Economic-union Books

This is an excellent book about labor unions which sides with labor from a fresh perspective. Pro free trade, the author is not just peddling the same old protectionist line. From the first line of the book, you realize this author knows what he's talking about and speaks for no one but himself. Also a good book for anyone interested in the fortunes of the Democratic party.

This is an outstanding book, full of heart and voice. I've begun using it in my Business Reporting class at Boston University.

Never mind that Geohogan was dead wrong about the future of organized labor or that his pre-Clinton paleoliberalism is dated and painfully overwrought or even that he would have deep and abiding personal contempt for a conservative like me. This guy can flat-out write like a dream.

Without a doubt, every anecdote in this book is exaggerated and twisted for rhetorical effect. But what a memoir it is, alternately melancholy and funny, by a great storyteller who has the self-awareness to mock his own martyr complex.

A classic of style over substance.

You know how some people say, "I don't believe in religion, but I believe in God"? Thomas Geoghegan doesn't necessarily believe in labor unions, but he believes in labor. Or maybe: he doesn't believe ultimate salvation is to be found in unions, but that there's no alternative to them for now, and that without them we're ... well, we're in the state we're in today, where workers are powerless and can be left unemployed and uninsured at any moment. A world without unions is a world where we're scared.

This is just not the world we ought to be living in. There is a better way and a better world, of course. We know that we can't get to this world on our own. On our own, we are isolated from the rest of those who are suffering. We are powerless so long as we are isolated.

It's virtually an axiom, then, that some form of collective resistance to limitlessly powerful corporations is necessary. We simply cannot do it on our own. It does not follow, however, that labor unions are the ideal form of that resistance. It also doesn't follow that government is the ideal form. But in their highly imperfect way, says Thomas Geoghegan, labor unions are far better than a world without them. He backs this up with story upon story about corporations absolutely crushing workers in the absence of any labor-union resistance.

Geoghegan himself is a labor lawyer who's been fighting the fight alongside labor unions for a quarter century or more. He's also often worked against them: he's sued the Teamsters repeatedly, in essence fighting for more union democracy. He's trying to get the unions that the employees deserve.

He's not had much luck fighting against them. For a short time, Geoghegan's heart leapt for joy when Ron Carey was at the Teamsters' helm, but the Carey era ended quickly enough and James P. Hoffa (son of Jimmy Hoffa) took over.

As for fighting alongside them, that hasn't worked very well either. Unions are down to 10% or so of the working population. Not coincidentally (as any reader of Paul Krugman knows well), the Democratic party is in a shambles and has been for at least thirty years. The Democrats need the unions.

What makes this book so agonizing is Geoghegan's insistence that a few little changes would bring democracy to the unions, unions to the workers, and the Democratic party to power. One such change is a card-check system like the one Canada uses. Consequently, Canadian union membership has been consistently in the 30% range for at least a decade. When we dream of the better world that Canadians seem to inhabit, it's well to consider how they got there.

The fact that just over the border is a country not much different than ours, but whose policies could hardly be more different, gives the lie to the notion that unions have disappeared in the U.S. because of changing workplaces. Yes, we're now a service economy rather than an industrial economy. But so is Canada. Geoghegan dispenses with any number of commonplaces like this one.

In general, he spends the most time dismantling the idea that unions' disappearance is in some sense "natural." It's not. It has a lot to do with Republicans and with conservative courts. It has to do with Taft-Hartley. It has to do with one law after another that smashed unions into the ground. There was nothing natural about it.

This book doesn't give much in the way of solutions, but I'm not even sure that's its point. Merely getting people -- especially Democrats -- to recognize a problem is plenty. Getting them to recognize a human-created problem is better still. Along the way, Geoghegan is impossibly funny, chatty, and self-deprecating. While I can't quite call this book a "joy" -- it's too maddening for that -- I do submit that it's indispensible and should be on every American's bookshelf.

How can you be "for labor" these days?

Some realities:

1. Union membership as a percentage of the workforce continues its four-decade decline.
2. The public reputation of unions has never recovered from the corruption scandals of the 1950s.
3. Michael Moore has done everything he can to revitalize unions, to no avail. He won a Golden Globe; if HE can't do it...
4. The very recent splintering of the AFL-CIO could be the beginning of the end.
5. We've become too isolated and self-centered as a society for this stuff to work here in the foreseeable future.

That said, T.G. personifies the idealistic young lawyer who really wants to help. I was that person once, too. I perceived union leaders as thuggish, power-centric, retrograde, defensive and whatever the exact opposite of visionary is. Leadership makes or breaks human endeavor; I interpreted this to mean that unions were hopeless.

PS - I would like to know whether this book trades on E-Bay; the irony would be irresistable.

Genre: Non Fiction
Title: Behind the Union Curtain
AUTHOR: Richard e. Sall
An insightful chronicle tracing the role of unions in the United States and Europe, Dr. Richard Sall examines the types of unions and their conceptual and present day relevance and agendas.

Written specifically to address the union effect on Workers Compensation, the book spins off in many related directions that I found both enlightening and disturbing. Of particular note was the foothold the labor unions have in our government and how the dollars to support these union costs are paid by the taxpayer not just for operations, but for "bail-outs" of union dominated industries such as the major airlines.

"Behind the Union Curtain" reads like a college text, but will draw you in if you have even a passing interest in the subject. Dr Sall has exhaustively researched the topic and objectively condensed his findings into a readable summary that I highly recommend to anyone curious about unions and their value to the United States citizen and economy.

Dr. Richard E Sall, M.D. is a physician and practices in Central California.

Reviewer: Charles Adams, Allbooks Review s

In Behind the Union Curtain, Dr. Richard Sall chronicles the history of American labor organizations. He begins his depiction in the 1800s and chronicles throughout history introducing his readers to unions, yellow dog contracts, floating laborers, corporate monopolies, and company doctors. In particular, he successfully interlinks the connection between union organizations and company doctors by describing their dysfunctional "feeding" off each other. Over time, this discontent is recognized and the law enters as a salve.

