Left History (E-Journal - York University)

Falconer, Thristan

Stephen Azzi, Reconcilable Differences: A History of Canada-US Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).

Hallward, Maria Carter

119Book Reviews
ence of  black doctors in Lima was more widespread than one might think, which
questions the rigidity of  the caste system in America, an idea quite consolidated in
the historiography. The contribution of  Jouve Martín, thus, goes beyond the borders
of  intellectual history and history of  medical practices and invites to revisit the hy-
pothesis of  the inflexibility of  racial and class categories in Latin America. 
Edwin Lopez
University of  California, San Diego
Maria Holt and Haifaa Jawad, Women, Is lam,  and Resi s tan ce in  the Arab
Wor ld (Boulder: CO, Lynne Rienner Press, 2013). 211 pp. $26.50 Hardcover.
In Women, Islam, and Resistance in the Arab World, Maria Holt and Haifaa Jawad inter-
rogate the role of  women in Islamic resistance movements, which appear in Western
media to be the domain of  men, in Lebanon, Iraq, and Palestine. The authors chal-
lenge the prevailing assumption of  Arab women as powerless victims, and through
their case studies explore the ways that “Islamic activism enables women to play
constructive roles in violent conflict.” (3) The case studies selected all emphasize
“resistance against perceived external enemies by Muslim communities who choose
to organize their struggles within an Islamic framework.” (4) This specific focus
provides a clear rationale for case selection and narrows the scope of  the book, but
it also limits the potential applicability of  the findings to other situations of  conflict
in the Arab and Islamic world, where Islamists are fighting secular Arabs or other
sects of  Islam within the same country, or where conflict is motivated more by
tribal affiliation than by religion. No book could adequately cover all the ways that
Islam is mobilized in the Arab world; however, additional studies are needed on the
role of  women in a wide range of  internal and external conflicts, many of  which
include an element of  politicized Islam.
The book is based on interviews and questionnaires carried out with
women of  all ages and social classes in Lebanon, the West Bank, Syria, Jordan and
Yemen in 2002-2003, 2006-2007, and 2010-2011. The authors use a critical, post-
colonial framework to explore questions of  power and resistance, how researchers
construct knowledge, and how to define feminism in the Arab Muslim context.
Holt and Jawad assert that their aim is “to link the discourse on gender and national
identity with discussions of  women’s role in national liberation and Islamic resist-
ance movements,” seeking to decolonize feminism and emphasize Arab women’s
own agency and the role of  Islam as a faith and tradition in insecure situations of
violent conflict. (8) Indeed, the book centres on the narratives of  the women inter-
viewed; although the book engages to a certain degree with religious texts and teach-
ings, it does not prioritize interpretations of  shari’a used by women activists or by
the religious scholars in their various contexts. Rather than an accounting of  theol-
ogy, the book is an accounting of  lived experiences.
120 Left History
The book’s first chapters outline the authors’ theoretical framework for
studying women and Islamism, including an overview of  Islamic discourses on
women and violence, and the role of  women in the Arab Spring. The heart of  the
book consists of  three case study chapters that look at Shiite women in Lebanon,
Iraqi refugee women, and Palestinian women in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Al-
though each context provides a unique set of  circumstances, several themes emerge.
For many women, Islam provides a “legitimate” avenue for activism in contexts
where women leaders are often absent in parliaments, governments, and other as-
pects of  public life. Although in many parts of  the Arab world “cultural attitudes
encourage female modesty and dependence,” women can gain respectability by
framing demands within an Islamic discourse. (60) The authors acknowledge that
women are often marginalized “from both the waging of  conflict and the construc-
tion of  peace” due to factors including “the brutal nature of  conflict,” “traditional
gender hierarchies,” “religious constructs,” the need to protect children, and
women’s own tendency to advocate for their parties rather than women more
broadly. (65) At the same time, the authors document the narratives of  women seek-
ing to cope with the violence around them and how they use Islam to make sense
of  their role in conflict settings, for example, by turning to heroic Muslim women
such as Khadijah, Fatima, and Zaynab. Although Arab women still face significant
challenges due to patriarchy and conservativism, laying claims to rights and entitle-
ments originating in Islam has provided a means to empowerment for many women.
Across the cases women tend to pursue roles distinct from men, often responsible
for protecting homes and children, supporting those engaged in fighting, keeping
watch out for enemies, and teaching friends and neighbors “how to cope with the
war situation.” (87) Women’s role as mother of  the martyr (umm shahid) provides
them with honour and respect even as they mourn their loss. (92) Women’s resist-
ance often takes place in “everyday acts” of  basic survival, in “keep[ing] the wheels
of  society moving” while the men are fighting or in the preserving of  culture. (105)
Many of  these women define “feminism” on their own terms, and empowerment
may even include a “shaking off  of  western-style modernization.” (82)
Through political and historical discussion as well as sharing the voices
of  women themselves, each case study illustrates the different ways in which Islam
provides opportunities and constraints for women’s resistance. The authors note
the political nature of  their subject, highlighting, for example, that in both Iraq and
Palestine struggle against occupation has been discursively linked with terrorism,
which has served to deny the local population their legitimate right of  resistance.
(142) Overall, they argue that religious symbolism has been used to uphold rights,
seek justice, and galvanize resistance movements. However, the authors also note
that conflict in the broader society has led to increased domestic violence as some
men return to authoritarian conservative culture as a way of  preserving their sense
of  authority in the face of  widespread humiliation and powerlessness. Further, while
participation in resistance seeks to restore both personal and national dignity,
121Book Reviews
women’s efforts are not always noted or acknowledged in the same degree as the
sacrifices made by men. (177) This book begins the much needed foray into an
under researched field, documenting, in their own words, the role of  women in Is-
lamic efforts to resist foreign domination. While there remains much ground to
cover and many questions to answer, such as the extent to which Islam can provide
an emancipatory framework for women when mosques “are still largely male pre-
serves” and how different versions of  Islam provide varying interpretations of
women’s role, this book challenges essentialist views of  Muslim women as powerless
victims by highlighting their agency. (60)
Maria Carter Hallward
American University, Washington D.C.
Jeffrey J. Williams, How to  be an Inte l l e c tual (New York: Fordham University
Press, 2014). 232 pp. $27.00 Paperback.
In 1966, the famous conference on The Structuralist Controversy was held at Johns
Hopkins. It set the terms of  debate on virtually all aspects of  cultural criticism for
decades after; and many would see it as a fulcrum moment in the so-called theory
wars that have shaped (and, for some, have contorted) the work of  the intellectual
ever since. However, as Jeffrey Williams reveals here, there is a much more funda-
mental observation to be made about that conference. It was part funded by a Ford
Foundation grant, to the sum of  $30 000. The equivalent today would be over $200
000. It is difficult to imagine, today, a world in which such a sum would be available
for humanities. 
Two things follow from this for Williams, in what is a remarkable book.
First, we can have no serious understanding of  the conditions of  criticism or of
the role of  the intellectual in our times without attending to the fact that the arts
and humanities have been systematically starved financially. The monetization of
knowledge itself  has formed, informed and deformed the position of  the intellec-
tual – and, equally important, it has affected the whole society within which the in-
tellectual works. Second, the history shows that the intellectual has tended to turn
inwards. Instead of  making a confident address to wide social and political concerns,
we have rather internalized those concerns, making them academic issues, or playing
out their conflicts as merely debates in our own journals, often in a mode that is
scholastic rather than scholarly. This second effect has also further distanced us
from the people we are there to serve, that wider public. That intellectual deficit
and funding deficit are related.
Notwithstanding this, Williams notes the persistent appetite for a re-en-
ergizing of  our work. The linguistic turn of  the 80s cedes place to a contemporary
public turn. There is, indeed, an expanding interest in the function of  our institu-
tions, and a profound concern that we are not being permitted to operate as well as


