Left History (E-Journal - York University)

MacAdam, Henry Innes

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”
124 Left History
are all male, women are not overlooked: Deery’s introduction begins with Helen
Reid Bryan, a middle-aged secretary imprisoned in 1950 by the House Un-American
Activities Commission (HUAC) for refusal to provide them with records belonging
to an organization they deemed “subversive”—the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Com-
mittee (JAFRC), a communist-sponsored aid group for anti-Franco Spanish Civil
War refugees in Europe, North Africa, and elsewhere. Fast and Barsky were long-
time members; Rogge was JAFRC’s legal counsel.
The common thread that binds these six was not communism (only
two—Fast and Barsky—were members of  a communist party at this time) but liber-
alism. It was a time when that label became a target for conservatives and reactionar-
ies in and out of  the government (local, state, and national), and within the world
of  work (whatever and wherever that might be). Throughout five chapters (Bradley
and Burgum are treated together) Deery deftly outlines how, when, and why all six
ran afoul of  the McCarthy witch-hunting expedition in and around NYC. Helen
Bryan’s role is subsumed within the chapter on Edward Barsky. Readers of  Left His-
tory will inevitably be more familiar with a name like Howard Fast or Dimitri
Shostakovich, both of  whom enjoyed (then and later) an international audience.
Shostakovich is the outlier of  the six; his brief  but painful contact with anti-Soviet
sentiment was the result of  pressure on him in the USSR. It was personally directed
at him by Josef  Stalin, who wanted him to represent the USSR at the leftist-orga-
nized Cultural and Scientific Congress for World Peace, held in NYC in 1949. He
attended under brutal scrutiny, as the cover of  Red Apple attests.
Two others—Fast and Rogge—share more similarities with Shostakovich
than with the other three in terms of  their careers beyond the 1950s. Fast joined
the CPUSA in 1943. In less than a decade his association with it and with JAFRC
led to a HUAC hearing and jail term. He was forced to self-publish and his passport
was revoked. Rogge’s legal career during that same period included defense of
JAFRC personnel, activism for Cold War détente, and willingness to undertake work
for the FBI. Fast renounced his pro-Soviet beliefs in 1957 and within three years
saw the epic film of  his novel Spartacus puncture (but not dismantle or eliminate)
the Hollywood blacklist. Fast’s literary career revived and flourished; he lived until
2003. Rogge’s legal skills enabled him to steer his successive Leftist-Centrist-Rightist
political affiliations in directions that kept him from prison and left his career intact.
Shostakovich survived the final years of  Stalin, enjoyed several decades of  Politburo
approval (during which he actually joined the Soviet CP), and died highly honoured
in 1975.
McCarthyism was less kind to the others, and in their backstories is Deery’s
important contribution. Barsky, a trained and respected NYC surgeon, served with
the Republican Medical Service in various American hospitals during the Spanish
Civil War. During and after WWII he served as the Board Chairman of  JAFRC,
and when he was called to testify before HUAC on 13 February 1946, he refused
to hand over that organization’s books, ledgers, and other financial papers. Of  eleven
125Book Reviews
JAFRC Board members (including Bradley and Fast) called to testify, Barsky re-
ceived the stiffest sentence: six months in prison and a $500 fine. After release his
license to practice medicine in New York State was revoked. Because of  that he
was refused application to Workmen’s Compensation on behalf  of  former patients
who needed financial aid. For the next 20 years Barsky continued to work for activist
causes, and died in 1975 at age 77.
Bradley and Burgum represent the American academic world at its worst
in troubled times. Both men were tenured professors at New York University (in
the German and English Departments, respectively) when their association with a
“subversive” organization (the JAFRC and the CPUSA, respectively) was called into
question. Bradley was suspended from teaching (without pay) in 1948, and fired
three years later after completion of  a two-month prison sentence for contempt of
Congress. He was not again able to teach, but instead found work on the margins
of  academe by exhibiting books at educational conventions. He died in 1970 at age
66. Burgum shared a similar fate. After 28 years of  distinguished teaching and a
publishing career as a respected literary critic, Burgum was grilled by the McCarran
Senate Committee in 1952. He invoked his First and Fifth Amendment rights in
response to questions concerning his political beliefs as founding editor of  the
Marxist journal Science & Society.
Two hours later NYU suspended him without pay. In April 1953, following
his request for a hearing before the NYU Faculty Committee, he was dismissed. A
protest was mounted on his behalf, but he never taught again even though he en-
joyed continuous recognition as a literary figure. In 1957, his wife committed suicide,
a victim of  the stress and tension of  Burgum’s protracted difficulties. He died age
85 in 1979. Deery, an academic, is especially attentive to these two cases since they
are far from isolated. With few exceptions, American educational institutions, from
the East Coast’s Ivy League to the West Coast’s University of  California system,
were also compromised in major or minor ways regarding academic freedom. As
Deery puts it:
These dismissals … did more than permanently disfigure the
lives of  two academics. They also provide sharp silhouettes of
the fragility of  academic freedom and illuminate the bureaucracy
of  political repression: the institutional processes by which a par-
ticular university [i.e. NYU], renowned for its defense and pro-
motion of  liberal values, sacrificed those values on the altar of
anti- communism. (75-76)
This is a well-documented volume, with almost 70 pages of  endnotes and
ten pages of  bibliography. The index is user friendly and I noted no typos. Deery
is so focused on the McCarthy Era that readers might wish he had devoted a portion
of  the conclusion to the later careers of  the “Red Apple Six” (I have supplied some
data here). No doubt he is aware that the “New World Order” proudly proclaimed
by President George H.W. Bush following the fall of  the Soviet Union in 1989 is a
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


