General Confederation Research Articles

Development History and Role of The Vietnam Trade Union Organization

Over more than 90 years of formation and development, the Vietnam Trade Union has grown in all aspects and made worthy contributions to the great victories of the revolution, contributing to building the Vietnamese working class into an increasingly powerful force. The trade union organization has been consolidated and developed, with the number of union members and grassroots trade unions growing rapidly, and the cadre team developing both in quantity and quality. The union has expanded its activities to the non-state economic sector; increasingly effective coordination with various levels of government, organizations, and employers has been achieved, better fulfilling its tasks of representing, caring for, and protecting the legitimate and lawful rights and interests of workers, promptly addressing pressing issues, and contributing to the establishment of harmonious, stable, and progressive labor relations in enterprises. This study summarizes the birth circumstances of the Vietnamese working class and the Red Union - the precursor of today's Vietnam General Confederation of Labor; the role of the Vietnam Trade Union in the revolutionary process; and the urgent task for society to enhance the role of the trade union organization.

Current Status Research of Heritage Sites and Classification of Adjacent Flora according to UNESCO Standards in Minh Thanh Commune, Son Duong District, Tuyen Quang Province

The research results on the current status of the heritage sites are described as follows: There are 5 nationally recognized heritage sites, including: The Central Police Guest House; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the Information House; the Ministry of Justice; and the Vietnam General Confederation of Labour. Additionally, there are 9 provincially recognized heritage sites, comprising: Thanh La Communal House; Headquarters of the Free Village Council; Han Rock Field - Chicken Lake; Mr. Duc Dai's House; Mr. Nguyen Minh Chau's House; Mr. Ma Van Yen's House; Vuc Dao Field; and Le Dung Suspension Bridge. The adjacent flora to the historical heritage sites in the research area is classified and described into 4 vegetation formations, 5 sub-vegetation formations, 5 vegetation groups, and 6 vegetation types of 8 sub-vegetation types, including: (1) Sub-vegetation type of evergreen broad-leaved forests in lowland and low-mountain terrains under strong impact; (2) Sub-vegetation type of evergreen broad-leaved forests on limestone soils in low mountains under strong impact; (3) Sub-vegetation type of sparse evergreen broad-leaved forests in lowland secondary fallow terrains; (4) Sub-vegetation type of tropical bamboo forests in lowland and low-mountain terrains; (5) Sub-vegetation type of tropical palm forests in lowland terrains; (6) Sub-vegetation type of evergreen tropical shrub vegetation with scattered woody plants; (7) Sub-vegetation type of evergreen tropical shrub vegetation without scattered woody plants; (8) Sub-vegetation type of forest banana groundcover.

Jean-François Dupeyron: In the School of the Paris Commune. The Story of Another School – A Secondary Publication

We know it, we have learned it, and often we teach it: public schools became secular for the first time in 1882. Well, no! As Jean-François Dupeyron said, the first secular public school in France was that of the Commune. Understanding why this fact was – and still is – obscured is the subject of Jean-François Dupeyron’s book, A L’École de la Commune de Paris: L’Histoire d’une Autre École. The author’s thesis is that, during the second half of the 19th century and up to World War I, the workers’ movement developed the project of another school, a school independent of both the Church and the State. It is against this other school, desired by the Commune and then the labor exchanges and the General Confederation of Labor, which was at the time of revolutionary syndicalists, that Jules Ferry’s school was constructed. Why has this “history of another school” been concealed?

The politics of quantification: The General Confederation of Italian Industry and the cost-of-living index in the late 1920s

Business interests can indirectly affect political decisions through the definition of statistical procedures to produce the quantitative indexes used to assess policy choices. This observatory capture takes on peculiar technocratic features in authoritarian contexts. This paper focuses on the role of the General Confederation of Italian Industry (Confindustria) in the construction of an official cost-of-living index at the time of the Fascist regime’s corporatist turn and the revaluation of the Italian lira in 1926. Wage cuts were determined following the price index, and official procedures to collect data on prices from workers’ outlets were adopted to dispel Italian industrialists’ concerns about the rise in the cost of production. Following the loss of archival documentation on this matter, the authors have reconstructed the events from indirect sources. The issue of cost-of-living index numbers in Italy under the Fascist regime raises concerns about the credibility of statistics and economic data under dictatorships.