Maria Holt and Haifaa Jawad, Women, Islam, and Resistance in the Arab World (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Press, 2013).

Ledgerwood, Judy

just tell.
Karen M. Teoh
Stonehill College
Larissa Sandy, Women and Sex Work in  Cambodia:  Blood , Sweat  and
Tear s (New York: Routledge, 2014). 156 pp. $145 Hardback.
The value of  this new book by Larissa Sandy lies in the important argument that
sex workers should not be equated with trafficking victims, that many sex work-
ers choose to engage in this form of  labour (though from within a very limited
range of  options). Sandy “confronts and disrupts two predominant images of
the ‘Cambodian prostitute:’” that she is on the one hand a “ruined, destroyed
and victimized woman” and that she is a “destroying body that threatens socie-
ty” on the other – the victim and the vector. Instead she uses narratives from
interviews with sex workers to introduce them as agents in their own lives. 
The best chapters are five and six, which discuss the contemporary
(1990s and 2000s) scene, utilizing the voices of  the women interviewed. In chap-
ter five, “Just Choices,” Sandy examines the common claim by those interviewed
that they chose sex work. While their options were very constrained, they
nonetheless assert self-determination. She tells the women’s stories as short
vignettes, discussing at length debt bondage and distinguishing this from the
notion of  “trafficking.” The women emphasize their responsibility to family and
to repaying their debt to their parents especially their mothers. This “dutiful
daughter” discourse will be familiar to those who have read other work on pros-
titution from the region, including Mills (1997), Muecke (1992) and Derks
(2008). 
Chapter six, “Core transmitter/sex slave,” is a valuable discussion of
the impact of  the 100% Condom Use Program (CUP) on sex work in Cambodia
from 1999-2008. Sandy argues that prostitution was essentially legalized and
became much more highly regulated as female sex workers were framed as “per-
petrators” and the source of  the disease, while male clients were seen as
“bridges” to other “innocent” women, their wives. Men were seen as the link
between “bad” and “good” women and not responsible agents themselves. The
law required brothel-based sex workers to report for health examinations, and
established a sex worker registration and management system that heightened the
ability of  the police to extort money from brothel owners and to collude with
the owners in monitoring a sex worker’s debt and preventing her escape. 
In 2008, the Cambodian government then passed a Human Trafficking
Law, which Sandy argues effectively criminalized sex work and presented the
women as “hapless victims.” Sandy links this change to shifts in US government
policy in the 2000s. The US passed legislation to fund a global fight against
HIV/AIDS, but withdrew USAID support for organisations that advocated
legalisation or decriminalisation of  sex work. In the Trafficking Victims
Book Reviews 135
LH 19_1 FInal.qxp_Left History 19.1.qxd  2015-08-28  4:01 PM  Page 135
Protection Act of  2000 the US set up a system that required a ranking of  coun-
tries using “Trafficking in Persons” or TIP reports to divide counties into tiers
based on the degree to which the US judged they were working to prevent traf-
ficking. In 2005, Cambodia was downgraded from tier two to tier three, threaten-
ing bilateral aid and assistance from international financial institutions. The
Cambodian 2008 Human Trafficking Law in response led to raids on brothels,
arbitrary arrests and detentions, and the opportunity for the police to shake
down the industry for bribes and protection money. 
This said, there are significant problems with the book, many of  which
could have been dealt with by careful editing and a wider, more thorough review
of  the existing literature. At only 120 pages (priced at $145), reviewers should
have sent the draft back for revisions before publication. Perhaps the reviewers
were specialists on sex work and not on Cambodian history or culture. A few
examples include: the astonishing suggestion that prostitution did not exist in
Cambodia until the French era, specifically 1875 (18-19); the idea that the
Sihanouk regime was “almost as violent as the Khmer Rouge” (56); and the
notion that many Cambodians saw UNTAC as “just an occupying army” only
associated with prostitution and nothing else (though this is the official Hun Sen
line). Sandy uses Steinfatt’s extremely low number of  9,000 sex workers (59-60),
of  all types, not just brothel-based sex workers, even though she notes herself
that his methods were seriously flawed. She could have made her argument that
earlier numbers were inflated without relying so heavily on this and now general-
ly disregarded work. The chapter on the social and cultural context of  sex work
reads as rushed and lacks adequate references to other works. For example, the
term “khuity” (presumably khtuoy) is defined dismissively in a footnote as “a
derogatory term of  reference for transgender women” (72) without any refer-
ence to the literature on this term in Cambodia and Thailand. 
On the final page, Sandy writes that her work has highlighted the weak-
nesses of  the trafficking framework for analysing sex work in Cambodia. The
women are not just helpless victims. But she says that “my data do not allow me
to praise the existence of  the sex industry in Cambodian in its current form”
(120). This reviewer wishes Sandy had told us more about the research she con-
ducted, placed herself  within the narrative, and included even more interview
data. I suspect that the brutality and grim picture that would emerge from a full
ethnographic description of  the life of  brothel-based sex workers in Cambodia
(as it does from the much more extensive literature on the lives of  sex workers
in Thailand) would have given us more insight into the subtitle of  the book –
blood, sweat and tears. Describing more of  the complexity of  the situation
would not have distracted from her thesis that they are not simply victims or
vectors. 
Judy Ledgerwood
Northern Illinois University
Left History136
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Larissa Sandy, Women and Sex Work in Cambodia: Blood, Sweat and Tears (New York: Routledge, 2014).

