The Gulag remains one of the key symbols of twentieth-century mass political violence. Thanks to recent archive-based investigations, we now understand the scope of the system, variations between different camp complexes, and modalities of the use of forced labour of convicts. At the same time, the work of historicizing the Gulag and systematically evaluating its position within the global history of repression is still to be done. Exploring the emergence of this vast Soviet system of concentration camps in long-term perspective, this book aims to inscribe this process within global histories of coerced labour, forced displacement, and punishment. It highlights the inextricable interconnection of coerced labour and forced displacement as tools of punishment in the multitude of their historical forms.

An inclusive history of women’s activism to improve working conditions in Eastern Europe, Turkey, and beyond. 

So often, theories of activism and social change neglect acts of resistance in informal, community, and domestic contexts. This collaborative investigation from a transnational team of scholars addresses two related shortcomings: the lack of class analysis in gender history and the neglect of gender dynamics in labor history. Women’s Labour Activism in Eastern Europe and Beyond highlights understudied topics in both of these fields, such as radical, grassroots, and interclass women’s labor activism on behalf of lower-income and working-class women and communities; women’s participation in trade unions on both sides of the Iron Curtain; and the heretofore neglected presence of Eastern European women in international organizations, including the cooperative movement.