His book teaches readers about how the union system emerged, functions and/or does not function, and reveals the reasons for a decline in union membership, but a need for unions. His thorough attention to historical content contributes to a well researched book. This is especially expressed in the latter half in actual case studies, yellow dog contracts, and law suits portraying the status of unions in present day.

As a physician, Dr. Sall gives the reader he/she otherwise may not have been privy to on a daily basis. His shared knowledge may surprise his audience but certainly is a must read for everyone eager to learn about history, politics, and how our labor union in America came to be in general. His elegant simplicity in style keeps the reader turning the page, without any fear of confusion or boredom.

Reviewed by William E. Cooper for Reader Views (7/06)

As a career law enforcement officer who was involved with unions, both as a member and as the Chief of Police of a municipal department, I have considerable experience with unions and associated issues. I studied labor issues and asked the questions about why labor-management conflict exists and what remediation strategies were possible. I learned very quickly that solutions could be premised on simple management principles in most cases. Part of my own book, Leading Beyond Tradition, discusses leadership and labor issues.

Dr. Sall provides his readers with an outstanding history of organized labor, how it evolved, and how it exists today. He provides excellent background, complete with anecdotes and legal issues. While his emphasis speaks to the medical field, his discussions are applicable to virtually any field. I strongly urge managers, leaders, and all students to read and study the valuable information contained in this excellent book.

Well done Dr. Sall.

Conspiracy theories abound but how do they come to be? Does anyone really make up their own mind about things that our culture has so much influence on? In Richard E. Sall's book, "Behind the Union Curtain," he examines the abundant distrust that worker's compensation patients have of the company doctor, and how this vicious cycle all began. Doing so took his research into the beginnings of unions and the people who started it all. This look into our history and the affects it all has on us now is most interesting and opens the mind to wonder about so many other instances where our minds may be made up for us by something larger than ourselves...society.

Having just reviewed another book that dealt with the railroad construction of our country with the labor of new immigrants who served basically as workhorses, I was highly interested in the very beginnings of unions being formed by these same strong-willed persons. The personal tales are told in this book, the statistics and facts of the first pre-paid medical coverage, and the first inclinations of fear for the care that was needed versus what was actually given...all for the matter of saving a buck. Here lies the start of society's distrust. Sall goes on to examine the development of unions, strikes, management, company doctors, and the lack of trust that grew at the same rate.

"Behind the Union Curtain" is a fascinating look at America's society. These are issues that most of us will have to deal with at some point, and even if not directly, the psychological impact is on us all. It is a well written work with variety in its text, including quotes, well researched facts, first hand stories, and well spoken narrative. In the voice of Richard E. Sall, MD, the book offers a unique perspective.
Review by Heather Froeschl.

Richard Sall has done it again, a great book based on truth. This book starts out way back in the 1800's but focuses on the worker/doctor issues in the early 1900's. You will learn about how the injured workers of the Great Depression influences the labor laws that are in effect to this day. If you don't know how a Union works, this is the book for you.
Dr. Sall defines the conflict between the company appointed doctors and the union workers they deal with. He does something no one else has done and offers ideas on resolutions to this widely unknown issue. If you can't trust your doctor, who can you trust?

An excellent book, one that brings to light new information from China's archives and revelations from Chen's personal interviews. Although it is to be expected that Chen's revelations about Stalin's machinations and Mao's agonizing decision would gain his book its good reputation, I appreciated his attempt to relate China's war effort to its internal political development. If the use of war to consolidate a post-revolutionary regime is unsurprising, as it should be, it helps when someone documents the steps and motives leading to war, just as Chen Jian has in this superb book.

It also helps the reader when the author writes as clearly and precisely as Chen.

An enlightened perspective into China¡¯s decisions to enter the Korean War, a must read.

Ah, now here is an excellent book on the Korean War which meets several standards that make it required reading. First and foremost it contains evidence which places the role China played in the Korean War in new light. Second it is well written. Third, it manages to place the Korean War in the context of the larger cold-war/northeast asian conflict between powers without also getting sidetracked into every widening spirals of intrigue between European allies, Russia, China, and the USA. Finally the book is pleasant to read, which is not an easy accomplishment for a text that has so much new material to offer on a historical subject.

The insights begin right with the introduction, when it becomes clear that Jian has a more mature approach to the War and China's role in it. He assumes that China's motives were determined by the Chinese themselves: they were not, as many western analysts assume even to this very day, a `response to American actions' and initiatives. There was much more at stake than just `preserving the Sino-Korean border!' China had just re-emerged as a world power; it had aligned itself with Moscow; and it was anxious to appear in the vanguard of the socialist revolution. Given these roles Jian argues there was "little possibility that China's entrance into the Korean War could have been averted."
Chinese nationalism was rooted in part on their feeling of `cultural superiority:' something we Americans should understand, as we feel the same way. China was, in those 1940s and early 1950s, re-emerging as a world power as it finally won its civil war with Chiang Kai Shek and re-established its territorial (Tibet) integrity and of course, sought to finish the job with Taiwan. Their task was to oppose (American) imperialism everywhere in the world, going so far as to neither trade nor accept aid from such nations. China was in no rush to be `recognized' by foreign nations, nor did they acknowledge diplomatic initiatives and titles given by the old Guomindang regime.

China had to `prove to the Soviets that, while they were an independent Communist state' they were not `Titoists;' though the Chinese `leaned to one side' (Russia) in their dealing with the superpowers, Russia was willing to let China carry the ball with respect to Asian revolutionary struggles. In a sense you might argue that Russia took responsibility for the European theatre and left Asia to the Chinese. The cooperation between Stalin and Mao with regard to Kim Il Sung's plans to attack the South, was discussed at length in Khruschev's memoirs. The author believes that Shi Zhe's account was more detailed: Mao held great reservations about Kim's plan, even though he felt Kim would proceed with the attack in any case.

