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"What ever happened to the great Canadian labour-history debates of the early 1980s?" a well-informed Argentinian labour historian asked me recently. The gist of my rambling, uncertain response was "Things have become a lot more complex." Bryan Palmer must have had similar thoughts when he sat down to revise and update his nearly ten-year-old history of the Canadian working-class.' The publication of his self-styled "rethinking" of the field gives us all an opportunity to reflect on how the writing of working-class history has evolved and changed since those heady days and what a synthesis of the huge volume of new work ought to look like. It seems appropriate to place Palmer at the centre of such a historiographical review since the 1983 version of his Working-Class Experience was widely seen as the first synthesis of the new working-class history and, indeed, in his long series of books and articles, and through his penchant for confrontation and debate, Palmer has played a major role in defining what the rest of the historical profession (and many others) thought Canadian labour historians were up to. With this new book, he has returned to centre stage. --Author's introduction

Using the theoretical framework of the feminist debates about equality and difference, this article deconstructs the arguments used by feminists and others to defend women's status as workers in the Great Depression, a period notorious for its anti-working woman sentiment. The findings suggest the false polarity of the equal rights and maternalist traditions, tracing the articulation of both in the 1930s, showing their points of intersection, and ultimately questioning their existence in any pure form.

The article reviews the book, "Canadian Socialism: Essays on the CCF-NDP," by Alan Whitehorn.

The article reviews the book, "The Nature of Their Bodies: Women and Their Doctors in Victorian Canada," by Wendy Mitchinson.

A study compared men and women clerical-secretarial workers in one public-sector institution (University of Toronto). Just 7% of the workforce was male, and they were concentrated mainly in the clerical job classifications. Men were found to be less committed to the occupation than women and reported a greater sense of occupational choice. Women tended to find the work more personally meaningful than men, and men were somewhat more likely to find the work trivial and tedious. Both sexes were extremely discontent with their developmental and promotional opportunities. This suggests an occupation with inadequate developmental opportunities and inadequate succession planning, rather than one in which there is a systematic gender bias influencing who gets ahead. Younger workers felt this gap in opportunity even more strongly than older workers. Younger workers as a group may be less willing to accept the sorts of conditions and restraints that have for too long been part and parcel of pink-collar occupations.

The article reviews the book, "Paradigm Shift. The New Promise of Information Technology," by Don Tapscott and Art Caston.

Examines the differing interpretations of Foner and Du Bois on labour and class struggle during the Reconstruction period following the American Civil War. Du Bois focused on the revolutionary, proletarian character of Reconstruction as black workers asserted their political power in the American South, despite violent white opposition. Foner, in contrast, emphasized the triumph of the white Northern bourgeoisie. Argues that Du Bois rightly pointed to what he called " the American blindspot," i.e., the racial prejudice that precluded white labour from forming a partnership with blacks, instead colluding with capital. Concludes that Du Bois' perspective put him at odds with other Marxist analysts, including the US Communist Party, which during its Popular Front period of the 1930s considered Reconstruction to be a bourgeois revolution.

The article reviews the books "The Battle for Homestead, 1880-1892: Politics, Culture and Steel," by Paul Krause and "The River Ran Red: Homestead 1892," edited by David P. Demarest.

The article reviews the book, "Guide d'Histoire du Québec du Régime Français à nos jours," edited by Jacques Rouillard, Jacques.

The article reviews the book, "The Spirit of 1848: German Immigrants, Labor Conflict, and the Coming of the Civil War," by Bruce Levine.

The article reviews the book, "La question indienne au Canada," by Renée Dupuis.

The article reviews the book, "Le déracinement des écoles normales : le transfert de la formation des maîtres à l'université," by Thérèse Hamel.

The article reviews the book, "Jock Tar in History: Essays in the History of Maritime Life and Labour," edited by Colin Howell and Richard Twomey.

Reports that two recent journal articles have received awards. Corrects the omission of the cover credit as well as a line that was dropped from the article, "With Our Own Two Hands," both published in the previous issue.

Discusses the articles, research reports, document and critique sections, and review essays published in the issue. Three papers from the Canadian Committee on Labour History's symposium in June 1992 are also presented. A paper published in v. 25 of the journal has received an award. A correction is made to page 324 of the previous issue, for which the editor apologizes to the review writer.

The article reviews the book, "Rethinking Social Policy: Race, Poverty, and the Underclass," by Christopher Jencks.

Introduces the Communist writer, educator, and activist Margaret Fairley, who in the 1950s edited a book of Canadian oral labour history that was left unfinished. The book, entitled "With Our Own Hands," included three manuscripts - memoirs of Claude Theodore, Peter Cordoni, and A.J. MacDonald - that are published for the first time. Collectively, they shed light on the largely rural, immigrant, working-class experience of Canada in the early 20th century. MacDonald's reminiscences also describe life in the village of Cadott, Wisconsin, in the 1890s, before the family moved to Alberta. The manuscripts are located at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto.

The article reviews the book, "The Eastern Airlines Strike: Accomplishments of the Rank-and-File Machinists and Gains for the Labor Movement," by Ernie Mailhot, Judy Stranahan, and Jack Barnes.

Cette étude compare l'influence, sur le risque qualitatif d'accidents, de deux lignes d'assemblage de matériel de transport. L'organisation de la production de ces lignes diffère par le nombre de postes réduit sur l'une d'elles, ce qui intensifie la coactivité entre travailleurs à chaque phase du processus. Les 150 accidents avec perte de temps des assembleurs survenus sur ces deux lignes d'assemblage de véhicules routiers pendant trois ans sont regroupés en six classes homogènes, à partir d'une analyse multivariée de leurs caractéristiques. Aucun lien significatif n'est toutefois observé entre ces classes d'accidents et les lignes d'assemblage. Il est discuté que l'intensification de la coactivité puisse être un facteur de contribution à la fréquence des accidents mais non à leur type.

The article reviews the book, "Le Mariage en question," by Renée Dandurand.