 ,  

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
Samuel Ng is a third-year doctoral student in American Studies at New York
University. He received his BA in American Studies from Yale University in 2009.
Before coming to NYU, he worked as an intern in the National Museum of
American History and as a teaching fellow in the history department at Phillips
Andover Academy. His research interests include black intellectual history in the
20th century, civil rights movements, nationalism and empire, and gender and sex-
uality studies. He is currently working with professor Nikhil Singh on a disserta-
tion that explores the ways by which public expressions of  mourning and loss have
been mobilized as a mode of  black feminist protest and political organizing in the
United States across the first half  of  the twentieth century.
Martin Smith is a PhD candidate at the University of  Illinois.  He is currently
researching the intersection between sexuality, gender, and the 'GI and Black
Power Movement' of  US service members during the Vietnam War. His disserta-
tion is entitled "The Crisis of  Imperial Virility in the Vietnam War: Sexuality,
Military Masculinity, and GI Dissent.”
Amanda Ricci is a doctoral candidate in the Department of  History and
Classical Studies at McGill University. Her dissertation project, tentatively enti-
tled “Making and Unmaking the Nation: Feminist Challenges from Montreal
(1967-1982)”, focuses on the “second-wave” feminist movement, with a particu-
lar emphasis on questions surrounding race and ethnicity. She is a member of
the Montreal History Group.
Brian Mueller is a PhD candidate in the Department of  History at the
University of  Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His research interests include American
intellectual history and social movements in the Cold War era. He is currently
working on a dissertation on the Institute for Policy Studies, a leftist think tank
in Washington D.C. that opened in 1963.
Samuel J. Byndom is a PhD candidate in Education Policy Organization and
Leadership at the University of  Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His areas of
research are History of  Africana Studies, History of  American Higher
Education, and Organizational Theory. In particular, he examines the political
landscape of  public colleges and universities after the emergence of  Black
Studies units. Recognizing that Black Studies programs were shaped and
reshaped by multi-year campaigns and varied responses within the academy, his
work attempts to bring a fresh analysis to an era of  institutional building in high-
er education into sharper focus. 
Quark 17_1 draft3_Left History.qxd  13-06-25  2:58 PM  Page 6
Brenda Nyandiko Sanya is a PhD student in Educational Policy, Organization
and Leadership at the University of  Illinois, Urbana-Champaign where she con-
ducts research that examines how encounters with empire impact narratives of
identity; her work includes historical, black diasporic, feminist, and political-eco-
nomic perspectives on identity formation and knowledge production. Her forth-
coming essay “Disrupting Patriarchy: Mobile technologies and feminist possibili-
ties in digitally emergent communities, discusses bourgeoning mobile phone use
in Kenya, knowledge production and circulation, and the feminist possibilities.”
Quark 17_1 draft3_Left History.qxd  13-06-25  2:58 PM  Page 7


English

About the Contributors

Docherty, Thomas

121Book Reviews
women’s efforts are not always noted or acknowledged in the same degree as the
sacrifices made by men. (177) This book begins the much needed foray into an
under researched field, documenting, in their own words, the role of  women in Is-
lamic efforts to resist foreign domination. While there remains much ground to
cover and many questions to answer, such as the extent to which Islam can provide
an emancipatory framework for women when mosques “are still largely male pre-
serves” and how different versions of  Islam provide varying interpretations of
women’s role, this book challenges essentialist views of  Muslim women as powerless
victims by highlighting their agency. (60)
Maria Carter Hallward
American University, Washington D.C.
Jeffrey J. Williams, How to  be an Inte l l e c tual (New York: Fordham University
Press, 2014). 232 pp. $27.00 Paperback.
In 1966, the famous conference on The Structuralist Controversy was held at Johns
Hopkins. It set the terms of  debate on virtually all aspects of  cultural criticism for
decades after; and many would see it as a fulcrum moment in the so-called theory
wars that have shaped (and, for some, have contorted) the work of  the intellectual
ever since. However, as Jeffrey Williams reveals here, there is a much more funda-
mental observation to be made about that conference. It was part funded by a Ford
Foundation grant, to the sum of  $30 000. The equivalent today would be over $200
000. It is difficult to imagine, today, a world in which such a sum would be available
for humanities. 
Two things follow from this for Williams, in what is a remarkable book.
First, we can have no serious understanding of  the conditions of  criticism or of
the role of  the intellectual in our times without attending to the fact that the arts
and humanities have been systematically starved financially. The monetization of
knowledge itself  has formed, informed and deformed the position of  the intellec-
tual – and, equally important, it has affected the whole society within which the in-
tellectual works. Second, the history shows that the intellectual has tended to turn
inwards. Instead of  making a confident address to wide social and political concerns,
we have rather internalized those concerns, making them academic issues, or playing
out their conflicts as merely debates in our own journals, often in a mode that is
scholastic rather than scholarly. This second effect has also further distanced us
from the people we are there to serve, that wider public. That intellectual deficit
and funding deficit are related.
Notwithstanding this, Williams notes the persistent appetite for a re-en-
ergizing of  our work. The linguistic turn of  the 80s cedes place to a contemporary
public turn. There is, indeed, an expanding interest in the function of  our institu-
tions, and a profound concern that we are not being permitted to operate as well as
122 Left History
we might. Part of  the difficulty is that we need to find a new language and a new
way of  presenting our thinking. For Williams, this means what he calls “criticism
without footnotes,” a hybrid form – in which this book is entirely written – between
advanced and specialist critique and the immediacy of  journalism. It works. The
book has a seriousness whose reach is extended precisely because of  how it is writ-
ten.
How, then, should the intellectual be? Williams divides his chapters (typi-
cally four - five pages each) into four sections: “the politics of  criticism”; “profiles
in criticism”; “the predicament of  the university”; and “the personal and the criti-
cal.” There is a structural logic to this. “The politics of  criticism” describes some
significant mainstream controversies in literary and cultural studies (with brilliant
pieces on the theory journal, the rise of  the ‘smart’ critic, and a superb reflection
on the ubiquity of  culture). “Profiles” examines how around a dozen influential in-
dividuals have negotiated the broad political terrain on which criticism has devel-
oped. This groundwork allows a consideration of  how our universities operate
(super chapters on debt and indenture, and on the cultural image of  the academy);
and finally Williams can re-describe his own life and career. At the center of  this is
the relation between the academic and the citizen; and Williams is clear that there
has to be some intimacy between what we say in our writings and how we live our
lives. Criticism, here, is close to activism.
Chapter one revisits the critical exchange between Richard Rorty and An-
drew Ross in Dissent, 1991-92. This was the first moment in what became Rorty’s
insistent refrain that while the “academic left” (a descriptor Williams dislikes) be-
came caught up in self-important debates around theory inside the academy, in the
streets outside, the rest of  America was being screwed. Ross was one of  his targets.
Ross responded by pointing out that Rorty simply did not understand popular cul-
tural forms, nor did he understand their importance. Yet, essentially, both partici-
pants were fundamentally on the same political side. They just differed in strategies
and emphases. Neither was a bad guy.
Williams outlines this in detail and with acuity. But the question remains:
who, then, were the bad guys? The debate actually exemplified Rorty’s point: while
the left argued with itself, the bad guys just kept rolling along, damaging universities
and humanities through the primacy given to market-fundamentalism and profit.
There is a further dimension to this, much less discussed by Williams; and that is
how the bad guys have changed the very nature and public understanding of  what
we do through a much softer tactic. The prevailing language in which we understand
ourselves as human and social beings has itself  changed: all human activity –- in-
cluding that of  the intellectual –- is now primarily understood in terms of  manage-
ment. If  something is not managed, it is not comprehensible. Williams could say
more on the primacy of  this massive cultural shift; and he is the person to do it,
given how well he traces an entire historical trajectory of  cultural shifts here. More-
over, he can do so precisely by simultaneously changing the language itself  in which
123Book Reviews
we describe how to be an intellectual.
This is a book full of  shrewd insights, illuminating and suggestive histories
of  how the intellectual has been and could be. The criticism without footnotes ap-
proach helps bring the crucial questions into a much clearer and open light than is
usual. In short, it helps to make its reader an intellectual. This is a vital and necessary
book.
Thomas Docherty
University of  Warwick, UK
                                                                                     
