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The editor announces his retirement and reflects on his longstanding connection with the journal, first as a contributor, then as editor. Expresses appreciation for the work and support of others. Welcomes members of the Canadian Association of Work and Labour Studies to the editorial board as well as incoming editor Sean Cadigan.

The article reviews and comments on the book, "The Fall of the House of Labor: The Workplace, the State, and American Labor Activism, 1865-1925," by David Montgomery.

The article briefly reviews "The Assault on Trade Union Freedoms: From Consent to Coercion Revisited," by Leo Panitch and Donald Swartz, "Downturn: The Origins of the Employers ' Offensive and the Tasks for Socialists," pamphlet by Paul Kellogg, "The Chinese in Canada," by Peter S. Li, "The Politics of Community Services: Immigrant Women, Class and State," by Roxana Ng, "The Bank of Upper Canada," [edited with an introduction] by Peter Baskerville, "Red Moon Over Spain: Canadian Media Reaction to the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939," by Mary Biggar Peck, "Good Girls Bad Girls: Sex Trade Workers and Feminists Face to Face," edited by Laurie Bell, "Work and Labor in Early America," by Stephen Innes, "Paupers and Poor Relief in New York City and Its Rural Environs, 1700-1830," by Robert E. Cray, Jr., "The Paddy Camps: The Irish of Lowell, 1821-1861," by Brian C. Mitchell, "German Workers in Chicago: A Documentary History of Working-Class Culture from 1850 to World War I," edited by Hartmut Keil and John B. Jentz, "Out of the Crucible: Black Steelworkers in Western Pennsylvania, 1875-1980," by Dennis C. Dickerson, " Looking Backward, 1988-1888; Essays on Edward Bellamy," edited by Daphne Patai, "The Loud Silents: Origins of the Social Problem Film," by Kay Sloan, "Writing Red: An Anthology of American Women Writers, 1930-1940," edited by Charlotte Nekola and Paula Rabinowitz, "Equal or Different: Women's Politics, 1800-1914," edited by Jane Rendall, "War, Law, and Labour: The Munitions Acts, State Regulation, and the Unions, 1915-1921," by Gerry R. Rubin, "Marxism and Trade Union Struggle: The General Strike of 1926," by Tony Cliff and Donny Gluckstein, "Work in France: Representations, Meaning, Organization, and Practice," edited by Steven Laurence Kaplan and Cynthia J. Koepp, "The Making of an Insurrection: Parisian Sections and the Gironde," by Morris Slavin, "The Workers' Revolution in Russia, 1917: The View from Below," edited by Daniel H. Kaiser, "International Labour and the Third World: The Making of a New Working Class," edited by Rosalind E. Boyd, Robin Cohen, and Peter C.W. Gutkind, "Trade Unions in Communist States," by Alex Pravda, Blair A. Ruble, and "State Theories: From Liberalism to the Challenge of Feminism," by Murray Knuttila.

The article briefly reviews "The Illustrated History of Canada," edited by Craig Brown, "The Current Industrial Relations Scene in Canada, 1987," by Pradeep Kumar, et al., "Work and New Technologies: Other Perspectives," edited by Chris DeBresson, et al., "Sources in the Law Library of McGill University for a Reconstruction of the Legal Culture of Quebec, 1760-1890," by G. Blaine Baker, et al., "Saskatchewan Workers: A List of Sources," by Robin Wylie, "Essays on New France," by W.J. Eccles, "Land, Settlement, and Politics on Eighteenth-Century Prince Edward Island," by J.M. Bumsted, "Unemployment: International Perspectives," edited by Morley Gunderson, Noah Meltz, and Sylvia Ostry, "Engines of Change: The American Industrial Revolution, 1790-1860," by Brooke Hindle and Steven Lubar, "The Labor Movement in the United States: A History of the American Working Class from 1890 to1896," by Friedrich A. Sorge, translated by Kai Schoenhals, "The Cold War Against Labor," v. 1-2, edited by Ann Fagan Ginger and David Christiano, "Black American Politics: From the Washington Marches to Jesse Jackson," by Manning Marable, "'Slaves of the Depression': Workers' Letters About Life on the Job," edited by Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner, "Reasons for Pardoning the Haymarket Anarchists," by John P. Atgeld; "Memoirs of a Wobbly," by Henry E. McGuckin; and "The Flivver King: A Story of Ford-America," by Upton Sinclair, "Politics and People in Revolutionary England," edited by Colin Jones et al., "The Tories and the People, 1880-1935," by Martin Pugh, "Class, Power and Social Structure in British Nineteenth-Century Towns, " edited by R.J. Morris, "The Culture of Capital: Art, Power and the Nineteenth-Century Middle Class," edited by Janet Wolff and John Seed, "1919: Britain on the Brink of Revolution," by Chanie Rosenberg, "The People of Paris: An Essay in Popular Culture in the 18th Century," by Daniel Roche, "Money and Liberty in Modern Europe: A Critique of Historical Understanding," by William M. Reddy, " Festival of the Oppressed: Solidarity, Reform and Revolution in Poland, 1980-1981," by Colin Barker, "Latin American Labor Organizations," edited by Gerald Michael Greenfield and Sheldon L. Maram, and "Theories of the Labor Movement," edited by Simeon Larson and Bruce Nissen.

