Burton, Valerie

English

Histoire sociale / Social History (E-Journal, York University)

392 mSTOIRE SOCIALE - SOCIAL IDSTORYmembers were drawn from all ranks of society. And who were those supposed"brigands" assumed to be? Not the hirelings ofenraged noblemen, The author argues,in the course of a very interesting analysis of linguistic usage in 1789, but "outsiders":men who had little or no connection with any local community in the region, and whowere, therefore, perceived to be dangerous.Toward the end ofhis book, Ramsay does point to the new militias as possessingwithin themselves a genuinely revolutionary undercurrent. These new militias, heasserts, may have been established by the elites with an eye to maintaining theirtraditional control over the potentially troublesome lower orders; but eventually, thesemilitias would become truly 'national' and democratic, no longer functioning withinthe framework of the old society of orders and privilege. Be that as it may, Ramsay'sdiscussion of the formation of the militias during the Great Fear, like the rest of hisbook, leaves the reader with the impression that as far as the Great Fear itself wasconcerned, in the Soissonais at least, it took place within an essentially traditionalcontext.Ramsay's study goes against the generally-held perception of the Great Fear ashaving been fuelled by hostility on the part of the peasantry toward the nobility. Healso breaks with the idea, commonly held by historians, that it was an integral part ofthe widespread rural unrest which had occurred during the preceding months. Ramsayargues that the Great Fear took root only in those areas of the Soissonnais which hadnot experienced the earlier unrest. The reason for this, he suggests, is that the earlierunrest occurred in areas in which there had been a collapse ofa traditional consensualideology - the continued existence of such an ideology being necessary if therumours which gave birth to the Great Fear were to have an effect.Ramsay is drawn to the idea that the Great Fear took hold, and could only takehold, in those parts of France in which, in the summer of 1789, sorne form oftraditional collective mentality and traditional cornmunity was still operative. But herealises that this is an idea which must remain purely speculative until he has had achance to extend his research beyond the boundaries of the Soissonnais.David M. KlinckUniversity ofWindsor***Michael Roper and John Tosh, eds. - Manful Assertions. Masculinities in Britainsince 1800. London and New York: Routledge, 1991. pp. x, 221.Although men are at the centre of much historical writing, their masculinity hasnot, of itself, attracted particular attention. Perceived, as one source puts il, as "justchaps", the gender of (heterosexual) men seems either irrelevant or unproblematic.Women and gays, by contrast, are history's gendered subjects, and the emphasis ofrecent work has unwittingly centred the "problem" of gender on them. But the latestdevelopment bodes for a change by"engendering men", and this book was conceivedto that end. The aspiration of editors and contributors are to demonstrate thatmasculinity has analytical significance in history. They aim to make the case for itsgreater prominence in the mainstream of the subject. The editors, moreover, pushsorne fairly ambitious daims to transform historical understanding by a perspectiveCOMPTES RENDUS -BOOK REVIEWS 393upon masculinity. If the collection as a whole falls short of this grander aim, eachcontributor has original and important things to say. Together, they put up a persuasivecase for a different way of seeing men in history.The potential field for examining Manful Assertions is vast and one can onlyimagine that an element of serendipity entered into the fmal choice of subject matter.Thus biographically-oriented accounts of middle-class shapers and movers EdwardWhite Benson, T.E. Lawrence and Thomas Carlyle appear alongside anautobiographical excursion into the world of the public schoolboy in the 19408 and1950s. Working- class men are represented by recruits to the nineteenth-centurySalvation Army; the ubiquitous "skilled artisan" (seen here in a new light); and theyouthful readership of adventure comics in the early twentieth century. Finally, andmost different in subject matter and treatment, is a study of the near-contemporary"company man" (the managers of engineering fmns, as it tums out).What do we learn about masculinity and its significance in the post-1800 periodfrom these essays? Most striking, perhaps, is the fragility ofmasculinity. The physicaland emotional strength which constitutes "manliness" isolates and diminishes theindividual even as it enhances the social power of men as a class. This, at least, is themessages of those who deal with middle-class masculinity. In public, Bensan was theawe-inspiring headmaster; in private, though he adored domestic life, he was in-capable ofemotional intimacy with his sons. Carlyle eulogized men for their unselfishpublic achievements whilst, as a hypochondriac, imposing his needs upon a femalehousehold. T.E. Lawrence loses and gains by reassessment He is a more complex,unconventional and sympathetic figure than the public image (less of the standardbearer of British imperialism than we might think). But the persona! cost of hismanliness was one of repressed sexuality.Working-class masculinity seems more robust, at least in sa far as it involved agreater degree