Phillip Deery, Red Apple: Communism and McCar thy i sm in  Cold  War  New
York (New York, Empire State Editions, 2014). 268 pp. $34.95 Paperback.
When novelist Norman Mailer and columnist Jimmy Breslin ran as a team in the
Democratic primary for the top two elective posts in New York City in 1969, it
seemed (all too briefly) that “The Big Apple” was finally emerging from two decades
of  being mired in the muck of  the McCarthy Era. Their campaign slogan was as
brash and brusque as the two candidates themselves: “No More Bullshit!” But even
more turbulent politics that year overwhelmed their libertarian platform. They fin-
ished fourth out of  five in the primary, and former Republican John Lindsay ulti-
mately swept to mayoral re-election victory as a maverick Fusion-Independent.
McCarthyism was indeed a spent force halfway through the Cold War, but its legacy
was all too evident in the broken lives and crushed careers of  many prominent res-
idents of  (or visitors to) what only later was called “Fun City.”
Phillip Deery’s Red Apple: Communism and McCarthyism in Cold War New York
is a welcome reminder that the reactionary-inspired, fear-based politics of  six
decades ago can be a salutary subject to consider in 2015. He chose NYC because
in the aftermath of  WWII it “became a crucible in which the politics of  the Cold
War was fought with bitterness and intensity.” (2) This was in part because NYC
“was the epicenter of  the American Communist Party [CPUSA]” and in part be-
cause “it was also a bastion, and had long been so, of  left-wing liberalism.” (3-4)
With the exception of  Washington, DC, there were more spies and counter-spies,
government agents, subversives, and defectors (from both sides) operating in NYC
than in any other city in the US. It is therefore worth noting that not one of  the six
individuals singled out by Deery in Red Apple falls into any of  those categories.
He is well aware that these six represent many more: Edward Barsky was
a medical doctor, Howard Fast a journalist and popular novelist, O. John Rogge a
lawyer, Dimitri Shostakovich a composer, and two—Lyman Bradley and Edwin
Burgum—were academics. Deery’s selectivity operated on a number of  levels: his
candidates for inclusion had to be either resident in, or connected to events in, NYC
during the early post-WWII era. Three of  the six experienced permanent Cold War
career casualties; three others enjoyed rehabilitation. Although the “Red Apple Six”


Jeffrey J. Williams, How to be an Intellectual (New York: Fordham University Press, 2014).

