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Labour Journal of Canadian Labour Studies Le Travail Revue d’Études Ouvrières Canadiennes

Reviews Comptes Rendus

Volume 82, Fall 2018

URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1058031ar

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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 (2018). Review of [Reviews]. Labour / Le Travail, 82.

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Christo Aivalis, The Constant Liberal: 1965. He went on to become prime min- Pierre Trudeau, Organized Labour, ister in 1968 and had a significant impact and the Canadian Social Democratic of Canadian politics, from the imposition Left (Vancouver: University of British of wage and price controls to patriation of Columbia Press 2018) the Constitution with a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Throughout it all, Aivalis In academic circles, the argument contends that Trudeau did not undergo that Pierre Trudeau was firmly and con- an ideological transformation, despite sistently committed to liberal democracy, the oft heard critique that Trudeau lost rather than socialist democracy, will not his left-wing ideals as a Liberal in gov- constitute an especially controversial ernment. Rather, according to Aivalis, thesis. However, Christo Aivalis’ book, Trudeau was a constant Liberal who, The Constant Liberal: Pierre Trudeau, while welcoming of many social demo- Organized Labour and the Canadian cratic ideas, ultimately embraced liberal- Social Democratic Left, serves a much ism because he saw it as a more inclusive, deeper purpose than what its title might catch-all, political project that could sub- otherwise suggest. Aivalis’ meticu- sume the best parts of left-wing thinking. lously researched work helps students In order to make sense of this deci- of Canadian politics, history, and la- sion, Aivalis sets out to explore Trudeau’s bour studies, to better understand why ideological roots and argues that while Trudeau ultimately chose liberalism over democratic socialists like Harold Laski, socialism after decades as an ally and fel- Eugene Forsey, and F.R. Scott influenced low traveller of the Left in Quebec. The his thinking, Trudeau’s own thinking was author’s highly readable narrative – span- consistently focused on the defence and ning five decades – focuses on a series of promotion of narrow democratic and po- key policy areas and ultimately delivers litical rights rather than a class-based ap- a thought-provoking social democratic proaches to rights, freedoms, or politics analysis of the politics of Pierre Trudeau. more generally. In fact, the book reveals as much about Focusing on Trudeau’s complex re- the ideology and politics of the social lationship with the labour movement, democratic left as it does about Trudeau. Aivalis’ analysis helps readers understand Aivalis’ work is a welcome addition to the how Trudeau’s central role in labour edu- growing bodies of literature on Trudeau cation and legal support for unions in and social democracy in Canada, Québec in the 1950s and 1960s was as respectively. much, if not more, about building a bul- Despite sustained engagement with la- wark against Premier Maurice Duplessis’ bour unions and the ccf-ndp through- repressive and undemocratic Union out the 1950s and early 1960s, Trudeau Nationale regime, than it was about help- first ran for office, and won, as a Liberal in ing workers’ struggles. In other words, his

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

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support for striking workers and unions constitution to demonstrate the prime (most famously in the Asbestos strike minister’s commitment to liberal over of 1949) was not class-based, but rather socialist values. driven by his desire to build a coalition Aivalis, however, is also careful to capable of defeating the Union Nationale deal with instances where Trudeau’s and pushing Québec towards embrac- policy positions seemingly rejected the ing a more liberal democratic form of “liberal” label. For example, Trudeau’s politics. support for economic nationalist mea- According to Aivalis, Trudeau’s quest sures in the 1970s, like the establishment to build a broad coalition of forces of the National Energy Program and in opposition to government repres- Canada Development Corporation, and sion is what ultimately led him to join the creation of Petro-Canada as a crown the Liberal Party rather than the ndp. corporation in the wake of the 1970s oil Despite close ties to many important crisis, seemingly belied his liberal ideo- figures in the ccf-ndp in Québec, and logical commitment to free trade. Aivalis despite repeated overtures and attempts deals with such instances nimbly, dem- to recruit Trudeau as a candidate, he in- onstrating that Trudeau was not above stead opted to run for the Liberal Party. compromising his ideological approach While sympathetic to many ndp policy in an effort to address a pressing politi- positions, Trudeau saw the ccf-ndp as cal issue or impending crisis. Aivalis is alien to, and thus unelectable in, Québec. quick to point out, however, that many of Moreover, he was repelled by what he saw Trudeau’s compromises were aided and as a desperate and misguided attempt by influenced by the small ndp caucus in the party to appeal to growing nationalist Ottawa who held the balance of power in sentiment in Québec by adopting a “Two a minority parliament between 1972 and Nations” approach to Canada. Trudeau 1974. also reasoned that the ndp’s emphasis on On the constitutional front, Aivalis class-based politics would cut off a rather argues that while patriation of the large constituency of voters who did not Constitution with a Charter of Rights identify with such an approach. and Freedoms was Trudeau’s greatest Trudeau easily won his seat in the 1965 political accomplishment, it was flawed election and in 1968 captured the lead- insofar as it excluded positive social and ership of the Liberal Party to become economic rights, including specifically Canada’s fifteenth prime minister. Once enumerated workers’ rights. This argu- in power, Aivalis reveals a prime minis- ment is pursued to underscore, once ter who was big on rhetoric, but fell short again, Trudeau’s commitment to liberal when it came to implementing his vi- over socialist democracy. sion for a “Just Society,” particularly on Aivalis’ use of the federal ndp and la- the issues of progressive taxation, social bour movement as comparative anchors spending, and income redistribution. from which to assess Trudeau’s political On these issues, Aivalis demonstrates and ideological orientation is interesting how Trudeau generally deferred to his and somewhat helpful in tracking trends Bay Street-connected finance minis- in post-war liberalism and social de- ters who showed little interest in pursu- mocracy. In most cases, the comparison ing left-wing policy prescriptions. More reveals substantive differences between pointedly, Aivalis zeros in on Trudeau’s Trudeau’s Liberals, on one hand, and the unsuccessful attempt to enshrine private federal ndp and its union allies, on the property rights into the new Canadian other.

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Aivalis’ choice of comparator, however, opposition of the Federal ndp, or in rela- does bring with it analytical pitfalls. Like tion to support from two ndp premiers Trudeau, individual New Democrats, who wielded much more power and influ- unions, and labour leaders, vacillated ence than any New Democrat in Ottawa? in terms of both public policy prefer- Similar questions are raised in rela- ences and ideology. While Aivalis does a tion to Aivalis’ analysis of Trudeau’s role good job at explaining why these policy in the patriation of the Constitution with shuffles occurred, the shifting power a Charter of Rights and Freedoms in the bases within both the ndp and the labour early 1980s. Aivalis argues that Trudeau’s movement sometimes make compari- lack of support for the inclusion of posi- sons with Trudeau analytically tricky to tive economic and social rights in the sustain. This is especially true in assess- Charter provides more evidence of ing Trudeau’s politics in relation to ndp Trudeau’s consistent support for a liberal premiers in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. rather than socialist human rights frame- While ndp Premiers Ed Schreyer and work. While Trudeau was clearly disin- Alan Blakeney are not ignored in the terested in enshrining positive social and book, federal ndp leaders get much more economic rights (like the right to a job, attention from Aivalis. While in one housing, or a clean environment) in the sense that seems reasonable given that Charter, the same is also true, more or federal ndp leaders were going toe to toe less, of the ndp and its labour movement with Trudeau on Parliament Hill, it is also allies. In fact, no social democratic leader true that federal ndp leaders never seri- in Canada, at either the federal or provin- ously had to wrestle with questions about cial level, was championing the inclusion how to implement their social demo- of positive social or economic rights in cratic agenda in government. An primary the Charter, and none made them a con- comparative focus on ndp premiers in dition of support for Trudeau’s consti- Saskatchewan, British Columbia, and tutional package. Most unions were not Manitoba, rather than the federal ndp, even promoting constitutionally-protect- may have been more revealing because it ed labour rights. Aivalis acknowledges would have helped to flesh out how being these historical truths that seemingly a governing power influences and shapes frustrate his comparative analysis, but it’s the ideological positions of labour-sym- not always entirely clear what conclusion pathetic politicians, be they Liberal or the reader should draw from them. New Democrat. These comparative analytical issues Take, for example, the issue of wage and aside, Aivalis’ book represents an im- price controls. As Aivalis himself points portant contribution to the field. His out, both Ed Schreyer and Allan Blakeney careful reading of Trudeau from a social supported Trudeau’s wage and price con- democratic perspective is a must read trol legislation over massive opposition for political scientists, historians, and from both organized labour and the fed- labour studies researchers interested in eral ndp. The latter considered govern- Canadian electoral politics. ments’ attempts to control inflation and Larry Savage unemployment by legislating wage con- Brock University trols as a direct attack on workers’ rights. If we are to judge Trudeau’s commitment to liberalism based, in part, on his legisla- tive interventions, is his position on wage controls best analyzed in relation to the

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Patrizia Gentile, Gary Kinsman, and L. to contest heteronormative assumptions Pauline Rankin, eds., We Still Demand! around marriage. (32) In getting married, Redefining Resistance in Sex and Gender these couples intended to challenge het- Struggles (Vancouver: University of eronormative society at large, rather than British Columbia Press 2017) conform to its ideals of monogamy and middle-classness. Chenier contextualizes This book takes its name from the the liberationist approach that these cou- 1971 “We Demand” movement which ples use against better-known fights for contended that Pierre Trudeau’s Bill gay marriage. In doing so, she effectively C-150 decriminalizing certain sexual acts problematizes rights-based approaches between same sex couples failed to eradi- as inherently heteronormative and there- cate larger systemic violence against, and fore oppressive. marginalization of, gays and lesbians. Other pieces in Part One address how The movement culminated with a dem- rights and liberation-based movements onstration on Parliament Hill attended often co-exist while complementing and by over 100 gay and lesbian-identifying contesting each other. Mathieu Brulé’s people and their supporters. Participants “Seducing the Unions” calls into question targeted the limitations of the Criminal the “natural” association between labour Code reforms by protesting the ongo- movements and gay liberation activists ing violence, discrimination, and police in the 1970s and 1980s. (51) This asso- brutality against gays and lesbians. Like ciation was based on the premise that the these protests, this collection of essays by problems labour movements faced were various Canadian activists and scholars also encountered by those within gay brings to light themes of activism and liberation movements. This supposedly resistance that contest the rights-based, coincided in a natural or inevitable part- state-centric agendas that dominated sex nership between the two. In contrast to and gender-based activisms and histo- this assumption, Brulé notes that union ries. The authors also highlight how sex members often displayed discrimina- and gender-based activism has created tory attitudes against queer activists. solidarity amongst activists within differ- However, these movements also formed ent communities, and built and sustained mutually beneficial alliances, whose movements that aim to transform society members worked together to combat gay as a whole. This collection is a must-read and lesbian-based discrimination. These for queer and sexuality theorists and his- efforts included Toronto’s Gay Alliance torians alike. It juxtaposes rights-based Toward Equality’s (gate) efforts to assist movements, such as the crusade for gay with motions prohibiting discrimination marriage legalization, against the more on the basis of sexual orientation within marginalized liberationist endeavors that municipal employment. Brulé marks this the essays bring to light. as a pivotal moment in which gay libera- This book is divided into two main tionists and labour movements officially parts. Part One is devoted to maintaining worked together to make advances in gay the memories of past movements as acts and lesbian workers’ rights. He then uses of resistance. The first essay, “Liberating oral and textual sources to trace these History” by historian Elise Chenier, groups’ intersecting and mutual interests explores gay couples Chris Vogel and in both human rights and liberationist- Richard North, and Michel Girouard and based struggles. Regeant Tremblay’s use of same-sex mar- Some of the essays take a retrospec- riage in the early 1970s as a “radical tactic” tive approach in highlighting sex and

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gender-based struggles that were in dan- mechanisms to combat stigmas around ger of disappearing from memory. For sex work. Lepp focuses instead on de- instance, Nicholas Matte, the Toronto- bates around sex-trafficking, particularly based Project Manager of the lgbtq Oral how migrant sex-workers resist and con- History Digital Collaboratory, traces in test anti-trafficking efforts imbued with- “Rupert Raj, Transmen and Sexuality” in nationalist discourses. Her “Collateral how historical unearthing of gender ac- Damage” examines workers’ roles in the tivism can enable trans people to come Canadian Supreme Court’s 2001 decrim- to the forefront of sex and gender activ- inalization of sex work. ist efforts and movements. He focuses on Cynthia Wright’s “Nationalism, Raj’s accomplishments in the 1980s as a Sexuality and the Politics of Anti- leading trans-man activist and founder of Citizenship” examines how heteronor- the trans-man-focused Metamorphosis mative assumptions about citizenship are Magazine, while also problematizing used to “cut out” queer refugees seeking Raj’s use of trans-normative initiatives asylum in Canada. She also provides ex- in his attempts to “influence medical and amples of resistance to these agendas, in- state policies.” (118) Matte emphasizes cluding the efforts of the Toronto-based the importance of “unearthing” past sex grassroots group No One Is Illegal in 2012 and gender-based resistances in a manner to stop the deportation of gay asylum that honours the book’s central theme of seeker Alvaro Orozco. The organization keeping the memories, and movements, used initiatives such as press conferences of these marginalized resistances alive. and demonstrations to centre family and Part Two of the book is concerned with community, in order to associate Orozco contesting and stretching the boundaries with localized, community-based val- of activist efforts, as well as how resis- ues, against the perceived callousness of tance is defined. The essays in this section the state. point to emerging research paths, look- Overall, the essays contained in Part ing at both historical forms of resistance Two provide valuable documentation and modern movements that deserve at- of marginalized subjects and move- tention. Interesting essays include Fabien ments that contest dominant laws and Rose’s “A History of That Which Was discourse. The piece by Rose, however, Never Supposed to Be Possible.” Rose po- seemed somewhat misplaced, as it is un- liticizes the history of gender passing and clear how it contributes to the collection encourages the reader to view passing as as a whole. Rose aims to complicate con- a political act of resistance that compli- ventional readings of gender passing, and cates binary-based means of understand- also attempts to activate an important ing gender identities. Rose uses historical and increased understanding of gender examples of people who passed in order as lived and complex. Nonetheless, I felt to complicate this legacy. he failed to provide concrete examples Two other contributions, by Shawna of trans peoples’ passing as actual activ- Ferris and Annalee Lepp, examine sex ism throughout his article, instead focus- worker activism through historical per- ing on how feminist theorists, such as spectives. They highlight sex worker Marjorie Garber, characterized passing movements that mainstream sex and in the last century as sites of resistance. gender discourses often disdain and cen- The essay lacks the consistency of the sor. Ferris focuses on organizations such books’ other chapters, which provide as the Sex Workers Alliance of Vancouver more in-depth and concrete examples of (swav), which uses online-based activist conscious resistance and activism.

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Ultimately, this book provides a valu- of surveillance in Canada and contributes able overview of previously forgotten and to the field both by expanding the histori- marginalized sex and gender-based ac- cal context and presenting Kealey’s own tivism and struggles. The editors also ac- experience accessing restricted docu- knowledge the lack of contributions from ments. As an authority on policing, sur- Indigenous and Two-Spirit scholars. They veillance, and security in Canada, Kealey additionally cite Scott Lauria Morgensen provides readers with studies on the pro- in creating a “politics of decolonization cesses of spying, being spied on, and un- through deep self-reflexivity,” which calls covering the history of surveillance. on “non-Native” activists to recognize the Spying on Canadians is part of an ever- ways in which Two-Spirit organizing and growing field of research. Over the last activism calls out and challenges conven- two decades, historians such as Steve tional notions of power in settler-based Hewitt have studied the inherent anti- contexts and movements. (9) In doing so, communism within the rcmp proving the editors highlight Canada’s fascinat- that police surveillance of leftists was ing history of queer and Two-Spirit-based not a product of the 1950s “Red Scare” activism, which richly deserves to be in- but grew from earlier fears of Bolshevik cluded in a collection devoted to bringing uprisings and labour unrest. Kealey ex- marginalized movements to light. pands this history by going farther back Natalie Adamyk to the years leading up to Confederation. University of Toronto By doing this, he demonstrates how dis- trust of the radical left and fear of eth- nic threats exists within the fabric of Gregory S. Kealey, Spying on Canadians: Canada’s origins as a country. The Secret The Royal Canadian Mounted Police Service, therefore, came into being with Security Service and the Origins of the Confederation rather than grew from it. Long Cold War (Toronto: University of Spying on Canadians provides depth to Toronto Press 2017) the earlier history of policing that was not fully explored in Secret Service: The Gregory S. Kealey’s Spying on History of Political Policing in Canada Canadians is a collection of nine essays from the Fenians to Fortress America about searching for and accessing infor- (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, mation. It covers the history of surveil- 2012), the otherwise comprehensive text lance by police agencies from the 1860s on police surveillance in Canada written to the Cold War. Together these essays, by Kealey, Reg Whitaker, and Andrew a collection of Kealey’s work (articles, Parnaby. Kealey uses the 19th century to conferences papers, and addresses) writ- explain the origins of Cold War spying. ten between 1988 and 2003, examine the To have a comprehensive history of po- creation of the Secret Service in Canada lice surveillance beginning in the 1860s – a branch of the rnwmp (Royal North and leading into the Cold War is signifi- West Mounted Police) and later the rcmp cant when much of the scholarship on (Royal Canadian Mounted Police). In policing is centred on the second half of these essays Kealey illustrates how polic- the 20th century. ing in Canada is intrinsic to the history of In addition to providing greater his- the country itself and how police agents torical scope to the subject of police sur- have targeted immigrants, labour, and veillance, Spying on Canadians includes the Left as threats to the nation. Spying a personal angle. Kealey begins the col- on Canadians tracks the changing study lection describing his own inquiry into

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police surveillance of academics at the Kealey takes care to accentuate the effort annual meetings of what were then called and labour behind the effective manage- the Learned Societies. The fear of the ment of a spying network. A third ap- spectre of Marxism spreading through plication of the labour theme is found in academia combined with student radicals Kealey’s discussions about the archives. during the 1960s and 1970s led the rcmp He discusses the ways in which police to watch specific organizations, such as files were compiled and provides insight the Labour History Group, and certain into how researchers gain access to this academics including Kealey. Beginning restricted material. One of the main his book in this manner, Kealey effec- strengths of this book is Kealey’s focus tively demonstrates what police surveil- on the atip (Access to Information and lance means to him as a historian and as Privacy) process and the history of the a Canadian. Privacy and Access to Information Acts Kealey divides Spying on Canadians (1985). In the final chapter, “Thercmp , into three parts to facilitate his wide csis, the Public Archives of Canada, and scope. The first section explores the Access to Information: A Curious Tale,” 19th century roots of the Canadian Kealey candidly discusses his work as Secret Service and how political polic- a researcher and the struggles he faced ing in this era, from the Fenian raids to gaining access. Through these essays, the Komagatu Maru affair, was tightly therefore, Kealey not only provides his- linked to fears of radicalism and anti- torical context for Cold War spying but imperialism. The second section looks also illustrates how the increased avail- at the origins of the Cold War beginning ability of this information has changed with the Winnipeg General Strike as well the scholarship over last three decades. as other acts of labour unrest following With access to information scholars are World War I and ending with civilian in- able to research the history of security ternment during World War II. The third and surveillance in Canada and have, in section focuses on the archives and pub- turn, demanded that more information lic access to restricted files. What is so be made publicly accessible. fascinating about this book is how Kealey As with any collection of essays there draws these sections together through is the inevitable overlap between chapters the theme of labour. Work is at the heart that gives a sense of repetition. Ultimately of this collection. Kealey’s background as this overlap is good as the chapters can a labour historian allows for a compelling stand independently from one another. examination of surveillance in Canada The collection, seen as either a series of and its indisputable ties to work. independent essays or a cumulative his- Kealey presents the theme of labour tory, is attractive to both professional in three ways. First there is the tar- scholars and students of police surveil- get of police surveillance: labour, the lance, security studies, and the Cold War. Left, and the working-class immigrant. Spying on Canadians is also excellent Chapter 6, “Spymasters, Spies, and Their course reading for graduate and senior Subjects: The rcmp and Canadian State undergraduate students in classes with Repression, 1914-39,” explores the police post-Confederation themes considering attention to the Left and the “foreign- Kealey’s attention to the broader topic of born” dissenter. In this essay Kealey also Canada’s nationhood. Kealey brings the presents the theme of labour in a second process of uncovering restricted police way: spying as police employment and records to the centre of his discussion work. Here, as in many of the other essays, of police spying providing readers with a

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better understanding of the importance movement. It doesn’t help that workers of doing history and the extent of surveil- themselves are largely missing in action lance. As he states in the conclusion to from these union urban struggles. Chapter 8: “While this may appear to be This book advances the intersection of only one historian’s whining, the point, labour and urban studies. It turns from of course, is that it is absolutely crucial in the more familiar ground of municipal a liberal-democratic society that citizens worker strikes, or citywide minimum have access to sufficient information to wage campaigns, to lesser studied con- allow us to judge the behaviour and im- testations over urban space. As capital pact of our secret police.” (226) relentlessly strives to remake the city in Frances Reilly its image and interest, this book looks at Toronto, ON labour’s rejoinder in all its commitments, coalitions, and contradictions. Editor Ian Thomas MacDonald succinctly conveys Ian Thomas MacDonald, ed., Unions the collection’s aspiration to “serve as a and the City: Negotiating Urban Change road map toward both a stronger labor (Ithaca: Cornell University 2017) (sic) movement and a socially just urban- ism.” (1) This book provides a more optimistic The collection itself is a well-designed account of labour’s influence on North symmetrical construct. Case studies American cities than readers might ex- explore and compare how unions are pect. In the process, its authors show contesting four dimensions of the post- commendable restraint eschewing any industrial city in each of New York and temptation towards wishful triumpha- Toronto. Paired chapters examine strug- lism. Instead, the essays in this uniformly gles to define “the hospitable city” (tour- strong collection present a highly nu- ism, attractions, hotels), the “creative anced account of successes and setbacks city” (film production), “the sustainable of union campaigns to shape the direc- city” (a green economy) and “the car- tion of two changing cities: New York and ing city” (child care) in New York and Toronto. Toronto. The focus on these cities re- To be sure, hard times have befallen la- trieves them – from more familiar des- bour in these and other cities across the ignations – as leading labour cities, past continent in recent decades. Symptoms and present. abound in both plummeting and ris- Ian Thomas Macdonald’s opening case ing trend lines: declining union density, study examines the successful recent workers’ collective action, and real wages; campaign of unions in the New York increased precarious employment, work hotel sector to block proposed redevel- insecurity and income inequality. opment in Midtown Manhattan which This timely work shifts the focus from would threaten existing unionized hotels class relations at the workplace to union with new hotels known for lower wages efforts to shape the urban landscape in and antipathy to unions. Ambiguities labour’s interest. Exploring union efforts surface with the recognition that build- to influence urban land use, regulations, ing trades unions supported redevelop- and services, the book illuminates the lo- ment, while key property owners allied cal state as a significant terrain of labour themselves with hotel unions to block activism. A key theme is whether union neighbourhood change. campaigns to define urban landscapes Steve Tufts provides a sophisticated can renew and revitalize the labour study of a failed bid by Toronto’s leading