China's approach in asia was based upon its conviction that the Maoist revolution (1) represented a break from imperialism; (2) that it would inevitably spread beyond China; (3) it was China's responsibility to assist these other peoples with their uprisings, and (4) countries such as Vietnam, Korea, and Taiwan were the areas where these conflicts would be waged. China's support of Ho Chi Minh against the French was a test case of this doctrine. And since Koreans had fought with the Communists against Chiang in the civil war, ties between the countries were so great that a `historian would have trouble explaining why the Chinese did NOT intervene' in Korea.

The outbreak of the war and American intervention was both a crisis and opportunity for China. They had expected war to breakout at one of 3 places (Korea, Taiwan, Indochina) anyway, and had downsized but strengthened their forces. They used the war domestically as part of a great mobilization to `Resist America and Assist Korea.' By the end of July the `Northeast Border Defense army' was in place. The Chinese followed the war closely and even successfully wargamed the In'chon landing, providing six reasons why that port would be preferable over Hungnam, Kunsan and others. Mao, upon hearing about MacArthurs' arrogance and stubbornness, stated "Fine! An arrogant enemy is easy to defeat!" Unfortunately Kim Il Sung was similarly arrogant and refused to pay attention to Chinese warnings about an In'chon landing. China was, in fact, rarin' to go into Korea by early August, but they had to rally the Communist party to their cause. In addition Russia had still to be consulted and North Korea's leader still felt he could do it on his own. After In'chon the crisis became more acute. Using global statements and diplomacy that was straight out of the playbook of the American right, China urged the Russians to support China's intervention in Korea: if Korea was to fall to American/Imperialist forces, other countries in Asia, and Manchuria, would be menaced next.

From the Chinese perspective-especially that of the Chinese soldier, marching in the bitter cold-it is a pity the Stalin now showed his true colors and reneged on his promise to provide the Chinese troops with ammunition, air and logistical support. China decided to go in anyway-proof again of the authors central theme, which is that China acted in its own interests, not those of allies or opponents-but still, the seeds for the Sino-Soviet split were sown in those early 1950s.

China took three bitter lessons from the Korean War. First, Russia and Stalin were no more to be trusted than those dastardly western imperialists. Second, conflicts with the west could be used to strengthen the legitimacy of their regime domestically by rallying troops and citizens to the anti-western cause. Third, Mao realized that it took more than massive human waves to win a war. American technology had cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Chinese. They would need advanced armaments, and an atomic bomb of their own.

this book was the most interesting and revealing look at how China made the decision to intervene in the Korean War in 1950. the discussion of the relationship between Mao Zedong and joseph Stalin was fascinating reading. Should be required reading for China scholars and Cold War historians.

I read this book as a resource for a term paper. I thought the description of the talks between Mao and Stalin about Kim IL Sung's plans to attack South Korea were really fascinating. This book revealed many things about China's conduct of the Korean War that I had not known before reading this book. I recommend it to any scholar of the Korean War and to anyone that is interested in the relationship between China and the former Soviet Union in the 1950s and later.

In the new book 'CyberUnion', author Art Shostak lays the ground work for how Labor Unions currently use and how they may in the future use technology to revitalize and further America's most important social movement, the Labor Movement.

I could find no other source that effectively covered this subject in as much depth as 'CyberUnion' does. This book is a must-read I highly recommend for every unionist concerned with the future of working families. Our futures may depend on it.

This book seems tailored to the Web novice. And it's not very insightful about unions either, relying mostly on old platitudes and even a 1947 book by C. Wright Mills to discuss the bureaucratic obstacles to computer-driven change.

I have designed a few simple Web pages and been involved in Web planning at my union. To me, this book offers little in the way of new insights.

This book gives you the particulars as well as the rationale for trade union activists to be active in the use of computers. It is fair to say that already the book is having an inflence on how union organizers function in this technolical age. Boeing employees almost all of whom are highly computer literate are doing card checks, arranging for workers to respond on line to fill out cards and to then keep them informed about the campaign. the Union at Boeing in Wichita already has organized 1,300 workers in this fashion. This book has the potential to profoundly change the way in which unions reach out to potential members.

This book is for the serious unionist who is searching for better avenues for getting his message out. Art uses interviews with rank and file union members who are actively using computers and the internet as he suggests ways unions should be making use of the information highway and technology. A "must read" for union leaders who are wondering what all the fuss is all about as well as for those who do.

This book has effectively established the "bar" for cyber-unionism. Some might complain that the book is not detailed enough or technical; however, Mr. Shostak is the first author to formally challenge existing paradigms and move unions to action.

As a student at the National Labor College, Vice President and CIO of my union, and webmaster for our site, I recommend this book as a must read for any unionist who is attempting to implement technology in their union. Actual implementation methodologies and philosophies should be forthcoming in his next book which I am eagerly anticipating.

The title enticed me and I had high expectations to glean some insight into modern economic problems - or at least hear some different perspectives. The book is not a bad read, but it suffers from two continual errors that, as a scholar, I find really annoying. First, in many of the graphs presented, they are not numbered, cited in the text, associated with legends NOR are the axes labelled. The trends are obvious, of course, but I had no idea what the heck I was looking at. There is also a lot of jargon thrown at the reader without explanation.

Second, there are no references for many of the statements made in the book. It would be nice to know where they got their data or even IF they are making a claim based on real data (I assume they are, but without references, who knows?). You may like this book and, again, it's not a bad read, but I got so frustrated with the shoddy scholarship that I just set it down halfway through and gave up. I really don't care to listen to opinions as much as I enjoy examining positions and arguments... and those require some scholarship whereas anyone can throw out an opinion.

