Review Article: ‘Managing’ Women in War and Peace

UTE DANIEL.The War from Within: German Working-Class Women in the First World War, trans. Margaret Ries. Oxford and New York: Berg, 1997. Pp. xii, 343. $18.50 (us), paper; DEBORAH THOM. Nice Girls and Rude Girls: Women Workers in World War I. London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 1998; dist. New York: St Martin's Press. Pp. xvi, 224. $59.50 (us); FRANCES H. EARLY. A World without War: How US Feminists and Pacifists Resisted World War I. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1997. Pp. xxi, 265. $22.95 (us), paper, LUCY NOAKES. War and the British: Gender, Memory, and National Identity. London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 1998; dist. New York: St Martin's Press. Pp. vi, 218. $59.50 (us); JANE SLAUGHTER. Women and the Italian Resistance, 1943–1945. Denver: Arden Press, 1997. Pp. xx, 171. $22.50 (us), paper; DALIA OFER and LENORE J. WEITZMAN, eds., Women in the Holocaust. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998. Pp. vii, 402. $30.00 (us).     

The Origins of American Expansion in Hawaii and Samoa, 1865–1900

From Nixon to Reagan, official US perceptions of West German trade with the Soviet Union (Osthandel) underwent a remarkable evolution. Despite initial skepticism, the Nixon and Ford administrations placed no major obstacles to West German–Soviet economic relations. Carter, however, changed the situation. His stance on human rights and economic sanctions against the Soviets for various developments - along with his belief that West Germany should follow the United States' lead - led Carter to ask Schmidt to curtail Osthandel, an action that contributed to Schmidt's notoriously poor relationship with the US President. Despite coming from a different political party, Reagan initially continued Carter's outlook on Osthandel. Yet rather than emphasize human rights, he publicly stressed Poland's self-determination as the reason to implement his aggressive policy to curb trade with the USSR, even though his advisers feared the strategic implications of greater German dependence on Soviet energy. Carter's and Reagan's early approaches were ineffective. Their actions, especially the latter's, strained US relations with Germany, the United States' most important ally in central Europe. Equally important, both Carter's and Reagan's policies undermined détente with Moscow. Because Nixon and Ford's approach to Osthandel harmed neither US–German relations nor US–Soviet relations, these presidents' responses had conspicuous advantages over succeeding administrations.     

The ‘Wicked Machinery of Government':1 Malta and the Problems of Continuity under the New Model Administration

This is a study focused on the early years of British rule in Malta (1800–13). It explores the application to the island of the ‘new model’ of colonial government, one based on direct rule from London mediated by the continuation of existing laws and institutions. Systemic deficiencies are identified. These tended to undermine the effectiveness of direct British rule. This study also reveals, in the context of legal and constitutional continuity, unresolved tensions between modernity and tradition. The political stability of the island was damaged and the possibility of continued British possession was threatened.     

The Politics of Empire: Douglas Hailsham and the Imperial Policy of the National Government, 1931–38

While the majority of high-profile imperialists were excluded from Britain's National Government during the 1930s, at least one leading imperialist of the era, Douglas Hogg, first Viscount Hailsham (1872–1950), was at the heart of British policy-making. Although historians have largely overlooked the multifaceted contribution of this leading Conservative to inter-imperial affairs, as a senior cabinet minister he made significant interventions in Britain's policy towards both India and Ireland. He was, both publicly and privately, at the forefront of attempts to resist Irish violations of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty and, at the same time, became one of the government's leading advocates of a progressive solution to India's constitutional development. The article demonstrates that the simplistic image of Hailsham as a diehard reactionary requires significant modification. His approach was characteristically underpinned by a belief in the sanctity of existing agreements and pledges—whether or not he intrinsically approved of them.