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hotel sector union to promote a down- excellence incubator. Ultimately, unions town casino. For Unite Here, the casino lacked the capacity to attract capital and proposal was “about getting the local green investment to their vision. Yet government to prioritize postindustrial these campaigns produced some of the development as a means of reproducing book’s most creative examples of union middle-class jobs.” (72) More potent was innovation and coalition-building. a diverse array of forces aligned against The final pair of essays explore union the proposal, including influential down- efforts to enhance “the caring city” by town residents, competing gaming advancing child care on three fronts: and real estate corporations, and other quality, accessibility, and workers’ wages. unions opposed to the casino. In New York, Susanna F. Schaller, K.C. The second pairing of essays examines Wagner, and Mildred E. Warner identify “creative city” impulses through the lens a two-pronged labour strategy: advocacy of film production. In both instances, coalition-building and renewed union unions in the film sector succeeded in organizing of child care workers. Simon extracting favourable commitments from Black persuasively contrasts a success- their city government. Maria Figueroa ful labour campaign to oppose closure of and Lois S. Gray examine the campaign municipal child care centres in the cen- to secure tax incentives for filming in tral core City of Toronto, with a failed New York, while Thorben Wieditz per- similar effort in an outlying suburb of ceptively charts the progressive and metropolitan Toronto. This closing case problematic dynamics behind a success- nicely captures the import of urban and ful campaign to preserve film studio suburban spaces for labour. space from redevelopment in Toronto. Taken together, the accounts in this Both cases saw labour partner with local collection reflect an activist, at times film industry employers. Both essays sug- creative, urban orientation of labour. gestively question whether union efforts Results, as MacDonald notes, are mixed, were fuelled by union narrow self-inter- including “successes of a defensive sort, est or by broader social objectives. defined in trade union goals, along The next essay thematic – “the sus- with some failures, and modest cases of tainable city” – sees a turn from unions unions advancing their workplace and waging largely defensive preservation- institutional interests within the terms ist struggles, to labour adopting a more of an urban social justice agenda.” (210) pro-active stance. It is the front on which Yet often, the authors show, even union unions have the least to show for their gains result from class alliances framed efforts. Maria Figueroa shows that New within neoliberal, new urbanist modali- York construction sector unions have ties which do more to reinforce than to promoted retrofitting and green jobs as unsettle prevailing power imbalances. employment, environmental and social Readers will learn much from this book justice advancement. She notes that mak- about union engagement with urban ing common cause could be challenging: space, policy and politics. Considerably “Unions have a hierarchical structure, less evident is the nature of workers’ while the environmental movement’s engagement in these efforts. Union structure is rather horizontal.” (126) In, members and workers make scant ap- Toronto, James Nugent provides a sober- pearance in these pages. This reflects ing assessment of labour’s inability to the institutionalized, hierarchical nature secure support for transforming a large of most campaign interventions dis- factory closing site into a green centre of cussed in this book. Yet this top-down,

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non-mobilization of workers needed occuper des voies secondaires ou à rester more explicit naming and discussion dans des angles morts. Selon elle, Refus in a work rightly committed to labour global n’a pas échappé à ce destin. Il a été revitalization. lui aussi victime d’accidents de parcours. Additionally, the book could more ex- Il est désormais emprisonné dans une plicitly attempt to tease out a comparative « réception partielle », qui occulte assessment of the extent to which nation- ou obstrue les autres interprétations al (US/Canada) and urban (New York/ possibles. Toronto) contexts frame “Unions and the Le problème, c’est qu’on a réduit le City.” For starters, an idiosyncratic re- recueil de textes et d’illustrations au viewer would recommend consideration texte « Refus global » rédigé par Paul- of a grammatical distinction. Half the es- Émile Borduas et cosigné par quinze says here are written by Canadian labour artistes du groupe automatiste, puis on a scholars about Canadian labour. The ho- fait de ce texte, après le renvoi de Borduas mogenized rendering of the word “labor” de l’École du meuble, un raccourci pour throughout, itself seemed to convey a décrire le Québec intransigeant ou certain insignificance of place. A rather simplement frileux de l’ère duplessiste. jarring signal for a very fine book so at- On a ainsi écarté de la réception à peu tuned to the spatial dynamics of union près tout de ce qui faisait la richesse et engagement. Let both labor and labour la complexité du document initial, sauf be known in their own name. en quelque sorte le bandeau rouge qui Myer Siemiatycki servait d’annonce publicitaire et sur Ryerson University lequel était écrit en lettres majuscules le simple mot « manifeste ». On a ainsi atrophié la polysémie de l’ensemble du Sophie Dubois, Refus global. Histoire document collectif, et même laminé le d’une réception partielle, (Montréal, sens du texte de Borduas lui-même. Presses de l’Université de Montréal, L’explication ne tient pas seulement à Collection « Nouvelles études des causes extérieures. Déjà, importante québécoises », 2017) source de confusion, le recueil et le texte de Borduas portent le même titre. De plus, le Y a-t-il encore quelque chose de recueil, que l’on nomme indifféremment neuf à dire sur Refus global ? À lire lors de sa parution « manifeste », l’impressionnant ouvrage de Sophie « ouvrage », « texte », « cahier » ou, en Dubois, il semble bien que oui. À la anglais, « folder » ou « portfolio », est croisée de la littérature, de l’histoire et caractérisé par une forme « écartelée », de la sociocritique, Dubois refait avec pour reprendre ici l’expression de énormément d’érudition et de finesse Julie Gaudreault. Ensuite, l’œuvre est l’histoire de la réception d’un Refus le fruit de sept créateurs (Borduas, global que tout le monde connaît, mais Gauvreau, Cormier, Sullivan, Leduc, que très peu de personnes ont lu. Pour Perron et Riopelle), sans mentionner les éclairer sa démarche, elle se sert de la signataires du texte éponyme. Le ton et métaphore de l’autoroute : pour elle, le genre des textes diffèrent grandement : l’histoire des discours critiques formulés manifeste, pamphlet, lexique, théâtre, sur les œuvres chemine sur plusieurs poésie, essai, etc. En autres, on ne sait voies, mais une voie finit toujours par être pas très bien si les textes de Gauvreau plus congestionnée ou engorgée que les sont des « poèmes », des « pièces autres, ce qui relègue certains discours à dramatiques », des « sketches », des

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« dialogues symboliques » ou des « mots suscita donc surprise et incompréhension. imaginaires ». Les composantes visuelles On préféra ne pas en parler et il fut empruntent à la photographie, à la poussé, en quelque sorte, dans une voie lithographie, à la peinture, à la sculpture, de garage. On se braqua plutôt sur « Refus à l’aquarelle, à la mise en scène, à la global », dont on tira quelques bouts de chorégraphie. Les disciplines principales phrase (dont le célèbre « Au diable le qui structurent Refus global sont les goupillon et la tuque ! ») pour illustrer, arts visuels, la littérature, la danse, la dans les années 1940 et 1950, une position psychanalyse et la photographie. Bref, idéologique intenable et absurde, avant par sa présentation matérielle, la pluralité que par un renversement complet, le texte de ses contributeurs, sa forme générique ne devînt le symbole même de la supposée et sa multidisciplinarité, Refus global « entrée du Québec dans la modernité ». ressemble à tout, sauf à un livre ordinaire Les années 1960 se mirent à célébrer vendu à la librairie Tranquille ou Deom. « Refus global » pour « toutes les raisons On sent que ses premiers « lecteurs » ne qui l’avaient précisément fait condamner savent pas trop quoi en faire. en 1948 » (Julie Gaudreault, citée p. 243). Le public québécois francophone Mais, dans un cas comme dans l’autre, était pour d’autres raisons encore mal c’est-à-dire quand il était fustigé ou préparé à recevoir Refus global. Sophie quand il était encensé, Refus global avait Dubois insiste sur l’absence, dans les disparu du discours, et « Refus global » années 1950, d’autonomie du champ lui-même ne servait plus que de « point culturel face au champ du pouvoir et sur de référence utile, voire de prétexte, aux le fait que le milieu artistique demeurait critiques pour aborder des questions soumis aux normes du pouvoir. D’un plus générales » (p. 154). Les polémiques certain point de vue, elle a tout à fait alimentées par les automatistes ne firent raison : l’art québécois restait alors rien pour éclaircir les enjeux soulevés par inféodé à une visée morale. Mais d’un le recueil, leurs multiples interventions autre point de vue, il aura fallu sans doute publiques n’aidant guère à « recentrer le faire une remarque inverse dans le cas de discours sur l’œuvre. ». Refus global : le scandale de sa parution Dès 1949, Refus global (recueil ou vient aussi de que des artistes se mêlaient texte) est devenu, pour un peu tout le de politique et de religion (s’arrogeant un monde, le manifeste dont Borduas est le droit de regard qui n’était pas le leur, les rédacteur. La facilité à se procurer le texte artistes devant supposément se consacrer de Borduas, et la difficulté à consulter exclusivement à l’art) et cherchaient le recueil intégral (imprimé à environ à soumettre la société aux principes 400 exemplaires en 1948, puis réédité à qui guidaient leur propre recherche 2000 exemplaires en 1972) facilitèrent esthétique. Ce qu’on aimait de Pellan, l’effacement de Refus global de la mémoire signataire du manifeste Prisme d’yeux commune. Cet effacement permit une (lui aussi paru en 1948), c’est justement sorte de réification d’un canevas héroïque qu’il ne se mêlait pas de vouloir faire la dans la deuxième période (1950-2008). révolution… sauf dans ses toiles et dans Encouragé par trois acteurs principaux les classes de l’École des beaux-arts. (le témoin Claude Gauvreau, l’essayiste Borduas paiera de sa personne sa volonté Pierre Vadeboncoeur, l’universitaire de brouiller les frontières de l’art et de la François-Marc Gagnon), s’est ainsi politique. instauré un véritable « verrou » analytique Par son continu et par sa forme, Refus qui privilégie le paradigme de la rupture global était irrecevable, insaisissable. Il sociohistorique et bloque les autres

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virtualités interprétatives – les remises Matthew Barlow, Griffintown: Identity en cause du « mythe » n’ayant fourni, au and Memory in an Irish Diaspora fond, que des occasions d’asseoir encore Neighbourhood (Vancouver: University plus solidement le « récit canonique » of British Columbia Press 2017) dans la mémoire collective. Encore et toujours, Refus global était ravalé au Over the past two decades Montréal’s « Refus global », le « Refus global » à landscape has undergone a profound Borduas, Borduas à son renvoi, son renvoi physical transformation. At the forefront à Duplessis, et Duplessis à la Grande of this transformation are numerous noirceur. real estate developers who refashion old Dans une des dernières sections du working-class neighbourhoods, opting livre, « Lire les composantes marginales : to erect glassy condo towers where low- sortir du mythe, relire l’histoire », Sophie rise buildings once stood. Griffintown Dubois cherche des moyens de redonner is one of those neighbourhoods. Seen by une place au recueil et à ses composantes promoters as occupying an ideal prop- marginales. Elle croit d’abord qu’il faut erty location, bordering both Downtown les sortir de l’ombre trop encombrante de Montréal and Lachine Canal, it has been Borduas. Le texte de Borduas occulterait at the centre of such transformations in les autres contributions de Refus global landscape. et son parcours en viendrait à teinter Stemming from a dissertation com- forcément tous les regards que l’on jette pleted in 2009, Matthew Barlow’s 2017 sur le recueil, comme si les interprétations book demonstrates how memoryscape sur les autres composantes de Refus has shaped the past and the current iden- global devaient se jouer dans le destin tity of Griffintown. Part ofubc Press’ du peintre de Saint-Hilaire. Mais, Shared: Oral and Public History collec- rappelle Dubois, il ne faut pas avoir peur tion, Barlow’s work navigates through d’« emprunter des voies parallèles et des Griffintown’s most distinguished and routes secondaires ». outspoken community – Irish-Catholics Ce que Sophie Dubois nous fait – and how our understanding of découvrir dans ce stimulant et Griffintown cannot be disassociated from passionnant ouvrage, c’est une autre façon their legacy. Tracing the dynamic history de concevoir non seulement le document of Irish involvement in Griffintown from Refus global, mais son sens et sa portée. the dawn of the 20th century to the early Elle veut nous aider à sortir de certains 21st century, Barlow demonstrates how jugements univoques qui bloquent la the Irish-Catholic community forged pleine compréhension du geste posé par four main cultural spaces for itself: the les seize signataires en 1948. Elle réussit Catholic Church, local politics, the Saint pleinement dans sa tentative de nous Patrick’s Society, and organized sport. convaincre de désengorger « l’autoroute While community leaders actualized de la mémoire culturelle ». Il reste the sense of place and connection to the cependant un immense chantier devant landscape, built symbols like St. Ann’s nous, pour la réalisation duquel, j’espère, Parish were foundational monuments to Sophie Dubois prêtera main-forte : the locality of Irishness in Griffintown. écrire cette histoire purgée du mythe et Over time, the attitudes, goals, and influ- des notions-valises qui l’accompagnent, ences fluctuated along with the Irishness comme celle de modernité. of the neighbourhood. Jean-Philippe Warren From the start, Barlow writes can- Université Concordia didly about his personal relationship to

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Griffintown and its community, affec- as “one of the most radical [Irish] na- tionately referring to the neighbourhood tionalist places in all of North America.” as the Griff. Barlow’s historiographical (79) Barlow is at his strongest here, as he intervention comes as “the only study of highlights the Irish competing identi- the Irish in Griffintown or Montréal as a ties and loyalties. Chapter 3 examines whole that examines the twentieth and the Depression and World War II period twenty-first centuries.” (8) Influenced by when patterns of property ownership a spanning literature on the Irish dias- shifted fundamentally as approachable pora, memory work, and ethno-religious landlords were replaced by either absent identity, Barlow uses a historical ap- counterparts, banks, or insurance com- proach to demonstrate how we may un- panies. Though Griffintown continued to derstand Griffintown’s Irish community be a bustling neighbourhood, the post- through a threefold process. According war years gave way to deindustrializa- to Barlow this was first forged out of so- tion and modernist municipal plans that cial and class identifications, followed ripped the fabric of the community and by a change in the local landscape and “combined to render the neighbourhood outmigration toward more affluent com- all but uninhabitable.” (104) Chapter 4 munities, and finally the projection of an focuses on the dwindling community imagined history of Irishness to formally between 1945 and 1970 and, according carve out a space for the diaspora within to Barlow, during this period the three Montréal’s urban, political, and cultural levels of government “conspired” to de- scene. Barlow does well to demonstrate construct the neighbourhood due to its Griffintown’s complicated ethnic, reli- slum-like attributes. Though the author gious, and political landscape. However, constantly challenges the slum stereo- I cannot help but question how Barlow type (with reason), he somehow contin- evaded important questions related to ues to employ the term. This reader could Montréal’s local governing context while not quite figure if it was used in an ironic also largely dismissing Québec’s unique fashion or, rather, to give textuality to position in the Commonwealth, which the neighbourhood – thereby reinforcing oftentimes overlaps with the interests of this stereotype. The final chapter looks Irish nationalists. at Griffintown’s renaissance through the Barlow elaborates his study chrono- Griffintown Commemorative Project. logically through five chapters. Chapter 1 Between 1990 and 2010 the community looks at Griffintown and the persistent bloomed as a site of Irishness memory connections that Irish-Catholic mi- paralleling the reinvigoration of the Irish grants had to Ireland as they settled diaspora worldwide and the economic in Griffintown. Chapter 2 follows this boom in Ireland itself. Barlow does well to storyline by monitoring the compet- distance himself from this public history, ing identities and loyalties that seen in offering a critique on their whitewashing Griffintown during World War I and historical narrative stating, “the removal shortly thereafter. This is the most trans- of dissent and the romanticization of national of Barlow’s chapters as the au- hard times, unemployment, alcoholism, thor simultaneously grapples with the and especially violence in the Griffintown international context with the outbreak landscape shape the narrative.” (151) of World War I, nationalist fervour for Regulars of Labour/Le Travail will be Irish independence, and the local dy- disappointed to learn that though Barlow namics in Griffintown. We also learn that often characterizes the Irish-Catholics of the neighbourhood gained a reputation Griffintown as working-class, his book

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missed an opportunity to define their la- health organization that had ambitions bour conditions. We do not gain insight to become a national voice for public into the working conditions of the fac- health education. The Canadian National tory floor, nor into the relationships be- Council for Combatting Venereal tween employers and their Irish-Catholic Disease emerged at the end of World War employees. We very quickly get into a I to become the Canadian Social Hygiene pattern of memoryscape that echoes Council in 1922, finally morphing into various known memories of Griffintown, the Health League in 1935. Dr. Gordon but which does not seek to unearth si- Bates (b.1885), an expert in the diagnosis lences. Perhaps an immediate case-in- and treatment of Venereal Disease (vd), point is the gap in sequence between led these organizations until his death in the years 1975 and 1991, which remains 1975. He was instrumental in rejecting unexplained. Moreover, while I am sym- the predominant focus on the environ- pathetic to the reality of transforming a mental causes of illness in favour of the dissertation into a book, I was also disap- individual’s responsibility to take proper pointed with the book’s disengagement preventative measures to ensure health. with recent scholarship, especially per- Clearly influenced by eugenics, these or- taining to Montréal’s historiography. ganizations pushed the idea that chang- Though Barlow misses the mark on ing individual behavior could prevent certain issues, we should commend his disease. Included in this expectation was activism, mediatic appearances, and abil- the responsibility of the individual to seek ity to forge a lasting relationship with the out medical expertise, to have regular community. He demonstrates how his- checkups, and to follow medical advice. torians can produce activist critiques of Thus “health citizenship,” a concept the their environments, while participating authors derive from the work of British in their future destinies. This is a laud- historian, Dorothy Porter, became an able feat. It is genuinely inspiring and individual’s responsibility. In Bates’ view pushes us to consider how to write his- health education provided the answer not tories which can have a relative impact in only to physical health but also to mental, our communities. It is in this light that moral, and social health. In promulgat- I understand Barlow’s selection as the ing his vision of a national preventative 2018 winner of the Canadian Historical health strategy, Bates recruited wealthy Association Clio-Québec book prize. business and professional men as well Matthieu Caron as politicians to his cause, many of them University of Toronto medical professionals. Some prominent women also participated in core commit- tees but the National Board of the Health Catherine Carstairs, Bethany Philpott, League was 90 per cent male. Despite and Sara Wilmshurst, Be Wise! Be these connections, the Health League Healthy! Morality and Citizenship in was often short of funds and its attempts Canadian Public Health Campaigns to enroll subscribers to its magazine and (Vancouver: University of British other projects often fell short. Bates’ dis- Columbia Press 2018) like of joint funding strategies also cost him financial support as did controversy Co-authored by Catherine Carstairs over some of the League’s campaigns. and two of her former Master’s students, Successful campaigns emerged in the Be Healthy, Be Wise follows the evolution late 1920s and into the 1930s to vaccinate of a Toronto and Ontario-centric public against diptheria which was a leading

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cause of death in children and to require and prevention of chronic disease. Men pasteurization of milk. With the assis- in the armed forces and workers in indus- tance of public health officials in Toronto try became special targets in wartime. and the province, Bates and his organi- Regular medical exams and healthy eat- zation mounted a campaign in the press ing would improve Canadians’ efficiency and on radio to convince parents to vac- at work and in the services. The war years cinate their children, although he totally witnessed a concern with eating the right ignored the role that poverty played in ill- kind and amounts of food as a patriotic ness. Schools and churches also worked duty; women were to be educated on the with the Toronto Diptheria Committee best foods and preparation methods un- to increase vaccination rates resulting in der the guidance of Canada’s Food Rules dramatic drops in death rates in Toronto (later Canada’s Food Guide) and in con- and Ontario by the late 1930s, which was junction with municipal and provincial not the case in the rest of the country. nutrition campaigns. In the post-war era, Similarly, but more slowly, pasteurization obesity became a target and the Health of milk became a cause for concern as tu- League’s magazine intensified attention berculosis could be spread through milk. on exercise featuring middle and upper Medical experts urged milk consump- class white male bodies as the ideal. As tion as a “protective” food especially for the authors note, women’s health was children. While Ontario passed compul- rarely addressed and little attention was sory legislation in 1938, as Toronto had given to class differences or the limita- done in 1914, exemptions were allowed tions imposed by poverty on people’s for more remote areas without proper ability to afford healthy food, exercise, or facilities. Indeed, the authors note that leisure activities. economics were equally important in One chapter does focus on the work- encouraging pasteurization as the milk place and illustrates how national health lasted longer. was connected to World War II. In 1940 World War II witnessed an increased the League created an Industrial Health emphasis on vd education and preven- Division which encouraged employers to tion; in contrast to World War I when hire doctors and nurses in the campaign men were blamed for spreading the dis- to keep workers healthy. Health educa- ease, women were targeted, a trend noted tion was the focus as part of a plan to by Ruth Pierson in her study, “They’re Still cut down absenteeism and potentially Women After All” (Toronto: McClelland quash discontent. Major conferences on and Stewart, 1986). The Health League industrial health took place from 1943 primarily viewed vd as a moral problem to 1946, posters and pay cheque inserts thus alienating public health officials’ were produced to encourage workers to- support. Furthermore, Bates feared that wards healthy behavior and to consult the availability of penicillin would only company doctors about problems. A few encourage immorality. Post-war cam- labour leaders’ participation is noted by paigning focused on pre-marital testing the authors but readers learn very little for syphilis but by the mid-1950s only about their contributions. Indeed, the the three prairie provinces and Prince thrust of the League’s efforts were aimed Edward Island passed and enforced com- at employers who were urged to engage pulsory testing. health experts, to provide nutritious food World War II also encouraged greater in company cafeterias, and to integrate attention to the health of adult men, es- returned veterans, especially the dis- pecially in the areas of nutrition, exercise, abled, into the labour force. The League

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hoped to develop an employer member- Speaking up for hiring disabled veter- ship scheme to fund its activities but like ans and later, older workers, reflected his other initiatives there was little take up. own predilections including his personal Significantly, the workplace itself never rejection of retirement. This reader ap- figured as a source of ill health in the preciates the treasure trove of hundreds League’s propaganda. of archival boxes the authors investigated The penultimate chapter focuses on at Library and Archives Canada but that the controversial postwar campaign for singular institutional focus leaves us with water fluoridation, a process that prom- the exclusive perspective of Bates and the ised to lessen the incidence of tooth de- Health League. cay. Opposition came from a variety of Linda Kealey sources: those who opposed it as harm- University of New Brunswick ful to health, insufficiently tested, a vio- lation of civil liberties, too expensive or as a communist plot. Gordon Bates was Keri Leigh Merritt, Masterless Men: Poor a prominent defender of the practice, Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum arguing that fluoridation would lessen South (Cambridge: Cambridge ill health; the latter, he often assert- University Press 2017) ed, caused the poverty and discontent found in communist countries and thus In 1857, a white North Carolinian promoting health through fluoridation named Hinton Rowan Helper published would provide a bulwark against com- The Impending Crisis of the South, a munism. The League mounted a vigorous blistering assessment of the damages he campaign involving citizens’ groups as saw wrought upon the South by the in- well as professionals to press for legisla- stitution of slavery. To Helper, slavery tion in the 1960s. The divisiveness of the retarded the economic and cultural de- campaign, however, was partially respon- velopment of the region relative to the sible for the League losing a significant free states, and he laid the blame for those proportion of its funding from Toronto’s limitations squarely at the feet of oligar- United Community Fund so that by the chic elite slaveholders who falsely assert- late 1960s, it became “a shadow of its for- ed that slavery served the interests of all mer self.” (180) white people. In fact, Helper concluded, In many respects this is a “rise and fall” slavery actively oppressed nonslavehold- study of a voluntary organization that at ing whites by devaluing their labour and times wielded influence on public health keeping them impoverished, ignorant, issues, though primarily in Ontario. The degraded, and without future prospects. moralistic leadership of Bates is cen- Indeed, Helper insisted that poor white tral and the analysis rightly points to a southerners effectively lived in a “second male, middle and upper class leadership degree of slavery.” (1) that valued medical expertise and failed Examining the circumstances of the to understand working-class and immi- nearly one third of white southerners in grant concerns. Speaking for the League, the antebellum era who owned neither Bates opposed Medicare, a position land nor slaves, Keri Leigh Merritt main- which ignored the health needs of most tains that in important ways, Helper was Canadians and underlined his focus on right. Slavery enriched slaveholders and individual responsibility for health. The it exploited poor white people, reducing positions taken by Bates and the League demand for their work such that it was were, on occasion, partially progressive. nearly worthless and pushing them to

