Print

Print


I'm receiving this again for review. So:

 

Volume 33, #2, June 2015

 

Four articles:

 

Italians migrating to  in Mexico 1885-1938

 

Guest worker integration in Stuttgart 1960-1976

 

Lebanese diaspora engagement with Lebanon

 

The final article is  of some interest to us: Aviva Ben-Ur, 'Identity
Imperative: Ottoman Jews in Wartime and Interwar Britain;. 'By the onset of
World War I, thousands of Ottoman immigrants, including a significant
proportion of Jews, were living and trading in Britain', the author
explains. During the war and in the inter-war years, 'these multi-ethnic
Ottomans were automatically classified as enemy aliens, subject at times to
internment and deportation, stripped of their freedom of movement and barred
from British citizenship.'  The government even invented a new ethnic
(national?) category: 'Ottoman (Spanish Jew)'. While this might be a good
introduction to the history of the treatment of Jews in Britain as well as
the classification of aliens, as the article is based on merely 60
naturalisation files, I don't think we can draw any broad conclusions about
these applicants. But I  must note that most were NOT of 'Spanish Jew'
ancestry.

 

Three book reviews are of interest:

 

Douglas Lorimer, Science, Race Relations and Resistance in Britain,
1870-1914 (Manchester Univ. Press, 2013), which 'seeks to add nuance to the
debate (regarding the transition from monogenetic civilisational superiority
to polygenetic scientific determination) by exploring both the proponents of
the new scientific racism and those who continued to resist them in the late
19th and early 20th centuries'.

 

Tony Kushner, The Battle of Britishness: Migration Journeys, 1685 to the
Present (Manchester Univ. Press 2012). Kushner apparently pairs two
different migration groups for three different periods and looks at their
treatment/reception/acceptance or non-acceptance: for example the 17th
century Huguenots are contrasted with the Volga German protestants in the
1870s. He examines the treatment of the Kindertransport, the Irish exodus,
those fleeing anti-semitism; and then contrasts the experience  of the
Empire Windrush arrivals with the experiences stow-aways . As reviewer
Lesley Robinson concludes, 'this study is essential reading for those with
an interest in migration but also for those concerned with national identity
and how Britishness has, over the years. both rejected and embraced migrant
identities'.

 

Joe Street reviews Robin Bunce and Paul Field's Darcus Howe: A Political
Biography, (Bloomsbury, 2014), which is 'an essential source for anybody who
wishes to understand the Black British experience of the last 50 years'. I
had been sent a copy of this for review, but refused to write one as this is
an autobiography. There is no back ground, no analysis, no commentary  by
the supposed editors. While Howe was certainly active politically, as I knew
him personally and disliked much of his behaviour, I shall say not more.

 

The final review is of Iranians in Texas: Migration, Politics and Ethnic
Identity by Mohsen M. Mobasher (Texas Univ. Press, 2012) I certainly did not
know that such a community existed.

 

Marika