John H. M. Laslett and Seymour Martin Upset, eds., Failure of a Dream ? Essays in the History of American Socialism (Garden City, N. Y.: Anchor Books, 1974)

himself a Marxist; yet there is nothing here of the complex interaction of base and superstructure which is (or should be) the stuff of Marxist historiography. People and movements appear as the embodiments of doctrines, not as the products of social forces. Little trouble has been taken to explore the nature of German society and economy in the period in question, or to relate it to the problem under consideration, so it is scarcely surprising that the book sheds little or no light on the wider context of German history from 1863 to 1933. There are a few jejune, abstract and inaccurate assertions about industrialization, mainly culled from Marxist theory; but no hard information on how it really affected women. The challenge of writing a socialist history of women and their efforts to emancipate themselves has recently been taken up by many writers, most notably perhaps by the History Workshop school in Britain. It is safe to say that Dr. Thonnessen's book will be of no help to them in rising to this challenge.