Phillip Deery, Red Apple: Communism and McCarthyism in Cold War New York (New York: Empire State Editions, 2014).

Munslow, Alun

133Book Reviews
Nigel A. Raab, Who is  the Hist orian? (Toronto, University of  Toronto Press,
2016). 121 pp. $17.95 Paperback.
According to the publisher’s web page, and again on the back of  the book, this
book addresses four questions: who is the historian, what do historians do, where
do their interpretations take them, and what is the impact of  the digital age on his-
torical research? The publisher’s blurb continues online that with an affable style
the author answers those questions and in each of  the six chapters addresses a spe-
cific aspect of  doing history, covering the archives, the sources, and the web of  the
historian, and points out that historians are assisted in their work by archivists, li-
brarians and others who help create the historian’s web of  activity. Readers will then
learn about the nature of  the historian’s skills and finally the author demonstrates
the value of  the historian.
For this reviewer it is a welcome acknowledgement by the author that the
historian depends on many other people in the universe of  doing history but also
acknowledges that the individual historian works alone but often also in collabora-
tion and often outside academe. The great strength of  this book is the acknowl-
edgment that historians never really work in isolation. Historians work in a milieu
that demands a much wider range of  sources than ever before and their environ-
ment also includes a range of  other activities sustained by archivists and others from
other disciplines most plainly – and increasingly – professionals in many other dis-
ciplines. The author also acknowledges the increasing professional pressures felt by
most academic historians.
In Chapter One entitled “The Spaces in Which We Work” the author ex-
plains how the historian can often find himself  or herself  working in those “heart-
less spaces” – archives and libraries – that present an in-built environment that both
assists but also hinders in equal measure. Tackling archives can be a thankless task
– a situation the non-historian cannot imagine? The psychology of  the historian
when faced with archive fever is explained with the light touch of  someone who
has experienced and come through. The author’s style is also deft and turns what
could be desperately tedious stuff  about accessing archives into a fascinating jour-
ney.
Our author, in subsequent chapters, then turns to a different dimension of
the sources – their organization that both helps and hinders, and their vastness
which defeats simple concepts like ‘the truth’. Which sources should historian’s use?
Documents? Novels? Films? Costumes? Letters? Photographs? Television? Physical
objects? Music? Performance? The creation of  silence? Diaries? But what happens
after the archive? The author next addresses how do historians collaborate? And
even more, how do historians collaborate in terms of  interdisciplinary activities –
134 Left History
botany and history? Museology, fragility and history? Where does history slip the
ties of  the mythic? Present ideas, theories and the past? Ethnocentricity and history?
And the postmodern interregnum? And then we have the digitization of  the past.
Next our author addresses a major new direction for historians in terms of
both accessing innovative research areas but also in turning the past into a history.
The Internet has revolutionized doing history. But so has the mind set of  the his-
torian. So, what is the mind set of  the historian? How many different ways can the
past be turned into history? What is the connection between history, the historian
and the humanities? Our author is also not afraid to confront tricky problems for
historians such as relativism. 
My judgment on this book? It is that I am happy to recommend it for its
measured analysis and the author’s addressing of  issues that will make sense to both
the initiated professional and the amateur. Its author recognizes the ‘desperately
seeking’ nature of  the historian in excavating the past and what it might mean as
history.
Alun Munslow 
Professor of  History and Historical Theory University of  Staffordshire
UK Editor of  Rethinking History: The Journal of  Theory and Practice