The contributing editors, Ted Halstead and Michael Lind, again shine as "hubs" for blending diverse thinkers, including James Pinkerton of the right, and I believe they are completely correct when they say that the State of the Union address has become shallow, partisan, and trivialized. More substantively, they might have offered a piece on the ten reasons to impeach Bush-Cheney, and another on the failure of Congress, which has struck out with the American people: strike one is incumbents shaking down lobbyists for cash; strike two is the extremist leaderships (Democratic as well as Republican) forcing "party line" votes that are totally against the Constitutional intent of having Representatives represent their CONSTITUENCIES; and strike three is the extremist Republicans serving as foot soldiers to a mendacious White House, instead of, as the Constitution intended with Article 1, being the FIRST branch of government. The extremist Republicans (I am a moderate Republican) are nothing less than Constitutional perverts, and I use the term advisedly. (See my reviews on books about these two topics in last two months).

The book is ably summed up in the Preface, which states that neither party has proven capable of offering a coherent, honest, or forward-looking agenda to guide America. Peter Peterson, Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations and author of Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It would certainly agree, as do I. It is my hope that this group might coalesce around someone like Senator Collins (R-MA) running with Governor Warner (D-VA), and announcing a coalition cabinet and one commitment: to electoral reform. Karl Rove knows how to steal close elections, the only way to beat him is to field a multi-party TEAM that can win by a LANDSLIDE. America is ready for that, and the ideas in this book are all implement able by such a team approach to what might be called "networked governance."

While I have six pages of notes on this excellent volume, still relevant to the future, I will touch on just a few highlights:

1) Mass middle class is vital, and Washington has destroyed that base for democracy.

2) American people are not as polarized as their extremist political leaders

3) Our humans are productive but our processes are not. I am reminded of the book in the 1980's on "Human Scale." The federal government has indeed become dysfunctional, running at 3-5 mph while the rest of us are going 100 mph.

4) Need a new social contract. Authors identify the first one as building a nation, the second as healing from the civil war, and the third as building a middle class. We need to re-build the middle class with governance that again represents the citizens and their communities rather than predatory corporations.

5) Private sector, not just government, needs reform.

6) Health care can shift from business to government, and in the process we can find $60 billion a year in savings by using information to create metrics to reduce waste and over-treatment. The author discussing this suggests that 20-30% of what we spend on health care is waste. They do not discuss medical tourism, which I find quite interesting as a trend.

7) We need a nation-wide industrial policy that restores the relationship between business, community, and family, while also restricting the mobility of capital unless it restores the social contract with labor.

8) Radical tax reform could yield $200 billion a year (the author's say this is a low estimate, I agree, import-export tax fraud alone is $50 billion a year, I think the number is closer to $500 billion a year).

9) Take back the airwaves in the public interest.

10) James Pinkerton is brilliant in explaining the three eras of education as agricultural (nine-month school year), industrial (rote learning) and experimental (nostrums at expense of basics). See also Derek Bok's piece on "Reinventing Education at Forbes.com. James missed the opportunity to discuss how free universal access to all knowledge, and using serious games to educate on a just enough, just in time basis, in all languages, could reconfigure education world-wide.

11) Matthew Miller (see my review of his superb book, The Two Percent Solution: Fixing America's Problems in Ways Liberals and Conservatives Can Love) outlines what $30 billion could buy in terms of moving teachers up the food chain. Just in passing, if we cut our grotesquely ineffective intelligence community back from $60 billion a year to $30 billion a year, we can create a truly smart nation (see my book coming out on 11 September, THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest and in passing get better secret intelligence in the context of a national Open Source (Intelligence) Network that feeds not only the spies and diplomats, but also the schoolhouses, statehouses, and social clubs.

12) A thread that I found interesting throughout the book is how we lack the information needed to make smart choices. We lack statistical information on medical treatments and results that might allow "evidence-based medicine." As I have pointed out elsewhere (Google for ), the U.S. Government is remarkably ignorant and uninformed across all these areas.

13) The rest of the book on aging productively, incentivizing exercise and penalizing fast food, on rebuilding the heartland with information infrastructure, on mixed races where third generations inter-marry at a 55% rate, on conflicted Muslims, on "opportunity lost" in foreign affairs and national security, all top notch.

The book ends brilliantly, as it began, with a commentary on the dysfunctional duopology of the extremist Republicans where dogma trumps honesty, and the divided Democrats trapped in the past. As the founder of a small non-rival party blog, Citizens-Party.org, I consider this book, and the New America Foundation, to be the people's voice at a time when the Congress and the White House most certainly are not.

This book is great at presenting problems and, perhaps more importantly, solutions facing our country today. Although it appears to be focused mainly on the last presidential election, the issues are still relevant today. It has been over a year since the 2004 presidential election and many of the concerns in this book have not been addressed by either side of the aisle. Each article is managable to the average fan of politics and yet it is detailed enough to make the most involved citizen think in different ways. Of particular note are the chapters on education. They are well written and offer very insightful solutions. This is an excellent book for you to read to get in touch with some of the real problems in America.

The Real State of the Union is an extensive discussion on the issues that currently face the United states. This book is no action packed thriler, yet it is a very thoughtful and well put together.Each issue is taken apart and thorougly evaluated. The out- of-the-box thinking gives readers something to think about while "they" analyze the situation. The clarity of this book is its greatest quality. There is a simple setup in each chapter in which; the author explains the problems with the issue, gives examples, and then provides a solution. Besides this, many chapters include graphs to visually help explain some of the complex issues, such as radical tax reform and public capital stock.

Instead of blaming the right or the left for the country's problems, this book offers solutions.

In the past couple of years I've gotten more interested in politics. I've read books on how different parties and people are dragging this country down, but nothing on how things could be turned around. Our country has change drastically since the New Deal. The old Republican/Democrat political vision is outdated. This book offers new thinking and ideas to get this country on track.

This Real State Of The Union makes sense. I'd like to buy a copy for every government official in Washington if I could.

I almost don't want to write anything because I will sound redundant. This book succeeds because it isn't sensational. It is a very objective look at the economics of the protection rackets that emerged in the absence of a Russian state.

The economics of stationary and roving bandits are essential to understanding what has taken place in Russia over the past 15 years. If the topic is dry to you, this is not the author's fault. He presents the topic in a very concise manner. The first three chapters of Mancur Olson's "Power and Prosperity" presents a more in-depth look at the topic- one some might find more engaging than this.