ofcollective identification and mutual affirmation. As the essays makeclear, however, there is no single code ofworking-class masculinity and the diversityof working-class perceptions of manliness is the central point to emerge here. TheSalvationists, for example, found a manly Christianity more attractive than the cultureof the public house. The artisan of labour, meanwhile, aspired to the status of familyprovider as skill was defined as a male preserve and its value weighed in ''breadwin-ning". The question of middle-class influence is partially discussed in the paper onearly twentieth-century boys' adventure magazines. These set out prescriptions ofmanly behaviour in stories for the edification of working-class lads, though whetherthey were won over remains, 1 think, debateable.Only one of these essays has been published previously (McClellan's on the"Representative Artisan") and for the mostpart, they represent the frrst fruits ofyoungscholar's doctoral research. Bearing this in mind, Roper and Tosh do a good job ofspelling out the significance of each and setting them in a larger context. Theirintroductory essay is particularly valuable for its theoretical content. Although taobrief to constitute either a comprehensive review of work done, or a programme forfuture research in men's studies, the key issues are identified in a way which shouldstimulate further debate in this fast developing field. Roper and Tosh see masculinityas a relational construct which cannot be divorced from considerations ofmen's socialpower. In this, they break decisively with the apolitical and self-validating prescrip-tions of the role model paradigm which shaped men's studies in its frrst wave. Andyet, whilst they have no inhibitions about acknowledging that a large part of394 mSTOIRE SOCIALE - SOCIAL mSTORYmasculinity concems the superordination of men over women, they are critical of themen's movement and feminist perspectives which admit of little else. Their volumemoves us closer to a legitimate position for men's history and it takes several steps inthe direction of the historiographie revolution which Roper and Tosh envisage in theirintroduction.Valerie BurtonMemorial University ofNewfoundland***Timothy R. Scully - Rethinking the Centre. Party Polities in Nineteenth- andTwentieth-Century Chile. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992. pp. xiv, 287.As Timothy Scully points out, Chilean centre parties have not received muchacademic attention despite the crucial role they have played in the development ofChile's political system over the last 140 years. He seeks to remedy this neglect andto shed light on the way the party political system has developed by taking a closelook at three "critical junctures" periods during which party politics underwentsignificant alteration. The three junctures which Scully identifies are 1855-1861,1920-1932 and 1952-1958. (He also examines the question of whether the Pinochetera should be considered as a critical juncture and rightly concludes that it probablyshould not be.) The frrst saw the issue of Church State relations generate a tripartitedivision of politics into left, centre and right - a division which, for rather differentreasons, characterises Chilean politics to this day. The second saw the politicalincorporation of the urban and mining working-class movements which had emergedas a consequence of economic and social change in the late nineteenth and earlytwentieth centuries. FinaIly, the third juncture saw the political incorporation ofruralworkers and the emergence of the Christian Democrats as a new type ofcentre party.It is ScuIly's contention that each of these critical junctures had a profound impact onthe way the political system functioned in subsequent decades. Further, he alsoexplores the nature ofcentre parties, distinguishing between two types, the positionaland the programmatic. According to author, positional parties are flexible and oppor-tunistic and more interested in acting as brokers between opposing extremes than inimposing their own programmatic demands. He places the Liberais and the RadiealParty in this category whereas the Christian Democrats, who have their own agendaand hegemonic ambitions, clearly belong in the programmatic category.Although a political scientist, Scully has kept the methodological andterminological trappings of his discipline weIl under control and he bas produced aclear and elegantly written book. His treatment of each critical juncture shows a suregrasp of the historicalliterature and he provides a convincing analysis of how partypolitics has evolved since the 1850s. His identification of key political cleavagesalong ideological and class lines and his demonstration of how even new cleavagesrelated to the old are particularly interesting and this reviewer, for one, is grateful tohe reminded of the continuing impact and resonances of the anti-clerical divide.Indeed, while not all of ScuIly's insights and analysis are necessarily novel, this is aweIl organised and tightly argued study whieh will stimulate debate where it does notilluminate.

Michael Roper and John Tosh, eds. - Manful Assertions. Masculinities
in Britain since 1800

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Michael Roper and John Tosh, eds. - Manful Assertions. Masculinities in Britain since 1800

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Histoire sociale / Social History (E-Journal, York University)