Left History (E-Journal - York University)

Schwartz-Weinstein, Zach

Eileen Boris and Jennifer Klein, Car ing  fo r Ameri ca :  Home Health
Workers in  the Shadow of  the Wel far e S tat e  (Oxford: Oxford University
Press: 2012). 320 pp. $35.00 Paperback.
Eileen Boris and Jennifer Klein’s Caring for America: Home Wealth Workers in the
Shadow of  the Welfare State arrives at a critical moment; offering a much needed,
incisive, and complex history of  urgent political and historical questions sur-
rounding the gendered labour of  care. In June 2014, the US Supreme Court
ruled, in Harris v. Quinn, against agency-shop rules for the home health care
workers in Illinois’ Home Services Program, striking down the requirement that
those workers who chose not to join the union would have to pay “agency fees”
for union representation on the grounds that the overwhelmingly female and dis-
proportionately women-of-colour low wage workforce was “quite different from
full-fledged public employees.”1 A subsequent January 2015, decision by US
District Court Judge Richard Leon (Home Care Association of  America vs. Weil)
vacated a U.S. Department of  Labor Rule which would have removed home
health care workers from the decades-old companionship exemption to the Fair
Labor Standards Act and entitled them to protection within the rubric of  federal
wage and hour laws.2 Both Justice Alito’s definition of  home care workers as
“not full-fledged public employees,” (in Harris v. Quinn,) and the more recent
enforcement of  a broad definition of  the “companion” exclusion emerge from
and illustrate the continuing impact of  gendered and racialised histories of
labour and the state. Thankfully, we have Boris and Klein’s new book to help
decode this moment. Caring for America incisively documents through impressive
archival research, oral history, and analytical insight, the history and importance
of  the work and workers who have been at the center of  these landmark legal
disputes.
In writing about the history of  home care workers, Boris and Klein are
also, necessarily, writing about the history of  caring labour, and, more broadly,
about the feminized forms of  affective labour Michael Hardt has called “labor in
the bodily mode.”3 Theirs is very much a history of  how particular kinds of
work and workers became constructed in legislation and in courtrooms as differ-
ent from and less than those which the regulatory apparatus of  the New Deal
was created to manage. (That difference, inextricable from workers’ race and
gender, in turn allowed the authors of  that New Deal labour regime to exclude
“domestics,” including home health care workers, from its statutory protections.)
The history of  home care workers is not just an unstudied chapter in US labour
history, it is also central to the histories of  both welfare policy and disability
activism in the twentieth century. Indeed, one of  the most impressive qualities of
Boris and Klein’s writing is the effortlessness with which they navigate home
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care work’s historical location at the intersection of  federal labour law’s racialised
and gendered exclusions, the paternalistic disciplinary logic of  the welfare state,
the “rise of  a vast medical-industrial complex,” the precaritisation of  labour and
the “precariousness of  the labor movement,” the emergence of  the disability
rights movement, the crisis of  domestic labour, and the social transformations of
the working and middle classes made possible by both post-1965 immigration
and by systemic racial inequality. For Boris and Klein, the history of  home care
is not adjunct to the history of  work, industry, and the state in the twentieth cen-
tury US; instead the story of  those who “labor in private spaces meeting individ-
ual needs” (5) is central to the political economy of  American capitalism. As
Boris and Klein write in the introduction, the lives of  home care workers “tell us
much about the shifting relations between home and market, state and family.”
Boris and Klein’s analysis of  home care benefits from a deeply nuanced
understanding of  labour, political economy, and social movement history. The
struggles of  workers and their unions to win collective bargaining in a legal con-
text which often denied that what care workers did was even “work” overlapped,
sometimes messily, with the history of  welfare rights activism and the disability
rights movement. These histories wind up being incredibly important to the his-
tory of  the US labour movement, especially to large, important unions like the
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the American Federation of
State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). But, as with so much else
about home care, they have been largely unchronicled and understudied. To give
“home care a history” then, means, for Boris and Klein, unspooling these con-
nections and exploring their significance, both for the present conjuncture and
for the historiography of  the welfare state through the perspective of  care work.
This rich work will prove invaluable for scholars and activists concerned with
caring labour, labour feminisms, the state, and the connections between disability
activism and the low-wage labour of  women of  colour. One opportunity for
subsequent historical inquiry to engage with Boris and Klein’s text lies in the
ways Caring for America’s understandable (and productive) focus on the state
makes the history it offers nevertheless largely a national one. As Boris and
Klein are certainly aware, the migrant histories of  many of  the women who have
performed caring work trace transnational flows of  labour and capital across the
globe. Future research might therefore build on Boris and Klein’s path-breaking
contribution to the history of  caring work by using transnational and compara-
tive methodologies to offer historical accounts of  home care’s relationship to
global histories of  migration, displacement, gender, and race.
NOTES
1 Harris v. Quinn, 573 USA, 2014. 
2 Michelle Chen, “Judge Rules That Home Care Workers are Really Just
Book Reviews 127
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‘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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Eileen Boris and Jennifer Klein, Caring for America: Home Health Workers in the Shadow of the Welfare State (Oxford: Oxford University Press: 2012).