Nigel A. Rabb, Who is the Historian? (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016).

Cooper, Danielle

Beyond liberation: conceptualizations of history at the canadian lesbian and gay archives.

Teigrob, Robert

A Shared Dilemma: Locating Race in Canadian and American War Stories

Laugs, Christoph

An Ongoing Ethnogenesis? Examining the Evolution of the Métis

Lázaro Moreno, Caleb

109Book Reviews
place for residents to raise families, share their culture, and, as this book reveals,
find a voice to overcome challenges faced living in federal housing.
Jennifer Chutter
Simon Fraser University
Joanna Dreby, Ever yday Il l egal :  When Po li ci es  Undermine Immigran t Famil ies
(Oakland, CA: University of  California Press, 2015). 287 pp. $29.95 Paper-
back.
Everyday Illegal: When Policies Undermine Immigrant Families is a sequel to Joanna Dreby’s
2010 book Divided by Borders: Mexican Migrants and their Children. In this new ethno-
graphic contribution, Dreby conducted interviews with 110 children and 91 parents
in New Jersey and Ohio to study the complex relational dynamics that develop
within unauthorized Mexican immigrant communities. From the outset, Dreby im-
portantly clarifies that this project does not represent all Mexicans living within
both locations of  interest and focuses on heteronormative family structures. Every-
day Illegal demonstrates how, under the enforcement of  restrictive US immigration
law during the Obama administration, familial and peer dynamics are strained not
only juridicially but also socially for immigrant families. It elucidates various inter-
personal effects constituted and exacerbated by punitive US immigration policy, all
of  which may be overlooked through a merely legal understanding of  unauthorized
immigrant livelihood. 
The culture of  fear produced by punitive immigration policy is, Dreby ar-
gues, a serious public health concern. The threat of  deportation has material effects
on the anxiety levels of  parents, especially those of  unauthorized women who are
susceptible to becoming what she terms suddenly single mothers. Illegality exposes
mothers to ataques de nervios (anxiety attacks), for instance, which may also involve
episodes of  self-harm, as it does for one of  Dreby’s interviewees. Additionally, some
migrant children who were interviewed described having regularly faced educational
barriers, lack of  access to adequate healthcare, and food insecurity. The recent rise
of  these severe social effects in the US are correlated, for Dreby as well as for many
other scholars, to the post-9/11 creation and continuing expansion of  the Depart-
ment of  Homeland Security’s enforcement procedures. 
Dreby’s study also shows how legal-status differences bolster daily expe-
riences of  gender inequality for women. These dynamics of  illegality augment the
abusive social conditions within which many unauthorized women already find
themselves, especially with the rapid emergence of  mixed-status families in the US
(mixed-status families are those consisting of  authorized and unauthorized mem-
bers). As Dreby’s field work as well as personal experiences with mixed-status fa-
milial life suggest, legalization is closely linked for some immigrant men to
patriarchal conceptions of  masculinity, where both legal status and a lack thereof
110 Left History
may be employed to justify a re-centering of  male domination within the household.
This can be seen even within mixed-status families that include citizen women,
where an unauthorized husband may experience illegality as a threat to his mas-
culinity, in turn demanding an even more rigid domestic commitment from his wife
and female-designated children to accomplish household labour.
Dreby’s interviews with children comprise some of  the most memorable
moments in Everyday Illegal. Restrictive immigration policy, she argues, is a source
of  stigma in children’s relationships with parents, siblings, and other children. For
instance, Dreby interviewed children who candidly describe the stresses of  having
to act as cultural brokers for their parents, often serving as family translators. Ac-
counts of  discriminatory bullying experienced by the children of  unauthorized par-
ents further elucidate the detrimental complexities of  their peer relations. Data too
shows that pecking orders among siblings within mixed-status families are intensi-
fied when some have more access to legal, economic, and educational resources
than others. These ethnographic analyses in turn lead to what is perhaps Dreby’s
most significant theoretical and methodological contribution in the book; that is,
that the administrative and legal privileges denied to unauthorized immigrants con-
verge upon the category of  illegality “to accrue a social significance similar to that
of  racial or class background.” (103) This strain of  social significance attached to
illegality is best understood from the ground up, particularly from the voices of  the
children who suffer under punitive US immigration policy.
Dreby devotes an appendix to a thorough review of  the measures taken
to ensure the ethical treatment of  her underage interviewees, and even includes her
interview schedules. Moreover, she leaves readers, in the book’s conclusion, with
the words of  children on the topic of  president Barack Obama’s presidency, cen-
tralizing their often-disregarded capacity for political critique. Everyday Illegal is not
only a timely contribution but a detailed, deftly narrated, and unique one that ex-
poses the alarming extent to which citizen and unauthorized children living under
unauthorized parents daily confront the strenuous social repercussions of  restrictive
immigration policy as intensely, if  not more so, as their caretakers. Indeed this book
is an important resource for all scholars interested in the multifaceted ways in which
families experience social rupture under the US regime of  illegality. 
Caleb Lázaro Moreno
University of  Kansas