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the economic margins with almost no that slaveholders preferred the masses hope for upward mobility or accumu- of white people undereducated, and that lating capital. Slaveholders in positions they had no interest in creating a system of power piled on. They used both legal of public schools that might have provid- authority and extralegal power to moni- ed poor whites with avenues of advance, tor, constrain, and control poor whites or at least the ability to write their own lest they create disorder, fight back politi- names. They also preferred poor whites cally, or even forge alliances across racial politically impotent and disengaged, and lines that could threaten slavery itself. therefore engineered something less than Poor whites, in Merritt’s account, lacked a true white democracy by making vot- the privileges of whiteness that slavehold- ing difficult, limiting the terms of politi- ers often insisted slavery delivered to all cal debates, and crafting apportionment white people whether or not they owned schemes that were slanted toward the slaves. Moreover, poor whites knew it and wealthy. they resented it, creating fissures in the There were dangers involved with supposed proslavery consensus among having such a large underclass. Merritt southern white people before and during demonstrates how slaveholding elites the Civil War. systematically policed poor white people Merritt’s depiction of the social posi- to keep a lid on any disorder. They espe- tions and material lives of poor white cially sought to limit the potential dis- southerners is utterly unsparing in its ruption of slavery that they feared from bleakness. She describes a southern an interracial underground economy world of severe economic stratification and other activities by poor whites that that only became more so over time. As crossed the colour line. Poor whites were slaveholders consolidated control over special targets of vagrancy laws, and they land and labour in the late antebellum suffered rates of arrest and incarceration period, they left poor whites mostly with far higher than the general white popu- the options of tenant farming, sharecrop- lation. They were sometimes subjected ping, or competing with slaves for dan- to humiliating corporal punishments gerous and poorly paid wage work. Poor typically reserved for enslaved people, whites faced sporadic employment and left imprisoned without trial or for fail- the constant need to be on the move to ure to pay fines, and they occasionally obtain the means of survival, all of which even found their labour auctioned off undermined the stability of their families to cover their debts. Ultimately, Merritt and led a not small number of them to al- concludes, poor whites lived in “a police coholism, crime, or withdrawal from so- state, with no economic standing and ciety altogether. Desperately poor women virtually no civil rights” and “they simply sometimes turned to prostitution, poor had no recourse for their many griev- children sometimes ended up as bound ances.” (283) labourers vulnerable to abuse, and as a Not that they did not try. Merritt ar- class poor whites led lives of intense de- gues that as time passed, poor white la- privation and ill health. Their existence bourers, especially in growing industrial was also suffused with a great deal of sectors of the economy, became increas- violence. ingly militant. They formed nascent Getting out of what was effectively a unions and demanded that their wages cycle of poverty, meanwhile, was nearly be protected and that Blacks be kept impossible and, by Merritt’s reckon- out of certain jobs. Ultimately, they im- ing, it was designed as such. She argues plied that their loyalty to slavery was not

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absolute. In the end, Merritt argues that Had poor whites had greater access to unrest among poor whites helped drive education, information, and the abilities slaveholders toward secession, as elites to organize and engage politically, Merritt worried they might lose the support of repeatedly suggests, they might well have nonslaveholders altogether at a moment seen their way toward electoral antislavery of political crisis and touted secession as or perhaps even an alliance across racial a move that would aid all southern whites lines, as they “increasingly came to realize by preventing the prospect of emancipa- that their own livelihoods were somehow tion. Dissent persisted through the Civil intertwined with those of the slaves them- War itself, however. Widespread anti- selves.” (26) Confederate and Unionist sympathies Putting aside whether the divide be- among poor whites could never be en- tween slavery and freedom was firmer tirely contained, no matter how forceful than Merritt sometimes implies, this is the appeals to white supremacy or how somewhat wishful thinking. The benefits coercive the efforts to enforce the draft of whiteness certainly played out in class- and round up deserters. specific ways. But material and political Merritt’s argument has deep contem- alternatives that might have made them porary resonance. In her depiction of less so would have given poor whites im- the social, economic, and political cir- proved access to those benefits, and there cumstances of southern poor whites, is little to signify that whatever hostil- it is not hard to see glimmerings of our ity existed toward slavery among poor own structures of mass incarceration, whites would have survived such a turn of political disfranchisement, and systemic events. In a way, Merritt’s own conclusion generational poverty for which the poor indicates as much. When emancipation themselves are blamed. Such was the case came, she observes, freed Black people under slavery as well, as antebellum elites got pushed to the bottom of the southern often claimed poor whites were poor sociopolitical order, and poor white peo- mostly because they were lazy, immoral, ple gained at least some of the privileges and criminal degenerates. of whiteness. Merritt writes that as the Merritt’s argument about the relation- embrace of whiteness took in poor whites, ship of poor whites to their own white- “their anger toward blacks seemed to be- ness, however, is not entirely convincing. come more apparent and more vicious.” It is undeniable that poor white southern- (336) But arguably, what changed was not ers realized few, if any, material or politi- the anger. What changed was the power cal benefits from slavery, and that slavery to act upon it. in fact went a long way toward entrench- Ironically, one might point to Hinton ing their poverty. But Merritt treads a Rowan Helper himself as the best dem- difficult line when it comes to the relation- onstration of how the worldview of poor ship among poverty, freedom, and race. white people was deeply bound up in Merritt acknowledges that, of course, poor their racial identity, whether they reaped white people were not actually slaves and the rewards of that identity or not. that racism was widespread even among Despite the limited sympathies Helper the lower classes of white southerners. At expressed toward the enslaved in The the same time, though, she argues that the Impending Crisis, his hostility toward freedom of poor whites was “conditional,” Black people was always deep-seated (17) that they had a “nominal, quasi-free- and extreme. He could only imagine the dom,” (65) and that they “lived in a con- colonization of Black people in the event stant state of qualified freedom.” (220) of emancipation, and the books he wrote

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once emancipation did come betrayed a background and context for the cowboy racism whose virulence was pathological strikes. Lause introduces readers to the even by the standards of the 19th century. emergence of immediate post-Civil War Believing Black people to be the dregs of groups who presented political challeng- humankind, he looked forward to what es the powerful: Patrons of Husbandry he was sure would be their eventual ex- (Grange), Industrial Brotherhood (which tinction from the earth. became the Knights of Labor), and the Joshua D. Rothman Farmer’s Alliance, while arguing that University of Alabama corporate and political powers chose to protect “their property, profits, and pre- rogatives” through violence and coercion Mark Lause, The Great Cowboy Strike: rather than give in to workers’ demands. Bullets, Ballots, and Class Conflicts in the (xii) The introduction sets the context American West (London and New York: for the rise of the cattle industry in the Verso 2017) West, discussing the rise in national de- mand for beef, and the Red River War of Mark Lause, who has published exten- 1874 against Texas Native Americans, sively on eastern labour movements and who, once defeated and placed on reser- the working class in the post-Civil War vations, opened immense territory for era, turns his attention to the US West in large-scale corporate ranching. Lause The Great Cowboy Strike: Bullets, Ballots, introduces the reality of cowboy work, and Class Conflicts in the American countering a romanticized view with West. As Lause argues, the western ex- depictions of low paid working-class tension of the battle between corpora- cowboys kept in line by corporate ranch tions and their workers that emerged in owners, and concludes by discussing the the post-bellum era is a natural, albeit role of the railroad and the development relatively untouched area for labour and of western towns after 1869, the develop- working class historians to investigate. ment of stockyards, and of large cattle The persistent and romanticized myth drives to Kansas railheads. Chapters 1 of the cowboy has obscured the reality and 2 discuss in more detail the rise of of their struggles to wrest a living, and post-Civil War labour organizations such Lause argues that cowboys and the cow- as Grangers, International Brotherhood, boy strike needs to be understood within and Lause relates these organizations to the context of labour insurgency during the difficulties and insecure employment the post-Civil War era. His thesis is clear: Texas cowboys endured. Cattle ranch- “One cannot discuss labor struggles – or ers’ increasing concern with the bottom political insurgencies – in the West dur- line of their commercial-scale operations ing these years without encountering the encouraged them to criminalizing long- reality of coercive violence, recognition standing traditions, such as branding of which clarifies much about the pro- mavericks, which had traditionally al- gression of cowboy strikes and insur- lowed workers to rise out of wage labour gent movements generally.” (xi) Indeed, into ranch ownership. Thus the stage is themes of violence, coercion, and class set for a labour conflict between cattle conflict connect the cowboy insurgency ranchers and their hired hands. with other working-class efforts through- Chapters 3 through 6 get to the heart out this work. of the topic, as Lause describes the high The preface, introduction, and first ranch profits and stagnant wages of cow- two chapters provide labour history boys that initiated the strikes. Guidance

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from cowboys and sympathizers familiar Growing antagonism between ranchers, with insurgent labour movements in the cowboys, and small-scale ranchers and East, combined with knowledge of when farmers in the region rested on a num- ranchers would be most vulnerable, led ber of interwoven factors; the connection to successful strikes. But as Lause argues, to political insurgency needs to be more while cowboys won strike battles, espe- clearly articulated. For the conclusion, cially during the years 1883 to 1886, in the Lause takes readers on fast-paced journey long run they lost the war for improved through the emergence of western myth, wages and job security. By failing to or- beginning with Frederick Jackson Turner ganize into a union, cowboys involved in 1893 and continuing up through the in strikes found themselves blacklisted contemporary era. This long-term project or facing violent retribution from hired of construction of an American Western guns employed by ranch owners. Lause myth, he argues, has obscured the preva- pays a great deal of attention to labour lence of violence, white supremacy, and organizations, events, and leaders in the class conflicts in the region. His part- East, often to make just a brief connec- ing message is that we must unearth the tion to the story of the cowboys’ situation truth of our past before we can under- in the West. The discussion of the Great stand the present. Cattle Die-Up of 1886 and 1887, which The parts of Mark Lause’s The Great Lause connects with Theodore Roosevelt Cowboy Strike: Bullets, Ballots, and Class and the elite ranchers in Montana, had a Conflicts in the American West that focus promising start to explain the difficulties on context for the cowboy strikes and the cowhands faced, although more detail strikes themselves are quite good. Lause on the declining cattle industry’s effect offers insightful connections between on cattle hands overall would have been eastern and western labour movements, welcome. as well as providing a realistic picture of The remaining chapters shift focuses cowboy lives and work experiences in the to labour history in general. Chapter 19th century. His expertise in the area 7 does not mention cowboys or their of eastern labour history, however, tends strikes, but focuses on the checkered fate to overshadow the story of the cowboy of the Greenback and other labour par- West. The amount of information on la- ties, detailing how carefully controlled bour history provided leads to a breath- political violence by major interests – less skimming over material in some corporate and political – successfully put places, extensive detail of seemingly in- down challenges from groups support- consequential particulars in others, and, ing the working classes. Chapter 8 rein- in some places, information is presented forces themes of violence, albeit dipping in ways that could be interpreted as mis- into events prior to 1883, for example leading. If the book intended for a gen- Mormon movement into Utah, the OK eral audience, then these diversions may Corral shootout, and lynchings as unre- provide readers with interesting insights. solved issues of Reconstruction. The last For scholars of the American West, the half of the chapter takes up Wyoming’s central chapters will be most useful for Johnson County Range War. While Lause an understanding of the connection be- states that “Developments in Wyoming tween eastern and western cowhand brought the connections between cow- radicalism. boy discontent, range wars, and political Renee M. Laegreid insurgency into clear focus,” that con- University of Wyoming nection is not entirely obvious. (232)

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Jane Little Botkin, Frank Little and in the famed 1889 land runs. The young the iww: The Blood That Stained an Little witnessed right away the power of American Family (Norman: University of ethnic and class distinctions and mar- Oklahoma Press 2017) ginalization, particularly with American Indians in the Territory. The Little fam- Those familiar with the arc of labour ily even had outlaw connections prior history in the American West know the to their time in Oklahoma, evidenced story of Frank Little well. He was the fa- by a perhaps curiously included chapter mous (and infamous) Industrial Workers that steps back to their run-ins with the of the World (iww) agitator who criss- Doolin-Dalton Gang. The family’s labour crossed the region on behalf of radical connections in some ways began with labour and ultimately met his death un- Frank’s older brother Fred and his wife der a railroad trestle in Butte, Montana Emma in Cripple Creek, Colorado, in – lynched there in the early hours of 1 1893–1894, where they started lifelong August 1917. His murder’s legacy lives commitments to organizing, although on not just in labour lore but beyond (for sometimes with less efficacy and more example, the note that vigilantes left on relationship turbulence, we later find out, his body included the inscription “3-7- than the more famous family member. 77,” which today is included in the crest Frank Little appears in earnest in of the Montana Highway Patrol, for them Part II of the book, beginning with his a modern symbol of law enforcement). sometimes uncertain working-class life In Frank Little and the iww Jane Little (Botkin, perhaps because of lack of sourc- Botkin revisits Little’s story and give us es, is forced to say that he “could have,” a long overdue comprehensive look at an “might” and “perhaps” often about where underappreciated but woefully impor- he worked or lived). Still, we know that tant figure in working-class history. he made it to Bisbee, Arizona Territory Botkin, a great grand-niece of Little’s, beginning in 1903 and embarked on a set out to tell the famous labour martyr’s career of organizing. Around this time, story in part because of this family con- he became a member of the Western nection and the years of family history – Federation of Miners and the Socialist and mystery – that surrounded him. The Party of America, soon giving May Day book intends to be a “chronicle of ordi- speeches in Globe, organizing Mexican nary Americans who did extraordinary mine labour in Clifton, working on behalf things” within the context of a turbulent of the free speech movement in Missoula, time in American history. (xviii) Spokane, San Diego, and Fresno, where he Indeed, the work is an episodic look was arrested five times during what the at the moments and the places where author calls his “defining chapter.” (169) Little made his mark. Botkin starts at Just as in Fresno, Little’s work landed him the end, and recounts Frank Little’s last in jails across the West and on several oc- moments, when he was abducted from casions left him beaten and scarred. his Butte hotel room, the tragic moment As Botkin makes plain, he had un- that would make his name famous for doubtedly committed himself to his life’s generations. After this quick retelling, work: an ideology and organizing of radi- readers are dropped into Little’s life and cal industrial unionism. His grass-roots activism at a number of sites during the organizing efforts for iww locals bore late 19th and early 20th centuries. The fruit, and his notoriety among Wobblies story begins with Frank’s upbringing in swelled, placing him on the General Oklahoma, where his family participated Executive Board in 1911. Little would

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participate in union work in fights in the Bureau of Investigation abandoned Kansas City and Drumright, too, leaving the case. him “well known in the world of labor by Frank Little and the iww is a well-re- 1914.” (215) searched and compelling story, told, at By 1914, for many parts of the labour many points, with deserving and admira- community and those like Little on the ble engagement. Some readers may won- political Left, World War I proved a sig- der about not only the broader national nificant challenge to their causes. By this and labour contexts surrounding Little, time the Chair of the iww’s General but also some of the more on-the ground Executive Board, Little did not waver in and in-between moments of his transient his opposition to the war. The lop-sided life. While there may be more to uncover case of Joe Hill, for Botkin, marked the about Little, his various contexts and canary in the coal mine for the Wobblies broader significance, Botkin has taken on and, perhaps Little. When the US for- this biography well. Despite unavoidable mally entered the war in 1917 he was mystery and uncertainty surrounding physically broken yet determined – de- him, the author has been able to construct spite a lack of consensus with iww lead- a narrative that finally tackles this impor- ers like Big Bill Haywood – in his antiwar tant tale, and often compellingly so. convictions. Jeffrey A. Johnson The book, and Little’s story, reaches Providence College its dramatic height by his arrival in Butte, Montana in 1917. Botkin is able to describe the pulse of Butte well, in her Matilda Rabinowitz, Immigrant Girl, words a “city of widows and cemeteries” Radical Woman: A Memoir from the in the wake of harsh labour conditions Early Twentieth Century (Ithaca: Cornell and recent tragedies like the Speculator University Press 2017) Mine disaster. (276) A union town with a Socialist mayor, Frank Little sided with Matilda Rabinowitz (aka Matilda the more radical labour elements there, Robbins) is the only woman, other than still committed to direct action and urg- Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, who was known ing new colleagues in the reformed Butte as a paid organizer for the Industrial Miner’s Union to embrace the same in Workers of the World (iww) during several fiery speeches. His last days left its heyday in the early 20th century. him at odds with Haywood and Wobblies Rabinowitz played an important role in and at the same time with more moderate the Little Falls, NY textile strike in 1912, labour forces more in line with American and organized in many lesser-known Federation of Labor’s brand of trade areas, from Shelton, Connecticut to unionism. More than that, he received Greenville, South Carolina. death threats, and those turned out to be Unlike Elizabeth Gurley Flynn’s mem- more than idle. In the coming days after oir, written with an eye for posterity, anonymous vigilantes abducted Little Robbins’ memoir had a much smaller from his hotel room in the middle of the intended audience: her descendants. night Little became a martyr for the la- Written in the 1950s, her brief memoir bour cause, symbolized by his being the was never published in her lifetime. In largest funeral procession in Butte’s his- this volume her recollections of her life tory. His death, naturally, became a ral- exist side by side with illustrations done lying point for labour activists, well after by her granddaughter, Robbin Légère Henderson.

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Henderson also plays the role of tour supplies were organized: “although it guide through Matilda’s life. Each chapter was the women strikers alone who toiled of the memoir is followed by a reflection long hours in the kitchen, both men and by Henderson, which describe memories women worked in the adjoining shop to of her grandmother or research that she clean and repair the arriving donations of has done on her life. While sometimes clothing. Two Italian cobblers did won- these afterwards simply summarize what ders with worn shoes.” (119) Matilda has written, at other times they Robbins did not shy away from re- provide a fascinating interplay between vealing how she felt about many of the past and present and help us to read be- well-known personalities of the iww. On tween the lines of Matilda’s words. Big Bill Haywood, Robbins spent several One such example is a personal scan- pages criticizing him as a person and the dal during the Little Falls strike, which role he played in Little Falls. “To me he Robbins describes in a few sentences as if seemed to lack repose, concentration, it had happened to someone else. Robbins patience. Criticism upset him, and he de- had a multi-decade relationship with Ben fended even his small mistakes heatedly Légère, an actor and organizer for the … There must have been times and situ- iww (though he wasn’t very successful ations that created Bill Haywood’s famed at either occupation), who was married personality and revealed his unique when the two first met. While Légère talents. I did not find them. I could not was jailed for strike activities, love letters draw strength from his past exploits. It that had been passed between him and was the present that challenged. And in Matilda were published in the local news- the present his approach lacked vigor and paper, causing much personal embarrass- his methods realism.” (123) In contrast to ment. If we had only Robbins’ words to her disappointment in the “Great Man,” go on, we may not have known she was she has much praise for those Wobblies at the centre of the scandal. Henderson unknown to history who did the hard provides transcripts of the letters from tasks of keeping the strike running. She the local paper, adding depth to our un- also has kind words about Vincent Saint derstanding of the story. John, “The Saint,” General Secretary of For a historian, the most fascinating the iww during the strike. “He was an aspect of Robbins’ writing is in the details efficient executive, a shrewd labor orga- of daily life. The story of her migration to nizer, a sensitive social thinker – an in- the United States, for example, gives the transigent revolutionist.” (125) But she reader an appreciation for what a leap of had negative things to say about Carlo faith it was for Jewish people in Russia to Tresca’s visit to Little Falls: “He talked, take on the journey, passing from agent to he ate spaghetti, and drank wine, and we agent on a trek that took over two months paid the bill. When he left I was relieved to complete. and greatly disappointed.” (142) These For those of us who are trying to un- anecdotes help to humanize figures that derstand how organizations like the iww can feel almost mythological at times. functioned, Robbins’ eye for detail is in- Robbins faults the iww as an organiza- valuable. Her discussion of the Little Falls tion for hiring organizers who were bet- strike explains how exactly a Wobbly ter speakers than teachers, not good with strike ran on the ground. She lists her bookkeeping or laying the groundwork daily schedule as an organizer, the needs for the union to survive after the strike during the strike, and how they were met. was over. For example, in explaining how food and

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In addition to her life as an organizer, Howard Means, 67 Shots: Kent State and the other threads through the memoir are the End of American Innocence (Boston: Robbins’ tumultuous and abusive rela- Da Capo Press 2016) tionship with Légère, and her love for the Craig S. Simpson and Gregory S. Wilson, daughter she had with him. Henderson Above the Shots: An Oral History of the rather loosely uses the term “free love” Kent State Shootings (Kent: Kent State to describe the ideal that kept Robbins University Press 2016) in the relationship even though Légère was unfaithful. To many radicals during The 50th anniversary of the killing this period “free love” was more about of four students and the wounding of not having to solidify your commitment nine others by Ohio National Guardsmen to your partner in the eyes of the church at Kent State University will be marked or the state, not necessarily that everyone on 4 May 2020. Despite the abundance should be free to have as many partners of books on the subject, until recently as they wanted in the 1960s connotation the work of historians has been limited of the term. to oral histories, scholarly articles, and One of the most moving aspects of chapters in anthologies. The year 2016 the memoir is Robbins’ description of saw a surge in the publication of books motherhood and life with her daughter. on the subject. Thomas M. Grace’s ex- She very knowingly chose to be a single cellent Kent State: Death and Dissent in mother, at a time when that was uncom- the Long Sixties (Amherst: University of mon. She continued to work, occasionally Massachusetts Press, 2016), reviewed in having to send her daughter to others for l/lt’s issue 78, marked the first mono- care, only visiting her on weekends. An graph on the subject by an historian. appendix includes an unpublished article The two books reviewed here – Howard that Robbins submitted to The Nationin Means’ 67 Shots: Kent State and the 1927 about the trouble of finding decent End of American Innocence and Craig affordable childcare that would not be Simpson and Gregory Wilson’s Above the unfamiliar to any working mother today. Shots: An Oral History of the Kent State Robbins’ memoir is recommended to Shootings – both rely heavily on oral his- anyone interested in labour organization tory. Only the latter, however, adds any- and women workers in the early years of thing meaningful to our understanding the 20th century. The ease of reading, il- of the events at on 4 May 1970, and even lustrations, and Henderson’s additions then, only minimally. make it an ideal book for assigning to Means falsely attempts to create a mor- undergraduates. While Henderson’s an- al dichotomy between those US troops notations are sometimes repetitive and killed in action that day in Indochina and sometimes illuminating, they would help the students killed in Ohio. He describes students to understand what’s missing, the former as having died while com- unsaid, or underplayed, which could lead mitting “small acts of bravery.” (2) The to fascinating discussions about autobi- latter, in contrast, were foul-mouthed ographies as historical sources. arsonists who threw bags of human ex- Heather Mayer crement at, taunted, and sometimes even Portland Community College assaulted Ohio National Guardsmen. The obvious difference between the two groups of fatalities, which appears to be lost on Means, is that only one of them was armed.