 ,  

EDITORIAL NOTE
This issue of  Left History is a critique of  class, race, and space as well as the economic
and technological parameters which uphold them. Our first piece deconstructs the
interplay between technocratic middle class and hegemonic projects in the backdrop
of  transnational economic integration. This is followed by an article that traces the
struggle for representation in historical memory and commemoration of  nation-
hood, and is succeeded by accounts of  grassroots resistances aimed at confronting
dominant society’s reluctance to address racial and class injustices. The issue ends
with two scholarly review essays:  the first unravels the nexus between cultural ar-
ticulation and political hegemony, while the second addresses the evolution of  eth-
nology. It is through the analysis of  historically evolving paradigms of  class, race,
and the space they occupy that the underpinnings of  social constructions of  hege-
monies are highlighted.
Our contributors examine the mechanisms behind North American hege-
monic and socio-political conceptualizations of  power. Through the study of  these
categories of  analysis, scholars are faced with the task of  writing the histories of
marginalized groups while simultaneously deconstructing the economic and political
apparatuses that reinforce institutionalized prejudice. Class, race, and space demar-
cations continue to be the focus of  the social sciences. While these critical ap-
proaches are often mentioned as part of  a liberal, traditional research trend, rarely
are they treated as case studies worthy of  exploration. 
On the one hand, Marxist analysis tends to approach race as a by-product
of  the complex economic parameters of  capitalism - race, therefore, is a yielded
paradox embedded within the capitalist state apparatus aimed to mute potential
class cohesion. While on the other, post-structuralists’ engagement with marginal-
ized groups within the paradigms of  biopower tends to link bourgeois sexuality to
institutionalized racisms and prejudices of  the state. The aforementioned critical
approaches can trace and critique the politics of  class, race, and space unveiling the
role of  the state in the orchestration of  various hegemonic projects of  labour sub-
ordination. While some of  the pieces in this issue are centred on deconstructing
such hegemonic projects, other works aim to paint a comprehensive portrait of
grassroots resistances founded on various modes of  representation and historiciza-
tion.
The following pages consider the study of  marginalized groups while pay-
ing considerable attention to the social construction of  class demarcations, racial
categorizations, and space within North America. Historicizing the aforementioned
social constructs is imperative to illuminate how these categories of  marginalization
are structured at the local level through various networks and functions of  landscape
representations and urban planning. The critical study of  these spatial representa-
tions is integral to understanding the pressures arising from attempts to govern
them. Our contributors showcase how the spatial demarcations of  class and race
become legitimized through the institutionalization of  local practices on a govern-
mental level. Thematically, this issue’s articles collectively demonstrate the legit-
imization process of  institutionalized marginalization at continental and,
undoubtedly, global levels.
This issue opens with James Hull’s “Watts Across the Border: Technology
and the Integration of  the North American Economy in the Second Industrial Rev-
olution.” Hull pens the histories of  the economic collaboration of  technocratic
cadres with state intermediaries within the backdrop of  the integration of  American
and Canadian economies. In this piece, Hull posits that the governmental regulatory
practices on either side of  the border helped bolster trade associations’ relationship
with technocracy. Hull showcases the union between expertism and transnational
capital as a collaborative relationship aimed at assessing, diagnosing, and solving
existing and potential technological problems in an effort to maintain the efficiency
and productivity of  cross-border trade associations. The process of  allocating eco-
nomic space for technocracy in an integrated transnational economy raises the ques-
tion of  who deserves spatial recognition on a state level?
While Hull’s piece discusses the efforts of  middle class technocrats making
space for their ambitious endeavours, Robert Teigrob’s work sheds light on the
space allocated for marginalized groups within national histories. In “A Shared
Dilemma: Locating Race in Canadian and American War Stories,” Teigrob focuses
on the often neglected histories of  racialised minorities in war effort commemora-
tions. Is race a solely American dilemma? Highlighting racialized minorities’ struggle
for respect and recognition for war efforts, Teigrob discusses the social animosity
within Canada’s military as it disseminates throughout culture and impacts social
memory and representation.  “A Shared Dilemma” is a comprehensive account of
Canadian War Chronicle’s muting of  racialized communities. Teigrob juxtaposes
this Canadian portrait with the American experience. The exclusivity of  war effort
commemoration space highlights the conditions, under which, memories and iden-
tities are reshaped to serve political purposes within national narratives.
Marginalized groups’ struggle with the existing cultural and social struc-
turing of  class, race, and space demarcations often yields state intervention efforts
as part of  an integration task force. Dustin Galer’s “‘I Make 40 Cents An Hour.
What Do You Make?’ Labour Militancy at CNIB Sheltered Workshops, 1966-1984,”
is a snapshot of  marginalized groups in the Canadian market. Unable to secure em-
ployment, many of  Canada’s disabled population live in poverty, isolation, and neg-
lect. Employment in sheltered workshops attempted to address these issues. Galer
argues that while these workshops were important to many blind Canadians, labour
activists picketed in efforts to dispel segregative spaces for vulnerable populations
and propel them out of  poverty. While Hull’s piece showcases the process of  spatial
allocation within the transnational integration of  economies, Galer brings forth a
piece which discusses labour militancy’s effort to fight against poverty and segre-
gation within the Canadian labour market. 
In “Mexico City in Time and Space,” Kevin Chrisman reviews the works
of  Ageeth Sluis, Deco Body, Deco City: Female Spectacle and Modernity in Mexico City,
1900-1939, Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo, I Speak of  the City: Mexico City at the Turn of  the
Twentieth Century, and Claudia Agostoni, Monuments of  Progress: Modernization and Public
Health in Mexico City, 1876-1910, in an essay comparing historians’ approaches to
studying the spatial and temporal positioning of  Mexico City. Similar to the works
of  Hull, Teigrob, and Galer; Chrisman’s review considers social constructions of
class demarcations, racial categorizations, and space to assess the cultural hegemony
that shapes Mexico City. Chrisman’s piece highlights the interplay between various
classes vested in the production of  culture in an effort to (re)enforce hegemonic
projects of  transnational capitalism.
Our issue concludes with a discussion surrounding identity and the process
of  ethnogeny. Christoph Laugs’s “An Ongoing Ethnogenesis? Examining the Evo-
lution of  the Métis,” analyzes the works of  George Colpitts, Pemmican Empire: Food,
Trade, and the Last Bison Hunts in the North American Plains, 1780-1882 and Gerhard J.
Ens and Joe Sawchuk, From New Peoples to New Nations: Aspects of  Métis History and
Identity from the Eighteenth to the Twenty-First Centuries. Laugs’s discussion highlights the
debate surrounding the evolution of  the Métis. While Teigrob’s comprehensive por-
trait of  the struggle for representation triggers a discussion of  the making of  his-
torical memory, Laugs’s work sheds light on the dialogue between identity formation
within national narratives as it serves larger hegemonic projects. Ultimately, our
contributors emphasize the importance of  exploring the economic and technolog-
ical frameworks that create and enforce class demarcations, racial and ethnological
categorizations, as well as spatial dimensions.
The editors of  Left History wish to thank Erin Dolmage and Mary Franks
for serving as editors for the past four years. Erin and Mary’s devotion to the journal
cannot be understated and we wish them all the best in their future endeavours.  We
would like to introduce Kate Barker, Marlee Couling, and Maximilian Smith as new
editors. Kate is a National Magazine Award-winning writer and editor, and a ses-
sional instructor at Ryerson University’s School of  Journalism. Kate is a doctoral
candidate at York University, researching the 1918 influenza pandemic in Canada.
Marlee is a doctoral candidate at York who specializes in early modern social history,
with an emphasis on gender and crime. Marlee’s research focuses on plebeian female
alliances in England and France. Maximilian is pursuing a doctorate at York Uni-
versity. Max’s research focuses on the development and management of  psychiatric
institutions in nineteenth-century Toronto and Winnipeg. Kate, Max and Marlee
are welcomed additions to Left History.