A Latter-day Saint Apostle's Perception of the Southern Bazaar of Liverpool, October 1864

A Latter-day Saint Apostle's Perception of the Southern Bazaar of Liverpool, October 1864

Politizar el sindicalismo, sindicalizar la política. Las centrales obreras argentinas durante los gobiernos kirchneristas

Este artículo analiza cuáles fueron los modos de acción política desplegados por los nucleamientos que condujeron las centrales sindicales argentinas (Confederación General del Trabajo y Central de Trabajadores de la Argentina) entre 2007 y 2015. Este período, coincidente con los dos gobiernos de Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, fue testigo de distintas iniciativas de politización sindical. Mediante una estrategia metodológica cualitativa y un enfoque teórico atento a las múltiples racionalidades que operan en la concreción de acciones políticas en diferentes arenas, periodizamos la etapa en tres grandes momentos y mostramos el desenlace de cuatro formas de acción política situadas en un continuum que va de la separación a la superposición entre sindicalismo y política: la acción netamente corporativa, la disputa por la representación política fuera del espectro peronista, la disputa por la representación política dentro del espectro peronista y la “politización de lo gremial”. Asimismo, destacamos la importancia que cobró, en esta etapa, la discusión sobre la autonomía sindical y sobre los vínculos entre el sindicalismo y la política.

Before the court of public opinion: Imprensa de Lisboa and the 1921 press workers’ strike

ABSTRACT This article is a study of A Imprensa de Lisboa, a periodical created by professional associations of journalists, printers and distributors of Lisbon newspapers in 1921, during a period in which they were on strike. This conflict brought a significant portion of the Portuguese capital’s press to a standstill, except for a handful of publications, namely those created in that same context. Alongside and against A Imprensa de Lisboa, newspaper companies published O Jornal. Meanwhile, A Batalha, the official organ of the General Confederation of Labour, to which the unions on strike were affiliated, continued to be published. The aim of this research is, firstly, to analyse the relation between the goals of the strike and A Imprensa de Lisboa’s coverage not only of the conflict itself, but also of a set of other topics and events seen as matters of interest to a wider public opinion, i.e. beyond the interests of the industrial working class. Secondly, it aims to identify similarities and differences between the agenda and contents of A Imprensa de Lisboa and A Batalha, to clarify to what extent the strategy pursued by the former meant keeping a distance from the points of view commonly voiced in the workers’ press.

Impact Evaluation of The Internal Control System on The Sales Function Performance Within Moroccan Companies’ Context

Moroccan business leaders are increasingly concerned about the phenomenon of declining commercial activity, confirmed by the economic barometers published by the General Confederation of Moroccan Enterprises (CGEM) during the last four years (2015-2018), and the direct causes that might be linked to unfair competition, payment delays problem, unpaid debts and finally the widespread of a heavy informal sector. Through this article, we are going to focus on the relationship that may exist between the components of an internal control system setup in a sales function and its performance. In other words, we are looking to explain the decreasing performance of the sales function using the evaluation of the internal control system deployed there. To do this, we will present in the first part, the theoretical foundations of the internal control system and socio-economic performance. Then, we will analyze the points of connection and influence to finally develop some hypotheses, which will be the subject of an empirical study based on of one hundred and sixty-one Moroccan companies. The results of our work provide an answer on the degree of influence of internal control system components of the commercial function on its socio-economic performance and more precisely on its commercial performance.

A Historical Mapping of Lebanese Organized Labor: Tracing trends, actors, and dynamics

Introduction When the Lebanese uprising of 2019 broke out, several observers noted the loud absence of trade unions from the squares, most notably the General Confederation of Workers in Lebanon (CGTL) (Dirani et al. 2019; Slaibi 2019; Bou Khater 2020; Chahine 2020; Majed 2020; Maucourant Atallah 2020; Sharrouf 2021).

Post-54: Reconstructing Civil War Memory in American Literature afterBrown

AbstractFrom a cultural fad of Confederate flags to a spate of schools named after Confederate generals, the 1954 Brown v. Board decision revived the memory of the US Civil War. In their collective effort of “massive resistance,” white southerners considered themselves carrying on the legacy of their Confederate ancestors, rebelling against the federal government and insisting upon states’ rights. In response to this revival, many mid-century writers revised Civil War memory. Ralph Ellison, for example, considered the Brown decision as yet another battle in an ongoing Civil War. The works of Black writers such as James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Pauli Murray, and Margaret Walker, as well as white writers such as Robert Lowell, Carson McCullers, Flannery O’Connor, and Robert Penn Warren, revise Lost Cause cultural narratives as they reconstruct four sites of Civil War memory: monuments, schools, textbooks, and grandparents. Writers in the twenty-first century have extended the interest in Civil War memory, from the essays of Ta-Nehisi Coates to the plays of Suzan-Lori Parks, to the fiction of George Saunders to the poetry of Natasha Trethewey and Kevin Young. The return of Civil War memory in twenty-first-century literature anticipates and represents the resurgence of civil rights protest against ongoing, state-sanctioned racial violence.