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Means’ basic narrative of the events “Just killing four white students, four at Kent State on and around 4 May white kids, was enough to stop the whole 1970 is for the most part accurate: the antiwar movement.” (214) It didn’t. A United States invaded Cambodia on the reading of any of the vast body of litera- Wednesday, President Nixon announced ture on the anti-Vietnam War movement it on Thursday, students demonstrated clearly indicates the opposite. Cambodia at Kent State (and around the world) on and Kent State breathed new life into the Friday, and that night there were distur- movement. (Charles Debenedetti and bances in downtown Kent. On Saturday Charles Chatfield, An American Ordeal: night students attacked the Reserve The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Officers’ Training Corpsrotc ( ) building Era [Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, on campus, which burned to the ground 1990], 278; Tom Wells, The War Within: later in the evening, just in time for the America’s Battle Over Vietnam [New arrival of the Ohio National Guard. York: Henry Holt and Company, 1994], The following evening Guardsmen dis- 403). persed an impromptu demonstration at Means attempts to place the events at the campus gates with tear gas. (Means Kent State not into the context of the an- fails to mention that between three and tiwar movement, but into a cultural war eight unarmed students were bayoneted between adults and youth. His tone is tri- in the process. [Grace, 212]) On Monday umphalist, evocative more of the present at noon Guardsmen dispersed another day than the period of which he writes. demonstration, this time with firearms, “The Age of Aquarius had played out,” he killing four and wounding nine. Means says, “in the bad clothes, loose tits, shock- uses the best secondary sources avail- ing language, Woodstock and protest able on the shootings at Kent State. These marches. And now payback had arrived.” include The Report of the President’s (125) Ultimately, 67 Shots is more histri- Commission on Campus Unrest (New onics than history. It is a vulgar, sensa- York: Arno Press, 1970), Peter Davies’ The tionalist, and inaccurate screed. Truth about Kent State: A Challenge to the Craig Simpson and Gregory Wilson’s American Conscience (New York: Farrar, Above the Shots: An Oral History of the Straus, Giroux, 1973), Joseph Kelner and Kent State Shootings, attempts to expand James Munves’ The Kent State Coverup readers’ understanding of the events at (New York: Harper and Row, 1980), and Kent State through the use of oral history. Carole Barbato and Laura Davis’ ed- Unlike Means, both authors are histori- ited collection of essays Democratic ans. Simpson was formerly the curator Narrative, History and Memory (Kent: of the Kent State Shootings Oral History Kent State University Press, 2012). It is Project at Kent State. Wilson specializes Means’ cherry-picking of outrageous, un- in US, Ohio, and public history. The au- substantiated statements by participants, thors have included previously unheard often anonymous, indeed often anony- voices, which they refer to as narrators. mous former Ohio National Guardsmen, “We as historians have sought to stay found in the Kent State Shootings Oral above the din and present a multitude History Project that makes the book the of perspectives respecting (if not always irrelevant work that it is. He assumes the agreeing with) the views of the narra- veracity of these sources without ques- tors.” (8) tion or analysis. An example of this is a The authors have divided their book statement by Ellen Mann, an area resi- into five sections. The first addresses his- dent who worked on campus at the time: toric town/gown tensions between the

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town of Kent and Kent State University Above the Shots is rife with such instanc- prior to 4 May 1970, culminating in es, raising the question, why include so 1969 with the arrest of several members much previously unknown misrepresen- of the local chapter of Students for a tation only to debunk it? Democratic Society and the subsequent Simpson and Wilson add little to the revocation of that organization’s charter narrative of events surrounding Kent in the spring of that year. (43) That fall State on 4 May 1970. The book’s value 3,500 antiwar protesters marched from is contained in its discussion of the con- campus to downtown Kent as part of the tested memory and the struggles of me- Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, morialization of the Kent State shootings. America’s largest national antiwar cam- These are the subjects of Part Five, by far paign of the era. (46) Both subjects – sds the most original and interesting aspects and the Moratorium – cry out for further of Above the Shots. The authors rely on scholarly investigation. the theoretical framework of Kenneth Part Two focuses on the period from E. Foote, who analyzes the relation- the US invasion of Cambodia on 29 ship between landscape and violence in April to the fated demonstration of 4 his book, Shadowed Ground: America’s May. It is here where the reader first ex- Landscapes of Violence and Tragedy periences the inherent contradiction of (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003). the authors’ reliance on oral history to Foote outlines four stages that sites of develop the narrative. Early in the book violence go through. Sanctification oc- they explain, “We tried to maintain a bal- curs when “‘events are seen to hold some ance between letting the narrator speak lasting, positive meaning.’” Obliteration and intervening with the authoritative usually “‘results from particularly shame- voice.” (16) What remains unsaid is that ful events people would prefer to forget.’” the “authoritative voice” is the document- Designation is “‘the marking of a site,’” based narrative that has emerged over the and reification involves “‘removing the years, starting with the publication of The signs of violence and tragedy and return- Report of the President’s Commission on ing a site to use.’” (180-181) Early signs Campus Unrest in 1970. This contradic- of sanctification at Kent State include tion is further exacerbated in Parts Three the annual walk and candle-lit vigil that and Four, which discuss people’s memory have taken place every evening of 3-4 of the shootings and how that memory May since 1971. Later examples of both developed over time. The best example of sanctification and designation during the this concerns the death of Jeffrey Miller, 1990s and up to the present day include whose corpse appeared in John Filo’s the opening of the May 4 Memorial, the Pulitzer Prize winning photo of a young permanent closure of the four parking woman kneeling in front of him with spots where the students were killed, an her arms upraised. The authors relate annual scholarly conference, the oral his- the eye-witness account of Eldon Fender, tory project, and a self-guided walking who claims he saw Miller throw at least tour to name only a few. In 2010 the May ten rocks at Ohio National Guardsmen 4 Visitors’ Centre opened. from a distance of fifteen to twenty feet Prior to the 1980s, however, the univer- before Guardsmen fatally shot him. The sity was more intent on obliterating the authors devote three pages to this ac- memory of the shootings. The 1977 deci- count, only to invoke “the authoritative sion to build an athletic centre – euphe- voice,” to establish that Miller was in fact mistically called a “Gym Annex” – over several hundred yards from the shooters. part of the land on which the shootings

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took place, and the movement that arose Steve Early, Refinery Town: Big Oil, against it, marked a profound struggle Big Money, and the Remaking of an between the forces of obliteration and American City (Boston: Beacon Press sanctification. If there is criticism of this 2017) section of the book, it is that this discus- sion should be greatly expanded. In Refinery Town, Steve Early calls our Part Five also includes the process that attention to Richmond, California, one of went into the establishment of the May 4 the most polluted towns you’ve probably Memorial. In 1983 the university finally never heard of. Standard Oil of California began to take ownership of 4 May and drew workers to the city beginning in initiated a design contest for a Memorial. 1905 and for the next 100 years its sub- Michael G. Faher and Ian F. Taberner sidiary Chevron spent billions to retain won, but the latter was disqualified when control of local politics. Over the course it was discovered that he was Canadian. of seven chapters, Early gives an engag- According to the former Dean of the ing account of present-day community College of Arts and Sciences at Kent State resiliency and activism working to com- Taberner’s nationality was a cause of na- bat pollution, urban decay, and corporate tional scandal. The University offered control by one of the world’s largest oil the prize to Faher alone, but he declined companies. and so Bruno Ast, the runner up, was Early’s first chapter sets the stage for awarded the prize. Due to financial con- contemporary political battles. He gives siderations, however, only a scaled-down a history of Richmond industrialization, version of the Ast memorial was built. looking at the social and economic legacy From a scholarly perspective, no discus- of concentrated industrialization. Early sion of the contested memory of Kent discusses Big Oil’s multifaceted corpo- State would be complete without men- rate philanthropy programs that won tioning Simpson’s predecessor at the Kent the hearts and minds of employees and State Shootings Oral History Project, residents. He pairs this with a description Kathleen Siebert Medicus. Until 2005 the of efforts to prevent labour organizing at events that unfolded at Kent State in and Richmond refineries. Company unions around 4 May 4 1970 had been listed by such as the Standard Oil Employee the Library of Congress under the subject Representation Plan and the farming out heading “Kent State University – Riot, of maintenance staff prevented effective May 4, 1970.” It is thanks to the quiet labour organizing through the 1930s. petitioning of Medicus that in 2005 the After discussing the city’s history of ra- Library of Congress changed this subject cial segregation and worsening urban heading to “Kent State Shootings, Kent, blight after World War II, Early tracks Ohio, 1970.” (2) Bay-Area student activism in the 1960s Christopher Powell and the rise of a multiracial liberal coali- Edmonton, AB tion in the city. Throughout the rest of the book Early uses this history to contextualize the actions of a coalition of progressive ac- tivists as they attempt to fix the city’s many problems. After discussing refinery strikes and worsening pollution through- out the 1940s and into the 2000s, Early narrates a 2012 refinery fire after which

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the city sued Chevron for $2 billion in issues including police brutality, grow- damages. In this fight Early sees the emer- ing gang violence, gentrification, hous- gence of, “an unlikely group of Greens, ing reform, and corporate control over Latinos, progressive Democrats, African local policy. Early’s discussion of police Americans, and free spirits” uniting to chief Magnus’s attempts to combat vio- form the Richmond Progressive Alliance. lent crime and to improve relationships (39) This group, spearheaded by mayor between the majority-minority com- Gayle McLaughlin and epitomized by munity and law enforcement is compel- police chief Chris Magnus are the clear ling. Magnus’s efforts to involve locals underdog heroes of the narrative. in maintaining the safety of their own According to Early, the Progressive neighborhoods resonates at a moment of Alliance’s desire to improve the lives of worsening police violence nation-wide. local residents – often at the expense of Early writes as a member of a commu- the city’s largest employer – made them nity he deeply cares about. His insider many enemies. Chevron was supported knowledge of political alliances, commu- by a mix of local officials entrenched nity dynamics, and the city’s colourful within a corrupt Democratic party ma- personalities shines through. However, chine and conservative union members perhaps due the authors close relation- – most notoriously the local building ship with his subjects, the book lags in trades and the police union. Early teases the later chapters, dragging through a lit- out the motivations driving this group. any of city council debates and local elec- For some it was personal profit, for oth- tions in 2014 and 2015. Infighting at city ers it was political inertia, for yet others council events and local public relations it seemed to be pride or tradition. Such stunts are detailed extensively. Due to the a discussion allows Early to explore the focus on local election talking points, at majority-minority city’s complicated ra- times the book reads like a laundry list of cial politics. The Richmond Progressive hot-topic political issues rather than as Alliance was up against an entrenched a linear narrative. Clunky, mid-chapter system of political patronage that left transitions between social issues at times many of the city’s African American add to the jarring effect. leaders complicit in the corporate status Scholars of US labour or environmen- quo. This is not simply a story of segrega- tal history are unlikely to find much new tion and racial oppression. Rather Early in this book. While the legacy of environ- demonstrates shifting alliances between mental contamination is briefly sketched members of the Black community, work- out and famous names such as Bernie ing-class whites, and more recent Latino Sanders and health and safety activist arrivals, some of whom saw Chevron as Tony Mazzocchi appear throughout, the an important source of employment or an longer history of 20th-century labour opportunity for personal profit. activism and industrial pollution is not While the title might imply an en- the focus of this work. While I com- vironmental justice focus, this is not a mend Early for a singular focus on his story about pollution in a fenceline com- case-study community, it would be inter- munity. The narrative explains how left- esting to get more context for events in wing, grassroots activists were able to Richmond. A longer work which included win elections in a blue-collar city domi- Chevron’s national and global history of nated by a single industrial employer. political exploitation or broader union The majority of the book delves into local efforts to combat worker exposure to efforts to address contemporary social toxins would give this case study wider

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historical significance. Further, the rela- any indication, it seems possible their tionship between industrial Richmond case will succeed. and nearby San Francisco seems like an Sarah Stanford-McIntyre important, and under-utilized, piece of University of Wyoming this story. Despites such criticisms, the work will be valuable to readers interested in con- David Rolf, The Fight for $15: The Right temporary California politics as well as Wage for a Working America (New York: an asset to community organizers build- The New Press 2016) ing grass-roots movements. Early is very effective when discussing the ins and out How did the American Dream, where of community organizing strategy and hard-working Americans could attain his issue-focused structure gives readers good jobs and a pathway to middle-class an assessment of what strategies appealed stability, turn into a nightmare of per- to working-class minority voters. This verse inequality and precarious work? focus is clearly intentional. Early under- And what are workers and unions going stands his story of activists in Richmond, to do to put workers on the road from California as a “timely and compelling poverty to prosperity? case study of what it takes to overcome These are the two questions David Rolf big money in politics in our post-Citizens sets out to answer in his book on the Fight United era.” (6) To this end, Early pro- for $15. Rolf, the president of the powerful vides readers with an online bibliography Service Employees International Union containing further works on labour his- (seiu) Local 775 in Seattle, makes the tory and community organizing. case that raising the minimum wage to In his epilogue, Early reminds his read- $15 is one of the defining working-class ers that there is “no single map for social issues of our time. The book is structured change.” (193) However, Richmond seems into three parts: explaining the rise of to be indicative of broader trends across low-wage work and inequality, telling the the US. Despite new challenges in the story of how workers and unions are or- wake of the 2016 US presidential elec- ganizing the Fight for $15 campaign, and tion, scholars have increasingly identified debunking common myths the campaign city-level organizing as offering real pos- is bumping up against. sibilities in the fight to combat pollution, Rolf’s examination of the rise of in- corporate greed, and racial injustice. For equality and precarious jobs in the United example, after the Trump administra- States treads familiar territory. Hewing tion’s refusal to sign the Paris Climate closely to the analysis of Joseph Stiglitz Agreement, over 30 US cities vowed to and Robert Reich, Rolf dates “the war implement stringent pollution remis- on the middle class” to the mid-1970s. sion policies. Similarly, urban municipal He argues that right-wing ideas, like tax governments are at the forefront of pro- cuts and deregulation, began to take hold tection and services for undocumented amongst segments of the working class immigrant communities. In early 2018 spurned by rising unemployment and in- the city of Richmond, California joined flation. The right wing through the 1980s several other industrial cities to sue 29 oil and 1990s was thus able to further their companies, including Chevron, for their longstanding dream of eroding the power culpably in instigating and exacerbating of unions and working standards. global climate change. If Early’s story is The decline of the middle class was fol- lowed by the rise of “new work” which is

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fissured, flexible, and insecure. Workers nature of work has not been dramatically are atomized in the workplace and their upended over the last several decades. collective power and solidarity have been The most interesting aspect of Rolf’s eroded. Rolf paints a damning picture of book is when he shifts gears from a broad- work today, with its proliferation of sub- er analysis of the American economy to contracting, part-time, temporary, and a narrative about how a $15 minimum freelance work. Rolf also notes there are wage was won in Sea-Tac and Seattle. now more workers in the United States Sea-Tac, a small suburb outside of Seattle who have no legal right to form a union that includes the city’s airport, was the than workers who do. first jurisdiction to enact a $15 minimum Rolf’s analysis of the changing work- wage in the United States. The airport, place is useful, though it underplays the which once provided many middle-class role the attack on the welfare state has jobs, is now the site of many outsourced played in undermining workers’ confi- low-wage jobs. This restructuring cor- dence and security. For instance, the rise responded with a dramatic shift in in post-secondary education fees for stu- working-class demographics in the com- dents has been a major reason why part- munity, including the growth of a sub- time work has proliferated. Likewise, the stantial racialized immigrant population. gutting of welfare entitlements in the Organizing efforts at the airport were 1980s and 1990s fed a sense of insecurity linked with the wider Fight for $15 cam- amongst low-wage workers. This erosion paign launched by the seiu in 2012. seiu of social programs and public infrastruc- organizers along with other union staff ture contributed to a sense of isolation and local activists aimed to push for a and economic fear amongst the working $15 starting wage and a union at numer- class. The political defeats suffered by the ous subcontracted companies prevalent working class are not only as important at the airport. The strategy they even- as the setbacks endured by workers in the tually settled on was a municipal ballot workplace, they are interlinked. measure for a $15 minimum wage. Rolf Understanding that the ideological describes this effort, but leaves out many shift in workers’ confidence and sense of of the tensions and political debates that collective power is the result of both the the former seiu at Sea-Tac organizer restructuring of employment relations Jonathan Rosenblum describes in his and political defeat is important to grasp book Beyond $15 (Boston: Beacon Press, the true measure and impact of new work. 2016). Rosenblum critiques the focus that Workplaces and work are changing in Rolf and others in seiu had on making the 21st century, but as Kim Moody and the fight a purely ballot measure effort Kevin Doogan have written it is impor- with little thought or resources going into tant not to overstate this claim or assume building union power in the long-term. the working class is either a moribund The massive mobilization for the mu- concept or a powerless political force. In nicipal victory in Sea-Tac, which knocked his most recent book, On New Terrain on thousands of doors and beat a well- (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2017), funded employer campaign, created the Moody argues that precarious work did Fight for $15’s first legislative victory in grow as lean production methods were the country, while informing the move- ramped up in the early 1980s, but precar- ment’s subsequent strategy and inspiring ious work has not expanded further over new layer of activists. As Rolf notes, the the last 30 years. Workers feel more in- initial intention of the Sea-Tac campaign secure and wages have stagnated, but the was to win union recognition in order to

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bargain for wages, “instead they ended up that strikes at the heart of inequality and writing a de facto union contract directly stirs people to action. into city law.” (121) While Rolf does not The limits of Rolf’s work and book adequately develop this point further, stem from his emphasis on policy forma- this notion of treating employment stan- tion, legislative change, and backroom dards as collective bargaining for non- negotiating. Rather than address the root union workers is one of the key strategic causes of inequality and precarious work, insights the Fight for $15 has highlighted he longs for labour to bring back the mid- in this period of legislative and judicial dle class of yore. His goal in the book and attacks on union rights. Rolf’s solution in the movement is to re-forge working- is for unions to push for better bargain- class prosperity within capitalism. What ing models than the Wagner model, such this perspective undervalues is the tra- as sectoral bargaining, that better re- dition and role of radical working-class flect the current realities of work. This politics in animating and organizing for analysis largely misses how turning the reforms that seek to go beyond the con- economic struggles into broader politi- fines of liberal capitalism, where the in- cal fights is a way for workers to turn the terest of workers is finely balanced with tables on employers and break down sec- interests of businesses to earn healthy toral barriers that often stand in the way profits. The Fight for $15 is an inspiring of broader worker solidarity. Raising the movement and the book does a fine job in minimum standards can help collapse outlining the case for raising wages; what the gap between unionized workers and is missing however, is the broader politi- non-unionized workers, allowing the for- cal significance of this movement for the mer to set the bar of workplace standards working class. even higher. Dave Bush Rolf, who was a key player in the Fight York University for $15 in Seattle, describes how the cam- paign used the momentum of the Sea-Tac victory to push for and win $15 in Seattle. Teishan A. Latner, Cuban Revolution in He explains this victory was the product America: Havana and the Making of a of an inside-outside strategy. Socialist United States Left, 1968–1992 (Chapel Alternative and its allies pushed and kept Hill: University of North Carolina Press the issue on the spotlight while Rolf and 2018) his allies leveraged that outside pressure to get a deal on the inside. Rolf’s good The international reception of the cop bad cop narrative about how Kshama Cuban Revolution, including its intel- Sawant’s election and formation of the lectual, political, and cultural impact on $15 Now coalition created the impetus the global Left, has become the focus of for rational members of the business rich new scholarship. Teishan Latner’s, community and union leaders to ham- Cuban Revolution in America: Havana mer out a compromise flattens and dis- and the Making of a United States Left, torts the real lessons of the Fight for $15. 1968–1992, currently generating a buzz This is not simply a story about coming in US History circles for its fascinating to a rational compromise with employers account of encounters between the US from which everyone benefits or showing multiracial left and revolutionary Cuba, bosses there is another way. The power is part of a literature that includes Anne of the Fight for $15 is about crystallizing Garland Mahler, From the Tricontinental class anger and injustice into a demand to the Global South: Race, Radicalism

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and Transnational Solidarity (Durham: running through the entire narrative, Duke University Press, 2018), Dirk Kruijt, and Latner also explores the openings Cuba and Revolutionary Latin America: between left-wing Cuban-Americans and An Oral History (London: Zed, 2017), Cuba, a frequently buried story now re- and Renata Keller, Mexico’s Cold War: ceiving new research attention. Both of Cuba, the United States and the Mexican these stories are part of a broader analysis Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge of how race, ethnicity, and nation shaped University Press, 2015), the encounter between US radicals and Cuba may hold a “singular place in the Cuba. Also central to Latner’s analytic U.S. radical imaginary,” (6) one power- is revealing how “left-wing American fully shaped by Cuba’s extraordinary encounters with Cuba created a coun- revolutionary cultural production, but terpoint to U.S. power while influenc- historical studies of the US Left and Cuba ing U.S.-Cuba diplomatic relations.” (20) remain uncommon. Exceptions include Diplomacies by non-state actors some- Van Gosse’s, Where the Boys Are: Cuba, times facilitated secret talks between the Cold War America and the Making of US and Cuba, and hijacking became such a New Left (London: Verso, 1993), but an issue that it led to a rare diplomatic Gosse largely ends his study with the hu- opening: the signing of a 1973 hijacking miliating 1961 defeat of US-backed mer- agreement between the two states. cenaries at the Bay of Pigs and the FBI’s But in the eyes of the US state, “Cuba’s destruction of Fair Play for Cuba. Latner’s relationship with American radicals focus is broader; he opens the book with posed an internal security threat” of 1968, the year that saw the creation of serious proportions. (9) As Chapter 2 one of the US Left’s most important and explores, heavy surveillance aimed to enduring institutions, the Venceremos smash links between Cuba and US radi- Brigades, and concludes with a fascinat- cals; the Venceremos Brigade and the ing chapter on African-American radical Black Panthers, not surprisingly, were key exiles and fugitives living in Cuba today. targets. Not for nothing does Latner ob- Indeed, Latner extends the chronology serve that, “FBI files are undertheorized indicated by the book’s subtitle to consid- in their function as historical archives, er the unresolved and unfinished issues and the FBI has been underscrutinized in the long relationship between Cuba in its role as archivist and historical biog- and US radicals. rapher.” (79–80) As Latner notes, the FBI Broadly, Cuban Revolution in America archive on the Venceremos Brigade is in studies the relationship between the US fact far larger than the “official” one, and Left and Cuba through the lens of soli- he makes innovative use of declassified darity travel, hijacking, and political ex- cia, FBI, and US State Department files, ile. Case studies include the Venceremos as well as extensive archival research. Brigade, now nearing its 50th anniversa- For its part, the Cuban state priori- ry (Chapter 1); the lesser-known Cuban- tized relationships with the US Left as American Antonio Maceo Brigade one pillar of its resistance to US attempts (Chapter 4); the dozens of hijackings to to isolate Cuba diplomatically, attack Cuba carried out by US citizens between it militarily, and destroy it economi- 1968 and 1973 (Chapter 3); and African- cally through blockade and sabotage. American exiles, fugitives, and ex-pats in Refreshingly, Latner engages in greater Cuba (Chapter 5). The long history of sol- depth with Cuban sources and stand- idarity with Cuba on the part of African- points than is typical of many similar American radicals is one key thread studies, although there is room for debate

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about how best to do this in a study that, in the US radical imaginary. Moreover, while focused on the US left, aspires also despite often glib statements by some to be transnational. Access to post-1959 observers about what is regarded as a ro- Cuban archives in many cases remains mantic commitment to Cuba on the part very difficult for international scholars. of the Left, the reality is that there were Research designs therefore need to incor- always areas of political tension between porate, as Latner’s does, strategies such the global Left and Cuba, including US as extensive oral histories with Cuban Leftists, and Latner does not avoid speak- actors and detailed work in Cuban print ing to many of them. For radical African- literature. Americans, tensions over the reality of There are, however, some howlers in racism in post-revolutionary Cuba was Cuban Revolution in America. For ex- often a flashpoint. At the same time, the ample, Venceremos brigadistas trying to thousands of US nationals who have de- avoid surveillance did not travel to Cuba fied the travel ban with the Venceremos via St. Johns, Ontario but rather St John, Brigades have formed, as Tom Hayden New Brunswick. The claim (originally and Ricardo Alarcón have observed, the made by Eldridge Cleaver) that Cuba often unacknowledged core of support trained members of the Black Panther for normalization of US-Cuba relations, Party in rural Canada to escape FBI and including the end of the travel ban and cia surveillance strains all credibility. the blockade. Teishan Latner’s fascinat- More importantly, this suggests a missed ing Cuban Revolution in America, with opportunity to explore more closely how its focus on histories of travel, hijacking, Canada and Mexico, the only two states and exile across Cold War barriers, is an in the hemisphere that maintained diplo- important intellectual weapon against matic relations with revolutionary Cuba both the ban and the blockade. despite US pressure, figured in the sto- Meanwhile, contemporary Cuba con- ries of US citizens who transited through tinues to face serious social, econom- them to evade the travel ban. All three ic, and political challenges in a global countries engaged in heavy surveillance conjuncture deeply inhospitable to the of travellers and fugitives on their way revolutionary aspirations of the 1960s to Cuba, and African-Americans were and 1970s. In such a difficult context, among the most heavily surveilled. important new scholarship that engages This book will appeal to many reader- the archive of the Cuban revolutionary ships, including people interested in the experiment – with all its problems, pos- global reach of the Cuban Revolution; the sibilities, and profoundly internationalist US multiracial left; race and revolution; character – can provide us with some of methodologies for international history the critical intellectual tools for re-imag- from below; Cold War history; and theo- ining anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, ries and practices of solidarity. As the and anti-racist feminist global futures. Cuban Revolution approaches its 60th Cynthia Wright anniversary, the punishing US blockade York University of Cuba continues, as does the ban on individual travel and tourism to the is- land. While many US Black radical inter- nationalists, for example Angela Davis, have maintained a decades-long com- mitment to Cuba, the Cuban Revolution clearly no longer occupies the same place

