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Ben Swankey, What’s New: Memoirs of the need for more exploration of conse- a Socialist Idealist (Victoria, bc: Trafford quences. Swankey is a great advocate of Publishing 2008) left-wing unity, and speaks with pride of his success, as Alberta Young Com- Ben Swankey is a charter member of munist League leader in the mid-1930s, that heroic generation that built the in forging a united front with the social Communist Party of Canada, sustained democratic Cooperative Commonwealth it through the grueling days of the Great Federation Youth Movement. But while Depression, stuck with it on the roller- Swankey mentions that the ccym was coaster of World War II, and persisted “the junior section of the United Farm- through the even more desperate Cold ers of Alberta,” (85) and that the rcmp’s War era. Swankey and other devoted violent suppression of the 1932 Hunger members then watched, with greater or March came “on the authority of the ufa lesser cognizance of what was happening government,” (59) he doesn’t tease this and why, the daring project turn to dust out to speak to the larger question of the and virtually disappear by the 1990s. Communist Party’s “Third Period” politi- Swankey joined the party (via the cal strategy. Too often it is the commu- Young Communist League) in 1932 and, nists who are condemned for sectarian despite occasional doubts about its spe- prejudice against socialist democrats in cific policies, remained in it for the next the years 1928 to 1935. Swankey himself 59 years, rising to the position of Alberta implicitly supports this argument. But he leader of the party. Not until April 1991, might well have asked why communists as the Soviet Union hurtled to its demise, should have been favourably disposed to did Swankey leave the party. Before join- social democrats, when, in situations like ing and after leaving the cp, however, the Hunger March, it was social demo- Swankey did not turn his back on politics. cratic party orders that unleashed repres- What’s New is Swankey’s memoir about sive police violence on starving workers three quarters of a century of activism, and farmers. based on a constant democratic socialist Another significant section in What’s perspective. New deals with the critical years 1939 This is a memoir far stronger in its to 1941, when the Communist Party depiction of actions than in its reflec- faced the immense challenge of how to tion on the significance of them. Swan- respond to World War II. From Swan- key is at his best when he recounts the key’s perspective, the party failed left details of the great organizing efforts of and right. The party’s stand that the war his youth. Among the first of these was was imperialist and must be opposed – a the 12,000-strong Hunger March in policy adopted, Swankey argues, out of Edmonton on December 20, 1932, which unquestioning acceptance of the out- the Royal Canadian Mounted Police look of Joseph Stalin, the ussr, and the suppressed with sadistic abandon. But Communist International – “was a seri- his description of that event illustrates ous mistake, perhaps the most serious in

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its history. … The war had an anti-fascist correct line in the years 1939 to 1941. character right from the start.” (87) Moreover, with considerable foresight, This could have been an opportunity to the Communist International had also take on a thorough review of the cp line in anticipated the German invasion of the that critical historical moment. One ele- ussr, advising communists worldwide ment of it would be to recognize that in the that if there were “a counter-revolution- midst of such a crisis flexible tactics were ary attack on the Soviet Union,” it was the essential. The international bourgeoisie duty of all progressives “to do everything recognized this and acted on it. What else possible for the defeat of the imperialist explains the complete reversal in policy and fascist forces.” that occurred when Winston Churchill In effect, what is commonly referred to replaced Neville Chamberlain as British as World War II was not one war at all, prime minister in May 1940? And why, but a series of wars with different charac- in June 1941, as Nazi Germany attacked teristics at different moments. For coun- the ussr, the fiercely anti-communist tries like Canada, during the 8-month Churchill embraced the Soviet Union period of the Phony War, for instance, it as an ally? An international communist was not an anti-fascist war at all, but a movement that did not similarly adjust war by the bourgeoisie against domestic its tactics to keep abreast of new develop- leftists, civil liberties, and workers’ rights. ments would be doomed to oblivion. But in 1941, the bourgeoisie’s own stand In any case, before World War II com- on the war changed. The communists’ munists in Canada and abroad did in fact tactics had to be based on actual condi- foresee the need for tactical shifts based tions at any one moment in that complex, on political principle. On February 1, shifting situation. 1941 the Ottawa Clarion – just a mimeo- Perhaps the most significant aspect of graphed newsletter struggling to survive Swankey’s criticism of his own party’s in a period when the party was illegal – stand on the war is the extent to which it laid out a strategic war vision under the reveals that even middle-level leaders of headline, “Communists and the War.” the party were not acquainted with or did After 17 months of war, the paper wrote, not understand the line of the party and its character in Canada was clear. Civil the international communist movement. liberties had been suppressed, national Several factors might account for this. registration and conscription legislation One that comes immediately to mind is passed. “War profiteers are having a field that when the party was outlawed and day. … The rich grow richer, the poor key militants were arrested the result was grow poorer.” The Communist Party, disruption in communications from lead- it added, had anticipated this, and at its ers to the scattered sections of the coun- Eighth Dominion Convention in 1937 it try. Obviously there are other plausible had urged Canadians to fight for peace. explanations that ought to be explored in However, the cpc had declared in 1937, memoirs such as this. “should imperialist war none the less Finally, this volume would have been break out despite the struggle for peace,” stronger had Swankey supplemented his communists would follow the plan of the memory and notes by using objective his- Communist International, which called torical records. Most important would be on progressive people “to work for [the the addition of Royal Canadian Mounted war’s] speedy termination” and use the Police records that he could have obtained opportunity to “hasten the downfall of through the Access to Information and capitalist class domination.” Hence the Privacy Act.

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I have to admit that my experience “ever” short-changes future historians. with Access Act requests for that genera- Indeed, there are certain inexplicable tion of communists is mixed. Invariably, gaps in Renegades that historians might the Canadian Security Intelligence Ser- wish to explore to write a more com- vice – with its determined effort to erase plete history. For example, to paraphrase the historical record – rips out almost all Frank Scott’s famous question to E.J. useful evidence from the rcmp records it Pratt about his poem on the construction vets. But occasionally some details sur- of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, “Where vive, and they can be fascinating and his- are the women?” torically highly useful. Raising these caveats is not to say that This brings me to my pitch for civic Petrou’s Renegades isn’t good. It IS good activism by historians. Every historian in – ironically – because it’s the very type of Canada should be in an adopt-an-activist history that Professor Granatstein dispar- program. Seek out a politically engaged ages – social history. With the able assis- person of a certain age who would have tance of archivist and historian Myron a record with government departments. Momryk – whose immense labor Petrou Sit down with the person and identify gratefully acknowledges – Petrou has put every possible department that might together a comprehensive factual data- hold records on the person and make a base chronicling the personal details of request for his or her files. Don’t be dis- the almost 1700 Canadians who went to couraged by the egregiously censored Spain in the late 1930s to fight fascism. results. Appeal to the Information Com- In addition to recognizing Momryk, missioner. Eventually we will gain the Petrou might have inscribed a thankful opportunity to construct a court case word for the long-dead faceless function- and challenge the ignoramuses who gut aries of the Communist International our historical record using that spurious (Comintern). It was they, after all, who rationale known as national security. assembled and preserved the exceed- Larry Hannant ingly important record of international University of Victoria leftist history that is found in the politi- and Camosun College cal assessments of the tens of thousands of anti-fascists who joined the fight for democracy in Spain in 1936–9. With the Michael Petrou, Renegades: Canadians collapse of the Soviet Union, these Com- in the Spanish Civil War (Vancouver and intern records have now become public. Toronto: University of British Columbia Petrou has brought together this data, Press 2008) sorted out a host of problems fundamen- tal to its very nature (just one of which The eminent Canadian historian Jack was the many pseudonyms people used) Granatstein has been recruited to pen a and drawn an informative portrait of the cover blurb for this book and has writ- volunteers from Canada who made up ten: “Based on massive research, this is the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion, the the best and most complete account of Canadian contingent of the International Canadians in the Spanish Civil War we Brigades. are ever likely to get.” Petrou sums up the features of this Research alone, of course, cannot guar- group in a single word: renegades. They antee that a book will be the definitive were renegades several times over. In the work on a subject. And the notion that midst of a Depression that made many of any history is the most complete account them obsolete as workers and seemingly

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irrelevant as humans, they forged their Canadians. Almost 80 per cent of them way to the front lines of the Spanish con- were immigrants, often refugees from flict to declare themselves to be historical authoritarian regimes in Europe. Petrou actors. They refused to be mute victims argues that for some of the immigrants, and to accept that Spain would be one. Spain was round two in an on-going bat- In this regard they were mavericks too. tle against fascism. (48) Western governments were prepared – In addition to the detailed social indeed happy, some have cogently argued portrait of the mass of the volunteers, – to hand over Spain to fascism. another element that stands out in Ren- Petrou’s database on the volunteers egades is Petrou’s journalistic approach. also shows that the Canadian volunteers Petrou left journalism to pursue a PhD at were, in the words of one of their political the University of Oxford, and Renegades commissars, “very, very working class.” is his revised dissertation. After complet- (25) This distinguished them from us ing his PhD, Petrou returned to journal- recruits, whom one Canadian dismissed ism. This background gives Petrou an as New York City “ice cream boys” who eye for memorable detail. He describes, “would starve to death in a grocery store.” for instance, the response of one Cana- (17) Having survived in tough, dangerous dian to a political commissar’s question jobs as loggers and miners, the Canadians of whether or not he liked his coffee: “It were also indomitable fighters. depends … If I’m politically developed, Another significant fact about them comrade commandante, the coffee is very was that three quarters were members good. But if I am not politically devel- of the Communist Party of Canada. (24) oped, it tastes like horse piss.” (136) This should not be surprising. What is But Petrou’s journalistic approach has startling is the fact that despite their its weaknesses, too, one of them being solid working-class background and clear occasional failure to provide adequate party affiliation they were regarded as background. The context of the Spanish political renegades by international com- Civil War explains some arrangements munist leaders. The Canadian Mac-Paps that Petrou regards as iniquitous. He asks, were thought to harbour anarchistic for instance, why “trusted members of tendencies and exhibit ideological weak- the Communist Party were more likely to ness. Apparently, years of living on the be given command positions than those bum and resisting military authority in who were not.” (65) This prevailed in all of the 20-cent-a-day labour camps gave the the International Brigades. Given the ori- Canadians in Spain a disrespect for any gin of the war – a rebellion by reaction- authority, even that of the Communist ary military officers against the elected Party. (42) And a disproportionately large republican government – and the char- number of volunteers came from British acteristics of the volunteer armies that Columbia, where the anarcho-syndicalist saved the Republic – untried, untrained, Industrial Workers of the World exerted Spanish and foreign volunteers – how an influence into the 1930s. In addition else were commanders to be chosen? In they had a “rank-and-file consciousness” that crisis atmosphere, is it any wonder that made them desire to be “one of the that the communists, the backbone of the boys.” (110) Taking and giving orders was new armed forces, turned to their own not a task they accepted easily. members to be leaders? The concept of the Another feature of the volunteers was political commissar as a quasi-officer had that they were mostly not native-born its roots in the Soviet Red Army. But it

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also made practical sense in a newly con- fifth columnists, spies, and saboteurs. structed army composed of raw recruits Popular culture – see, for instance, the and in which officers were either totally Alfred Hitchcock films from 1935 to 1941 absent or politically suspect. – reflected a similar agitation. Another case where greater contex- Republican Spain had good reason to tual foundation is required is the chapter scrutinize foreigners like Krehm. Con- dealing with William Krehm, one of three sider the fact that some 40,000 people individuals whom Petrou examines in from over 70 countries joined the Inter- detail. In 1936, Krehm was a supporter of national Brigades. Most were screened a tiny Toronto Trotsky-influenced splin- by their home communist parties, but ter group. In September, after attending a police agents certainly did enlist. The conference of leftists in Brussels, he made rcmp, for instance, had an agent ready to his way to Barcelona to assist the Span- board a ship for Spain. (55–6) Also flood- ish fight against fascism. He remained ing into the Republic was an uncounted in Barcelona for most of the next eight host of curious, sometimes sympathetic, months before being arrested by the sometimes just plain adventuristic jour- Servicio de Investigación Militar (sim), nalists, commentators, and political voy- the Republic’s communist-dominated eurs. For people of various political and security police, and held in a Republican sexual temperaments in 1936, Spain was prison for three months. Through the the place to be. intercession of the British and Canadian One of them was William Krehm. For governments, Krehm was released from eight months, as the Spanish Republic jail and expelled from Spain. His ordeal tottered on the edge of collapse under a confirmed Krehm’s fear of “the threat murderous assault by both Franco’s army that communism posed in Spain.” (149) and the militaries of Germany and Italy, Petrou’s sympathetic treatment of Krehm Krehm waged his own campaign of inter- might be seen as providing ammunition national solidarity with the embattled to those who claim that Stalinist perfidy republic. In the cafés of Barcelona he destroyed the Spanish Republic. held his ground, arguing with Spanish It’s true that the republican govern- comrades and trying to “show them the ment was convinced that the area of proper line.” (150) British journalist Vir- Spain it controlled was riddled with “fifth ginia Cowles described a similar scene in columnists.” The phrase itself originates Valencia in March 1937, observing that in the fascist General Mola’s claim that “the squares of Valencia were filled with he would take Madrid through the use of young men of military age who seemed to agents inside the city. Although the boast have nothing better to do than stand in was exaggerated, there were in fact fas- the sunshine picking their teeth.” (Look- cist supporters and agents in the Repub- ing for Trouble, 1941, 7) In May 1937, lic. No less important, it was not just the when actual fighting broke out in Barce- Republic that was preoccupied by uncer- lona – between communists and the anti- tainty about whom to trust. Reports from communists whom Krehm supported fascist-controlled parts of Spain indicate – Krehm was arrested. Perhaps the truly that paranoia about security was a fixa- remarkable thing about Krehm’s arrest tion there too. And the same obsession by the sim, his imprisonment (in a prison prevailed in a good part of the Western with plywood walls) and his expulsion world in the 1930s. Authorities in many from Spain was that it did not occur many countries were overwrought by fears of months earlier.

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Petrou forges new ground by devoting the sensationalistic 2007 trial of con- a chapter to the crimes committed by victed sex offender Peter Whitmore, this the Canadian volunteers and the pun- is a timely academic study because histo- ishments meted out to them. Comint- rian Elise Chenier asks some trenchant, ern records show that about 150 of them carefully framed questions about cur- ended up in some kind of trouble with rent sex offender legislation including the authorities, for both military offenses utility of the current laws; the difficulties such as incitement to mutiny and deser- and costs of obtaining treatment while tion and for offences off the battlefield incarcerated; and the efficacy of those such as drunken escapades and rape. treatment models. Furthermore, she his- (136–7) Given the desperate conditions toricizes the competing interests of the in Spain (one Canadian volunteer had no state, the psychiatric profession, prison shoes for most of the war) and the com- administrators, and prisoners. Chenier position of the International Brigades, has written a work that seeks to engage this number of recorded misdemeanours public debate about these matters, and was remarkably low. Regular armies in this way it expands the monograph’s devote strict attention to both train- relevance beyond the traditional confines ing and instilling discipline. The typical of the historical profession and the natu- training for Mac-Paps was firing three ral constituency of historians of sexual- bullets into a hillside before being sent ity, medicine, and criminology who will into action. Engendering discipline was, gravitate towards this work. inevitably, just as haphazard. Little won- Unlike other historians of mid-20th der, then, that there were some problems, century sexualities who have opted to which Petrou properly attributes mostly utilize cultural approaches to the topic, to battlefield exhaustion. (121) Ironically, and have tended to focus primarily on the low rate of severe problems presents the constructions of homosexuality, Canadians not as renegades but as disci- Chenier has opted to shift and expand plined loyalists. her focus. This work utilizes a primarily Renegades is certainly the most com- medico-legal methodology to assess the plete work we have on the Canadians popular, medical, and criminal defini- who fought for Spanish democracy. And tions of sexual deviancy. Part One pro- although it is a fine contribution indeed, vides background information about the it is not the final word on the subject. post-war rise of psychiatric and sexology Larry Hannant experts, their theories concerning sex- University of Victoria and ual deviancy (a range of non-normative Camosun College behaviour outside of the bounds of con- ventional adult heterosexuality, including male homosexuality, exhibitionism, and Elise Chenier, Strangers in our Midst: a range of criminal sexual offences), the Sexual Deviancy in Postwar Ontario public reaction to a series of public sex (Toronto: University of Toronto Press panics and sensationalistic crimes, and 2008) the governmental response published in the 1958 Report of the Royal Commission Strangers In Our Midst is an impor- on the Criminal Law Relating to Criminal tant book for it historicizes and evaluates Sexual Psychopaths. the development of legal, psycho-medi- In the theories section, Chenier makes cal, and public reactions to sexual devi- it abundantly evident that the notion ancy. Arriving as it does on the heels of of sexual deviancy was a socially con-

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structed phenomenon and she references inally psychopathic. This development the oft-cited factors of the post-war polit- had two tragic sets of victims: those who ical and cultural climate (the Cold War, were mislabeled as deviant and, equally middle-class family values, and the desire importantly, those women and children for ‘normalcy’) as important contribut- who continued to be at risk from sexual ing factors. Yet, she claims that medical offenders and assaults that occurred and scientific developments (and accom- (most frequently) from within families or panying legal changes) have not received by individuals known to the victims not sufficient credit or historical attention, from the more isolated, yet sensationalis- and her research goal is to address that tic situations that pal literature sought to absence within the literature. For exam- demonize for these crimes. ple, modern concepts of sexology studies While Part One is compelling, it is in (such as the best-selling Kinsey Reports) Part Two, “Practices,” where Chenier offered scientific rationales for varied really hits her stride, evaluating the treat- sexual behaviour and firmly sought to ment options provided by psychiatric remove such discussions from the moral programs in southern Ontario, the classi- and legal realm, viewing them as scien- fications of sexual deviants into medical tific and psychiatric matters. The relative and criminalized categories, the pathol- liberalism of many of the international ogy of prisons and prison sexual culture, and Canadian experts faced a battle from and, again, the role played by the public, two constituencies: mothers and the the press, and the state in constructing state. Here Chenier illustrates how Cana- a particularly narrow notion of criminal dian mothers mobilized in groups such sexual offenders. Carefully researched, as the Parent’s Action League (pal), to and exceedingly well written, these final defend children’s rights and safety from chapters will stimulate debate about the the so-called “predators.” Equally, the system and what, if any, reforms are fea- Canadian state, influenced more by the sible medically, financially, and socially. mothers’ groups and by the courts than In all of this, Chenier is consistent in her by the scientific developments, opted for class and gendered analysis, correctly a narrower, conservative interpretation pointing to the ways that compulsory of sexual danger and sexual offenders. heterosexuality, and indeed misogynis- For example, unlike Britain, where the tic views of male sexual privilege, struc- Wolfenden Report urged the decriminal- tured the language, the programs offered, ization of homosexuality, Canada’s 1958 and the hierarchical system of sexual Royal Commission Report refused to practice in prisons. She adroitly points heed the expert’s advice that homosexual to a consistent flaw in modern sexology acts amongst consenting adults should be in its “inability to connect gender, sexu- removed from the criminal code. Cheni- ality, and violence.” (168) For example, er’s gendered analysis of the Royal Com- government and prison officials were mission findings, and of the government’s exceedingly concerned about the same- response to their recommendations, sex activity within prisons, and of the vividly illustrates how the government inability of offenders to make progress document and successive laws reinforced in adhering to normative modes of sex- the construction of sexual offenders as ual behaviour while imprisoned. What dangerous strangers, men whose failure ensued were seemingly serious but mis- to adopt so-called mature, heterosexual guided deliberations at all levels of the relations resulted in their labeling as psy- prison and justice bureaucracy about the chiatric and, at their most extreme, crim- merits of providing access to women –

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wives, prostitutes, or willing members of An expansion of provincial and federal the community – who might assist in re- focus might very well enlarge such a dis- socializing the men. Archly representa- cussion, one that is of increasing interest tive of gendered and sexual social norms to social, sexual, and cultural historians. of the mid-century, this example from Ultimately, one hopes that both policy 1965 offers insight into the heterosexual, makers and historians pick up this book middle-class, male notions that pre- and engage with Chenier’s conclud- vailed as Chenier recounts that “the fed- ing chapter where she calls for renewed eral commissioner of penitentiaries, A.J. public debate and policy discussions MacLeod, reported that he was allow- about offenders, their treatment (or lack ing seventy-two hour passes for men to thereof), and the legal and social con- return home to visit their wives and fami- structions of such offences. This book lies, and to mow the lawn.” (186) vividly illustrates how policy and social As the proceeding summary and anal- perspectives concerning sexual offenders ysis indicates, Chenier’s contribution to continue to employ mid-century mod- mid-century sexualities’ history is sub- els of deviance that have not served us stantial. This book successfully combines well. Finally, the failure to find scientific, the medical, legal, and social history medical, or penal solutions to such mat- approaches that regretfully so often run ters, despite all the political bluster about on parallel historiographical tracks. Sim- getting tough on crime, continues, ironi- ilarly, with its exhaustive primary source cally, to put Canadian women and chil- base, theoretical sophistication, and dren at risk. careful parsing of the politics and history Valerie J. Korinek of sexual deviancy, this is a work that will University of Saskatchewan command attention. It is a timely evalu- ation of how the Canadian legal system got itself into the corner of dangerous Gerald Hunt & David Rayside, eds., sexual offender laws, and an indictment Equity, Diversity, and Canadian Labour of the failures of the collective will to (Toronto: University of Toronto Press adequately fund treatment options for the 2007) incarcerated and of a prison administra- tion system that often operates contrary This past Labour Day the annual fes- to legislated goals for offenders. Finally, it tivities in Saskatoon sought to highlight raises some long-standing feminist con- the ongoing differential in pay between cerns about the social and historical con- female and male workers. The traditional struction of sexual offenders as deviant, speeches were given and press releases dangerous strangers as opposed to the were issued but this year organizers uti- realities of inter-familial sexual violence. lized a bit of activist theatre and gave One hopes that other historians will fol- all attendees a cookie. Men received an low Chenier’s lead, and enlarge the frame entire cookie but women merely received of analysis offered here, to assess treat- seventy percent of a cookie, graphically ment options, laws, and public opinion in representing women’s lower wages and other provinces. their diminished purchasing power. At a While one applauds the attention to time when food and energy costs are ris- gender and class matters, this work is ing dramatically, this message of basic largely silent about race and there is lit- injustice resonated with participants. tle discussion of race-based notions of Quoted in the local paper, organizers said appropriate sexual norms and deviancy. their goals were twofold, to publicize this

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ongoing wage discrepancy and, naturally, conclusion that we’ve come a consider- to provide some stimulus to change. Well, able distance from the darker days of the one hates to offer a grim dose of reality, immediate post-war years, and certainly but if those organizers avail themselves of from the beginning of the 20th century, the new book on this topic, Equity, Diver- many readers will despair that none of sity and Canadian Labour, they won’t be unions, workers, employers nor various so optimistic about achieving their goals levels of the Canadian government have anytime soon, nor about any hard and made significant progress at addressing fast link between educational campaigns these systemic concerns. If there is a flaw to raise awareness about inequities in the with the work it is the tendency to rely workplace and tangible policies to ame- on top-down appraisals of union policies liorate them. and documents, collective agreements, In this volume, editors Gerald Hunt and bargaining processes. From these and David Rayside have compiled an essays, we might more properly conclude impressive collection of scholars (Julie that unions and their leadership aspire to White, Anne Forrest, Judy Haiven, Karen transform themselves into more equita- Bentham, Hunt and Jonathon Eaton, ble and diverse organizations and seem- Rayside and Fraser Valentine, Tania Das ingly believe strongly in those goals for Gupta, and Linda Briskin) whose concise the Canadian labour force. However, they articles focus specifically upon employ- face tremendous challenges in translat- ment equity pertaining to wages, gen- ing these ideals into practice. der, disability, sexual orientation, and Two of the most compelling articles, race within the unionized workforce. All by Judy Haiven and Karen Bentham, essays offer useful, albeit short historical stand out by virtue of their micro-ana- commentaries about each equity group’s lytical, bottom-up assessments of the participation in unions and an evaluation tremendous difficulties of implement- of the trajectory involved in union lead- ing changes, and how, in many cases, ers beginning to champion these causes tensions amongst workers undercut the and workers. While these overviews will larger message of diversity and support strike historians as too slim, the true in the workplace. Haiven’s article, appro- strength of this volume lies in the con- priately entitled “Union Response to Pay temporary commentary and analytical Equity: A Cautionary Tale,” offers a blunt material. assessment of how one change agent, Hunt and Rayside are very transparent cupe leader and activist “Tim Reiner”(a about their goals for this volume, intend- pseudonym), found himself marginalized ing the book to offer an updated primer and ultimately blacklisted for champi- for those interested in these issues, to oning pay-equity within his union – the critically assess the blanket notions that Saskatoon Catholic School Board. There unions have made considerable progress the primarily male elementary school in these areas, and to offer suggestions custodians balked at the notion that their for where unions, their executives, and rates of pay should be equitable with the their bargaining committees might go in school administrative support staff, who the future. Clearly envisaged as a useful were almost all female. At stake were the text for students, as well as union admin- male employees’ job status, their familial istrators and, perhaps, some unionized roles as breadwinners, and their notions workers, it enumerates the challenges of workplace culture that prioritized unions face in addressing diversity issues. the hardships of labouring work (often While all of the articles do offer the tacit outside) against the seemingly easier

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work and responsibilities of those who unions have played, since the 1970s, both merely sat inside, at desks, utilizing key- in advocating for gay and lesbian workers, boards, typewriters, and telephones as but also, more generally, in lending their the major tools of their trade. The male institutional support, and leadership, to workers successfully mobilized to defend gay and lesbian activism. This is an aspect their positions, going so far as to divorce of the recent history of modern gay and themselves from the administrative staff, lesbian activism that deserves to be better forming their own union local, and thus known and thus Hunt and Eaton are to be removing themselves from the threat of commended for bringing this to a wider the implementation of pay equity. audience. Having said that, this article, Assessing this outcome years later, entitled “We are family,” rather perfunc- Haiven reported that the administrative torily observes that gay and lesbian union staff were more unified and happy with activists were assisted by strong feminist this arrangement, though they were still and women’s caucuses within the union paid less than their cupe brethren. This movement, contradicting the other arti- finding was supported by the next essay, cles on women’s issues that point to their Karen Bentham’s critical re-evaluation failure to achieve tangible goals. Equally, of the tangible progress (as opposed to it does not comprehensively explain why the policy statements) on the so-called gay and lesbian issues achieved greater women’s and family issues. Ultimately, traction precisely when feminist and Bentham writes, such assessments “call women’s issues seemed to falter. Or what into question Canadian unions’ genuine motivations, other than equity, employ- commitment to bargaining collective ers might have had for supporting those agreement provisions that promote gen- goals. der equity.” Furthermore, she adds, “over- This very thought-provoking volume all the collective bargaining gains of the concludes with two chapters that seek last two decades are unimpressive.” (127) to offer a broader framework for analy- Those familiar with the literature sis, and ultimately, for dialogue. In the on unions and diversity know that the first, David Rayside argues that Canadian majority of published works focus upon unions are more advanced in their sup- race and gender issues. Thus, in branch- port for workplace diversity and equity ing out to summarize recent changes for than is the case in many other countries. disabled, transgendered, and gay, lesbian, This counters the tendency to view recent and bisexual workers, this volume offers gains as meager, rather than to see that readers some innovative and less well the Canadian labour movement is in the known evaluations of ‘diversity’ politics forefront on many matters of diversity within unions. According to Gerald Hunt and equity (in particular, with gay and and Jon Eaton, gays and lesbians have lesbian issues). By contrast, Linda Brisk- been at the forefront of recent workplace in’s forward-looking essay about where gains, but, as they are at pains to illus- the movement needs to go next is less trate, this accrual of workplace victories exuberant than Rayside’s piece, offering is part of a larger framework of support a trenchant critique of the glacial pace of provided by Charter of Rights and Free- changes on many fronts (most notably, on doms decisions, and provincial human gender issues). Still, Briskin is not with- rights extensions. What might not be out optimism for future advocacy, and well known outside a small community in a relatively short article she lays out a of gay activists and/or sexuality histori- persuasive plan of attack for the ways in ans is the significant role that Canadian which union leaders, activists, and mem-

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bers can begin to make change happen in lives and the profession’s reputation. Sec- their own unions. ond, McKenzie Leiper has undertaken In conclusion, this beneficial publica- a highly innovative study, interview- tion bridges historical and contemporary ing 110 women lawyers working across assessments of diversity and equity poli- a range of practice settings throughout cies, broadly construed, to offer students, Ontario. These women were interviewed union activists, and workers a quick over an eight year period (1994–2002); overview of this field. While readers of the majority of them were interviewed this anthology will quickly realize that twice over the span of the project. This female workers will not be munching on sort of qualitative research with a lon- an entire cookie anytime soon, still the gitudinal dimension, and incorporating volume manages to end on a strikingly mixed methods of questionnaires and hopeful note. By concluding with Brisk- time-scheduling measurement is excep- in’s essay, with its blueprint for change, tional. Third, McKenzie Leiper possesses it offers readers – students and activists a refreshing and engaging writing style alike – a blueprint for discussion, and one that seamlessly integrates lawyers’ narra- ultimately hopes, for action. tives within theoretical debate. Valerie J. Korinek McKenzie Leiper begins with a clever University of Saskatchewan play on words – discussing civil and criminal codes as the cornerstones of legal doctrine, codes of conduct for pro- Jean McKenzie Leiper, Bar Codes: fessional standards, dress codes, and Women in the Legal Profession coded meanings embedded in the stal- (Vancouver: ubc Press 2006) wartly masculine culture and traditions of law practice. It is the unwritten codes, Numerous books have explored the or informal norms, that McKenzie Leiper legal profession, including women’s bat- argues are problematic for women. These tles to gain admission to law, the business include expectations about hours at the and corporatization of the profession, office, access to prized files, presence at and the diversification of specializations informal meetings, and unspoken views and sectors within the legal profession. about pregnancy and parental respon- Women’s contemporary representation sibilities. As McKenzie Leiper observes, and impact on the profession of law have “Women who either fail to crack the garnered particular attention in recent codes or choose to ignore them can detailed case studies in Australia, the remain committed members of the bar us, Canada, and Britain. What sets Bar but they are distanced from the powerful Codes apart from other books on lawyers centres of legal practice.” (6) and women in the legal profession more An unusual focus in the book is McK- specifically? enzie Leiper’s extensive analysis of Three elements make this book both dress codes in courtroom appearances. original and worthy of scholarly atten- The detailed interpretation of Portia in tion. First, the subject is an important Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice is one. McKenzie Leiper examines women’s admittedly taxing at times. Yet, McKen- experiences as lawyers, raising challeng- zie Leiper raises interesting issues sur- ing debates over their integration, their rounding the cultivation of professional impact on the culture of professional reputations, legitimacy through dress, norms, and the consequences for aug- and legal robes as “mantles of profession- menting time demands on both lawyers’ alism that help to authenticate women”