Analyzes 36 tables of data compiled on labour protest and organization in the nineteenth century including riots, strikes, occupations of strikers/rioters, regionalism, calendar of strikes, causes, strikes in major cities, and local and international unions. Labour unrest often took the form of riots in the early period, with strikes becoming more prevalent as workers became organized. The culmination was the strike wave of the 1880s known as the Great Upheaval, with the Knights of Labor, which was by far the largest organization of the period, leading the way.

The article reviews "WAC: Bennett and the Rise of British Columbia," by David J. Mitchell, "Louis Robichaud: A Decade of Power," by Delia M.M. Stanley, "Visions of History," edited by Henry Abelove et al., "A History of Capitalism, I500-1980," by Michel Beaud, "A Radical Reader: The Struggle for Change in England, 1381-1914," edited by Christopher Hampton, "Manufacture in Town and Country before the Factory," edited by Maxine Berg. Pat Hudson, and Michael Sonenscher, "From Chartism to Labourism: Historical Sketches of English Working-Class Movement," by Theodore Rothstein, "Dictionary of Labour Biography," v. 7, edited by Joyce M. Bellamy and John Saville, "The Coal Miners' General Strike of 1949-50 and the Birth of Marxist-Humanism in the U.S.," by Andy Phillips and Raya Dunayevskaya, "Studies in Labour Theory and Practice," edited by William L. Rowe, "Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition," by Cedric J. Robinson, "First Facts of American Labor," edited by Philip S. Foner, "Failure of a Dream? Essays in the History of American Socialism," edited by John H.M. Laslett and Seymour Martin Lipset, "Plain Folk: The Life Stories of Undistinguished Americans," edited by David M. Katzman and William M. Tuttle. Jr., "The Ties That Bind: Law, Marriage, and the Reproduction of Patriarchal Relations," by Carol Smart, "A Documentary History of Communism," v. 1: "Communism in Russia," and v. 2: "Communism and the World," edited by Robert V. Daniels, "After Marx," edited by Terrence Ball and James Fair, "Dialogue within the Dialectic," by Norman Levine, and "A Guide to Marx's Capital," by Anthony Brewer.

This article reviews the book, "The Practice of Solidarity: American Hat Finishers in the Nineteenth Century," by David Bensman.