Editorial Note

Hull, James

Watts Across the Border: Technology and the Integration of the North American Economy in the Second Industrial Revolution

Chrisman, Kevin

Mexico City in Space and Time

Parrott, Zach

agency and historical processes.
NOTES
1 Quoting Methodist minister Peter Jones, Donald Smith points out that a “com-
mon mistake is, that the Messissauga [sic] Indians are distinct from the Ojibways,
whereas they are a part of  that nation, and speak the same language” (Jones qtd.
xvi). British Canadians applied the label “Mississauga” to Anishinabeg (or
Ojibwe-speakers) living on the north shore of  Lake Ontario in the eighteenth
and nineteenth century. The misnomer – much like “Indian” itself  – remains in
circulation.
2 Walter James Hoffman, The Mide’wiwin or “Grand Medicine Society” of  the Ojibwa:
Seventh Annual Report of  the Bureau of  Ethnology to the Secretary of  the Smithsonian
Institution, 1885-1886 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1891), 157
– 58, 164 – 65, 237, 255.
Brittany Luby
Laurentian University
Bruce Erickson, Canoe Nation : Natur e,  Race,  and the Making of  a
Canadian Icon (Vancouver: University of  British Columbia Press, 2014).
252 pp. $32.95 Paperback.
Bruce Erickson’s Canoe Nation: Nature, Race, and the Making of  a Canadian Icon is a
thorough exploration of  the most mythologized vehicle in Canadian history. The
canoe, so often touted as an embodiment of  the nation itself, is stripped of  its
bark and thoroughly inspected. Erickson tracks the canoe from an Indigenous
vehicle of  necessity and ingenuity, through to sustained contact and its use in
European economic and colonial subjugation. Once rendered obsolete by the
steady march of  capitalism, the canoe was reimagined as a recreational vehicle,
and its role in the creation of  Canada was fetishised to the extent that its inher-
ent value became inextricably linked to its mythology.
It is this use of  the canoe as a performance of  nationhood that I find
most compelling about Erickson’s work. Nationhood, regardless of  the reasons
for its genesis, requires a certain amount of  imagination to be sustained. (See:
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities.) In any examination of  a national iden-
tity—and we may want to put that prickly phrase in quotes—this is a given. In
Canada, a country of  absurdly large proportions and obversely minimal popula-
tion, this is all we have. Since the idea of  Canada has needed a carrier, that vehi-
cle has been the canoe.
Erickson explores the nation via canoe in four chapters. The first exam-
ines pedagogical canoes and the often smoothed over versions of  national histo-
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ry. He then outlines the rise of  recreational canoeing and wilderness travel (spoil-
er alert, there is more about rods and guns than just fishing and hunting), before
tackling the whiteness of  the wilderness (or the whitening of  it in order to exer-
cise authority over it). He paddles home by discussing canoeing as political
activism, before concluding with a discussion of  the possibility for a politics of
the canoe.
Erickson’s strongest arguments come out of  the idea of  the “forced
intimacy” between settlers and Indigenous peoples (52-53). Following an analysis
of  Foucault, and positing that power is not imposed but rather flows through
people, Erickson demonstrates how the canoe facilitated bureaucratic tyranny in
early Canada, as well as the establishment of  a surveillance culture that coincided
with biopolitical regulation (59-63). These are themes with which indigenous
people in contemporary Canada remain tragically familiar.
According to Erickson, the canoe allows for the support of  “regimes of
whiteness” that sustain a dominant culture narrative, and relegate Indigenous
people and cultures to tokenism. The white canoeist views Indigenous culture as
archaic, romantic, and antithetical to contemporary Canada. The performance of
canoeing thus reinforces the authority over country, something that was neces-
sary once the canoe became the market’s second choice for resource exploita-
tion. One might go as far as to argue that recreational canoeing and the idea of
Canada as a nation are intertwined.
While the work may have benefited from further engaging Indigenous
perspectives in moving toward a politics of  the canoe—the dual canoe analogy
of  the Two-Row Wampum remains a powerful political tool today—Erickson
does an extraordinary job in pulling apart the ways in which the canoe is appro-
priated as a symbol of  national culture and identity. The ubiquitous lovemaking
in a canoe makes an appearance, but is accompanied by a refreshing and
thought-provoking queering of  the canoe (196). By queering the canoe and mov-
ing away from a look at the politics of  the future, Erickson provides a powerful
revelation: “Thinking through a politics of  the canoe without a future means
rethinking nature so that it is not bent toward the utility of  power” (197).
In the face of  the seemingly immortal Great Man practice of  history,
Erickson’s deconstruction of  how the canoe occupies, or rather facilitates the
occupation of, Canada’s founding mythos is essential reading.
Zach Parrott
University of  Ottawa
Kathryn Magee Labelle, Dispersed  But  Not Dest royed :  A Histo r y  of  the
Se ven teenth-Centur y  Wendat  Peop l e (Vancouver: University of  British
Columbia Press, 2013). 288 pp. $32.95 Paperback.
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Bruce Erickson, Canoe Nation: Nature, Race, and the Making of a Canadian Icon (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2014).