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in their courtroom performances. (19) the double burden of career and family Her analysis of women’s responses to the responsibilities. She documents tempo- robes explores elitism, professional iden- numbing daily routines and diverse tity formation, and empowerment ver- career paths of women lawyers through sus disenfranchisement from symbolic rich qualitative data and the display of authority. actual time calendars and career charts Women’s experiences in law school are among a sub-sample of lawyers. McK- first examined historically through the enzie Leiper’s repeated interviews and entry of early Canadian women lawyers subsequent follow-ups allow the reader to legal training. McKenzie Leiper offers to see the unfolding of careers rarely a Bourdieusian approach to cultural and documented in studies of the profession. social capitals in law practice and legal That said, nearly ten percent of McKenzie curriculum. She does not shy away from Leiper’s sample had left the profession by unresolved debates on women’s styles of the end of the study and their motives for practice, their purported commitment leaving and destinations remain largely to an “ethic of care,” and contemporary elusive. feminist critiques of law school culture The book is not without limitations. and pedagogy. She forays into barriers McKenzie Leiper herself acknowledges of social class, race, sexual orientation, the cursory attention to issues of race and and physical disabilities among law stu- ethnicity. There are occasional theoretical dents and lawyers and boldly asserts her loose ends, including passing references distaste for inequities persistent in con- to Foucault’s disciplinary practices and tinuous escalation of tuition fees and the Goffman’s theories of dress in chapter 2. intertwined impact of career paths privi- The sampling method initially employed leged by ‘elite’ law schools. a non-probability sampling scheme that Time is another pervasive theme of evolved to a second data tier using a ran- Bar Codes. McKenzie Leiper undertakes dom stratified sample. The data are per- quantitative analyses of indices of time haps less representative than presumed; crunch, comparing data from her lawyer yet the insight afforded through in-depth surveys with Statistics Canada data on and longitudinal interviewing is substan- employed Canadian women. Dovetailing tial. Despite a convincing rationale for a the potential monotony of numeric data sample comprised exclusively of women, are lawyers’ own accounts of stress asso- one wonders to what extent men also ciated with highly regimented time com- “learn to be docile and to submit to the mitments, further emphasizing themes rigours of transformation in law school of time famine, role overload, and harried [and] in legal practice.” (28) Furthermore, lives deprived of personal time and sleep. without gender comparisons, is it safe to Her analysis of temporal conflicts in assume the traditional ‘masculine’ linear the lives of women lawyers leads McKen- career model has not diversified and that zie Leiper to conclude that women law- most male lawyers remain single-earners yers’ time is “splintered and cross-hatched with a spouse at home to manage the ‘per- with the competing temporal obligations sonal’ realm? To the extent that these pat- that mark their daily routines.” (111) Her terns endure, McKenzie Leiper’s research analysis underscores the “punishing time findings are all the more unsettling. norms” (128) established by large law Central to Bar Codes is the question: firms and infused throughout the pro- “Have the expectations for performance fession, and pervading expectations that been modified over the past thirty years compel women to precariously balance as women have advanced in the system

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or charted new approaches to the man- Richard Allen, The View from Murney agement of time, professional work, and Tower: Salem Bland, the Late Victorian family life?” (177–8) McKenzie Leiper’s Controversies, and the Search for a New response is a tentative yes. Through Christianity, Book One. Salem Bland: their presence and agitation for change, A Canadian Odyssey (Toronto: University women have “raised alarm bells” regard- of Toronto Press 2008) ing gender inequities and prejudice in law practice and provoked reports, poli- Richard Allen’s latest addition to the cies and responses by law societies and fields of religious and intellectual history, bar associations. (178) McKenzie Leiper The View from Murney Tower, provides a offers tenacious optimism, uncovering detailed account of the early life of Salem stories of women who have carved their Bland, a giant in 19th century Canadian own rewarding, if not always conven- Methodism. At first glance, the book is a tional, career paths, who have achieved biography. Yet, at heart, the work chron- fulfilling lives, and choreographed intri- icles the intellectual shifts of a crucial cate timetables despite the sometimes era for the Christian church, and for the chaotic rhythm of children’s needs and nation itself. Bland both influenced and greedy institutions. I was perhaps less was affected by the religious and scien- convinced by her claim that women law- tific thought of the day, and the struc- yers have participated in a profound tidal ture of the book certainly reflects this process of social change. Yet, McKenzie dichotomy. Leiper concludes with acknowledgement Overall, Allen follows a typical chron- of accomplished pioneering women law- ological narrative style. The book’s early yers and their impact on all levels of the chapters are mainly devoted to Bland’s justice system, offering inspiration for father, Henry Flesher Bland, who was future generations of women lawyers. also a well-known Methodist preacher. Bar Codes will provoke debate and By the fourth chapter, the focus turns to discussion among scholars of law and Bland himself. The remainder of the book society, as well as among leaders in chronicles his early career and the abun- law societies, bar associations, and the dance of intellectual influences under country’s law schools, and possibly even which his work and personal faith devel- kindle discussion of progressive reform oped. Thus, the book’s main focus falls in the boardrooms of law firms. Women on the years between 1886 and the end of contemplating careers in law and those the Boer War. At just under four hundred strategizing about how best to manage pages, it almost goes without saying that professional lives and personal goals will Allen’s writing is impressive in its depth find this book a touchstone of insight, and detail. cautionary tales, and inspiration. One of the book’s greatest assets is Fiona Kay its careful account of the shifting scien- Queen’s University tific and theological thought of the time. Bland was establishing his career and personal philosophies at the height of one of the most turbulent times in Western thought. He was well-read, theologically open, and maintained good notes; thus, Allen is able to make frequent forays into the intellectual currents of the day. With meticulous attention to philosophical

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details, Allen guides us through those must be sought in the endnotes, not the currents, always with an eye to Bland text itself. The long gestation of this work himself and how these trends affected no doubt contributed to the author’s ease him. The View from Murney Tower, as with the material; it has undoubtedly Allen intended, is truly an intellectual improved the quality of his story-telling. biography. In other words, while those However, from the point of view of the who seek the details of Bland’s everyday reader, a more elaborate in-text discus- life may be disappointed (or, at least, frus- sion of sources might be useful. trated by the effort required to find such As an intellectual biography, the book details amid the philosophy and theol- is highly successful. However, the result ogy), anyone eager for a lengthy discus- of such heavy emphasis on historical sion of late 19th century thought will be thought over the course of a lengthy nar- satisfied. rative is a book that verges, at times, on Those with even a passing knowledge of inaccessibility. Chapter fourteen, for Bland may associate him with the social example, provides a detailed observation gospel and labour movements of the day. of the shifting theological winds affecting Through Bland, Allen shows that the not only Bland, but contemporary Chris- social gospel movement did not emerge tianity itself. The chapter would be best out of fear or a desire for relevance but understood by those with some theo- out of sincere application and adaptation logical training or personal knowledge. of evangelical faith. In this way, Allen sets Indeed, unless one is particularly inter- his work apart from that of Brian McKil- ested in the inner workings of theological lop or Ramsay Cook, arguing that Bland’s discussions at that time, the chapter may personal faith transition was not a nega- seem superfluous. Allen’s explorations tive reaction to the intellectual challenges of philosophical, religious, and scientific of the time but a positive, creative, ener- trends are certainly well written. Yet, getic response to the needs of the day. given that his focus is Bland, these fre- This volume ends just as the social gospel quent (and lengthy) forays into 19th cen- movement is beginning, meaning that the tury thought may appear tangential. best discussions of Bland’s involvement Finally, we must consider the book’s with labour fall at the end of the book (for opening: a prologue which says very little example, in chapter thirteen). Hopefully, about Bland and very much about the those looking for more complete discus- historiographical context in which Allen sions of this aspect of Bland’s life will not writes. On one hand, this sort of intro- be disappointed by the second volume of duction is necessary: Allen is re-contex- this biography. tualizing his current work within several Despite its many qualities, The View decades of religious and intellectual his- from Murney Tower is not without certain tory. In this field, much has been written puzzling characteristics. For instance, since Allen’s last significant publications even in the introductory pages, there is during the 1970s; some discussion is, little discussion of source material (aside therefore, understandable and welcome. from very limited mention in the final On the other hand, one gets the impres- two pages of the otherwise unrelated pro- sion that Allen is attempting to do too logue). Allen admits to using historical much in a relatively short space. After a imagination to flesh out areas in which brief but useful introduction to Bland the sources are sparse; indeed, his narra- himself, he turns to a historiographical tive is much improved by this tool. That discussion of evangelical and liberal the- said, any discussion of a dearth of sources ology in the late 19th and early 20th cen-

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turies. The prologue is problematic on a Robert O’Brien, ed., Solidarity First: number of fronts, not the least of which is Canadian Workers and Social Cohesion an unusual and critical focus on Michael (Vancouver: University of British Gauvreau’s work, The Evangelical Cen- Columbia Press 2008) tury. Allen’s insistence that Gauvreau does not pay attention to popular reli- This 226-page edited collection analyzes gion, in spite of the fact that Allen does the concept and application of social not do much of this himself, is confusing. cohesion for (mostly) Canadian work- Bland ministered to a variety of congre- ers. Notions of social cohesion centre on gations, but most of his faith formation the degree of incorporation of individu- is shown as a response to the intellectual als into society and their participation stimuli of the day. Allen also spends sig- in its processes. The book’s premise is nificant space defending criticism of his that social cohesion both offers workers earlier work, The Social Passion, a book an opportunity to advance their inter- published nearly four decades ago. In the ests and frequently works against those midst of such a diverse discussion, the interests – that is to say, social cohesion is reader is left to wonder what all of this contested terrain and its utility to work- has to do with Salem Bland. By focusing ers depends upon its basis, nature, and so specifically on historiography and cer- form. Worker responses to economic tain nuances of religious and intellectual dislocation and rising inequity form the history, Allen is also limiting his audience focus of the book’s ten chapters. Among to those for whom Bland’s credentials are the key points made is that worker soli- common knowledge. For those histori- darity appears to be a prerequisite for ans who seek to bring religious history both resisting negative forms of social more completely into the mainstream of cohesion and extracting social cohesion the Canadian field, this prologue (and, in policies that advantage workers. many ways, the book that follows) may Belinda Leach and Charlotte Yates seem like a missed opportunity. examine the gendered nature of work in Despite these shortcomings, The View the Ontario auto industry and its impli- from Murney Tower is a highly useful cation for social cohesion. In short, they account of late 19th century thought: a argue the form and shape of social cohe- marvelous intellectual history of a man sion is partially determined by the posi- and an era. Allen must be commended for tion and experiences of women in work writing a detailed, yet readable biography and the labour market. The gendering of a Methodist preacher whose influence of paid and unpaid work and the post- was felt well into the 20th century, and war construction of men’s and women’s well beyond the bounds of religious insti- roles as complementary became sources tutions. The book’s conclusion leaves us of social cohesion. Though this gendered with the expectation that much of Salem approach to maintaining social cohesion Bland’s story remains untold: thus, we was challenged in the 1970s, the pres- eagerly await the second volume. sures exerted by neo-liberal and neo-con- Heather Laing servative ideas thereafter have compelled McMaster University women into increasingly intensified employment while stripping away social and state supports necessary for women to carry out their disproportionate social reproduction obligations.

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Holly Gibbs examines how auto-part of economic development and a locus of workers in Ontario and Mexico concep- conflict is quite engaging. While work- tualize “otherness,” finding that workers ing-class issues and class conflict form have internalized notions of international a significant component of Cape Breton competitiveness and defined threats to culture, the degree to which this culture their society in terms of foreign workers, can be used to develop social cohesion rather than the operation of global eco- capable of challenging capital appears nomic systems. Further, cohesion based limited. Indeed, it may serve more as on the threat of other workers reduces the an outlet for tensions than as a part of a willingness of workers to resist capital’s framing process that can lead to social interest in reducing wages and intensify- mobilization. ing work. Indeed, the perceived need of Robert O’Brien examines the way in workers to be maximally efficient to even which civic associations perceive the maintain their jobs pits workers against development of a global, neo-liberal each other and encourages self-discipline economy, and whether (and how) they in the workforce. engage with international forces. Fifteen Wayne Lewchuk and Don Wells exam- interviews with a variety of associations ine the development of workplace cohe- find interesting cleavages between groups sion at a Magna plant in Ontario while with national versus international focuses Mark Thomas considers how the social and between groups that see solutions organization of working time at a Toyota based on increased competition versus factory retards the development of non- increased solidarity. This highlights corporate social cohesion. Lewchuck and tensions about the boundaries of social Wells note that Magna has developed a cohesion evident in other case stud- high worker commitment to managerial ies (e.g., Gibbs, and Lewchuk and Wells) productivity goals via the organization of and reinforces the message that worker work as well as by emphasizing the threat solidarity appears to be a prerequisite for posed to jobs by external market forces. both resisting negative forms of social This formulates social cohesion at a plant cohesion and extracting social cohesion to the exclusion of social class and fosters policies that advantage workers. collaboration between labour and capital. Roy Adams’ chapter addresses col- The ability of Magna to maintain its part lective bargaining from the perspective of the bargain in the face of intensify- of human rights. This chapter is an odd ing international competition is unclear. inclusion: while an interesting perspec- Thomas examines how the organization tive, it is not well connected to the theme of work time at a Toyota plant in Ontario of social cohesion, reprises Adams’ 2006 (including non-voluntary overtime and book Labour Left Out, and ignores the short-term contracts) is used to control impact of the Supreme Court’s decision workers and create a form of social cohe- in Health Services and Support – Facili- sion, whereby workers refusing overtime ties Subsector Bargaining Assn, relying are pressured to work harder. Thomas instead on Dunmore (although this may also notes that the organization of time is reflect a delay in publication rather than a site of (sporadic) resistance. an omission). Its value lies in demonstrat- Larry Haiven considers the duality ing limited state commitment to worker of social capital as it applies to social collective representation, a significant cohesion in Cape Breton. While Haiven source of worker cohesion and power. provides no definitive conclusions, his Leah Vosko examines the difficult discussion of culture as both a source question of who requires statutory labour

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protections by examining developments cal perspective on these issues, its avoid- at the ILO and their application to precar- ance of an overtly Marxist analysis may ious employment in Canada. This chapter draw students into a critical appraisal of nicely extends the analysis presented in work relationships that they might other- Vosko’s 2006 edited collection, Precari- wise discount because of ideological prej- ous Employment: Understanding Labour udice against Marxism. The book could Market Insecurity in Canada. Using the also be used in advanced undergraduate standard employment relationship as the courses focusing on understanding and basis upon which to grant labour rights analyzing social cohesion trends in the and allocate social benefits was a success- workplace, community, and society. In ful strategy for maintaining social cohe- this respect, this collection provides a sion following the Second World War, but useful and broad-based examination of has been significantly undermined by the this phenomenon and its role in social development of non-standard employ- reproduction. ment relationships, many of which Bob Barnetson entail an element of precariousness. This Athabasca University approach perpetuates divisions within the working class that are significantly gendered and racialized. Douglas C. Harris, Landing Native The volume concludes with a brief Fisheries: Indian Reserves and Fishing essay by O’Brien. He notes that the stud- Rights in British Columbia, 1849–1925 ies in the book highlight that existing (Vancouver: ubc Press 2008) approaches to social cohesion typically pass costs from one group of workers and Harris’s chief objective in writing their families to another. This transfer this book is to lend support to the First of costs typically occurs along the lines Nations in British Columbia who have of gender, employment (in)security, and been negotiating with the bc govern- nationality. The development of worker ment to settle land claims and associated solidarity crossing these divisions appears rights ever since 1871 when the province to be a prerequisite for social cohesion joined Confederation. In particular, Har- policies that do not simply reapportion ris takes great pains to delineate “reserve disadvantage among workers. geography” through the use of detailed Overall, I found this volume a useful maps that appear throughout the book examination of social cohesion, its poten- as well as in an appendix. These maps tial to improve workers’ lives, and its util- demarcate the land set aside from 1849 ity in the hands of capital to disadvantage to 1925 as reserves. Well over half of that workers. While reading the chapters, two land was established to create access and main classroom applications came to rights to important adjacent fisheries. In mind. The book (or portions of it) would other words, the principal argument in be useful in introducing key features of this very meticulously conducted study the labour market and the management of is that in the case of the First Nations employment relationships to undergradu- of British Columbia, the setting aside ates. The background information on, for of often small plots of land for the vari- example, the gendered nature of employ- ous bands was expressly done to secure ment, is provided in a succinct and acces- access to important traditional fishing sible manner while Lewchuk and Wells’ sites. That is, the land base cannot be dis- chapter is a useful case study in hrm sociated from the adjacent water and the techniques. While the book takes a criti- resources it contained. Since, apart from

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a very few treaties, most of the land and control of the colony of what became the resources comprising the province of province of British Columbia, there was British Columbia were not “alienated” inconsistent recognition of the prior from the indigenous inhabitants who, claims of the First Nations to the land for the most part, were not “settled” on a and resources that were being opened up particular piece of land but travelled over to immigration, settlement, and industri- territories to use adjacent resources like alization. Harris relies on the legal sys- fish and game, the argument elaborated tem as the means to settling Aboriginal in this book is very important in empha- claims. However, his book testifies to the sizing the “prior claims” of the reserve extent that these claims were sometimes lands to adjacent fisheries. recognized, often abused or ignored, and Well before bc entered Confederation even rescinded after being recognized. in 1871, the colonial government had What became known as the “Doug- started the process of allocating land, las Treaties” included 14 land purchases including access to fisheries, to the vari- covering a small portion of Vancouver ous bands resident in what would become Island. In addition to two other treaties the new province. In 1849, the Hudson’s involving small holdings on the main- Bay Company assumed governance of the land, after 1854 the question of “Native British colony on Vancouver Island. In title” remained unresolved. After Doug- the same year another colony was created las, there were a number of attempts to on the mainland, and in 1866 they were demarcate reserves. Harris argues that joined together into one colony of the over half of the more than 1,500 reserves British Empire. The purpose of moving allotted between 1849 and 1925 were the territory from its status as a series of intended to provide indigenous access to fur-trading posts to colonial status was to fisheries. This is the reason why so much promote settlement as a way of marking of the “reserve geography” constituted a the territory as British. There had earlier miniscule land base. Like the resources been American encroachment and the they captured, Aboriginal people British wanted to reinforce the demar- migrated over the course of the seasons cation of the 49th parallel in the Oregon to capture the resource (the abundant Treaty of 1846 as the border between fisheries constituted a major part of their American and British territory. dietary and trading needs), to trade with The hbc’s chief trader, James Doug- one another, and to winter in larger set- las, was charged with negotiating land tlements. Fishery sites were an essential treaties with the indigenous peoples as component of there migrations. As long a prelude to increased immigration and as incoming settlers were interested pri- settlement. That is, there was nominal marily in the gold rush or in permanent recognition that indigenous peoples had settlements based on an agrarian econ- some claim to the land and resources that omy, disputes over fishery rights were needed to be “extinguished.” “Aboriginal kept to a minimum. However, once the title and rights do not rise from Crown capitalist economy in the form of salmon grant; nor do they depend on the appli- canning took hold in the last quarter of cation of the Royal Proclamation of 1763 the 19th century, there was direct com- to British Columbia. Instead, they arise petition for the capture of salmon, espe- from the long use and occupation of land cially sockeye salmon. and resources by Aboriginal peoples that Harris takes pains to take the reader predate British assertions of sovereignty.” through the rather convoluted legal appa- (90) However, once the British did assume ratus of the British Empire as it affected

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the common right of public access to eries department and Indian Affairs as a capture fish, which varied according to right that the First Nations held. But the whether the fish were found in tidal or federal fisheries officers then tried to abol- non-tidal waters. What appeared to be ish this right, especially when the fishery relatively unproblematic in England, sites and fish species were prized by non- however, was vastly complicated by the Aboriginal fishers and fishing companies. geography of the Pacific Northwest coast. Harris argues that had the First Nations With establishment of the two colonies, been allowed control over their tradi- Douglas began the arduous task of delin- tional fishing resources and fishing sites, eating land, including access to fisheries, there was hope that they could integrate for the First Nations. However, his work into the emerging industrial economy. remained largely unfinished. Upon entry However, the reality was that they were into Confederation in 1871, matters were dispossessed with the argument that complicated further when the federal they could then provide their labour to state assumed responsibility for indig- the canneries and fishing companies. But enous peoples under the Indian Act and even in terms of their labour power, the for the fisheries (included in a separate First Nations suffered racial discrimina- department that produced its own leg- tion on the grounds that they were wards islation), while land became a provincial of the federal state under the Indian Act responsibility. Throughout the book, Har- and thus unsuitable as wage workers. ris takes pains to demonstrate the con- In summary, then, both the strength tinuing recalcitrance on the part of both and the weakness of this work is in its the province and the federal Department reliance on the legal system with its of Marine and Fisheries to recognize, accompanying and convoluted politi- much less to negotiate, the pre-existing cal apparatuses to settle the largely out- rights of the First Nations to pursue their standing and unresolved Aboriginal traditional fishing practices. land claims that include fisheries rights. More than this, with the establish- As Harris shows throughout the book, ment of the salmon canning industry in the provincial state over the course of the last quarter of the 19th century, not the time period covered here refused to only were the pre-existing claims of the negotiate or to even recognize Aboriginal First Nations ignored, but their fisheries rights and title to the land and the fed- and important fishing sites were taken eral fisheries department, for the most over to service the salmon canneries that part, adopted a similar position. Vari- became established on the major salmon- ous commissions, federal and provincial, producing rivers and streams. While took place with acknowledgement by Indian agents often proved sympathetic at least some of the commissioners that to the rights of the First Nations, salmon the First Nations had rights that needed canners who organized in a powerful to be acknowledged and settled. But lobby group, the federal fisheries depart- when these views contravened the vari- ment, and the provincial government not ous interests of fisheries bureaucrats, the only refused to settle outstanding claims salmon canners, the non-Aboriginal fish- to land and fishery resources but began ers, and provincial politicians, they were a process to cut back and rescind alloca- simply ignored. So one wonders how the tions made in the previous decades. legal and political systems can be used to One of the most contentious continu- uphold these centuries-long claims when ing issues is over the “food fisheries,” they have so often in the past been used which were recognized by both the fish- to thwart them. It seems that the fisheries

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themselves will long have become extinct and their own economies within the new through capitalist exploitation before the colonial order of things. rights of the First Nations to their fisher- The first two chapters of Makúk ies ever become recognized, upheld, and introduce readers to the early history of enforced in Canadian federal and provin- indigenous-newcomer relations on the cial law. Pacific Coast and to Lutz’s loosely post- Alicja Muszynski modern analytical framework. In the University of Waterloo third chapter, Makúk clearly establishes itself as a strong critique of the role of the historiography of British Columbia John Sutton Lutz, Makúk: A New in perpetuating the myth of the “Lazy History of Aboriginal-White Relations Indian” through a misunderstanding of (Vancouver: ubc Press 2008) the extent and importance of indigenous labour. Lutz points out that scholars have John Sutton Lutz’s Makúk: A New His- traditionally argued that with the advent tory of Aboriginal-White Relations offers of newcomers, indigenous peoples were a much needed analysis of the intimate either pushed aside to make room for relationship between colonialism and settler capitalist expansion or that they capitalism in Canada. More specifically, benefited temporarily before declining Makúk provides a fresh perspective on in wealth and importance. Lutz refutes the history of indigenous labour and its these arguments and critiques the histo- role in the making of the modern prov- riography for a “largely uncritical reliance ince of British Columbia. Lutz is both on sources” that continue to ignore the powerful and poetic in his reframing of widespread involvement of indigenous this important history, and his book is peoples in wage labour and the making of a strong contribution that significantly British Columbia. (21) He goes so far as moves the British Columbia historiogra- to argue that the stereotype of the “Lazy phy forward in new and exciting ways. Indian” is as much a construction of lazy The concept of “makúk,” an indig- historians as it was of racist colonialists. enous expression with several meanings, To decentre the traditional historiog- including “to exchange” and “let’s trade,” raphy, Lutz uses a variety of new sources is employed skillfully as the text’s guid- to locate previously unheard indigenous ing structure. Lutz explains that as the voices in relation to the history of work, history of “makúk” in British Columbia including oral histories, autobiographies, is steeped in cultural misunderstand- biographies, and ethnographies. His ing, Makúk is “another attempt at cross- overall finding is that as capitalist social cultural communication.” (13) In short, relations spread throughout the terri- Lutz’s goal is to broaden the conversation tories of the Pacific Northwest Coast, about colonialism, cultural exchange, and “these extraordinary [indigenous] people work so as to end the traditional margin- did a very ordinary thing; they went to alization of indigenous peoples’ working work for white employers and many pros- experiences in history. In doing so, Lutz pered.” (276) However, there is more to not only shows how indigenous peoples Lutz’s project than simply highlighting were important to the spread of capital- indigenous peoples’ engagement in wage ism in British Columbia, but also how labour. Lutz argues that capitalism did they were able to work with and against not simply replace traditional indigenous non-indigenous immigrants to create economies, but rather that a “moditional” spaces for themselves, their cultures, economy was forged: a hybrid economy,

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neither fully European nor indigenous, worked in sawmills, canneries, and on both traditional and modern. For Lutz, docks and steamships. Modern British the term “moditional” captures the fluid- Columbia was built on the backs of indig- ity of a new economy that combined wage enous labourers. Indeed, Lutz argues labour, prestige, subsistence, and welfare that by the early 20th century, “British economies that many indigenous peoples Columbia had become one of the most struggled to make work for them. Lutz industrialized provinces in the country, organizes the rest of his work around and it did so on a workforce dominated an explanation of how such “modi- by Aboriginal people.” (192) According tional” economies came about in British to Lutz, it is clear that the response of Columbia. many indigenous peoples living in Brit- Chapters 4 and 5 function as micro-his- ish Columbia to newcomers was closer tories of two indigenous groups for point to that of the Lekwungen than that of the of comparison: the Lekwungen of south- Tsilhqot’in. ern Vancouver Island (who welcomed In chapter 7 Lutz focuses on how the newcomers) and the Tsilhqot’in of the state, perhaps unknowingly, played a southern interior of the mainland (who primary role in the creation of a modi- drove newcomers away). The strength of tional economy by shaping indigenous these chapters lies in the juxtaposition access to the capitalist, subsistence, pres- of the very different responses of these tige, and welfare economies. Although two indigenous groups to newcomers and a strong chapter, unfortunately Lutz capitalist social relations. And yet, Lutz’s silences political protests by indigenous overall argument is that no matter what and non-indigenous peoples to the colo- strategy indigenous peoples adopted to nial project and misses the opportunity deal with the newcomers – accommoda- to highlight more clearly the close rela- tion, resistance, or a combination of both tionship between capitalism and colo- – two hundred years after the arrival of nial state-building. He does, however, do Europeans, the Lekwungen, Tsilhqot’in, a fine job of explaining the complexities and the vast majority of indigenous peo- of the state’s increasing involvement in ples in British Columbia were “impover- welfare politics in Chapter 8. Lutz con- ished and dependent.” (281) cludes his discussion by commenting on In chapters 6–8, Lutz situates the the modern version of the “Indian Prob- micro-histories of the Lekwungen and lem” (not his words): the continuation of Tsilhqot’in within the macro-context of the legacy of poverty, illness, and general the socio-economic dynamics of colo- destitution of many living in indigenous nial state-building. Chapter 6 traces the communities throughout the prov- history of indigenous labour in two time ince. But Lutz makes it clear, as he does periods. The first period, 1849–1885, throughout Makúk, that “the high rates shows indigenous involvement in the of unemployment and welfare depen- trading of food and furs, while the sec- dency among contemporary communi- ond period, 1885–1970, illustrates how ties are recent historical phenomena, indigenous involvement expanded as did with observable roots and causes.” (4) As capitalist relations throughout the new the state increasingly restricted indige- province. For example, Lutz explains how nous access to subsistence resources and in the post-1885 period, it was indigenous limited educational opportunities neces- peoples who cleared the first farm fields, sary for access to the wage labour market, acted as the original labour force in coal many indigenous peoples turned to the mines, were the first to mine gold, and government for help. According to Lutz,

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the dire situation facing many indigenous spaces and opportunities for scholars to communities is the consequence of the further our historical understanding of ruthless preserve-and-destroy dialectics the relationship between colonialism and of capitalism and the haunting legacies of capitalism in British Columbia. Overall, colonial practices. Makúk renews a pertinent discussion in While the concept of a moditional the British Columbia historiography that economy provides a new lens through I hope will reverberate throughout the which to view the history of indige- fields of Canadian labour and colonial nous labour in British Columbia, Lutz’s history. concept of “peaceable subordination” Sean Carleton demands critical attention. For Lutz, Simon Fraser University the latter concept refers to the “strate- gies used by certain European colonists and colonial states to dominate occupied Michiko Midge Ayukawa, Hiroshima lands, while publicly deploring the vio- Immigrants in Canada, 1891–1941 lence of conquest.” (8) While colonialism (Vancouver: Ubc Press 2008) arguably played out in different ways in the Pacific Northwest than it did on the In Hiroshima Immigrants in Canada, American frontier, there are examples – 1891–1941, Michiko Midge Ayukawa like the Chilcotin War, which is discussed presents both a scholarly and an insider’s at length in Chapter 5 – that suggest that view of the history of Japanese immigrants colonial conflict and the dispossession (Issei). As a second-generation Japanese of indigenous peoples’ lands were not Canadian (Nisei), Ayukawa examines this always cloaked in a language of benevo- history as part of her efforts to learn more lence. Similarly, readers should challenge about her parents and the complex story Lutz’s linking of the concept of peaceable of Issei experiences and attitudes. Her subordination to Ranjajit Guha’s idea of goal is to reconcile the previous histo- dominance without hegemony. Here, I ries written about Japanese Canadians as believe Lutz is working with a misun- oppressed people who faced persecution derstanding of hegemony, viewing it as with her memory of “a vibrant Japanese- deliberate and conscious consent rather Canadian community full of confident than a fluid and active process of strug- men and women.” (xvii) gle for peoples’ hearts, minds, and bod- Ayukawa’s nicely written study adds to ies. Writing the history of capitalism and a growing trend in scholarship on Japa- colonialism in British Columbia as the nese immigrant history in North Amer- struggle for hegemony allows for stories ica in its conceptualization of the Issei of accommodation and resistance as well as a heterogeneous immigrant group, as of the important ways in which these rather than a monolithic one. Even as she survival strategies intersect in the con- acknowledges shared aspects of the his- tact zone. In addition, Lutz’s framework tory of the Issei, including the impact of would have benefited from a more thor- racism, she highlights differences based ough analysis of class and the realities of on place, gender, class, and generation. capitalist exploitation that both indig- She draws on her own family history, enous and non-indigenous peoples expe- oral interviews, and historical scholar- rienced – and continue to experience – in ship produced in Japan and North Amer- the making of British Columbia. These ica to tell the tale of Japanese Canadians, limitations, however, only provide new especially in and around Vancouver.

