the workplace. Robertson shows the and perspectives of its female members. ways in which workplace camaraderie Michaelsen illuminates how in practice both helped to socialize women workers attention to difference could be used to to the factory regime, while also provid- promote equality, and that these ideas ing strategies for resisting oppression. were not perceived as mutually exclusive. She also emphasizes that relationships Jones’s essay uses memoirs and obituaries among co-workers were often compli- of male scientists, as well as their repre- cated by differences among women such sentations in the press, photographs, and as age, marriage, motherhood, respect- fiction, to show how the laboratory was ability, and race. While one of the most constructed as masculine space antithet- fascinating essays in the collection, the ical to femininity, where heroic virtues evidentiary base of this piece is under- of courage and stoicism could be dem- standably thin due to the challenges of onstrated. Jones shows how these con- locating subjects for interviews. structions of laboratory culture worked In the section on youth, Selina Todd alongside professionalization and institu- uses census records, social surveys, and tionalization to exclude or ignore female

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participation. Jones uses the transgres- cal questions that scholars in the cultural sive career of physicist Hertha Ayrton to history of women’s work in Britain in the illuminate the ways in which these pro- late 19th and early 20th centuries are cesses shaped representations of women engaging. In addition to being a useful in the laboratory. teaching tool, the collection will also be Much of the traditional historiography of great interest to researchers in labour of women’s work in wartime has concen- and women’s history, as well as a variety trated on the degree to which such work of other sub-fields in British history. advanced the cause of greater social, Christopher J. Frank political, and economic opportunities University of Manitoba for women in the long term. The essays in the war section of the book contribute to this debate but focus more upon the Andrew Rosen, The Transformation identities constructed around different of British Life 1950–2000 (Manchester: types of female labour during the war Manchester University Press 2003) years. Angela K. Smith uses literary texts, including Irene Rathbone’s We Were That In 1950 most British people would not Young, as well as memoirs and diaries to have owned their own homes nor had explore the many diverse and contested access to their own telephone. If they ways in which the women’s work in muni- were lucky enough to afford vacations, tions factories in World War I was con- they would have holidayed within the structed by themselves and others. Smith borders of Britain, perhaps even within a shows how later literary representations, hundred mile radius. Europe would have particularly Rathbone’s, compared the been a place only soldiers and the wealthy experiences and sacrifices of women on would have experienced. Food afforded a the home front with soldiers serving in similar parochialism. The most exotic the war. Few occupations are as closely fare most Britons would have had in 1950 linked with masculinity as service in the was probably also the least welcome: the military, and Lucy Noakes’s essay shows snoek, a fish of questionable taste from how female participation in the Women’s the waters off South Africa, pushed into Army Auxiliary Corps and the Women’s service as an alternative staple during the Volunteer Reserve during World War lean years of austerity. Nineteen-fifty also I had the potential to upset traditional saw the highest level of political mobili- gender roles by militarizing women, who zation in the twentieth century; in the were supposed to represent the civilians election of that year, 12.5 million people whom the military defends. The presence voted for the Conservatives, with 13.2 of many suffrage activists in promoting million voting Labour. female service in military organizations Half a century later, the picture was, also made them more threatening. In the unsurprisingly, very different, as Andrew end, however, great effort was made to Rosen shows in his survey. Home owner- emphasize the boundary between female ship was enjoyed by 69% of the popula- and male military service, with the for- tion. Not only did virtually everyone own mer taking on roles that stressed the fem- or have access to a phone, but also to a inine virtues of caring and nurturing. range of other electronic devices only Women and Work Culture is a valuable dreamed of by bespectacled boffins in addition to the Studies in Labour History 1950: stereos, televisions, DVD and video Series. It provides the reader with a sam- recorders, and mobile phones. Southern ple of the diverse issues and methodologi- Europe had become, by 2000, the target

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of millions of package holiday-makers, the coal, ship-building, and steel indus- soaking up the sun and cheap alcohol in tries combined. This says something, of destinations like Ibiza and Mallorca. And, course, about not simply identity but the even outside of London, Britain itself had economy as well. the smack of cosmopolitanism in its bev- Rosen also shows how, in the midst of erages and food. One could begin the day this ‘transformation,’ there are constants at Caffe Nero, served an Italian cappuc- in British society. In 1950, class was the cino by a Spanish barista, hunker down most important category of social iden- on a prepared avocado wrap at Prêt à tity. It seeped through every aspect of Manger, and, inevitably, begin the evening national life, from politics to work to edu- with the country’s prevailing national cation. Fifty years later, as Rosen argues, dish, chicken masala. The richness of class is a less obvious, but still powerful culinary life was, however, matched by a force in people’s lives. There is a sober- leanness of political culture. In the elec- ing section in the book in which Rosen tion of 2001, voter turnout barely scraped shows just how social class continues 60% in most of the country. to determine fundamental conditions Andrew Rosen’s interesting, if not of physical health and social opportu- entirely satisfying, book provides good nities. Childhood in Britain remains a snap-shots of several of the major con- sphere in which class is played out, from tours of what he calls the ‘transforma- health at birth to the way that primary tion’ of Britain in this period. He argues and secondary education shapes and that there are three major areas of such often constrains individuals’ chances in transformation: first, a notable increase life. Despite the considerable expansion in the standard of living matched with of universities in the 1960s and again in greater individual freedom; second, the 1990s, the old bastions of privilege, the decline of respect for longstanding Oxford and Cambridge, still monopo- institutions such as the monarchy and lize influence and power in Britain to a aristocracy, religion, the organized work- surprising degree. As recent controver- ing class, and marriage; and, finally, the sies demonstrate, both universities are growing diversity and porousness of Brit- still seen as closed to many state school ish life and culture, transected by new students. The recent historiography of generational and ethnic identities and 19th and 20th century Britain has laud- increasingly coloured by connections of ably embraced empire and culture; it is varying strengths to both America and a pity that this movement has occurred Europe. There is little to argue with in not merely by jettisoning serious thought this picture. As Rosen shows, the Britain about class but actually by denigrating of 2000 is a more complex and less easily it as a valid category. By contrast, Rosen categorized society than it was in 1950. points to class and the persistence of seri- He has a good eye for the broad reach of ous inequality as abiding characteristics this complexity. The impact of immigra- of modern Britain. tion on post-war Britain was, of course, to There are, however, several problems substantially revise notions of Britishness with the book. Despite a broad sweep and urban society. But, to return to food, enlivened by many interesting details, it it can also be seen in the growth of Indian feels slight. In part, I think, this has to do restaurants. In 1995, there were 10,000 with the nature of the book’s research. Indian restaurants in Britain, employing This is not a monograph, but a survey. between 60,000 and 70,000 workers and Nonetheless, it does feel at points that it with a turnover of £1.5 billion, more than has been written largely based upon the