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Marc Steinberg, England’s Great control and class struggle. It is a welcome Transformation: Law, Labour, and contribution that will be of great interest the Industrial Revolution (Chicago: to honours and graduate level students in University of Chicago Press 2016) history, sociology, labour studies, and so- cial and political thought. In England’s Great Transformation, In Hanley there was a heavy concen- Marc Steinberg challenges the tradi- tration of the pottery industry, which was tional narrative of the emergence of free reliant upon skilled workers and craft- labour markets in England during the based production. The trade had wit- 19th century. He observes that a number nessed very little mechanization prior to of industries relied heavily upon the law the 1870s. After a bitter labour dispute in and local institutions of justice to control 1836–37, the victorious masters imposed labour markets and discipline their work- a highly one-sided annual contract which force. Of particular interest are master gave them great authority to set the con- and servant laws, a body of statutes that ditions of work. To enforce compliance permitted justices of the peace to sum- with this annual bond, employers turned marily enforce contracts of employment. to master and servant law enforced by the These laws were characterized by a dou- local bench of magistrates, nearly half ble standard of sanctions, which treated of whom were pottery manufacturers the failure of workers to fulfill their con- themselves. Prosecutions by employers tracts as a criminal matter, but offered became more frequent in boom periods only mild civil remedies for the broken of high industrial demand, and the mas- promises of employers. Steinberg adds to ters were nearly always successful before recent research showing that during the the courts. These laws allowed employ- 19th century masters made use of these ers to resolve problems of absenteeism, laws much more frequently than workers. leaving work before the term of service Master and servant statutes, enforced by had expired, conflicts over the quality justices who were increasingly likely to be of work, or bad behaviour in their favour employers of labour themselves, allowed quickly and cheaply. Imprisonment was employers to compel the specific perfor- relatively rare, as the more desirable mance of labour contracts against the outcomes for the capitalists were orders threat of imprisonment. Steinberg uses to return to work combined with fines, three case studies to explore the social, wage abatements, or sureties. Steinberg political, and economic circumstances, suggests that the effectiveness of this re- as well as factors in the production pro- gime might have contributed to the slow cess, that encouraged some regional development of mechanization and alter- industries to turn these laws to shape la- native methods of labour control in the bour markets and maintain control of the industry. workplace. He also examines the effects The law was also utilized to control a this reliance had upon the development much different labour force in the Hull of these industries, the organization of fishing trade. Smack (a fishing trawler) production, and the law itself. By examin- owners staffed their boats with parish ap- ing the use of the law by employers in the prentices and child labour, who worked pottery industry in Hanley, Hull’s fisher- under terrible and dangerous conditions ies, and Redditch agriculture and needle for minimal remuneration. As these manufacture, Steinberg theorizes about workers gained experience, many sought the operation of labour markets and the to flee their situation for better paying relationship of the state to workplace work at sea. Smack owners turned to the

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Borough Courts to hold onto these young disobedience or affronts to their author- workers. Although fishing employed only ity, and often sought to end contracts and 3 per cent of the male workforce in Hull, abate the wages of difficult employees. it accounted for the lion’s share of the This chapter has a number of descrip- master and servant prosecutions before tions of specific master and servant cases, the local court. Apprentices felt the co- and thus provides more insight into how ercion of the law, facing high rates of im- individual employees experienced master prisonment and compulsion to complete and servant law and how it affected their their service on unfavourable terms. working lives than the other case studies. Steinberg’s third case study is Redditch, It also has the most extended consider- Worcestershire, a more rural area that ation of gender and the experiences of was home to agriculture and needle mak- female workers of any of the case stud- ing. Master and servant cases represent- ies. All three of Steinberg’s case studies ed a much higher proportion of the total demonstrate the ways in which law, local business of the Redditch Petty Session politics and hierarchies, and the organi- than the national average, yet there was a zation and control of work are deeply in- marked contrast in how the law was used tertwined with one another. by farmers and employers in the needle The title of Steinberg’s book is a nod to trade. The highly sub-divided and local- Karly Polanyi’s The Great Transformation: ized needle trade suffered from chronic The Political and Economic Origins of Our labour shortages and poor industrial re- Time (1944). He reworks Polanyi’s narra- lations. Here employers deployed master tive of the rapid emergence of unrestrict- and servant law enforced by magistrates ed labour and laissez-faire capitalism in (many of whom were needle manufac- the 19th century which led to a coun- turers) to make workers to complete the termovement in response demanding terms of their contracts. As in Hanley, greater regulation and protection from imprisonment was a rare sanction for the state. In fact, the law remained deeply needle workers in master and servant embedded in the workplace and labour cases because their employers wanted markets in ways that made workers deep- them to complete their work more than ly suspicious of state involvement and for them to be punished. Magistrates desirous of a de-juridification of employ- used the threat of imprisonment to force ment relations. I am skeptical of this last needle makers to return to work on their point, as in my own work I have found a masters’ terms. Smaller masters were number of contexts in which workers and more likely to turn to the law than larger unions sought greater state involvement manufacturers, making this the one case in the workplace and their lives, includ- study that conforms to Daphne Simon’s ing efforts to end truck wages, workplace much challenged assertion that master fines, and unfair deductions. This quibble and servant law was the weapon of the aside, England’s Great Transformation small employer. The use of master and is a fascinating and thought-provoking servant law by farmers in the area sheds work of historical sociology. light on the changing nature of agricul- Christopher Frank tural service. Annual hiring of servants University of Manitoba in husbandry was still common here, but farmers were abandoning many of the paternalistic obligations toward those in their charge. Farmers prosecuted ser- vants in husbandry most frequently for

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David Smith, For Class and Country: the “presumption that holding ‘left-wing’ The Patriotic Left and the First World War, views is inimical to patriotism,” yet most (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press of the members of the working class who 2017) participated in the war effort “did not agonize over whether their loyalties lay With the election of Ramsay with their country or their politics.” (2) MacDonald’s first Labour government in By embracing this labour patriotism, the the United Kingdom in 1924, the British Labour Party was able to connect with political system experienced a funda- the working class in ways it had been un- mental realignment, the Labour Party able to before. replacing the Liberals as the alternative Smith follows this argument through to the Conservatives. Since then Britain six thematic and somewhat chronologi- has experienced a two-party system of cally oriented chapters. Chapter 1, “‘If alternating Labour and Conservative this is to be a jingo, then I am a jingo’ – governments. Labour Patriotism before 1914” explores Because of this realignment and the Smith’s contention that too much of the fundamental changes it made to British scholarship around the left and the early political life, scholars began almost im- 20th century is overly focused on the an- mediately to examine the causes that led ti-war stance of Labour’s intellectual and to this transformation. David Smith’s For elected leadership. In fact, Smith argues, Class and Country: The Patriotic Left and Labour in the early 20th century was also the First World War is the latest contri- home to a solid bloc of nationalist mem- bution to this already long historical di bers who easily reconciled “left-wing and scussion. Smith, in fact, details and de- nationalist sentiment.” (23) scribes much of this literature in his in- In Chapter 2, “‘I’d sooner blackleg my troduction, providing a useful synopsis union than blackleg my country’ – Labour of this scholarship for historians not al- Patriotism 1914–18,” Smith, though dis- ready familiar with it. cussing the pacifism that informed some Where Smith differs from much of this of Labour’s early opinion on the rightness scholarship and where his greatest con- of World War I at its outbreak, argues that tribution lies, is in his examination of the majority of Labour members and the how Labour’s experience of World War unions and other affiliated groups which I contributed intimately to this transfor- made up the Party’s support, were quick mation of British politics. Though he does to rally to the colours and found justifica- not necessarily discount the other factors tions for their involvement and support previously examined by scholars of the of the British war effort in their political British left, Smith argues, fundamentally, and social principles. Though as Smith that the embrace of a patriotic position notes, “enthusiasm for the war amongst and Labour’s involvement in supporting the labour movement was rare, there was the British war effort created a common a general consensus that, once begun, it purpose and established and strength- had to be seen through.” (24) There was ened relationships with the British work- also widespread hope that, once the war ing class. He points out, as others have, was over and the emergency met, the that until the war the majority of British world in which this World War was pos- workers had been remarkably resistant to sible would be transformed. the political program of the Labour Party. While focusing on the role of labour As Smith notes, historians of the British patriotism in his first two chapters, in working class too often operate under Chapter 3, “‘Middle-class peace men?’

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– Labour and the Anti-War Agitation,” run the war effort, Labour representatives Smith addresses the issue of anti-war were not only able to show that Labour sentiment within Labour directly. While could be an effective government, Labour Smith is careful to recognize that “agi- members were also able to demonstrate tation against conscription, shop floor the power of the state in effecting social strikes and the anti-war movement … change. Smith, like others before him, re- were an important part of left-wing war- iterates that many of the ideas that were time experience,” (80) he does question later to underpin the post-World War II the way in which the historiography of welfare state were first attempted dur- the British left and World War I privi- ing World War I. Smith also notes that leges this viewpoint. by participating in government, both na- After setting out his general argu- tional and local, Labour members were ments and some of the historiographi- brought into increasingly close contact cal debates, it’s in the second half of this with Britons looking for advocates and book that Smith makes his most impor- collaborators in their dealings with the tant contribution. In these three chapters wartime state. Smith discusses how the experience of Finally, in the last chapter, “‘The great- the war contributed to Labour’s growth est democratic force British politics have in the 1920s. known’ – Labour Cohesion and the War,” In the fourth chapter, “‘Our Platform Smith examines the impressive cohesive- is Broad Enough and Movement Big ness of the Labour Party and organized Enough’ – The War and Recruits to labour despite allowing for differing Labour,” Smith discusses the irony that points of view on the war itself. Not only by having room for both anti-war paci- did this cohesiveness allow Labour to fists and labour patriots within the struc- come through the war without significant ture of the Labour Party and the left more loss or division, it also allowed Labour to broadly, Labour was able to appeal to a use the war and its end as a springboard wide variety of new members, holding for an evolution and expansion that di- different viewpoints, in the immediate rectly contributed to its plurality in the post-war period. Not only could Labour 1924 general election and the election attract former Conservative voters within of Ramsay MacDonald as Britain’s first the working class, among farmers and in Labour prime minister. the commercial classes based on a shared Smith’s argument is stronger in that he sense of values and patriotism hearken- avoids one of the dominant tropes that ing from the collective project of winning often appeal to left historians. Rather World War I, Labour could also attract than focusing on the morality of Labour’s anti-war activists who found a home in wartime positions or exploring this his- Labour’s pacifist wing. In fact, Smith ar- tory through an ideological lens, Smith gues that “having proved its patriotism examines labour patriotism and the re- over the war – the party could show a sult of its embrace during the World War more radical face over Ireland, India, and I from a more functionalist perspective. disarmament.” (81) Instead of lamenting the waning strength Chapter 5, “‘The experiments are of antiwar sentiment within Labour, not found wanting’ – Labour and the for example, Smith explores the way in Wartime State” continues this line of which, by dispensing with ideological thought. By actively participating in the purity and uniformity, Labour was able numerous boards, committees, and cor- to use its wartime experience to create a porations that were created in order to home for those who supported the war as

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well as those who opposed it. This prag- founder member and Liberal member of matism provided the basis for a postwar Parliament, it was always seen as a bas- compromise that resulted in effective tion of Liberalism in the County Durham Labour governance for a significant part even after the mfgb affiliated to the of the last century. Labour Party at the beginning of 1909, This history is also important in how with Wilson remaining a staunch Liberal it seeks an understanding of how histori- until his death in 1915. Yet by 1921 the cal events and contingencies allow social dma was committed to the abolition of democratic political parties to undermine capitalism, some form of class conscious- establishment politics. For Canadians on ness having been formed by the eve of the left, 2019 will be for us what 2017 was war with an awareness that the interests for Canadian nationalists and conserva- of miners and mine owners were differ- tives. Not only is 2019 the centenary of ent, thus allowing Labour to win ten of the Winnipeg General Strike, the sum- the eleven county parliamentary seats in mer of 2019 will also mark the 75th an- Durham in the 1922 general election. To niversary of the election of Canada’s first Mates, this transformation was caused by Co-operative Commonwealth Federation the Great Labour Unrest of 1910 to 1914 provincial government in Saskatchewan which saw the industrial demands of in 1944 and the 50th anniversary of trade unionists interlinked with the polit- the election of Canada’s first New ical fortunes of the Independent Labour Democratic Party provincial government Party (ilp) and the Labour Party. In es- in Manitoba in 1969. One of the things sence, this book is an immensely detailed we should examine is how these govern- account of these changes focusing upon ments and successive ndp provincial activities of the ilp, the syndicalists, and governments were able to break through other left-wing groups in the context of seemingly monolithic polities and trans- industrial relations of the Durham coal- form themselves into important players field and how these interlinked to reduce in Canadian politics. Smith provides a the influence of Liberalism and encour- potential template for this, encouraging aged the growth of socialist and ilp/ us to focus not only on failed struggles, Labour Party support. but also on our successes and the histori- Mates offers four main arguments. cal factors that underpinned them. First, he argues that the Liberals were de- Jonathan Weier pleted by the attacks of the left, particu- Western University larly between 1910 and 1914. Secondly, he establishes that industrial and politi- cal developments were intertwined, en- Lewis H. Mates, The Great Labour couraging the move from Liberalism to Unrest: Rank-and-File Movements and Labour. Thirdly, and adding to this, he Political Change in the Durham Coalfield argues that the most active challenge to (Manchester: Manchester University the Liberals came from the campaign for Press 2016) an individual minimum wage. The 1912 National Minimum Wage Strike and the At the beginning of World War I, clear dma support for it was a key water- the Durham Miners’ Association (dma) shed moment. Two thirds of the Durham had more than 100,000 members and miners voted in favour of an individual was a major affiliate of the powerful minimum wage in what was seen as a Miners’ Federation of Great Britain denial and a rejection of the Liberal te- (mfgb). Dominated by John Wilson, net that wages should be linked to profits.

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Mates compares this decision with the with socialist and Marxist ideas, and Hauliers’ Strike of 1893, in which the they were committed to revealing the dma refused to be involved. In other inadequacy of Liberal economics, with words, by 1912 there was clear evidence its emphasis upon the shared interests of of a move from Liberal economic and so- capital and labour. They worked through cial ideas to a more class-based situation the, hitherto, barely known Durham in the Durham coalfield. And fourthly, he Forward Movement, which was commit- argues that ilp were partly influenced by ted to reforming the dma and, appar- syndicalist ideas but that it acted to un- ently, almost exclusively to the campaign dermine the development of syndicalism for the minimum wage. From Mates’ ar- for much of the period between 1910 and gument, it is difficult to trace the direct 1914. Indeed, syndicalism was refracted lines of their success except that, over the through the prism of local politics and four years of the Great Unrest, there had the ilp to produce a class consciousness been a switch of political opinion from favouring ilp and Labour politics rather the Liberal Party to the ilp/Labour Party than syndicalism itself. in the Durham coalfield and that the 1912 In an impressive historiography, Mates vote on the minimum wage can be seen controversially suggests both that the as a crucial turning point. It is also not major questions about the Great Unrest always easy to detect the importance of have been ignored in favour of method- syndicalist views in all this and, indeed, ological disputes and that mainstream Mates has to admit that the “revolution- politics has been ignored in favour of aries remained on the periphery, largely what Lenin referred to as left-wing com- isolated from the ilp-led mass rank-and- munism. This is followed by a chapter file movements and working instead on on the economic, industrial, and politi- the Herculean task of building their own cal context of the mining community of revolutionary alternatives.” (231) Indeed, Durham, and then by four detailed narra- syndicalism was marginalized by the ilp. tive chapters on the various movements Nevertheless, the importance of syndi- and campaigns for industrial changes in calism in the North East, alongside South the Durham coalfield, and by a reflective Wales, is established – as is the ilp’s abil- and perceptive conclusion. ity to adapt and modify it for their own The main challenges to Liberalism, it cause. John Wilson’s Liberal rigidity did would appear, came from three individu- slow the development of the socialist als and one organization. Jack Lawson, challenge, not least in terms of their rep- author of the autobiography A Man’s Life resentation within the dma. But equally and an ilper who later became a member his intransigence and opposition to the of Attlee’s first Labour cabinet, George minimum wage gave the ilp activists Harvey, the “Wardley Lenin” named af- hope, support and, ultimately, success. ter the pit village in which he worked, Above all, then, Mates demonstrates the and Will Lawther, an ilper who became complexity of events and the roles of in- one of the greatest of the trade union dividuals of all political persuasions in and political figures of the 20th century. the emergence of a new political and in- They provided the radical and socialist dustrial order in the Durham coalfield. leadership to challenge Wilson and his Mates’ work clearly offers an impor- hold over the dma through their rank- tant case study to give a perspective on and-file campaigns. All were influenced the industrial and political turmoil in by being students at Ruskin College, Edwardian Britain. However, it is a narrow Oxford, where they came into contact perspective which does not touch upon

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those other features in the Edwardian cri- work of William Morris’ younger daugh- sis – women’s suffrage, Ireland, and rail- ter, May Morris (1862–1938), is just one ways and other industrial conflicts. Also example of the advantages of this re- missed is the opportunity to compare search. Until the 1990s, May was over- this research with The Derbyshire Miners: shadowed in the historiography by her Study in Industrial and Social History father’s achievements, but now she is seen (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1962) as a leading figure in the Arts and Crafts written by the late J. E. Williams, which Movement. In her case, an examination is surely worth more than a brief refer- of the business side of Morris and Co. ence for it offers a comparable situation has established her central role and pro- to the Durham coalfield in the period of digious output as manager of the com- the Great Unrest. The discussion on the pany’s embroidery department from 1885 historiographical debate on the rise of to 1905. Jan Marsh’s scholarship into the Labour and the decline of Liberalism is women in the Arts and Crafts movement also less fixed than portrayed by Mates in in 1986 and Linda Parry’s reappraisal of the Historiographical Introduction. May in 1996 and 2013 began the process, Nonetheless, this is an impressive and and now with this volume May takes important addition to our understand- pride of place in our understanding of ing of the impact of the Great Unrest and women’s leading role in the movement. the Edwardian crisis in Britain on the May Morris: Arts and Crafts Designer, eve of World War I. Mates reflects that with contributions by five curators of the “rise of Labour debate” is one of the art from the William Morris Gallery largest historiographical debates in mod- in London and the Victoria and Albert ern British history but “it is remarkable Museum, was published to coincide with how little we know about the dynamics an exhibition of artwork at the Gallery of political change in many of the most between 7 October 2017 and 28 January significant geographical/industrial bat- 2018 entitled May Morris: Art and Life. tlegrounds.” (285) He is right and his im- It is a weighty volume consisting of six mensely detailed and nuanced regional essays, 226 pages, and 210 illustrations study certainly adds considerably to our accompanied by extensive explanation understanding of how political allegianc- of the visual material. One is imme- es can change rapidly and of the influence diately struck by the sheer beauty and of talented radical activists. quality of the embroidery designed and Keith Laybourn executed by May Morris and her depart- University of Huddersfield ment as one looks through the pages of this book. Jan Marsh’s opening biography entitled “A Well-Crafted Life” imme- Rowan Bain, Hanne Faurby, Jenny diately situates May at the centre of the Lister, Anna Mason, and Jan Marsh, socialist movement of the day among in- May Morris: Arts and Crafts Designer dividuals such as Annie Besant, Eleanor (London: Thames and Hudson 2017) Marx, George Bernard Shaw, and Henry Halliday Sparling, and at social and po- Social historians of art have recently litical events organized by the Socialist renewed research into the economic side League (later the Hammersmith Socialist of artists’ lives and art work to assess the Society) and the New Drama movement role of individuals within the art world. of the day. More than just an exercise in May Morris: Arts and Crafts Designer, art history, this volume skilfully exam- a substantial volume re-examining the ines May’s work for the Morris firm in

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the context of the Arts and Crafts revival more repetitive cross-stitch, Berlin wool and the socialist movement of the day, work, and tent stitch which had become as well as establishing May’s role as a Victorian pastimes. While much of her New Woman in the period between 1890 embroidery was executed in the Morris and 1910. and Co. style known most popularly for May Morris was an accomplished so- its acanthus, pomegranate, and honey- cialist, designer, embroiderer, exhibitor, suckle designs, May developed her own author, editor, and teacher who was re- style based on her botanical sketches of sponsible for all embroidery department English meadow plants and cottage gar- orders, customers, and employees at den flowers. As Rowan Bain and Jenny Morris and Co. She became head of the Lister have revealed, May and her co- department in 1885 at the age of just 23, workers, including Lily Yeats, W.B. Yeats’ remaining in the position until 1905, and sister, worked eight-hour days in the em- continued to design and embroider until broidery department, accompanied by her death in 1938. The essays written by regular breaks, rather than the twelve- Rowan Bain and Jenny Lister examine the hour days which were the norm in the hand-written ledgers by May Morris for trade. In this way they were part of the Morris and Co.’s embroidery department progressive labour movement of the day. and inform us that she took on 453 orders The women in the embroidery de- for a total of 670 items between 1892 and partment worked with a broad range of 1896, most of which were embroidered historic stitches including stem, satin, designs on fabric. These were invoiced herringbone, French knot, pistol stitch, for a total of £1,186 over these four years split stitch, fly stitch, speckling, to (the equivalent of £70,000 today) and Bayeau and chain stitch. Their output contributed to the Morris firm’s profits. was prodigious and included embroi- A decorated portière, which could sell for dery to decorate room and fire screens, as much as £95 to the American market, portières and wall hangings, cushions, was accompanied by a small portable bags, chair covers, mats, and table cloths. embroidery kit of the same design which It was a veritable workroom. However, it sold for as little as £3. In this way May emphasized individual production and expanded the market for Morris and Co. artistic creativity because May believed designs and found a solution to the prob- that the modern division of labour which lem that generally existed between the emerged with industrialization was un- arts and crafts ideal of individually hand- dermining embroidered design. This crafted items and the resulting higher style then proved profitable as well as price of that creative product. distinctive and fit in well with the ethos May Morris’ areas of work then form of Morris and Co. In 1893 May wrote her the five other chapters of the volume own guidebook to embroidery entitled, including her contributions to drawing Decorative Needlework, in which she ad- and painting, wallpaper and embroidery, vocated the expressive and original use of book covers and designs, dress and cos- stitches, accompanied by high technical tume, and jewellery and metalwork. In facility, to take the place of the less in- the spirit of the Arts and Crafts revival dividually produced and more repetitive movement, May Morris researched late stitches of the day. 16th and early 17th century English his- By the 1890s, May took centre stage toric stitches known as opus anglica- as a teacher, exhibitor, and writer in the num or “English work” at local museums Arts and Crafts movement. Jan Marsh and advocated their use in place of the and Rowan Bain discuss her role as a