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After earning a master’s degree in history offspring with the message that they must at the University of Victoria, Ayukawa do their best and not bring shame upon continued to investigate this topic. She their families or the Japanese “race.” conducted 80 interviews in Japanese and She makes a convincing case that pre- English with three generations of people fectural origins mattered in Japanese- of Japanese descent across Canada and in Canadian history. For instance, some Japan. Her research in Japanese-language prefectures encouraged Japanese resi- scholarship adds to the richness of her dents to emigrate, while others did not. study. Although English-language studies As she points out, looking for work else- of Japanese immigrants in North Amer- where was a well-established pattern in ica are frequently translated into Japa- Hiroshima, which “was the third-largest nese, influencing scholarship in Japan, source of Japanese immigrants to Can- the reverse has rarely been the case. So, ada.” (xx) Prefectural origins became too, although scholars have conducted points of identity and community forma- interviews with the Issei and Nisei in tion in Canada. Immigrants united by North America, few have done so in the prefecture to provide aid to each other, Japanese language. Therefore, Ayukawa both formally through organization, and presents truly transnational research, informally through friendships. Such pre- providing insights drawn from scholar- fectural links helped produce a key sup- ship and first-hand accounts from across port network for immigrants who lacked Canada and Japan. a family-based support system in the new She develops her argument about the country. Ayukawa, for instance, felt con- significance of difference in Japanese- nected to a group of “surrogate relatives” Canadian history by tracing the story of (xvii) of other Hiroshima immigrants Japanese immigrants from Hiroshima in Canada. She argues that the support prefecture (or province). In the 1890s, network was built on a shared sense of the first immigrants from Hiroshima left place in Japan, from which the Japanese for Canada to seek their fortunes. Her developed the same dialect and culture, grandfather, Ishii Chokichi, left his vil- including tastes for certain foods. lage in 1907 and her father, Ishii Kenji, in Although she convincingly shows that 1912. Her mother, Takata Misayo, mar- regional identity mattered, she is less ried Kenji and moved to Canada after a successful at demonstrating that immi- difficult first marriage in Japan. grants from Hiroshima had a different Ayukawa also includes some of her experience in Canada than other Japa- experiences as a child of Hiroshima nese immigrants. As evidence, she often immigrants in her chapter on the Nisei. provides detailed, biographical sketches Here she explores the differences between of Hiroshima immigrants. However, too the generations and the influences of the often they remain disjointed in the narra- Issei on the Nisei. For example, the Issei tive and fail to illustrate how and why the raised the Nisei in some of the practices individuals were unique as immigrants of the upper-class Japanese, even though from Hiroshima, rather than typical of that had not been part of their own the Japanese immigrant experience. upbringing. In her family, Ayukawa was One of the most interesting chapters in forced to learn the koto (Japanese harp), the book focuses on the history of Japa- even though her father came from a poor nese immigrant women, most of whom family in a remote mountain village. The arrived between 1908 and 1924. Here Issei were strict and often burdened their Ayukawa is at her best. She passionately

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demonstrates that Issei women were did. Immigrant workers’ attitudes toward not mere appendages to men, but cen- fellow countrymen “bosses,” many of tral characters in the history of Japanese whom came from the same prefecture, immigrants. In line with scholarship in affected their struggles over working women’s history, she treats women as his- conditions in times of class conflict. torical figures in their own right, rather In sum, this book provides a good over- than as just the wives of immigrants. view of the history of Japanese immigrants Ayukawa demonstrates that many of from Hiroshima to British Columbia. Yet, the women were well educated in Japan it is much more than just a story of immi- and eager for adventure. She also docu- gration from one Japanese prefecture to ments their paid work lives and not only one Canadian city – it presents a key chap- their family caregiving labour. For exam- ter in the development of Canada. ple, she identifies Japanese immigrant Susan L. Smith women who worked as domestic work- University of Alberta ers in white homes, ran boarding houses, and practiced midwifery, a major health care occupation among the Japanese. She Gerald Tulchinsky, Canada’s Jews. includes discussion of the agricultural A People’s Journey (Toronto: University labour of women, many of whom worked of Toronto Press 2008) with babies strapped to their backs. Such activities disturbed the gender expec- Canada’s Jews is the product of Ger- tations of some white neighbours who ald Tulchinsky’s life-long immersion criticized Issei men for allowing women in Canadian Jewish life and Jewish his- to chop wood, clear land, and perform tory. The book is both an update of and the backbreaking labour of farming a replacement for his two-volume Jewish strawberries. history, Taking Root and Branching Out, Ayukawa’s research also contributes to issued in the 1990s. labour history by illustrating how compli- This successor work is a thorough (500 cated it was for Issei workers to organize pages of text) and masterful survey of 240 for better conditions. There were tensions years of organized Jewish community life between white workers and immigrant that covers everything from class conflict workers because immigrants resented the in the clothing industry to the mentality fact that they were paid less than white of immigrant Holocaust survivors. workers and the whites resented immi- The book is grounded in traditional grants taking jobs. There were also griev- Canadian historiography, but because ances and animosities within Japanese it incorporates newer social history, the immigrant communities as a result of book can be viewed as a comprehensive vast economic differences between work- synthesis of newer and older history ers and employers, especially the wealthy writing. Older accounts of the histories Issei owners of lumber companies. Fur- of immigrant groups tended to focus on thermore, immigrant workers had a com- institutions and to laud prominent ethnic plex relationship with immigrant labour community leaders. While Tulchinsky contractors. Japanese workers in Canada builds on this earlier foundation, he com- were so grateful for employment that they bines it with a rich body of recent schol- often thought of Japanese labour contrac- arly work focused on social history. tors as benefactors. Yet, these contractors There’s another, more important way in focused on their own self-interests and which Tulchinsky’s book reflects Cana- exploited the Issei workers just as whites dian historiography and national history.

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The themes of the book are the major At the same time, Canada’s Jews has staples of traditional Canadian history plenty to engage the student of social and writing – French-English dualism and labour history. In this “northern land of French-Canadian nationalism, regional- ‘limited identities,’ where region, culture ism, the British tie, Canadian-American and class differ so significantly,” (192) relations – applied to Jewish life. Tulchinsky devotes plenty of space to Within these staple themes, he shows, class relations and particularly to Jewish for example, the ambiguous position of working people, their unions in the cloth- Jews as a third solitude in Quebec, the ing industry, and radical politics. anti-Jewish doctrines prevalent in French- Tulchinsky emphasizes the class divi- Canadian nationalism, the regionally sions within the Jewish community. Even divided nature of Canadian Jewish settle- before the mass migration of poor Jews ment, the support of Canadian Jews for from Eastern Europe in the late nine- the British imperial tie because of what teenth century, “fairly sharp economic, a Jewish newspaper called its “preserva- ethnic, and religious differences existed tion of every individual culture within its within the Montreal Jewish community.” realm,” (301) and the distinctiveness of (71) Labour conflict in Quebec’s cloth- Canadian from American Jewish life, for ing industry during the 1920s and 1930s example, Jewish Canadians’ greater sup- revealed “vicious class warfare within the port for Zionism because dual loyalties community.” (254) His detailed coverage were more permissible. of the lengthy squabbles over the position “The Canadian Jewish identity,” he of Jews in Quebec’s Protestant school sys- writes, “was formulated within the tem demonstrates the persistent clashes parameters of the emerging Canadian between the prosperous integrationist national personality…” – a personality leadership in the west end of Montreal based on Canada “separating itself from and the labour-backed “downtown Jews the mother country and distinguishing who adopted a nationalist position…” itself from the United States.” Jewish tra- (288) ditions originating in Europe “take root Tulchinsky starts his book with a and branch out in rough symbiosis with a description of the colonial era, mostly new society that was distinctively North in Lower Canada, where the Hart fam- American: overwhelmingly British and ily was an important actor in economic French, conservative, traditional, precar- development and Jewish political rights ious, and defensive.” (7) were affirmed by the Assembly in 1832. Tulchinsky writes that Canadian Jew- He then surveys the mid-19th-century ish history before and after the watershed small-business enterprises of predomi- year of 1920 was “shaped by a set of coor- nantly English and German immigrants dinates which were unique to the north- through the use of credit reports from ern half of this continent, and which R.G. Dun and Company. He also consid- resulted in the evolution of a distinctive ers the checkered fate of Jewish agricul- community: Canada’s political structure tural settlement in Western Canada. and dual ‘founding peoples,’ its economic The rising tide of Jewish immigration dependency and long-lasting constitu- in the late 19th and early 20th centuries tional colonial status, its own immigra- coincided with the development in Can- tion patterns and urbanization processes, ada of what us historian Moses Rischin had together shaped a historical experi- in The Promised City called “the great ence different from that of United States Jewish métier,” the clothing industry. (8) Jewry.” (194) Canada’s Jews follows the interactions

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of Jews with the industry as workers and brawlers at Toronto’s Christie Pits. owners from the 1880s to the post-World Frank Underhill, the liberal University War II years. “Competition was rife, and of Toronto historian, while supporting expanding markets placed a premium the right of a promising Jewish academic, on flexibility, price-cutting, mobility, Lionel Gelber, to be “the token Jew in the and exploitation of workers, particularly history department,” noted that a stu- women, children, and immigrants.” (145) dent applying for a Rhodes scholarship Industry leader Lyon Cohen was rep- was “a Jew with a good deal of the Jew’s resentative of the owners in sharply persecution complex and this makes him criticizing unions and warning that the unduly aggressive and sarcastic in dis- key question was “who should control cussion and writing.” (320) Some years the shop floor, the fore-man or the shop before, Lewis Namier’s application to delegate.” (156) In one of the most inter- teach at the University of Toronto had esting sections of his book, Tulchinsky been turned down because, as Professor discusses the “provocative” (254) actions James Mavor commented, Namier “has of some Jewish dress manufacturers in the misfortune to have the Jewish charac- using anti-Semitism as a means of fight- teristic of indistinct articulation strongly ing the ilgwu, which was organizing a developed.” (133) Needless to say, even work force that was 80 percent French those Jews with perfect articulation were Canadian. During a bitter 1934 strike, systematically denied a variety of profes- “some Jewish workers tried to disguise sional positions. themselves by speaking French and wear- The post-war chapters document the ing crosses around their necks.” (254) withering of anti-Semitism and the strong Tulchinsky surveys the familiar story impact of Holocaust survivors, who by of virulent clerico-facism and anti-Sem- 1990 comprised some 30 to 40 percent itism in French Canada during the inter- of Jews in Canada. Emphasis on Jewish war period, which provides a context for labour and leftism declined in the face of understanding young Pierre Trudeau’s the community’s prosperity and promi- attitudes in the early 1940s. Le Devoir ran nence. The non-European cast of recent articles characterizing Jews as “aliens, cir- Jewish immigration gave the commu- cumcised, criminals, mentally ill, trash of nity a more varied face. Tulchinsky pres- nations, Tartars infected with Semitism, ents abundant statistics on the changing malodorous – they smell of garlic, live nature of the Jewish community and its in lice-ridden ghettos, have greasy hair demographic challenges, including the and pot bellies, big crooked noses, and possibility that “Jewry’s very survival was they are dirty.” (313–14) The parallels at risk” (480) in the face of assimilation with Nazi propaganda are depressingly and intermarriage. familiar. Tulchinsky takes a balanced approach The book outlines the rough reception in that he covers not just the main con- Jews received in English Canada, too, servative tendency in Canadian Judaism ranging from Goldwin Smith’s Victorian but also the left, working-class groups diatribes to Social Credit’s conspirato- such as the Arbeiter Ring, Peretz Shule, rial fantasies in the 1930s. Tulchinsky and the United Jewish People’s Order. documents systematic discrimination in But I think Tulchinsky suggests a sense university admission policies in which of identification with Israel that may not anti-Jewish expression was rife, if more presently exist as strongly as it did 15 or genteel than that of swastika-bearing 20 years ago.

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With its balanced synthesis of political, critical perspective on Canadian foreign economic, and social history, Tulchin- policy begins with understanding Ameri- sky’s book can be regarded as the stan- can interests and American actions. dard account of Canadian Jewish history. Warnock’s intention is to provide such a Gene Homel perspective on the Afghanistan file. But British Columbia Institute he is also concerned with looking to the of Technology future, to the positive roles that Canada, or at least progressive Canadians, might play in helping Afghanis to free them- John W. Warnock, Creating a Failed selves of foreign control and establish a State: The us and Canada in future that he argues most of them want: Afghanistan (Toronto: Fernwood 2008) one without rule by some combination of religious nutcases, warlords, and foreign While Canadian social scientists powers motivated by economic interest. and humanists on the Left have devel- Warnock observes that the us invasion oped parallel critical universes to their of Afghanistan in 2001, often presented American counterparts in most areas, a by supporters and opponents alike of peculiar exception is the area of foreign the invasion as an emotional response to policy. For the most part, the literature 9/11, had been planned before that event. on Canadian foreign policy is produced The us had been the foreign backer of by Dr. Strangeloves for whom any sugges- the post-Communist, pre-Taliban muja- tion that Canada is an imperialist or sub- hideen regime led by the Northern Alli- imperialist power is taboo; instead we are ance from 1992 to 1996. Having happily peacemakers, defenders of democracy, armed and encouraged the mujahideen supporters of good works, slayers of ter- as they fought the Soviet-backed Com- rorists. We are truest to ourselves when munists, whose efforts to liberate women we back the Americans in their various were met by mujahideen murders of wars, defences of the free world, and cra- women who took part in public life, the ven and inward-looking when we do not. Americans showed little concern about Though a few books on Canada’s role in Northern Alliance misogyny, brutality, the Vietnam War challenge this social or venality. While they were unhappy construction, there is little or no critical with the country’s takeover by the rival literature on our role in the world wars, Islamic crazy group, the Taliban, their the Boer War, the Korean War, the Mid- concerns centred on the new govern- dle East, Latin America, Haiti, the first ment’s unwillingness to be as cooperative Iraq war, or much else. regarding energy pipeline projects as the Jack Warnock’s latest book is there- previous regime. In the months before fore welcome as at least a partial effort 9/11, the us and its allies, Tajikistan and to view Canadian foreign policy from a Uzbekistan, prepared for an invasion of a Marxist perspective. This study of impe- recalcitrant Afghanistan. (11) rialism in Afghanistan is not primarily a With 9/11, the Americans had the book on Canadian foreign policy. There opportunity to find another reason for is only one chapter devoted to Canada’s invading Afghanistan, however question- role in Afghanistan plus the odd men- able it may have seemed to invade a coun- tion here and there in other chapters of try, wipe out its existing government and Canada’s role. But, in Afghanistan, as in impose a new one to avenge a tragedy in many other areas of the world, having a one’s home country that mostly involved

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individuals of Saudi origin living in the that is more secular and peaceful than us. The Taliban’s insistence that it could the one offered by the Taliban. But Can- hand Osama bin Laden to the Americans ada has ignored Afghani public opinion only after the latter provided its evidence which calls for military commanders and that the al Qaeda leader was responsible war criminals to be banned from public for the 9/11 attacks became sufficient office, and has supported the American- provocation for the Americans to impose favoured constitution which makes Sha- their own agenda on Afghanistan. The riah law, with its anti-women bias, the Americans claimed that they were act- basic law. It has also treated as legitimate ing in self-defence and therefore within the government of President Hamid the principles of Article 51 of the United Karzai, “a cia asset in Pakistan…[who] Nations charter. As Warnock makes clear channeled $2 billion in us humanitarian several times, this use of Article 51 was aid to various organizations that backed fatuous – among other things, the Article the mujahideen.” (84) Warnock notes that does not allow for pure retaliation; retali- the Americans foisted Karzai on the Con- ation is allowed only when the nation that stitutional Loya Jirga, and then carried has conducted an assault has not ended out a sham election, marked by unending its aggression (in this case, it may never irregularities, to make him president and have even begun one). But the false claim give him a parliament friendly to Ameri- that the un had endorsed the American- can economic and political interests. led invasion of Afghanistan and the over- Warnock ably documents the devasta- throw of the Taliban became part of the tion that Western interference, in which rhetoric of nato’s justification for other Canada has played such a large role, has countries’ involvement in Afghanistan had on Afghanistan. Our vaunted recon- on the American side. Canadian govern- struction programs barely exist. And he ments, in particular, mythologized their makes clear that the failure of other nato complicity with American imperialism powers to participate in Afghanistan is a as a contribution to a non-existent un response to widespread public opposition mission. The un did sanction the Inter- throughout Europe to American imperi- national Security Assistance Force to alism in Afghanistan. provide security around Kabul and to Unfortunately, Warnock has chosen to train a new national army and national shear this book from the usual academic police force for Afghanistan. But this apparatus of footnotes, limiting himself occurred only after the Americans had to a “select bibliography.” Though he has overthrown the Taliban, and the isaf made use of primary materials, there quickly came under American and nato is no evidence within the text that this control, receiving not a penny of un funds is the case. This weakens the credibility or a shred of un supervision. of a book which makes one claim after Warnock suggests that the un’s role another that is the opposite of what we was only one of several myths regarding read daily in the bourgeois media. When Canadian participation. Canada’s official sources for very particular claims, such as position is that it is supporting the cre- the American plan to invade Afghanistan ation of a civil-rights culture in Afghani- in the months preceding 9/11, are sim- stan. But, in practice, Canada, like the ply not provided in a clear way, a book of United States, practices torture, rendi- this kind is only of interest to the already tion, and highly intrusive surveillance in converted. The book’s apparent embrace Afghanistan. All of this is chalked up as of some of the “Truther” theories that the necessary evils to give Afghanis a future Bush government was involved in the 9/11

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attacks makes it all the more important differences, has arrived at a point where it for Warnock to cite sources. His materi- is largely indifferent to or even supportive als about 9/11 lack either detail or docu- of immense inequalities?” (8–9) mentation, and give the impression of an Richard Ziegler begins his answer to easy acceptance of conspiracy theories. this question by pointing to four generic A problem with the book’s Canadian features of the political and ideologi- materials is that they provide no exami- cal landscape of contemporary Canada. nation of Canada’s aims in supporting the (9–11) He quickly shifts to a visceral us in Afghanistan, and not, for example, denunciation of the Left’s identification in Iraq. Does Canada have imperialist and involvement with movements that interests of its own? Or is it just sucking supposedly work against the promotion up to Big Brother? What role do pro-mil- of economic equality. itary interests play in Canada? How effec- The first villain of Richard Ziegler’s tive are their opponents? narrative is the new social movements – Alvin Finkel “primarily the women’s, gay and lesbian Athabasca University and environmental.” Ziegler is disdainful of these movements since “the majority of their members have no desire whatso- Richard Ziegler, Reclaiming the ever for any substantial reduction of the Canadian Left (Ottawa: Baico Publishing wealth of the rich.” He posits a zero-sum Consultants 2007) notion of political demands such that “the more attention a left-wing political In Reclaiming the Canadian Left, Rich- party devotes to issues other than eco- ard Ziegler excoriates the Canadian Left nomic equality, the less that latter con- (defined broadly) for failing to put the cern receives attention.” The new social goal of economic equality at the centre movements are depicted as “special inter- of its political agenda. The book is heavy est groups” whose political agendas have on denunciation and lacks the analytical successfully displaced the ideal of eco- subtlety that would be needed to capture nomic equality (19). These movements are the imagination and sympathies of even a further critiqued when they promote an thin slice of Left-wing activists and intel- understanding and appreciation of diver- lectuals. Nevertheless there is a moral sity since “the emphasis on diversity hin- imperative at the heart of Ziegler’s argu- ders redistribution as it is more difficult ment that deserves more than a second for people to share with others when dif- thought. ferences with those others are stressed.” The book’s premise is that “the Cana- (22) Finally, Ziegler blames the members dian left has renounced even any sem- of new social movements for creating a blance of economic equality as an “climate of self-censorship and political objective.” (6) In Ziegler’s view it is not correctness in today’s left;” such is this good enough to advocate for programs purported climate that “the Canadian left that would reduce economic inequality; is afraid to assert … that the reduction of rather a Left that is true to its political class differences should be the left’s pri- heritage must privilege a more-or-less ority.” (23) pure vision of economic equality. The The only new social movement for bulk of Reclaiming the Canadian Left which Richard Ziegler has kind words addresses this question: “How is it that is the environmental movement – he is the Canadian left, formerly concerned supportive of the tendency in this move- with substantially reducing economic ment that argues for negative economic

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growth and “the establishment of limits undeniable that pay equity has resulted in to income and wealth to ensure nobody’s a deserved pay increase of some work tra- ecological footprint is excessive.” (25, 91) ditionally done by women.” (37) Ziegler This assessment is revealing of Ziegler’s proves himself to be a purist in this sec- fundamental moral judgement: middle- tion – a policy like pay equity that merely and high-income wage earners are as reduces income inequalities is “reaction- much a part of the problem as the wealthy ary” since it does not provide a basis for a in Canadian society since they are earn- fully egalitarian incomes policy. ing more than what they need (41). Appre- In the end Richard Ziegler invokes his ciating Richard Ziegler’s moral stance zero-sum notion of political demands allows us to understand why he condemns to explain the labour movement’s nega- health care professionals for profiting tive influence on the Canadian Left: “the “enormously from the illnesses of others,” more attention the left accords Canadian (27) and introduces the labour movement workers, … the less time it devotes to the as the second villain in his story. question of redistribution.” (45) Unfortu- Reclaiming the Canadian Left argues nately there is no appreciation in Ziegler’s that the contemporary Canadian labour analysis of how the solidarity of the labour movement pursues the material interests movement can be an important basis for of workers who already have “superfluous the spread of an egalitarian ethos; how the income and wealth that should be subject power of the organized working class can to redistribution.” (41–42) Therefore the be a potent force for social change; and labour movement “is essentially a sup- how, in the course of collective struggle, porter of great social stratification” (35) working-class consciousness can rapidly since it is unwilling “to examine whether morph from a narrow, material focus to a the existing disparities of income in soci- broad, political focus. ety are justified and are having a destruc- The third villain in Reclaiming the tive effect on societal cohesion and to Canadian Left is the anti-poverty move- consider whether pay increases will fur- ment. Richard Ziegler argues that “the ther aggravate these inequalities.” (36) anti-poverty movement is anti-egalitar- Richard Ziegler is particularly criti- ian” because it does not target wealth as cal of public sector unionism. “The rise the cause of poverty and does not call for of the public sector unions,” he writes, most Canadians to become poorer. Given “has contributed to the gratuitous wealth his purist logic (see above), any move- of workers, as governments, unlike com- ment that fails to privilege the egalitarian panies, cannot relocate to find a cheaper ideal is by definition “reactionary.” (56, labour force and are often obliged to 59) The anti-poverty movement has had submit to wage demands.” (43) This sen- a deleterious effect on the Canadian Left tence echoes the common Right-wing by “redirect[ing] thought away from the critique of the ‘monopoly’ power of pub- problem of wealth.” (59) While Ziegler lic sector unions. It is noteworthy that certainly makes a valid point in identi- Ziegler fails to demonstrate how lower fying wealth as the source of poverty, he public sector wages in the current capi- fails to acknowledge that anti-poverty talist political economy (as opposed to an programs redistribute income and wealth egalitarian utopia) would further the goal even when they do not explicitly invoke of economic equality. The author is also an egalitarian ideal. It is instructive that highly critical of the labour movement’s in the decade of the 1990s the oecd coun- campaign for pay equity which he calls tries with the lowest poverty rates were “a reactionary policy” even though “it is also countries with relatively small gaps

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in income share between the top 20 per no social theory of wealth; is purist and cent and bottom 20 per cent of earners (as doctrinaire in its political delineations; noted by Scott Sernau in Worlds Apart: uncritically adopts Right-wing rheto- Social Inequalities in a New Century). ric and commonsense in critiquing new In terms of existing Left-wing parties, social movements and the labour move- Richard Ziegler denounces today’s NDP ment; and is utterly devoid of humour. as “merely another mainstream party Tom Langford dedicated to maintaining immense eco- University of Calgary nomic inequalities,” dismisses the Scan- dinavian social democratic parties in a single sentence and terms radical Left Kiran Mirchandani and Wendy Chan, groups “politically conservative” since Criminalizing Race, Criminalizing they fail to meet his purist egalitarian Poverty: Welfare Fraud Enforcement in standard. (64–65) To this point in his Canada (Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing book, Ziegler has systematically rejected 2007) the Left-wing credentials of most of the movements and organizations that are Mirchandani and Chan begin Crimi- traditionally found on the Left. Never- nalizing Race, Criminalizing Poverty: theless he proceeds to propose the for- Welfare Fraud Enforcement in Canada mation of a new Left-wing party that with an introduction replete with ambi- “would insist that all those in the wealthy tious goals for their book. Identifying countries possessing more than they seven inter-related but distinct areas to be need be required to share that surplus” covered they seem to bite off more than (66) and campaign for a maximum 16 to they can chew in a publication of less than 1 ratio between the income of the high- 100 pages. To cover (i) the welfare fraud est income world citizen and the low- enforcement practices and strategies est income world citizen. (66, 70) Given adopted by Ontario and British Columbia, these party planks, my recommendation ( ii) the criminalization of poverty, (iii) the is to call such an organization the “Share criminalization of race, (iv) the ways in the Wealth Party” or the “16 to 1 Party.” which welfare fraud enforcement serves My further suggestion is that Ziegler to “further neo-liberal governance struc- would do well to study the example of tures,” (v) the voices of welfare recipients the Work Less Party of British Columbia of colour, and furthermore (vi) to increase (known for the slogan “Workers of the awareness about the structural racism World Relax”) to see how he might try to within social assistance policies and (vii) creatively promote his ideals. to make policy reform recommenda- Richard Ziegler’s core moral belief is tions, is no small task. To do so effectively that “wealth is immoral” (87) and his pos- requires a solid framework within which sible agents of egalitarian social change to develop the respective areas and into are “those individuals who are able to which to weave the various discourses. transcend the multiple sources of their Mirchandani and Chan present such individual and collective identities … and a framework through their discussion grasp what should be done … the impera- of how issues of gender, class, and race tive of redistribution, even if it would intersect to construct relations of power monetarily diminish themselves.” (90) and institutional processes which stig- Reclaiming the Canadian Left succeeds matize and marginalize certain groups of as a forthright moral argument for an people. In exploring how these construc- egalitarian ideal. It fails because it posits tions “mediate society’s understand-

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ing and application of social policies,” estimates of money saved through fraud (9) they introduce a framework with the enforcement are grossly overstated. Fur- potential to integrate the various goals thermore, a number of fraud accusations and objectives of the book. However, result from system errors and are not, in the framework they present is not suffi- fact, fraud at all. What these overstate- ciently developed to successfully weave ments do achieve, however, is a criminal- together the composite parts. Because ization of poverty. With the incidence of of this, the strength of their argument is fraud ranging from less than 0.5 per cent compromised in its component parts and to 4 per cent, depending upon the juris- as a whole. While some sections stand diction and source, the media and parlia- on their own, presenting a poignant and mentary attention to the issue implies that convincing case, others flounder without the rates are significantly higher. It draws a structure to hang on to. on existing stereotypes and legitimizes a In examining the welfare fraud enforce- ‘crack-down’ on the poor and marginal- ment practices and strategies adopted by ized. Mirchandani and Chan’s overview the provincial governments of Ontario of the policies, numbers, and discussion and British Columbia, Mirchandani and of the representation of welfare fraud in Chan outline the relevant policies and the media powerfully illustrates the ways begin to build a convincing case illustrat- in which the poor are criminalized in ing how these policies criminalize people Ontario and British Columbia. on welfare. From snitch-lines (where Interwoven with their arguments dem- neighbours and friends are expected to onstrating the criminalization of poverty report on suspected welfare fraud) to through welfare fraud enforcement dis- greater streamlining of various provinces’ courses and initiatives, is an analysis of the welfare systems (to ensure recipients are criminalization of race through the same not collecting benefits in more than one processes. A key to understanding this jurisdiction) to increased surveillance analysis of race is the concept of ‘racial- (including the hiring of additional staff ization.’ Racialization highlights “the to review case files), fraud enforcement systemic and continuous ways in which initiatives contribute to the construction racism is produced” (46) and thereby of welfare recipients as dishonest people “shifts the focus from the notion of race and ‘cheats.’ Opposing the interests of as fixed biological trait to an analysis of taxpayers to those of welfare recipients, practices of dominant social groups.” (47) welfare fraud enforcement initiatives are Using the concept of racialization enables legitimized. In an attempt “to reassure a discussion of how governmental insti- the public that their tax dollars are being tutions are constructed from the domi- well spent” (13) welfare fraud enforce- nant paradigm, reflecting the beliefs and ment has been developed to mirror the values of the dominant culture and inher- criminal justice system to such an extent ently privileging the dominant class, race, that the Harris government in Ontario and sex and systemically disadvantaging proposed a plan that would mandate all others. While Mirchandani and Chan do welfare recipients to be fingerprinted in an excellent job of explicating the con- an effort to reduce fraud. cept of racialization, their analysis of the In looking at the numbers, Mirchan- process is less thorough. While they draw dani and Chan present a clear case that attention to race issues, they do not suc- welfare fraud accusations are largely cessfully weave together the processes of unfounded and that the fraud rates and racialization and poverty and, as a result,

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their discussion on race often comes neo-liberalism were more explicit, par- across as a tag-on to the discussion of the ticularly as they inform government pol- criminalization of poverty. icy and institutions. Another key piece for Mirchandani and Hannah Goa Chan is the ideological motivation behind University of Alberta the criminalization of race and poverty. Referring to neo-liberalism throughout the book, however, what they mean by the Dimitry Anastakis, ed. The Sixties: term is not clearly defined. They comment Passion, Politics, and Style (Montreal: on how through the process of stigmatiz- McGill-Queen’s University Press 2008) ing (82) and constructing “deeply nega- tive stereotypes of welfare recipients,” The study of the ‘Sixties’ is in full expan- (81) a dismantling of the welfare state has sion. Both within and outside of Canada, been legitimized. They refer to the “cen- books are being published, conferences trality placed on individual labour market are being held, and articles, theses, and participation” (87) in welfare reform. But, collections of essays are in the process without defining what they mean by neo- of being prepared. The Sixties: Passion, liberalism, and how these concepts relate, Politics, and Style, collecting articles first the references remain oblique. As with presented at a 2003 conference held at their discussion of race, the references Montreal’s McCord Museum, forms part to neo-liberalism move between being of this larger efflorescence. With articles weaved into the framework of the book spanning academic disciplines and treat- and coming across as being appended. ing a wide variety of topics, the book One of the book’s strengths, however, offers an eclectic look at some of the most is in the ways in which the voices of wel- important transformations and legacies fare recipients support and complement of the decade. the theoretical and analytical work. The In its range of topics and approaches accounts of experiences told by partici- the book casts a wide net. Authors pants tell a story of discrimination and explore questions as diverse as Charles criminalization that needs to be heard. de Gaulle’s speech from the balcony of Combined with the strength of the dis- Montreal City Hall to the Voice of Wom- cussion on the criminalization of poverty en’s opposition to the Vietnam War. The that runs through the book, the experi- book’s protagonists vary from artists to ences of welfare recipients add an impor- architects to bureaucrats. Gender is the tant layer to the discussion. For anyone topic that is given the most sustained interested in income-support programs treatment, as a number of articles in in Canada, this book documents some the collection treat the complex ways in important experiences and trends as well which gender ideals were debated, chal- as providing a number of provocative lenged, and transformed throughout ideas to explore. However, while draw- the 1960s. Kristy Holmes, for example, ing attention to significant and impor- offers an innovative reading of Joyce Wie- tant questions, the book falls short of land’s artistic work, arguing that Wieland the goals set out in the introduction. The sought not to defend, but to challenge book would be useful to a wider audience Pierre Trudeau’s model of the rational if some of the connections between the liberal citizen. Holmes’ feminist critique criminalization of poverty, the crimi- of Trudeau is followed by an article by nalization of race, and the influence of Christopher Dummitt, who offers an

