The "Vera Nocentini" Cultural Foundation (www.arpnet.it/veranoce) was set up in Turin in 1978 by a group of union leaders - some coming from the inside, some from the outside of the Turin Cisl (Confederation of Italian Trade Unions) - and by some university professors. It carries out research studies of the workers' and trade-union movement and has archives containing material about the history of trade unions as well as a library, a newspaper library, photographic archives, archives of posters and placards and also a bank of oral testimonies.

The Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives, New York School of Industrial and Labor Relations, proudly announces a new series of interdisciplinary informal talks, "Conversations in Working Life and Culture," to be held in the Spring of 2001.

The following series of seminars have been arranged by the International Centre for Labour Studies, Manchester. All welcome. More information on 0161-275-4794.

Working Class Movement Library News
January 2001

Ewan Mac Coll event postponed

As a mark of respect to Kirsty Mac Coll who was tragically killed before Christmas the Trustees took a decision to postpone the Ewan Mac Coll celebration. The event should have taken place in the Annexe of the Library on Sunday 7th January. Those of you who have tickets please hold on to them as there is every intention to hold the event at a later date. We apologise for any inconvenience that the timing of the postponement may have caused.

New Acquisitions

The following sites were added to the World Wide Web Virtual Library Labour and Busines History in November-December 2000, for a grand total of 1,682 sites.

Radical History Review Call for Submissions:
"The Uses of the Folk"
Call for Papers Date: 2001-06-15

The Journal of Women's History is soliciting articles for a special issue entitled "Revising the Experiences of Colonized Women." We seek manuscripts from individuals around the world that provide new perspectives on the experiences of colonized women during the colonial and neocolonial periods that incorporate research on such topics as gender, sexuality, national identity, political and social activisms, feminism, and pedagogy. This issue, guest edited by Nupur Chaudhuri and Claire Robertson, will appear in early 2003. The deadline for submissions is 1 August 2001.

I am pleased to announce the beginning of this year's competition for the Philip Taft Labor History Award. The competition is open to any book (or books) published in 2000 relating to the history of United States labor. The award carries a $1000 prize. I invite your nomination of any and every eligible book for consideration.

Nominations must be submitted no later than May 1, 2001.

Work and the Image (vols I and II)
Edited by Valerie Mainz and Griselda Pollock

Paul Hollander, Political Will and Personal Belief: The Decline and Fall of Soviet Communism. New Haven, Conn. and London: Yale University Press, 1999. xi + 356 pp. Notes, bibliography, and index. $ 40.00 (cloth) ISBN 0-300-07620-7.

Reviewed for H-RUSSIA by Henry Reichman, Department of History, California State University, Hayward.
Published by H-RUSSIA, December 2000.

Disillusion and the Soviet Demise