Histoire du Mouvement Ouvrier Chrétien en Belgique ed. by Emmanuel Gerard and Paul Wynants (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 273 dinal rallied an international program against traders supplying Arab markets. Lavigerie was devious, to read Renault's brisk narratives of Church and State politics. "The man who can outwit him has not yet been born," said an Algiers curate."No doubt you are right," said the cardinal (p. 305.). But this prince ofthe Church met his match in Leopold II. The Belgian king's "International" African Association ran his personal domain, the Congo "Free" State. He appointed one of the worst slavers,Tippo Tip, to be a governor. Lavigerie's antislavery crusade relented because ofworsened health. His November, 1890, call,at the Pope's instigation , for a Ralliement of Catholics to the French Republican constitution which many detested, brought a whirlwind on his whole conglomerate. When he died in November, 1892, the commingled fortune bequeathed to his various entities was smaller because Monarchists had cut him off. Athlone's handsome production of John O'Donohue's scholarly translation has a few typos and variant spellings (Kabyls/Kabyles, Paul Cambon/Gambon). Photos, maps and dust jacket are fine. Twenty-six chapters are well organized, with explanatory footnotes. Nine pages of endnotes cite documents and quotations , followed by twenty pages of archival sources and topical bibliography. Two indexes treat persons and places/subjects. Renault's lucid analyses of Church-Republic-Monarchist issues in France, ecclesiology, and imperialism would be valuable in any syllabus concerning those fields. J. Dean O'Donnell,Jr. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Histoire du Mouvement Ouvrier Chrétien en Belgique. Edited by Emmanuel Gerard and Paul Wynants. 2 vols. [KADOC-Studies 16.] (Leuven: Leuven University Press. 1994. Pp. 399; 645. 2400 FB.) This is a very impressive work. First published in Flemish in 1991,this edition represents a slightly revised and updated French translation. Its various chapters —six for Volume I and nine for Volume II—were prepared by separate authors . All contain copious illustrations, statistical and other tables, biographical vignettes, and extensive bibliographies.Volume I is essentially one of synthesis, dealing with the Belgian ChristianWorkers' Movement in general,whileVolume II is concerned with the history of the constituent elements of that movement. Each volume, and indeed each chapter of both volumes, can be read independently of one another. Together they constitute a most up-to-date and reliable guide for an understanding of a movement which to this day constitutes a major socio-political force in the public life of the Belgian people. This reality began to take place only after the end ofWorldWar II. For the previous one hundred years or so the precursors of the present-day Christian Workers' Movement led a tenuous existence, not only in terms of their evident minority status vis-à-vis a rapidly growing socialist movement, but also in view ofthe opposition of numerous Catholic leaders from the political, the business, 274 BOOK REVIEWS and ecclesiastical milieus. It was not until the very end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries that an increasingly autonomous and assertive workers' movement began to be able to win recognition by Catholics and non-Catholics alike. By that time, too, the basis had been laid for the establishment of a plethora of organizations, including mutual-aid societies, cooperatives , women's, youth, and family groups, and especially trade unions, all presenting themselves as various facets of a single movement, that of the Belgian Christian Workers. A uniquely Belgian reality had also to be taken into account arising from the existence of two separate ethnic entities, namely, the Flemish and the Walloon. It is clear from a study of these two volumes that for the Christian Workers' Movement, the Flemish component was by far the more important, so that for most of its history its development coincided with and was largely the result of initiatives that sought to obtain recognition and equality of treatment for that element of the population which had historically been ignored, if not indeed discriminated against by its wealthier and better educated French-speaking compatriots. Another reason for the ascendancy of the Flemish-speaking Christian workers in the overall movement was the fact that the Walloon area was the heartland of the industrial revolution in Belgium...