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important cultural history of masculin- in forming government policy on drug ity and automobiles. By demonstrating use. Courteaux and Martel’s well-doc- the relationship between being ‘manly’ umented articles contrast with Gretta and being ‘modern’ in the years follow- Chambers’ impressionistic recollections. ing World War II, he argues that when Chambers, an acclaimed journalist, even “automobile-centred high modernism argues that over a period of five years came under attack,” so too did the form “Quebec’s churches were emptied and the of masculinity embedded within it. (74) ‘priest-ridden’ society disappeared with- Both Holmes and Dummitt, in different out a trace.” (19) This view of the Quiet ways, remind us that some of the most Revolution as a “dramatic break” with a profound social changes of the Sixties “parochial past” is also repeated in the were registered not in the realm of high book’s introduction, where the Sixties in politics, but in the gender relations that Quebec are portrayed as “a bridge from shape everyday life. the time of Maurice Duplessis and the Two chapters of The Sixties also dem- Grande noirceur to a vibrant, progres- onstrate that, at the same time that gen- sive, and modern Quebec.” (4) There is der norms were undergoing important no doubt that the Quiet Revolution was challenges, conceptions of architecture an important moment in Quebec his- and urban space were being contested tory, but such generalizations, ignoring and transformed. France Vanlaethem, for the rich historiographical debates on the example, argues that critiques of archi- topic, contribute little to our understand- tectural modernism began much earlier ing of the period. than the 1970s, the time during which On the whole, the book’s topics are critiques are generally assumed to have varied and its argumentation nuanced. surfaced. All throughout the 1960s, she Yet, after finishing the book, one is left maintains, the practice of architecture struggling to understand what is really was undergoing important changes, meant by ‘the Sixties.’ Does studying the ensuring that a sense of ambivalence and ‘Sixties’ merely mean studying anything unease hung over the profession. Krys that happened during the 1960s? Or is the Verrall, for her part, discusses the inter- period defined by its social, artistic, and sections and divergences among urban cultural movements? Do the Canadian development projects, avant-garde art Sixties need to be understood through a scenes, and civil rights and anti-poverty national lens? Or were the Sixties in Can- movements in New York and Halifax. As ada merely one part of a much broader conceptual art in New York “dissociated phenomenon? Perhaps more importantly, itself from concurrent social movements why are questions of race, immigration, that were unfolding on its own doorstep,” labour, and region continually sidelined she concludes, so too “did conceptual in discussions of the Sixties in Canada? If art and civil rights activism in Halifax The Sixties at times alludes to these ques- develop along two racially segregated tra- tions, they are never centrally addressed. jectories.” (162) Part of the difficulty lies in the book’s In one form or another, Quebec forms introduction. When attempting to define the subject of nearly half of the book’s the book’s scope and content, Anastakis chapters. Olivier Courteaux outlines suggests that the period may begin with the historical circumstances leading to the election of John F. Kennedy in the de Gaulle’s relationship with Quebec, United States, or with “the seeming end and Marcel Martel explores the role of of innocence symbolized by that presi- both Ontario and Quebec bureaucrats dent’s murder.” Or perhaps, he continues,

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the period began with “the screaming observations speak to a failure of com- arrival of the Beatles.” And because of the munication between critical political lasting impact of the style of the Sixties, theorists and the practitioners of ecologi- he hints that the period may have no end- cal science that continues to hobble both ing point at all. (3–4) While arguments political leadership and active citizen- over the beginning and ending point of ship. While the reasons for this failure are the Sixties inevitably run in circles, defin- complex (and not the primary concern of ing the ‘Sixties’ in Canada by referring this collection), socialists can contribute exclusively to developments in the United to ecological praxis by improving their States points to many of the unresolved own understanding of the relationships questions regarding how to think about between contemporary capitalism and the period in Canada. ecological crises. An important aspect of The Sixties: Passion, Politics, and Style this undertaking is to more clearly con- is not designed, however, to be the final ceptualize “the kind of politics that could word on the subject. Rather, it is con- lead to an ecologically sustainable as well ceived as a beginning, offering new lines as a democratic socialism.” (ix) of inquiry. Anastakis concludes the intro- Overall, the collection very admira- duction by stating that the book’s articles bly achieves its objectives. The chapters demonstrate that the Sixties remain years by Neil Smith, Elmar Altvater, Daniel of “uncertain clarity” and “ambiguous Buck, and Philip McMichael, in particu- legacy.” (13) This is certainly true. And lar, go a long way toward fulfilling the what this collection makes clear is that collection’s aim of providing a “better the period will be a subject of research ecosocialist understanding of contem- and debate for years to come. porary capitalism.” (ix) Smith describes Sean Mills the ways in which nature is increasingly New York University being commodified, socially produced, and financialized. Drawing on Marx, and on the work of the French School Leo Panitch and Colin Leys, eds. of Regulation, he argues that a real sub- Coming to Terms with Nature: Socialist sumption of nature to capital is taking Register 2007 (London: Merlin; New place (like the earlier real subsumption of York: Monthly Review Press; Halifax: labour to capital in the intensive regime Fernwood Publishing) of accumulation). Nature is now not only being appropriated by capitalism, but In their characteristically dense also produced by capitalism, in the form and succinct preface to the 2007 edition of new technologies – in particular, bio- of the Socialist Register, the editors make technologies. The eco-Marxist theorist, two important observations. The first is James O’Connor, drew attention to the that socialist theorists have, until recently, same phenomena, albeit using differ- not recognized environmental problems ent terms, in work published in 1988 as being urgent, potentially irreversible, and 1998. O’Connor viewed capital’s and “integral” to the socialist project. The drive to “remake nature” as a response second observation is that “mainstream to the “liquidity crisis” generated by its environmentalists” continue to look to own consumption of resources, and as a kind of “market ecology” for solutions, requiring, also, the remaking of science “as if markets and technocracy can solve and technology in its own image. Thus, ecological problems without reference monoculture forests or gmos could be to politics and democracy.” (xiv) These understood as capitalist attempts to

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speed up nature’s rates of regeneration or While it is tempting to cling to the hope to transform nature into new commodity offered by this prediction of capitalism’s forms. This more intensive exploitation inevitable demise (beginning in about of nature, O’Connor argued, resembles four decades, with the end of oil), there the transformations of labour processes remain compelling grounds for skepti- aimed at increasing relative surplus cism and uncertainty about the depen- value. Interestingly, Smith seems to take dence of capitalist social relations upon up where O’Connor left off, affirming a specific energy regime. Indeed, many with the benefit of greater hindsight the environmental thinkers have promoted trends that were becoming apparent in ecological modernization precisely on the the mid-1980s. From this vantage point, grounds that it is compatible with capi- Smith emphasizes the ways in which the talism. Nuclear power, – which is not dis- social creation and financialization of cussed in any detail by any of the authors nature (e.g., gmos and carbon credits, – while not a renewable source of energy respectively) constitute new accumula- (because of limited reserves of uranium), tion strategies. could extend the life of capitalism for a Elmar Altvater, focusing on “fossil very long time, with some risks mitigated capitalism,” argues that the historical by small-scale reactors. Nuclear, indeed, “congruence of capitalism, fossil energy, is enjoying a “renaissance” of credibility, rationalism and industrialism” was both thanks to the promotional efforts of the unique and “perfect” for the require- nuclear industry and supportive gov- ments of capitalist accumulation, and ernments – also some environmental- that fossil energy “fits into capitalism’s ists, such as James Lovelock and Patrick societal relation to nature.” (41–2) Fossil Moore – who have identified nuclear fuels did bring about a radical accelera- power as a solution to global warming. tion and spatial expansion of industrial Daniel Buck predicts that capitalism capitalism. However, Altvater argues, the will survive the “ecological challenge” profound crisis of capitalism today is that (although the future mode of regulation a continued reliance upon fossil-fuelled could be more inegalitarian and inhu- growth risks ecological destruction, and mane), because it is not oil, but tech- at the same time, no economy based on nology, that is central to the capitalist renewable energy sources will be able to mode of production. Buck’s argument “power the machine of capitalist accu- regarding the potential of capitalists to mulation and growth.” (45) In particular, produce radical technological break- a solar revolution will require “a radical throughs resembles that of the “Pro- transformation of the patterns of pro- metheans” of the 1980s, who insisted duction and consumption, life and work, that “human ingenuity” would find solu- gender relations, and the spatial and tem- tions to any ecological limits to economic poral organization of social life.” (54) In growth. Much of what is at issue here is Altvater’s view, these new directions will our understanding of the necessity of necessarily be non-capitalist. incessant economic growth (in terms of Altvater is not alone, of course, in asso- energy and material throughputs) for the ciating “soft energy” alternatives such as continuation of capitalism as a mode of solar energy with transition to decen- production. Also at issue is how we assess tralized (more democratic) control over the potential of ecological moderniza- energy production, less globalized (and tion to reduce throughputs and wastes to more self-reliant) economic circuits, an ecologically sustainable level within and less consumption-driven societies. a capitalist mode of production. Costas

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Panayotakis argues that technological policy field, the difficulties of identify- fixes alone cannot resolve the “third” ing actors’ societal interests (given the contradiction of capitalism, which is its murkiness of ngo-corporate relations), inability to provide “a richer and more and the difficulties of documenting the satisfying life for all human beings.” (260) influence of business in secretive policy- The arguments in this chapter have been making processes. Yet the analysis of advanced before – notably, by Herbert policy outcomes yields an uncomplicated Marcuse – and the author seems pessi- explanation for governmental non-action mistic about the possibility of resistance with regard to investment in renewable to capitalist consumer culture. He pro- energy: “a weakened state at the mercy of poses restrictions on advertising, but it is industrial interests.” (84) The authors do not evident where the agency for such a not have very hopeful things to say about reform is likely to come. the social actors that might transform The chapters that focus on particular state-society relations in the uk. countries or regions illustrate the dif- The chapter by Wen and Li provides an ficulties of generalization with regard to overview of multiple aspects of China’s “the kind of politics that could lead to an environmental crisis. However, it does ecologically sustainable as well as a dem- not identify the actors who might bring ocratic socialism.” (ix) On the one hand, about a transition to a more egalitar- strategies of collective action need to be ian and ecologically sustainable model rooted in specific local contexts. On the of development – and with whom eco- other hand, to advance collective action socialists elsewhere might develop in the form of international solidarity, we solidaristic strategies. Bernstein and need to identify the linkages among local Woodhouse provide a complex analy- contexts. Case studies include renew- sis of the different effects of the intensi- able energy policy in the uk, political fied commoditization of agriculture on responses to Hurricane Katrina in the us, sub-Saharan Africa’s “classes of labour,” hyper-development in China, the crisis of ending their chapter with a list of ques- food production in sub-Saharan Africa, tions about the possible sources or forms obstacles to the provision of clean, safe of collective action for a more egalitarian water and sanitation to two billion peo- and environmentally sustainable agri- ple, the political economy of the Kyoto cultural model. The juxtaposition of the Protocol, “green capitalism” as a substi- two chapters draws attention to a strik- tute for the reduction of consumption ing commonality: the relationship of in the usA, and the story of the German consumption in the Global North to eco- Green Party’s de-radicalization. In addi- logical crises in the Global South. In the tion to the five chapters described above, case of China, both labour and nature are chapters by Joan Martinez-Alier, Michael hyper-exploited to produce cheap con- Löwy, and Greg Albo focus on eco-social- sumer and industrial goods for export. In ist concepts and strategy. sub-Saharan Africa, fisheries and forests Harris-White and Harris’ critique of are being decimated, and agricultural the uk Labour government’s “aspira- land reallocated to cash crops for export tional” climate change policy is highly (including the water-intensive production instructive for Canadians, whose govern- of flowers for export to Europe), while for ments (Liberal and Conservative) have the majority of the population, “life is followed the same strategy. This analysis highly unpredictable.” (159) recognizes the complexity of regulatory Philip McMichael’s chapter maps out pressures and interests in the energy the global political economy of trans-

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formations in agriculture and food pro- sumer power can make capitalism green vision since the colonial era, touching (if only we can overcome our “selfish particularly on meat production, factory human nature”). This chapter shines a farming, and genetically modified crops. spotlight on corporate greenwashing and This chapter offers a fuller discussion of the “shallowness” of the green consum- alternative models and social agency for erism/capitalism approach to ecological change than some of the book’s other sustainability. chapters. I have used it in a third-year Jamie Peck’s essay “Neoliberal Hurri- course and found that it made a big cane: Who Framed New Orleans?” also impression on students. Eric Swynge- focuses on the powerful pro-capitalist douw’s chapter on the commoditization ideological campaign to frame what is at of water attempts to make a similar kind stake in various environmental crises. He of analysis, arguing that water scarcity offers a careful, if perhaps overly detailed (like famines) is largely socially con- reconstruction of how neo-conservative structed. While this is certainly a large think-tanks sought (more or less success- part of the story, this chapter pays little fully) to persuade some of the America attention to effects on global fresh water media, as well as the Bush Administra- supply of global warming and intensive tion, neither to break with a neo-liberal industrial uses (including agricultural). role for the state, nor to attribute the hur- The theoretical argument would have ricane to climate change. The result, Peck been strengthened by more grounding argues, is that the disaster was “trans- in empirical research and less use of lan- formed into a malformed reconstruc- guage such as “socio-hydrological cycle” tion program that blames, and morally or “socio-spatial flows” which are rather regulates, the most vulnerable victims, impenetrable to most readers. The most while setting in train “[w]holescale gen- interesting part of the chapter is the sec- trification on a scale unseen in the United tion that discusses – like Colin Leys’ States.” (122) While the focus on the remarkable Market-Driven Politics – how influence of neo-con think-tanks is highly public goods like water are commodi- instructive, the essay leaves the impres- fied, and what obstacles commodification sion that no other discourses about the encounters. It would be illuminating to meaning of Hurricane Katrina have been extend this general discussion to a com- heard in the United States, in particular parative analysis of attempts to com- with regard to broader public opinion. A modify water in different contexts, in fuller answer to the question posed in the particular, to identify successful strate- chapter’s title would give some attention gies of resistance. to a wider range of media, think-tanks, Heather Roger’s “Garbage Capital- ngos, and other actors. ism’s Green Commerce” is a great read. The last three chapters are of par- It very effectively tackles the old prob- ticular interest from the point of view of lem of individual responsibility versus eco-socialist strategy. Löwy outlines an structural change (or state regulation) as eco-socialist vision with a central role solutions to environmental crisis. This for participatory, democratic planning. chapter will be highly effective in North This is an important counterpart to the American classrooms, where, typically, preceding eco-Marxist analyses of the students have bought into the very ide- capitalist roots of the environmental and ology that Rogers describes, that is, that social crises confronting the world. As is individual consumers are responsible for perhaps unavoidable, given the size of the environmental problems and that con- task and the limits of space, Lowy’s dis-

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cussion of the relationship between short- There is some unevenness among the term reforms and radical transformation chapters in the extent of their treatment is somewhat truncated and in need of of “the kind of politics” and social agency clarification. On one hand, Green par- which may advance the project of the eco- ties are criticized for remaining within left. The essays do, however, go a long way the boundaries of social liberalism; on toward providing an eco-Marxist frame- the other hand, he lists reforms that have work for interpreting the causes of a been supported by Green Parties as exam- broad range of ecological crises. Through ples of “urgent eco-social demands [that] the integration of ecological concepts, can lead to a process of radicalization, if discourse analysis, and Marxist political such demands are not adapted so as to fit economy, this collection helps us under- in with the requirements of `competitive- stand the obstacles to, and potential for, ness.’” (306) We are left wondering what radical ecological change. forms, specifically, these demands should Laurie Adkin take so as not to be adapted (adaptable?) University of Alberta to the needs of capitalist accumulation. Frieder Otto Wolf picks up on the ques- tion of the roles that have been played by Chad Montrie, Making a Living: Work Green, or eco-left parties, focusing on the and Environment in the United States prototypical German Greens. Although (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Wolf identifies a number of causes of the Press 2008) Greens’ slide toward the acceptance of neo-liberal economics, the key explana- History is fundamentally the story of tion appears to be the comparative weak- humans transforming the natural world ness of the Green Left within the party. through their labours. And yet, despite Wolf understands very clearly what is at the deep connections between human stake, politically, in debates about the work and the natural environment, this Green parties. If the Greens were the relationship – “the core element of human counter-hegemonic “movement parties” history,” in Chad Montrie’s opinion – has of the future – the new hope to defeat largely been neglected by modern histori- capitalism – and they are seen to be fail- ans. (129) The specialization of academic ing, what should we conclude? Not one subfields has meant that labour historians to succumb to despair, Wolf offers some have focused primarily upon labourers ideas about the kind of political party and the labour movement while environ- that might successfully resist integration. mental historians have focused primarily However, he argues that attempts to form upon the environment and the environ- such radical parties will be premature mental movement. Never the twain shall until the social movements giving rise to meet. Montrie’s Making a Living: Work them have gone through a period of “edu- and Environment in the United States cation and self-education,” as modeled seeks to bridge this historiographical gap by attac or by the World Social Forum. and “tell a story that should resonate with (331) scholars working in both environmental Finally, Greg Albo argues, in the con- and labor history.” (8) cluding chapter, that eco-socialism must In six short essays examining textile address the realities of a global capitalist mill girls in Lowell, slaves and share- economy, and should connect to territo- croppers in the Mississippi Delta, female rial scales of anti-capitalist, democratic homesteaders in Kansas and Nebraska, struggle that transcend the local. coal miners in Appalachia, autoworkers

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in Detroit, and Hispanic farm workers in their experiences during industrializa- southern California, Montrie attempts to tion, their changing identities, their var- reveal how workers resisted, with varying ied and evolving culture and values, their degrees of success, the labour processes efforts to create and maintain unions and that alienated them from both work and other social organizations, as well as their nature. Central to this task is the author’s role in politics.” (6) “common theory” of alienation. Labour Making a Living is therefore stimulat- historians have understandably directed ing, insightful, and relevant. However, their attentions to the exploitation of the book seems only to add a new histo- labour by capital and the alienation of riographical gloss on an old story that has industrial workers from the labour pro- been told by hundreds of social histori- cess. Environmental historians have ans over the last fifty years. That story, in understandably focused on a different short, is the estrangement of artisans and consequence of the Industrial Revolution: farmers as holistic, rewarding, and pro- the exploitation of nature and the alien- ductive labours gave way to fragmented, ation of humans from the natural world. routinized, and oppressive industrial Montrie suggests, quite sensibly, that work regimes, followed by the valiant, these two processes of alienation were but ultimately futile, resistance of these connected: “the exploitation of Ameri- workers to such conditions. Montrie can workers intensified while their sense introduces the storyline in these terms: of separation from the natural world “Under capitalism, the power of living became more acute.” (8) beings for creative productive activity is Also significant is Montrie’s ambitious largely reduced to a mere means to sat- and revisionist claim that some workers, isfy animal needs, when they are forced in the process of resisting their estrange- to sell their labour power for a wage and ment from both work and nature, “also give up claim to the products of their helped forge a robust environmental labour. This severs most of their remain- movement.” (91) It has long been a truism ing organic connections to nature and among environmental historians that the thereby compounds an actual and sensed origins of the “environmental movement” estrangement from self, although it is not were distinctly middle-class. Montrie complete. Workers are not entirely bereft argues, to the contrary, that autowork- of ways to respond and resist, and they ers “pioneered a working-class environ- certainly do so, a fact that Making a Liv- mentalism, an important but somewhat ing attempts to reveal and explain.” (7) forgotten foundation for the mainstream Sentences like this one provide a kind concern that blossomed across the coun- of historiographical déjà vu – is it the try.” (92) 1970s again? The storyline is valid. But Montrie’s claims that workers, rather does rehashing Marx’s theory of alien- than elites, played a crucial role in forging ation push forward our historical under- environmentalism as well as his empha- standing? Alienation is still relevant. But sis on coupling labour and environmen- that does not make it new or counterin- tal history should serve as a wake-up call tuitive or cutting edge, as Montrie would to specialists in both fields. He makes a have us believe, even if we add nature to compelling case that work and nature the mix. cannot be studied apart from each other: Another problem with the book is rural “Paying attention to workers’ relationship nostalgia. Montrie, like most of us (“us” with the natural world through their work meaning urban middle-class academics), can and will alter the way we think about takes a pessimistic view of the process

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that estranged workers from nature. Even of the relationship between labour and if he grudgingly acknowledges that mod- the environment. For too long, a wall has ernization had “a few good ends” – “access separated workers and environmental- to better schools, doctors, and hospi- ists just as it has divided historians. It’s tals, as well as cultural amenities such as time to bring the discussion together and movie theatres, amusement parks, and stimulate debate. Chad Montrie has tried dance halls,” he generally depicts the lives to do just that and I applaud him for it. of workers after their separation from David Arnold nature – even those who fled poverty in Columbia Basin College Appalachia for high-paying wartime jobs in the North – as largely miserable and bleak. (91) Preindustrial labours, on the Joseph Gerteis, Class and the Color other hand, are cast in the most glowing Line: Interracial Class Coalition in terms: “Settled on a hillside or nestled in a the Knights of Labor and the Populist hollow with access to bottomland, moun- Movement (Durham and London: Duke tain residents grew, raised, gathered, and University Press 2007) caught their subsistence as part of fam- ily production units, based on an ideal of Joseph Gerteis’ book is a valuable interdependence and a life lived close to contribution to the massive, and still the natural world that was directly and burgeoning, literature on race and class perceptibly around them. There was a in American history. His subject is the division of labor, often by gender and age, Knights of Labor and the Populists, but family members had a sense of their which he identifies as “at once the most place and function, and their work was important class movements of the Gilded meaningful.” (74) Age and the era’s most important vehicles I am critical because I also fall into for interracial organizing.” (202) the trap of romanticizing preindus- There is a longstanding historiographic trial labours and demonizing the “dark debate about these movements’ complex satanic mills.” But only by escaping such attitudes towards race and particularly nostalgia can we begin to tell a new story. organizing across the colour line. In If not, we are left retelling the same old reassessing the Knights’ and Populists’ tale of “Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft,” activity in the American South, Gerteis or, as one of my mentors used to call it, brings fresh perspective to this old ques- the “community goes smash” model. I tion, and produces insights and modes of like this model too. But it needs rethink- analysis that are significant for broader ing, and for the same reason that envi- debates about labour, social history, and ronmental historians have jettisoned the race relations. concept of “pristine” wilderness: it posits He contends that most of the schol- a romantic and ahistorical past. arly discussion about the Knights and Montrie is trying to rethink things and the Populists has been driven by either Making a Living is a step in that direc- a preoccupation with the “fluidity and tion. His book should stir a lively debate gamesmanship surrounding race,” or a in graduate school seminars among given historian’s own conceptions of race environmental and labour historians and class. (3–4) Gerteis insists that if we who will likely meet in separate class- accept that race is socially constructed, rooms. Unfortunately, the book will not then what matters most are the ideas gain much of an audience outside of aca- of the historical actors, in this case the demia where we really need a rethinking people and organizations that sought to

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change the social and economic condi- The “type” of equality was also impor- tions of their day. “Rather than try to tant, as the Populists in particular often engage in abstract argument about the supported expanded political rights for ultimate interests or intents of the move- blacks but adamantly opposed social ments with regard to race,” he writes, equality or integration. Timing was “my goal is to reconstruct the way that another factor, with views of blacks the movements made sense of their own depending on whether one focuses on interests and identities.” (4) “the giddy heyday of the movements One debate about “ultimate intents” [when] they felt that everything was pos- that Gerteis especially wants to escape sible, even overcoming the ‘color line’ pertains to whether the Knights and once and for all” (202) or on the periods Populists were exclusive or inclusive, and after these high hopes were dashed. especially whether their rhetoric about The variable that receives most atten- uniting white and black “producers” was tion is local and regional conditions, with sincere or cynical. Gerteis credits Eric Gerteis offering detailed analyses of four Arnesen for “nailing this problem when different settings. In Richmond, Virginia, he labeled it the ‘how racist/racially egali- where there was a well organized black tarian were they’ question.” (204) population with strong community- Gerteis declares the opposition to be based institutions such as churches and a false one, and argues that these move- schools, the Knights of Labor made major ments were clearly both exclusive and – and nearly successful – efforts to build inclusive, egalitarian in some instances an inter-racial alliance. (Chapter 3) But in and avowedly racist in others. A more Atlanta, Georgia, where the black com- fruitful approach, he argues, is to explore munity was not nearly as established, the where and how the lines of division were Knights viewed blacks as “akin to the new drawn in an era, after Reconstruction, immigrants, unorganized and unorgan- when race relations and class structures izable.” (Chapter 4) appeared unstable and the potential for In contrast, the Populists in Georgia change seemed great. made considerable progress in organiz- The bulk of his research is dedicated ing across the colour line, largely because to tracing these lines of division on two the movement’s rhetoric spoke directly to planes: the broader “movement-level nar- white and black farmers facing increased ratives” created by the movements, and tenancy rates and financial pressures particular local or regional contexts. He involving cotton production. (Chapter 6) finds that attitudes could vary drastically But little headway was made in Virginia, depending on a number of variables, such not only because its rural economy had as which racial/ethnic group was being a different structure but also because of discussed. Gerteis contends that the a complicated political landscape that Knights vilified immigrants from Eastern made it difficult for the Populists to build Europe and Asia while often portraying loyalty among black voters. (Chapter 7) blacks as potential allies to their move- Another notable way in which Gerteis ment. Similarly, the Populists pedaled takes the analysis of race relations beyond images of English bankers, particularly abstract categories imposed by scholars London Jews, controlling financial mar- is to highlight how the ideologies of these kets, but often claimed that both white movements served as “lenses” through and black farmers were victims of their which different racial and ethnic groups manipulations. were viewed. At both the national and

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local levels, these movements were par- either enemies or potential allies to the ticularly influenced by Republican radi- movement is an important question. calism, which provided a language to These issues connect to another prob- defend the interests of independent craft lem in the book: the neglect of gender. workers and farmers against the advances The absence of a gender analysis is often of capitalism. jarring, especially given Gerteis’ impres- Republicanism’s preoccupation with sive command of the literature on this “civic virtue” was especially influen- period, so much of which argues that tial in framing the movements’ views of class, race, and gender identities were blacks and immigrants. In other words, inextricably linked. The book offers little the Knights’ and Populists’ openness to exploration of the gender components of a particular people depended on whether the movements’ ideologies. The role of they were deemed capable of not only gender and “manliness” in shaping ide- holding “formal legal autonomy,” but also als of “independence” and “civic virtue” ” “maintaining Republican institutions” by needed to be explored. As many scholars contributing to a vigorous political dis- have also found, claims that blacks and course and acting as informed and judi- immigrants were unorganizable often cious voters. (74) relied on claims that they were unmanly. Nevertheless, there are important Similarly, losing independence as a pro- themes that Gerteis leaves underdevel- ducer was often seen as fundamentally oped, at least some of which are by-prod- emasculating. ucts of an innovative work that opens Moreover, despite the many insights up many new questions. One part of the provided into organizing across the book that could have been expanded was colour line, little is said about cross- the analysis of the movements’ approach ing gender lines, or even where the pos- to social issues. Gerteis does show effec- sibility to do so may have existed. For tively that the Knights and Populists did instance, in his local study of Richmond, not confine themselves to economic and Gerteis states that the city had few work- political issues; social issues were also ing women, although he does note that essential. But his analysis of social issues some important industries – tobacco and concentrates heavily on ideas of “civic box-making – had predominantly white virtue,” and how they shaped the move- female workforces. But the gender com- ments’ views of a given people. ponent to local labour organizing is not Civic virtue does not encapsulate all pursued. The role of women’s work on of the wide range of social questions family farms, and in the southern agri- these movements addressed. Certainly cultural sector in general, also needed the Knights, including leaders such as more attention. Terence Powderly, were committed to Finally, in the treatment of the role of engaging in debates about such issues as the Republican ideology, Gerteis would culture, religion, the spread of problems have profited from considering the such as drugs and gambling, the grow- growth of these movements, particularly ing strain on working families, and the the Knights, beyond the United States. increased threats to the “morality” of The Knights’ organizing in English Can- working-class women. Race, ethnicity, ada raises questions particularly about and immigration were bound up in these the role of the “Republican idiom,” which debates, and how this in turn influenced could not be transported wholesale across the views of immigrants and blacks as the border. Yet much of the Knights’ ide-

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ology did have enormous appeal in Eng- high ground over the state and private lish Canada, with influential thinkers corporations with respect to its record such as Henry George (who receives little on race relations. In the history of the attention from Gerteis) gaining major labour movement before the 1930s, cov- followings. Moreover, the Knights in ered in the key second and third chapters English Canada displayed the same pat- of the book, the most reactionary politi- tern in race relations (hostility towards cal strains in the movement were exem- immigrants, relatively positive views of plified by the “big four” white railroad blacks) that Gerteis finds in theus . In the brotherhoods and the craft unions which 1890s, the Knights enjoyed major growth made up the core of the American Fed- in the drastically different political and eration of Labor (afl). social climate of Quebec. Zieger qualifies the notion of a deeply On the whole, however, it is difficult not racist labour movement with the observa- to be impressed by the caliber of Gerteis’ tion that as early as 1902 the afl included scholarship. He covers key theoretical a significant African-American minor- questions and large amounts of literature ity among its members. African Ameri- with commendable clarity and efficiency, cans were not admitted into the afl by confidently inserting his new perspec- way of membership of its various affili- tives. Moreover, his detailed treatments ates although notable exceptions include of particular events and characters, the United Mine Workers of America such as the upheaval over racial issues (umwa) and the International Long- at the Knights’ 1886 General Assembly shoremen’s Association. Most were mem- in Richmond (95–99), or the evolution bers of so-called “federal labor unions” of Georgia Populist Tom Watson’s ideol- which, Zieger argues, were segregated ogy (151–173), make for compelling read- organizations which the afl maintained ing. Class and the Color Line has already “primarily to control blacks who worked won the (American) Social Science His- with or near white unionists and who, if tory Association President’s Book Award, left unorganized might provide employ- and it will likely make a lasting contribu- ers with a ready supply of cheap labor and tion to the scholarship on race, class, and strike-breakers.” (62) popular movements, especially in the us Zieger shows nevertheless that neces- South. sity nuanced relationships between white David Goutor and African-American workers often McMaster University enough to offset racism with “significant examples of interracial labor co-opera- tion.” (67) This had seldom to do with a Robert M. Zieger, For Jobs and socialist ethic of class unity, but rather Freedom: Race and Labor in America plain good sense expressed most durably since 1865 (Lexington: The University in the biracial and sometimes integrated Press of Kentucky 2007) unionism of afl affiliates among mine workers, teamsters, and longshoremen. It comes across well in this pungent Zieger does well to observe that some book that the history of us labour does white trade unionists made a concerted not fit a classic picture of class-conscious effort to enhance their organized strength workers nobly combating their exploit- by including African-American workers ative and reactionary employers. For in their recruitment. A notable example much of the history that Zieger covers, was the work of the afl’s Amalgamated organized labour did not hold the moral Meat Cutters (amc) and the Chicago