Loewen, Royden

Crimea and hybrid war in Eastern Ukraine have reduced the pro-Russian 
constituency and today Ukrainian support for NATO and EU membership
stands at a record high of  nearly 50 and 60 per cent respectively.
Menon and Rumer repeatedly point to how the West did not see the
crisis coming or anticipate Russia’s moves “which at every step exceeded Western
expectations” (159). Towards this end, they argue for Western strategy to be
“built on a realistic understanding of  Russia rather than on what the West would
like it to be and hopes it will one day become” (162). Menon and Rumer are
right to question the naivety of  the “Russia reset” by the Obama administration
and the cozying up of  Germany, France, Italy, and other EU members to a
Russia transforming into an authoritarian and xenophobic anti-Western regime. 
At the same time, if  Western leaders were to accept the advice offered
by Menon and Rumer it would amount to an appeasement of  Russia’s interests
and a turn away from their core values. The seeds of  the Ukraine crisis are not
just in big power politics but also in Russian chauvinism towards its neighbours
that has always existed and which evolved into a coherent set of  aggressive poli-
cies over the last decade. Putin told President George W. Bush in 2008 “You
know George, Ukraine isn’t even a country” – a view that rules out any
Ukrainian leader agreeing to his country becoming a Russian buffer as this would
not be “Finlandization” but a vassal state. Therefore, unsurprisingly Menon and
Rumer fail to grasp how pro-Russian presidents of  Ukraine Leonid Kuchma and
Viktor Yanukovych (63) also had difficult relations with Moscow, even when in
the latter case they agreed to all Russian demands and nevertheless, Ukraine was
charged the highest gas price in Europe.
With an over-focus on big power politics Menon and Rumer miss the
bigger domestic picture and therefore their book fails to understand the sources
of  Ukraine’s conflict.
Taras Kuzio 
Canadian Institute of  Ukrainian Studies, University of  Alberta
James M. Pitsula, Keeping Canada Brit ish:  The Ku K lux Klan in  1920s
Saskatchewan (Vancouver: University of  British Columbia Press, 2013). 308
pp. $95.00 Hardback.
This well written, sprightly book offers a serious revision of  the role the Ku
Klux Klan played in Saskatchewan during the 1920s. It is dissociated from its
United States roots and quite thoroughly placed into mainstream Saskatchewan
history. It infers that its image as a fanatical group – that hooded, violent and
anti-Semitic group of  the US Klan – was the result of  campaign caricaturing by
the James Gardiner government. The KKK in Saskatchewan is by no means ren-
dered as an open and liberal group, but it is rendered nevertheless as a typically
Book Reviews 115
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anti-immigrant, pro-British and monarchical organism, consisting of  members of
the “lower middle class and upper working class” (91). Its wider concerns were
those shared by most folks of  European descent in Saskatchewan: it was worried
about out-of-control youth and unsteady marriages in an age of  “flapperdom”
(184), and it was committed to social reform, entailing a virulent opposition to
“alcohol, opium, gambling and prostitution” (20). And it shared the imperial,
Protestant-based agenda of  a British-oriented “white man’s burden” (111). Even
its seamier qualities are portrayed as relatively moderate for the day: it was patri-
archal while claiming to “adorn” women (67), it spoke of  a racialised fear of
non-whites but “never mentioned Aboriginal peoples,” (7) and it drew a great
deal of  support from rank and file Liberals (90). Pitsula’s thesis is clear: the mea-
ger but influential historiography on the KKK has left the impression that
“Saskatchewan went berserk for a while,” when in fact the “Klan was not some-
thing alien to Saskatchewan; it was Saskatchewan” (14). 
Pitsula emphasises a single key moment in Saskatchewan Klan history.
In the fall of  1927 US organisers, having just months earlier drawn crowds of
thousands as it denounced the arrival of  non-English, Catholic immigrants,
absconded with lucrative membership fees. The immediate result was that the
Saskatchewan Klan executive turned against the US, founders with a new consti-
tution that renounced violence, terror and white hoods.  But he also emphasises
the wider context of  the Saskatchewan in the 1920s. Quite simply it was a com-
bination of  frenzied post-World War I British patriotism and the famous Railway
Agreement that worked to turn Saskatchewan into Canada’s third largest
province in which a majority of  citizens by 1931 were not British. In addition,
the Klan filled a void left by a weak Conservative party, offering little effective
opposition to the governing Liberals, and unable to articulate the vision of
British Saskatchewanians.
Along the way, Pitsula not only mainstreams the Klan, his narrative of
it illuminates the nature of  Canada in the 1920s. As his book title suggests, he
presents the majority of  English speaking Canadians as pro-British, more inter-
ested in fighting imperial wars than celebrating such iconic symbols of  national-
ism as the Group of  Seven paintings (3). And sandwiched in between the xeno-
phobic patriotism of  the First World War and the devastating wasteland of  the
Depression, the 1920s marked a high point of  anti-immigrant and anti-foreign
sentiment. In fact the reason the KKK fell off  quite suddenly after the 1920s
had less to do with the scandal and violence its associates suffered in the United
States, than simply because a Canadian moment had passed: the Depression left
members destitute and struggling to stay alive, and the Railway Agreements that
had drawn 185 000 immigrants, many of  whom were Germans from Russia,
Ukrainians from the former Austrian Hungarian empire, ended. Moreover,
Saskatchewan society in the 1920s is a microcosm of  wider Canadian cultural
developments. The Klan employed radio to broadcast its message; it relied on
Left History116
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fundamentalist evangelicalism to rationalize its mission; it withstood a barrage of
anti-American rhetoric from a new generation of  Canadian nationalists; it fil-
tered the perennial schools’ question; it employed that icon of  Canadian law and
order, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.  
In the conclusion, Pitsula presses the story to even further horizons.
He insists that the story of  the Klan in Saskatchewan is rooted in a global narra-
tive of  racialised objections to immigrants, whether in modern Western Europe,
the United Kingdom or Southeast Asia. I thought that given the conclusion, and
chapter segments throughout, that in some respect Pitsula protested too much.
Yes, Woodsworth was racist, progressives embraced eugenics, W.L. Grant cham-
pioned an “imperialism of  peace” that privileged British immigrants (113),
Darwinian science encouraged racialisation, and “women’s leagues….expressed
alarm at foreign immigration,” (136) but the fact remains that the Klan was hate
filled, paranoid and culturally myopic. But then perhaps this path of  circumstan-
tial evidence is the only way to capture the sentiment of  members of  a secret
society who have not kept journals or who do not talk to neighbours. It is per-
haps a history that by necessity is based on public speeches and newspaper arti-
cles. 
Royden Loewen
The University of  Winnipeg
Donald Smith, Missi ssauga Por t ra its :  Ojibwe Voi ces  fr om Nineteen th-
Centur y  Canada Toronto: University of  Toronto Press, 2013). 496 pp.
$37.95 Paperback.
In Mississauga Portraits: Ojibwe Voices from Nineteenth-Century Canada, Donald Smith
transports his readers to the north shore of  what is now known as Lake Ontario.
There readers meet eight Mississauga people – seven men and one woman –
many of  whom were intimately connected to Credit River.1 Through Smith’s
eight biographic sketches, readers discover how “in a moment of  social crisis [i.e.
settler encroachment], namely the 1820s and 1830s, Methodism helped to see a
number of  Mississauga through until a new equilibrium was achieved” (286).
The Anishinabeg of  the north shore did not universally adopt Methodism.
Readers meet individuals who adopted and adapted Christianity, and others who
became disillusioned with Methodist mission work. Indeed, as Smith effectively
argues, Anishinabeg men and women “reacted to Methodism in diverse ways…as
they worked to create a better future for themselves, their families, and their
communities” (xvii). This review offers a close reading of  three chapters (and
three people) that reflect the diverse responses – adoption, adaptation, and disil-
lusionment – addressed by Smith.
Many of  the individuals biographised (and hence reviewed) were social-
Book Reviews 117
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James M. Pitsula, Keeping Canada British: The Ku Klux Klan in 1920s Saskatchewan (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2013).