In memoriam: The who, how, where and when of statues

Statues are in the news. Controversies are swirling around the slave trader and philanthropist Edward Colston in Bristol, Confederate generals, soldiers and leaders in the United States, and the sculpture in honour of Mary Wollstonecraft in Newington Green in North London. In some cases, the attacks have been physical as well as verbal, and such moves have provoked counter-moves in defence of certain statues or statues of a certain kind. People are paying attention to and reflecting on monuments that they might normally pass by without a glance or thought. Nor has the conversation simply been about the authorised and unauthorised relocation or dismantling of statues: there has also been considerable enthusiasm for erecting new ones. In this paper, I argue that it is healthy to have such debates and important in a functioning democracy. However, before we can consider why some statues and monuments have become so controversial, and how best to resolve the controversies, we first need to understand the many different reasons why statues might be erected in the first place, and why they might continue to be valued and preserved. We also need to consider secondary intentions in their creation, and other social functions they might serve, whether intended or not. We need to reflect on the who, how, where and when of statues before we can understand their defacement or destruction.

Confederate Streets and Black-White Labor Market Differentials

Using a unique dataset, this paper examines the extent to which streets named after prominent Confederate generals are related to Black-White labor market differentials. Examining individual-level data shows that Blacks who reside in areas that have a relatively higher number of Confederate streets are less likely to be employed, are more likely to be employed in low-status occupations, and have lower wages compared to Whites. I find no evidence that individual characteristics, local characteristics, or geographic sorting explain these results.

Digitalization of the Educational Environment: Risk Assessment of Distance Education by Russian and Vietnamese Students

The digitalization of higher education is a long-term trend that gained a new impetus for further development because of the forced transition to distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of the article is to analyze the impact of digital transformation on the educational process in universities and to describe the risks through the students’ eyes. The analysis is based on the results of a survey conducted by the authors in 2020 among students of two universities - Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) and the Institute of the Trade Union Movement of the General Confederation of Labor of Vietnam (IPLV).The article describes the methodology of the online survey. The attitude towards distance learning is interpreted as a three-level attitude with emotional, cognitive and behavioral aspects. It is suggested that students’ readiness to switch to distance learning is determined by a set of macro and micro factors. Among the macro factors are the national specifics of the educational system, traditions in the field of higher education, infrastructure, the national educational policy, and the mobilization potential of the population. Among the micro factors are the cognitive and other psychological characteristics of the students, the socio-psychological openness to innovation.According to the survey results, there is certain similarity in the way Russian and Vietnamese students assess their experience of distance learning. At the same time, significant differences in the perception of the outcome of the digital transformation of education have been revealed. For MGIMO students, major risks are associated with dehumanization, the severing of social ties, and the possible loss of student status. For Vietnamese students the most significant risks are mainly associated with the fears of the decreasing quality of education. It is therefore concluded that distance learning is both the field of opportunities and possible source of individual and institutional risks.