The author brings together relevant theories from sociology and economics and at only 191 pages, if you're bored - you've not lost much.

This is a "good" book about what was happening in Russia in the 90-s. My only critical point is that at times it seems like the author decides to pay tribute to the academics and then it reads just like a text book on econimics. Otherwise, the relevant points (chapters) seem truly on the mark.

Like so much good research the idea for Violent entrepreneurs departs from a simple real-life observation that sociologist Vadim Volkov made on his way to work in 1997, while passing by the headquarters of the regional Saint Petersburg Anti-Organised Crime Directorate (RUBOP). What struck him was the physical and behavioural likeness of the law enforcement operatives with the members of the organised crime networks they were supposed to be combating. The stockiness of the men coming in an out of the RUBOP building or mounting strelki across the city, their dress code, hair cuts, verbal and non-verbal communication, the type of vehicle they used - all these attributes suggested communalities or at least pathways between the two groups which went beyond mere coincidence. Surely, conventional, state-biased paradigms such as "organised crime" or "mafia" could not account for this phenomenon. The paradox, pointing to a situation where the usual dichotomy between legal and illegal no longer holds, has also not escaped many puzzled Westerners, only that few have been able to draw conclusions as apt as those formulated by Volkov. In this the author has the combined advantage of being both a Russian and a well-trained social science scholar. Thus Volkov matches "local insight" (in its very broadest sense) with the academic rigour necessary to bring out the essential features of this subject. It is no coincidence that he teaches at the European University in Saint Petersburg, an academic institution considered to be among the vanguard of the renewal of the social sciences in post-Soviet Russia. This grounding permeates Volkov's elegant, relatively jargon-free and very readable English prose, his theoretical premises and his interdisciplinary orientation.

With the benefit of hindsight it is not difficult to see that the Soviet state - as its Tsarist predecessor - was essentially a weak state, despite all the trappings of military and political might. Held together by an ailing party-state, the vested interests of a small elite, the spectre of an external threat and a formidable repressive apparatus, the edifice disintegrated when the Pandora's box of reform was opened and the genie of enterprise freedom let loose by Gorbachev in the mid-1980s. Anticommunism and the embrace of ultra-liberalism by Yeltsin's team did little to resurrect state power in early 1990s post-Soviet Russia, quite to the contrary. While this was clearly intentional and policy-driven, Volkov contends that the rest was a "story of unintended consequences". For the massive downsizing of the state created an institutional vacuum, the effects of which were ultimately unpredictable. Following from the state's effective renunciation on its monopoly of violence and a return to the "natural state", the institutional shortcomings were now counteracted by the emergence of private protection agencies - many of them criminal, others originating in the former law enforcement, police and security services. Based on a public-private and legal-illegal matrix, Volkov develops four classifications for violence-managing agencies: private and illegal (organised crime), private and legal (private protection companies), state and illegal (units of state police and security forces acting as private entrepreneurs) and public and legal (the state).
Considering their phenomenological and analytical shortcomings, Volkov rejects the terms "mafia" and "organised crime" to come to terms with this new "industry", opting instead for "organised violence", "violence-managing agencies" or "violent entrepreneurship". These terms are used interchangeably. By doing so, Volkov eschews narratives of "deviance" and "communist legacy" to account for Russian anomie, espousing instead an economic-institutional approach, and replacing the framework of the ubiquitous "economic man" with that of the return of the "predatory man", a concept he borrows from Thorstein Veblen.

State building may not be the first thing that springs to one's mind when thinking about the subject - quite the opposite. And yet this is the dominant theme in Volkov's study. In far too many Western eyes the context of the 1990s was seen as a straight, one-way road to perdition. Therefore particular credit should go to Volkov for expanding on the dialectic between the management of violence, on the one hand, and market and state building, on the other.
At the lowest level, racketeering does not take place in a vacuum. It is itself subject to a market of rival offerings. Whereas economic subjects can make no choice of providers, the market is nevertheless contingent on the competitive relations between wielders of force with regard to efficiency and levels of taxation. Naturally, the racketeer would prefer continuing with mere extortion, but he finds himself in an "extortion-protection" dilemma (Charles Tilly), where he is "compelled" to offer protection. Over the long run this changing relationship leads to the creation of enforcement partnerships: violent entrepreneurs become "fixers" of problems such as non-payment or tax and they diversify into risk-control, the supervision of contracts, and the creation of competitive advantage for their clients. This first dialectic thus mirrors a second, between extortion and contract enforcement, and, ultimately, market building. In the ensuing elimination contests between competing groups in the protection market, those capable of adding value in terms of providing not only physical and informational security, but also expertise in business transactions and civic property relations prevail. Here the non-criminal groups, lacking connections with official bodies, become increasingly fragile. In a form of "competition for the taxpayer", the higher cost of transacting with criminal groups as well as the higher quality of services provided by private protection companies, manifest in the "special access to the state's coercive capacity" and the possibility to negotiate taxation slowly relegates the "unreformed breed" of criminal groups back into the illegal part of the economy. However, the majority of the criminal groups, having meanwhile become stakeholders in an efficient property regime - and thus amenable to a change in their (il)legal status - increase their economic involvement, including involvement in local politics. The turns taken by various racketeering gangs to become respectable financial-industrial groups are characteristic for this "consolidation of violence-managing agencies, the capitalisation of their incomes, and a partial delegation of their enforcement capacity to state agencies". A new social contract between state and former criminal enterprises emerges, combining an amnesty with the setting of a "zero point". Here Volkov cites both the trajectories of the Uralmashevskaya (Yekaterinburg) and the Tambovskaya (St Petersburg) gangs as examples. According to Volkov, ultimately, even the powers devolved (or outsourced) to the legal private protection industry should be wrested back by the Russian state. A first movement in this direction, i.e. toward the reinforcement of the state structures, can be seen in the abandonment of adjudication by private security companies. Increasingly, the latter were venturing into consulting services, in the form of providing legal advice to clients and acting as relays to ensure efficient treatment by the state judiciary. A second market niche is to focus on security and business intelligence. The third option is similar to that taken by the large criminal groups: divestment and the shift of resources to conventional businesses. Finally, the fourth option is simply to return back into state service, thus marking the end of the privatisation of the state.