Lopez, Edwin

117Book Reviews
José R. Jouve Martín, The Black Doct or s of  Col onia l  Lima: S cien ce,  Race ,
and Wri t ing  in  Co lon ia l  and Ear ly  Republ i can  Per u (Kingston: McGill-
Queen’s University Press, 2014). 244 pp. $55.00 Paperback.
In this study, José Jouve Martín explores the social and political causes of  the ex-
ceptional large number of  surgeons and doctors of  African descent in the city of
Lima in the decades that preceded the wars of  independence in Peru. The lives and
fortunes of  these doctors radically question many existing assumptions about the
relationship between race, science, and politics in the cities of  colonial and early re-
publican Latin America. One of  the most representative characteristics of  the colo-
nial system in Latin America was the rigid caste system that was the basis for the
organization of  society during the nearly three centuries of  Spanish domination.
Without ignoring the lack of  social mobility that Afro-descendants faced at the
time, Jouve Martín presents in this book the little-known story of  three Afro-Peru-
vian surgeons and doctors in the late colonial period and the first years of  the re-
public. José Manuel Valdés, José Manuel Dávalos, and José Pastor de Larrinaga were
three of  the most distinguished among this group of  medical practitioners of
African origin in Lima, whose careers began in the late 1780s. Valdés’ career con-
tinued until 1830 when the government named him to head the Protomedicato General,
the top medical position in Peru in the early years of  the Republic. In the case of
Dávalos and Larrinaga, their careers lasted until their deaths in 1821. Valdés, Dávila,
and Larrinaga were not the only black doctors in the city. Contemporary observers
such as the British physician Archibald Smith and the Swiss naturalist Johan Jakob
von Tschudi wrote about the predominance of  black or mulatto doctors in Lima in
the years of  independence. However, according to Jouve Martín, specific and de-
tailed information about the activities of  Afro-Peruvian surgeons and doctors is
scarce.
Legal and social restrictions in Spanish America prevented racialized peo-
ples from being considered for academic positions or responsibilities relating to
public health. They were also prohibited from writing about medical issues or par-
ticipate in scientific and political debates that usually involved Spanish descendants.
Nevertheless, Valdés, Dávila, and Larrinaga did so, demonstrating the important
and exceptional nature of  the medical profession in Lima. Jouve Martín argues that
the racial demographics in the city, the lack of  qualified doctors and surgeons, and
the contradictory stance that Spanish authorities took in regards to the participation
of  blacks in higher education explains the remarkable presence of  African-Peru-
vians in the medical profession. These arguments suggest that the caste system in
colonial Lima was relatively flexible, which allowed these doctors to take part in the
scientific revolution that overtook the medical profession in Peru in the second half
of  the eighteenth century.
118 Left History
African-Peruvian physicians actively joined the reform efforts of  influen-
tial figures of  the Peruvian Enlightenment such as the creole Hipólito Unanue, who
is considered as the Founding Father of  Peruvian medicine. The special place that
Valdés, Dávalos, and Larrinaga occupied in Peruvian medicine is largely due to their
close relationship with Unanue, who opened the predominantly white intellectual
circles of  Lima to them. Their participation in Unanue’s medical reform plan in
Peru and their success in the scientific world of  Lima gave them a degree of  au-
thority that allowed them to address contemporary social, political, and philosoph-
ical issues. 
They perceived science and writing not just as a medium to convey their
ideas but also as part of  a process of  differentiation that allowed them to take dis-
tance “from other ‘darker’ and less cultivated Afro-Peruvians.” (xviii) Lima’s black
community was fractured along legal, ethnic, professional, and even gender divi-
sions, which allowed for a wide variety of  identities within the black community.
Valdés, Dávalos, and Larrinaga claimed to be free pardos or individuals of  African
descent considered to be genealogically and racially whiter than mulattoes, and there-
fore, closer to Spaniards. As such, they were interested in advancing the social status
of  those who shared their racial, legal, and professional identity. While they did not
renounce their racial identity, they tried to minimize it, emphasizing instead their
professional identity. (136) They adapted to the rapidly changing scientific and po-
litical environment in which they lived, and their ability to compromise with the es-
tablished order allowed them to negotiate their position within the hierarchical world
of  Peruvian medicine and to enjoy a significant degree of  social and professional
success. Valdés’ role as a Protomédico General is evidence that he was the most suc-
cessful in crossing these murky fields of  race, science, and politics. 
Dávalos also learned to avoid the restrictions of  the colonial caste system.
As a mulatto, he could not enrol at the prestigious University of  San Marcos in
Lima, but he went to France to study botany, chemistry, and anatomy at the Uni-
versity of  Montpellier (1784-1788), where he received his doctorate. In his thesis,
he exalted the importance and originality of  Peruvian science and attacked the views
of  the Dutch intellectual Cornelius de Pauw about the inferiority of  the American
environment. While Dávalos published his dissertation in Montpellier, Unanue gave
Valdés and Larrinaga the chance of  writing in the Mercurio Peruano, one of  the most
important venues for the dissemination of  the scientific revolution in South Amer-
ica. 
Martin’s work offers a more nuanced view of  the race, ethnicity, and class
differentiation in the Viceroyalty of  Peru. His novel analysis is an encouragement
for new research that looks for similar cases in other regions in colonial Latin Amer-
ican. Probably the lack of  similar studies for other regions is the reason why the
author does not offer a comparative perspective that could have strengthened the
central argument of  the uniqueness of  Lima’s medical world. Despite the lack of  a
comparative perspective, the evidence provided by the author suggests that the pres-
119Book Reviews
ence of  black doctors in Lima was more widespread than one might think, which
questions the rigidity of  the caste system in America, an idea quite consolidated in
the historiography. The contribution of  Jouve Martín, thus, goes beyond the borders
of  intellectual history and history of  medical practices and invites to revisit the hy-
pothesis of  the inflexibility of  racial and class categories in Latin America. 
Edwin Lopez
University of  California, San Diego
Maria Holt and Haifaa Jawad, Women, Is lam,  and Resi s tan ce in  the Arab
Wor ld (Boulder: CO, Lynne Rienner Press, 2013). 211 pp. $26.50 Hardcover.
In Women, Islam, and Resistance in the Arab World, Maria Holt and Haifaa Jawad inter-
rogate the role of  women in Islamic resistance movements, which appear in Western
media to be the domain of  men, in Lebanon, Iraq, and Palestine. The authors chal-
lenge the prevailing assumption of  Arab women as powerless victims, and through
their case studies explore the ways that “Islamic activism enables women to play
constructive roles in violent conflict.” (3) The case studies selected all emphasize
“resistance against perceived external enemies by Muslim communities who choose
to organize their struggles within an Islamic framework.” (4) This specific focus
provides a clear rationale for case selection and narrows the scope of  the book, but
it also limits the potential applicability of  the findings to other situations of  conflict
in the Arab and Islamic world, where Islamists are fighting secular Arabs or other
sects of  Islam within the same country, or where conflict is motivated more by
tribal affiliation than by religion. No book could adequately cover all the ways that
Islam is mobilized in the Arab world; however, additional studies are needed on the
role of  women in a wide range of  internal and external conflicts, many of  which
include an element of  politicized Islam.
The book is based on interviews and questionnaires carried out with
women of  all ages and social classes in Lebanon, the West Bank, Syria, Jordan and
Yemen in 2002-2003, 2006-2007, and 2010-2011. The authors use a critical, post-
colonial framework to explore questions of  power and resistance, how researchers
construct knowledge, and how to define feminism in the Arab Muslim context.
Holt and Jawad assert that their aim is “to link the discourse on gender and national
identity with discussions of  women’s role in national liberation and Islamic resist-
ance movements,” seeking to decolonize feminism and emphasize Arab women’s
own agency and the role of  Islam as a faith and tradition in insecure situations of
violent conflict. (8) Indeed, the book centres on the narratives of  the women inter-
viewed; although the book engages to a certain degree with religious texts and teach-
ings, it does not prioritize interpretations of  shari’a used by women activists or by
the religious scholars in their various contexts. Rather than an accounting of  theol-
ogy, the book is an accounting of  lived experiences.