Fluid Objects: Speculations on Monumentality

Fluid Objects:Speculations on Monumentality Moira O'Shea (bio) and Masha Vlasova (bio) On the morning of September 12, 2018, in front of the Chattanooga Choo Choo Historic Hotel and Terminal Station Museum in Tennessee, a carved limestone statue was tied with rope and lifted onto a Tucker Build company truck. The statue was of a white, bearded, middle-aged man wearing a frock coat, circa nineteenth century. Loaded onto the truck, the statue was returning to the city of Muncie, Indiana, after having been missing for over fifty years.1 Originally standing in a third-story alcove of a building named after his family, the 8-foot statue of Charles Willard came down during the demolition and rebuilding of Muncie's downtown in 1961. It was lost until 2016, when Bob Good, a board member of the Delaware County Historical Society in Muncie, rediscovered it. For thirty years it had been standing in the courtyard of the Chattanooga Choo Choo Historic Hotel and Terminal Station, without a pedestal or a plaque to indicate whom the statue depicted. Most visitors to the hotel were under the impression that the statue commemorated Confederate president Jefferson Davis or the Union Army spy, James J. Andrews.2 In the imaginations of those around the statue, the stone figure of a stately looking man, with no pedestal or plaque to indicate whom it depicted, had become a monument. These speculative readings of Willard as Davis, as Andrews, as a monument and the movement of Willard on and off pedestals exemplify its semiotic and material fluidity. The rediscovery and reidentification of the statue occurred a year after the Charleston church massacre of 2015 and the subsequent removal of many Confederate symbols around the country. In total, the Southern Poverty Law Center counted over one hundred removals since Charleston.3 Recalling Good's discovery of the Willard statue, Chris Flook, then president of the Delaware County Historical Society, was cognizant of the national mood at the time: "How the hell do [End Page 285] you bring a statue back particularly at a time when all this discussion of statues is going on? You don't want to piss anyone off. We were trying to be sensitive to that."4 While Flook knew that the statue was of Charles Willard, and not Jefferson Davis or James Andrews, his desire to be sensitive to how the removal and replacement of the statue might be understood as revelatory of the political stock that private individuals and government administrations were placing in figures in stone at the time. The example of the Willard statue confounds the idea of a monument as affixed with concrete and inflexible readings. By illuminating this statue's fluidity, this example invites us into the world of the speculative. However, in moving, removing, or physically manipulating monuments, we may also consider new ways of imagining how the past might be represented in a speculative future. In the following paragraphs, we take up the idea of this Special Issue through a consideration of the fluidity and impermanence of monuments, objects which represent the past, and which can be remade for new futures. In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, and two years after the return of the Willard statue, there has been a new wave of removals, much more all-encompassing than the last. Instead of waiting for state legislatures or local governments to dismantle and haul away symbols of the Confederacy, protestors Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Empty pedestal after the removal of the monument to P.G.T. Beauregard, New Orleans, LA, 2018. Photo courtesy of Moira O'Shea. [End Page 286] are taking direct action, and the objects of attention are not only Confederate generals and soldiers but also other controversial historical figures such as Christopher Columbus and Juan de Oñate. During protests that have begun in the United States and spread to other parts of the world, activists are doing more than simply dismantling and removing unwanted monuments; monuments are beheaded, set on fire, and sometimes tossed in a river or a lake. This is a departure from the state- or city-sponsored removal of monuments...

River of Death: The Chickamauga Campaign, Volume One: The Fall of Chattanooga by William Glenn Robertson