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Federation of Labour (cfl) which, during enthusiasm for the cio that gave content the height of the Great Migration, real- to the movement’s egalitarianism. With ized the importance of moving beyond migration from the South bringing hun- craft unionism to embrace workers in dreds of thousands of African-American mass production industries that were workers into Northern mass production just beginning to gain prominence. Such industries, African-American workers efforts were overshadowed by U.S inter- were strategically placed to influence the vention in World War I and by racial ten- direction of the cio. Zieger does well to sions that surged in the early post-war place the cio’s efforts around the needs of years in both North and South urban African-American workers in the wider centres. context of African-American political During the 1920s and early 1930s, agitation for legislation proscribing dis- some black workers were resolved to orga- criminatory employment practices. He nize independently. The most success- could have sharpened this analysis by ful instance of this “independence” was, more explicit attention to the inability of ironically, A. Philip Randolph’s Broth- civil rights’ bodies such as the National erhood of Sleeping Car Porters (bscp) Association for Advancement of Colored which carved a vocal niche within the People (naacp) or the bscp to create a afl. In the light of narrow-mindedness political movement with the kind of mass within the labour movement that com- power that would characterize the civil pelled leaders such as Randolph to speak rights movement of the sixties. from a nominally separatist platform, Through the 1950s and 1960s, the cio readers may come away somewhat scepti- and later, the reunited afl-cio, publicly cal of Zieger’s glowing assessment of the supported every government- or court- labour movement as a consistent support initiated civil rights reform. Yet Zieger to “expansion of the suffrage, expan- does not provide a sufficient account as to sion of educational opportunities, and, why, during the heyday of the civil rights at least since the 1930s, every important movement, white workers remained the initiative on civil rights.” (7) Since the majority in the movement and held onto mid-1930s, it is closer to the truth to sug- most leadership positions. Zieger sug- gest that it was that section of the labour gests that “some of the most extensive movement identified with the Congress and effective examples of interracial of Industrial Organizations (cio) which unionism occurred in cio unions with came to adopt the most strident pro- a communist oriented leadership.” (156) gressive stance on civil rights. The cio He might have provided a far richer polit- unions (e.g. umwa and Ladies’ Garment ical examination as to why the situation Workers’ Union) did not emerge from of African-American workers in industry the afl completely reformed and above had not advanced substantially in the six- the racial prejudices of their past within ties over their situation in the 1930s, had the afl. These unions, as Zieger suggests, he dug deeper into the damaging con- were pushed more by circumstance than sequences of the anti-communism that ideological commitment toward a more gained ascendency in the cio during the egalitarian approach to the situation of 1950s. African-American workers. In the sixties and seventies, black work- Radicals attracted to the cio strength- ers achieved affirmative action in employ- ened the position of cio leaders with a ment by taking up civil action suits progressive ideological outlook. How- compelling employers to comply with ever, it was African-American workers’ the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The labour

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movement has faced its severest crisis Kim Moody, us Labor in Trouble and since the 1980s as a result of a decline in Transition: The Failure of Reform from us manufacturing. Worst hit have been Above, the Promise of Revival from industries such as textiles and garment Below (London: Verso 2007) manufacturing, “the very industries that had been the focal point of job discrimi- In March 2005, hundreds of tomato pick- nation controversies in the 1960s.” (217) ers in Immokalee, Florida won their four- The irony, Zieger observes, is that while year campaign to secure a penny more union membership fell off sharply since per pound of tomatoes picked for Taco 1980, “African Americans continued to Bell. The raise, which doubled the labour- be among the most union-minded work- ers’ wages, was attained after a campaign ers …” (223) that included nation-wide informational The labour movement is still domi- tours by the workers and their represen- nated by a white male leadership. Yet the tatives, a month-long hunger strike, three movement is an advance over the racist general sympathy strikes, a public rela- and xenophobic movement of the early tions campaign targeting Taco Bell and 20th century. Zieger attributes this to the its giant parent company Yum! Brands, ideological resilience of African-Ameri- and most importantly, a national boycott can trade unionists who actively opposed against Taco Bell itself. Like the United “harsh penalties on illegal immigrants Farm Workers’ boycotts of the 1960s this and favoured legislative proposals that struggle involved massive outpourings would facilitate undocumented immi- of community support from church, stu- grants’ transition from illegal to legal dent, and social justice groups. By March status.” (230) As recent immigration adds 2005 the farm labourers had gained all diversity to the question of “colour,” some their demands from Taco Bell; later they readers may take exception to Zieger’s brought both McDonald’s and Burger trenchant defence of a labour history King to heel with similar tactics. that puts African-American workers at A year after the agreement between the centre. Zieger has sound factual and Taco Bell and the Immokalee pickers, moral grounds for this, which he sets on May Day 2006, upwards of six mil- out clearly: “Despite a softening of racial lion immigrant workers participated in attitudes in the past fifty years, in virtu- the “Day without Immigrants,” a one-day ally every area of American life, Ameri- general strike. The strike was initially cans of all non-black ethnic identities called to protest a restrictive immigra- have singled out African Americans as tion bill before Congress. But it also less worthy than people of other races or served notice to much of the American ethnicities.” (3) Although this book is an public – including the unions – that introductory synthesis of existing writ- immigrant workers possessed significant ing on race and labour, Zieger master- economic power, including the ability to fully delivers an accessible narrative that strangle production and transportation does not shy away from controversy or capabilities for several key us industries. the complexity of academic debate. The The one-day strike gave a vivid demon- book is generously illustrated. The clos- stration of the latent potential of militant ing bibliographical essay rounds it off immigrant workers, who, when equipped nicely with Zieger’s incisive comments on with the necessary resources, were able to the best recent literature on the subject. effectively fight back against exploitation Joe Kelly by their bosses and state oppression, in Athabasca University spite of the high risk of employer retali-

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ation and deportation. Like the Immoka- risen to their cushy positions by beating lee farm workers, the May Day strikers back rank-and-file militants within their enjoyed a wide degree of community sup- own unions, particularly those men and port, including that offered by several women who had generated the outbreak labour unions. Just as important was that of wildcat strikes and a more general the “Day Without Immigrants” vividly labour upsurge during the 1960s and demonstrated the promise of an often 1970s. These union bureaucrats’ ideologi- overlooked segment of the us workforce cal mindsets, the strategies they pursued, to act militantly in the face of enormous and the structural transformations they pressures, and to have those acts arise brought about within their unions, all from below. help explain labour’s decline during the Stories such as these occupy a central past three decades. Explaining why this place in Kim Moody’s welcome new book, happened, why the reforms proposed us Labor in Trouble and Transition: The from above have failed or are in the pro- Failure of Reform from Above, the Prom- cess of failing, and pointing out the hope- ise of Revival from Below. These labour ful signs of labour reform from below, are actions stand in stark contrast to most the central subjects of this welcome new activity by American labour over the past addition to the field of Labour Studies. three decades. These actions were strikes, In the second chapter, titled “The Great the traditional best weapon of unions, Transformation,” Moody analyzes the and yet one that has fallen by the wayside aggressive American employer offensive since the early 1980s. Equally, their impe- implemented since the recession of the tus came from below. 1970s. As a result of a long-term decline The Professional Air Traffic Controller in the rate of profits, American employ- Organization’s (patco) strike of 1980– ers searched for “alternative means of 1981 differed greatly from the events recovering profitability and improving described above. In this strike, usually competitiveness.” (15) Their solution was cited as the turning point in the history a “lean” reorientation of work processes, of the American labour movement’s for- including the “brutal intensification of tunes, a concerted demonstration of work,” the reorganization of the nation’s working-class militancy was quashed industrial geography, longer hours, an under the heel of a united employer offen- overriding focus on increased efficiency, sive, led, in this instance, by President and a vigorous fight to remove any sem- Ronald Reagan. The offensive was met by blance of workers’ control over produc- an equally uniform retreat by American tion. (35) labour as several union leaders aban- The spatial changes of American man- doned the strikers to twist in the wind. ufacturing and transportation industries Despite its significance as a major loss since the 1970s are evident in the trans- for the air traffic controllers and a symbol fer of manufacturing jobs from areas of labour’s impotence, the patco strike with high union density (the Midwest was far more a symptom of a diseased and Northeast) to “labor’s historic Achil- labour movement than the onset of the les’ heel: the South.” (9) Transportation disease itself. The labour leaders who let methods, too, have been diversified and the unionized air traffic controllers go made more efficient. Technological inno- down to defeat had been raised during an vations, such as the containerization of era of post-militancy, in which rank-and- ports and the use of cutting-edge com- file direct action was avoided, repressed, munications technology, have enabled and controlled. These same officials had the seamless transport of goods across

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sites. The changes have most dramati- ing workers in the Carolinas today con- cally affected the trucking industry, tinue to have as much potential power which, through the consolidation of small as their predecessors in Detroit and trucking firms, the withdrawal of several Chicago once had. The difference is that companies from the Teamsters’ National there is little in the way of an established Master Freight Agreement (nmfa), and framework for organizing these workers, the closure of less profitable routes have and they have not yet been part of a major reduced the number of unionized truck upsurge aimed at the heart of employer drivers covered by the nmfa from over power in the us. Why unions have failed 300,000 in 1970 to only 80,000 in 2006. in this regard is a key element of Moody’s A frequently cited reason for the decline second section. of American labour is the transition from Moody emphasizes that the lacklus- a manufacturing to a service economy. tre performance of the American labour However, as Moody stresses, the us has movement since 1980 has less to do with retained a significant manufacturing economic transformations than the base. The number of workers engaged in inability and unwillingness of the unions service industry jobs has climbed by 44.5 to adapt to the changes. The culprits are million workers between 1979 and today, the structure of American unions and while over that same stretch the number the business unionist ideology of their of manufacturing workers has dropped leaders. The decline of the American by about 5 million. But the discrepancy in labour movement was not inevitable. terms of workers in the two sectors has The massive loss of union density during not resulted in the loss of the strategic the 1980s and the more gradual decline position occupied by labourers in manu- afterwards were the products of a non- facturing, the same group of workers at militant labour leadership committed to the heart of so many of America’s his- top-down rule and an ideology favour- toric labour upsurges. In fact, in terms of able towards capitalist accumulation. Gross Domestic Product, manufacturing On this final point, Moody stresses the continues to command a powerful place importance of “the ideological heritage of in the us economy. Equally significant, business unionism,” arguing that Ameri- “the industrial core remains the sector on can labour leaders have largely rejected which the majority of economic activity socialism. A basic tenet of their philoso- is dependent. Hence it is the power cen- phy has come in energetic expressions of ter of the system.” (39) And yet, Ameri- their “belief” in the identity of interests can unions have been more successful at between labour and capital: “I say eco- organizing workers in service industries, nomic belief because it does not amount particularly in local government and to a theory. . . . in itself it is more a matter health care, over the past three decades of faith than science.” (164) than at adapting to the changing indus- In his chapter entitled “Lost Decades,” trial landscape by organizing manufac- Moody demonstrates what was “lost” over turing jobs in southern states. But, it is four decades for American workers as a this latter sector, in America’s manufac- result of “lean” production and a labour turing industries, where workers possess movement in retreat. These losses include the greatest opportunity to strike decisive wages, pension plans, any semblance blows against capital. To put it another of a social safety net, the 40-hour work way, while the nation has experienced week, and the two-day weekend. Even drastic socioeconomic changes over the in the supposedly prosperous 1990s, the past several decades, auto and meatpack- wealth of a tiny percentage of exploiters,

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including ceos and corporate directors, selves. Nearly all unions – or at least their skyrocketed, while working people were top brass – signed away the right to wild- left in the dust. The greatest percentage cat strikes during the 1970s. Gone too of growth in wealth came in the form of were the short-run contracts, replaced by accumulated wealth – stocks, bonds, real longer agreements meant to stretch out estate – of which working people own the period before workers could strike. only a tiny percentage. “Far from mov- One contractual innovation was the “liv- ing in the direction of broader owner- ing agreement,” a multi-year deal during ship,” Moody points out, workers remain which employers and labour leaders can excluded from anything close to an equal negotiate and change a contract with- share of so-called capitalist prosperity. out reference to workers’ opinions. (111) (94) Robbed of their main weapon, workers Labour leaders go to great lengths to put enter these “living agreements” at their the blame for union losses on deindustri- own risk, while the boss gains a sure way alization and trade liberalization. Moody of getting concessions from unions. affixes the blame elsewhere: squarely on Instead of focusing on militancy and the shoulders of the labour leaders them- organizing from below, unions have selves. In the course of quashing any signs focused on saving the company and the of militancy by their members, these union. For several decades businesses high-ranking bureaucrats developed a have successfully wielded the threat of hostility to working class self-activity, plant closures as a method of discourag- militancy, and even labour’s single great ing strikes and other forms of working- equalizer: the strike. It is in his discus- class resistance. The tactic has worked, sion of “the end of militancy” that Moody and there are few manufacturing sec- is truly at his best. (98) Arguing that tor unions that do not fear the loss of “unions grew in the years when they dis- their jobs to the South or abroad. But, played militancy,” he notes the positive as Moody points out, militancy does not correlation between the decline of mili- cause offshoring or outsourcing. Instead, tant direct action since the 1970s and the it is an inherent part of capitalist soci- drop in standards of living over the same eties for employers to seek out new and period. (101) He notes that “the notion cheaper markets, and reorient production that growth and militancy have any con- towards more efficient modes of produc- nection, except possibly a negative one, is tion. A strong labour movement capable angrily dismissed precisely by those who of forcing working-class priorities on pol- lay the greatest claim to strategies for icy makers and employers would serve as growth – namely the Change to Win Fed- a far greater deterrent to outsourcing and eration and, above all, of the seiu.” (101) plant closures than a weak movement Their denial rests not simply on a com- beholden to capital. mitment to a class collaborationist busi- The other main goal of labour leader- ness unionism but just as fundamentally ship has been institutional preservation on this labour leadership having risen to and growth. Since at least 1979, this has power by beating back the militant direct largely meant mergers rather than new action of their unions’ members. organizing. The number of union merg- In their struggles with shop floor mili- ers averaged about four per year dur- tants, particularly those who carried out ing the 1980s and 1990s. The result has the waves of wildcat strikes during the been the creation of a number of mega- 1960s and 1970s, labour leaders have unions: graduate students now belong to consolidated greater power for them- the United Auto Workers (uaw), while

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the textile and garment workers function pursued what Moody calls “corporate- inside the United Food and Commercial style centralization,” aimed at emulating Workers (ufcw). Since 1980, the number the bureaucratic structure of American of National Labor Relations Board (nlrb) corporations, and at reducing rank-and- elections has declined from about 8,000 file influence over union affairs. (192) to 3,000 per year. As Moody forcefully This concentration of power at the top of argues, “Mergers did, indeed, become the union hierarchy has given top seiu a substitute for new organizing in the officials the ability to reorganize affili- period of retreat.” (119) ate unions without input from the rank- Union mergers have helped usher in and-file. It has also led to the creation what Moody terms “the return of ‘big of “mega-locals” with geographically labor’,” which he sees as large, bureau- dispersed memberships where members cratic structures dominated by top- have little influence over the daily affairs down decision-making with little or no of the union, and where shop stewards, regard for union democracy. The Service and the shop floor power they represent, Employees International Union (seiu) (2 are abandoned in favour of decision- million members), American Federation making solely from above and afar. (189) of State, County, and Municipal Employ- Stern, the architect of the seiu’s brand of ees (1.4 million), and the ufcw (1.3 mil- corporate, top-down style of unionism, lion) tout their large memberships. While is fond of telling audiences “that shop acknowledging that large memberships stewards are a bad idea.” (192) Moody are important to a strong labour move- explains the antipathy of seiu leadership ment, Moody argues that density alone towards shop stewards, labour’s tradi- does not make a movement. Rather, for tional lead dogs in its war against capital, unions to succeed and grow in the per- in terms of overarching seiu strategy of sistently anti-union climate of 21st cen- avoiding workplace struggle, cooperating tury America, they need to cultivate with capital, and hence limiting workers’ deep roots within their own ranks. In power. this regard, Moody cites approvingly the In the next two chapters Moody work of Teamsters Local 174 in Seattle focuses primarily on union democracy. during the 1990s. Not only was this local He examines the failure of reform from run via rank-and-file control over union above, through the election of top level affairs, which gave members a sense of “reform” candidates like John Sweeney, ownership of their union, but the mem- first elected president of the afl-cio as bers pursued policies explicitly focused part of the “New Voice for Labor” slate on organizing new members. Local 174 of candidates in 1995. Sweeney has con- also pursued alliances with community solidated more power at the top of the and environmental groups, and became federation, centralized more bureaucracy “an organizing social movement unionist in Washington, D.C., and created new local.” (182) institutions each complete with its own The seiu, the largest us union, is the bureaucracy. Gone from this equation quintessential example of the “shallow is any consideration of decentralizing power” Moody condemns. (184) From power back to local unions or empow- 1980–1993 the seiu extended its jurisdic- ering the rank-and-file. Electioneering, tion over more than 100 national or local too, has been a central focus of the “New unions, and the union appears more com- Voice,” as Sweeney and other top afl- mitted to progressive causes than most cio leaders have shifted more resources us unions. But the union’s leadership has to campaigning for and lobbying Demo-

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crats, rather than organizing workers. committed to their losing strategy of sup- All this is unsurprising. Sweeney and his porting Democratic candidates no mat- allies were elected by top labour leader- ter what. The 2000 presidential campaign ship and not the rank-and-file. He shares provides a case in point. During that elec- with his predecessors from the old guard tion, the afl-cio spent $40 million on the prejudices against rank-and-file the presidential race. By the end of that decision-making, particularly when that year, in which nearly all of their attention leads to militant direct action. Most tell- was turned towards electing Democrats, ingly of all, Sweeney has always been a the number of workers represented by flag-waving supporter of American capi- afl-cio unions declined, as did the num- talism, from which he has drawn benefits ber of nlrb elections held. by promoting his belief in the identity of Moody clearly has a different vision interests between labour and capital. for the American labour movement than One constant for organized labour dur- most labour leaders and Democratic poli- ing its decline has been what Moody calls ticians. Since at least the 1980s American its “addiction” to the Democratic Party. unions have consciously avoided con- Though the Democrats’ economic poli- frontation, militancy, democracy, and cies have consistently moved to the right even acknowledging the reality of class since the 1970s, labour has accepted the warfare. Whether ignorant, ashamed, or age-old wisdom that a right-wing Demo- fearful of American workers’ long history cratic Party is the lesser of two evils. (144) of shop-floor struggles, union leaders Yet the Democrats do little to promote have spent three decades in the board- labour legislation, accepting, like labour rooms and on Capitol Hill, bargaining leaders, the desirability of American cap- long-term and concession-riddled con- italism. This book is packed with exam- tracts, all the while asking their Demo- ples of the historically one-sided nature cratic Party “allies” for assistance. Yet, by of the relationship between the Party and avoiding confrontation at the workplace, the unions. the main site of working-class power, Moody shows the importance of unions have given away their best bar- changes in post-Watergate us campaign gaining chip: the ability to choke off pro- finance laws, which have required cor- duction, to bring employers’ extraction of porations and unions to set up politi- profits to a screeching halt. cal action committees (pacs) to raise While the book is highly critical of and donate money to candidates. This many aspects of the mainstream Ameri- was partially responsible for the mas- can labour movement, it is not simply an sive growth in fundraising and spending exercise in despair. In fact, Moody finds by both parties beginning in the 1970s. much to applaud in the current efforts of Accompanying these new regulations was workers to organize and fight the boss, capital’s successful re-organization “as a including the growth of worker centres, class,” urging new legislation through its which numbered nearly 140 in 2005; the full-time lobbyists and massive contribu- persistence of democratic challenges tions for greater privatization, deregula- within unions, like the Teamsters for a tion, and tax cuts for the rich. (149) With Democratic Union and the Progressive all serious candidates in need of solicit- Educators for Action in Los Angeles; and ing great amounts of money, both parties the official support of several unions for have become inextricably tied to corpo- immigrant rights, including their finan- rations. And yet, in a buying war that cial and logistical support for the 2006 labour cannot win, unions have remained “Day Without Immigrants.” These signs

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of renewal are the stuff out of which reorganize and intensify work; to merge, Moody’s final section is made. The three downsize, and outsource; to pressure chapters probe the heavily-publicized governments to deregulate, open their 2005 split between the afl-cio and treasuries to business, and repress labor.” Change to Win (ctw), the resurgence (6) But in employers’ strongholds also of “resistance and change from below” lies their main weakness. As the site of that has gained far less attention, and exploitation the workplace also functions finally conclude with some of the recent as the site in which workers can exact the positive steps taken by organized labour most damage against their employers. that point to new and potentially fruit- us Labor in Trouble and Transition ful paths for the future. What separates arrived in a year marked by several these strategies and struggles from the important labour conflicts. During the concessionary bargaining and politick- winter of 2007–2008, Hollywood writ- ing of “big labour” is that they are driven ers engaged in a 100-day strike that mas- almost completely from below, by work- sively curtailed television production; on ers themselves, through institutions of May Day 2008, every port of the us West their own making and with strong ties to Coast was shut down by members of the community groups. International Longshore and Warehouse This is an overtly political book. Moody Union (ilwu) to protest the continued deftly straddles the line between scholar us occupation of Iraq; and in late sum- and activist. His earlier books as well as mer, 27,000 members of the International his work with the pioneering journal Association of Machinists and Aerospace Labor Notes make Moody one of the fore- Workers (iam) struck the airplane manu- most experts on recent labour history. facturer Boeing, shutting down a corpo- Eschewing the esoteric and jargon-filled rate behemoth making record profits. As rhetoric of the academy, he has a mas- Moody repeatedly stresses in this book, tery over the contemporary and “clas- “simply adding up labor and social move- sic” works of the field, and he sprinkles ments is neither a formula for upsurge in references to several of the pioneering nor a strategy for changing the balance works to elaborate upon the points he is of forces in American society.” (223) making. But, with modest growth in the number Despite Moody’s wide-ranging knowl- of organized workers during 2007, and edge of contemporary and historical several significant and highly-publicized labour struggles, his strength comes less conflicts emerging, Moody is correct to as a journalist or labour historian than as argue that this new generation of inno- an acute observer and critic of capitalism. vative strategies “rooted in capitalism’s He carefully examines the historical rela- most fundamental relationship, that tionships of American capitalism, noting between labor and capital in the heart of capital’s ability to completely reshape the production,” give cause for hope to the world: “the system itself transforms old millions of Americans who have suffered social structures, introduces new tech- as a direct result of the retreat of labour nology and organization, expands both leadership in the face of capital’s unre- economically and geographically, and lenting drive for profit. draws more of humanity into the machin- The lessons to be drawn from this ery of production.” (58) Declining profits book are applicable to all capitalist states, during the 1970s pushed employers time including Canada, which has also suf- and again to exploit every market: “to fered a dramatic fall in union density seek cheap labour at home and abroad; to and power in recent decades. Equally

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applicable will be the parallels drawn largest tent encampment, at Ludlow. The between the adverse effects of a labour book provides considerable detail about movement tied to a single political party the 1913–14 southern Colorado labour and unabashedly committed to labour “war” but limited insight, in part because bureaucrats who view rank-and-file self- it lacks context. It does not compare activity, especially militant activity, with southern Colorado with other armed suspicion and hostility. labour conflicts in the mining and timber Aaron Goings industries that erupted around the same Simon Fraser University time. Nor should the author simply assert that this strike “marked the beginning of the modern era of labor disputes” (3) Scott Martelle, Blood Passion: The without comparing it with such conflicts Ludlow Massacre and Class War in the as the earlier Homestead strike (1892) or American West (New Brunswick, NJ: the nearly six-month long Pennsylvania Rutgers University Press 2007) anthracite strike (1902). The former dra- matized the big corporation’s new reli- In the United States between 1911 and ance on armed hirelings to break a union; 1915, bitterly contested strikes escalated the latter involved 140,000 miners, con- into sustained armed conflict in widely stituting the largest strike the world had separated areas of the South and West, ever experienced, and resulted in direct notably the coal fields of southern Colo- presidential intervention. rado, southern West Virginia, and west- Martelle’s approach is too narrow to ern Arkansas; along the copper range in provide an adequate understanding of the Michigan’s Upper Peninsula; and in the dynamics of strikes or labour violence. He forests of western Louisiana and eastern fails to examine southern Colorado min- Texas. Most of these violent episodes ers’ attitudes toward family and respecta- occurred in relatively isolated sections bility, or their conception of masculinity, where employers controlled or strongly which clearly shaped their responses to influenced local government and law provocations by their employers’ merce- enforcement. Employers imported strike- naries. Immigrants from southern and breakers in significant numbers, often eastern Europe and from Mexico con- over great distances, and contracted with stituted much of the strike force; yet the detective agencies that supplied gunmen author makes little effort to explore how to protect them and intimidate union ethnicity and religion shaped the min- workers. Governors sometimes ordered ers’ outlook and how their adversaries state militia to intervene as well, provid- responded to them. Was the miners’ com- ing the employer with further leverage. bativeness influenced by worry that their Blood Passion is a traditional narrative long hours beneath the surface left their account, by a journalist, of the southern wives and daughters vulnerable to sexual Colorado coal strike of 1913–14, the sub- harassment and abuse by the corpora- ject of much previous scholarship. This tions’ imported Baldwin-Felts gunmen? conflict included one of the most famous These were men without family attach- episodes of violence in American labour ments who violated the sanctity of the history, the suffocation of two mothers home, which women maintained, while and eleven children seeking shelter in a carrying out evictions. bunker beneath a tent during an attack Martelle also neglects to consider how by Colorado National Guardsmen and the miners’ highly traditional view of corporate mine guards on the strikers’ gender roles, shaped by an all-male work

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environment and by Catholic and Greek Baldwin-Felts gunmen imported to Orthodox beliefs, intensified their fury southern Colorado also harassed and over mine guards’ depredations against fought union miners, and carried out women. He notes that labour organiz- evictions, during the violent southern ers in Colorado believed that employers West Virginia mine conflicts in 1912–13 deliberately hired from a multitude of and 1920–21. Indeed, Albert Felts, who ethnic groups, speaking many different supervised company mine guards during languages, to inhibit communication the 1913–14 southern Colorado conflict, among them and disrupt organizing. was shot dead in Matewan, West Virginia But he does not explain how the miners in 1920 in a violent altercation with union formed, or attempted to form, inter-eth- miners and sympathizers. The com- nic alliances. mander of the Burns Detective Agency Martelle notes the “efficiency of [the guards in the western Arkansas coal miners’] guerilla attacks” (5) and states conflict in 1914 had served in Michigan’s that they killed nearly twice as many of Calumet copper strike the year before. their adversaries in the fifteen-month- The author does not sufficiently explain long labour conflict as they lost. He could coal’s importance in the nation’s econ- have examined how the Greek and Ital- omy during the early 20th century, or the ian miners’ discipline and confidence in impact of a significant production stop- the fighting, which commentators noted page in southern Colorado, as compared at the time, derived in part from combat with other coal-mining regions in the experience in the Balkans or Libya in the United States. A more systematic com- years immediately preceding the 1913–14 parison of the weaponry available to each coal conflict. side also would have been helpful. Martelle states that Colorado coal The book provides useful detail about mines were particularly unsafe, with a the gun battles and other acts of violence fatality rate nearly double the national during the 1913–14 southern Colorado average. How did the considerable danger coal conflict, and some sense of how a and physical challenges of work under- state National Guard’s pretence of impar- ground influence miners’ often violent tiality was compromised by the inclusion reactions to provocations from the cor- of many of the employers’ armed merce- porations’ armed mercenaries and the naries. But its insights are greatly limited Colorado National Guard? by the author’s failure to address larger The author devotes no attention to social-historical questions and to make how strikebreaking emerged as a national comparisons with other contemporane- business during the first two decades of ous violent labour conflicts. the 20th century, even though he reports Stephen H. Norwood that Colorado’s coal operators hired the University of Oklahoma Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, head- quartered at Bluefield, West Virginia and Roanoke, Virginia, to suppress the Ellen Dannin, Taking Back the Workers’ southern Colorado strike and the smaller Law: How to Fight the Assault on Labor walkout in the state’s northern fields that Rights (Ithaca and London: Cornell preceded it. By the first decade of the 20th University Press 2006) century, many employers could procure strikebreakers from distant locations by The week I received this book the contracting with a “detective” firm spe- Alberta government introduced, insti- cializing in such a service.