Beyond its theoretical and practical implications, the book is also useful in dispelling some popular myths. One typical form of Western bias is the contention that the thousands of army, militia and security service personnel made redundant (or semi-redundant) in the 1990s went to work for organised crime. This is a typical example of a negative representation straight out of a Cold War script, for there is also a more benign version, namely the fact that most of these men were absorbed by the official (or semi-official) branch of the protection industry which in turn replaced the domination of the nascent transition economy by criminal structures, a process materialising from the mid-1990s. Volkov shows how most of these men would not have been interested in working for organised crime, which had its distinct sociological roots in the Soviet gym and sports club culture of the kachki (pumped) as well as among Afghan war veterans, and to a lesser degree in the criminal milieu of the vory v zakone (thieves-in-law).
Equally instructive is the contextualisation of corruption in Russia. After all, corruption is relativised in a situation where, due to the inability of the state to enforce its monopoly of violence, business pays state and security services for 'protection' or 'roofing'. This is a sort of corruption that would not exist, were it not for the shortcomings of the state. It is an altogether different question how long the "shelf-life" of these structures of corruption actually is.
Finally, Volkov also introduces a number of useful qualifications as to the size, time frame and relationships determing whether a business ended up under a criminal or noncriminal "roof". For one thing street markets, kiosks and SMEs, i.e. businesses characterised by fast cash turnover, low investment and simple technology, first fell prey to racketeering gangs. The oligarchs with their financial-industrial groups and banks relied on in-house private security services or autonomous private protection companies, often drawn from the ranks of former KGB, GRU or MVD. Also, the later a business emerged, the less it was likely to become dependent on adjudication and enforcement by criminal groups. As a consequence, Volkov dates the most criminal times in Russia between 1989 and 1995 (with a peak in 1992), followed by a short period of stagnation and with the state reaffirming itself from 1998 onwards.

Volkov's brilliantly sourced and documented study is so iconoclastic that points of disagreement will be few and far between. One may, however, beg to differ with regard to his optimism as well as the slightly teleological picture he paints of the consolidation achievements of the Putin period. Certainly the evidence seems to suggest that the renewal of the Russian state under Putin has effectively moved in the direction of eliminating private business dependency on criminal groups, while drastically decreasing the outsourcing of the state prerogative of violence to the private protection industry in general. Whether one wants to follow Volkov all the way in his assertion of the "weak reproductive capacity" of Russian organised crime, as compared to, for example, the Sicilian mafia, is perhaps a different matter. Volkov also has no answer to the long-term moral cost deriving from the cooptation by the highest state echelons of former criminals willing to play by the new rules of the game and the murky connections between former criminal groups and state institutions. This is not to suggest that former criminal groups cannot be tamed, 'civilised' and brought into the mainstream of society. Apart from these minor critiques, Volkov's study provides a healthy antidote to the common "Russian mafia" or "Red mafia" paradigms one can still find in the West. Among the sound of fury of many Russia-related studies that still owe a clear debt to Cold War path dependencies or provide mere variations of Orientalist discourse, this contribution stands out like a gazelle among elephants. Reflecting on the peculiarities of Russia's situation, Volkov is able to offer a more compelling analysis of how Russia actually could emerge from the morass of the 1990s than what can be found in the simplistic state and market building models en vogue in many international organisations.

If you're looking for a True Crime book on the Russian (Eurasian) "maffiya" in the style of Jerry Capeci or George Anastasia, this is not it. This book will seem "dry" to anyone seeking sensational reporting on ROC. However, it is an invaluable resource to academics, law-enforcement, or even the average enthusiast seeking well-researched information on the development, motivations, and modus operandi of the ROC groups. Admittedly, Volkov's work may seem a little pedantic at times, especially in his analysis of the dispute settlement process. However, few researchers in the field have produced such a thorough picture or created such a clear model for understanding Eurasian OC as Volkov has.

The book is very detailed and concise, and yet written in a style that is almost painful to read. Very dry and monotonous. You can easily imagine an university professor droning the words of the book.

Well researched, a lot of information, but not something that can be casually read. Written in a very dry style...

begins a tribute of thanks by a chairman of a local food committee in Soviet Russian upon the arrival of aid through the American Relief Administration during the famine of 1921. Patenaude's comprehensive, lengthy almost-textbook, starts slowly, but picks up speed. Well-summarized in the brief preface and prologue, the situation was dire: hundreds of thousands of people were subsisting on "grass, weeds, acorns, twigs, bark, roots, and worse" when a few American relief workers visited the country during the summer of 1921 to observe the conditions in the famine-stricken Volga region first-hand. The "worse" refers to the human flesh of some of those who suffered the ultimate fate of the famine, death-by-starvation. In mid-December "two hundred thousand children's meals a day [were] served in some nine hundred ARA kitchens." Adults and children fortunate enough to be chosen to participate were fed corn and other foodstuffs provided by the US and dispensed by the ARA. Shipments arriving in Bolshevik Russia were transported to outlying areas via a broken down, battered railway system to ARA kitchens for distribution. The suspicious Soviets were reluctant to allow access to their country and (starving) countrymen. In fact, many of the "nearly eight thousand local citizens" selected to work for the ARA acted as informants, reporting on "suspicious" activities throughout the duration of the relief effort. "By summer 1922, American kitchens were feeding nearly eleven million Soviet citizens a day."