The article briefly reviews "A Guide to Labour Records and Resources in British Columbia," compiled by Louise May, "The Rebel in the House: The Life and Times of A.A. Heaps, MP," by Leo Heaps, "Arguments For the Labour Trial of the Century: On the Real Meaning of Unionism," [by James Clancy, Wayne Roberts, David R. Spencer, and John Ward,] "Toronto to 1918: An Illustrated History," by J.M.S. Careless, and "Toronto Since 1918: An Illustrated History," by James Lemon, "Strong Women, Strong Unions: Speeches By Union Women," by Partieipatory Research Group, and "Short Circuit: Women in the Automated Office," by Partieipatory Research Group, "The Black Worker since the AFL-CIO Merger, 1955-1980 ," edited by Philip S. Foner, Ronald L. Lewis, and Robert Cvornyek, "Challenges and Choices Facing American Labor ," edited by Thomas A. Kochan, "From Syndicalism to Trade Unionism: The IWW in Ohio. 1905-1950," by Roy T. Wortman, "The World of Women's Trade Unionism," edited by Norbert C. Soldon, "Coalmining Women: Victorian Lives and Campaigns," by Angela V. John, "Technological Change and Workers' Movements," edited by Melvyn Dubofsky, "A City in the Republic: Antebellum New York and the Origins of Machine Politics ," by Amy Bridges, "Dreams & Dynamite: Selected Poems," by Covington Hall, "The Invention of Tradition," edited by Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, "Mary, After the Queen: Memories of a Working Girl," by Angela Hewins, "The State in Socialist Society," edited by Neil Harding, "Soviet Economy and Society," by David Lane, "Settler Capitalism: The Dynamics of Dependent Development in the Southern Hemisphere," by Donald Denoon, "Caste, Conflict and Ideology: Mahatma Jotinao Phule and Low Caste Protest in Nineteenth-Century Western India," by Rosalind O'Hanlon, "Religion and Rural Revolt," edited by Jânos M. Bak and Gerhard Benecke, "The British Marxist Historian," by Harvey J. Kaye, and "History and Structure: An Essay on the Hegelian-Marxist and Structural Theories of History," by Alfred Schmidt.

The article reviews and comments on "The Social Organization of Early Industrial Capitalism," by Michael B. Katz, Michael J. Doucet, and Mark J. Stern.

This article reviews the book, "Canadian Bolsheviks: The Early Years of the Communist Party of Canada," by Ian Angus.

This essay poses a critique of selected recent writing on American and British working-class culture, arguing against the tendency to categorize culture into discrete ideal types. It argues the importance of locating culture materially and historically, developing a notion of periodization that recognizes particular stages of development and levels of conflict and struggle. As such it poses an implicit rejection of recent Canadian polemics directed against the study of the cultural.

This article reviews the book, "The Making of the Crofting Community," by James Hunter.

This article reviews the book, "Worker City, Company Town: Iron and Cotton-Worker Protest in Troy and Cohoes, New York, 1855-1884," by Daniel J. Walkowitz.

This paper examines charivaris and whitecapping in 19th-century North America. Establishing the presence of the charivan/shivaree over the course of the century and of whitecapping in the years 1885-1905, the study examines two particular ritualistic forms of enforcing community standards and behaviour. Commonly directed against unnatural marriage, sexual offenders, wife beaters, and those who defied acceptable standards of behaviour (including employers and strikebreakers), charivaris and whitecapping posed the threatening order of custom against the rule of law. As such, they challenged, implicitly if not explicitly, a developing bourgeois hegemony. In studying them, we learn much about society and culture, order and disorder, in the 19th-century past, forces crucial to an understanding of the plebeian and working-class communities.

Provides an analysis of craftsmen throughout history and their connections to social and political radicalism. Examines the influence of skilled craftsmen on the trade union movement as well as the shifts the craft culture underwent over time. Argues that the craft tradition had a significant influence on the labour movement. Concludes by calling upon more historians to appreciate the social and cultural lives of these men and women, so as to uncover their hidden or unrecognized contributions to the modern world.

The article briefly reviews ""A Reader's Guide to Canadian History 1 : Beginnings to Confederation," edited by D.A. Muise, "A Reader's Guide to Canadian History 2: Confederation to the Present," edited by J.L. Granatstein and Paul Stevens, "Shaping the Urban Landscape: Aspects of the Canadian City-Building Process," edited by Gilbert A. Stelter and Alan F.J. Artibise, "Steve Nelson: American Radical," by Steve Nelson, James R. Barrett, and Rob Ruck, "Immigrant Women," edited by Maxine Schwartz Seller, "American Labor in the Southwest: The First One Hundred Years," edited by James C. Foster, "The Moral Response to Industrialism: The Lectures of Reverend Cook in Lynn, Massachusetts," edited by John T. Cumbler, "Wilhelm Liebknecht: Letters to the Chicago Workingman's Advocate, November 26 1870-December 2 1871," edited by Philip S. Foner, " Guide to the Local Assemblies of the Knights of Labor," by Jonathan Garlock, "The New England Mill Village, 1790-1860," edited by Gary Kulik, Roger Parks, and Theodore Z. Penn, "Democratic Socialism: The Mass Left in Advanced Industrial Societies," edited by Bogdan Denitch, "Marx and Engels on Law and Laws," by Paul Phillips, "The Degradation of Work? Skill, Deskilling and the Labour Process," edited by Stephen Wood, "Cultural Marxism and Political Sociology," by Richard R. Weiner,"Our Common History: The Transformation of Europe," edited by Paul Thompson, "Wives For Sale: An Ethnographic Study of British Popular Divorce," by Samuel Pyeatt Menefee, "Today the Struggle: A Novel," by Mervyn Jones, and "A History of European Socialism," by Albert S. Lindemann.