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statistics in the various volumes of British Patrizia Albanese, Mothers of the Social Attitudes. I felt rather battered with Nation: Women, Families, and poll results after a while and left seeking Nationalism in Twentieth-Century shelter in a stronger analytical voice. At Europe (Toronto: University of Toronto the same time, while I agree with Rosen’s Press 2006) overall arguments, I had less sense of what he thought were the engines of this Despite the fact that in the early 21st change. He runs the rule over politics, century few would discount the view that without giving a particularly compelling the ‘personal is political,’ the notion that argument for the partial abandonment the political is also highly personal may of one style of consensus for another, only just be creeping into scholarly dis- from Attlee and Macmillan to Thatcher course. Patrizia Albanese, who teaches at and Blair. Rosen similarly traces Britain’s Ryerson University in Toronto, presents a change from a manufacturing economy very convincing portrait of how political to one based upon service and consump- policy reflects and affects personal life, tion without asking in a very rigorous way specifically that of women and families, why this happened. Sometimes he offers in her 2006 book, Mothers of the Nation. very subjective observations on particu- In this concise, 192 page study, Albanese lar social problems, but these hang as has undertaken a very systematic survey impressionistic responses rather than of four regions of Europe that, during the strong or original arguments. 20th century, employed ideologies and There is also an uneven tone to the book. enacted policies that utilized women’s It does not seem to have a clear direction, bodies as purveyors of nationalist goals. which might frustrate its use in teaching. In three clearly-organized sections, In the last section, alongside chapters on Albanese outlines nationalist goals in Europe and America, Rosen offers an over- Germany, Italy, Russia, and Yugoslavia view of post-war architecture. This is well- (later focusing on Croatia) first in the done as a stand-alone piece and it does give inter-war period, secondly in the post- some sense of the curious cross-currents 1989 period, and finally in compari- in arguments about Britishness and public son with each other. In the nationalist space, but why architecture and not, say, regimes – Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, visual culture like film or television? Or post-Soviet Russia, and post-Yugoslavia popular leisure? I was not convinced that Croatia – what emerges as common to all there was a strong argument for architec- regions was the attempt by policy-mak- ture on its own as a bellwether of change ers to regulate women’s sexuality and in Britain. Ultimately, The Transformation reproductive lives as a way of furthering of British Life 1950–2000 gives an inter- the nation. Most specifically, this meant esting, but incomplete picture of British utilizing women, both symbolically and society. practically, as reproducers of the ‘ethnic Stephen Brooke collectivity’ in terms of childbearing and York University socializing of children. In all cases, the rise of nationalist regimes led to the implementation of pronatalist and pronuptialist policies that worked to repatriarchalize gender and family relations. Central to these policies was the goal of raising fertility rates. In Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy,