José R. Jouve Martin, The Black Doctors of Colonial Lima: Science, Race, and Writing in Colonial and Early Republican Peru (Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014).

Chalmers, Jason

126 Left History
phantasm a quarter-century later. Much of  the world shows signs of  sliding into
yet another round of  right wing paranoia, this time feeding upon Islamophobia,
xenophobia, and racism. Gullible voters are given bogus assurances that corporate-
based politics—especially in the US—will see them through crises like climate
change and economic disparity generated and driven by the very same global mega-
companies that manipulate their respective political systems. This is reported, will-
ingly and uncritically, by corporate-controlled media in countries visibly transitioning
from representative democracies to plutocratic oligarchies. 
Deery might have mentioned that the CPUSA’s moderate leadership dur-
ing WWII came to an end with the shift toward pro-Stalin hardliners in 1945. That
left many members far more vulnerable when the combined “anti-Red” forces of
the (e.g.) FBI, Congressional Committees, Smith Act, and Blacklist “engulfed the
political culture with a virulent strain of  bigotry and intolerance toward leftists and
nonconformists.” (6) Deery wisely avoids seeing parallels with totalitarianism in any
other country. Except for atomic spy Julius Rosenberg (and his innocent wife), no
one in the USA was executed. Nor were the US’s federal prison camps comparable
to the Soviet or Chinese long-term detention settlements. By the late 1960s even
the last vestiges of  McCarthyism in Hollywood had expired. But similar reactionary
forces are always at play. Given the right circumstances they can quickly resurface.
Deery’s Red Apple reminds us that it is fear, as much as force, that can initiate and
direct - and ultimately sustain - repression and tyranny.
Henry Innes MacAdam
DeVry University
Peter Kulchyski, Abori gina l Rights  Ar e not  Human Rights :  In Def ence o f
Indigenous Strug gles (Winnipeg: ARP Books, 2013). 176 pp. $19.95 Paperback.
In Aboriginal Rights Are not Human Rights, Peter Kulchyski argues that resolutions
such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of  Indigenous Peoples pro-
duce a “conceptual confusion” between human rights and Aboriginal rights.
Whereas human rights developed in conjunction with the Western state and protect
purportedly universal human characteristics, Aboriginal rights originate in Aboriginal
peoples’ struggles over land and to protect traditional cultural practices. When the
United Nations or Amnesty International fail to distinguish between Aboriginal and
human rights, they ignore the concerns of  Aboriginal peoples such as self-deter-
mination.
The book addresses three distinct features of  Aboriginal rights: cultural
traditions; struggles with the state over land; and rights in practice. In the first sec-
tion, Kulchyski positions the land-based struggles of  Aboriginal peoples within a
Marxist framework. Aboriginal peoples have a mode of  production based on hunt-
ing and gathering, and their cultural practices and social structures emerge from
127Book Reviews
this relationship to the land. Aboriginal economies are not based on industrial labour
and Marxist analyses should not frame Aboriginal peoples as part of  the working
class. The following section provides historical context for this framework. It sur-
veys past and contemporary conflicts between Aboriginal peoples and the Canadian
state. From negotiation of  the Numbered Treaties to Idle No More, nearly every
struggle is an attempt by Aboriginal peoples to protect their land rights. The third
section demonstrates how Aboriginal rights exist in practice. It provides five case
studies in which Aboriginal communities attempt to prevent exploitation of  the
land by the government, corporations, or both. For example, hydro development
in northern Manitoba damages the landscape so badly that Aboriginal peoples can
no longer hunt or fish. Aboriginal peoples can express their rights only when able
to practice cultural traditions such as hunting and fishing, and the destruction of
land critically undermines that ability.
Kulchyski is particularly concerned with cultural difference. Somewhat
ironically, he uses the notion of  difference to challenge liberal ideology. Liberalism
is, at its core, a philosophy of  difference. It aspires to a universal political or eco-
nomic system, but to do so it must encompass a diversity a peoples and groups with
conflicting worldviews. Thus, liberalism views cultural difference as a problem that
must be confined and governed. But for Kulchyski, cultural difference emerges
from the interaction between people and place. People have different needs based
on the unique environment in which they live. As they adapt to a unique set of  en-
vironmental conditions, they develop different social and cultural practices. For ex-
ample, Kulchyski contends that an agricultural lifestyle requires hierarchical social
structures whereas a hunting and gathering lifestyle produces relational social pat-
terns. Cultural difference is therefore not a problem to be constrained. Rather, it is
a solution to the fact that people live in many different social and environmental
contexts. 
The most critical element of  Kulchyski’s argument is that Aboriginal rights
exist performatively, unlike human rights which exist categorically. Western knowl-
edge relies upon categories, and the use of  categories can reproduce colonial power
relations. Racism is founded on the categorization and comparison of  humans by
western scientists. A cursory glance at this book may give the reader the impression
that human rights and Aboriginal rights are two separate categories. This, however,
would be a serious misreading. Human rights are categorical in that one possesses
them by virtue of  their membership to a particular category of  person, for example
women or unionists. But Aboriginal rights are rooted in the particular practices of
a unique people. One has Aboriginal rights by virtue of  the fact that they actively
participate in certain traditional and cultural practices, not because they have Indian
status. One might more meaningfully view Aboriginal rights in relation to rights
such as language which exist only insofar as a community can engage in certain
practices without restriction.
Is it a useful practice to distinguish between Aboriginal rights and human
128 Left History
rights? There is very little Canadian literature on Aboriginal peoples and human
rights, and this book helps to explain why: the relationship between Aboriginal and
human rights is inadequately defined. Kulchyski takes the first step towards clarifying
this relationship by identifying what distinguishes Aboriginal rights from human
rights. The distinction highlights that the struggles of  Aboriginal peoples differ
from those of  other marginalised peoples such as women or religious minorities.
Aboriginal struggles are against a colonial state that uses rights to further its colonial
project. Kulchyski does not outright reject the value of  human rights, but simply
asks us to view them as a practice and find the particular contexts in which they are
useful. 
This book is essential reading for scholars working in human rights or na-
tive studies. The content itself  is not particularly new, although the third section
presents several case studies based on Kulchyski’s own research. What makes it
unique is the framing of  this content. The book is essential for scholars because it
forces the reader to question some deeply entrenched beliefs about human rights.
Of  course, many will not welcome this shift in thinking. A more receptive audience
however will be Indigenous activists and non-Indigenous allies looking to transform
capitalist and colonialist systems. Kulchyski has deeply Marxist ideals and corre-
spondingly revolutionary intentions. He inspires the reader to action by demon-
strating that there is real need for change and providing some possible pathways
towards it.
Jason Chalmers
University of  Alberta
Sulaiman H. Al-Farsi. Democrac y  and Youth in the Midd le  East:  Is lam, Trib -
a l ism and th e Ren t ie r Sta te  in  Oman (London: I.B. Tauris, 2013). 320 pp.
$99.00 Hardcover.
The contemporary history of  Oman may be said to have begun in 1970 when Sultan
Qaboos replaced his father as ruler and set the country firmly on the path to socio-
economic development and to political evolution. Oil provided the means for the
former while the course of  the latter was principally determined by the personality
and vision of  the present sultan, still in power some 45 years later. The Sultanate
of  Oman is unquestionably an authoritarian state but most would agree that it has
a benevolent ruler and that its people believe that the existing system is legitimate.
But two relevant qualifications should be noted. First, the throne must pass in the
coming years to a new sultan and considerable uncertainty surrounds the process
of  succession. Second, as education and exposure to the outside world advances
and deepens, younger Omanis may be increasingly discontent with the system as it
presently exists.
In this book, apparently derived from a British PhD thesis, Sulaiman Al-


