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The size of this volume might suggest, at first sight, a ‘coffee-table book’ and no doubt this is where many will be found. But this book is far more than that label implies. The authors have clear...

British commercial and political hopes to expand trade in the new Soviet state after 1920 were to an extent disappointed. Despite successful ventures by individual companies, in aggregate business fell short of expectations, especially compared with German and American competitors. The reasons were both (micro and macro) economic variables and political factors, in Britain and the USSR. From 1926 the Soviet regime was committed to rapid industrialization and a pattern of imports in which Germany enjoyed some comparative advantage. But, in contrast to major rivals, British governments occasionally tried to use trade as a political instrument to the disadvantage of commercial operations.

Team games, initially and principally cricket but later other games, were played in mental asylums in various parts of Britain from the mid-nineteenth century, before being abandoned in the move to 'care in the community' from c.1980s. Taking as a detailed example the Norfolk Lunatic Asylum (later St Andrew's Hospital), this article examines the use of games in patient therapy. Games were originally confined to male patients but later included women. Using archival and interview sources we assess the value of such therapy, the response of the patients and the demise of the idea before the final closure of the hospital.

Readers will be familiar with the work of such luminaries as the late Jim Riordan or Robert Edelman on sport in the USSR. This work examines, in detail, the formative years of the 1920s and 1930s w...

(2003). The Games Ethic and Industrial Capitalism Before 1914: The Provision of Company Sports. Sport in History: Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 45-63.

Tom Mather, Best in the Northern Union: The Pioneering 1910 Rugby League Lions Tour of Australia and New Zealand (London: London League Publications Ltd., 2010). Pp. 149. £12.95 (pb). ISBN 978-1903...

Lotteries were used frequently for public revenue purposes in Britain in the eighteenth century, but were abandoned in the 1820s. Before its introduction in 1994, a national lottery in some form was considered in Britain several times: in the 1930s, 1960s (it was even proposed in the budget of 1968), 1970s and 1990s. In the USA, and to a lesser extent Australia and New Zealand, lotteries had also had some historical significance which was overridden in the nineteenth century. In much of continental Europe, this provision was not altogether dismissed as a policy but, in all cases, gambling was restricted. Renewed ‘liberalization’ in the twentieth century was brought about by the pressure of popular demand and, more important, governments seeking revenue. Thus, lotteries were revived and extended in the post-war years as supplementary sources of government finance. The political acceptability of state-sponsored or supported gambling in turn led to the growth of other gambling media. In Britain, by contrast, almost all forms of gambling were gradually permitted in law, under strict controls, before a national lottery was revived. Thus, the social acceptability of gambling was well established beforehand. The major reason for a return to a lottery, however, was to raise money for public expenditure as a politically acceptable tax. For government to support and to depend on revenue from gambling marks a major turning point in public policy and control.

(1993). Social opposition to gambling in Britain: an historical overview. The International Journal of the History of Sport: Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 295-312.

Preface I. Introduction: NEP Russia as a Transitional Society William G. Rosenberg II. The Problem of Class Identity in NEP Society Sheila Fitzpatrick III. Class and Consciousness in a Socialist Society: Workers in the Printing Trades during NEP Diane P. Koenker IV. Labor Conflict in Moscow, 1921-1925 John B. Hatch V. WorkersO Artels and Soviet Production Relations Hiroaki Kuromiya VI. Private Trade and Traders during NEP R.E. Johnson VII. Family Life in Moscow during NEP VIII. Working-Class Women and the Withering Away of the Family: Popular Responses to Family Policy Wendy Z. Goldman IX. Razmychka? Urban Unemployment and Peasant In-migration as Sources of Social Conflict Douglas R. Weiner X. Soldiers in the Proletarian Dictatorship: From Defending the Revolution to Building Socialism Mark von Hagen XI. Policing the NEP Countryside Neil Weissman XII. Insoluble Conflicts: Villiage Life Between Revolution and Collectivization Helmut Altrichter XIII. The Quiet Revolution in Soviet Intellectual Life Katrina Clark XIV. The Press and Its Message: Images of America in the 1920s and 1930s Jeffrey Brooks XV. Popular Literature of the 1920s: Russian Peasants as Readers Regine Robin XVI. Popular Song in the NEP Era Robert A. Rothstein XVII. Bolshevik Ritual Building in the 1920s Richard Stites XVIII. Conclusion: Understanding NEP Society and Culture in the Light of New Research William G. Rosenberg Selected Bibliography Lori A. Citti Contributors Index