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policies were put in place that restricted authority” of the father/husband in the the use of contraceptives, and limited or home thus became a microcosm of the eliminated access to safe abortions. At relations between the state and its citi- the same time, financial incentives and zens. The author soundly demonstrates tax breaks were offered to increase family that, “A key role of nationalist state poli- size and, in Germany, eugenic selection cies … is to achieve the social control of to reduce the population of ‘undesirables’ women for the specific purposes of re- also became part of the program. Among establishing a real or mythical past order many unusual measures taken in Ger- and glory, and ensuring a fecund, homo- many was the “psychological or symbolic” geneous, ethno-national future.” (178) incentive whereby mothers with nine Albanese concludes that, despite the children (or seven sons) could choose any short term successes of these policies official of the state to be the next child’s as measured in increased marriage and godfather; by 1936 Hitler had 12,000 such fertility rates, the efforts of nationalist godchildren. (27) In inter-war Italy, when policy-makers were not able to curb the Fascists equated declining birth rates overall decline of either over the course with “an overall crisis of national vitality,” of the twentieth century. Nor were they (52) initiatives were taken to reward tra- able to turn around the factors that kept ditional family forms such as a bachelor women in the workforce. These outcomes tax on unmarried men, marriage loans are compared and contrasted in detailed for newlyweds (repayable only if a couple statistical and policy analysis in Chap- didn’t meet a schedule for pregnancies), ters 10 and 11 respectively, a section that and “fertility prizes.” (55) Similar policies is somewhat less interesting to read but were enacted in post-Communist Russia nevertheless important to undergird and in Croatia in the 1990s. Albanese’s overall findings. Furthermore, Comparable approaches were applied Albanese’s study also demonstrates to women’s labour force participation. that the so-called ‘modernization’ often Under Hitler, women were encouraged thought to accompany the development to leave the paid workforce and return of nationalism within a state did not hold to their proper places within the realm for family relations. Indeed, she suggests of ‘Kinder, Kirche, and Küche’ but when that gender roles and relations can recede war broke out, they were encouraged to from a modern egalitarianism under the become workers for the cause once again. influence of extreme nationalist goals. In Italy during the 1930s, Mussolini set A particular strength of this book as a goal a quota of only 10 percent of is Albanese’s comparative approach. women employees in public and private She measures her hypothesis regarding sectors and gave preferred employment nationalist states against non-national- options to fathers with large families; the ist policies within the same country (or at onset of war and other economic factors least geographic region) during a differ- meant that such measures never really ent era. Thus, she is able to draw conclu- had their intended effect. sions regarding significant shifts in state What nationalist family policies shared family polices, and their effects, from the was the desire to “promote the ideas of Weimar Republic, to Nazi Germany, to order, authority, obedience, faith, and post-reunification Germany, for instance. control at the level of the nation,” (188) in Similarly, Albanese analyzes the poten- essence to place “men at the head of the tial for gender equality that existed household and women in front of a crib.” within Bolshevik ideology and practice in (189) The “oppression, submission, and interwar revolutionary Russia and later

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also in socialist Yugoslavia, but notes sonal life stories of women living within that measures that might have advanced these particular nationalist regimes as women’s emancipation as wives, mothers, a means of illustrating the effect of the and workers were reversed under Stalin. policies being examined. In post-communist Russia of the 1990s, Albanese’s conclusions are provoca- “increased nostalgia for traditional female tive. An important ‘lesson’ of the book roles centred on the home and family” is her suggestion that the progression (104) meant that women’s reproductive towards gender equality in the world is rights were curtailed and they were dis- not a linear one, whereby we are moving couraged from entering the workforce. ever closer to progressive egalitarianism. While nationalist laws implemented by Rather, “two steps forward can be fol- the Nazis and Fascists in Germany and lowed by three steps back …” (191) While Italy respectively were specifically anti- nationalism within North America has feminist and designed to limit women’s rarely been analyzed in gendered terms, roles to that of wives and mothers, in this study behooves us to consider how multi-national Yugoslavia during the nationalist ideology affects gender roles same period, women remained within a and family relations within less extremist state of traditional agrarian and private contexts, and thus to consider how deeply patriarchy, as the country focused on the political impacts the personal. economic development while negotiating Marlene Epp diverse and regional cultural identities. Conrad Grebel University College, After the break-up of Yugoslavia, Croa- University of Waterloo tia emerged as one of the new “nationally homogeneous entities” in which women were encouraged to find their symbolic Pei-Chia Lan, Global Cinderellas: place within the “trinity of ‘home, nation, Migrant Domestics and Newly Rich and God.’” (123) Employers in Taiwan (Durham: Duke Albanese’s book offers an excellent his- University Press 2006) torical comparative approach to think- ing about the intersection of gender and This carefully researched and nationalism. What is particularly fas- clearly executed ethnographic piece is cinating and well-illustrated is the way about transgression and making bound- in which women’s bodies and behaviour aries in an era of international migration. became tools of nationalist and indeed Using ethnographic data, the author pur- non-nationalist states, to which women sues a theoretical thread of transgression responded with both acquiescence and and boundary-making to weave together rebellion. While the author’s feminist and a geopolitical map featuring Filipino and leftist biases are evident throughout, she Indonesian migrant domestics, Taiwan- also points out the gains that women did ese middle-class professionals, immi- make, if only temporarily, within nation- gration brokers, and the source and host alist contexts – better maternity and states. At the macro level, Lan illustrates childcare provisions for instance – and how national boundaries are drawn and notes the inconsistences within social- enforced, by both source and host coun- ist approaches that affirmed equality but tries, in the midst of international migra- that saw women performing the prover- tion. As she demonstrates, at the micro bial ‘double load’ of domestic and paid level, Taiwanese middle- class women labour. The book is well written though a professionals who contract domestic social historian might wish for a few per- labour out to migrant domestic workers