Joanna Dreby, Everyday Illegal: When Policies Undermine Immigrant Families (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2015).

Martin, Eryk

111Book Reviews
Ian Glasper, The Day The Count r y  Died :  A Hist o r y  of  Anar cho  Punk ,
1980–1984 (Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2014). 496 pp. $24.95 Paperback.
Ian Glasper’s The Day the Country Died is a welcome contribution to a growing body
of  writing on the history of  punk. While scholars from many disciplines have been
active in shaping this emerging literature, so too have punk’s participants. Glasper’s
work is reflective of  the latter tradition. Growing up as a participant in the UK
punk scene, the author has channeled his enthusiasm and commitment for the topic
into an informative, engaging, and broadly based account of  anarcho punk in the
UK during the first half  of  the 1980s. With its specific focus on anarcho bands,
the book provides a fascinating window into the musical, political, cultural, and so-
cial dynamics of  some of  punk’s most radical communities.
For those readers who are attracted to the sounds of  punk — this reviewer
included — Glasper’s work provides a detailed history of  anarcho punk’s diverse
musicality, particularly in his short introduction to the book. Here, Glasper argues
that while much of  UK’s punk scene had developed a “fairly generic sound (and
what a great sound it was!),” the “anarcho bands were bound together more by their
ethics than any unwritten musical doctrine.” (9) Embodying an eclecticism that re-
flected everything from “folk” to “hardcore” to “arty noise,” the conventions that
bound anarcho punk together combined a general commitment to progressive
causes, a rigorous democratic ethos rooted in DIY culture, and a pronounced dis-
dain for cultural conventions. (8–9) 
Although inspired by the author’s personal involvement with the subject,
The Day the Country Died is neither an autobiography nor a conventional historical
narrative. Instead, the book is built around a series of  band biographies, numbering
80 in total. While each entry contains commentary by the author, most of  the text
is drawn from the oral testimony of  individual participants. This consistent ap-
proach reflects a staggeringly impressive amount of  oral historical research on the
part of  the author. The band biographies are organized into nine chapters, grouped
by regional origin. In structuring the book in this way, Glasper not only discusses
the importance of  well-known centres such as London, but also highlights the im-
portant contributions of  bands from Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland,
demonstrating the significance of  a wide geographical setting for anarcho punk’s
development. 
Because the author approaches the history of  anarcho punk through a
focus on specific bands, The Day the Country Died offers a detailed and consistent
exploration of  the formation of  groups and their musical interests, as well as pro-
viding detailed information on the production and organization of  performances,
recordings, distribution, and consumption. Reflecting this emphasis, each band pro-
file ends with a selected discography of  the group’s work as well as suggested ad-
112 Left History
ditional resources for readers who are interested in more information on particular
performers.
But for readers of  Left History in particular, Glasper’s work offers addi-
tional value in its nuanced discussion of  anarchist politics and culture in the early
1980s. Not every band biography contains such overt political discussions. Indeed,
for many performers, the anarchism in anarcho punk seems to be little more than
a vague claim to personal liberation, and a rejection of  institutionalized musical
structure and organization. Yet, other band profiles provide fascinating political dis-
cussions that directly engage with the ambiguities of  anarcho punk, and that speak
to its overt contributions to the social movements and activist projects of  the early
1980s. In an evocative discussion of  anarcho punk’s political culture, for example,
Subhumans’ vocalist Dick Lucas notes the ways in which the band felt uncomfort-
able with the anarcho label because “we were doing things that we thought would
exclude us from being anarchists. We thought it involved a very strict sense of  val-
ues, a morality that we couldn’t maintain, ‘cos we got the impression — wrongly
— that there was no fun in anarchy, it was all very, very, very serious.” (182) In
Lucas’ case, he interpreted owning a car and eating meat as placing him outside the
anarchist tradition. At the same time, it is also clear from Crass vocalist Steve Igno-
rant how difficult and exhausting it was to maintain certain codes of  conduct. (17–