Sandlos, John

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-
114 Left History
tario. An engaging and powerful story, Angus takes his readers to the front lines of
the grassroots protest movement against the dump, recounting how ordinary citi-
zens transformed themselves into accomplished activists in response to a significant
environmental threat to their land. In broader terms, the book provides a fascinating
case study of  the kind of  coalition politics that emerged so frequently during the
Common Sense Revolution, in this case environmentalists, farmers, First Nations,
general citizens, and political allies in Toronto all able to resist collectively the idea
that northern Ontario’s abandoned industrial landscapes could be used as a garbage
dump. 
The book also provides an important rebuttal to McGuinty’s memoir
Trashed, which almost hysterically labels the anti-dump protesters as environmental
terrorists. Angus, by contrast, draws out the slow evolution of  the movement from
letter writing campaigns to decidedly non-violent road and rail blockades. He pro-
vides vivid memories of  everything from the massive community meals to how
tense moments with police were broken through close community ties (in one case
protest leader Terry Graves managed to diffuse a standoff  by striking up a conver-
sation about roots singer Fred Eaglesmith with a local police officer). For anyone
interested in the many factors (and quirky moments) that make a protest movement
successful, Angus’ book provides a valuable account about how to motivate and
maintain a grassroots coalition in the face of  massive and powerful external pres-
sure. 
More than a personal history of  the protest movement, Unlikely Radicals
also provides a strong indictment of  the technical arguments in favour of  the
Adams’ Mine dump proposal. Angus has a knack for boiling down complex tech-
nical debates, using plain language to strip away some of  the bureaucratic language
that often accompanies environmental reviews of  these projects. He explains that,
unlike purpose-built landfills, the Adams Mine would not have a reliable liner to
contain contaminated water that might drain out of  the site. Instead, the proponents
relied on the concept of  hydraulic containment, the theory that the mine would not
leak from the mine because it could only flow in rather than out of  the pits. The
anti-dump coalition managed to mobilize independent experts, with university-based
experts suggesting that the mine would indeed leak, and that the proposal to treat
contaminated water for only 100 years was unrealistic because modern garbage can
be a source of  pollution for ten times that amount of  time. Even if  the Ministry of
the Environment approved the project in a split decision in 1998, Angus’ account
of  the process provides a valuable insight into the way environmental assessment
processes sometimes ram projects through based on the advice of  consulting firms
who have every interest in keeping the project proponents (i.e., the customer) sat-
isfied. 
Unlikely Radicals is not a scholarly book, nor was it intended to be. How-
ever, Angus does, to his credit, contextualize the Adams Mine protest in terms of
the environmental justice movement (which revolves around the idea that hazardous
115Book Reviews
waste sites are disproportionately situated next to communities comprised of  racial
minorities or the poor) and the more recent concept of  sacrifice zones (areas that
are severely degraded with pollution to serve the interests of  industry with no regard
for the people that live there). Herein lies my only complaint: Angus could have
provided a bit more of  a comparative dimension to the book, analyzing how the
Adams Mine fight fits with, or is distinct from, other well-documented struggles
against toxic waste dumping throughout North America. This is a minor quibble,
however, as Angus’ story is hardly narrow in scope. His account of  the Adams Mine
controversy is fascinating and significant, bound to hold any reader with an interest
in environmental politics, protest movements, or waste management issues. 
John Sandlos
Memorial University of  Newfoundland
Stephen Azzi, Reconc ilable  Di f fer ences :  A Histo r y  of  Canada-US Rela ti ons
(Oxford University Press, 2014). 320 pp. $62.95 Paperback.
Stephen Azzi’s Reconcilable Differences: A History of  Canada-US Relations grapples with
the evolving relationship between Canada and the United States from the beginning
of  the American Revolution through to the present-day. Azzi focuses on some of
the parallel social and cultural movements throughout the period. By directing the
reader towards a number of  political, economic, and military realities, Reconcilable
Differences offers a concise account of  Canadian-American relations.
As Azzi explains in his preface, four ideas provide the backbone to his
study. Azzi contends that the Canada-US border has always been fluid and that the
border itself  did not stop the free movement of  people and ideas for much of  their
history. As such, Azzi asserts that to understand the histories of  these two distinct
countries individually requires a background of  them both. Azzi sees the Canadian-
American relationship differently from region to region. For example, Azzi explains
that while Canada and the United States were warring in the Niagara peninsula from
1812 to 1814, residents of  New Brunswick and Maine experienced a relatively
peaceful relationship with no fighting in the area. Crucially, however, Reconcilable Dif-
ferences sees the Canadian-American relationship as complex and not easily explained;
there is neither one rule nor practice that defines the widely varying or similar in-
tricacies of  this relationship.  Finally, while Azzi acknowledges that political devel-
opments are critical to understanding Canada-US relations, other factors must be
considered to uncover the dynamic ways in which this relationship has evolved. 
Despite acknowledging that Canadians often identify themselves as “not
American” or “better than American,” Azzi asserts that the similarities between Canada
and the United States far outweigh these sentiments. (261) He argues that the Loy-
alists who came to British North America in the wake of  the American Revolution
were far more American than British. Consequently, loyalist identity was mytholo-