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lecturer at the Birmingham School of to the public. May also spent her later Art in 1895 before she engaged in more years expanding her repertoire of de- formal teaching there in 1899 as well as sign to include jewellery and metal work at the Leicester and Hammersmith art and lived a frugal but self-sufficient life, schools. The authors also discuss her without electricity, piped water, or cen- role as an active member of the Women’s tral heating, with her companion Mary Guild of Arts, which she founded in Frances Vivian Lobb, a Land Army vol- 1907 to compensate for the exclusion of unteer at Kelmscott, with whom she re- women from the Art Workers’ Guild. She sided from 1917 until her death in 1938. was joined here by other women associ- The authors ofMay Morris: Arts and ated with the movement including Mary Crafts Designer have stepped forward in Seton Watts (née Tytler) (1849–1938), the scholarship of this remarkable and an artist, designer, and campaigner for self-effacing artist to elevate her status women’s suffrage, and Pre-Raphaelite to a level she enjoyed in her own life-time painters Marie Stillman (1844–1927), before revisions in history downgraded and Evelyn De Morgan (1855–1919). embroidery from a serious commercially From 1888 until World War I she became viable art form to a domestic craft. The a regular exhibitor at the Arts and Crafts sheer volume and quality of her work is Exhibition Society and a regular con- evident in every page of this book. The tributor to arts and crafts publications. five author/curators have collaborated In her later years, she spent a substantial well and created a breadth that might amount of time securing the legacy of her not have played out so well in a single- father’s work. Between 1910 and 1915 she authored book. Not surprisingly, Jan edited the Collective Works of William Marsh provides an especially solid biog- Morris in 24 volumes, and in 1936 pub- raphy and survey of the literature on May. lished her father’s political, social, and Subsequent chapters provide valuable ex- artistic writings in two volumes entitled, amination of the labours of May Morris William Morris: Artist, Writer, Socialist. and her companions in the embroidery The authors ofMay Morris examine department of Morris and Co. This re- the conservation work that May engaged search, including the work aspects and in as part of the later Arts and Crafts economic considerations of the subject, movement. After World War I, May has opened up new avenues for study of Morris began working to save Red House, the labour history of the women artists, the family home featured in William designers, and embroiderers in the Arts Morris’ volume News from Nowhere, in and Crafts movement. Bexleyheath, Southeast London, which Ellen L. Ramsay had been designed in 1859 by architect York University Philip Webb and William Morris (it was finally purchased by the National Trust in 2003). She then welcomed many so- John Tutino, The Mexican Heartland: cialists to visit with her at Kelmscott How Communities Shaped Capitalism, House, her family’s country home in the a Nation and World History, 1500–2000 Cotswolds, and bequeathed the 16th cen- (Princeton: Princeton University Press tury manor house to Oxford University 2018) on her death. The university turned the house over to the Society of Antiquaries John Tutino’s most recent book, The in 1962 and the venue now holds exhibi- Mexican Heartland, is a work of love and tions about the Morris circle and is open a fascinating study of the valley of Mexico

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and its immediate surroundings, cover- – would be extremely illuminating, es- ing over 500 years of history. By weav- pecially when set in the book’s local —› ing, local, national, and global strands in national —› global narrative, comparing a complex narrative including political, Zapata’s strongholds in Morelos to his cultural and economic perspectives, this limited influence in the Mezquital and book is simultaneously illuminating and analyzing the effects of these develop- profoundly stimulating. ments far beyond. The Mexican Heartland is no short- Rephrasing the question above, had term analysis. It draws extensively on there been no Zapata, how would the Tutino’s lifelong studies of Mexican so- world have been different? Completing cial history and is in constant dialogue the proposed analysis would certainly with the rest of his work. The book also yield a much longer book. Once again, draws on a breathtakingly extensive bib- Braudel’s long books come to mind. liography, both in English and Spanish. Nevertheless, I think this effort is neces- Moreover, especially for colonial times, sary to address its ambitious goals, even Tutino also builds on substantial archival more so as the existing literature does not work. engage with this issue. The book’s local ›— national —› global By linking local history to national and narrative is a powerful instrument and is global dynamics in a two-way analysis, probably its most enticing dimension. In Tutino engages in theory-building. The many ways, The Mexican Heartland seems main argument is that as long as political, inspired both by Ferdinand Braudel’s La economic, and cultural autonomies hold, Méditerranée et le Monde méditerranéen local communities can withstand and à l’époque de Philippe II (Paris: Armand even prosper while capitalism develops Colin, 1949), and Immanuel Wallerstein’s through the establishment of symbiotic The Modern World System (New York: domination processes, marked by power- Academic Press,1974), simultaneously ful equilibria. demonstrating the Mexican heartland’s If capitalist forces are weak, commu- global historical clout and its political nities take the upper hand and may even and economic subordination as a (criti- give rise to “plenty without profit,” (183) cal) periphery to world capitalism. such as the Mexican heartland experi- Tutino’s argument is especially con- enced during much of the 19th century. If vincing for the colonial period and the there is a disequilibrium, conflict festers Mexican war of independence. Thinking and can explode in violent confrontations counterfactually, had there been no sil- (i.e. the Mexican War of Independence ver in Mexico, how would the world have and the Mexican Revolution). If autono- been different? The history of silver capi- mies disappear, symbiotic domination is talism in the Mexican heartland shows impossible and gives way to all-out capi- us that it would have been a very differ- talist exploitation, penetrating all dimen- ent place; neither Spain and England or sions of social life, as seems to be the case China and India would have been the today. same. Tutino notes the critical place of gen- Unfortunately, Tutino’s coverage of the der relations in this process, but unfor- 20th century is less engaging and does tunately this dimension of the analysis not depart substantially from other his- is rather weak and dependent on sec- tories of Mexico. To take an example, a ondary sources. Nevertheless, Tutino’s deeper, more detailed study of Zapata discussion of patriarchy, its social and and his heritage – actual and symbolic political effects, its challenges and

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transformations – most notably the para- on community autonomies as the aboli- doxical ways patriarchy sustains com- tion of economic or political autonomies. munity autonomies – is tantalizing and Cultural autonomies – couched in terms invites further investigation. of religious heterodoxies and multicul- Another seductive theme in the book turalism, but also in terms of language is the evolution of labour relations in and tradition – have become one of the the Mexican heartland, which features main arenas in the fight against neoliberal prominently in the analysis. Tutino un- economies and societies. Subcomandante derscores the thin, sometimes invisible Marcos and the neoZapatistas in Chiapas lines between free and coerced work in seem to have understood this – it is worth colonial times and later on between for- exploring the situation of the Indigenous mal and informal labour, the essence communities still living in the Mexican of which persist until this day. Labour, heartland. however, is not the central argument of In conclusion, Tutino’s The Mexican the book. As the essential counterpart of Heartland is a great book, both timely capital in building capitalist economies and provocative. While the literature on and societies, I believe it deserves a much Mexico is enormous and ever-growing, greater place in the analysis. Tutino’s ambitious time frame (five cen- Yet another seductive line of argu- turies!) and even more far-reaching per- ment that would benefit from deeper re- spective (from local to national to global) search is the role of judicial adjudication covering cultural, economic and politi- in maintaining and legitimizing capital- cal dimensions make it stand out in the ist domination. As Tutino argues, this crowd. perspective allows us to reflect upon the If the book has significant shortfalls, ways state mediation is constructed de- it is nonetheless extremely stimulating spite scarce resources – both labour and and, following Tutino’s lifelong practice, capital – and allows for the emergence of opens the way to many a new research symbiotic forms of domination. As the project, as much for himself as for emerg- Mexican War of Independence and the ing scholars. In the end, The Mexican Mexican Revolution show, both symbiot- Heartland’s most important contribution ic exploitation and open revolt are framed might be precisely the fact that it offers in conceptions of justice and depend on many more questions than answers. their realization on the ground. The col- Julián Durazo Herrmann lapse of the colonial judiciary system af- Université du Québec à Montréal ter independence and its spotty recovery thereafter appears as one of the great tragedies of 19th century Mexico. Tutino Ralph Callebert, On Durban’s Docks: briefly presents the archival sources and Zulu Workers, Rural Households, refers to a substantial secondary litera- Global Labor (Rochester: University of ture, but refrains from delving in them in Rochester Press 2017) any great depth. A final critique of Tutino’s book has to At a time when scholars have been do with the evolution of cultural autono- increasingly drawn to the writing of oce- mies. The creation of a Spanish-speaking anic histories and the mapping of global Mestizo nation-state – an aspiration connections between port cities, Ralph during the 19th century, a major realiza- Callebert’s fascinating historical study of tion of the revolutionary regime in the Durban’s African dock workers looks not 20th – was as important an onslaught to cosmopolitan Indian Ocean networks

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but rather to the rural hinterlands of the close links between urban and rural these predominantly Zulu migrant work- economies and, following Amartya Sen, ers. But what at first glance seems to be internal bargaining and cooperative con- an unfashionable return to the relatively flict within households. neglected field of South African labour Supported by evidence from oral tes- history proves to be a highly illuminating timonies, Callebert argues in Chapter 2 study which explores not only the world that, while all dock workers invested in of dock work in Durban but also the rural agricultural production in rural home- households and livelihood strategies that steads in Natal, Zululand, and the Eastern sustained these workers. Cape, they did so in two broadly differ- Callebert’s narrative is rooted in the ent ways. Some sought to maximize their secondary literature and based on a range wages by working extra shifts, while oth- of official archival and newspaper sourc- ers (perhaps more than half) engaged in es, but the documentary backbone of this petty trade to hasten their return to rural study, and the source of its most origi- households. This latter group engaged in nal insights, lies in 77 interviews with small-scale commercial enterprise selling former dock workers who started work dagga, cigarettes and cheap consumables in Durban between 1939 and 1959, and in the city (often with a female friend as with women in dockworkers’ households. partner) along with goods pilfered from These interviews shore up the central ar- ships or retrieved from wharf-side spill- guments and provide the basis for a cri- age. Critically, these goods were also sold tique of the hitherto standard history of by workers’ wives in reserves. Dock work- Durban’s dock workers by David Hemson ers’ households were thus reproduced in (unpublished PhD thesis, University of three discrete sites: at the docks, in the Warwick, 1979). rural areas and in the growing African Where Hemson charts the rise of a rel- areas (and later, townships) on the out- atively uncomplicated working-class con- skirts of Durban. These livelihood strate- sciousness among Durban’s dock workers gies were facilitated by the fact that most (remarkably, they went out on strike African dock workers were, at least before as early as 1874), Callebert argues that the demise of casual labour in Durban in the label of radical proletarians ill-fits 1959, togt (casual) migrant labourers who the onyathi (buffaloes), as dockworkers worked shifts and frequently returned were popularly known. On the contrary, home. Callebert detects a far more complex This discussion provides the basis for consciousness amongst dock workers in the following three chapters which de- which militant action in defence of their velop the theme of dock workers and interests as wage earners (most notice- rural households. Chapter 3 maps urban ably in strikes and stayaways, especially and rural linkages and offers a nuanced during the 1940s and 1950s) sat happily conceptualization of the household while with their defence of the interests of Chapter 4 explores gender and genera- African petty traders. How does one ac- tional relations within these households. count for this apparent contradiction? Perhaps the most original part of the The short answer is that most dock work- book is to be found in Chapter 5 which ers were not strictly wage labourers. The explores how pilferage and the bribery longer explanation, which is the subject of supervisors by dock workers became of On Durban’s Docks, lies in the explo- a way of combining wage labour with ration of workers’ livelihoods and house- small scale entrepreneurialism – a cen- holds. Callebert’s approach recognizes tral theme of the book. While Callebert

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never denies that Durban’s dock workers some respects, however, Callebert pays a had the capacity for militant action, as an price for the way in which his narrative industrial working class he argues that ranges over time and space. For example, their combination of formal wage labour while his interviews provide illuminating and informal enterprise had important evidence of livelihoods which is largely implications for their political conscious- lacking in the official record, very few ness. This is the subject of Chapter 6 of these oral histories reach back before which returns to the history of dock 1950. For his discussion of the period workers’ political involvement and indus- 1910 to 1940 one might have expected trial action initially examined in Chapter the author to mine the archive more 1, and which is especially valuable in il- thoroughly but he tends to rely on the luminating the career of Zulu Phungula sometimes patchy secondary historical – Durban’s most famous, but enigmatic, literature on Durban. So, while Callebert dock worker leader. is good at identifying and analyzing criti- Although nowhere acknowledged by cal moments and turning points he is a Callebert, his monograph can be read as little less successful in exploring continu- a creative response to two issues raised ity and change in Durban between the by Frederick Cooper in his classic study 1910s and 1950s. As an historical nar- of Mombasa dockers, On the African rative, then, the book reads unevenly at Waterfront (New Haven: Yale University times. Press, 1987). The first was Cooper’s sug- Callebert recognizes that to do ur- gestion that scholars “explore the place ban African labour history is also to do of dockwork in the lives of people who at rural history. Some readers might, how- times did other things, and in the wider ever, complain that when workers travel context of family, village and regional from wharf to countryside in Callebert’s life.” (xiii) The second was Cooper’s re- account they return to areas which he flection on the potential value of inter- seldom identifies and where house- views even though his work is not an oral holds remain part of an undifferenti- history. (Cooper used seven interviews, ated and unhistoricized rural landscape. only one of which was with a dock work- (Addressing this shortcoming would, ad- er.) Callebert has evidently taken up this mittedly, demand a much bigger book.) dual challenge and as “an Africanist writ- Two further themes that are central to ing back to dominant approaches to la- this study might also have benefited from bour history,” (16) he makes a persuasive closer scrutiny. First, the precise nature case for broadening our concept of labour of dock worker entrepreneurialism which to include informal, reproductive, and Callebert characterizes through a vari- redistributive forms of work, amongst ety of terms (“petty capitalist,” “informal others. sector,” and “microenterprise”) might On Durban’s Docks is an impressive have been better understood if analysed contribution to African labour history in relation to the rise of an African “en- even if the best South African scholar- trepreneurial petty bourgeoisie” (158) in ship shares more of Callebert’s concerns Durban in the 1940s and 1950s but whose (the complexity of livelihood strategies, history is unevenly charted in the sec- class and racial identities, the imbrica- ondary literature upon which Callebert tion of rural and urban livelihoods, scep- relies. Second, one of the more, if not the ticism about modernist teleologies) than most, important of the multiple identities he is prepared to concede in his critique which dock workers asserted at various of “southern African exceptionalism.” In times was their sense of Zulu ethnicity.

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Yet the author’s discussion of this subject the tendency in iww historiography to remains puzzlingly abridged – an omis- focus on the United States and English- sion made more curious by the fact that language sources. Points made by es- the book has the words “Zulu workers” in sayists both confirm and supersede its title. established literature. These criticisms take nothing away Wobbly organizing in the United States from the originality and importance of and repression during World War I are fa- On Durban’s Docks. This is not a long miliar subjects dealt with from new per- book but it is an admirably ambitious one spectives. David M. Struthers holds that and it marks a welcome return to labour Wobblies practiced “on-the-ground in- history in South Africa but on new and ternationalism” in the US Southwest. (74) challenging terms. One hopes that it will Mexican and Indigenous workers were encourage other scholars to look with part of this process, as Wobbly organizer fresh eyes not simply at the history of one Frank Little recognized by (inaccurately) of Africa’s most important port cities but claiming Indigenous heritage. Wobblies to revisit a debate about labour on the participated in the “Baja raids” in support subcontinent and globally which some of the Mexican revolution. Beto Alonso might have thought had run its course shows Spanish anarchists were commit- and to which Ralph Callebert’s book ted to a “single global union” of maritime stands as an imaginative, intelligent, and workers, initially from within the conser- provocative guide. vative International Seamen’s Union, af- Paul la Hausse de Lalouvière filiated with the American Federation of University of Cambridge Labor. (98) This included participation in strikes on the Philadelphia waterfront in 1913. The First Red Scare destroyed cul- Peter Cole, David Struthers, and Kenyon tural networks. In adapting the French Zimmer, eds., Wobblies of the World: A Conféderation Géneral du Travail’s no- Global History of the iww (London: Pluto tion of sabotage, Dominique Pinsolle Press, 2017) contends, American Wobblies opened themselves to wartime repression which A British Foreign Office report pre- conflated the concept with treason, a pared during World War I character- perception that also came to be held on ized the Industrial Workers of the World the US left. Both US authorities and the (iww) as “the most lawless labour move- Soviet Cheka also employed anti-sabo- ment which has ever existed.” (69) The tage rhetoric. meaning of this back-handed acknowl- Moving to Canada, Saku Pinta argues edgement is addressed in Wobblies of the Finnish iww organizers in northern World, which seeks to correct misper- Ontario split with conservatives in the ceptions about the radical labour union. Western Federation of Miners (wfm) This rich collection of essays confronts and the Finnish Socialist Organization of the near-total lack of attention to the Canada. iww influence was evidenced by iww’s international activities in the the 1916 Work People’s College Support first three decades of the 20th century. Ring and a 1918 log drivers’ strike. In Contributors treat overlapping themes, World War I, the government banned including transnational influences on the iww and declared Finnish an “en- the iww, Wobblies’ own international emy language.” (150) Mark Leier studies activities, and their engagement with “practical transnationalism” in British larger events. The contributors eschew Columbia with its multi-ethnic work

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force. (157) At least one lumber worker authorities. Focusing on mtw members local had a large Indigenous membership. in the Spanish Civil War, Mathew White Essays deal with individual Wobblies. observes although Wobbles supported Peter Clayworth focuses on Patrick the syndicalist Confédéración Nacional Hodgens Hickey, an itinerant New del Trabajo, they fought in Communist- Zealander. Having joined the wfm in controlled International Brigades; some Utah and later helping to organize the joined the Communist Party. mtw mem- New Zealand Federation of Miners, bers staged strikes on US waterfronts Hickey advocated revolutionary indus- against ships bearing supplies to the trial unionism and political involvement. Spanish fascists. The war was the mtw’s He gradually came to see the iww as the “death blow.” (224) enemy of a unified working class. Heather Essayists address debates within Mayer writes about Edith Frenette, a left­-wing circles. In his analysis of the “rebel girl” in free-speech fights in the American radical press, Kenyon Zimmer Canadian-US borderlands. (228) Frenette argues anarchist immigrants influenced faded from view after the 1916 Everett the American iww’s stress on social Massacre. Paula de Angelis’ subject is struggle in global terms. Wayne Thorpe syndicalist Tom Barker. After work- covers the evolution of iww international ing in English-speaking lands and being policy. By the 1930s, independence from president of a Marine Transport Workers the Socialist, Communist, and Syndicalist Industrial Union (mtw) local in Buenos internationals became official. In her Aires, he went to Europe and the Soviet treatment of Australian Wobblies, Verity Union after World War I. He backed a Burgmann argues Labour Party conser- scheme to establish a commune jointly vatism compelled iww locals to reject run by the iww and the Soviets. Johan De Leonist support for partisan politics Pries studies P.J. Welinder, who favoured in favour of the Chicago iww. Itinerant “short bursts” of direct action over build- Wobbly organizers were respected in the ing state institutions in interwar Sweden. Australian labour movement. Whereas (266) Bucky Halker surveys the dissemi- US Wobblies experienced “privatized nation of Joe Hill’s songs from Hill’s life- retribution,” Australian suppression was time to folk music circles today. strictly “state-sponsored.” (182) A remarkable group of essays examine The iww was tied to events in re- episodes during the world revolutionary source-rich regions. Kevan Antonio wave of a century ago. In her study of Jim Aguilar argues Wobblies, Communists, Larkin and James Connolly, Marjorie and anarchists opposed state capitalism, Murphy argues these revolutionary so- neo-colonialism, and suppression of rev- cialist leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising olutionary socialists in Tampico during tailored what they had learned from and after the Mexican Revolution. (128) the American iww to Irish conditions. Aguilar acknowledges the importance Direct action was met with harsh vio- of revolutionary women in Tampico. lence by security forces and “children’s Applying world-system theory to iww campaign tactics” modeled on the 1912 work in South Africa, Lucien van der Walt Lawrence strike were condemned by concentrates on white workers between the Roman Catholic Church. (244) 1908 and 1913. He analyzes tramway Preparations for armed struggle against strikes in Johannesburg. Syndicalists op- Britain entailed collaboration with con- posed the South African Labour Party’s servative Republicans and German promotion of white supremacy.

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Wobblies saw the connections between this multi-faceted book, it will neverthe- imperialism and white supremacy. Tariq less be difficult for labour historians to Khan writes about the California-based discount the historical importance of the nationalist Ghadr movement. Its Indian iww. revolutionary socialist leaders collabo- Anthony B. Newkirk rated with the iww, the Partido Liberal Philander Smith College Mexicano, and Sun Yat-sen. Mark Derby focuses on the relationship between Wobblies and New Zealand’s Maoris. The Nancy L. Green and Roger Waldinger, country’s small Wobbly group continued eds., A Century of Transnationalism: organizing work with Maoris begun by Immigrants and their Homeland the New Zealand Shearers Union. A self- Connections (Urbana: University of taught student of Maori ethnography and Illinois Press 2016) Marxist theory wrote Maori-language articles in the Wobbly newspaper. New In A Century of Transnationalism, Zealand Wobblies were suppressed dur- historian Nancy Green and sociologist ing the war. Theiww never incorporated Roger Waldinger marshal a collection of Maori concerns into its program. essays that they hope will put to rest any Curiously, van der Walt does not pretense that transnational phenomena go into detail about Indigenous South in migration are “new.” On the contrary, African revolutionary socialists men- they argue in their introduction, social tioned in his magisterial Black Flame: scientists who discovered the “novel” The Revolutionary Class Politics of phenomenon in the 1990s overlooked Anarchism and Syndicalism. (Oakland: countless histories of people and politics AK Press, 2009). Pries does not clari- that ricocheted across borders in multi- fy which Swedish socialist federation ple directions since at least the late 19th Welinder belonged to after 1928. De century. Though historians did not begin Angelis does not give information about labeling such phenomena “transnational” Barker’s birthplace. until after anthropologists popularized These are minor complaints, though, the term, some historical works written for a collection that complements recent before the 1990s and even more written studies (Lucien van der Walt, Workers of since then have identified circulations the World: Essays toward a Global Labor that were largely comparable to more History [Leiden: Brill, 2008]; Leon Fink, recent transnationalism. Indeed, Green ed., Workers Across the Americas: The and Waldinger posit, “the technology of Transnational Turn in Labor History long-distance communication and travel [New York: Oxford University Press, has been in constant change throughout 2011]; Elizabeth McKillen, Making the the migrations of the past two hundred World Safe for Workers: Labor, the Left, years.” (6) The invention of the Internet and Wilsonian Internationalism [Urbana: thus marked just one of many such University of Illinois Press, 2013]). changes, not a definitive break from the Wobblies of the World is testimony to past. the complexity of left-wing movements The collection features historians, so- in the early 20th century, an era of global ciologists, and a geographer who have revolutionary activity strangely under- applied transnational concepts to their rated in academic circles and studiously historical research. Notably, the use of ignored by mass media. After reading translators brings together a uniquely

