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Most people believe that the early pioneer homesteaders, the Selkirk settlers, were Manitoba's first farmers. However, several centuries before the arrival of the Selkirk settlers, the land was already being worked by Aboriginal or First Nations peoples in various parts of Manitoba. The presentation of Manitoba's history has not generally shown Native peoples as farmers; instead, they have been portrayed as nomadic wanderers who resisted the efforts of well-intentioned Europeans who tried to induce them to take up farming and become "civilized". In Lost Harvests: Prairie Indian Reserve Farmers and Government Policy, Sarah Carter (1993) has documented in detail how representatives from Indian Affairs first introduced farming to Aboriginal groups, usually at the request of the Native peoples after they had been relocated to reserves, and then proceeded to set up a series of rules which made farming on the reserves an activity destined to fail. There is, however, well documented evidence for Postcontact maize (corn) horticulture in Manitoba prior to the movement of Aboriginal peoples to reserves. Moodie and Kaye (1969) discuss some of the early accounts of corn growing in Manitoba. They state that the first mention of Native corn horticulture north of the Middle Missouri is made by Henry Schoolcraft in 1805, when he observed the Netley Creek Natives growing corn and potatoes. Later, in 1821, these same people were reputed to have provided the Selkirk settlers with seed. Moodie and Kaye (1969) also report that the Netley Creek Odawas were well aware of the practice of maize growing but did not grow it themselves until they were given the seed in 1805. Following this, garden plots were placed in strategic provisioning locations and, by the 1850's, they had added beans and even melons to their inventory. The practice of gardening quickly caught on with other Woodland Native groups spurred by the demand for provisions by traders This example from the fur trade period is the most frequently cited example of the earliest known Native farming in Manitoba. But what of the Precontact period, the vast period of time prior to the fur trade and homestead eras? For information from this period we must turn to the archaeological record and to early historic observations on Native peoples to the south, particularly in the area around the Mississippi and Missouri rivers in what is now the Dakotas and Minnesota. Archaeologists have documented a long tradition of plant domestication and crop harvesting among the Aboriginal people of North, Central and South America. Corn, one of our own modern staples, was first domesticated in the highlands of Mexico approximately 7000 years ago. This highly adaptable plant was rapidly bred to produce a wide variety of strains which were eventually grown throughout much of Central and North America. Other domesticated crops include a variety of beans and gourds, tobacco, sunflowers, potatoes and numerous indigenous seedy plants such as chenopodium and amaranth. In fact, one of the ironies of modern farming is the effort that is currently invested in eradicating "weeds," many of which were either domesticated or heavily utilized by Precontact Aboriginal groups and are particularly well-suited to colonizing recently disturbed land. --Introduction

The article reviews the book, "Success While Others Fail: Social Movement Unionism and the Public Workplace," by Paul Johnston.

A century of women's work history in Australia and Canada reveals both similarities and contrasts. Women workers in both countries have faced persistent occupational segregation and lower pay, justified by the "family wage" ideal of a male breadwinner and the accompanying perception of women's paid labour as secondary, less skilled and transient. While Canada's female labour force has historically demonstrated a significant proportion of immigrants from countries other than England, Australia's female labour force contained fewer immigrants but revealed a visible minority of Aboriginals who have demonstrated labour militancy in several well-known disputes in this century. Perhaps the most striking differences between the two countries, however, relate to the extent of the Australian state's involvement in wage tribunals and in the compulsory arbitration system, both of which have given women improved wages and "a floor of protection." By contrast, state intervention in Canada was minimal until well into the 20th century when minimum wage laws were passed during and after World War I. Despite these differences there are areas of similarity, particularly in this century as women workers tended to mobilize at roughly the same time, not only in unions and work places but also in neighbourhoods, ethnic communities, rural areas and to some extent in labour and left wing political groups. Modern feminist movements in both countries have waged some successful campaigns to change not only government views and agendas, but also those of trade unions. Thus, while Australian women have perhaps been more successful at "playing the state" depending on the government in power, both groups of women are increasingly faced with the challenge of government retreat from egalitarian policies under the onslaught of a right-wing, corporatist agenda.

This essay investigates the formal and informal educational pursuits of the labour movements and working-class communities of Australia and Canada. It suggests that worker education in the two countries was conducted by similar institutions, notably by branches of England's Workers Educational Association (WEA) but within very different cultural contexts. By juxtaposing these two national cases we demonstrate that labour's reliance on such community-wide institutions was mediated by the relationship between the labour movements and informal networks of working class interaction, on the one hand, and the body politic, on the other. Australia's prominent labour movement and strong tradition of public working class interaction enabled community-wide educational activities to be challenged. In Canada, by contrast, the collaborative nature of adult education and the "tools courses" taught by unions represented a different consensus about the nature of class identity and the place of unions in national politics.

The article reviews the book "Northern Protest: Martin Luther King Jr., Chicago, and the Civil Rights Movement," by James R. Ralph.

The article reviews the book "Revolutionary Marxism and Social Reality in the Twentieth Century," by Ernest Mandel.

The article reviews the book, "Le droit du travail : théories et pratiques," 3rd edition, by Rodrigue Blouin.

The article reviews and comments on the book, "Theater of Memory: Past and Present in Contemporary Culture," Volume I, by Raphael Samuel.

This article investigates the historical dimensions of the labour movement's relationship to the welfare state in Australia and Canada during the 20th century. It assesses existing class and party politics theories of this relationship and by proposing particular historical accounts of the welfare state in a comparative context, it seeks to move beyond the limitations of these theories. The article argues that such approaches focus too narrowly on social security and wage regulation as the key parameters of the welfare state, ignoring major fields of welfare intervention for women, indigenous peoples and war service. In attempting to provide a more comprehensive narrative of the welfare state in a comparative context the article seeks to provide a clearer conception of the distinctive features of settler society welfare states. And by placing the role of the labour movement in this broader history it critically assesses the successes and limitations of the labour movement's engagement with the welfare state.

The article reviews the book "Making Law, Order and Authority in British Columbia, 1821-1871," by Tina Loo.

Critiques the paper, "Strikes and Class Consciousness," by Tom Langford published in the Fall 1994 issue of Labour/Le Travail. Argues that Langford misunderstood and misapplied Marxist methodology in his analysis of class consciousness during the 1987 Hamilton postal workers' strike.

The article reviews the book "New Immigrants, Old Unions: Organizing Undocumented Workers in Los Angeles," by Hector L. Delgado.

The articles reviews the book, "Grèves et services essentiels/Strikes and Essential Services," edited by Jean Bernier.

The paper discusses Canada's work-sharing program, which is a special provision of the unemployment insurance program. The time series properties of the national and regional activity levels of this program between 1982 and 1992 are analyzed with the aid of a regression equation. The model estimates the relationship between global work-sharing program activity and the business cycle in search of a countercyclical pattern. Despite evidence of persistence effects in the time series behavior of the participation levels for the conventional UI program, which have been tied to hysteresis effects for unemployment levels, the participation levels of this program appear to behave counter cyclically, as intended. Although there is some anecdotal evidence at the firm level which would suggest instances of repeat usage, persistence effects are not discernible at the macroeconomic level. On the other hand, despite the fact that the program is not to be used in instances of seasonal employment, the model does generate seasonal patterns.

The article reviews the book "Producers, Proletarians, and Politicians: Workers and Party Politics in Evansville and New Albany, Indiana, 1850-87," by Lawrence M. Lipin.

The article reviews the book "Harrisburg Industrializes: The Coming of Factories to an American Community," by Gerald G. Eggert.