The Russian peasant commune after the reforms of the 1860s, Boris Mironov peasant women and their work, Rose Glickman the woman's side - male outmigration and the family economy in Kostroma province, Barbara Engel peasant and proletariat - migration, family patterns and regional loyalty, Robert Johnson peasants in uniform - the Tsarist army and peasant society, John Bushnell peasants and schools, Ben Eklor popular justice, community and culture among the Russian peasantry 1870-1900, Stephen Frank popular religion in 20th century Russia, Moshe Lewin images and ideas in Russian peasant art, Anthony Netting the Russian peasant movement of 1905-1917 - its social composition and significance, Maureen Perrie.

(1989). Betting and Business; The Commercialisation of Gambling in Britain. Business History: Vol. 31, No. 4, pp. 67-85.

HE relatively poor performance of British exports in the years between I 870 and I9I4 is well documented, and it has been attributed to a variety of causes-including the possibility that British exporters were relatively sluggish in their response to foreign competition and slow to adopt technical innovations.2 This article examines one rather specialized sector of exports-the sale of agricultural machinery to Russia before I 914 by the firm of Ransomes, Sims & Jeffries of Ipswich. Particular attention is paid to the manner in which sales were pursued, but it is also hoped that such a study of this firm's activities will throw some light on British agricultural exports in general as well as on the state of Russian agriculture and its capacity for acquiring agricultural capital equipment before I9I 7. Ransomes3 was one of the best-known agricultural engineering companies in the late nineteenth century and, unlike its then contemporaries, the firm is still in independent operation. Russia became Ransomes' largest overseas market as well as an important outlet for other agricultural engineering companies, among them Marshalls of Gainsborough, Claytons & Shuttleworths, Rainworths, Penneys, Fosters, Ruston & Procters (all of Lincoln), Howards of Bedford, Garretts of Leiston, and Fowlers of Leeds. In the second half of the nineteenth century Russia also became an increasingly important market for other European producers of agricultural equipment, principally in Germany but also in Austria, France, Sweden, and elsewhere. McCormicks4 and other American producers also penetrated the market. It is also worth emphasizing that agricultural engineering was amongst the most successful of British export industries in the years before I914. According to the first census of production in I907 total output of the industry was C3,7 I 1,000, of which the greater part was exported. The figures in Table i indicate that a very high proportion of British output

The contribution made by allied deliveries2 to the Soviet war effort during the second world war has been subject to some controversy, but it is generally agreed to have been minor. The official Soviet history of the Great Patriotic War acknowledges that about twelve per cent of aeroplanes, ten per cent of tanks and less than two per cent of artillery used by Soviet forces were imported from the west.3 In some logistical materials, lorries and telephone-wire being particular cases in point, the contribution was much greater. Nicholas Riazanovsky sums it up: 'It should be stressed that while Soviet military transportation depended heavily on vehicles from lend-lease, the Red Army was armed with Soviet weapons'.4 At a more general level, Voznesensky, the wartime director of Gosplan, estimated that lend-lease deliveries had amounted to only four per cent of Soviet wartime industrial production.5 This figure has had general credence ever since, though some western observers have noted that Voznesensky referred, apparently, only to the years 1941 to 1943. There was no mention of 1944-45 when deliveries were far more significant than 1941.6 Further, there is no explanation of the basis of this figure, nor is it clear whether it refers to industrial production per se or to national income. Nonetheless, the four per cent figure has become accepted and widely repeated.7 An East German author has written that lend-lease deliveries amounted 'at most to four per cent of the material means available' to the Soviet Union;8 a Soviet writer, Tamarchenko, refers to four per cent of 'total production'.9 Further, the American scholar J.R. Millar notes that this estimate 'does not seem unreasonable'.'? Some specialist Soviet monographs on the war make virtually no reference to allied aid at all,"1 and some that do are at pains to stress the minor significance of that aid.12 During the Cold War, rather less scrupulous Soviet scholarship attempted to discredit any value in allied aid to recipient parties, seeing it rather as a weapon of American imperialism.'3 There were