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not only have to carefully map out gen- at a distance and thus alienated. The tale dered boundaries in their homes, they of their migration journey is filled with also make deliberate efforts to redefine simultaneous financial emancipation in culturally regulated meanings of femi- their homeland and inevitable oppression ninity and domesticity. The domestic in the home of their employer as well as workers, who used to be housewives in the achievement of a liberated, albeit cur- the Philippines and Indonesia, are now tailed, gendered self in the host country. maids making a living with their domes- On the other side of the divide is the tic skills in a foreign land. Therefore, they Taiwanese middle-class, female employer too are venturing into new territories of whose professional status makes it a chal- transgression and boundary-making. lenge for her to dutifully carry out the International migration is thus an insti- conventional “second shift.” These women tutional undertaking that constitutes hire migrant domestic workers as live-in and re-inscribes social boundaries along nannies and substitute daughters-in-law. class, gender, racial/ethnic, and national Such an arrangement requires them to lines locally and internationally. carefully carve out spatial boundaries in The author applies the metaphor of their homes to accommodate the migrant “global Cinderellas” to migrant domestic domestic workers. Simultaneously, they workers and their paradoxical experi- ascribe new meanings to the culturally ences abroad and at home. Going from regulated notions of domesticity and being housewives to maids supporting womanhood, so as to preserve their status themselves, married Filipino and Indo- as “the lady of the house.” Racialized cul- nesian women seek employment abroad tural boundaries are drawn deliberately to escape unpaid housework at home, to ensure that the maid will not contami- explore the outside world, and achieve nate their children or disturb their private financial independence. As migrants, family life. Migrant domestic workers they leave their impoverished home- therefore carry out only the physical land for financial betterment, imagined aspect of reproductive labour. The labour modernity, and temporary freedom. defined by the culture as emotional and Once abroad, these migrant domestic feminized remains in the hands of the workers celebrate their conception of a Taiwanese employers, allowing the lat- Cinderella-like life on their Sunday out- ter to assume a professional career in the ings. They see their sleeveless shirts, tight public sphere while their sense of femi- jeans, dancing, and mingling with friends ninity in the domestic sphere remains as the fulfillment of a liberated life style intact. Separating the physical from the unavailable in their homeland. This sense emotional and cultural aspects of repro- of a liberated self is nevertheless limited, ductive labour, however, requires daily the author argues, because they spend the micro-management. The bad name the rest of the week confined to the homes employer acquires for being demanding of their employers. Moreover, they are and difficult to please, the author argues, racially characterized by those employers should be seen as a result of the politics and politically marginalized in the host of transgression and boundary making. country. Furthermore, although they are When they hire migrant domestic work- trusted as surrogate family and fictive ers, Taiwanese professional women not kin by their Taiwanese employers, deli- only need to assume new responsibilities cately but clearly defined spatial and cul- to manage the maid in her private life; tural boundaries are drawn in everyday they have to constantly deal with the encounters to ensure that they remain anxiety that ensues from the possibility

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that their femininity and womanhood bosses as demanding, jealous, and para- will be challenged. noid. To accomplish such a delicate task Considering the analysis from a com- as an ethnographer, the author herself parative perspective, limited progress engages in transgression and boundary- has been made in challenging patriarchal making. While her personal middle-class orders in the domestic sphere among background gives her research capital to Taiwan’s financially well-off new genera- access those newly rich employers, her tion. Although Taiwanese professional research bond with the maids invites women have made successful in-roads such questions as, “Why do you want into the public sphere, like their North to hang out with them?” Her affilia- American counterparts they are faced tion with the maids is no less problem- with subtle and not-so-subtle resistance atic. The researcher finds much comfort when it comes to changing the unequal when her migrant domestic informants gendered division of labour in the domes- proudly display her as their “Taiwanese tic sphere. Instead of pressing their hus- friend who speaks good English.” Such bands to take part in reproductive labour, acceptance and ethnographic “passing” an easier alternative is to contract out are utterly unstable and subject to rup- part of their womanly duties to migrant ture. In the eyes of her foreign domestic domestic workers. They draw upon their informants, she is unquestionably “one of financial resources, hard-won from the them” when it comes to politics of affilia- public sphere, to elevate their position tion and categorization. in their otherwise losing battle in the The book is a theoretically informed, domestic quarter. One cannot but won- sophisticated analysis of employment der whether labour force participation relationships in the era of transnational in the public sphere opens up space for migration. Scholars in women’s studies, change, transformation, and liberation in racial/ethnic relations, labour studies, the private sphere, or whether it simply and international migration and global- means that patriarchy mutates into new ization will find this book insightful and forms of hierarchy and oppression with informative. It is clearly written, rich in the migrant maids taking on the most ethnographic insights, and accessible to strenuous work. both undergraduate and graduate stu- This is a fine and challenging ethno- dents in social sciences and Asian stud- graphic project, where the researcher ies. Its tales from the field constitute a dives into the social fabric of boundary useful addition for novice ethnographers making and transgression among diverse who will have to grapple with reflexivity groups. The author covers stories from and juxtaposition of position and locality both the middle-class employers and their in ethnographic inquiry. employees, the migrant domestic work- Ping-Chun Hsiung ers. Rich narratives and ethnographic University of Toronto data across the employer/employee divide allow the author to examine the dynamics of employment relationships. They make it possible for the author to present stories from both sides of the power divide. For example, stories of someone having their husband stolen by the maid are often cited by female employers. The maids, on the other hand, portray their female