Charlie Angus, Unlikely Radicals: The Story of the Adams Mine Dump War (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2013).

Peterson, J.E.

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-
129Book Reviews
Farsi notes the general classification of  Oman as a rentier state but he also seeks to
locate the social contract between ruler and ruled within the concept of  shura, an
Arabic word usually translated as “consultation.” Al-Farsi starts with two basic
premises. First, he contends that Oman is the only country that has maintained
shura throughout its history. Second, he discerns that the present Sultanate is tran-
sitioning smoothly from “traditional shura” (the role of  religious and tribal notables
in selecting and legitimating imams, Oman’s religious cum secular leaders, throughout
most of  the Islamic period until near the present) to “current shura” (the institution
by the modern state of  first appointed and then elected consultative councils).
His opening chapters on the concept of  democratization in the Arab
world and the Omani context are somewhat disappointing as they add little original
and display a rather lackadaisical use of  sources. But Al-Farsi reaches his stride in
the final three chapters that form the heart of  the book. He conducted extensive
interviews with thirty Omanis and divided these into three equal groups of  respon-
dents based principally on their position or role in society. He posits as three distinct
models regarding the role and importance of  shura in Oman, and the interviews il-
lustrate differences in attitudes about what shura means today and how it affects the
future evolution of  Omani politics.
The first of  these models is the “traditional” one with respondents drawn
from religious institutions and backgrounds. The conception of  shura to this seg-
ment is inextricably linked to principles within the Ibadi sect of  Islam (to which
perhaps one-half  of  all Omanis adhere), although some respondents claim pre-Is-
lamic roots. Citing the role of  shura in the selection of  Ibadi imams, these respon-
dents argued that the principle of  shura was necessary to legitimate any government
and that the current government in Oman fulfilled the requirements. Their view of
contemporary shura was that it remained faithful to the religion-based requirements
of  traditional shura even as participation was expanded.
Next is a “top-down” model led by the government and based its creation
of  first the appointed State Consultative Council and then that organ’s replacement
by the Shura Council, which was gradually transformed into a completely elected
body. Complementing the Shura Council is the State Council, an appointed body
of  senior notables. The ten respondents discussed in this category are government
officials who express the view that the opening of  the tribal horizons of  Omani
society requires a patient and gradual approach. The continuation and adaptation
of  shura is necessary because it “is seen as the cornerstone of  the legitimacy and
authority of  the state.” (90) They contend that it was possible for the state to adopt
some modern democratic institutions (elections and parliamentary bodies) because
of  their commonalities with shura. The innovation lies in the expansion of  the shura
process from a traditional approach (which restricted participation to civic and re-
ligious notables) to a new approach incorporating mass participation and the elec-
tion of  representatives from throughout society. There was also an attempt to
perceive harmony between the two types of  shura by equating the appointed State
130 Left History
Council with a traditional council of  the elite while the Shura Council represents
the modern form.
The third “bottom-up” model represents the views of  younger, educated
Omanis who find themselves faced with the necessity of  squaring traditional norms
and practices with the appeal of  democracy. Al-Farsi perceives consensus regarding
the utility of  adopting some aspects of  democratic principles to Oman but with
the distinction that the equal separation of  powers in Western states between exec-
utive, judicial, and legislative branches is not applicable in Oman where the separate
authorities converge at the ruling level. These Omanis appear to see no conflict be-
tween traditional and contemporary shura although they share the concern with the
other groups about “tribal fanaticism” resulting in a lower standard of  elected mem-
bers to the Shura Council, particularly as many graduates refrain from participa-
tion.
The overall effect of  the study is the convergence of  the three groups’
views that the present system both fulfills Oman’s requirements at present and that
a non-elected ruler is best for the Omani polity. Indeed, Al-Farsi speculates that
“stability in the position of  a ruler in Islam so long as he is found suitable and ca-
pable may suit Middle Eastern societies better than presidential democracies because
the presence of  the social divisions may find open democratic environment a fertile
soil to strengthen their positions above all others, including the national interests.”
(180) As a result, the younger generations seem more likely to seek gradual and con-
trolled evolution within the present system than to seek Western-style democracy.
Their position, therefore, is in close agreement with both the top-down and tradi-
tional segments.
It can certainly be argued that these attitudes reflect the benign atmosphere
of  a rentier state that promises economic prosperity in exchange for political qui-
escence, accompanied by a measure of  paternalism. The Omani protesters inspired
by the Arab spring demanded jobs and an end to corruption while explicitly voicing
their allegiance to the sultan. Still, there is much to be said about an innate Omani
philosophy (mirrored in other Gulf  monarchies) that emphasizes consensus and
harmony over individual rights. Given that Oman’s experiment with a modern state
is less than fifty years old, there probably can be no authoritative answer. But Al-
Farsi clearly has provided valuable substance to ponder.
J.E. Peterson,
www.JEPeterson.net