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international and multilingual group to keep the connection, the papers. And of scholars based in Europe and North then, I’ve spent nearly all my life over America, giving Anglophone readers ac- there.” (250) The story is just one of many cess to academic conversations usually in the book highlighting migrants’ cre- conducted in not just English but also ative strategies to live the best lives possi- French and Portuguese. In general, the ble in the face of the countless restrictions essays document changes in transnation- and discourses that states of origin and al practices over long periods of time in a destination have thrown at them. given migrant circuit, rather than focus- As the case of the French-Algerians ing on just a few decades of history. They also shows, several of the authors em- examine Italian, Portuguese, Lebanese- phasize the limits and restrictions on and Syrian-Arab, Algerian, Russian- transnational migrants in a world of Jewish, Mexican, Indian, Japanese, and nation-states – a reality, they and the Chinese migrants’ political and social editors correctly argue, that the first relationships with their homelands wave of transnational anthropology ig- through various time periods since the nored. As Green and Waldinger write late 19th century. in their introduction, “Some migrants The book is divided into two sections, may behave just as described in Nations beginning with pieces that emphasize Unbound,” the seminal 1994 book that transnational practices driven by states established the subfield of transnational (top-down) followed by those that em- migration anthropology, “but not all do.” phasize processes driven by migrants (3) Indeed, the editors helpfully histori- (bottom-up). In practice, most chapters cize that initial vision of transnational- explore the interplay between states and ism, noting that it emerged in a decade migrants, sometimes with exquisite sen- of relative global stability after the end sitivity. For example, France-based his- of the Cold War. This borderless ideal torian, Marie-Claude Blanc-Chaléard’s seems particularly naïve from the per- chapter analyzes oral history interviews spective of 2018, but scholars have been with migrants who have constructed lives critiquing it for several years. A Century between the Souf region of Algeria and of Transnationalism should really be the Paris’ Nanterre banlieue. Blanc-Chaléard closing salvo in this debate, for its cases shows how French and Algerian legal studies incorporate copious evidence that regimes and state projects have increas- borders have, and still do, really matter. ingly circumscribed migrants’ lives over For example, French-Brazilian histori- time. Most poignantly, she writes of the an Mônica Raisa Schpun writes of a more chibanis, Algerians who worked for years than a century of Japanese-Brazilian his- in France but have since retired to the tory in which “the often brutal demands Souf Valley. Antipathy from Algerian of- of the two nationalisms in play” severely ficials makes it difficult for them to draw curtailed but never eliminated migrants’ their French pensions in Algeria, thus abilities to shape their own lives and iden- many work to keep their French resident tities. (102) These demands were perhaps cards valid by spending at least half the most severe during the mid-20th century. year in France. Yet Blanc-Chaléard notes First, Getúlio Vargas’ Estado Novo pur- that these state strictures often provide sued its hyper-nationalist agenda in part chibanis needed “breathing space,” justi- by prohibiting foreign funding of schools fying a transnational lifestyle that many and decreeing that only native Brazilians actually prefer. Said one such man, “You could serve as teachers in agricultural never know what might happen. You have settlements. Japanese schools in such

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settlements, which had relied on support than world-historical ones. Both the from the Japanese government, could not Introduction and the individual contri- survive these measures, leaving Japanese butions carefully categorize different immigrants to pursue their Japanese ed- forms of transnationalism: transnation- ucations secretly in private homes. The alism “from above” or “below”; consul- start of World War II only intensified the ates’ roles as alternately supportive and anti-Japanese sentiment that migrants oppressive; transnational identities as in Brazil confronted. Indeed, there was scaled ethnically, locally, nationally, or nothing “unbound” about the Japanese internationally; possibilities for trans- and Brazilian nations between which national community circumscribed by these migrants lived. international relations or the agendas of On the other hand, scholars of state sending or receiving states. Authors il- formation will note with interest the ways luminate a dizzying array of possibilities that several chapters historicize the “de- for how transnationalism has worked, or territorialized” conception of the nation not worked, in different times and places. most famously explored in recent times In her formative essay on comparative by scholars of Mexican consulates and history in the edited volume Comparison state-driven efforts to promote remit- and History: Europe in Cross-National tances and transnational political par- Perspective (New York: Routledge, 2004), ticipation. (20) France-based historian Green wrote that “juxtapositional” com- Caroline Douki documents the Italian parisons, such as conference panels and government’s extensive attempts to en- edited collections, can often leave read- courage return migration in the late 19th ers unsatisfied since “specialists tend to- and early 20th centuries. These efforts -in wards monologue rather than dialogue.” cluded the promotion of Italian education (48) That particular caveat does not ap- and identity abroad, encouragement of ply to A Century of Transnationalism, as remittances via specific banking mecha- the chapter authors do engage with each nisms, and a system of free repatriation other, often directly, likely continuing transportation instituted via mandates conversations they had begun at two in- placed on ships landing in Italian ports. person conferences. US-based sociologist David FitzGerald Yet as an historian with global inter- offers a 150-year sweep of transborder ests, I still did find myself wanting more politics between Mexico and the United – perhaps a pitfall, as Green herself had States, arguing that “emigrants and exiles noted, inherent to the edited collection have been involved in every major violent genre. A Century of Transnationalism conflict and political transformation in helpfully parses a series of shared catego- Mexico since the 1860s.” (107) His narra- ries and concepts, but does not attempt tive unfortunately misses several key ex- to establish a shared chronology or over- amples of this politics due to its reliance arching narrative of transnational prac- on two-decades-old historical research. tices and orientations over the course Nonetheless, the chapter joins with sev- of said century. Such a narrative could eral others to offer an intriguing window never be more than provisional, modified into the ways nation-states and emigra- by a series of exceptions. Still, I ended the tion have grown up together through the book wanting to map the chapters onto a 19th and 20th centuries. big piece of butcher paper to see if, taken Interestingly, these longue du- together, they might add up to a larger rée histories, when taken together, story. That work will be left to another speak more to sociological questions scholar, whose job will be easier and

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conclusions enriched by the case studies on International Labour Legislation at and analytical frameworks offered here. the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919. Julie M. Weise Fearful of the growing contagion of University of Oregon Bolshevism and other forms of labour radicalism in the aftermath of World War I, they recommended an innovative Eileen Boris, Dorothea Hoehtker, and tripartite structure for the ilo: the yearly Susan Zimmermann, eds., Women’s ilo: conferences would include national del- Transnational Networks, Global Labour egations of government, business, and Standards and Gender Equity, 1919 to labour representatives, and the governing Present (Leiden: Brill 2018) body would also include representatives from all three groups. These groups were The International Labour charged with working together to raise Organization (ilo) will celebrate its labour standards in order to prevent the centennial in 2019. Studies by scholars injustices and poverty that caused social and ilo functionaries of this long-lived unrest and threatened world peace. A and uniquely structured affiliate of the coalition of women’s groups visited the League of Nations and United Nations commission to voice their concerns and abound, but the role of women in shap- several women’s organizations asked ing its policies has received only sporadic that representation for women also be attention. Such neglect is not surprising mandated as a component of the tripar- because, until recently, women have con- tite structure of the ilo. Instead, the stituted a very small percentage of the Commission required only that the ilo’s members of the ilo governing body, or of director appoint women to the ilo s t a ff the delegates and technical advisors sent and recommended that national delega- by individual nations to the yearly ilo tions include at least one woman in an conferences. Yet this edited collection advisory position. of fourteen essays makes a convincing Of the 40 nations that sent delega- case that women have played an impor- tions to the founding convention of the tant role in shaping the ilo’s policies to- ilo in Washington, DC in the autumn of ward women workers and in ensuring the 1919, none appointed a woman as a vot- ratification and implementation ofilo ing delegate and most included only a conventions governing women’s work in few female advisors. The US and British- diverse national contexts. based Women’s Trade Union League, The book is divided into two overlap- however, responded by staging their ping sections. The first section primar- own International Congress of Working ily considers the role of transnational Women (icww) in Washington, DC at women’s networks in shaping debates and the same time as the ilo convention. policies within the ilo; the second fo- Their meeting included over two hun- cuses on the ways in which ilo standards dred women from nineteen nations, some were negotiated and implemented within of whom were also advisors to their na- particular nations, regions, and popula- tional delegations at the ilo convention. tions of workers. In an important open- The icww prepared a set of resolutions ing chapter of the first section, Dorothy and policy statements that were then Sue Cobble explores the neglected role of championed by the women advisors at women in the “origin story” of the ilo. the ilo meeting. The icww recommen- (27) The blueprints for theilo were first dations proved particularly important in drawn up by the all-male Commission shaping the ilo’s Maternity Convention

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to include a far-reaching demand for six An article by Chris Bonner, Pat Horn, weeks paid benefits for women before and and Renana Jhabvala details the ilo’s ef- after childbirth. icww proposals were forts in recent years to help home-based also taken into consideration in debates women workers from the informal sector over conventions on child labour and the of the world economy. To gather informa- prohibition of night work for women. tion on this neglected subject, the ilo Subsequent articles by Françoise reached out to grassroots groups such as Thébaud, Kirsten Scheiwe, and Lucia the Self-Employed Women’s Association Artner highlight the way women con- (sewa) in India. This outreach work tinued to influence debates over labour culminated in the 1996 Homework standards for women during the interwar Convention and the Domestic Workers period through the ilo’s Correspondence Convention of 2011. These changes have Committee on Women’s Work and its correlated with a gradual expansion dedicated staff members. The Cold War, in the number of women delegates in as Eileen Boris demonstrates, compli- the ilo, as highlighted by an article by cated the quest for international labour Marieke Louis on gender representation standards as the ilo’s protective legis- in the ilo over the past 100 years. lation for women came under attack by In the shorter second section of the feminist activists from Communist bloc book, Susan Zimmermann explores how countries as well as legal equality femi- racialized assumptions and colonial poli- nists based in the UN Commission on tics influenced the implementation of the Status of Women. Silke Neunsinger gendered labour standards in the global explores the complexities of adopting and South from 1909 to 1947. Ironically, the encouraging ratification of anilo Equal ilo sought to incorporate protections for Remuneration Convention designed to women into special conventions dealing prevent employment discrimination with so-called “native” labour in colonial based on sex during the Cold War era. areas even as increasing numbers of femi- Also creating new problems for feminist nists emphasized the need to do away with activists within the ilo during the Cold special protections for women. The Forced War were national liberation movements Labour Convention exempted women but in Africa and Asia. After largely ignor- not men from coerced labour for so-called ing the problems of the global South for “public purposes” in “non-self-governing many years, the ilo created an African territories” established under the terms Advisory Board in the late 1950s and of the Mandate system of the League of began working with the International Nations (231-232). This emphasis, howev- Confederation of Free Trade Unions er, proved short-lived as it was replaced by (icftu) to improve labour standards developmental paradigms in the aftermath there. As Yevette Richards documents, of World War II and national liberation a women’s network from the ilo/icftu struggles. Three detailed and illuminating in turn emphasized the need for the in- case studies by Paula Lucía Aguilar, Eloisa clusion of women in development strat- Betti, and Akua O. Britwum, on women egies in Africa well in advance of many and ilo standards in Argentina, Italy, economists and development activists. and Ghana, respectively, demonstrate Yet their initiatives were underfunded the importance of what Aguilar calls the and among the first to be cancelled when “situation ‘on the ground’” in shaping the funding disappeared. A new generation ratification and implementation ofilo of African women leaders, however, has conventions in specific national contexts. begun to build on their legacies. (275) An article by Sonya Michel explores

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the recent efforts of the ilo to cope with Prabha Kotiswaran’s latest contribu- the problems faced by migrant women tion to much-needed scholarship on traf- caregivers. Mahua Sarkar, in a final article, ficking, forced labour, and contemporary considers how the ilo might help to regu- slavery readily acknowledges the “sheer late the rapidly expanding commercial ineffectiveness of anti-trafficking law.” (6) surrogacy industry. Blunt in airing a usually unstated anxi- Taken collectively, these articles offer a ety in anti-trafficking work, Kotiswaran rich portrait of women’s role in shaping identifies the paucity of outcomes of and implementing ilo policies. A minor anti-trafficking law as fundamentally weakness is that the book might further problematic to its continued prioritiza- explore a range of broader debates that tion. But are these not statements against have emerged within both labour circles interest for a book on human trafficking and scholarly literature about the ilo law? No. Kotiswaran’s project is to “de- that have relevance for the themes raised centre” (7) trafficking from the law. here. In the aftermath of the Versailles An edited work, Kotiswaran’s goal is Peace Conference, for example, a diverse to produce a volume of “socio-legal” (5) range of labour critics complained that analysis of the law and policy related to the structure proposed for the ilo was trafficking, forced labour, and modern fundamentally undemocratic, concerns slavery. To navigate the “chaos” (6) of the that intersected in important ways with anti-trafficking landscape that features those of labour feminists. The discussion weak institutionalization; poor direc- of gender and the ilo during the Cold tion; symbolic compliance; dysfunctional War could also use more historical and definitional discord; and the conflation of scholarly context. These omissions aside, trafficking with both slavery and forced this book makes a substantial contribu- labour, Kotiswaran strives to articulate tion to scholarly understanding of the a transnational legal lens beyond crimi- role of women in shaping the ilo and nal and international law approaches and to the importance of the ilo in shaping traditional global geographies. working women’s lives through interna- Kotiswaran’s formulation of a plural- tional labour standards. ist transnational law approach provides a Elizabeth McKillen valuable analytical tool that encompasses University of Maine a multiplicity of the tense and impactful factors – e.g. public and private legal pro- cess; informal and “soft law”’ sources; and Prabha Kotiswaran, ed., Revisiting the action by non-state actors – that simulta- Law and Governance of Trafficking, neously cause, reproduce, and combat hu- Forced Labor and Modern Slavery man trafficking. In so doing, Kotiswaran (Cambridge: Cambridge University moves beyond simply referencing the ten- Press 2017) sions inherent in anti-trafficking inquiry, acknowledging – and seeking to take on As Neil Gaiman admonished: “the law – the “mess,” “paradoxes,” (5) and buried is a blunt instrument.” Transnational issues in anti-trafficking work. scholar Peer Zumbansen notes that vio- To this end, Kotiswaran’s book is pre- lence and vulnerability accompany the sented in five parts. Part I provides an law. Still, discourses of human trafficking historical context of international law – popular, political, and scholarly – tend – including its difficulties – to address to focus on the law, almost invariably on human trafficking. Part II offers a legal criminality and enforcement. realist critique of anti-trafficking law.

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Part III canvasses the role and influence and more intentionally applied interdis- of non-state actors and the move of anti- ciplinarity and inclusion of additional trafficking regulation from government theoretical perspectives – environmen- to governance. Part IV focuses on the role tal, Indigenous, anti-colonial, Marxist of the International Labour Organization – would have amplified the book’s scope (ilo) in producing data on trafficking and and originality, and ensured the expecta- the ilo’s influence in concluding the 2014 tions raised in its Introduction were un- Protocol on Forced Labour. Part V exam- arguably met, if not exceeded. ines the political economy of labour and In terms of methodology, while the evaluates anti-trafficking frameworks book does include instructive case stud- for domestic workers. Kotiswaran con- ies and ethnography in interviews re- cludes the book by offering an agenda for counting the experiences of trafficked research on mobility, migration, and the workers, for the most part it employs potential of the law. traditional legal and policy analysis. While intended to provide a work Inclusion of more materialist, empirical, on trafficking, forced labour, and mod- and unconventional research approaches ern slavery significant for its non-legal would have made for a stronger and more range, the book does primarily engage innovative work. the transnational legal order and a trans- In addition, fewer calls to action are national legal approach. In this way, it contained in the book than expected. seems to fall somewhat short of the very Concrete recommendations based on ambitious extra-legal project set out in its rigorous research and methodologically- Introduction. sound data are greatly needed to combat The book certainly contains brilliant trafficking, forced labour, and modern (re-) thinking of much of the speculative slavery. Kotiswaran herself does propose intuition that motivates human traffick- an insightful agenda for future anti-traf- ing law and policy responses and data ficking research focusing on a “distribu- collection. However, somewhat restric- tively motivated” (39) approach and calling tively – albeit helpfully – the book fo- for more legal ethnographic research. cuses on definitional issues and debates, Finally, in a book on labour, a wholesale migration, and domestic work, tending to challenge of the contemporary economic present, if not privilege, these features as system – capitalism – is conspicuous by the core of the contemporary labour traf- its absence. The book does investigate the ficking transnational legal order. political economy of labour and acknowl- Also, while providing valuable insights edges that exploitation is a hallmark of into the law and effects of forced labour, – not an exception to – global capital- trafficking, and slavery, the book’s goal ism: an enforced legal and policy system of interrogating trafficking from an -in not simply an aberration perpetrated by terdisciplinary perspective to ensure a immoral individuals. Part II of the book full critique seems not fully realized. The identifies the state’s role in ensuring mi- book succeeds in highlighting the multi- grants serve neoliberal capitalism, but dimensional nature of trafficking, espe- extra-state remedies and systemic trans- cially beyond the criminal law, and its formation are not explored. Moreover, for contributors’ diverse perspectives fulfill Kotiswaran, rather than being exception- the book’s stated ends of “mapping the al or requiring transformational redress, … paradigms” (46) of trafficking and re- trafficking embodies “regulatory predica- examining the fundamental assumptions ments” (7) similar those of other issues of trafficking law. However, a still broader confounded by globalization. But what

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of the contributions to trafficking, forced does seem to imply that the law – albeit labour, and modern slavery of the circuits not simply criminal law – can remedy of globalized capital themselves? Even trafficking and forced labour. Kotiswaran the book’s articulated labour approach to is quick to recognize this and other limi- anti-trafficking encompasses primarily tations of the book, regarding writing an human rights and migration issues best inherently imperfect and “myth-making” addressed structurally by legal remedies (46) enterprise. and law reform rather than economic re- Given its excellent contribution to orientation. Notions of corporate social reflective, critical analysis of the funda- responsibility – with trade unionism as mentals of law and human trafficking, accountability – and “redemptive capi- Revisiting the Law and Governance of talism” are expounded, but their need Trafficking, Forced Labor and Modern not assigned to any systemic causations. Slavery should be read by as many schol- Immigration controls are argued to be ars, practitioners, and activists as pos- perhaps the “single biggest legal factor sible, while transforming the global contributing to modern day slavery.” (25) economy. Qualified as a legal factor this is true. But Mike Perry what about the exploitation inherent in Trent University capitalism, the very structure of the re- lationships in which slavery manifests? In this way, Kotiswaran’s book misses Kevin Skerrett, Johanna Weststar, the opportunity to de-exceptionalize and Simon Archer, and Chris Roberts, eds., externalize trafficking not only beyond The Contradictions of Pension Fund individuals and “domestic abuses” but to Capitalism (Ithaca: Cornell University capitalism itself. The abolition of slavery Press 2017) in the United States was not an exercise in law reform. Efforts to end slavery chal- Published in 2017 as part of the Labor lenged and transformed an entire slave- and Employment Relations Association based economy. Accordingly, any study of Series, The Contradictions of Pension trafficking and slavery that does not -ex Fund Capitalism assembles an inter- pressly interrogate and challenge the fun- national cast of researchers that bridge damental basis of the free market – the financial capitalism with the crude re- exploitation inherent in capitalist labour ality of employment entitlements that and social relations – is incomplete. are increasingly under threat. The edi- Kotiswaran’s book is still a significant tors begin with a concise introductory contribution to re-examining the law and chapter that captures the focus of subse- governance of trafficking, forced labour, quent contributions. “Invested across the and modern slavery, true to its title. Its planet,” Skerrett, Weststar, Archer, and insights are very important and the book Roberts write, “in every conceivable in- provides interdisciplinary perspectives, dustry, commodity, and asset class, pen- helpfully challenging traditional traffick- sion funds are today leading agents in, ing discourses from their usual legal and and beneficiaries of, liberalized and glob- policy assumptions and illuminating the ally integrated markets.” (1) The narrative implication of the state. throughout the book is one that follows The book is an excellent challenge to an unraveling of the post-war class com- traditional narratives, data, and hubris of promise and the various features that anti-trafficking work. However, overall its have jeopardized pensions coverage and overarching transnational legal approach benefit entitlements.

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Andrew Pendelton and Howard the starkest expression of the risk shift Gospel’s treatment of the UK experience from states to citizens, and the associ- in Chapter 2 similarly claims that the de- ated role of finance.” (80) A reversal, they velopment of an employer-based or occu- point of out, of the Keynesian macroeco- pational pension scheme contributed to nomic policies that dominated the politi- financialization through the marshaling cal arena for decades. What the authors of a “large and liquid stock market and go on to query is the extent to which financial sector.” (10) From here the au- labour’s capital represents a check on thors examine today’s reality in which, as capital’s power. Their resolution: labour’s a neoliberal policy agenda that launched capital, manifested in pension funds, has in the 1980s, individualized self-invested behaved just like “capital’s capital,” pro- personal pensions (SIPPS) have become viding little hope of wielding these mas- fashionable. SIPPS have, of course, failed sive pools of wealth to advance workers’ to fill gaps in provision, instead leading interests. Indeed, their contribution is to pockets of pensioner poverty whereby punctuated by the realization that labour retirees must rely on other means-tested is not just a working and consuming class and universal benefits in order to survive. but exists also as a financialized assetfor Financialization has also provoked firms capital. (93) to respond to competitive pressures by To these points, Michael McCarthy adopting human resource requirements addresses the social investment frame- that rest on flexible and less costly labour work – or, concerns about environmen- forces. Financial capitalism is advancing tal, social, and governance (esg) factors this objective to a point where, the au- – that took off following the 2008 Great thors conclude, defined benefit schemes Recession. His conclusion here is that “have ‘fed the beast’ that eventually workers’ retirement capital mirrors that turned on them.” (24) of Wall Street investment trends, as Chapter 3 moves from the political eco- conservative law makers and employ- nomic structure of finance capitalism to ers have blocked unions from “democ- investigating the effects on workers across ratizing their funds and advancing an industrialized countries. Specifically, the alternative approach to finance.” (115) extent to which the reduction of benefits Contradictions also reveals the role of in the pay-as-you-go (paygo) state social fiduciary responsibility in disciplining insurance plans and the emphasis on sav- union pension trustees who might look ings and personal wealth as a source of to labour’s capital as a venue to advance retirement income defines the lived reali- non-financial interests. ties of financialization and the erosion of Bernard Mees reflects on the realities formerly collective entitlements. What of financialization in Australia and what Teresa Ghilarducci and Amanda Novello impact this has had on the running of recognize is that life expectancy, leisure union-sponsored pension schemes. Part time, and health outcomes are not shared of the lived reality is how labour has re- evenly across classes and that, ultimately, sponded to the growth of infrastructure higher-income workers “are most likely privatization and subsequent investment to have the economic lives that dovetail in these profitable ventures. As an em- well with a financial retirement system.” ployer trustee remarked, union opposi- (49) Dick Bryan and Michael Rafferty fur- tion was overcome when industry was ther engage with the outcome question in “able to convince them that (a) priva- Chapter 4, concluding that the “defined tization was going to happen anyway, contribution superannuation is one of and (b) … it’s best that workers own the

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assets rather than some multination- Power and class return in the final two al or American company.” (65) Kevin chapters of the collection. Stephen Maher Skerrett’s chapter on Canada’s public offers a rather dismal prognosis that neo- pension funds similarly reveals the lucra- liberalism is the result of “the historic tive draw of public-private partnerships defeat of the working class,” rendering and privatized infrastructure as text- the possibility of structural reforms vir- book investment opportunities for some tually impossible. (229) His conclusion of the largest funds in the Global North. is a stark reminder of the limits of stake- Meanwhile, a labour trustee suggested holder capitalism due to its inadequate that not all members wanted a socially grasp of class power and the reduction of responsible investment choice, favouring workers’ interests to the economic sphere instead holdings that effectively managed without concern for political struggle as a risks and yielded favourable returns. In catalyst for social change. Kevin Skerrett the UK, this standard of fiduciary respon- and Sam Gindin, meanwhile, provide a sibility was entrenched following a 1984 more useful intervention in their assess- Supreme Court ruling, “which holds that ment of Canada’s financialized pension pension fund administration must invest system. Theirs is also a chapter that pro- the assets of the fund with a view to the vides much-needed recommendations best financial interests of the beneficia- specific to existing state entitlement ries, to the exclusion of other nonfinan- programs. To be precise, they advocate cial interests,” (156) as Simon Archer’s for the doubling of universal pension chapter elucidates. Even in Canada fidu- benefits, increasing the Canada Pension ciary doctrine remains firmly in place, Plan replacement rate, the establishment restricting the scope of interests that can of a “dignity pension,” pension credits, be pursued by fund managers. and the establishment of a new fund- Johanna Weststar and Anil Verma ing model. To the last point the authors push this further and dig into the con- rightfully look at clawing back tax credit tradictions of labour’s voice on pension schemes that benefit income earners who boards. Of the trustees interviewed as can afford to invest in personal pension part of their study, most were discomfited and saving plans. Instead, the deferred when asked if they represented a constit- tax revenue would be channeled towards uency, as this threatened their interpre- universal collective benefits, reversing tation of fiduciary duty. (189) Working in the neoliberal turn in the entitlements the best interest of the plan, participants game. insisted, was their principal responsibil- From a broad and critical political ity. Even labour trustees adhered to this economic framework to a nuanced look logic. “Establishing long-term strategies at the practice of pension fund manage- [and] steering the plan through the po- ment, readers will find this collection to litical realities of the world we live in so be both accessible and insightful. Indeed, that the plan doesn’t become a political the esoteric and perhaps even nebulous target”, said one trustee. (189) Weststar’s nature of pension funds is wonderfully second chapter takes on the question of exposed in this book. pension fund education, revealing that Andrew Stevens much of the curriculum reifies the “es- University of Regina tablished neoliberal logic of the financial and pension community” leaving trust- ees without the tools to “challenge tradi- tional beliefs about investment.” (126)