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Melanie Nolan, ed., Revolution. The specifically recruited for the strike. John 1913 Great Strike in New Zealand Crawford notes that there were consider- (Christchurch: Canterbury Press in able efforts by the state to hide the role of association with Trade Union History military in the strike. The military pro- Project 2006) vided logistical support for the special constables, who played a crucial role in This book is an excellent overview of the strike. Regular and territorial offi- the 1913 Great Strike in New Zealand, cers provided leadership for the special which was the closest New Zealand ever constables. came to a general strike. (25) The book The next theme looks at the strike from arose from a conference organized by the broader historical perspectives such as Trade Union History Project, a key cen- gender and the development of trade tre for labour historiography in New Zea- unions, the left, and the ruling class. The land, in November 2003 to commemorate chapters on moderate unions and the rul- the 90th anniversary of the strike. There ing class highlight the limits of New Zea- is an introduction by the editor, which land labour historiography. Peter Franks provides the background to the dispute notes that New Zealand labour histori- and provides a review of the historiog- ans ignored the `moderate majority’ both raphy of the strike. There is also a useful generally and specifically in regard to the timeline of the dispute and comprehen- 1913 strike, with only 20–23 per cent of sive bibliography. unionized workers joining the strike. The editor has organized the 13 chap- (164) He argues that rather than shift- ters according to four themes. The first ing New Zealand to the left, the strike theme is a reconsideration of the histo- entrenched state-sponsored compulsory riography concerning the dispute. Erik arbitration as the preferred means of both Olssen and Richard Hill revisit their orig- labour and capital to deal with industrial inal theses concerning the dispute with disputes. Jim McAloon provides a com- Olssen arguing that the Strike shifted prehensive overview of the ruling class the political spectrum of New Zealand in New Zealand and its role in the Strike to the left and Hill emphasizing the ruth- and to some degree addresses the con- lessness of the State. Miles Fairbairn in a cerns of Miles Fairbairn about the state provocative essay questions the view that of business history in New Zealand. the strike was a `right wing conspiracy’ Kerry Taylor’s essay charts the subse- and puts forward a `cock-up theory,’ (68) quent impact of the strike on the develop- which explains the strike more in terms ment of the left in New Zealand, noting of blunders by the government. He also how the New Zealand Communist Party highlights the poor development of busi- and other Marxist groups constructed and ness history in New Zealand, (73) which deployed the memory of the 1913 Strike limits our understanding of employers’ to develop an alternative voice to labour- motives and tactics. ism. Melanie Nolan provides an excellent The second theme is `polarization.’ gendered history of the strike highlight- This theme covers issues such as the role ing the contribution of working-class of the press, police, and the special con- women in the strike, noting particularly stables in the strike. Donald Anderson the role of housewives’ unions during the argues that strikers did not take criminal strike. The chapter notes how both sides action in support of the strike and took during the strike used various notions a more favourable view of the regular of `manliness’ to praise and abuse their police compared to the special constables opponents. One minor quibble is that

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there is only a brief mention of the role Sherilyn MacGregor, Beyond Mothering of non-working class women during the Earth: Ecological Citizenship and the strike. (248) Farmers’ wives would have Politics of Care (Vancouver: University of provided a crucial backup to spouses who British Columbia Press 2006) enrolled as special constables. The final theme places the 1913 General Beyond Mothering Earth is an excel- Strike in an international context. While lent piece of scholarship that provides Donald McRaild’s discussion of the origins a theoretical, empirical, and strategic of industrial militancy in the uk is very exploration of the project of feminist good in its own right, the links between ecological citizenship. In setting forth the British experience and the Strike could this exploration, MacGregor presents a have been clearer. Mark Derby in his arti- significant alternative to more familiar cle, “William E. Trautmann and the Role ecofeminist analyses. This work con- of the Wobblies,” also provides important sists of a theoretical exploration of the insights on the rise of the iwwinterna- intersection of ecological politics with tionally and its impact on New Zealand. feminism and a second part based upon While a lot is made of Trautmann’s New interviews conducted with thirty activ- Zealand origins, however, he only spent ist women at the turn of the 21st century. the first few years of his life there and it A third dimension is apparent through- is not clear what his direct impact on the out the work, for it is the intersection New Zealand iww was. of theory with empirical evidence that There are some minor quibbles. With enables MacGregor to explore strategies such an excellent book, it would have for political action. been helpful to have a postscript to bring The theoretical portion of this work it all together and remind the reader of engages a wide-ranging literature, begin- the important issues raised by the book. ning and returning most frequently to There are times when the contributors ecofeminist writing, but also addressing could have made points clearer for non- green political thought and citizenship New Zealand readers. Are we talking theory in detail. MacGregor’s writing is about coalminers or goldminers on the very effective, her style is clear and com- West Coast ? (23–4) How large were the prehensive, and I would strongly recom- New Zealand Socialist Party and other mend Beyond Mothering Earth for its left groups? (204) accessible, insightful survey of the inter- Overall, the editor and authors pro- sections between the international litera- duced an outstanding book. It provides tures of feminism, green scholarship, and a comprehensive overview of the strike, political theory. capturing different perspectives on the MacGregor briefly traces the evolution historical significance of the strike and of ecofeminism, and how it has drawn linking it to major themes in New Zea- upon changes in feminist theory, to high- land labour historiography such as trade light two areas of emphasis which she unions and gender. feels undermine the project as a whole. Greg Patmore MacGregor persuasively critiques the University of Sydney “non-strategy” of using maternalism as a means for women to enhance their voice within green politics. Much like first-wave maternal feminists, many prominent ecofeminists such as Carolyn Merchant and Ariel Salleh emphasize how women’s