Chronologically formatted, nearly 200-page long, Part I consists of dry, overly detailed information on the background, politics, and logistics of the relief effort; however, subsequent parts (II, III, and IV) are surprisingly reader-friendly. Some topics barely or never mentioned in Part I, are later covered in great detail. Part II (personal triumphs) includes chapters entitled: Funerals, Cannibalism, and Entanglements; Part III (political confrontations) includes: Comrade, Eiduk, Interpreters, and Vodka; and Part IV (cultural encounters) includes: Time Meant Nothing, We Are All Thieves, and The Wind and the Sun. The Big Show in Bololand is a great book for academic-types and fans of Russian history. Those overwhelmed by its textbook-like format, may appreciate select chapters of Parts II, III, and IV. Execution by Hunger by Miron Dolot, an excellent memoir about a later Stalin-made famine in Ukraine, is more suitable for the average reader.

"The Big Show In Bololand" is a remarkable refresher course in the complexities of post Russian Revolution society. It provides important insights and perspective on 1920's Russian politics and its evolution, as it relates to her suspicion and distrust of American motivation and foreign policy for the remainder of the twentieth century.

"The Big Show In Bololand" - Its most important contribution is is the revival and education of what was once referred to as the "Beau Geste" of the 20th century, the American relief effort to Russia during the famine of of 1921,1922, when America, under Herbert Hoover, fed up to 11,000,000 Russians a day for a period of two years. After reading this history, no one will ever again think of Herbert Hoover strictly as the "Great Depression" president.

The Big Show in Bololand: The American Relief Expedition to Soviet Russia in the Famine of 1921, by Bertrand M. Patenaude, published by Stanford University Press was a co-winner of the 2003 Marshall Shulman Book Prize, awarded by the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies and sponsored by the Harriman Institute at Columbia University.

The Shulman prize is awarded annually for an outstanding monograph dealing with the international relations, foreign policy, or foreign-policy decision-making of any of the states of the former Soviet Union or Eastern Europe.

The other winner of the prize was: Ted Hopf's Social Construction of International Politics: Identities & Foreign Policies, Moscow, 1955 & 1999, published by Cornell University Press.

The prize committee wrote: In The Big Show in Bololand: The American Relief Expedition to Soviet Russia in the Famine of 1921, Bertrand Patenaude provides a compelling analysis of American efforts to mitigate the impact of the devastating famine that killed millions of Soviet citizens in the early 1920s. Along with vivid portraits of many of the relief workers and graphic descriptions of their activities to combat famine, Patenaude also explores the encounter between rescue workers and communist officials intent on exercising control over the Americans' operations. Yet The Big Show in Bololand is more than a detailed narrative of the famine relief effort. It offers invaluable insights into the first sustained cultural and political encounter between the United States and the fledgling Soviet Union and explores the underpinnings of the rivalry between the capitalist and communist systems. The book is an outstanding example of lively and engaging prose, impressive historical research, and persuasive analysis of the diplomatic underpinnings and consequences of the rescue mission.

I loved this book. An almost completely unknown chapter of our history where the USA tries to do good in a country bent on killing itself under Communism. (Feeds massive numbers of starving people) The shear scope of this humanitarian effort is mind boggling. I must say the USA screwed itself by our 'goodwill' here. It seems to me that all we did with this huge aid program was to help give this fledgling Bolshevik Government a breather so it could 'get it together' enough to repress people and solidify power. What followed of course was mass murder by this government that we 'helped to save'. (30 million? ) people died under this goverment that we helped stay in power! Very sad but very very interesting story. A lesson to learn. The USA got and gets NO credit for this effort. READ THE BOOK IT WILL BLOW YOU AWAY!'

The Soviet Union suffered two horrendous famines in the early 20th century but the US was only allowed to help with the first one. The 1921-1923 famine, coming hard on the heels of the Russian Civil War and World War I took unknown millions of lives. It would have been far, far worse had not the US, through Herbert Hoover and his American Relief Administration (ARA)provided thousands of tons of food. The focus here is on the ARA from an institutional approach. The first quarter of the text reviews the events chronologically. The rest of the book offers chapters approaching the catastrophe from various aspects, e.g., staff, transportation problems. Patenaude shows real care in writing and is clearly a better writer than 90% of historians, but the book is too long. The text runs over 740 pages (including photographic sections) and must have been meant to be the definitive. One can really doubt if another book on the ARA will ever be published. Unfortunately, the length, small type size, and the book's larger than normal physical size may reduce its audience to grad students and russian specialists. That's too bad; the topic is interesting and Patenaude is such a skilled wordsmith that he could draw more readers to russian history. He should consider doing books on Lenin's NEP, the Ukrainian famine of the 1930's and the Comintern.

it's an achievement, indeed, and Valley is a well respected scholar of Irish music. the choice of material to cover, the depth of coverage in individual artciles, and the choices of example within them, is, really, not comprehensive or all that focused. that said it is a useful work, just not by any means the limit or the definition of what there is to be known about the subjects it covers, and there many it does not touch as well. I imagine Vallely did not intend it to be the last word, but some reviewers have made more if it than need be, I think. depending on what topic one is seeking to learn of it is varyingly helpful, frustrating, or of little use. the bibilographies and discographies are interesting though. refer to it, yes, just don't make it your only source of reference material for Irish music.

No other book comes close to providing the breadth and depth of information about Irish traditional music.

The A-Z format is ideal for covering the subject matter, making it quick to look topics up and cross-reference them. I have found no important topics missed out in this truly encyclopedic work. And like other good encyclopedias, it is hard to put down once you start looking things up because one topic leads to another - and so on.

The book is well written and easy to read. At the same time it contains important details such as the musical tempos and modes that are characteristic of different types of Irish tunes - reels, jigs, hornpipes, etc. This is especially useful for those who actually want to learn to play Irish music as well as listen to it with greater understanding. (Most books claiming to explain Irish music actually miss out the musical details altogether and take the easy option of just rehashing the familiar historical stuff.) There are also many examples of tunes provided in conventional musical notation.