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Annelise Orleck, “We Are All Fast-Food oppression work to keep vast numbers of Workers Now”: The Global Uprising workers down. against Poverty Wages (Boston: Beacon We Are All Fast-Food Workers Now be- Press 2018) gins with stories of workers that highlight both the extent of the poor conditions but These are dark times for workers. also some of the victories. Workers are In many countries, wages have stagnat- winning higher wages and union repre- ed, union membership has fallen, and sentation. For example, hotel workers in inequality is at a record high. Global Phnom Penh organized, formed a union, corporations have acquired significant and protested. They’ve won a reduction in power to restructure work, leaving many the number of rooms to clean and a re- workers precarious and feeling dispos- duction in sexual harassment. Fast-food able. This isn’t entirely new, of course, as workers in the US have won a $15 per the history of capitalism is a history of hour minimum wage in California and exploitation. But there have been times New York, and dozens of cities. when corporations have been more regu- The book then goes on to explore gar- lated, and when political leaders granted ment and farm work in detail. These are more concessions to workers. two of the most notorious industries In this context, with weak unions, for exploitative working conditions. conservative politicians, and powerful Garment was one of the first to “global- corporations, it seems unlikely that work- ize”; a relatively small number of huge ers could win anything. But in We Are brands and retailers have built a buyer- All Fast-Food Workers Now: The Global driven supply chain that makes workers Uprising Against Poverty Wages, Annelise compete against one another to drive Orleck shows us that some workers are in down wages. The system makes it hard fact winning. And not just any workers, for workers to demand higher wages be- but some of the most marginalized, low- cause the brand can then just end the wage, vulnerable workers. contract and move the work somewhere After being inspired by Bangladeshi else. Despite this, Orleck talks to work- garment activists and fast-food worker ers who are fighting back. There are the strikes, Orleck travelled around the world berry pickers in Mexico who walk off the interviewing over 140 workers and activ- job with signs that say “We are Workers, ists. She visited Cambodia, Bangladesh, not Slaves.” Workers are fed up, like Morocco, the Philippines, South Africa, Bernardino Martinez, a migrant farm and many parts of the US. She spoke worker in Southern California who sued with farmworkers, garment workers, fast- employers who used tasers against work- food workers, retail workers, hotel clean- ers who organized in the fields. He tells ers, and union organizers. While the Orleck, “Most workers are too scared to countries and type of work vary greatly, go to court. They are afraid they’ll be de- many of the workers Orleck talks have a ported. I was scared too, but even more, lot in common. Most are working long I was mad. And I was tired. I had been hours and struggling to make ends meet doing this for seven years and it never got in a world that blames them for not do- better.” (16) ing more to get ahead. The title of the Orleck has a gift for making workers’ book comes from a quote from Keegan voices come alive. We hear the words Shepard, a fast-food activist in Florida, of Tep Sareoung, a young woman who who sees the ways in which interlocking works as a beer promoter in Cambodia, systems of capitalism, gender, and racial talk about her experience with the union

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– first, when organizers came to her or race. One Mixteca woman, who had neighborhood to educate women about picked berries in Mexico since she was reproductive issues – and then later, as seven years old, told Orleck she was she herself became an activist and a men- “tired of being yelled at and made fun of tor and role model for other young wom- for being indigenous, tired of being sexu- en. Or Girshriela Green, who worked for ally harassed and abused.” (15) Workers’ Walmart for many years and put up with struggles, many of them led by women, much mistreatment until a friend who are often a fight against interlocking sys- had worked there for 20 years was fired tems of oppression. with no warning. “That was it for me,” This book also gives hope that despite Green said. “I knew then that we weren’t the daunting nature of global capitalism, the problem. They were.” (104) workers can fight back locally, in their Much of the scholarship on global- workplaces and communities, and win. ization, or neoliberalism, or capitalism, They can, and they are. We have much to reduces workers to a nameless, faceless learn from their stories. mass – often seen as helpless victims, just Stephanie Luce cogs in the machine. But these interviews City University of New York show us the people behind the numbers, and bring complexity to the organizing. Similarly, social movements or strug- Marcus Taylor and Sébastian Rioux, gles like the Fight for $15 are often por- Global Labour Studies (Cambridge: trayed as a monolith. Analysts debate: Polity Press, 2017) Is the Fight for $15 authentic, or a top- down effort by a large union? But Orleck Surprisingly few introductory texts lets us hear from workers on the ground have been written on global labour who have participated and organized. studies, despite its notable growth fol- Whatever the critiques of the movement, lowing the 1980’s debates over the New there are real workers with real interests International Labour Studies movement. in the campaign. Perhaps this is attributable to the inher- The book concludes with “transforma- ent difficulty of introducing such an -ex tive visions” that suggest worker strug- pansive discipline: not only are the issues gles can change the world. Here, Orleck’s examined and perspectives employed own admitted optimism may colour her wide-ranging, but they are brought to findings, as the examples she shares seem bear on an incredibly complicated and far from enough. I would have liked to rapidly changing global economy. In hear a bit more analysis about why cer- Global Labour Studies, authors Marcus tain campaigns have won, and what are Taylor and Sébastian Rioux confront this traps workers must look for. How can the challenge head-on. The result is a robust local victories intersect to larger systemic introductory work that combines theo- ones? retical breadth and empirical rigour, all Nevertheless, We Are All Fast-Food the while ensuring accessibility for read- Workers Now is a powerful antidote to ers new to the field. the pessimism and helplessness found As Taylor and Rioux correctly note, the in so many analyses of the global labour field of global labour studies is consider- movement. Orleck shows us how work- ably fragmented, marked by research that ers themselves are not necessarily getting is often conducted within narrow disci- trapped by a false debate that says they plinary frameworks that privilege specif- must organize around class, or gender, ic issues and topics, often at the expense

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of others. In its 13 chapters, spanning 213 the authors to masterfully navigate the pages, perhaps the greatest contribution complexities and nuances of issues such of this book is the innovative interdisci- as the social reproduction of labour plinary framework the authors develop to power, labour migration, global produc- overcome this fragmentation and produce tion chains, and translocal labour move- a cohesive and multifaceted approach to ments, amongst others. the field. It is constructed through the These three analytical perspectives thoughtful integration of four primary tend to focus attention on the larger perspectives: (1) political economy and questions of power and production with the study of power; (2) economic sociol- a primary focus on macro-level analyses. ogy and the question of networks; (3) hu- To round out their analysis, the authors man geography and the focus on space make the astute decision to incorporate and scale; and (4) development studies a livelihoods perspective drawn from and the livelihoods perspective. the field of developmental studies. This Challenging tendencies to reify and bottom-up approach focuses on the ways idealize existing society, a political-eco- that individuals and households navigate nomic perspective foregrounds the ways the opportunities and constraints of their in which the practices, relations, and specific context. In doing so, they affirm institutions of labour are socially con- the agency individuals possess when en- structed on the basis of unequal power gaging with broader social structures and relations. This perspective is comple- practices. mented by that of economic sociology, After establishing their theoretical with its emphasis on the social embed- framework, Taylor and Rioux use the re- dedness of the economy; in particular, maining ten chapters to apply it to a range Taylor and Rioux draw attention to the of issues central to global labour studies. ways in which society’s values and norms Following the order in which they ap- influence the normative conceptions of pear in the work, these include: labour work and work relations held by indi- regimes, global production networks, viduals. They also call attention to the formal labour, informal labour, agrarian key role that social networks play in in labour, migrant labour, forced labour, the production and reproduction of la- environment and labour, corporate so- bour power and labour regimes as well cial responsibility, organizing global la- as in enabling and constraining political bour, and a concluding chapter on the praxis. future of global labour. The authors use In their discussion of human geogra- a combination of vignettes, personal an- phy and space, the authors draw on David ecdotes, and case studies to introduce the Harvey’s threefold conception of space topics to the reader in an accessible and as absolute (physical and material space), provocative way. Their analyses attend to relative (space as transformed through both the historical development of the is- human praxis), and relational (space as sues they consider, as well as how they are informing and conditioning collective concretely materialized in different but ideas, experiences, and practices). This interrelated geographical areas. At the expansive conception of space proves end of each chapter the authors provide ideal for conceptualizing the multifac- a helpful list of titles for further readings eted ways that spatial relations and social on the topic. relations mutually constitute one anoth- Three chapters in particular stand out. er. Furthermore, when synthesized with Chapter 3, on labour regimes, focuses the other three perspectives, it enables on the critical question of how distinct

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workforces are produced and reproduced practices and institutions, especially if through a range of overlapping social in- they are new to the field of labour studies. stitutions and processes, including state Second, a failure to explicitly theorize laws and regulations, social norms and capitalism obfuscates how power oper- values, the household, and both formal ates within modern society. Although and informal labour organizations and their identification of the multiple forms networks. Including such an analysis is power can take (direct, indirect, and particularly pertinent given the degree to symbolic) invites readers to consider the which it is conspicuously absent in much more insidious ways it is operationalized, of the literature on the global economy. in each case the focus is on the ability of Chapter 4 provides an illuminative ex- individuals or groups of individuals to amination of global production networks shape the context in which they and oth- that combine the outsourcing of produc- ers interact. Capital itself, however, is an tive functions, emerging international impersonal, alienated power that condi- divisions of labour, and complex regimes tions and constrains the actions of all in- of global corporate governance. Finally, dividuals and institutions in our society. Chapter 6 analyses work in the infor- Even those who seemingly possess the mal economy. The efficacy of employing greatest amount of autonomy and power an interdisciplinary framework is made over others are subject to its logic and manifest here, as it enables the authors dictates insofar as their power derives to move beyond commonplace problem- from their position within it. atic generalizations to note the signifi- Despite this shortcoming, the book is cant heterogeneity that exists within this a remarkable accomplishment. Not only sector. are the authors able to cover numerous Notwithstanding its relative expan- topics central to the field in a relatively siveness, there is one distinct lacuna with- small amount of space without succumb- in the author’s framework, namely, an ing to superficiality, they do so in a lively explicit theorization of capitalism itself. and engaging way. Perhaps most signifi- This leads to a number of notable omis- cantly, the book provides readers with the sions and has the potential to result in necessary analytical and methodologi- unintended but nevertheless problematic cal tools to enter into and further their consequences. Two stand out. First, it can knowledge of and work in the field global potentially obscure the fact that defining labour studies. For these and many more features of modern labour processes and reasons, it a highly recommendable for practices are historically unique to capi- students new to the field. talism. For example, although noted in a Christopher Mastrocola number of instance, there is no sustained McMaster University discussion of the fact that it is workers’ objective separation from the means of production which compels them to seek Verity Burgmann, Globalization and employment within the market or of the Labour in the Twenty-First Century simple but immensely important fact that (London and New York: Routledge waged-labour within capitalism is always 2016) first and foremost a process oriented to- wards producing profit (abstract wealth) Verity Burgmann’s powerful and rather than meeting human needs. At the deeply informed book is based on the as- extreme, such omissions could potential- sumptions that globalization is a neolib- ly lead readers to reify existing relations, eral political project – rather than an act

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of nature or naturalized economics – that personal on-the-ground engagement and poses significant challenges for work- collaboration. ers and unions, as well as all vulnerable The global reorganization of produc- people. tion, according to Beverly Silver, weakens Because globalization is the result of labour in the countries and places of ori- agency, agency is also central to the re- gin but can well strengthen it in sites of sponses of workers and labour unions. expansion. (81) Supporting evidence can Theoretically she adopts an agential his- be found in China and India, the major torical materialist approach, informed by sites of expansion. But even with respect the works of J.-P. Sartre, E.P. Thompson, to sweatshop production, which cannot and Antonio Negri, and hopes that this be easily disrupted by shutting down key book will “contribute to the body of nodes, workers and unions have found knowledge that points to vital signs of la- creative ways to challenge capital with bour movement life, whether traditional the collaboration of the broader civil or novel in method; and to offer an un- society. derstanding of how and why new ways The power of globalized capital is of confronting capital have emerged.” evident in its mobility and this requires (29) To accomplish that goal “each of the transnational forms of organization … eight chapters takes as is focus one of and attitude. The increasing influence these characteristics of corporate global- of unions from the Global South has ization that have proven problematic for provided a corrective to the historical- the workers of the world.” (29) ly northern unionism of international The displacement of the Fordist or- union organizations. Are these changes ganization of work, particularly in in transnational regional and global manufacturing, has weakened the asso- unionism profound enough to challenge ciated hegemonic forms of unions. Yet, neoliberal globalization? According the new forms of work organization are to the author there are hopeful signs themselves vulnerable to worker action at the European level, particularly the if workers and unions act strategically. European Works Councils, while global Lean production is vulnerable to stra- union organizations have become more tegic ruptures of the value chain while active. Yet, it is not clear whether the dispersed work units, such as in fast food, “transnational class-in-itself” is becom- can be brought together through inno- ing a class-for-itself and whether that can vative strategies that transcend any one take place via organizational arrange- workplace. ments and without political contestation. Globalization has been shaped and Over their history, unions have dealt has shaped by new forms of communica- with new constituencies of workers – mi- tion. Some unions and activist networks grants, women, people of colour, and so recognized the value of electronic com- on. In the contemporary world capital munications early on. Yet, it is not clear benefits from open borders while work- that new forms of communication tran- ers face significant obstacles, allowing scend the historical focus of unions on capital to pit practically enslaved immi- individual countries. In fact, some ana- grants against local workers who, often, lysts and activists have recognized that contribute to this strategy by their own electronic communications can make narrow vision. The emergence of identity organizing harder, particularly when politics – particularly the emphasis on such initiatives depend on platforms recognition as a substitute rather than controlled by capital and do not involve integral part of redistribution – has made

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collaboration across social movements their political limits, if temporarily, un- more challenging. Yet, there is evidence der pressure from more radical labour of unions responding creatively and pro- forces. actively to include hitherto marginalized Burgmann closes by pointing out that workers – often immigrant women. “workers with or without established la- Such political innovations are all the bour organizations, have acted imagina- more necessary given the rise of precar- tively and ingeniously to improve their ity as an integral part of the organization circumstances in the face of globaliza- of labour. Precarious labour is not simply tion, suggesting resistance is both point- waiting in the shadows to break strikes ed and productive.” (237) This is evident and replace organized workers. Rather, across the eight challenges that she has various categories of workers work side by discussed drawing upon a wide swath of side. In the absence of collaboration be- information on the world’s labour. Each tween them, permanent workers oppress chapter, and the book as a whole, are in- temporary workers and temporary work- spirations for more research. The book ers replace permanent workers – both will be of great use to those who have serving the interests of capital. While been studying particular aspects of glob- there are instances of workers seeking to al labour and want informed accounts of find common ground, permanent work- other areas as well as to those starting out ers and their unions can and should do a serious study of global labour politics. I more. The most promising cases, howev- close by pointing to three main agendas er, may be instances of worker run com- of research and practice. panies that do away with capitalists at the First, if one considers the world as the point of production if not at the level of contemporary arena of labour struggles the whole economy. then labour decomposition is char- Workers and unions have also been acteristic of some sectors and places, at the forefront of efforts to protect the particularly in the Global North. Even public domain and forestall the prolifera- there, however, there is strong evidence tion of undemocratic marketization. The of recomposition as unions emerge in emergence of “community unionism” new sectors. Moreover, a “large part of that brings together unions, local move- the “world’s workers are still in the ini- ments, and communities is a promising tial stages of class composition.” (237) development. Community unionism al- A world level view of labour provides a lows unions to play a key role in efforts more realistic assessment of the chal- to prevent privatization – whether water lenges and opportunities facing workers. in Bolivia, oil in Iraq, or railways in South This book helps us understand the need Korea. As the author points out “in the to look at the work of labour as a whole, absence of adequate defence of the public escaping the boundaries of the Global realm from traditional left parliamentary North or the models of unionization that parties, unions have led and joined in we are accustomed to. movements to protect public wealth and Second, the author finds instances, public services.” (203) Unions have also such as worker-run companies, where “la- played a role in opposition against the bour’s autonomy from capital also makes rich, resisting structural adjustments be- possible a postcapitalist future.” (241) fore, during, and after the Great Financial This challenges researchers and practi- Recession. The contradictory dynamics tioners to identify such initiatives. What of these struggles are evident in Greece are their characteristics? What differen- where dominant unions ventured beyond tiates an initiative destined to be an event

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from an initiative that reflects a prefigu- The first four chapters of the book are rative, counterhegemonic pattern? largely devoted to a critique of a wide Finally, the author finds hope in the range of approaches in development, in- fact that “new highly developed forms of cluding liberal and progressive perspec- concerted labour transnationalism have tives, as well as a demonstration that been established in the past two decades much of what has been tried in the 20th to confront capital mobility.” (239) A full- century and beyond has failed to deliver er understanding of the depth, breadth, the promised poverty alleviation and and impacts of cross-border interactions general human development. Amongst and practices remains a key challenge for the reasons brought forward to explain all those, including this reviewer, who this are that these theories were largely hope that labour and other emancipa- centred on capital accumulation, with tory forces will rise to the challenge of policies designed by an elite which tend- global capitalism and offer an alternative ed to disregard the input of workers and vision (Dimitris Stevis, “International subsume their needs to that of capital. Labor Organizations, 1864-1997: The Within a capitalist framework and with Weight of History and the Challenges of or without important state involvement, the Present,” Journal of World-Systems this generated exploitative relations that Research, 4 [1998]). What are those prac- failed to provide development for the ma- tices and initiatives that reproduce in- jority, even when the goals of capital ac- tersocietalism and what are those forces cumulation were achieved. that herald a global or at least transsoci- These critiques are well-taken. It is etal labour politics? true that much of development theory Dimitris Stevis is obsessed with growth in general, and Colorado State University capital accumulation in particular, and that policymaking elites are given an inordinate place. The point is especially Benjamin Selwyn, The Struggle for useful when theories typically seen as Development (Cambridge: Polity 2017) progressive are analysed, such as some variants of modernization Marxism or Benjamin Selwyn has two stated aims the developmental state. It is certainly in The Struggle for Development: (1) also true that the developmental results theorize development from a bottom-up have been dismal for the mass of people, perspective and (2) demonstrate that col- despite some claims to the contrary, and lective action by the masses can generate that even when there has been some eco- development. The author aims to achieve nomic growth, it has tended to occur on this through the elaboration of a labour- the backs of the very people it was sup- centered theory of development, which posed to help. Globalization has been is a direct response to the dominant good for capital but much less for work- paradigms in economic development, all ers, by virtue of the capitalist logic that deemed to be capital-centric. Overall, the was driving it. book has several interesting elements and However, beyond the point about the it is hard to disagree with much of the ar- problems associated with a focus on gument, but its main fault is that it stays capital accumulation and a disenfran- at a relatively basic level, leaving the read- chisement of workers in decision-making er with the impression that while there is processes, there is little novelty here and potential in labour-centred development, the overall analysis remains relatively ba- most of it remains to be worked out. sic. For example, in Chapter 2, the author

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provides a simple class analytical frame- takeover of the state by workers. The au- work of the functioning of capitalism thor quickly makes the important point from a Marxist standpoint, with some that any such transition will have to work elements of intersectionality thrown in, within the confines of the existing con- none of which will be new to readers used text, including capitalist relations and to a critical perspective on development. institutions, as well as a potential de- The exposition is pedagogical and some pendency on trade with other countries chapters could be useful in the class- whose governments may not be especial- room, but otherwise the pace is very slow ly friendly. Still, there are possibilities for and the first four chapters could easily improvement. have been condensed in less than half of The proposals to this end are wide- the hundred pages they occupy, to leave ranging and many interesting ideas are more space to what constitutes the origi- put forth. While Selwyn could certainly nal contribution of the book: the theory have provided a more extensive justifica- of labour-led development. tion for some of the policies and practices Chapter 5 provides the contours he selects – why use a participatory plan- of such a theory … in six pages or so, ning structure from Marta Harnecker with the rest of the chapter devoted to and not, say, from Michael Albert and the recounting of various examples. Robin Hahnel, for example? – he does Predictably, the author cannot go in provide interesting guiding principles. much depth with respect to the theory Examples include designing policies to in so few pages and as a result, the ex- atrophy capitalist relations and favour amples are thrown in as a hodgepodge of labour-led social production, socializing illustrations without much of a guiding means of production, and giving much analytical thread. Taken from different importance to the identification and sat- continents, the stories deal with workers isfaction of communal needs and pur- taking their destiny in their own hands, poses. The list of proposals don’t really of self-management, of collective action constitute a template or a roadmap, but by the underclass. They are certainly that’s probably a good thing. If elites are stirring and show how good things can to step aside and workers take over the happen when workers have agency, but it lead, they should certainly be the ones to would have been useful to submit these determine what to do and how to do it. situation to a thorough analysis. For ex- Two things are lacking, however. First, ample, does it matter which groups of while Selwyn does a good job of putting people – blue collar workers, small scale forth interesting proposals, he does not farmers, the unemployed, etc. – unite really work out their implications, and in and struggle together? What are the im- particular the ways in which they would portant constraints and possibilities in interact, reinforce or negate each other. their actions? In this vein, it would per- He also does not really lay out what the haps have been useful to analyse failures actual constraints from existing capi- as well as successes. talist institutions would be, how capital After going through these examples, could be actually be reined in, and how Selwyn takes up the task in Chapter 6 of do deal with capitalist resistance at home describing what labour-led development and abroad. He describes an imagined could look like if its principles were ap- utopia where the transformation can take plied to an entire country. Part of that place peacefully, but this is unlikely to chapter is, in fact, the description of some happen in practice, to say the least. transitional policies after an imagined

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Secondly, an analysis of actual at- constraints that any attempt to move tempts at reshaping whole societies is away from capitalism face. This would missing. Selwyn does talk briefly about have been a great contribution, one that the Russian revolution, which he says would probably have forced a more care- is the only instance of workers actually ful and extensive theorizing, and one taking power, but leaves it at that. For which could have provided readers with one thing, this is a claim that should be some important keys to understand the substantiated, less through an analysis dynamics of social change and move the of the Russian revolution itself, some- horizon of the possible. thing which has already been done ex- Overall, the book is a good read and tensively, than through a study of other makes some important points about the attempts to transform a society in the limitations of existing theoretical para- 20th and 21st century. Interesting case digms and developmental strategies. studies include Nicaragua in the 1980s, However, the pace is slow, the analysis contemporary Bolivia and Venezuela, or tends to remain broad and basic, and the even Israeli Kibbutz and the Mondragon possibilities of the labour-led framework co-operative if we decrease the scale. are underexploited. Still, a labour-led For sure, these cases are problematic on perspective on development has potential several accounts. Nonetheless, a system- and one hopes that theory laid out in the atic study using a labour-led develop- book will be developed and applied fur- ment framework could illustrate some of ther in future work. their failings as well as successes, and it Mathieu Dufour could delineate more precisely the real Université du Québec en Outaouais

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