Garb does an excellent job of placing art produced by female artists within the context of the institutional history of the Union des Femmes Peintres et Sculpteurs. She explains how this organization relates to the work women artists produced and that the Union provided a much needed exhibition venue for women artists. Especially interesting is Garb's work on female nudes that women exhibited in the Salon des Femmes and the types of nudes that women artists produced for this specific context.

This book gives the reader a view of the Union soldier from both a technical and human perspective. Profusely illustrating the arms and accoutrements of the fighting man, it provides details of the human side of a soldiers life, which effectively enhances one's understanding of this terrible conflict. The book is suited for both the knowledgable student of the Civil War and the neophyte. The high quality of the illustrations and the human details are revealing and accurate portals to a greater appreciation for the sacrifice a generation made to preserve the Union.

One of the best books I have read during the past years. As the only Western psychiatrist in Russia, I was very impressed by the most accurate analysis of the author about the Russian mind and soul. This book is a must for everyone with a genuine interest in understanding past and present Russia and Russians.

A forced exile from Leningrad who went on to live in New York and New England, and teach at Mount Holyoke College, Joseph Brodsky is a serious poet--a brilliant self-translator of his own often brilliant poems--the National Poet Laureate under Clinton--and a man who advocated putting poetry books rather than Bibles in hotes drawers. Well I'm not sure one can find infinite solace or religious consolation proper in this work (which was, if not the last, then among the last of Brodsky's works--with many of the poems written in the mid-nineties shortly before his death in his fifties), one will find moral guidance at its non-preachy best. Like other poets, Brodsky writes of love and loss and the end of the century (one of the half-rhyming translated poems is entitled "fin de siecle"), but he does so with a certain nobility, a certain nongrandiose majesty that lifts him, without any display of effort on his part, to the ranks of the very finest poets ever. Unlike fellow exile Vladimir Nabokov, for example, who seems always to be arguing, thinking about arguing, or making a flourish of having no need to argue, for his posthumous recognition--and whose works, translated by his son, always seem a bit overwritten--Brodsky's poems read fresh and direct in his own translations. And yet, as with the greats of the Russian literary legacy (Chekov's characters are the subject of one poem), we are reminded in reading Brodsky that story-telling and poetry have reached peaks out of the purview of those who cannot appreciate say Pushkin in the original. Observation is a kind of translation, and there is the opposite problem, or rather tendency, of Brodsky's view of America (like Nabokov's) having something strangely quaint and distorted about it--as if strip malls could provide Americans with something more than the generic backdrop against which the exile spins his reveries and measures his memories. It is strange to see the archetypal nonexotic of America made strange through the exile's eyes. We must be grateful for Brodsky for taking the time to translate his own works. In this volume Brodsky laments the passing of time, the aging of lovers, the encroaching of death--he captures long-vanished armies in his poetic net, advises his daughter on where to look for him once he is gone. There is an uncompromising realism in him that is both frightening and refreshing. I thought "Clouds"--"lighter than the body/better than the soul"--one of the best poems ever written--or should I say translated.

Excellent collection of essays which deal with the chaos and order dealing with turbulence of the early five year plan. For all scholars of the period these essays are must. The approach is that of working a history from below. Missing from the essays however is a chronology or keyword reference for less knowledgable readers. Most interesting is Lewin's essay on class which avoids much of the vulgar Marxist and narrow Weberian definitions of class. Highlighting the political and cultural definitions of class and the process in which they are transformed from the proletariat into Soviet workers. Otherwise, a class in power into a statistical catagory. And the transformations wrought from the new peasant "immigrants" set against the established worker.