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maternal caring work grants them a dis- ship and its conflicts over the appro- tinct nurturing perspective that shapes priateness of action at local and global their relationships to the natural world scales. Although MacGregor rejects de- and provides the foundation for alterna- gendered notions of “care” and “nurture” tive social relationships to nature. Mac- as means to recreate social relations to Gregor is not the first scholar to point nature, she otherwise stops short of set- out the limitations of this approach; she ting forth a comprehensive feminist the- builds here upon a wider anti-essential- ory of ecological citizenship. MacGregor’s ist critique and one which refuses to use strengths in this first part are in bringing women’s subordinate roles, past and pres- diverse literatures and evidence to bear ent, as an avenue to effect radical environ- upon particular points and in identifying mental change. MacGregor’s other key and reconciling theoretical tensions; at criticism takes issue with the importance times she sacrifices persuasion and clar- of lived experience and grassroots activ- ity in the interests of analytical acumen ism to ecofeminist alternatives, which and breadth. she argues “reifies and accepts uncriti- In 1999 and 2000, MacGregor inter- cally the experiences and knowledges of viewed 30 women in the Greater Toronto activist and non-academic women.”(39) area engaged in “public caring work” as MacGregor is especially concerned that environmental activists and engaged in when ecofeminists have appropriated the “private caring work” as mothers.(14) grassroots they have also dismissed how MacGregor’s aim here is to draw upon these activists have themselves engaged the insights and experiences of the same with and at times rejected ecofeminist kinds of activist women who appear in symbols and theory. MacGregor’s treat- much ecofeminist writing, not only to ment of ecofeminist writings is a pointed buttress her argument for the relative but generally balanced critique of a value of feminist ecological citizenship diverse body of writing. versus ecofeminism, but also as part of Beginning in Chapter 4, MacGregor the practice of participatory knowledge- analyzes the possibilities of a more making that can inform democratic profound relationship between green practice. To these ends, MacGregor gives and feminist citizenship. Broadly, this necessary attention to methodology and examination identifies the importance presents the perspectives of these women of “democratic politics and the language in describing how they negotiate their of citizenship to the project of ecosocial roles as mothers and environmental activ- change.”(73) The path that these demo- ists and in how they theorize their own cratic politics should follow does not political participation. Thus MacGregor deny the importance of subsistence per- introduces an original approach to inter- spectives from the global South and the preting women’s environmental activism specificity of women’s material experi- by directly engaging the activists them- ences with labour and nature, but neither selves in not only reflecting upon what does it use these experiences as grounds they do but also setting forth their own for future action. Instead, MacGregor considerations of the social, political, and articulates the importance of democratic gendered obstacles they face. In this part, participation and the use of citizenship MacGregor is not only self-reflexive upon politics as places for performance, con- her own position as an academic, but versation, and tools for socio-ecological she also successfully uses her position change. She sets forth the insights of the to break down the dichotomy between small body of writing on green citizen- activism and theory.

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MacGregor’s interviews are one of the between people and nature, that ecology great strengths of this work, demonstrat- has served as a radicalizing force pushing ing her skills at engaging in resonant people to rethink their allegiances to par- conversations with the interviewees, ticular places, to future generations, and exposing the diversity of women’s envi- ultimately to the earth. With the excep- ronmental activism, and achieving her tion of her analysis of the importance goal of bringing feminist ecological of time as part of the calculus of arriv- theory and “real life” to bear upon one ing at “ecologically friendly and socially another. It is nevertheless striking that equitable” (232) social and political MacGregor referred to the two parts of arrangements, the theorizing in Beyond her work as “two stories” because a weak- Mothering Earth operates independent of ness in this work, and in particular in the environmental constraints. This book is description of the interview subjects, was nevertheless an important contribution the absence of narrative which would to green political theory, which, in con- have better elucidated these women’s trast to environmental justice and eco- experiences as active citizens. feminist literature, has largely neglected By rooting her analysis in a particu- feminist insights by privileging the lar time and place the interviews serve relationships of humans to nature with- to illuminate how the practice of femi- out admitting the social realities of the nist ecological citizenship would be human experience. most effective in Western democracies Liza Piper where women already have greater access University of British Columbia (through their rights, labour, and leisure) to the stages upon which the kinds of politics she describes can be practiced Michelle Murphy, Sick Building and performed. Her strategy is to this Syndrome and the Problem of extent context-dependent. MacGregor Uncertainty: Environmental Politics, recognizes this tension in her analysis – Technoscience, and Women Workers between the importance of universal citi- (Durham, NC: Duke University Press zenship and the success of local struggles 2006) in particular. (225–228) Nevertheless the role of scale and context in feminist eco- Michelle Murphy has drawn on her logical citizenship each demand greater own extensive academic studies and attention than MacGregor provides. practical career, as well as knowledge This omission reflects how Beyond based on work with colleagues to write Mothering Earth presents an analysis a thorough work on the problem of sick more closely rooted in feminist theory building syndrome. This syndrome is than in ecology. MacGregor takes issue comprised of a wide variety of symptoms with the ways in which “women’s capacity that can affect people to different degrees, for abstract and principled thought about and was initially recognized in the early moral issues and ethical decision making 1980s, although there are still those has been eclipsed by a focus on mate- making arguments against the existence rial practices and lived experiences.”(64) of the problem. We live in a chemical- This privileges politics over material life laden world, with homes, transportation, and seemingly fails to recognize that it is and workplaces surrounded in a dizzy- by emphasizing the profound material- ing array of furnishings and clothing ity of human social, economic, and cul- made of synthetic materials, with little tural life, and the necessary connections research available on the interaction of