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tuted closure on, and passed several Dannin’s take is brief, clear, and to the amendments to the Labour Relations point. She concludes that judges by their Code. They removed the right to strike very training in the common law as law- from ambulance workers, restricted the yers are often ill-suited to understand the role of salts in organizing constructions nlra or labour law generally. workers, allowed for immediate decer- To overcome judicial labour law igno- tification of construction unions, and rance, unions and their lawyers must limited the power of construction unions “anticipate each detail and nuance [of to subsidize contractors in competition labour law] that judges will not understand against non-union contractors (Legisla- and then figur[e] out how to help them tive Assembly of Alberta 2008 Bill 26). As understand.” (45) This means making sure I write this review, the Supreme Court of that sufficient evidence is presented at Canada, in Honda Canada Inc. v. Keays first instance (when the judge may in fact (2008 scc 39), has decided that it is rea- know labour law) so that appellate judges sonable for an employer to demand that will have a rich enough record upon which sick workers see the employer’s chosen to both understand labour law and make doctors without any restrictions and that the right decision. She identifies several employers’ requirement to demonstrate examples when this was either done or good faith in dismissals is limited. Both of not done with attendant positive or nega- these sorts of events are common in Can- tive results. This has not been done much ada: governments regularly amend their in Canada, although Judy Fudge provided labour and employment statutes; courts significant expert evidence for the ufcw routinely interpret the common law, in Dunmore v. Ontario that was relied statutes, and the constitution to restrict upon in the Supreme Court decisions (or, at times, expand) workers’ rights. ([2001] 3 S.C.R. 1016). In this book, Ellen Dannin writes about The next stages of Dannin’s strategy the state of labour law in the usA today are to: 1) highlight the principles of the and encourages a new litigation strategy nlra, 2) convince judges to evaluate for unions to better reconstruct the us their decisions against nlra principles, labour law regime against such depreda- and 3) show judges the consequences of tions. It is a good start for all union activ- their decisions. In discussing principles, ists. Alas, the peculiarities of Canadian she returns to the opening sections of the labour law make the book of positive but nlra and expands on its stated purposes limited value north of the border. as providing meaning for interpretation. Dannin builds her strategy around the She then shows how several of the rights National Labor Relations Act (nlra or created by the nlra were interpreted by Wagner Act) of 1935, which remains the courts to undermine the act’s principles. core of labour law in the us, and is, on its To drag judges back to the principles surface, pro-unionization. The biggest is a five stage process, beginning with a legal impediments faced by trade unions call to rethink property rights in work: today are the judicial decisions that have according to Dannin, the us courts have accumulated over the intervening 70 narrowly interpreted property rights in years to restrict workers’ rights under the employment as belonging to the employer. act and to create new powers for employ- On the contrary, she argues, workers and ers. Her second chapter accounts for why the society (or community) in general the courts have done this – something should have property rights in the jobs done by many others in the past, but at any one firm. The trick comes in get-

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ting judges to accept this theory by nar- The Canadian situation, however, is rowly identifying the rights in question fundamentally different at many points. in a particular dispute and explain their Federalism is the first problem: although content. Asserting that property rights there is a Canadian Labour Code, it in work are shared rights means that applies only to federally regulated work- union lawyers need to present to judges ers. All others are covered by their provin- a way of accommodating both worker and cial labour relations acts and employment employer rights. This is not the same as standards acts. There are broadly similar balancing the rights, but is premised on features to these acts, but each is differ- recognizing that the employer has rights ent, sometimes shockingly so. None of that the judge is inclined to recognize, so the acts have as detailed a statement of that any successful argument has to be principles as the nlra either, although alert to the effect of the union position some, like Ontario’s, come part way there. on those rights. Finally, the lawyers have The one law common to all jurisdictions to overcome judicial stereotypes about is the Charter of Rights, and many of the employers and workers or unions and most important failures and successes for have them focus on the particular parties organized labour at the Supreme Court involved in the litigation. of Canada have turned on section 2d, In her final two substantive chap- freedom of association cases. A national ters, Dannin walks through some core strategy that pushes the boundaries of legal ideas for non-lawyers and argues 2d or seeks to expand or secure other for working with and using the National labour rights may be a good idea, but it Labor Relations Board (nlrb) in litiga- has to be devised alert to the nuances of tion. On the former Dannin begins with federalism. a story about labour historians at a con- The next hurdle is the division of labour ference presenting their ideas for labour among the provincial and federal labour law reform – all of which would be ille- boards, as well as grievance arbitra- gal in the usA at the moment. This story tion and other administrative tribunals. suggests to her the lack of awareness that Although the labour boards are responsi- labour lawyers, historians, economists, ble for applying and enforcing the labour and trade union activists have of each codes, much of the common law of the other’s realities. To rectify what she can, shop over the last 60 years has developed she tries to explain some key elements through grievance arbitration decisions of law: statutory interpretation, the bur- and judicial review of these decisions. A den of proof, and basic legal process. In national strategy in Canada will have to the other chapter she describes what the be more alert to the intricacies of argu- nlrb does and suggests methods of open- ment in different forums. ing up links between the nlrb and union Finally, and this returns to the Alberta activists and lawyers. government’s recent amendments, labour The overall goal of this book is laud- law reform through legislatures is sig- able. The strategy Dannin maps out nificantly more common in Canada than contains many useful suggestions. Her it appears to be in the us. In arguing for goal in the end is to develop a strategy reform through litigation, Dannin asserts for labour that parallels the naacp’s “while easy to propose, even small [leg- litigation strategies in the post-war civil islative] changes to labour and employ- rights campaign. Even partial success at ment statutes have proved impossible for this would mark a major advance for us political reasons.” (17) The relative ease unions and workers. with which governments change labour

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and employment codes in Canada does man summarizes the literature (in a quote not mean that a litigation strategy is a bad which appears on both pages 97 and 217 idea, only that it has to be combined with a in the current volume): “The debate is political-legislative strategy to encourage over whether modest minimum wage positive change and fight against changes increases have ‘no’ employment effect, to evade or limit successful litigation. modest positive effects or small nega- Dannin’s book is a rousing call to arms tive effects. It is not about whether or not to develop a litigation strategy for work- there are large negative effects. (emphasis ers. Canadians should take the message in original).” The authors also cite a sur- but be conscious of our local circum- vey of labour economists which indicates stances as they plan their own. that most share this opinion. James Muir If this is true, it is fair to ask what University of Alberta another book on the subject can add to the debate. One contribution of the cur- rent volume is to draw together a good Robert Pollin, Mark Brenner, deal of disparate evidence, from pro- Jeannette Wicks-Lim, and Stephanie spective and retrospective studies and Luce, A Measure of Fairness: using both case study and econometric The Economics of Living Wages and methodology. Minimum Wages in the United States Disparities in the data arise because (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2008) the ‘living wage’ idea is more a social ideal than a specific policy proposal. As In recent years, across the United the authors note, ‘living wage’ legislation States, hundreds of local communities sometimes only constrains local govern- have passed ‘living wage’ legislation, and ments, and private firms supplying those the objective of this book is to summarize governments, to meet a minimum wage the policy lessons that can be taken from obligation but in other instances covers those community experiences. Since the all workers within a given jurisdiction. most frequent objection to minimum These differences in target population wages is that jobs will allegedly be lost, crucially affect impacts and in addition the key question the book addresses is: the target hourly wage varies widely. “to what extent do legislative attempts Chapter 4 examines a target of $6.15 to increase the pay of low-wage workers (New Orleans), but chapter 5 on Sante Fe imperil the jobs that they now hold?” specifies $8.50 (rising to $10.50). Chapter “Not much, if at all” is the basic answer 6 on Arizona ($6.75) is followed by chap- provided here. Reporting the results from ters 7 and 8 on Santa Monica ($10.75). In case studies of communities (e.g. New chapter 2, the authors conclude that for Orleans, Sante Fe, or Boston) and econo- the Boston area in 2005 “a reasonable metric analyses of secondary data, the range is somewhere … between $12 and authors argue that legislation to increase $24” – which is surely a pretty dramatic the minimum wage has little impact on expression of uncertainty. the employment of low-wage workers, but Although it is individual workers who does increase the earnings of those both get wages, most people live in families. at the minimum wage and just above it Whether or not a specific hourly wage (via a ‘ripple effect’). produces a socially acceptable living stan- In coming to this conclusion, the dard for a family depends on how many authors are firmly in agreement with workers there are in each household, how many other labour economists. As Free- many hours they work, how many depen-

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dents they have, and the income needed ise: that people who work for a living for adequacy in each local area. Sixty should not have to raise a family in pov- years ago, when social policy could plau- erty.” (111) Does focussing a social move- sibly be premised on the ‘male breadwin- ment around this premise imply that it is ner model’ of a single full-time, full-year seen as socially acceptable for the unem- worker per household, it was much easier ployed or the disabled to raise a family in to calculate the hourly wage which cor- poverty – or that it is ok for people who responds to the ‘living wage’ ideal. But do not have families to be poor? the present volume never really addresses The authors would possibly respond “of the complexities of modern family life. course not,” but they do not actually say. The numeric examples provided jump It is unclear what network of social sup- around – sometimes being for three or ports they envisage for those individuals four person families, sometimes one or who cannot work, and their families. The two workers, sometimes each working current us social welfare system is only 1700 or 2000 hours a year – but certainty tangentially mentioned – so, for example, is always presumed. The health, job avail- the reader is assured that “the truly needy ability, and household composition inse- already receive income support in the curities which dominate the lives of poor form of the eitc, food stamps and related people are unmentioned. subsidies.” (108) Although one could Nevertheless, whether or not the ‘living imagine a book which notes the inad- wage’ is a shifting target, it is a remark- equacy of such transfer payments in the able testament to grass-roots organizing us, the authors of this book choose not in the United States that during a long to mention this. Neither do they discuss period of time in which anti-poverty pol- how people should qualify for transfer icy has dropped off the national agenda, payments or how such payments should local communities have tried to act be adjusted, although they do decry “gov- directly against the widening inequality ernment agencies, rather than low-wage and deepening deprivation this has pro- workers and their families, becoming the duced. The current book is clearly aimed beneficiaries of the law” when transfers at reinforcing this trend. The case stud- are reduced because earnings increase. ies of chapters 4 to 10 provide exhaustive They also argue that it is an “impor- calculations which detail, for realistic tant consideration” for family income examples, just how small the burden of increases to come in the form of earnings minimum wage increases for employer rather than as transfers. costs actually is – which motivates the So is this a book about a policy whose authors’ finding of minimal employment intended beneficiaries are “the deserv- impacts. A more academically oriented ing poor”? Does advocating such a policy economics book would probably not increase public consciousness of poverty have apologized for statistical technique and deprivation and provide the social in making the same point, or relegated empathy underlying more generous these studies to Chapters 11 to 14 at the transfer programs for those who can- end, but this book is primarily aimed at not work? Or does restricting discussion activists, not econometricians. to families who work reinforce the idea However, there is a problem. As Pol- that they are the only poor people who lin notes: “The living wage initiatives that have a legitimate claim for public sup- have become law throughout the country port? No book can cover every topic, but are motivated by a common initial prem- some readers may want to know whether

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the ‘living wage’ is part of a broader was Nixon’s Family Assistance Plan (fap), social vision, and what exactly that larger which was a form of guaranteed income, framework is. but one that stressed work and family as Lars Osberg core elements. Its fatal flaw, which ulti- Dalhousie University mately opened the path for Reagan’s radi- cal and antithetical approach to the one being considered since John F. Kennedy’s Brian Steensland, The Failed Welfare initiation of a new policy framework for Revolution: America’s Struggle over economic security, (38) was in rhetorical Guaranteed Income Policy (Princeton: framing. Nixon characterized the fap as Princeton University Press 2008) “welfare.” Negative connotations attached to the term were reinforced, often unwit- Symbolic pollution is the cultural tingly, by groups such as the National theme to be derived from this book. It is Welfare Rights Organization (nwro) and a vitally important cultural concept that liberal policy experts. They failed to real- explains the failure to implement an eco- ize that the working poor did not want to nomic security and poverty elimination be categorized under the same program program in the United States, particu- (fap) as “welfare recipients.” larly in the Johnson, Nixon, and Carter Steensland details how Nixon repeat- presidential administrations when con- edly drew upon this distinction by subtly, ditions were most favourable to such yet effectively, conjuring up the negative action. The failure of liberals and pro- welfare stereotypes, which were at cross- gressives to fully grasp this concept and purposes with the very fap program their embrace of language that reinforced design that he was campaigning on. This the notion opened a path for Ronald Rea- was in part due to compromising with gan’s “California-style” workfare reforms forceful actors such as Arthur Burns in in the 1980s, and permitted the ideol- his administration, and Nixon’s own ogy upon which it is based to persist and worldview, which took a largely reha- strengthen. bilitationist view toward the poor and Symbolic pollution, or ‘moral contami- strongly emphasized the American “work nation’ arose within the context of the ethic.” Despite wide recognition since “welfare mess” that preoccupied govern- Kennedy’s administration among policy ment administrations in the 1960s and experts of systemic problems rooted in 1970s. Despite growing economic pro- the structure of the labour market, Nixon ductivity and affluence it was acknowl- focused on the narrow work ethic notion edged by all sectors, as Steensland as the foundation of the “welfare mess.” demonstrates – business, policy experts, This was often against the advice of policy politicians of every persuasion and at experts in the administration and caught every level – that full employment goals them off guard when Nixon introduced were not being attained, that many who denigrating comments about welfare into had jobs were “working poor,” and that his discourse. the welfare system was stigmatizing, Steensland outlines some of the highly bureaucratically complex and waste- advanced social science experiments ful, and riddled with disincentives to that were devised and carried out in the work. (187) The comprehensive solution late 1960s and 1970s to determine the that came closest to implementation in impact upon “work ethic” among other addressing these widely held concerns things of the nit (Negative Income Tax)

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form of guaranteed income. The results zenshipzenship (81) thatthat guaranteedguaranteed incomeincome waswas of these experiments in New Jersey, intendedintended toto resolve.resolve. Suddenly the spotlight Seattle, and Denver dispelled the notions shoneThe only final on two“welfare” chapters and are its dedicatedimpact on to of the ‘rehabilitationists’ who empha- “the“Lost family.” Opportunities, Consequences, and sized work ethic and took the view that Lessons”The final and thetwo rolechapters of culture are dedicated in policy to those targeted under fap would choose “Lostdevelopment. Opportunities, Steensland’s Consequences, precision and in not to work, creating a labour crisis, if Lessons”analyzing and the theguaranteed role of culture income in debates policy they received sufficient income through development.throughout the Steensland’s book is impressive, precision as is in such a redistribution model. (213–214) analyzinghis use of extensivethe guaranteed original income research debates from “If anything, findings suggested that the throughoutpresidential thearchives. book He is impressive,has done a great as is program increased the work effort of hisservice use ofin extensive so thoroughly original deconstructing research from participants receiving these payments. presidentialfor the first archives. time a neglectedHe has done episode a great in [Donald] Rumsfeld clarified that the servicethe history in so of thoroughlyus (and Canadian) deconstructing social fap was different … in that it contained forpolicy. the “This first episodetime a has neglected largely vanished episode in work requirements…. Therefore, if any- thefrom history America’s of UScollective (and Canadian) memory,” states social thing, the oeo’s results underestimated policy.the inside “This jacket episode of the has book. largely It is vanishedonly in the fap’s potential efficacy.” (142) Don- fromthe concluding America’s collective chapters memory,” that one states finds ald Rumsfeld, though now notorious themissing inside elements jacket of in the making book. theIt is case only for in for other reasons, was director of the thegai concluding and the way chapters forward. that Suddenly one finds the Office of Economic Opportunity that missingspotlight elements shone only in makingon “welfare” the caseand its for conducted the nit experiments. By the GAIimpact and on the “the way family.” forward. time of the Carter administration when Steensland’sSteensland’s work points points consistently consistently all the results of the nit studies were in, toto the need for for universal universal social social and and eco eco­- there “was no evidence from the experi- nomic programs to break down down the the ments that receiving gai [Guaranteed barriersbarriers of symbolic pollution, pollution, moral moral Annual Income] benefits would lead wage contamination,contamination, and and false notions of of the the earners to defect from the labor market deservingdeserving and undeserving poor (ironi (ironi­- altogether” as many conservatives had callycally Warren Buffett hashas been been recently recently worried. (214) shiftingshifting this this spotlight onto the the rich, rich, The unexpected twist in the nit/guar- reminiscentreminiscent of of David Lewis’ Lewis’ “corporate “corporate anteed income experiments was that welfare” critique). In a couplecouple ofof instances instances family break-up appeared to increase. hehe refers to thethe CanadianCanadian health-carehealth-care syssys­- This obviously had a positive side in that temtem as a modelmodel programprogram thatthat cancan provideprovide women in abusive relationships were positivepositive policy feedback loops andand aa precprec­- freer to leave from an economic secu- edentedent to support universal universal income income sup sup­- rity standpoint in a quite patriarchal era. portport and economic economic security security programs. programs. Given the strong focus on conservative Having built this this essential essential argument argument family values across the us and particu- SteenslandSteensland states that “blurring” “blurring” the the dis dis­- larly among influential members in Con- tinctionstinctions between undeserving undeserving (welfare) (welfare) gress and the Senate, the family break-up andand deserving (working) poor poor through through issue set off alarm bells and became a improvedimproved rhetorical framing framing can can remove remove disproportionate focus, and distraction, thethe cultural obstacles to economic economic secu secu-‑­ from the original foci of economic secu- rityrity policypolicy development.development. rity, labour market failures, the “welfare This “blurring”“blurring” of of categorical categorical distinc distinc­- mess,” freedom (a particularly strong tionstions among among the poor (229) is is far far from from focus of libertarian proponents of guar- thethe universal model Steensland Steensland points points to to anteed income such as Milton Freidman inin the Canadian health system system or or other other and George Shultz) and economic citi- successfulsuccessful universal models found found else else-­-

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where. Most significantly, he fails to avail to reflect the dominant white culture’s himself of successful universal wealth understandings of race, gender, class, and distribution programs developed since nation.” (5) While Barber devotes sepa- the end of the guaranteed income debates rate chapters to race, empire, and gender, in the late 1970s, as examples that not the theme of failure to transcend white only blurred the distinctions among the privilege infuses the entire study, includ- poor, but eliminated them among all ing the chapters on sds’s deterioration citizens/residents. The Alaska Permanent and demise. Unlike many scholars and Dividend Fund, along with many other former ’60s activists, Barber contends sovereign wealth funds, achieve this by that “the New Left failed not because it reinforcing constitutional legal axioms was too radical in its support of the black such as the common ownership of natu- nationalist movement but because it was ral wealth and equality of citizens, which not radical enough.” (15) translate easily into guaranteed income Race, Barber argues, is paramount rhetorical and policy frameworks, while in understanding the fate of sds. In a bypassing the entanglement of morality 1965 paper, for example, two sds leaders and categorization of citizens based on identified the black anti-racist struggle “work ethic.” – alongside campaigns by poor people, Richard Pereira students, and faculty – as a key element Athabasca University of the larger radical movement. This, Bar- ber says, indicates that sds failed to place black activism front and centre, instead David Barber, A Hard Rain Fell: sds and viewing its own actions “as the central Why It Failed (Jackson: University Press work for social change.” (23) Barber also of Mississippi 2008) discusses the Black Panther Party’s (bpp) decision to run Eldridge Cleaver for us David Barber has written an interest- president on the Peace and Freedom ing book about the failure of Students Party slate in 1968. When Cleaver asked for a Democratic Society (sds). The story that white sds leader Carl Oglesby join of sds – which formed in 1960 and dis- the ticket as the vice-presidential candi- solved in 1969 – has been told by many date, sds leaders refused on the grounds scholars and former participants in the that this would require them to engage group. Barber himself falls into both cat- in (presumably reformist) electoral poli- egories, as a historian as well as a former tics and ally with white left-liberals with activist associated with sds. whom they disagreed. Instead, they As the title indicates, Barber seeks to called for building a “white revolutionary explain why sds failed. His central argu- mass movement” (49) and proposed other ment is that it failed because its mem- means of promoting the bpp. According bers – young, white American radicals to Barber, this response constituted a – failed to grasp how white supremacy rejection of black activist leadership and shaped their own thinking and action, reflected an attitude that black radicals failed to develop an analysis of imperial- “needed to know their place.” (49) ism that linked it to domestic conditions, Race, intersecting with empire, perme- and failed to challenge male supremacy ated sds’s approach to the Vietnam War. within their own ranks. In short, says In a lengthy analysis of Oglesby’s speeches Barber, the white New Left (which he and writing on imperialism, Barber sometimes uses interchangeably with argues that the sds activist ignored the sds) “failed because it ultimately came theoretical leadership of radical black

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intellectuals such as W. E. B. DuBois and factions “operated within a single broad Malcolm X. According to Barber, this ideological consensus.” (5) His account failure – which he considers “a failing of shows, however, that sectarianism made the entire white New Left” (73) – not only it increasingly difficult for activists to “undermined sds’s ability to understand mobilize a broad base or build alliances imperialism” (73) but also demonstrated around the issues Barber considered its commitment to “imperialism’s divi- most important for advancing the New sion of labor – reserving mental labor for Left’s cause. whites.” (77) Barber further asserts that Barber’s account could have been the growing influence in the late 1960s strengthened in several ways. While the of the Progressive Labor Party – which book is intended to explain sds’s failure, envisioned a “working class unaffected by it is not clear what Barber believes sds U.S. imperialism” (92) – hindered white failed to do. In the introduction, he points New Leftists’ ability to grasp how imperi- out that its membership rose from 250 in alism “shaped America’s domestic social 1960 to 80–100,000 by late 1968, suggest- life.” (91) White activists, Barber argues, ing that by failure he means the group’s had to recognize that, as beneficiaries of failure to sustain dramatic membership empire, they themselves were “part of the growth. In the conclusion, he writes: oppressor class.” (93) “America’s fundamental social, cultural, Barber also examines the genesis of political, and economic structures were the women’s movement, a story that has not destroyed and replaced with some- been told by Sara Evans (Personal Poli- thing better, the goal the New Left ulti- tics), Alice Echols (Daring to be Bad), and mately set for itself.” (226) While this others. Barber describes the often bitter may be the source of Barber’s frustration, conflicts that emerged when white femi- expecting sds to have completely over- nists insisted that sds challenge wom- thrown us institutions seems a tall order en’s subordination not only in the larger indeed. Given the uncertainty about the society but also within sds itself. At the meaning of failure, it is not at all clear same time, he notes the ways in which that sds – had it adopted the “correct” white women who advocated women’s political positions that Barber outlines – liberation often universalized the female could have achieved greater success. experience without acknowledging dis- While Barber forcefully argues his tinctions among women based on class positions, his evidence does not always and race. Here Barber draws on a wider support his claims. When analyzing the range of sources, including the New Left writings of a few national sds leaders, for press and observations by women activ- example, he tends to generalize about the ists, whether they embraced feminism, organization as a whole. For this strategy rejected it, critiqued its limitations, or to be effective, we need to know more hoped to advance it from inside sds. In about the extent to which such writ- perhaps his strongest chapter, Barber ings reflected or reinforced the views of allows the voices of participants to pre- the broader base. Barber notes that sds dominate rather than injecting his own had more than three hundred chapters voice forcefully into the debate. by the late 1960s. What was happening In the final chapters, Barber chronicles at the chapter level? Were no chapters sds’s collapse. In the book’s introduction, allied with black radicals? Were none of he insists that the factional divide often them engaged in projects that challenged credited with the group’s destruction was white supremacy? What about the groups not the real source of failure, since rival that engaged in bpp support work? Bar-

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ber’s account would have benefited from changed when her mother died in 1931, greater attention to local sds activities as leaving the young Bess to move around well as to the evolution of rank-and-file from school to school, living partly with members’ thinking about race, empire, her older sister’s family in Lubbock, until and gender over time. her father remarried in 1934 to Ruby Ter- In A Hard Rain Fell, Barber seeks to rill. In 1936 they moved to Washington, identify intellectual currents and orga- D.C., where John worked for the Library nizing strategies that could have made of Congress and the Federal Writers’ Proj- ’60s activism more influential, and that ect. Bess now did research for the folk- perhaps can inform activism today. Some song book her father and brother Alan of our best scholarship has been produced were working on, as she became steeped by those who are passionately engaged in in vernacular songs, while absorbing the their subject matter and deeply commit- hectic life of the nation’s capital. She was ted to social change. But Barber’s book is particularly impressed by her father’s marred by the frequent use of sarcastic close friends, Charles and Ruth Craw- commentary that clearly reflects his own ford Seeger. And while John was politi- bitterness and hostility about the “errors” cally conservative, she absorbed leftwing that sds made. Such remarks are not a politics from the Seegers as well as from substitute for solid evidence and should Alan. not be used as such. Her horizons were somewhat expanded In the end, Barber has an important in 1938 on an eight-month family trip point to make. By emphasizing that to Europe. Accompanied by her friend, white activists were shaped and often Elizabeth Watkins, she greatly enjoyed constrained by attachment to their own Paris, Vienna, Budapest, Prague, and society and culture, he has made a real even Germany with its frightening Nazi contribution to the study of the New Left. culture. Returning in September, she His book opens up numerous opportuni- enrolled at Bryn Mawr College in Penn- ties for other scholars to explore how such sylvania, where she seems to have made limitations played out in a rapidly chang- few friends, preferring to spend her lei- ing historical context and how activists sure time at political meetings in Phila- grappled with these and the many other delphia or cultural visits to New York, challenges they faced. where Alan worked on his network radio Tami J. Friedman show, “Back Where I Come From.” She Brock University now met Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, Josh White, Aunt Molly Jackson, Pete Seeger, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, and other Bess Lomax Hawes, Sing It Pretty: budding urban folk performers. Upon A Memoir (Urbana: University of Illinois graduating from Bryn Mawr in 1941 she Press 2008) moved to New York and joined the Alma- nac Singers, a loose group of political Bess Lomax Hawes has finally captured performers formed by Seeger, Lee Hays, some of her fascinating story in this rich and Millard Lampell, and soon to include autobiography, although it is too short Guthrie, Terry, McGhee, Butch Hawes, by half. Born in East Texas in 1921, the and various others. She worked at the daughter of pioneer folklorist John Avery New York Public Library during the day Lomax and Bess Brown Lomax, she has and performed with the group at night. fond memories of growing up in a stim- While Bess passes over her move with a ulating family environment. But much few of the Almanacs to Detroit in 1942,

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she picks up the story with her marriage Bess describes the complications and to Butch Hawes in early 1943. challenges in organizing the California During the war Bess worked for the part of the festival’s “Regional America” Office of War Informationowi ( ), in the section in 1976. Her new life as a cultural library of the Music Department, which worker presented various problems but furnished recordings for radio broadcasts also numerous rewards, and she was so around the world. She was now exposed successful that she was asked to work to foreign recordings, significantly broad- for the Special Projects Program of the ening her musical horizons. At war’s end National Endowment for the Arts, where her family began to expand with the birth she was employed from 1977 to 1992. of the first of her three children, and, She handled numerous funding requests, while experiencing a budding anti-com- mostly involving vernacular musicians munist movement, they moved from New and community festivals, as she trav- York to Boston, where Butch developed eled around the country, beginning in as a graphic artist. They became involved Maine where the Aroostook County Arts with the Progressive Party’s support of Council sought funding. She loved visit- Henry Wallace for President in 1948, ing remote parts of the country where and Bess co-authored, with Jacqueline they welcomed attention from the federal Steiner, “Charley on the mta” in support government. She next visited the opening of Walter O’Brien’s third-party run for of an exhibit of Southern arts and crafts Mayor of Boston, a song that eleven years at the Atlanta Museum. Working for the later became a hit for the Kingston Trio. new Folk Arts Program, she feared that it In addition to her political activities, she “was dangerously close to presenting the began teaching folk music to a group of folk arts as ancient, feeble, and moribund, local mothers, through which she dis- or – contrariwise – countrified, senti- covered her knack for teaching various mental, and/or comical.” (130) The folk acoustic instruments in a group setting. arts were serious business and had to be In 1951, the family moved to Los Angeles, treated accordingly, with respect and sen- where Bess expanded her music classes, sitivity, and she describes her challenges, especially for ucla’s University Exten- dilemmas, and successes. She worried sion, as she became active in the vibrant about the problems of a government local folk scene. She was soon teaching bureaucracy with its complicated paper- various folklore classes in the anthropol- work, and tried to make the application ogy department of San Fernando Valley process as easy as possible. She also had State College, the launching of her new to work with the various state arts agen- academic life. cies, each facing a unique situation. She devotes a loving chapter to her She ends with a brief chapter on the early teaching career, in particular her National Heritage Fellowships, begin- interest in researching children’s songs, ning in 1980, one of her proudest accom- games, and stories. In order to improve plishments, and the thrill of receiving her credentials, she entered the folklore the National Medal of Arts from Presi- program at the University of California- dent Bill Clinton. “I have always had Berkeley in 1969 and soon obtained her the unshakable belief that every single ma. In 1971, however, Butch died. She human being has some knowledge continued her teaching in Los Angeles of important elements of beauty and until contacted by Ralph Rinzler, who had substance,” reads her final sentence, launched the Smithsonian Institution’s “whether everybody else knows them or annual Festival of American Folklife. not, and the appropriate introduction of

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those items of intellectual power into the dos’s Standing Fast (1970) comes to mind, public discourse has been the unswerv- as do Earl Birney’s cross-border reflec- ing thrust of my work, whatever form it tions in Down the Long Table (1955). took, all my life.” (174) The daughter and Both of these fictional accounts, how- sister of folklore pioneers, steeped in ever, unfold on the margins of American roots music, Bess Lomax Hawes deftly anti-Stalinist politics, the first focusing combined her leftwing politics, musi- on the organizational life of Max Shacht- cal abilities, and cultural commitments. man’s break from orthodox Trotskyism, There is much more of her rich, fascinat- the second filtered through the lens of ing story that has appeared in various McCarthyism’s later impact on a Cana- publications over the years. Here she dian recruit to dissident communism. presents those memories perhaps the Lillian Pollak has a different perspec- most noteworthy for her, along with a tive and chronology from those of Swa- number of tantalizing photographs and dos and Birney. Her backdrop is a period a truncated timeline. Unfortunately, she of momentous struggles, in the United has little to say about her time with the States and around the world, associated Almanac Singers, her relationships with with Trotskyism’s first decade and its lead- her father and brother Alan, the flourish- er’s brutal Stalinist-orchestrated murder ing folk scene in Southern California, her in Mexico in 1940. Woven into the plot, involvement with numerous folk music like connective strands, are illuminating festivals, how she developed her tech- commentaries on the Great Depression, nique for teaching group classes, and the reference to the mass strikes of 1934, and controversies over defining “traditional” representations of the Spanish Civil War. musicians for arts funding. She made one Cultural movements, such as the rise of last move, to Portland, Oregon, in 2007. modern dance, are also a significant com- She has left some tantalizing memories ponent of the novel, breathing a freshness for someone who is game enough to write into the storyline often absent in arche- her full biography, which will be a fitting typal ‘proletarian novels’. companion to Nolan Porterfield’s study of Clearly autobiographical, Pollak’s her father and a forthcoming biography The Sweetest Dream presents all of this of Alan by John Szwed. The Lomax fam- through the eyes of Miriam, a young ily made an indelible mark on American recruit to Trotskyism in the 1930s. Mir- musical history and vernacular culture, iam embraces Trotskyism, as did many combining performance, scholarship, in the young movement, against all odds, collecting, administration, and so much the barriers to her oppositional politics more, part of which is well captured in including: a mother whose dream is to Bess’s wonderful memoir. capitalize on the seeming largesse of Ronald D. Cohen the real estate market, and whose cyni- Indiana University Northwest cal repudiations of revolutionary com- mitment parallel her often insensitive and hurtful treatment of her daughter; Lillian Pollak, The Sweetest Dream: revered radicals who opted to stay in the Love, Lies, & Assassination (New York, Stalin camp, blind to the ways in which Bloomington, Shanghai: iUniverse, Inc. it was undoing all that the Revolution 2008) had accomplished; and the limitations always imposed by poverty. Given the Few novels address the experience of small numbers of those won to the anti- United States Trotskyism. Harvey Swa- Stalinist program of the Communist