18) Such pressures were particularly ironic, given the overarching emphasis upon a
culture of  “no rules.” (9) At the same time, while these examples reflect individual
expressions of  “personal revolution,” as Glasper argues, he is also right to conclude
that those personal commitments played a role in promoting collective forms of
progressive politics. (6–8) In particular, the book’s focus on bands such as Crass
and Conflict provides insightful personal reflections on the ways in which anarcho
punk played a role in broader social movements against racism and militarism, and
for animal rights and direct action. While both bands used music as a means of  en-
gaging with these issues, they also demonstrate the tactical differences within the
scene. Here, Crass’s pacifism is contrasted by Conflict’s willingness to use physical
violence and confrontation in support of  animal rights activists who were often
physically attacked during their attempts to sabotage fox hunting. (117-118) 
Such discussions, which are repeated in different iterations by others in
the book, offer a fascinating portrait of  anarchism’s political and cultural makeup
within the context of  1980s UK punk, and the ways in which punk intervened into
a broader anarchist and activist tradition in these years. Rather than only hinging
on anarchist approaches to mass organization and social revolution—practices that
had been at the centre of  anarchism’s global development over the course of  the
nineteenth and twentieth century—Glasper’s research demonstrates how some an-
archo punk communities made sense of  anarchism through a diverse set of  personal
cultural practices and collective political work. 
In its exploration of  anarcho punk’s eclectic sounds, its personal political
culture, and its contributions to social movement politics, The Day the Country Died
113Book Reviews
offers readers a wealth of  individual perspectives on a rich and relevant history.
Glasper’s detailed biographical and oral historical work plunges the reader into an-
archo punk’s everyday existence, and in doing so, suggests with great clarity the
ways in which popular culture operated as a critical site for the merging of  politics
and play. This is a book that should interest a wide range of  readers, whether they
are interested in punk’s past, or in the dynamic history of  anarchist politics and cul-
ture in the late twentieth century. 
Eryk Martin
Simon Fraser University
Charlie Angus, Unl ikely  Radi cals :  The Stor y  o f  the Adams Mine Dump War
(Toronto: Between the Lines, 2013). 240 pp. $24.95 Paperback.
In 2009, a group called the Post-Mining Alliance funded a book called 101 Things to
do With a Hole in the Ground. The publication is beautifully illustrated and full of
hopeful stories about former mines that have been converted to movie sets, football
stadiums, cheese cellars, and research centres. One could debate whether such a
publication (funded in part by industry) is selectively optimistic, and avoided the
thousands of  abandoned mines where problems with chemical pollution will persist
for decades, or even eternity in some cases. But at least the book encourages creative
design and land use options for those mines where remediation is possible. Nowhere
does this publication suggest that using abandoned mines as garbage dumps is a
smart thing to do with a hole in the ground. 
But that is exactly what entrepreneur Gordon McGuinty and his company,
Notre Development proposed to do with the abandoned Adams Mine near Kirk-
land Lake. A former iron mining operation owned by Dofasco Steel, the Adams
Mine pits were slowly filling with water after abandonment, and exhibited no lasting
pollution legacies after closure in 1989. McGuinty visited the south pit that year
and thought it was an ideal location to park Toronto’s massive garbage output after
the planned closure of  the Keele Valley landfill. Bob Rae’s NDP government initially
rejected the idea, but when McGuinty’s North Bay associate Mike Harris became
Premier in 1995, Notre Development (eventually aligned with a consortium of  pri-
vate interests called Rail Cycle North) and the provincial government effectively
became co-proponents of  the dump. Many residents of  the Temiskaming district
objected to the idea of  taking Toronto’s garbage, provoking a pitched fourteen year
battle over the fate of  the mine.
Charlie Angus’ Unlikely Radicals is an eloquent first-hand account of  the
struggle against the Adams Mine dump proposal. Angus, currently a federal Member
of  Parliament with the NDP, is well-positioned to tell the tale, as he was a key leader
in the protest movement. Indeed, the book is a stunning insiders’ perspective on
one of  the most important environmental protests in the history of  northern On-