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products and the way they may act over nately common to downplay women’s time. This situation is compounded by experience of poor health, and to psy- the increased tightening up of air leaks to chologize problems rather than investi- conserve energy, but without compensa- gate physical sources of the trouble. The tory changes in standards and practice tendency to blame the individual suffer- of air exchange. There is also a perva- ers for their problems relieves building sive overlay of scented products that are owners and operators of responsibility touted as vital for personal grooming and for remediation of toxic emissions. This maintaining a fresh-smelling home and is compounded by the political ramifica- office environment. The result is a veri- tions of industrial hygiene standards that table chemical soup in which many of us are set by vested interests, and by a lack spend the majority of our time. of workers’ political clout in insisting on Sick building syndrome falls outside healthy levels of air quality. the accepted boundaries of illness in the There are also political implications biomedical world that demand specific in the relationship between research in tests and results to establish an agreed- environmental pollution and govern- upon definition of health, making this ment offices and the funding for inves- illness a contested diagnosis, and sub- tigation of sick building syndrome and ject to argument against the reality of a other related problems. It is difficult to problem. Standardized tests of air quality believe in the neutrality of science when may not capture the presence of noxious many of the government advisors are substances that affect health, especially if closely linked to corporations that sup- the emissions are intermittent, and sam- ply recommendations on health issues pling procedures are deferred. Symptoms that may be linked to chemical toxins. can vary among persons and across time, Remediation of environmental pollution but the aggregate experience of affected could affect corporate profits. Murphy people can provide a picture of the prob- certainly has not covered up the risk of lem, and one of the criteria for discover- harm to those affected by sick building ing sick building syndrome is related to syndrome, especially when the Environ- 20% or more of the building’s occupants mental Protection Agency cannot keep reporting diminished health. its own buildings safe for workers, and One of the major features of Murphy’s regulations are poorly enforced, while book is the revelation of sick building whistle blowers find themselves out of syndrome’s disproportionate effect on their jobs or research funds. women. This is related to the fact that Indoor air pollution is an increasing women are a majority of the working staff source of problems to many people, and in many of the affected buildings, with Murphy’s questions about the effects of work sites surrounded by a wide array various airborne bacteria and moulds of synthetic furnishings and electronic are important, particularly in the area of equipment that emit toxic products. The home or workplace air quality following gendered nature of work is also explored, flooding or even undetected water leaks. with many women in subordinate posi- The public is becoming more aware of tions and little control over their work problems, and the emergence of social pace and physical environment. Many of health movements to investigate some of the women’s work spaces are poorly laid the ways a society can cope with air pol- out, with furniture that does not fit the lution-related illnesses is evidence that individual who may spend the bulk of the people will not necessarily accept shift- day doing repetitive tasks. It is unfortu- ing blame for illness upon those who are

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unable to defend themselves against gov- ing syndrome. Many of the people mak- ernment and big business. ing decisions that affect the well-being of Multiple chemical sensitivity is anoth- people with sick building syndrome and er condition that is covered in this book, related illnesses lack current knowledge and is experienced by people who react to in the field, and there is an urgent need very low levels of chemical substances in to make informed recommendations for their environment, well below the thresh- treatment, remediation of the indoor old of detection by the average person. air quality, and compensation for those Murphy addresses this condition as part whose health has been compromised. of the greater picture of our total envi- The sole drawback that I have perceived ronment at home, in the workplace, and in researching this book is in the cost of in the general surroundings as chemi- a library cloth edition, but this could be cal substances accumulate in the body. balanced by purchasing more than one The fact that many of the substances are copy of the paperback edition. This book imperceptible to the average person and captures many of the concerns that this to standardized testing procedures leads reviewer has researched for academic to denial of claims of illness, and back papers as well as looking for answers in to the medicolegal judgment of the exis- personal environmental health issues tence of a health problem or psychologi- and workplace air quality after more cal origins of the illness. than 20 years in hospital employment. This book is of interest to workers in The reader-friendly format leads the way many fields, particularly women. The to further studies in the area of indoor information is understandable to a casual air quality, gender-biased organization of reader, but also has sufficient depth to tasks in the modern workplace, and the be valuable to people looking for more intricate relations between government extensive details, and is reinforced by and corporations in decisions on our a comprehensive bibliography. Specific everyday environment. topics can be followed in the index. This Marilyn Thorlakson book should be on the shelf in workplace Athabasca University and public libraries, both as a resource for people affected by sick building syn- drome and those who want to raise their Michael Y. Dartnell, Insurgency Online: awareness of the possibility that their Web Activism and Global Conflict work or home environment may be at risk (Toronto: University of Toronto Press of indoor pollution. The book is valuable 2006) to people studying social health move- ments and social epidemiology, tracing What is meant by the claim that poli- the ways in which a particular society tics increasingly speaks with an “Inter- defines the presence or absence of a legit- net accent”? The title of Dartnell’s book imate illness. It would also be beneficial provides a good indication of the answer. for personnel in occupational health ser- According to Dartnell we are entering an vices, workers’ compensation services, era in which the Internet is becoming the and disability insurers’ offices to read the media of choice, if not necessity, for mar- work thoroughly and make decisions on ginalized non-state actors challenging treatment and compensation based on the historical grip that states have had contemporary work in the field, not old on the media and publicity. The results biomedical models that are inapplicable are potentially immense. States, claims to the problems encountered in sick build- Dartnell, are increasingly losing their