Sulaiman H. Al-Farsi, Democracy and Youth in the Middle East: Islam, Tribalism, and the Rentier State in Oman (London: I.B. Taurus, 2013).

Bohn, Simone

Asian American neighbourhoods that were decimated in the mid-twentieth cen-
tury with the coming of  the freeways. Due to the particular histories of  Asian
American communities, many of  their neighbourhoods, particularly along the
west coast, were immediately adjacent to downtown areas and thus very suscepti-
ble to gentrification from urban renewal during this period. Avila could have
examined the Chinatowns and other Asian neighbourhoods of  Seattle, Stockton,
and Los Angeles to demonstrate Asian Americans’ strategies of  creative resist-
ance and historic preservation. 
Despite these minor critiques, however, Avila’s The Folkore of  the Freeway
offers a window to the nuanced forms of  resistance to freeway construction
from many activist communities. Threading visual and textual analysis to stories
of  the freeway, Avila gives pause to the notion that black and brown communi-
ties were merely passive victims to the interstate highway system that bulldozed
their neighborhoods decades prior. Most of  all, his work gives scholars and poli-
cymakers alike a more comprehensive view of  urban planning policies and can
perhaps influence the current moment of  “smart” growth policy and highly con-
tested urban gentrification.
NOTES
1 See for example, Jerry Gonzalez, “‘A Place in the Sun’: Mexican Americans,
Race, and the Suburbanization of  Los Angeles, 1940-1980” (Ph.D. diss,
University of  Southern California, 2009) and Josh Sides, L.A. City Limits: African
American Los Angeles from the Great Depression to the Present (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2004).
2 Joseph Bernardo, “From ‘Little Brown Brothers’ to ‘Forgotten Asian
Americans’: Race, Space, and Empire in Filipino Los Angeles (Ph.D. diss,
University of  Washington, 2014).
Joseph Bernardo
Independant Scholar
Jeffrey Rubin and Emma Sokoloff-Rubin, Sustaining Activism. A Brazilian
Women’s Movement and a Father-Daughter Collaboration (Durham: Duke University
Press, 2013). 200 pp. $22.95 Paperback.
Jeffrey Rubin and Emma Sokoloff-Rubin’s Sustaining Activism takes a very close
look at the intimate, multifarious struggles of  individuals deeply committed to
building social movements from the ground up and (what is more difficult) sus-
taining them over time. Thematically and geographically, the book focuses on a
women’s movement spearheaded by female rural workers in the South of  Brazil,
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and their efforts at obtaining and solidifying women’s rights since the beginning
of  the re-democratisation of  Brazil in 1985.
Methodologically, the book is a first-rate ethnographic account of  the
lives and personal objectives of  the leaders of  a social movement. It follows an
essentially inductive path, as the narrative departs from very particular observa-
tions to suggest to the reader, reflections upon bigger issues. From this perspec-
tive, Rubin and Sokoloff-Rubin excel at showing how the lives of  women such as
Gessi Bonês, Vera Fracasso, Ivone Bonês, Mônica Marchesini, and many others,
enable one to understand the obstacles to the creation of  a women’s movement
in a rural setting, as well as the stumbling blocks to its continuity over time. Also
noteworthy is the authors’ long-term commitment to the project. Years upon
years of  intense, meticulously conducted participatory observation, coupled with
the authors’ outstanding capacity of  chronicling events in an enthralling way,
make the reader look forward to the next chapter of  the movement’s leaders’
lives.
From another perspective, along with the book’s primary source of
strength comes a drawback. If  one side of  the coin is the richness of  detail with
which the lives of  the women’s movement in the city of  Ibiraiaras has been
described, the other side is a visible under-theorisation, and a rather timid analy-
sis of  the implications of  the narrative for social movement theory and analysis.
For instance, how does the power struggle amongst movement leaders – such as
the one between Vera and her acquaintances – affect its direction and dynamic?
What are the main sources of  contention in the relationship between social
movements and state institutions? Gessi faced a lot of  opposition and criticism
for taking up a governmental position. What did Gessi’s colleagues who blatantly
disapproved of  her choice want the movement to accomplish, and how? Did
these very same colleagues rethink their position after the friendly mayor lost the
election and Gessi’s progressive secretariat was dismantled? In other words, what
are the gains and disadvantages of  movements deeply involved in demand-mak-
ing but which are reluctant to participate in public policy-making? How do the
long-term financial considerations of  individuals leading social movements –
revealed, for example, in Gessi’s struggle to pay her bills after so many years of
volunteer work – affect the very survival of  these movements? What do the
achievements of  one group of  women – such as the one under examination,
which was led by white women, some of  whom, as was the case of  Mônica, own
land – imply for other women’s groups and the broader women’s movement in
Brazil? Finally, why are socially-progressive individuals, who seemed to have ded-
icated a big portion of  their lives to attain gender equity, so timid to accept (or
even talk about) the rights of  sexual minorities? Why did not the authors ask
other interviewees (one by one, in a private moment) about their thoughts and
feelings regarding the relationship between Ivone and Vania? In this sense, what
are the drivers of  the “silence and speech” that the authors detected? These are
Left History 18.270
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Jeffrey Rubin and Emma Sokoloff-Rubin, Sustaining Activism. A Brazilian Women’s Movement and a Father-Daughter Collaboration (Durham: Duke University Press, 2013).