Key biographies are included of important and influential musicans - past (e.g. Michael Coleman) and present (e.g. Jackie Daly) - including their major recordings. This would also be very handy for anyone wanting to build a worthwhile CD collection as well as looking out for live performances of exceptional artists.

Details of all the main instruments used in Irish music are given, i.e. accordions, concertinas, fiddles, flutes, pipes and whistles.

The editor and writer Fintan Vallely clearly knows his subject extremely well and he has chosen other true experts for their valuable contributions. (This contrasts with certain other books that claim to be written by experts who really don't know what they're talking about.)

I have personally found this book essential reading and I am extremely grateful to Fintan Vallely for providing so much good quality information in one volume.

(In case anyone should be thinking, "Is 'The Companion to Irish Traditional Music' in any way too expensive?", then the answer is simply this: this book provides so much it is actually very good value for money - you could easily waste a lot by buying several other books that don't give you anything like the information you need and that furthermore seriously mislead you about the subject.)

If you want a genuinely complete guide to Irish traditional music then this is it. I recommend it highly.

This is a really great reference for people who love Irish traditional music, and I am unaware of any other available source that offers so much information. It is admirable in that the coverage is so very broad, and many times there is in-depth information, but I must admit that I would have liked to see more on many of the topics. The topics are arranged alphabetically, which makes it seem a bit like a dictionary. While this is not necessarily a bad thing (easy to find what you're looking for), I prefer the continuous reading style of some other books. The competition generally comes up short on both amount and depth of coverage though. Also it would be unfair for me to give this less than 5 stars when it is designed to be a good reference rather than something to read with continuity from cover to cover. As a reference for Irish traditional music, I know of none better.

This is the work that those of us who have been studying Irish traitional culture have been waiting for years for. As far as I know, there has never been a work like this published. This is an amazing encyclopedia of articles that are very thorough and are written by people with impressive professional expertise. If you've ever come across a term or topic in Irish music or dance that you wished for more information about, this is the place to find it. The extensive appendix is a very valuable collection of sources from every facet of the genre. This reference work is essential for any serious student of Irish culture. It is well worth the price.

As an avid enthusiast of Irish Traditional Music, I regard this volume as a stunning achievement. I was enthralled by the amount of carefully researched material as well as the balanced presentation. The care and devotion to this momentous task was evident on every page. Nowhere in the literature of Irish Music is there a comparison. This volume stands alone as the pinnacle of standards and will remain so for a long long time.

Recommended as an introductory examination upon the paradox that was the Soviet Union. I think this work should have touched a bit on the fundamental problems of industry (covered in a few paragraphs in Castell's 'End of Millennium) and of the regime's constant struggle with the intelligentsia.

I acknowledge that an attempt to document the USSR in a single volume is a formidable task. In making this book friendly to a non-scholar decisive events are mixed with colorful anecdotes and occasional moralizing. (I think most of us do not need to be reminded that the deaths of 20 million people is bad thing.)

A quick read but ultimately I could not find anything in the book to use in my 300 and 400-level Soviet history courses at university.

Bravo Mr. Kort! This was a delightful book to read. This book is accessible to everyone without it having been watered down. The sentences are clear and elegant; I was able to read effortlessly throughout the whole text. I did not detect any biases from the author and he seemed fair and accurate all the way through.

Factually, the book is in sync with other books with related or similar subjects that I have happened to read. I bought a copy of the 5th edition (2001) and I wonder if it is still being updated. The story is riveting. Michael Kort rendered a masterpiece with this book.

i bought this book for a class (minored in Russian History), and this book is more than a standard history text book.

point-by-point the motivation for the establishment of the Soviet Union is outlined with complete objectivity and very little 20-20 hindsight criticism. Kort explores every facet of the transition from complete autocracy to socialist society with great detail throughout every era from Stalin's failed 5-year plans to Gorbachev's perestroika which actually ended the existance of the USSR.

even for the casual history buff this is a great guide and insightful read.

Like probably everyone who has read this, I bought it for a class. However, this book is unlike every other textbook I've read, in that it's actually *fun* to read. I'd probably have read it on my own had I known about it before.

I had to read this for a class that was taught by Kort himself. The book covers a lot of Russian history from the last days of the czars to Yeltsin. If you ever want to know some general history about Russia, then read this book.

This is the fourth in the fascinating series of books on working class struggles in the 1930s, centering on the strikes and organizing by drivers and warehouse workers in the Midwestern states. Farrell Dobbs was a young worker in the Minneapolis coal yards who quickly became a leader of these strikes and organizing campaigns, as well as a member and then leader of the Socialist Workers Party.
The first three volumes (Teamster Rebellion, Teamster Power, Teamster Politics-- don't miss them!) take up the important strikes in Minneapolis in 1934, the subsequent over-the-road organizing campaign throughout the upper Midwest, and the vital and complex political challenges militant workers took on in confronting the employers, their government, cops and finks, and reactionary, class-collaborationist trade union officials.
Teamster Bureaucracy draws some of the broadest lessons for working class fighters from those years of struggle. Facing the intense political pressure of the opening years of WWII, the Stalin-Hitler pact, frame-ups by the FBI, the drive by Teamsters international president Daniel Tobin (aiding and aided by the Roosevelt administration) to crack down on militant local unions -- this book is full or rich experiences we can learn from today. It should be in every workers library!

The major industrial unions rose from almost nothing to massive powerful organizations in the mid to late 1930s. They were social movements in the broadest sense. They led powerful strike mobilizations, galvanizing the hopes of not merely their own members, but other workers, the unemployed, family farmers, and others. By the 1950s, U.S. union structures had become a prop of capitalism, both domestically and internationally, ruled by officialdom as corrupt and disloyal to workers as can be found on any corporate board. How did the fighting unions become their opposite? Farrell Dobbs, a Minneapolis Teamster and leader of the famed 1934 Minneapolis general strike, and later of the Socialist Workers Party, describes how the militancy of his union was confronted, and smashed, in the prelude and opening of World War II. He also explains the lessons to be learned by today?s militant workers.