Peter Kulchyski, Aboriginal Rights Are Not Human Rights: In Defence of Indigenous Struggles (Winnipeg: ARP Books, 2013)

MacAdam, Henry

Michael Gold & Dalton Trumbo on Spartacus, Blacklist Hollywood, Howard Fast, and the Demise of American Communism

Pelz, William A.

Martin Comack, Wild Social ism: Worker s Counci ls  in Re voluti onar y
Ber l in ,  1918-21 (Lanham: University Press of  America, 2012). 108 pp.
$26.99 Paperback.
Until recently, the workers councils that appeared during the turmoil of  the
German Revolution of  1918-19 were given scant attention. After all, they were
objectively failures and offered little in the way of  inspiration for the typical
European Social Democrat or doctrine Communist. Still, there has always been
something intriguing about a project, no matter how brief  and ultimately unsuc-
cessful, that appeared to promise a bottom-up, democratic form of  worker self-
emancipation. This had always been the dream of  syndicalist thinkers from the
Industrial Workers of  the World in the USA to the early CGT in France.
Comack shows that for a time this dream stepped forth as reality in the Berlin
factories.
At the heart of  this project was the Revolutionary Shop Stewards led
by, among others, a lathe operator named Richard Müller. In short of  a hundred
pages, this book brings to life a time when it seemed as if  a new revolutionary
form was being born alongside the existing political parties and trade unions. In
the heady atmosphere of  revolution in the autumn of  1918, Germans witnessed
the birth of, and many joined, councils throughout the country. From the eupho-
ria of  red Berlin, it was easy to think that these new organisations were as revo-
lutionary as those in the capital. Some were but most were not.
The council movement developed in the void created by the trade
unions and German Social Democracy when they imposed a class truce during
the war. This meant the traditional working class institutions that might have
managed grievances and promised to force change in unpopular policies were
absent. As a result, “spontaneous, wildcat strikes became common through 1916
and 1917, despite the official characterization of  them as criminal, treasonous
activities” (38). In this vacuum the council movement arose, led by mainly highly
skilled, male workers. As the movement was overwhelmingly among men, it
would seem to have made but few connections with women workers. It was a
fraternity of  and by the labour aristocracy even if  it thought of  itself  as a move-
ment for the class as a whole—not that traditional proletarian organisations were
any better.
When the time came and the Kaiser’s regime was overthrown, the
Revolutionary Shop Stewards allowed themselves to be implicated in a coalition
government with pro-war socialists. Then in a lunge to the left, they fell into
what may well have been a deliberate provocation and turned to physical force.
This was the move that the reformist socialists needed to call in right-wing gangs
Book Reviews 137
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called the Frei Korp to beat, bloody and murder Berlin radicals of  all shades of
red. After this tragedy, the councils “would never again regain such direct influ-
ence over government policy” (55). It is commonplace for those on the Left to
draw the lesson that this was inevitable in a movement refusing to organise a
political party. Of  course, this complex and tragic situation cannot be reduced to
the need to build a political party, no matter how often some will say it. The
party question, as it is often labeled, is beyond the scope of  this work. 
Many questions remain to be examined: Can a movement based upon
the most skilled (and largely male) workers come to represent a diverse and mul-
tilayered working class?  Can an organisation dominated by men reach out to and
win over female workers situated in a different historical experience? How can a
movement among relatively secure and better-paid unionists incorporate those in
less privileged, casual employment? How can workers toiling on the home front
forge a relation with soldiers in the trenches?
This exciting and well-written work brings alive a period that people
would do well not to forget. Brief  and free of  the sort of  academic jargon that
often frightens non-specialists, this is a work that deserves a wide readership
despite any limitations. For those who wish to explore this important and inter-
esting period in more depth, they would be well advised to read the recently
published Working-Class Politics in the German Revolution: Richard Müller and the
Origins of  the Council Movement by Ralf  Hoffrogge. While the two works have simi-
lar ideological sympathies, Hoffrogge goes into much greater detail and has a
wealth of  new sources that were not available to Comack. All the same, Wild
Socialism: Workers Councils in Revolutionary Berlin is, in many ways, a ground-break-
ing book for the English reading public. One hopes that it inspires further inno-
vative studies.
William A. Pelz
Institute of  Working Class History, Chicago
David Harris, Civil  War  and Democrac y  in West  Afr ica :  Con f l ic t Resolu ti on ,
Elect ions and Just ice  in  Sier ra Leone and Liber ia  (New York: IB Tauris,
2012). 320 pp. $45.00 Paperback.
Since Edward Blyden’s seminal work, Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race (1887),
which characterised Liberia and Sierra Leone as twins whose fortunes will remain
inextricably linked, the two contiguous countries have been attractive subjects for
comparative analysis. Liberia and Sierra Leone indeed share much in common:
they are roughly of  equal size, their origin as colonies for repatriated former slaves
is unique in West Africa, and they share a more recent history of  anarchic civil
wars, state collapse, and massive international intervention. But these obvious sim-
ilarities mask more profound differences – in their historical trajectory, their polit-
Left History138
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