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control over their borders, territories, and the emergence of non-territorially- and identities. based identities. These identities are being Theoretically speaking the implica- (re)articulated in a global mediascape tions are also significant. This is particu- and identity-based conflicts, once local- larly true of international relations realist ized, are spilling out beyond the borders theory which argues that “states and the of the state. principle of sovereignty shape the inter- As the case studies illustrate, these national system and provide a structure challenges to the state come in the form to contain the chaos of human diversity.” of Web-based “insurgencies” which, (13) Today, Dartnell contends we are interestingly for the readers of this jour- entering a post-realist era in which non- nal, come from the political left. The state actors are, by means of the World selection of case studies is very much Wide Web (www), able to produce and a matter of choice as the author could distribute information, thus providing a have just as easily selected cases from means of independently shaping public the right, neo-Nazis and al-Qaeda, for perceptions of events on a global basis. example. Here Dartnell focuses on the These changes are of such significance Irish Republican Socialist Movement that Dartnell claims that “web media are (irsm), the Revolutionary Association of part of a shift in politics that could be as the Women of Afghanistan (rawa), and, far-reaching, profound, and unpredict- in Peru, the Moviemiento Revolucionario able as the rise of print technology, mass Tupac Amaru (mrta). Each online insur- literacy, and nationalism in the late eigh- gency reflects different aspects of Web teenth century.” (15) activism – networking, global witness- These are strong words indeed. How- ing, and media relay respectively. While ever, in itself this is not a novel argument. each case is distinct, all three organiza- Writings on the Internet and digital tions “are strongly marked by the failure technologies tend to lean to either of two of the state.” (5) Each organization, more- poles, the first a cyberpessimism in which over, “emerged in settings in which state the state and corporations “normalize” formation is incomplete, weak, or deeply information technologies, the second flawed.” (13) All three organizations, a cyberoptimism in which its take on while acting transnationally, put a pre- emancipatory qualities. While Dartnell mium on the identarian politics of place. leans towards the latter he makes more The first case, the irsm, centres on a modest claims on the ability of Web paradox, that is, the use of transnational activism to transform states and societ- Web activism to promote nationalism ies. Rather than threaten to displace the which, in turn, is based on place and the state “or its ability for autonomous action” common history of a particular group. Web activism “transforms” and compli- In this instance Dartnell succinctly cates the internal and external environ- describes the conditions in Northern ment in which states operate. (10) Ireland and Ireland which gave rise to The strength of Dartnell’s volume lies the irsm. As a party the irsm espouses not so much in his theoretical insights, Marxist-Leninist principles, including but in succinct theoretical analysis of a revolution which would end partition, three very interesting case studies. Theo- seize the state, set up a “dictatorship of retically speaking other it theorists such the proletariat,” and construct a social- as Manuel Castells have made similar ist society. However, while it appeals to arguments particularly on the relative the transformation of politics within a decline of the state, class-based politics, specific territorial context it employs

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Web activism to reach and motivate a tion mrta used its website (created and geographically dispersed Irish disapora managed by a Toronto activist group) to spread over three continents. This global present its case to a global media, thereby network of support serves to breathe new thwarting the ability of the Peruvian gov- life into what would otherwise be a dying ernment to control and frame the media irsm message. message. While the occupation ended The Web activism of rawa differs from in the death of all 14 members of the that of the irsm, relying on Web activ- mrta occupation force, mrta’s activism ism in a struggle against patriarchy and did help undermine the government of for women’s rights in Afghanistan. As an Alberto Fujimori by exposing its corrup- organization of Afghan women rawa was tion, incompetence, and human rights established in Kabul in 1977 to fight for abuses. human rights and social justice. Forced Dartnell has chosen his cases well. Yet, by the Taliban to flee to Pakistan rawa in the end, his claims on behalf of Web has continued its activism by means of activism are modest. He admits “Web an online insurgency against religious activists have an impact, but they do not fundamentalism in Afghanistan. Dur- overthrow states or necessarily even redi- ing the rule of the Taliban rawa adeptly rect public policies. The change is wide- used its website to provide a “global wit- ranging rather than deep.” (101) Herein nessing” of the plight and oppression of lies the problem of almost all analyses Afghanistan women, a function it con- of Web activism including these three tinues to perform albeit with strong con- cases. What exactly is their impact? How demnation of the current regime and the can this impact be measured? What dif- American (and Canadian) occupation ference does Web activism make? The of Afghanistan. Those who visit the site above notwithstanding, Web activism (over five million hits by August 2003) has added new spaces of publicity, ones will encounter a powerful moral-emo- that challenge the ability of the state to tional appeal of globally directed texts control the mediascape and shape public and multimedia which once viewed is not perceptions. In a post 9/11 world where, easily forgotten. thanks in part to the presence of it, the Finally, Dartnell examines the mrta, us has increasingly lost its capacity to one of the very first groups to employ shape public perceptions (think of the Web activism in a struggle for social jus- huge February 2003 anti-war demonstra- tice against an authoritarian Peruvian tions organized largely on-line) this is no government. mrta emerged during the small accomplishment. period of civil war in Peru in the 1980s Peter J. Smith and 1990s. mrta portrayed itself as an Athabasca University “organization of the people,” a coalition of trade unions, workers’ groups, students, and peasants (78) opposed to neo-liberal- ism and dedicated to creating a socialist society. mrta had a flare for publicity, deftly employing a website among other media tools. This website carried its message to a global audience during its four month occupation of the Japanese ambassador’s residence which began in December 1996. During the occupa-

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