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League of America (Opposition) and its this is not only a matter of personal fail- ultimate successor, the Socialist Workers ures of all kinds, but is, as well, an issue Party (swp), Miriam rubs shoulders with of politics. And for Miriam, Trotsky’s most of the major figures in United States assassination, in which she and Ketzel are Trotskyism. She eventually makes her unwittingly associated, silences the voice way to Mexico where she meets Trotsky that had spoken to her so forcefully in and those responsible for his safety, some the 1930s: “Life is beautiful,” Trotsky had of whom were Mexican revolutionaries, written passionately, “Live it to the full- others individuals sent from the swp, est.” As Miriam and her comrades real- which was then a leading section of the ized, the possibility of doing so was never Trotskyist Fourth International. separable from the revolutionary aspira- What is unique about Pollak’s presen- tions that they cultivated in their youth. tation is that Miriam’s best and long- The love that Miriam and Ketzel have cherished childhood friend, the vivacious for one another, and the hopes, however Ketzel, is something of her political mir- different, that they share for a better ror image. Born into a well-to-do Mexi- world, manage, in spite of what is arrayed can family, where the mother and father against all of this, to survive. Ms. Pollak, whom Miriam idolizes as a child are a ‘Raging Granny’ who, at 93, still puts deeply committed to the Soviet Union in appearances at conferences, lectures, and to Stalin’s leadership of the Com- and gatherings of us Trotskyists, regaling munist International, Ketzel is bohemian crowds with her remembrances of strug- and avant-garde, beautiful and impetu- gles past, has followed the admonition of ous. Miriam, in contrast, is the poor her mentor, Leon Trotsky. The Sweetest daughter of the New York Jewish ghetto, Dream gives us but a piece of her fasci- circumscribed by a plainness that she nating history, lived to its fullest. It is a cannot ever quite transcend. fragment you won’t want to put down. Designated “A Novel of the Thirties,” Bryan D. Palmer Pollak’s fiction explores what many care- Trent University ful histories sometimes find elusive: the troubled, but often inseparable, relations of Trotskyism and Stalinism; the complex Laura Gotkowitz, A Revolution for and sometimes contradictory character our Rights: Indigenous Struggles for of political ‘choice’ in the revolutionary Land and Justice in Bolivia, 1880–1952 left; and the deep mark commitment (Durham: Duke University Press 2007) leaves on both politics and personal life. The Sweetest Dreammasterfully recreates The massacre of nearly 30 innocent, the dilemmas and delusions, as well as unarmed civilians in a remote northwest- the defiant heroism that defined so much ern province of Bolivia in mid-November of a layer of youth won to the revolution- 2008 brings into sharp relief the ten- ary refusal to endure the price capitalism sions and contradictions inherent in commanded in the 1930s. Few histories the state-building project. Although the give us a view of the ‘Jimmie Higgins’ of precise motivations for the massacre are the left more powerful than this book. unclear, the victims were travelling to a Ultimately, The Sweetest Dream is rally in support of the indigenous, left- about lost loves. Miriam and Ketzel never of-centre government when they were quite secure and sustain the loves their gunned down by armed men believed to lives so desperately need and deserve. be allied with the large landowners. Such The novel makes the powerful point that sporadic episodes of politically motivated

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violence that have erupted in the past from the War of the Pacific (1879–83) up few years highlight the precarious posi- until the eve of the national-popular Rev- tion of the White settler elite that has olution of 1952. Most importantly, Got- dominated the political and economic kowitz fills a gap in the historical record life of the Bolivian nation for more than (that is, in the English-language litera- four centuries, in a territory in which the ture), by focusing on the role that rural majority of the population self-identify rebellion played in bringing about the as indigenous. Evo Morales, an Aymara Revolution. While the principal demands Indian and the nation’s first indigenous of the struggle were “Tierras al Indio” president, and his left-of-centre political (“Lands to the Indians”) and “Minas party, the Movement toward Socialism, al Estado” (“Mines to the state”), most were elected by overwhelming majority contemporary histories have paid closer in December 2005, promising to nation- attention to the role of the revolutionary alize key natural resources such as natu- miners’ organizations than to the strug- ral gas and water, to re-found the nation gles for land. With the help of progressive through the election of a Constitutional historians like Gotkowitz, the record is Assembly, and to “decolonize” the state. now being corrected. Given the fact that 40 per cent of the Gotkowitz’s major goal in this book is economically active population in Bolivia to provide a reinterpretation of the 1952 is employed in agriculture, one of the Revolution which “shows that rural indig- most contentious issues in the govern- enous movements also engaged with and ment’s reform program has been the shaped the populist pacts that marked issue of the redistribution of land. In a the decades leading up to the 1952 Revo- 2008 study published by the Centre for lution.” (9) The book concentrates on the Economic and Policy Research, progres- struggles for the right to land and politi- sive economists Mark Weisbrot and Luis cal authority amongst Indian communi- Sandoval report that Bolivia is home to ties in the department of Cochabamba, one of the most unequal distributions which may seem an unlikely choice since of land in the world: 0.22 per cent of the only a small proportion of Indian com- farm units in Bolivia control over half of munities in the early Republican period the agricultural land, while 84 per cent were located in Cochabamba, a region of farm units control only 2.4 per cent dominated by smallholding mestizo of the land. It is therefore not surprising peasants. As the author argues, however, that the government’s promise to redis- “[i]t is precisely the limited presence – but tribute land has incited violent reactions political force – of Cochabamba’s Indian from large landowning elites who have communities, and the pioneering signifi- threatened to separate from the Andean cance of its peasant unions, that make departments of Bolivia under the banner this region a propitious vantage point of departmental “autonomy.” for exploring contests over the compet- Laura Gotkowitz’s delightful book, A ing national visions and the origins of Revolution for our Rights, provides the the revolutionary project.” (9) Indeed, reader with a historical lens through as Gotkowitz suggests, the 1947 cycle of which to understand these contemporary rural unrest with its roots in the depart- struggles. Based upon extensive archival ments of Cochabamba and La Paz was an research, Gotkowitz’s book provides a essential precursor to the 1952 Revolu- snapshot of the struggles of Indian com- tion. As Bolivian historian, José Gordillo, munities in the Cochabamba Valley to has also argued, Indigenous communi- protect and defend their rights to land ties from Cochabamba played a central

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role in national politics both before and liberal legislators inadvertently bestowed after the Revolution, owing in part to the the legal tools for the resurgence of Indian strategic alliances struck between Indian communities in their attempts to abolish communities and the military popu- communal land and political author- list government of Gualberto Villarroel ity and how indigenous leaders viewed, (1943–1946). appropriated, and challenged the liberal While all histories are necessarily par- project, while the latter half of the book tial, Gotkowitz pays keen attention to demonstrates how Bolivia’s defeat in the detail, skillfully breathing life into the Chaco War triggered the rise of a new archival material so that the stories of the generation of Indian and peasant lead- deceased come alive. She is also careful ers who forged strategic alliances with to point out when the archival material is the military-populist leaders at the time. limited so that she has been left to specu- In the introductory chapter entitled “The late. In the chapter on the 1947 cycle of Peculiar Paths of the Liberal Project” she unrest, for example, Gotkowitz writes, notes the inevitable contradiction of lib- “[f]or Magarita Coca viuda de Coca, civi- eralism in the republics established by lization hung in the balance on 7 Febru- Simon Bolivar, namely, that the promise ary 1947,” (236) the day that the colonos of sovereignty can also be used by the working on her hacienda assassinated “dangerous classes” to promote their her husband, taking the typewriter, the own nation-building project on very sewing machine, clothes, potatoes and different terms. Nowhere was this bet- maize, and her deceased husband’s horse ter expressed than in the post-1874 lib- with them. By excavating the testimo- eral land laws, which sought to privatize nies of the trial set up to investigate Mr. land and extinguish communal rights Coca’s death, Gotkowitz suggests that to land and political authority. As the while the Ayopaya uprising was partly author writes, “[r]ather than extinguish motivated by heightened labour burdens the Indian community or removing the on the estates, the rebellion involved a category ‘Indian’ from the law, the liberal much wider contest over the meanings reforms unleashed a long-lasting struggle of the laws inaugurated by the military- over the community’s juridical status and populist government of Villarroeal in its powers of representation.” (41) Indeed, 1945: “In the course of the rebellion, the as the most recent massacre in the Pando Ayopaya rebels connected an imaginary suggests, this struggle over which people law for revolution with Villarroel’s real are to be considered political authorities decrees against servitude. In doing so, continues to this day. the insurgents not only appropriated Although the book is dense due to its and redefined the state’s decrees against theoretical sophistication and extensive pongueaje [personal service on a land- historical detail, the fluid writing by the lord’s estate or in a mine] and other ser- author makes this book a page-turner. It vice duties: they enacted their own vision is a must-read for anyone interested in of justice and the law.” (238) the contested processes of state forma- Gotkowitz’s study also makes an tion and indigenous movements in Latin important theoretical contribution to America and beyond. the literature on state formation in Latin Susan Spronk America by demonstrating how the lib- University of Ottawa eral project has offered indigenous com- munities a double-edged sword. The first three chapters of the book explore how

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Alejandra Bronfman, On the Move: every nation in the area has in one way The Caribbean since 1989 (Halifax: or another engaged in these trades, flows, Fernwood Publishing; London: Zed and movements, some settings illustrate Books 2007) the nature of particular circulations bet- ter than others. Bronfman has chosen The Caribbean is a paradoxical col- national exemplars that are both useful lection of nations. Travelers come from and informative. Four substantive chap- all over the globe to enjoy a multitude of ters focus on these cases and themes: pleasures on beaches and casinos in the Haiti and the movement of people and region. Yet the world knows little about their citizenship abroad; Cuba’s recent the individual islands of the Caribbean, capital investments in tourism, medicine, their varied histories, or their vast inter- and biotechnology; Jamaica’s history as a regional and international connections. producer and marketer of illegal drugs; Historian Alejandra Bronfman addresses and the development in various islands of this problem in On the Move: The Carib- digital technology and communication. bean since 1989, an engaging and infor- The story of Haitian migration to the mative set of interlocking essays in which United States following the removal of she addresses the historic place of the the Duvalier family from political office Caribbean as a centre of circulating peo- and election of Jean-Bertrand Aristide is ple, goods, capital, and information. a tale well worth telling as one explores Bronfman tells us early on that her the continuing financial and political intention is to put the Caribbean people influence of émigrés. A largely educated at the center of their own regional nar- group with strong monetary and affective rative, noting group intentionality and ties to Haiti, the immigrant community action in all important phases and stages living in the United States grew in num- of Caribbean history. At the same time, bers and influence through the 1980s and she wants to clarify the continuing role of 1990s. With several newspapers and radio the Caribbean in international exchange. outlets, the group was easily mobilized There are several ways to focus on these by Aristide into a “tenth department.” questions, some of which would require Dividing that sector into arrondisements an encyclopedic discussion of each island, proved to be considerably more complex, language group, and political-economic though the support of Haitian immi- trend. Bronfman instead opts to propose grants was critical to the reinstatement “circulation” as an orienting concept that of Aristide to the presidency during the illustrates the intensive historical integra- Clinton Administration. The effective- tion of the Caribbean into world markets. ness of the immigrant community living This thoughtful and creative approach in the United States is contrasted with allows her to cover a multitude of issues that in the Dominican Republic, poorer and situations briskly and without losing and with shifting patterns of political the central point, that Caribbean nations influence on events in Haiti. However, have never been isolated islands passively immigrants in neither locale have been accepting destinies imposed from outside able to stem the tide of neo-liberal eco- or above. nomic policies and general economic dis- People, capital, drugs, and informa- array in contemporary Haiti. tion are among the important factors Much commentary on Cuba today and products of production that have continues to focus on its economic weak- originated in the Caribbean and cir- nesses, with little recognition of success culated throughout the world. Though in the form of new industries. Bronf-

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man uses the Cuban case to consider the that resulted in, among other things, the circulation of capital in the region. She development of gangs that traded in ganja begins by describing recent Cuban state and operated in Jamaica and abroad. The efforts to capitalize tourism and extend developing market for cocaine in Europe its appeal beyond the “sun and fun” asso- and North America drew Jamaican deal- ciated with Caribbean destinations. She ers and their “posses” into more lucrative notes as well that tourists in Cuba are and dangerous enterprises that interdic- unable to avoid exposure to economic tions by the United States and Jamaican inequality and exclusion, even as their governments have done little to stem. contributions to the national economy are There is no doubt that the illicit produc- in part diverted to social investment by tion and trade in drugs have enriched the state. Two other industries of growing many Jamaicans while creating a social significance in Cuba are nickel mining and political juggernaut that has been and medical research and biotechnology. impossible to escape. A Canadian company invested heavily Bronfman leaves the least decisive in Cuban nickel mining and profited in discussion, that of ict (Information and the process, while enhancing Cuban job Communication Technology), until last. and trade opportunities in Canada and Cell phones and computers have taken Europe. At the same time, Cuba’s invest- the Caribbean by storm, creating new ment in medical training and biotech- avenues for communication and produc- nological research has yielded a boom in tive investment. Looking at the region medical tourism, the exchange of medi- in general, however, she finds that ict cal personnel with other countries, and utilization is wildly uneven. Cell phones increasing sales of sera and other medi- are the most readily available form of cal substances abroad. This success has new technology, with a majority of some at once inspired more us restrictions on islands’ populations possessing personal travel and trade with Cuba while inten- telephones for the first time. For every sifying international business interest in progressive experiment in introducing the island economy computers and the internet into remote The Caribbean has long been a site classrooms, there are as many cases of off- for illicit circulation, whether of money, shore data processing and gambling that people, or goods. Bronfman examines reproduce the patterns of international this phenomenon through an account of domination and exploitation that have Jamaican involvement in the international long plagued the region. Firm conclusions marijuana and cocaine trades. Marijuana, have yet to be reached on the impact of or ganja in Hindi, was introduced to the ict on the nations of the Caribbean and Caribbean by Indian workers. It has been their intra- and extra-regional economic, cultivated in Jamaica since the late 19th political, and cultural linkages. century when it was considered a benign On the Move: The Caribbean since 1989 substance. That changed in the 20th closes with a brief essay by Bronfman on century as ganja was redefined as a dan- the difficulties of studying contempo- gerous drug and criminalized with ever rary history in a region whose defining more serious consequences for those pos- moments are often perceived to have sessing, growing, or selling it. Jamaican occurred more than a century ago. While immigration to North America, the ris- plantation slavery and emancipation ing worldwide demand for marijuana, and established patterns of production, trade, the intensification of political violence on and culture that have influenced the his- the island converged in complex ways tory of the region in profound ways, there

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are meaningful and self-determining between the two groups was blurred. In a moments in the more recent past that society that considered agriculture to be must be related. Bronfman’s discussion absolutely fundamental to people’s liveli- of the complicated and thoughtful ways hood and honoured scholars as the ruling that Jamaica’s National Bicentenary cel- class, the growth of an artisan class was ebration valorized a range of historical slow. The state regarded artisans suspi- eras, constraints, and struggles, should ciously because of their potential mobil- interest scholars and students of the ity and issued strict rules to regulate their region. It is one more way in which this commercial activity. The common people accessible and compelling work succeeds viewed them as cunning traders trying to in rescuing the Caribbean from narrow peddle shoddy goods. Early Chinese phi- categorizations. losophers paid little attention to artisans, Marietta Morrissey although they used craftspeople or their University of Toledo crafts to illustrate sophisticated moral or philosophical principles. Regardless of the negative view of artisanship, the Anthony J. Barbieri-Low, Artisans in occupation developed rapidly during the Early Imperial China (Seattle: University Qin and early Han periods because it of Washington Press 2007) was becoming profitable. (44, 48, 53–54) Nevertheless, under the reign of Emperor One of the great ancient civilizations Wu (Liu Che, 141–87 bce) during the of the world, China is well known for its Han Dynasty, the private sector of the dazzling material culture. Each year sees Chinese economy was severely weak- an outpouring of popular as well as schol- ened. The government took over iron arly works celebrating thousands of years and salt production and instituted rigor- of breathtaking artistic and technological ous laws to restrict and squeeze artisan- achievements. But while writers focus on merchants. (126–127) This book covers the originality of Chinese art and tech- the Qin and Han Dynasties (221 bce–220 nological innovation, analyze the superb ad), eras that Chinese academics gener- artistic ingenuity and the skill that went ally acknowledge as the golden age of the into finely crafted tools and works of art, handicraft industry. and decode the possible political mas- Artisans in Early Imperial China con- sages it all conveyed, surprisingly little sists of six chapters, each focusing on attention has been paid to the people one aspect of the life and work of Chi- whose sweat and toil created the master- nese artisans. Topics range from their pieces. Artisans in Early Imperial China social status, training, marketing strat- fills an important gap in the field because egies, and religious beliefs to the sharp the author looks at “the men and women” distinction between court artisans and who made “the glittering objects and those in some form of bondage. Drawing monuments of China,” with a particular upon three types of sources – historical emphasis on “the complex social, com- documents, archaeological reports, and mercial, and technological networks in objects produced by ancient artisans – which they participated.” (17) Barbieri-Low argues that production in Most artisans appear to have been state workshops and factories reached an attached to the imperial court or to noble extraordinarily high level after the Qin families until the Warring States period period. Government officials in charge of (403–221 bce), when independent mer- production closely scrutinized all levels of chants and artisans appeared and the line the manufacturing process. They devised

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ways to increase efficiency by carefully of high-status designs, borrow[ing] impe- calculating the quantity of materials and rial factory marks, compos[ing] rhym- personnel needed for various jobs, and ing advertising jingles, and engage[ing] they took full responsibility for the work in blatant self-promotion.”(138) These performance of men and women under practices remind one of the illegal com- their supervision. (19–20, 73) mercial activities in present-day China, Barbieri-Low discusses developments a country with the fastest economic in Chinese handicraft production in growth but limited development in lib- terms of quality control, the division of eral democracy. Anyone familiar with labour, and mass production. He reveals the frequent media coverage of adulter- that some efficiency methods, such as the ated medicine and vegetable oil in China scientific management employed in the may find echoes from the past in the Han West during the late 19th century, had in masons, who cut costs by using recycled fact appeared in China’s state workshops stone to build tombs for the wealthy and as early as in the third century bce. Using influential clan elders. (138–141) the manufacture of arrows as an example, While admitting that very little mate- Barbieri-Low demonstrates how produc- rial covering the activities of female tion was broken down into specialized artisans has survived, Barbieri-Low tasks: one artisan straightened the shafts, nonetheless makes painstaking efforts to another packed the feathers, while still give readers a glimpse of their contribu- another installed the arrowheads. Weap- tions. Large numbers of female artisans ons and tools were not the only things were employed in both private workshops produced using assembly line technology. and state factories. They often worked For example, the Changxin Palace lamp, with their husbands in family- run work- one of the most beautiful masterpieces of shops or as independent artisans in large- second century bce Chinese artisanship, scale state-owned industries, especially was constructed using eight different in those making delicate silk garments assembly stations. Even the seemingly and lacquer ware. Since workers were unique design of the candlestick was required to engrave their name in fin- made in accordance with “the demands ished pieces, the quality control system of a standardized, modular design.” (14– employed in Chinese workshops allows 15, 74) Another distinguishing feature researchers to identify the gender of lac- of early imperial handicraft was the way quer artists. It would appear that in state quality control was handled. Each state workshops the vast majority of lacquered artisan was compelled by law to mark pieces were painted by women. Occa- their name, work unit, and the manufac- sionally, women rose to the high position turing date on the finished part. Good of designer-painter or were in charge of work and good workers were rewarded; accounting and record keeping, a posi- artisans who performed poorly or pro- tion which required a fairly high level of duced shoddy work were fined. (75) literacy. (107–114) In Chapter four Barbieri-Low takes The significant role women played in readers into a strikingly different world, the handicraft industry in early impe- that of the private artisan-merchants rial China indicates that, although Con- who used various business techniques fucianism confined women to the home, to increase their market share and most labouring women did not have the profit. Some of the marketing strategies luxury to observe the Confucian ideal. included “cutt[ing] corners on quality, The high visibility of women in presti- recyc[ling] materials, creat[ing] knockoffs gious positions in state workshops seems

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to suggest that strict gender divisions iron foundries, or mining. Subjected to were muted. It is perhaps well to recall harsh treatment and poor safety condi- that Chinese women did not begin to bind tions, convicts suffered extremely high their feet until the Song Dynasty (960– accident and death rates; most convict 1279 ce), a period when moral restric- labourers never lived to see their free- tions for women became so extreme that dom. Conditions were so bad that a large male moralists required them to put armed uprising broke out in a state arse- chastity above life. Barbieri-Low could nal located in today’s Shandong province have done more to compare artisans dur- toward the end of the former Han period. ing the two historical eras, demonstrat- Thousands of convicts swept through a ing the continuities and divergences in vast area before being suppressed by gov- the organization of factory production ernment forces. (227–245) and the gendered division of labour in the Drawing upon the most recent schol- handicraft workshops. arly works published in Chinese, English, Chapter five guides the readers through and Japanese, Barbieri-Low has produced an art gallery of masterworks produced a solid and insightful work on a topic by court painters and craftspeople. Fas- neglected by scholars in both China and cinating as these court paintings are, the the West. author seems to spend too much time Shiling McQuaide analyzing them, especially when there Athabasca University is little available evidence to allow him to pinpoint the authors of the works in question. Kate Bronfenbrenner, ed., Global Barbieri-Low closes the book with Unions: Challenging Transnational a marvelous examination of groups of Capital through Cross-Border strikingly different artisans who were Campaigns (Ithaca and London: “the coerced, the convicted, and the ILR Press 2007) enslaved.” (212) One interesting example concerns the way that the government On February 9, 2006, this reviewer flew recruited labour for large-scale projects. from Toronto to New York to attend, Because drafting large number of work- along with 560 others, a conference enti- ers could interrupt farming or possibly tled “Global Companies – Global Unions trigger a revolt, the government cleverly – Global Research – Global Campaigns.” enlisted peasants in February, a month Representatives from trade unions and when no major agriculture activities non-government organizations (ngos) as took place and retained them only for well as academics from around the world that month. Convicts on the other hand gathered to explore how to build labour’s were brought in any time when they were capacity to initiate more effective strate- needed and likely worked year-round. gic corporate research and comprehen- During the Han Dynasty, the most com- sive cross-border campaigns. mon punishment for people who suppos- Globally, unions operate in the con- edly breached the law was a term of hard text of a continuously changing and often labour. These men, usually shaved and hostile neo-liberal environment, domi- iron-collared, were sent to do “the dirti- nated by transnational corporations. est, most arduous, and most dangerous The result has been global problems that jobs for the state.” Some of those jobs demand global solutions. These, in turn, included building monumental city walls, necessitate cross-border cooperation and constructing imperial tombs, working in common action by a world-wide labour

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movement. Based on the New York con- Steel, workers contended with continued ference, this book builds on a developing corporate evolution, a post-war accord consensus that transnational corporate between labour and management, and power over working people and their the development of pattern bargaining. organizations can only be successfully Juravich’s fourth and final stage focuses confronted if it is examined and under- on the Japanese-owned tire giant Bridge- stood in far more detail. stone/Firestone (bsfs) in 1996. Here one As the research director of the Ontario finds a fully international corporation Federation of Labour (ofl) for the past with plants located world-wide, capital 16 years my attraction to the book’s first mobility, a deliberate undermining of chapter, which outlines a model for strate- the post-World War II industrial rela- gic corporate research, is understandable. tions system, and the necessity of inno- Tom Juravich argues that unions today vative and comprehensive campaigns to need to acquire a comprehensive under- stave off membership defeat. In this new standing of a company, an industrial sec- context, experience suggests that there tor, and the broader social-economic and is no one easy solution. Rather, multi- political context in which it is embedded. faceted campaigns involving numerous “Only as a product of this kind of research players such as stockholders and lend- analysis,” he writes, “can unions design ers, broad alliances with community and the appropriate strategies and tactics to religious groups, consumers and the cen- be successful, taking into account both tral involvement of rank-and-file workers how power flows through the firm and themselves are necessary. how vulnerabilities can be exploited.”(16) After tracing tactical changes over The potential strategic campaigns would time, Juravich outlines a strategic corpo- go far beyond traditional organizing and rate map specifying four areas that need bargaining. Juravich demonstrates such attention: the basics of a firm; their profit innovations historically, referencing key centre and growth plan; the company’s industrial confrontations, beginning with decision makers; and key relationships the 1912 Lawrence, Massachusetts, strike such as main suppliers, customers, lend- against the American Woolen Company. ers, board members and regulatory insti- This famous, but decidedly local, strike tutions. This chapter then proceeds from by immigrant women workers, known as a discussion of new research needs to a the “Bread and Roses” strike, brought the discussion of how to apply research find- company to its knees via innovative local ings to a strategic campaign. actions. At the time, though, a company The editor of this text, Kate Bronfen- had limited ability to move production, brenner, is to be congratulated for her and the state had no institutional role in selection of the nine excellent chap- labour relations, although police violence ters that follow. Together they portray in defence of capital was common. the range of initiatives that unions are By the 1930s, however, more unions employing to more strategically respond were confronting large corporations like to global corporate power. General Motors with multiple plants and Chapter 2, by Peter Wad, explores new corporate structures, as well as new how workers at a Malaysian medical forms of state involvement. The auto work- supply company unionized their factory ers adopted tactically selective strikes, in in large part due to an interesting alli- which the famous sit-down strike in Flint, ance with a Danish ngo connected to Michigan, was central. Then, in the 1960s, the Danish labour movement. Pressure as reflected in battles with United States on key decision makers outside Malay-

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sia compelled Euromedical Industries to as all too often happens in Canada, but retreat. Wad provides concrete evidence rather slow, patient relationship building of the value of researching the various on every level. This has contributed to a company stakeholders and analyzing the doubling of union density in Sri Lankan specific vulnerabilities of a corporation. epzs between 2003 and 2006. It is also Union organizing succeeded thanks to worth heeding because epzs are so deeply such research and international cam- entrenched in transnational commodity paign pressure even though the company chains of investment, business alliances, ignored court rulings against it and the and subcontracting relations that their Malaysian government refused to enforce impact on the Global North as well as the its own labour laws. Global South is gaining social weight. Next, Ashwini Sukthanker and Kevin The book’s next chapter focuses on Kolben provide two case studies that Latin America and the Caribbean. Henry detail the challenges of building alliances Frundt presents a case study of a compre- between unions in the Global South and hensive union campaign in the banana Global North. They maintain that “nar- sector. My first reaction was that there rowly tailored cooperation between wouldn’t be much to learn from this sec- allies in the Global North and Indian tor for those of us in the “developed” partners can be successful when there is world. After all, bananas don’t rank high direct engagement and when competing on labour’s organizing agenda in Canada. and complementary interests are care- In fact, chapter 5 proved rich in lessons fully defined and negotiated.” (57) They applicable world-wide. Banana sector contextualize their piece with histori- unions developed collaborative relations cal exploration of labour struggles and with ngo networks and small-farmer cross-border inequitable relations begin- organizations, becoming increasingly ning with colonial India. Employment skilled at building independent certifi- continues to be influenced by a racial- cation programs that contribute to Fair ized subcontract system with absent and Trade. Over time union repression dimin- unaccountable employers. Coordination ished and increased space for union orga- between the Global North and the Global nizing appeared, leading to an expansion South is most effective when shaped by of union density to about 30 per cent. the interests and issues of Indian unions The next three chapters focus on dis- and consumers rather than being decided tinct campaigns in Europe. The first, unilaterally by Northern unions and their by Peter Turnbull, involves dockwork- allies. ers who have a long tradition of cross- The three chapters discussing cam- border solidarity. Dockers’ unions in the paigns in Asia are completed by Saman- International Transport Federation (itf) thi Gunawardana with an ethnographic launched a campaign of education and analysis of Sri Lanka’s Export Process- action, including coordinated strikes at ing Zones (epzs). She uses the voices of international ports and demonstrations workers themselves who, in the most at the European Parliament to defeat a hostile of environments, build patiently European Commission directive that and in stages women-to-women net- threatened their job security and viabil- works, then coalitions with local ngos ity. Labour was “able to tilt the balance and then national and international in response to the changing strategies labour and ngo networks, all the while of transnational capital and the supra- engaging in escalating actions. This is national state.” (135) Valeria Pulignano not coalition building for one campaign presents a critical analysis of how the

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European Metal Workers’ Federation, transnational corporations. Yet Stevis absent, unlike the doctors, of historical and Boswell stress that ifa enforce- traditions of cross-border campaigns, ment remains voluntary. The challenge coordinated workplace and community is to restructure all such agreements to actions across borders in Europe. Their ensure they are enforceable. It is also to actions were a response to corporate ensure their expansion beyond Europe, restructuring and threatened job secu- particularly to the Global South, making rity at General Motors. Unions were able them genuinely international bodies. As to restrain, though not prevent, gm from a start, ifas need to begin to incorporate forcing locals and regions to compete company subsidiaries in the Global South against each other to save jobs in their under the same terms and conditions as communities. The phenomenon of cor- the Global North. Finally, the authors porate-induced workplace/local union explain that such arrangements need to competition remains pivotal to many complement, not substitute, comprehen- industrial workers’ experience. sive cross-border campaigns. In chapter 8, Amanda Tattersall evalu- The last chapter, written by Darryn ates the challenges and potential of cross- Snell, concerns the significant increase border alliances in the service sector in foreign direct investment in the Global through research on seiu’s global partner- South and the detrimental practices of ship unit and the Driving Up Standards transnational corporations, including campaign conducted by seiu and the human rights violations. Media atten- Transport and General Workers’ Union in tion has recently focused on high profile Britain. Building on her framework of five court cases implicating companies such key indicators of union-community coali- as Exxon Mobile, Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart, tions, detailed in diagrammatic as well as and Talisman. The concern is that major written form, she assesses the barriers, companies impacting millions of people difficulties, and possibilities of various have been charged with supporting mili- forms of global partnerships. In Tatter- tary dictatorships, crushing rebellions, sall’s chapter we again find the message and condoning mass executions, rape, and that relationship building at every level is torture. Following an exploration of the crucial to the future of global unions. Tat- relationships between corporations and tersall’s perceptive chapter ends by sug- violence, Snell’s focus is on what unions gesting that future global structures may can and should do about such situations. well necessitate “not one single global “The goal of this book,” writes Bronfen- union but global union coalitions capable brenner in her conclusion, “was to provide of negotiating different interests and cul- a body of original scholarly research that tural practices at multiple scales of orga- captured global union efforts to take on nization and power.”(173) and win against the world’s largest trans- Dimitris Stevis and Terry Boswell, in national firms.” (213) The book fulfills chapter 9, examine both the exciting pos- this objective admirably both through sibilities and serious limitations of Inter- its clear approach to conducting corpo- national Framework Agreements (ifas). rate research and through the selection Such agreements are primarily a recent of articles from the Global Union Con- European phenomenon that many unions ference in New York City. In addition to and Global Union Federations (gufs) the lessons extracted from the specific see as important accomplishments, per- campaigns noted in the text’s concluding haps even the closest labour has come chapter, several points deserve further to global negotiated arrangements with comment.