The article briefly reviews "Canada's Urban Past: A Bibliography to 1980," compiled by Alan F.J. Artibise and Gilbert A. Stelter; "International Handbook of Industrial Relations: Contemporary Developments and Research," edited by Albert A. Blum; "Rhetoric of Protest and Reform, 1878-1898," edited by Paul Boase; "Philosophers Look at Canadian Confederation," edited by Stanley G. French; "The Past Before Us; Contemporary Historical Writing in the United States," edited by Michael Kammen; "The Third Century: America as a Post-Industrial Society," edited by Seymour Martin Lipset; Al Nash's "Ruskin College: A Challenge to Adult and Labor Education;" "The Organization of Knowledge in Modern America, 1860-1920," edited by Alexandra Oleson and John Voss; "Labor and American Politics: A Book of Readings," revised edition, edited by Charles M. Rehmus, Doris B. McLaughlin, and Frederick H. Nesbitt; "American Workers Abroad: A Report to the Ford Foundation," edited by Robert Schrank; Edward Shils' "The Calling of Sociology and Other Essays on the Pursuit of Learning" (3rd volume of 4); "Unfinished Business: An Agenda for Labor, Management, and the Public," by Abraham J. Siegel and David B. Lipsby; "The History of American Electoral Behavior," edited by Joel H. Silbey, Allan G. Bogue, and William H. Flanigan; Lawrence Stone's "The Past and the Present;" "Essays in British Business History," edited by Barry Supple; "The American Labour Movement and Other Essays," by R.H. Tawney, edited by J.M. Winter; "History and Society," by R.H. Tawney, edited by J.M. Winter; and "The Current Industrial Relations Scene in Canada, 1981," edited by W.D. Wood and Pradeep Kumar.

The article reviews the book, "Trotskyists on Trial: Free Speech and Political Persecution since the Age of FDR," by Donna T. Haverty-Stacke.

At the current conjuncture, histories of Canadian Communism seem analytically stalled in a fruitless (if inadequately addressed) historiographic impasse, ordered by oppositions: Moscow domination vs. local autonomy; authoritarianism vs. the pursuit of social justice. We need to confront these experiences, not as dichotomies, but as related phenomena, developing our histories of Communism around more totalizing appreciations that encompass both sides of a seemingly divided logic of classification. Having myself tried to see beyond the limiting oppositions of the extant historiography, I will explore how certain historians seem unwilling to look past the conveniently counter-posed analyses of two existing schools of thought, labelled traditionalists/revisionists in the United States and essentialists/realists in the United Kingdom. As distortions of my own writing suggest, we have reached a point where it is both appropriate and necessary to be more rigorous and fair-minded in our characterization of the historiography. --Introduction

This essay is an attempt to outline recent trends in the criminalization of working-class lives. It casts the net broadly, both historically and geographically, situating capitalist austerity's recent turn to mass incarceration in the United States and Canada in early 19th-century poor law sensibilities. What is happening now differs from the workhouse regime of industrial capitalism's new poor law, of course, but it has undoubted connections to this older regime of regulation. The new new poor law of our times is part of a long history of how dispossession has been pivotal to capitalism's project of uninhibited accumulation and suppression of those driven to defiance and dissent. It reveals how, as profit declines in the productive sphere, incarceration itself can be made to pay. The new new poor law is fundamental to contemporary capitalist political economy as the politics of austerity, the dismantling of the welfare state, and an assault on working-class entitlements and trade unionism are complemented by the rise of a prison-industrial complex. Driven by class antagonisms and racialized scapegoating, the new new poor law inevitably draws into its sphere of influence public-sector workers employed in the criminal justice system. It also unleashes intensified grievances of the incarcerated, stimulating the birth of movements of protest in which prisoners and proletarians search out ways of making common cause.