Solomon, Nassisse

breathes and exudes knowledge of  the field. The great merit of  his book is to
finally open a poorly studied field in Canadian history. His history of  the CP is a
provocative breath of  fresh air in a field, which, for too long, was locked up in a
dusty closet. 
Serge Miville
York University
Francis Peddie, Young, Well-Educated, and Adaptable: Chilean Exiles in Ontario and
Quebec, 1973 -2010 (Winnipeg: University of  Manitoba Press, 2014). 208 pp.
$27.95 Paperback.
Historian Francis Peddie’s monograph Young, Well-Educated and Adaptable: Chilean
Exiles in Ontario and Quebec, 1973 -2010 (Winnipeg: University of  Manitoba Press,
2014) asserts that in prolonged instances, the exiled will inevitably find “home”
again, albeit a new one. Largely a qualitative study centred on the oral historical
narratives of  21 Chilean forced migrants and two others intimately connected to
the community through either activism and or other service provision, Peddie’s
analysis successfully intertwines the political, the national and social circum-
stances under which the 6,000 forced migrants that arrived between 1973-78 had
an influential role “in establishing the collective identity of  their national group
in the country of  refuge” (7). The largest cohort for more than a decade, Peddie
argues that this group of  forced migrants embody a distinct Chilean-Canadian
identity; distinct from those Chilean migrants who came before and after them. 
Peddie’s work is unique from other scholars on this particular period of
Chilean migration to Canada in that he rejects the influence of  Edward Said and
his conceptualisation “of  exile as a permanent, untreatable wound” which “has
influenced the discourse of  academics, returnees, and exile groups,” leaving little
discussion room in the dominant narrative for other observers, such as himself,
“who find evidence of  positive, albeit unintended consequences of  forced
migration” (11). Subsequently, forty-years after their migration to Canada, due to
distance in time and space from the country that fashioned their self-image,
Peddie places an emphasis on the inevitable “metaphorical scar tissue for the
wound of  exile,” as he argues that, his subjects are past the label of  exile and
transcend unitary identifiers (152-53). Life in Canada inescapably gives “rise to a
new identity the chileno/a-and-something else: Canadian, Quebecois (e) Latin
American, exile, immigrant, desexiliado, retornado, doctor, teacher, baker….”
(152-153). 
Admittedly a regional history, Peddie focuses on the lived experiences
of  Chilean migrants in the two distinct Canadian provinces of  Ontario and
Quebec, with a particular focus on the metropoles of  Toronto and Montreal.
Regional variances and commonalities in the lobby for migrants and the settle-
Left History 18.282
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ment process are addressed. However, due to logistical constraints, Peddie was
unable to conduct interviews in other large Canadian Chilean epicenters such as
Vancouver and Saskatoon, leaving his narrative unable to penetrate deeper into
identifying any possibility of  a pan-Canadian Chilean identity or variances. On
the national level, Peddie effectively demonstrates how the controversial admis-
sion of  people from the wrong side of  the Cold War ideological divide had a
lasting effect on Canadian immigration and refugee policy, establishing a prece-
dent for the admission of  political exiles over the decades that followed, includ-
ing “the admission of  left-wing Argentinians after 1976, as well as Salvadorians
and Guatemalans fleeing right-wing regimes” (3, 154). Moreover, Peddie concise-
ly addresses the height of  the Canadian divide regarding the humanitarian
Chilean crisis between September and November 1973, highlighting two forma-
tive occurrences “in the history of  the Chilean exile community in Canada: the
coup itself, and the establishment of  a special program to assist in the resettle-
ment of  Chileans fleeing the military regime” (57-58).
Both by nature and by design, this book opens as transnational history,
as all histories of  migrations should. The proper geographical and historical con-
textualisation of  this particular group’s migration trajectory is the strongest ele-
ment of  his analysis. Peddie begins his study with an overview of  the September
11, 1973 coup d’etat which precipitated the mass exodus of  over 200,000 Chileans
dispersed worldwide to escape the application of  both direct and indirect repres-
sive measures by Augusto Pinochet’s military regime (5). By chronicling the
domestic and foreign political forces at play in the removal of  the left-leaning
coalition parties collectively known as the Unidad Popular (Popular Unity; UP)
under the leadership of  President Salvadore Allende and tracing the rise of  the
military junta under Augusto Pinochet, Peddie effectively situates the Canadian
political and social milieu under which Chilean forced migrants constructed an
identity premised on political activism. 
In this narrative, Peddie consciously uses the term ‘forced migrants’
versus ‘refugees’ to accurately characterize his subjects, due to the political and
legal implications of  the respective terms (8). Furthermore, Peddie’s narrative of
an exiled peoples with admirable agency and means forces the reader to reimag-
ine steadfast archetypes of  refugees that exist in Canadian society, as the exiles in
this narrative buck the trend of  representation as the poor downtrodden migrant
seeking refuge in Canada. In fact, he surmises that many of  the people from the
exile wave that he interviews and examines display similar demographic and pro-
fessional features which in the words of  the Canadian Minister of  Manpower
and Immigration in 1973 made them “young, well-educated and adaptable peo-
ple” (3). Peddie further argues that the exceptional skill set of  the admitted
group of  migrants was not coincidental but rather a reflection of  Canadian
immigration policy at the time, as “the exiles were admitted to Canada because
of  their perceived ability to adapt and contribute to the economic and social life
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Francis Peddie, Young, Well-Educated, and Adaptable: Chilean Exiles in Ontario and Quebec, 1973 -2010 (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2014).

