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This speculative essay presents a preliminary statement on the paradoxical character of 19th-century class formation in the two white settler dominions of Canada and Australia. Outposts of empire, these social formations were early regarded with disdain, the one a classic mercantilist harvester of fish, fur, and wood, the other a dumping ground for convicts. By the mid-to-late 19th-century, however, Canada and Australia were the richest of colonies. Within their distinctive cultures and political economies, both supposedly dominated by staples, emerged working classes that were simultaneously combatative and accommodated. By the 1880s impressive organizational gains had been registered by labour in both countries, but the achievements of class were conditioned by particular relations of fragmentation, including those of 'race' and gender.

The article provides a detailed appreciation of the life and work of British historian E. P. Thompson (1924-1993), a leading figure in the historians' group of the British Communist Party.

The article reviews the books, "True Government by Choice Men? Inspection, Education, and State Formation in Canada West," by Bruce Curtis, and "Colonial Leviathan: State Formation in Mid-Nineteenth Century Canada," edited by Allan Greer and Ian Radforth.

The article reviews the book, "Belated Feudalism: Labor, the Law, and Liberal Development in the United States," by Karen Orren.

The article completes the memorial appreciation of historian E.P. Thompson, focusing on his seminal work, "The Making of the English Working Class."

Argues in this concluding commentary that the Harper Conservatives have captured the political imagination, while those in opposition have not. Discusses the ideological turn to global neoliberalism, including in Canada, since 1975, as advocated by economist Milton Friedman; in this context, the Harper Conservatives are simply a leaner and meaner version of the trend. Takes note of the contested perspectives on the state and community. Points to social movements, such as the student movement in Quebec, that have attempted to push back. Concludes that the New Right must be challenged by a coherent left politics that is beyond the current party system.

The article reviews the book "Mechanic Accents: Dime Novels and Working-Class Culture in America," by Michael Denning.

The article reviews and comments on "Revolutionary Activism in the 1950s and 60s: A Memoir," volumes 1 and 2, by Ernest Tate.

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.

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.