Ian Glasper, The Day The Country Died: A History of Anarcho Punk, 1980 - 1984 (Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2014).

de Groot, Scott

“A Curse on Those Who Need Heroes”? Genealogical Appropriation and the Historical Horizons of Gay Liberation, 1969-1975.

Rutherford, Scott

‘Companions’,” The Nation. January 16, 2015.
3 Michael Hardt, “Affective Labor,” boundary 2,  26.2 (1999): 96. Hardt quotes
Dorothy Smith, The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology (Boston:
Northeastern University Press: 1987), 78-88.
Zach Schwartz-Weinstein
New York University
Christopher M. White, A Globa l Histo r y  of  the Deve lop ing World (New
York: Routledge, 2014). 275 pp. $44.95 Paperback.
In this ambitious book, Christopher M. White has aimed for a short, but wide-
ranging, history of  the “developing world.” Written in a style agreeable to a gen-
eral readership, White is specifically concerned with speaking to undergraduate
students, at times writing as though he is directly in front of  them giving a lec-
ture. Coming in at 275 pages, Global History joins a flurry of  recent works seem-
ingly aimed at capturing the first year undergraduate textbook market by offering
shorter reads than the thousand page volumes common in years past. 
White breaks the book into four parts: Imperialism, Nationalism,
Globalization and Development. The first three parts, what he calls the “funda-
mentals of  the modern history of  the developing world”(1), are a chronological
account beginning more or less with Columbus’ initial encounters in the
Americas in the late fifteenth century and ending around issues such as the Arab
Spring protests in 2011. Undergraduate instructors will find that White’s rendi-
tion of  the past five hundred years touches upon many important signposts
commonly found in recent world history textbooks. In each of  the first three
parts, chapters are organised around geographical areas: Latin America & the
Caribbean, Asia, and Africa, in other words, the “developing world” to which the
book’s title refers. Though he periodically gestures towards matters of  religion,
identity, culture and social life, for White the West’s economic interests and con-
cerns about international relations provide much of  the fuel that drives the
motor of  his global history. “Development,” the book’s final part, focuses on
scholars whose claims have either challenged imperialism, colonialism and capi-
talism in the “developing world,” or have supported their expansion. White’s
book then ends by discussing ideas he believes offer some potential solutions to
alleviate extreme poverty in the Third World.
White hopes students will use his historical narrative and the additional
tools he provides (self-reflective questions, reading and film suggestions and a
glossary) to challenge common assumptions they may have about the  “develop-
ing world.” “As college students,” he writes, “you have a choice to make: do you
prefer to make decisions based on preconceived notions or do you prefer to
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make informed decisions?” (3). I teach the type of  students that White identifies
as his core audience. My first year undergraduates in international development
studies come with various motivations and ideas about the “developing world.” I
spend a lot of  time teaching not only policies and practices but also the role of
Western attitudes in helping shape global inequality. Thus, for those of  us who
believe that helping students become self-reflexive thinkers is a critical interven-
tion, White’s approach is welcome. He provides a wide range of  interpretations
and arguments that will generate insightful class discussions about the motiva-
tions and assumptions embodied in the discourses of  progress and economic
growth that dominate development and the contemporary aid industries.
While White clearly contributes to a better understanding of  numerous
complex and wide-ranging historical matters his book is not without problems.
Critically, the four concepts that make up the book’s historical periods are gener-
ally left undefined. How, for example, is imperialism different than globalization
for White? Or, why was “the nation” such a powerful concept for anti-colonial
movements in the twentieth century? These are questions undergraduate stu-
dents tend to ask and I hoped White would have provided more direction on
this front. Paying closer attention to cultural histories of  development may have
helped address some similarities and differences between each distinct period.
Indeed, the treatment of  culture occupies a confusing place within this book. At