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The first concerns research on the roles as multi-faceted, complementary, changing nature of corporations. As the and pivotal. campaigns in the book demonstrate, True, there is an element of state it is paramount that workers and their autonomy that may be manifest in times unions, along with civil society allies, of mass popular pressure, but just as gain greater in-depth comprehension of often the state counters the desires of a changing corporate ownership structures particular corporation and favours the and the vulnerabilities of transnational interests of capital as a whole. Yet to rec- corporations. Despite the corporate ognize a certain autonomy is not to adopt consensus on neo-liberal policies, there the strategy advanced in the text of try- remains substantive variation in how ing to “actually separate the state from companies are structured, how decisions capital itself.” (217) Tactically it may be move up and down these structures, how possible to exacerbate whatever tensions they interface with their subsidiaries, and exist between a particular transnational where most of their profit is created. To and the appropriate state structure, but it avoid marginalization, unions in Canada is illusionary to think the two can be sep- need to move more quickly to grasp this arated. States are far from neutral bodies changed reality. from which capital can be peeled layer The second focuses on the role of the by layer. The two are intrinsically inter- state. In my view there exists throughout woven and fused in principal purpose. the text an unspoken underestimation For this reviewer full social justice for of the continued centrality of the state. union members and for working people This underestimation has taken on new generally requires a fundamental trans- life with the rise of neo-liberal ideas and formation of the current economic and policies. Neo-liberalism holds that only political order, not an accommodationist the free market can cure social ills and approach. therefore all obstacles to capital accumu- This leads to my third point which con- lation should be removed. It follows that cerns coalitions and other community governments should privatize, deregu- alliances. Virtually every chapter in this late, and otherwise get out of the way of text emphasizes the importance of coali- private business. But the state continues tions, of working with ngos, or of build- to enable, promote, and protect national ing networks, but the specific nature of and global corporations. Simultane- these relationships and their weight in ously, it works to undermine, weaken, broader campaigns is largely unexplored. and repress the power of workers, their Yet even where unions succeed in gain- unions, and their allies. Put simply, the ing improvements against domestic and state in capitalist societies continues to transnational employers, larger social and represent the general interests of capi- economic forces continue to erode living tal, of which transnational corporations standards. A cursory examination of the are an increasingly important part. most recent Statistics Canada figures on Second, it remains a decision-maker in the decline of middle-income earners terms of laws, regulations, and policies, and the stagnation of workers’ buying even though this role has evolved given power demonstrably confirms this. The current economic thinking. Only in the point is that although unions need to rarest of crises do these two roles come continue to struggle for the immediate in conflict. Perspectives in the text tend material needs of their members they will to confuse these two functions into an also need to avoid succumbing to a nar- either/or dichotomy rather than see state row pragmatic vision which places their

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local or national union above all others. It is also through such activities that Unions must strive to become more than workers’ solidarity expands from a par- a defensive shield against the worst of ticular workplace and union membership neo-liberal capitalism. across borders. The development of such Today it is necessary to develop a nascent international solidarity should not vision which recognizes all workers, be seen as some well-meaning abstraction. unionized and non-unionized, domestic It will in all likelihood be quickly tested, and international, as allies in a common for as the concluding chapter of the book fight. With globalization it is essential to notes, because one side of a cross-border extend this broader class vision and see campaign has obtained its goals in a cam- unions as but one, albeit important, form paign, does not necessarily mean that the of organization within the broader work- other partners have. Indeed, it is unlikely ers’ movement composed of many social that all sides reach their goals at the same and community organizations struggling time. Unions in the Global North will need for a better world. One also needs to be to ensure that unions in the Global South cognizant that this vision can neither be win as well. Union campaigns will need colour- nor gender-blind. Rather, it must to have the capacity and the solidarity to be sensitive to particular forms of disad- overcome the pressure to break ranks and vantage and take steps to correct them. It not let transnational companies play one should also extend this same determina- group of workers off against another. It tion to the benefit of workers in the Global should therefore be evident how crucial South whose standard of living has long union education, membership engage- been negatively affected by economic ment, and international solidarity are to arrangements inherent in advanced mar- the future of unions. ket economies stemming from the Global There are many more lessons to glean North. from this text, stemming from a first of My fourth and last point concerns its kind global union conference. The education and new solidarities. Of cen- challenge ahead is to implement the tral importance to moving workers into key lessons of its findings. This will be active participation in strategic research accomplished by engaging in the kind of and cross-border campaigns is member- strategic research outlined and by using ship engagement and education. At least the examples of cross-border campaigns some union members can assist with the to launch more such vitally important new forms of research outlined; many actions in the transnational corporations more can collectively develop a critique located where we work, organize, bargain, of a particular transnational and then and experience politics. participate in the process of designing Chris Schenk and implementing a campaign. The latter Former Research Director is particularly important as even the best Ontario Federation of Labour designed campaign is doomed to failure without the power of engaged mem- bers and their coalition partners. People Geraldine Terry, Women’s Rights increase their awareness and develop (Halifax: Fernwood Press 2007) their capacities through actual activity as much as through formal educational Women’s Rights is part of Oxfam’s classes and seminars which every union “Small Guides to Big Issues,” a series of should be vigorously supporting. resource books designed for and writ-

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ten by people who are working to end rights framework are the focus on political poverty. Geraldine Terry is a British rights abuses in the public sphere, which anti-poverty activist specializing in inter- occludes discrimination in the home, and national development who has worked its failure to change customs and tradi- for ngos (including Oxfam) as well as tions that assume that women’s subor- government-funded aid projects. Ter- dination is the “natural state of affairs.” ry’s analysis is based on her experiences Even though un development policy working with grassroots women’s groups includes goals and targets to improve in the global South, in particular those women’s rights, many activists with who use the international conventions whom Terry has worked feel that policy- that protect women’s rights to empower makers merely pay lip service to women’s women to fight poverty. The central issues. For example, the un Millennium premise of the book is that many of the Development Goals (mdgs) set 2015 as most serious issues in the world today the target to eliminate poverty. But one are “bound up with the denial and abuse skeptical activist calls them the “Most of women’s human rights.” (3) Interna- Distracting Gimmick” (6) because gender tional development programs continue to equality is not the cornerstone of the pol- marginalize women’s rights, despite the icy. Terry identifies cultural relativism as fact that 60 to 70 percent of the world’s one of the most significant threats to the 1.1 billion poor people are women. This universalism of human rights. Chapter 3 short volume explains how three decades criticizes opponents of gender equality of international development have been who argue that women’s equality threat- ineffective because they have not con- ens traditional customs and values, and nected discrimination against women to those who believe that the human rights child mortality, hiv/aids, lack of access framework is a form of imperialism on to education and literacy, violence against the part of the global North. Terry argues women, and environmental sustainabil- that despite the shortcomings of inter- ity. The book is not entirely pessimistic, national law, human rights conventions though. Examples of successful local ini- that defend women’s human rights, such tiatives that are based on a rights-based as the Convention to Eliminate Discrimi- approach to development demonstrate nation against Women (cedaw), must that empowering women to change their be defended because they resonate for own communities is often more effec- women who are struggling to end poverty tive than benevolent initiatives that only and to deal with the multiple issues that address immediate material needs. The are associated with it. book’s greatest strength is the focus on Subsequent chapters elaborate on the women in the global South as agents of interconnections between women’s rights change rather than beneficiaries of chari- and fundamentalism, voting rights, glo- table development aid. balization, education, violence against Focusing on rights rather than mate- women, hiv/aids, and new technologies. rial needs changes the dominant image Property and inheritance rights are a con- of poor women from “helpless charity sistent theme in each chapter. Women’s cases” to “claimants of justice.” (17) The rights to property are restricted by law, book begins with a critical analysis of the convention, or traditions that were dis- human rights framework, in particular torted under colonial rule. Dependency the conventions that protect women’s on male family members makes it dif- rights. The key weaknesses of the human ficult, and in some cases impossible, for

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women to leave dangerous relationships is still worthwhile to read Women’s Rights or to acquire the education and skills that because it is a powerful indictment of they need to move out of exploitative jobs. policies that maintain women’s poverty. It is striking how many grassroots initia- Nancy Janovicek tives to end poverty include women’s University of Calgary property rights as a fundamental goal. Women’s stories are the heart of the book. Discussions of legislation designed Gregory Clark, A Farewell to Alms: to promote women’s rights initiatives are A Brief Economic History of the World juxtaposed with quotations by women (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton whose lives have not been improved by University Press 2008) these initiatives. These quotations rein- force the interconnectedness of women’s Gregory Clark’s brief economic history rights and the social issues related to pov- of the world seeks to explain the coming erty, as well as the need for rights-based of the Industrial Revolution to England development policy. More optimistic are and the West and its failure to material- the stories of women’s groups that have ize in most under-developed countries. It changed ambivalence about violence is divided into three parts: the Malthu- against women, lobbied for legislation to sian Trap which presents a global model end discrimination against women, orga- of traditional society that runs from the nized programs to teach girls their rights, birth of civilization to 1800, the coming and established centres to teach women of the Industrial Revolution, and finally skills that have helped them to live inde- what Clark refers to as the Great Diver- pendent lives. These success stories dem- gence or the failure of industrialization in onstrate that small groups of women can most of the under-developed countries. make change. But they are tempered by At the core of the British-educated eco- the reminder that globalization, new nomic historian’s view is the notion that technologies, and deregulation have cre- until 1800 the world’s population was ated new challenges, and that more and caught in a so-called Malthusian Trap more women live in poverty as a result of in which such technological advance as international trade agreements that put there was created a larger population profit before human rights. without generating any gains in income. The goal of this series is to moti- Prior to 1800 the rate of technological vate readers to do something to com- advance or increase of the technological bat poverty. The book concludes with schedule was so low that incomes could practical recommendations to support not escape the Malthusian equilibrium in rights-based development organizations which living standards decline as popula- as well as a guide to alternative media tion increases. Until the beginning of the sources and websites that will help people 19th century human populations were to keep abreast of changes in women’s as much subject to natural or Darwinian rights and local initiatives to end pov- constraints as were animal or vegetable erty. Students who are just beginning populations. to learn about development should read According to Clark, the way out of this this book because it explains complex impasse was through what he calls the issues and ideas in an accessible manner. survival of the richest. Over time from Although those who are well-versed in the Neolithic Age violence declined, work human rights and international develop- hours were extended, and literacy and ment may not learn much that is new, it numeracy increased. Societies became

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increasingly middle class. Thrift, pru- standards by killing off part of the popu- dence, negotiation, and hard work became lation. This absurd and unhistorical para- dominant values. Clark believes that this dox follows from Clark’s commitment was so because those who were most suc- not merely to Malthusianism but also to cessful economically were also most suc- an anti-institutional bias. It leads him to cessful reproductively-what he calls the an extended and frankly inept compari- survival of the rich. In time these values, son of economic incentives between feu- transmitted culturally and genetically, dal and contemporary capitalist England. pervaded English society, particularly Clark sets out the supposedly univer- setting the stage for the Industrial Revo- sally applicable incentives for economic lution. While cultural transmission of growth according to neo-liberal pre- such positive values plays a part early in scription, which include low taxes, mod- Clark’s work, it is important to underline est social transfers, stable money, low that it is genetic transmission of positive public debt, security of property, social economic traits which comes to the fore mobility, and free markets. His analysis in his account. leads to the mind-boggling conclusion The historical evidence that Clark pro- that 13th century England was a more duces for this fairy tale – which is more incentive-based society than England in Lamarckian than Darwinian – is to say 2000. The failure of feudal England to the least quite scant. If we pursue his bio- break through to sustained technological logical logic, what would we make of the innovation supposedly demonstrates that well-attested fact that the most reproduc- formal institutions do not provide the key tively successful element of the popula- to the acceleration of economic growth. tion from the mid-18th century by far has It is rather the growing genetic influence been the least economically successful of the middle class that explains it. It is element of the English population. Most true that the English population grew of the population of England today are slowly between the 14th and 18th centu- the descendants of this group of eco- ries and this would suggest a Malthusian nomic failures. From Clark’s biological Trap. Yet, from a historian’s perspec- point of view this should have enormous tive, Clark does not explain satisfactorily implications in explaining the course of how such constraints were connected to modern English economic history. Clark millennia of living in stable societies, to is silent on this matter. Clark’s Malthu- gradual economic accumulation, and to sian enthusiasm leads him to champion limitations on fertility which he admits social and political viewpoints remi- produced cultural forms that facilitated niscent of his Tory master. Demands of the Industrial Revolution. In particular Adam Smith and his ilk toward the end his narrative fails to connect carefully his of the 18th century for stable institu- extensive discussion of fertility limita- tions, well-defined property rights, low tion in northwest Europe with his notion inflation, low taxes, free markets, and of the survival of the rich. Indeed, his avoidance of war could have made no account suggests a picture that puts into difference to living standards in the Mal- question the applicability of the notion of thusianism period which continued up to a Malthusian Trap. 1800 or could even have lowered such liv- It is a story in which the last nation- ing standards by increasing population. wide famine in England occurred in the On the other hand, asserts Clark, high mid-14th century and where despite the taxes, luxury expenditure, waste, trade relatively slow growth of agricultural pro- restrictions, and war improved living ductivity England became a net exporter

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of grain by the beginning of the 18th cen- England. Imperialism, especially British tury. It is one in which the annual hours imperialism, was good because it allowed worked increased and fertility limitation the free flow of Western technology and was widely practiced and one in which civilization to the under-developed coun- the level of literacy and numeracy rose. tries. Alas, as his one example of the It is finally an account in which workers’ development of the Indian textile indus- incomes did not rise but those of the mid- try is meant to demonstrate, most under- dle class quintupled between the medieval developed states were unable to take period and the 19th century. Such an evo- advantage of such possibilities because lution is associated more with the com- of their inherently low “social energy,” monplace notion of the rise of the middle which he intimates reflected their cul- class rather than that of a Malthusian tural or biological inferiority. Trap. Indeed, following the consensus, Henry Heller Clark himself concludes that the Indus- University of Manitoba trial Revolution was no sudden break but went back centuries prior to 1800. But he fails to square this conclusion with his Robert Chernomas and Ian Hudson, notion of a Malthusian Trap. A further Social Murder and Other Shortcomings element noted by Clark leads one to be of Conservative Economics (Winnipeg: altogether skeptical of such a conception. Arbeiter Ring 2007) He asserts that typically in traditional societies the state and elites took 50 per- While not written as a history book, cent of the gross product. Yet elsewhere this small volume explores the shortcom- in his account he notes that in early mod- ings of conservative economics, a brand ern England the same elements took only of economics that one might hope will 25 percent. Clark makes nothing of this. be relegated to the history books after But it leads one to ask whether the tradi- the events of the past twelve months. tional societies noted by Clark were really Chernomas and Hudson have selected not entities caught in natural biological seven different topics and explored how cycles but rather class societies in which they have been shaped by the teachings the upper class appropriated and wasted of conservative economists and those most of the surplus and the mass of pro- who advocate letting market forces direct ducers were left at subsistence levels. social and economic development. There According to Clark, the Industrial is little new in the volume. Most of the Revolution was largely the result of effi- material will be familiar to many read- ciency growth fueled by investment in ers, drawn from well known sources. knowledge capital. This corresponds However, as a package, the book provides with his notion of the superior cultural a useful service in bringing a range of and biological level of the English middle material together to explore the claims class. The Industrial Revolution, contrary of conservative economic theory and its to some, did not lead to more poverty or impact. Its goal is to show how this brand inequality but the reverse. Indeed, the of thinking is harming individuals and working class, in Clark’s view, should be our society. grateful because it was the primary bene- The authors systematically examine the ficiary. The Industrial Revolution did not assumptions and the reality behind con- occur in China and Japan because, devel- servative thinking on a variety of issues oped though they were, the rich did not including macroeconomic stability, inno- have more children than the poor as in vation, income distribution, deregulation,

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the social determinants of health, and the Of special interest is the chapter effectiveness of us foreign policy in fos- exploring us foreign policy and the con- tering prosperity and democracy. They tention by conservative economists that address a number of pressing questions capitalism is necessary for political free- such as: is price flexibility the best strat- dom. The authors explore the extent to egy for avoiding economic downturns? Is which this is simply a justification for us the private sector better at finding inno- foreign policy imposing its will globally vations than the state sector? Does a mar- in a way that serves us business interests. ket-based system for determining wages After a quick introduction to the ideas of really mean that wages reflect merit? Is Hayek and Fukuyama, three case stud- public safety best served by eliminating ies are presented (Iran, Chile, and Iraq). regulation? Again, there is little new in these sections Each chapter begins with a short sec- but they provide a useful look at the con- tion laying out the relevant conservative tradictions of us policy which claims to theory and its inconsistencies, followed be about democracy, but really ends up by several case studies. Readers of the looking a lot more like an effort to create volume will be treated to discussions of opportunities for American companies. whether it is ethical for Michael Jordan to This is an interpretation that is rein- be paid as much as he is, how Enron is an forced by the us’s own unwillingness to example of what is wrong with conserva- open its markets to foreign companies tive thinking, how many of the innova- while demanding foreign countries open tions that are generating wealth today are their markets. the product of government investment, The final chapter explores why a not private sector research, the legacy of brand of thinking that appears to have lead in our paint, the decision to allow so many negative effects on the majority faulty gas tanks in the Pinto, and the Ethyl of the population still has general sup- Corporation’s resort to nafta’s Chapter port in a democratic society. Why have 11 provisions to extract $20 million from North Americans generally supported the Canadian government which had economic policies that have been so been trying to protect the health of Cana- detrimental to their quality of life? The dians etc. We are told how conservative authors explore the roles of rational self- economic policy leads to these various interest, the media, and the shift to con- outcomes and how they have dramati- servative social values in leading voters to cally harmed society. Some of these can support parties that advocate conserva- be characterized as “Social Murder.” tive economic policies, even when they One chapter tries to debunk the notion are not ultimately in their self-interest. that the private sector is dynamic and Absent is any discussion of the failure of innovative while the state sector is stag- those opposed to conservative thinking nant and moribund as the followers of to come up with convincing alternatives Milton Friedman would have us believe. that might sway voters. Opponents of Through case studies of the internet neo-liberalism have to be able to explain (a positive state-funded initiative) and the social and economic failures of the pharmaceuticals (a not so positive inno- 1970s and 1980s before conservative vation process driven by market forces), thinking became dominant and to pro- the authors explain that leaving innova- vide a reasonable expectation that their tion to market forces can be hazardous to alternatives, if adopted, would improve society. people’s economic situations. The success of a number of countries in the global

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south in escaping the logic of conserva- were prescribed to keep young people tive economic thinking holds out hope alive and ideally allow them to become for those in the more developed global productive members of a family and soci- economies. ety. Up until the 20th century, high rates The authors have done a service by of infant and child mortality rates showed looking behind the rhetoric of conser- that these tasks failed just as often as they vative thinking and exposing its incon- succeeded. The eleven articles in this sistencies in a clear and understandable collection document how the advent of way. The volume is well documented and new vaccines, drugs, increased funding the case studies are presented in an easily of child welfare programs, and a grow- accessible style. While those well versed ing international commitment to child in the limitations of conservative logic rights generally improved the chances will learn little in this book, its value is in of surviving childhood across the 20th bringing together all of these arguments century. However these reforms were not in one place. This would be a great book achieved without ideological and scien- for an undergraduate class in the social tific debate over the causes and preven- sciences focused on trying to under- tion of ill health, nor were the gains made stand the reasoning behind the current universal. Certain types of illnesses and push towards letting markets decide the disabilities remained misunderstood, and allocation of resources. It would also be constructions of race and class continued useful for a group of adult learners at the to have the power to determine a child’s early stages of trying to develop a critique level of health. As a result, the case stud- of contemporary society. In the context of ies featured in Healing the World’s Chil- an economy in which everything seems dren are often framed as morality tales, to be going wrong at once, this volume is not because the scholars are overcome a welcome and accessible introduction to by the maudlin territory attached to evi- explaining why this is happening. dence drawn from the numbers of dead Wayne Lewchuk babies and stories of neglected bodies, McMaster University but because each of the examples shared in this interdisciplinary collection is ulti- mately about the choices governments, Cynthia Comacchio, Janet Golden, and medical professionals, parents, and even George Weisz, eds. Healing the World’s the children themselves made about the Children: Interdisciplinary Perspectives worst and best ways to keep young people on Child Health in the Twentieth alive. Century (Montreal and Kingston: McGill- The book opens with three historio- Queen’s Press 2008) graphical studies of the history of child health in North America, Europe, and Mona Gleason’s contribution to Heal- Latin America. Although the study of ing the World’s Children: Interdisciplin- child health appears most popular among ary Perspectives on Child Health in the historians of Canada and the United Twentieth Century opens with a simple, States, at least according to the propor- yet provocative observation: “Indeed, tions in the studies cited in Neil Suther- the entire history of Western approaches land’s article, Catherine Rollet’s and to child rearing is a history of shaping, Anne-Emanuelle Birn’s essays show a ris- training, controlling, feeding, disciplin- ing interest from Europeanists and Latin ing, and cleaning small bodies in particu- Americanists. Each survey reveals that lar ways.” (176) Almost all of these rituals the common starting point was studies

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on infant and child mortality, an inevi- and Jeffrey P. Brosco articles both asso- tability due to the availability of demo- ciate the personal connections of Presi- graphic sources that allow historians to dent Franklin Roosevelt and the Kennedy track this variable fairly consistently over family to disabilities with greater leaps in time, even in pre-colonial and medieval government funding and the creation of settings. More recently, scholarship in more positive narratives about living with this field has moved beyond traditional a disability. In all of these diverse historic medical history to consider interactions settings, the authors contextualize the with social, political, cultural, economic, state of children’s health as a symbol of a and environmental histories. This devel- nation’s sense of justice. opment reinforces a common theme The most significant contribution within the collection: how germs and made by Healing the World’s Children genes form only one type of contribu- is the great care given by the research- tor to influencing health. Reading these ers to find sources that extend beyond three historiographies together offers a the world of politicians and caregiv- valuable comparison of the disciplinary ers and allow children a space to share approaches across borders. It is a shame their opinions on their health and the that this transnational thread was not adults who monitored it. Their words pulled through the entire collection. and in the case of Loren Lerner’s article, Beyond one article on South Africa, the their artwork, offer an articulate, and at other case studies remain firmly within times angry or humorous perspective at the boundaries of North American cul- being the centre of attention in this great ture and history. struggle for life and death. The inspiring Several articles examine how the speeches of Nkosi Johnson, the young financial costs of health often drove the hiv/aids activist featured in Fassin’s characterization of those affected by dis- article, provide perhaps the most dra- ease and disability and determined their matic example of this rhetoric. However treatment. Preventative and curative there are several examples of less visible measures for children were almost always children’s voices. Anthropologists Myra considered more cost effective than Bluebond-Langner and Megan Nord- caring for adults who were chronically quest Schwallie’s interviews with young inflicted with the side effects of child- American cancer patients reveal a savvi- hood illnesses. An exception to this rule ness that transcends their ages and often was post-apartheid South Africa where the parental silence over their grim prog- Didier Fassin argues that one of the many noses. Bluebond-Langner and Schwallie reasons that President Mbeki was reluc- argue that this unique maturity masquer- tant to give hiv-infected pregnant women ades in many forms, allowing parent and azt to prevent mother- to-child infection child to claim a mutual pretence that was that he considered caring for their things will get better, or in other situa- soon-to-be-orphaned healthy offspring a tions, giving the child authority for input greater financial burden than letting the into their treatment. As part of Gleason’s infected babies die. Meanwhile Richard research on child health services in the A. Meckel’s study of income lost in the school system, she asked adult Canadians Great Depression considers how free or to reflect back on their experiences with cheap school lunches became a govern- health education and childhood illness. ment relief staple to prevent the develop- Her oral histories show the gap between mental effects of malnutrition in future the prescribed ideals of health found in generation of workers. The Laurie Block the school curriculum and the realities of

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her interviewees’ lived experiences, such text or transnational links. The inclusion as the memory of how their own schools of dozens of photos and figures, and a rarely had the sanitary features promoted bibliography for each article, in addition in their textbooks. Her interviews also to footnotes, are excellent features that draw out the alienation many children add to the book’s effective presentation felt toward physicians, either for cultural of history. Overall the collection is a use- reasons or because it was their parents’ ful and intriguing examination of how actions, especially of their mothers, that and why some children lived and some the children viewed as most helpful dur- children died across an era known as the ing an illness. ‘Century of the Child.’ Oral history is not the only way to Tarah Brookfield reveal how children experienced health York University and illness. Lerner’s research on Norman Bethune and his circle of likeminded left- ist artists looks at art as a form of non- Wolfgang Sachs and Tilman Santarius, biomedical therapy that Bethune himself Fair Future: Resource Conflicts, Security had found cathartic as a young man with and Global Justice (Black Point, ns: tuberculosis. The accompanying photo- Fernwood Publishing Company 2007) graphs of patient and artist artwork are a testament to how the vulnerabilities In 1987 the release of the Brundtland attached to ill health can lead to empow- Commission’s Our Common Future cast erment through visual representations. international attention, as never before, This sentiment is also captured in Vin- on the connections between ecological cent Lavoie’s article on post-mortem sustainability and social justice. Yet sub- photography, a popular late 19th and sequent global negotiations over the past early 20th century ritual in which par- three decades, be they focused on climate ents initially made use of professional change, biodiversity, forest and soil loss, photographers, and later, when cameras or persistent pollutants, have largely became more available, took pictures failed to develop a just framework for themselves, claiming one final proof of future global environmental governance. their child’s existence. Although the chil- Instead much of the focus of these mul- dren are silent in these poised, almost tilateral discussions has resulted in busi- gothic photos, the motivations behind ness transactions over specific items, like the documentation are quite loud. Lavoie load limits or tradable carbon emissions proves how this photography informed and sinks, that have not only reinforced a new understanding of childhood cen- but exacerbated the hegemonic control of tred on the emotional value of sons and the powerful and rich to the ongoing det- daughters, which helped trigger reforms riment of the poor and weak. related to improved child welfare in the In Fair Future, a group of researchers 20th century. associated with the Wuppertal Institute Healing the World’s Children succeeds for Climate, Environment, and Energy in its attempt to present “a kaleidoscopic in Germany, refocus attention on the image of child health during the twentieth relationship between global justice and century,” (5) as promised by the editors the fate of the biosphere. They frame in their introduction. At times, I wished their investigation by posing the fol- there was more attempt by the editors or lowing question: how in the future will the authors to pull these swirling images it be possible for increased numbers together through greater historical con- of humans to have dignified lives in a

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world of decreased natural resources and countries, these countries draw nearer increased pollution? As they see it, the to older industrial economies in their choice facing the global community is consumption levels; the industrialized quite clear: it’s a matter of either global nations of the United States and Canada apartheid or global democracy. To illu- consume nearly four times the amount minate the multiple facets of this choice of fossil fuels as countries like Sweden they present an analysis of the globaliza- and Malta; and within nations there is a tion of ecology – its asymmetrical distri- spectrum of resource use between citi- bution, uneven impacts, the geography zens and regions. This unequal ecologi- and control of material flows, and what is cal exchange extends to the distribution required for transnational resource jus- of environmental damage. While indus- tice to be achieved. trialized countries frequently adopt a The researchers establish the founda- superior air over their relatively favour- tion of their argument by detailing how able environmental data and advanced globalization has resulted in spatially and pollution control measures, the Wup- temporally compacting of the globe at pertal researchers demonstrate that this three levels: technical, political, and sym- is simply the “rich illusion effect.” The bolic. This cancellation of global remote- clean environmental records of countries ness has meant that not only good deeds in the North are largely achieved by the but also threats are bound more closely relocation of the environmental burden together; a shrinking of distance between to countries in the South from which zones of profit and loss has more closely come the bulk of unrefined resources. connected the lives of the benefactors The question arises, therefore, what and victims of the global model of devel- enables this transnational economic opment. As the finite nature of the bio- complex to disproportionately direct sphere has become evident, the belief that resources to only a quarter of the world’s ever-expanding profit-oriented industrial population. In chapter three the authors growth eventually allows every nation examine the mechanisms of power at and citizen to share in the fruits of prog- work in supporting the transnational ress increasingly rests on shaky ground; exchange of a variety of natural resources: the failure of this promise in turn has oil, agricultural products, water, and fed a culture of increased global rage and genetic materials. They outline the key resentment. instruments that have been used to secure Chapter two reveals the extent to access to each group of environmental which industrial modernity has estab- resources and the dominant resulting lished and reinforced patterns of unequal impacts of this allocation. Overall, trans- demands on the biosphere. While the national globalization has resulted in a industrialized nations in the North tend concentration of both control over, and to be better endowed with forest and benefits received from natural resources, agricultural land, countries in the South with finance capital enjoying the biggest possess relatively more biodiversity and gains. Meanwhile those most detrimen- non-renewable resources; yet there is a tally impacted by this pattern of resource disproportionate profiting from and use allocation have been the indigenous peo- of all global resources by citizens in the ples, farmers, and workers, particularly North. At the same time, there is large those located in the South. variation within this North-South frame- The latter half of the book explores the work: as the transnational economic concept of transnational environmental complex extends to newly industrializing justice and the mechanisms required to

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achieve it. In chapter four the authors creation of a legally binding framework to provide an insightful analysis of the cover the tncs’ activities to ensure they dimensions of environmental justice (rec- are transparent, recognize environmen- ognition and distribution) and present tal, labour, and human rights standards, four models that could inform resource adhere to fair and balanced relations justice at an international level: secure within the international production sys- livelihood rights; cutting back resource tems, and are accountable before the law. claims; shaping fair exchange; and com- The final chapter discusses the special pensation for disadvantages. They argue role that the eu can and should play in for building a world of greater fairness advancing global policies and practices through internationally recognizing the of production and consumption that inheritance of both national environmen- are more resource-light. The Wuppertal tal assets and liabilities, and translating researchers position the eu as an eco- this into two very different paths forward social market economy model that can for industrialized and developing coun- act as a “counterplayer” to the us and the tries. Chapter five details the specifics of Washington consensus and Washington this “contraction and convergence model” security agenda. whereby industrial nations reduce their Other than the final chapter, which consumption of resources and pollution offers a rather idealized view of the eu’s loads, and developing countries increase role in the world, this is a sophisticated their use of resources until they converge and insightful assessment of transna- with the industrial countries at an eco- tional globalization and its relation- logically planetary sustainable level. This ship to environmental justice, national transition in resource development would and international security, and natural be guided by principles of efficiency, con- resource use. While many authors point sistency, and sufficiency such that the to the need to integrate the three pil- overall model of development would lars of sustainability (social, ecological, ensure a livelihood for all citizens and the and economic) into an understanding renewing of each nation’s resource base. of the state of the world, the Wuppertal Chapter six explores how these local researchers adeptly demonstrate how and national resource strategies can be this is done. While an edited collection, directed and supported at the interna- the book has a strong tone and argu- tional level. The Wuppertal research- ment connecting each chapter, almost as ers argue that the market-oriented form if it was written by a single author. It is a of globalization that currently domi- worthwhile read for anyone but would be nates needs to be replaced by a politi- an instructive addition to a senior under- cally driven form that seeks to find ways graduate or graduate course in global for nations to coexist, and they look to studies, environmental studies, environ- institutions of transnational governance mental justice, or international politics of to support this transition. They explore the environment. some specific multilateral strategies such Lorelei Hanson as the creation of a climate trust that allo- Athabasca University cates emission rights, and the integration of global standards on human rights and environment into world trade regime policies, and advocate a reinventing of the wto. They also focus attention on the role of transnational corporations and the

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