Reviewed by Johanna Granville, Clemson University, Clemson, SC USA

Vladimir Andrle's book, A Social History of Twentieth-Century Russia covers roughly the period from the regime of Tsar Alexander III to the beginning of Gorbachev's leadership. Andrle seeks to present the social context of Russian history. He incorporates peasant customs, family life, and folktales in his historical narrative. As he states in his preface, most Russian history texts have focused primarily on political leaders, doctrines, affairs of state, and economic policies. According to Andrle, the field lacks an introductory text on Russian social history mainly because "in Russia developments over the past hundred years have been more obviously politically driven than in the major countries of the West." The Russian people have lived under state regimes that did not permit much room for social movements independent of the state. Thus Andrle's goal is to "offer a synthesis of recent specialist studies written on "social" or "from-below" themes. He believes that the early 1900s, the 1930s, and the 1960s constitute the historical landmarks of social change in Russia. Rather than focusing exclusively on social history, however, the author explores the linkages between Russian society and government policies, and examines the ways in which society shaped the outcomes of those policies. In his first chapter, Andrle explains the "social estates" (soslovie) system, which consisted of the nobility, the merchantry, the intelligentsia, clergy, and peasantry. According to Andrle, the merchantry "had an image problem in Russian culture;" the merchant was at the bottom of the rung. The merchant (kupets) was seen as greedy, materialistic, dishonest, and most often Jewish or "semi-Asiatic." Russian peasants, workers, and intellectuals were naturally suspicious of anyone who had too much material abundance--as if abundance in itself was somehow immoral. There was a pervasive belief among Russian peasants and workers that if someone had more possessions than his neighbors, he had acquired these things illegally, and that he was unconcerned for the welfare of his neighbors. The intelligentsia in particular despised the merchantry for being too conservative and immoral. Andrle claims that "the intelligentsia, rather than an entrepreneurial bourgeoisie, defined the values of progress" in the society that began to put tsarist autocracy under pressure. Moreover, the intelligentsia did not think the merchants challenged the autocracy enough. Thus it was up to the intelligentsia to be the moral voice and check the autocracy. Andrle cogently argues that the intelligentsia, both Westernizers and Slavophiles, expressed strongly anti-business views, and that the intelligentsia, perhaps because of this persuasion, had more influence over the tsarist government than the merchantry did. "After 1905," he states, "such views gained their articulate proponents, but they remained on the margins of mainstream social opinion." In this respect there was an affinity between the state bureaucracy and its usual critics (the intelligentsia). The tsarist state consequently never believed it should promote free capitalist enterprise. Drawing on Andrle's ideas, one might suggest that this same negative attitude toward the business class may still lurk beneath the surface in Russian society today. It may also have played a role in the failure of glasnost and perestroika under Gorbachev. Just as the "kupets" was perceived as corrupt, so also perhaps is the new Russian capitalist. Ordinary Russian citizens, hearing in the press (thanks to glasnost), about prosperous fellow citizens may have resented these more fortunate compatriots, especially if they themselves had tried but failed to succeed in Gorbachev's economy. Others were not interested in getting ahead. They simply viewed prosperity (monetary wealth) as fostering materialism, hence lack of spirituality. And glasnost allowed more expression of this negative attitude toward rich Russian quasi-capitalists and the new social ills that appeared to accompany them. The increased exposure of faults in Russian society may also have inspired in some a fear of taking risks and thus discouraged entrepreneurship. The more citizens read about corruption, theft, and murder (especially of bank managers), the more these citizens began to believe that their society was in a state of moral crisis. Poverty may have seemed a safer alternative to wealth and burglary. Andrle devotes a chapter to the role of the peasantry, first in sociological theory, and then specifically in Russian literature and historiography. The Russian intelligentsia for the most part perceived the peasantry as poverty-stricken, culturally backward, and in need of enlightened leadership. This general view was maintained later by Russian Marxist intellectuals like Georgy Plekhanov, Pavel Axelrod, and Vladimir Lenin, who eventually formed a radical movement exhorting the peasants (and workers) to overthrow their oppressors. The chapter also provides an intriguing investigation of the commune, family household, rites of passage, magic, religion, schools, literacy, and folktales. Another chapter deals with Stalinism and society (1929-1953) and identifies Andrle as a revisionist. He believes that the relationship between the Stalinist state and society was "not one simply of oppressor and victim." Andrle refutes the thesis that the Stalinist regime so effectively controlled its population that the outcomes of the regime's policies corresponded closely to their original goals. As he writes: "The people may have had good reasons to fear the repressive machinery of the state, but the fear did not stop them from participating in the public as well as private spheres of life as individuals with their own interests." Andrle assures the reader, however, that, in making this assertion, he does not intend to "sanitize the Stalinist regime" by glossing over the "atrocities committed on countless innocent victims" and highlighting only what some may consider the "trivial" elements of everyday life and government social policy. Indeed, in the process of modernization, Stalin may have broken a few omelettes to make an egg. One shortcoming of this work is the author's apparent failure to consult primary sources, including archival documents. Andrle merely gives a list of suggested (secondary) sources--mostly books without page numbers--at the end of each chapter. His sparse footnotes are also often presented without page numbers. In addition, the book could have been edited more thoroughly, since there are several typographical errors. For the most part, however, this is an absorbing book that would be useful in general graduate and undergraduate courses on Russian history.

The volume's 800 pages and CD-ROM database offer an unparalleled source of historical, multi-national, sectoral, and organization-level data, of critical importance for comparing European unions. While the title is "Trade Unions in Western Europe since 1945" the book's historical reach is much farther, with most country profiles beginning analysis of trade union movements in the late 1800s or before. The authors are to be commended for melding together analyses of social, political, and economic factors with great historical detail. After the historical profile, each country's data is presented in some twenty tables, including: political events, organizational changes, lists of unions/confederations, major dates (particularly foundings/cessations), size distributions, membership and density figures (also by gender), and membership by status group and domain and by economic sector and branch. The book and CD-ROM provide a remarkably comprehensive source for union data.

Madame Chukovskaya's Sofia Petrovna is one of the best examples of Soviet protest literature available to English readers. Her prose style, spare and direct, is marvelously fitting for this story of a Soviet everywoman's loss of faith. Because there is little introspection, the reader is forced to look deeply into why the events in the heroine's life are causing her to go mad. The reflection on the Soviet system which this creates is one of the best ways to study the period about which Chukovskaya wrote. What is particularly moving about this book is the voice Chukovskaya uses to tell her story. It is the most feminine of voices, that of a mother, whose compassion and faith in her son, while conflicting with her identity as a good Soviet citizen, are emotions with which any female reader can relate, or any parent. This short novel is often grouped with A. Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch. The relation between the two books is compelling. One presents the story of those who were senselessly condemned to the gulags; the other recounts the impact of this condemnation on the families and friends left behind. Although this book is not widely read by the American public, I think it one of the most moving stories of Soviet life in the Stalinist era. For this reason, I believe it will continue to be a classic of Soviet literature for many years to come

This is a thorough work; informative and up-to-date. Perfect as a reference work, for any student of Russian culture, beginner or advanced. I found the bibliography extremely useful as well.

This book gives the most complete and colorful history of the IWW that I have ever seen. The combination of personal histories with scholarly writings on the IWW through time makes a truly rich history. I would strongly recommend it for anyone with even a passing interest in the subject.