times, White makes thoughtful interventions into the relationship between cul-
ture and development. His penultimate chapter gives a strong critique of
Westerners who use “cultural determinism” as a justification for intervention
into the Global South (249-51). Yet such thoughtfulness is betrayed by glib and,
at several points, frankly outrageous claims about culture in the “developing
world.” One memorable example is his claim that Africa is the “saddest region in
the world” partly because of  “factors inherent to Africa’s culture” (emphasis mine,
149). These are profoundly troubling statements on numerous levels, especially
from a scholar wanting to direct students away from ideas based upon “precon-
ceived notions.” 
Writing a general text such as White’s is a difficult undertaking. We are
not trained as specialists in every topic that a general text requires us to cover. As
White acknowledges several times, his investigation barely “scratches the sur-
face.” He provides many provocative and insightful points for discussion in very
limited space. At other times, however, his brevity is a hindrance, leading to
poorly argued points and insufficient coverage of  complex histories. In the
book’s final section, “Development,” the absence of  important scholars on vari-
ous sides of  the development spectrum, from Edward Said and Arturo Escobar
on the left to Dambisa Moyo on the right, is particularly notable. Moreover, as a
scholar who wants students to engage with facts and not opinions, to claim, in
reference to Cuba, that “in fact” universal health care, employment and educa-
tion “are often not considered much of  a benefit to people who can only aspire
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to the bare minimum”(83) reads more as the author’s ideological agenda than it
does an empirical assessment of  everyday life on the streets of  Havana.
Arguments such as this, if  they are not going to be explained in more detail,
should be left out entirely. One wonders if  the pressure to publish shorter and
shorter volumes is partly to blame here.
With this said, paired with additional material that could help fill the
gaps noted above, White’s book offers instructors a thoughtful text to introduc-
ing students in world history or international development studies to a complex
and multilayered set of  histories that continue to shape current and future
prospects for people living in the “developing world.”
Scott Rutherford
Queen’s University
Stephan D’Arcy, Languages o f  the Unheard : Why Mili tant Pro tes t is  Good
fo r Democ rac y (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2013). 232 pp. $24.95
Paperback.
In Languages of  the Unheard, Stephen D’Arcy offers readers “a normative stan-
dard” that can assess when and how militant protest is good for democracy. One
of  the strongest aspects of  Languages is the treatment of  Martin Luther King as
a political theorist. D’Arcy utilizes King to craft a four part definition of  militan-
cy: “grievance-motivated, adversarial, and confrontational collective action” (26); where
adversarial indicates opposing positions that are no longer open to change
through dialogue and confrontation is the act of  “seek[ing] out direct conflict”
(27). This sets up D’Arcy’s basic argument. Militant protest is democratic
because it can reopen dialogue and debate on issues that self-interested elites
(bureaucratic and capitalist) would otherwise treat as settled.
In Languages, Democracy is defined as “public autonomy, that is, the
self-governance of  the people through inclusive, reason-guided public discus-
sion” (4). D’Arcy places an emphasis on public autonomy to distinguish it from
‘liberal’ conceptions of  democracy:
The demand for public autonomy is democratic in a much richer sense
than mere public choice [ie. voting]. Public autonomy requires that the
people dictate the terms of  social co-operation based on broadly shared
understanding of  the common good and the requirements of  justice,
after a thorough process of  inclusive wide-ranging discussion (23-24).
Premised on the goal of  achieving public autonomy as the ideal form
of  democracy, D’Arcy persuasively argues militancy is democratic if  it meets
four standards that, in the words of  King, give “voice to the voiceless.” These
standards are:
opportunity principle – have a reasonable chance of  creating new
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Christopher M. White, A Global History of the Developing World (New York: Routledge, 2014).

Alsheh, Yehonatan

Coming to Terms with the Fleeting Post-Zionist Moment.

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