Smith, Susan L.

of  the country without posing a threat to national security, which was a key con-
sideration in immigration policy during the Cold War” (3). This identification is a
fundamental element to understand the distinct Chilean identity that he weaves
throughout his narrative. 
Where Peddie aptly situates and contextualises the regional Canadian
experience, he fails to adequately integrate the underlying narrative of  torture
and fear from repression that shaped the lives of  his subjects. Consequently,
over the course of  the narrative, the question of  his book becomes less about
the violence and imminent fear, which precipitated the exile and more about
migrants living ordinary lives in two distinct regions of  Canada. The danger is
that, if  one is to read his book without the context of  the rest of  the available
literature, there is a gap in understanding the enduring scar of  exile he speaks of.
Overall, by reinterpreting the meaning of  prolonged exile and broadening the
scope of  citizenship and belonging, Peddie’s works is a meaningful scholarly
contribution to the field of  Canadian History, and should be of  particular inter-
est to all scholars of  migration. 
Nassisse Solomon
Western University
Jenna M. Loyd, Health Rights Are Civil Rights: Peace and Justice Activism in Los
Angeles, 1963-1978 (Minneapolis: University of  Minnesota Press, 2014). 336
pp. $25.00 Paperback.
Health Rights Are Civil Rights: Peace and Justice Activism in Los Angeles, 1963-1978
provides an inspiring history of  radical activism in the 1960s and 1970s in the
urban West. This study of  social movements and the city is written by urban
geographer and public health specialist, Jenna M. Loyd. Loyd demonstrates the
connections between health promotion, peace activism, welfare rights, and the
fight for civil rights. Drawing on archival sources, oral histories and secondary
sources from a range of  academic fields, she presents a complex story of  body
politics and American social movements during the Cold War. Ultimately, the
book documents a compelling record of  radicalism in Los Angeles.
One of  the greatest strengths of  the book is Loyd’s attention to local
stories and community activism. Like other scholars of  social movements, she
makes the case that ordinary people propelled the struggle for social justice.
Although references to well-known figures like the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr. and Malcolm X do appear in the narrative, the bulk of  the history that
Loyd documents is about the efforts of  local people and their connections to
national social struggles. For example, she discusses the free clinic movement as
it played out in Los Angeles. Radical health professionals from groups like the
Medical Committee created this movement for Human Rights, Physicians For
Left History 18.284
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Social Responsibility, and Psychologists for Social Action. In Los Angeles, the
Black Panthers, the Brown Berets, and the Peace and Freedom Party established
free clinics. She also situates the story of  the African American fight for new
health care facilities in L.A. within the context of  the 1965 Watts uprising. She
emphasizes that advocates for improved health care saw such provisions as part
of  wider efforts to improve urban living conditions. 
As someone who grew up in Los Angeles County, I was fascinated by
the place of  Los Angeles in the wider history of  social movements in this era. In
particular, Loyd shows how Angelenos built alliances across a range of  social
issues and linked their local struggles to national organisations, like the National
Association for the Advancement of  Colored People (NAACP) and the National
Welfare Rights Organization. They linked the fight for health rights for the
urban poor to a critique of  the militarized state. 
One of  the most interesting chapters in the book examines the coali-
tion-building of  the Los Angeles branch of  Women Strike for Peace (WSP). The
WSP began in 1961 as a group opposed to nuclear testing and soon its efforts
expanded to include opposition to the U.S.-Vietnam War. The WSP argued that
war produced impoverished urban living conditions. California received twenty-
five percent of  all defense spending in the 1960s and 1970s, and Los Angeles
was the number one center for defense contracts. According to Loyd, such mili-
tarisation undermined domestic well-being and contributed to racial and class
inequality because government resources were directed at war-making rather
than health and well-being. As a result, WSP members in Los Angeles worked
with welfare rights groups and civil rights organisations, such as the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress of  Racial
Equality (CORE). They engaged in cross-class, interracial organising in support
of  Chicano/a rights, black welfare mothers, and draft counseling in working
class neighbourhoods. 
Health Rights Are Civil Rights is a refreshing reminder of  the history of
radical protests in the West; however, as with most studies, there are some limita-
tions. Despite the title, the book does not focus on the history of  health
activism. Instead, Loyd tries to demonstrate the social roots of  illness and health
inequalities through attention to a wide range of  issues, including welfare, jobs,
poverty, housing, hospitals, reproductive rights, child care, police brutality, war,
state violence, property taxes, and the environment. This ambitious approach to
understanding health status is commendable, but ultimately Loyd tries to do too
much and the text moves too far from the topic of  health. She covers major
issues, but her efforts are diminished if  we lose the overall point of  what they
reveal about the politics of  health. In addition, the writing sometimes lacks clari-
ty because of  too much jargon.
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Jenna M. Loyd, Health Rights Are Civil Rights: Peace and Justice Activism in Los Angeles, 1963-1978 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014).

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