Reviewed by: River of Death: The Chickamauga Campaign, Volume One: The Fall of Chattanooga by William Glenn Robertson Keith S. Hébert River of Death: The Chickamauga Campaign, Volume One: The Fall of Chattanooga. By William Glenn Robertson. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018. 696 pp. $45.00. ISBN 978-1-4696-4312-0. River of Death: The Chickamauga Campaign provides an exhaustive account of events preceding the Battle of Chickamauga (September 19–20, 1863), most notably the Union Army's capture of Chattanooga, Tennessee, on September 9, 1863. This is the first of two volumes that will analyze the Chickamauga Campaign. Volume Two will include a detailed examination of the Battle of Chickamauga. William Glenn Robertson has unearthed a mountain of archival and published source material, weaving an engaging story filled with biographical vignettes, strategic- and tactical-level explanations of command decisions, and descriptions of terrain, transportation, and weather. Civil War buffs will enjoy Robertson's narrative style that harkens back to traditional military history when battlefields were [End Page 83] the exclusive domain of generals. Civil War scholars, however, might be less enthusiastic about a battle narrative of more than 600 pages that devotes scant attention to themes—like a campaign's impact on civilian life—that are now commonplace features in contemporary military history. Popular audiences often criticize new military histories for placing the battle in a subordinate position to the larger societal items that influence a conflict's outcome and significance. Robertson's attempts to balance those competing analytical and narrative styles achieves mixed results. Peter Cozzens's This Terrible Sound: The Battle of Chickamauga (Urbana, IL, 1992) remains the best single-volume history of this rare Confederate Army of Tennessee victory. Robertson devotes seventeen chapters to cover events that Cozzens summarizes in five. At times, popular and scholarly audiences might find Robertson's voluminous account rewarding. Robertson, for example, offers an excellent view of military operations in northeast Alabama that played a central part in determining the strategic options available to both armies. The author highlights the roles that Stevenson and Bridge-port, Alabama, served as transportation and supply centers. However, Robertson inexplicably ignores the campaign's impact on African Americans who found freedom in the Union camps established in northeast Alabama. Many of those freedpeople played instrumental roles in aiding the Union Army as scouts and guides helping federal troops navigate the area's mountain passes and network of poorly mapped roads. Likewise, Robertson missed opportunities to connect the campaign to the activities of northeast Alabama Unionists and guerrillas. Robertson's impressive archival research appears to be limited to records created by soldiers and armies. Without consulting the collections generated by the Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee state governments, especially executive department records, Robertson's analysis struggles to move beyond the limited perspectives of commanders and soldiers. Like many traditional battlefield histories, Robertson devotes much of the book's argument and analysis evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the campaign's various commanders. Assessing [End Page 84] the personality traits and behavioral flaws of historical agents is a mainstay of biographical narratives. Biographers often build their assessments on a relatively small and highly selective source base that, at its worst, is used to explain actions and behaviors using events or expressions of feelings handpicked from a character's prior experiences. At times, Robertson assumes the role of psychoanalyst, placing notable figures like Union General Thomas Crittenden and Confederate General Braxton Bragg on the couch. For example, Robertson explains Crittenden's indecisiveness and lackluster leadership skills as products stemming from a turbulent relationship with his father. A thin line connecting events that happened (or emotions felt) decades prior to 1863 is provided as evidence of the commander's wartime personality and decision-making capacity. The book's narrative style, albeit pleasing at times, contributes to these dubious links. In his quest to humanize military commanders and cast some characters as strong and others as weak, Robertson's efforts to produce entertaining prose leads to the adoption of literary tropes as explanatory evidence in the absence of primary source analysis. Unlike many traditional battlefield histories, however, Robertson does a better job of considering how a...

Tadeusz Matuszewicz – twórca czy grabarz Konfederacji Generalnej Królestwa Polskiego?

The day before of Franco-Russian 1812 war, on June 28th the Seym of the Duchy of Warsaw established the General Confederation of the Kingdom of Poland, which restored the Kingdom of Poland. Tadeusz Matuszewicz, the Minister of Revenue and the Treasury, expressed the already famous words: “So Poland will arise. What am I saying? There is Poland now, or rather it has never ceased to be”, which caused patriotic euphoria and movement among the members in the Seym chamber. Members of the Confederation, which Napoleon understood as an armed uprising, having no powers, soon lost their enthusiasm, and their activity was actually publishing propaganda brochures. After defeat in Russia, Napoleon blamed the failure on his ambassador in the Duchy of Warsaw, Dominique de Pradt, who started to critise the government of the Duchy of Warsaw. This article presents the role of Tadeusz Matuszewicz in the establishment and final failure of the General Confederation of the Kingdom of Poland.

フランス労働総同盟の組織構造:―「企業別組合」論への示唆―

フランス労働総同盟の組織構造:―「企業別組合」論への示唆―

The long goodbye: the relationship between lleftist parties and the Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGIL) after the end of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) (1992-2017)

This article explores the effects of the growth of the “cartel parties” within the Italian system and the new relations between the unions and leftist parties, going beyond the models and experiences of the twentieth century. One of the consequences concerns the stronger interdependence of the parties and the state, and their need for more public resources. Another aspect relates to the relationship of the party with society and other socially representative organisations and stakeholders. In the case of Italy, the Democratic Party, set up in 2007, embodies the weak-minded party version, progressively dismantling the relationship with the trade union movement and, in particular, with the CGIL. The Italian situation confirms that underlying these evolutions there are not only external factors, such as globalisation and changes in the work world, but also internal factors, such as the logic of actions, drawn up and put aggressively into practice by the “cartel parties".

¿Una CGT para el Frente Popular democrático y antifascista? El Partido Comunista de la Argentina y el movimiento sindical durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial

En este artículo nos proponemos un examen de la relación del Partido Comunista argentino con la Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT) entre 1937 y 1943, es decir, los años previos y de primer desarrollo de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Es un período clave para entender los intentos comunistas de aplicación de la estrategia del “Frente Popular” en los perímetros de la organización gremial, lo cual permite pensar acerca de sus verdaderas condiciones de realización y de los contextos en los que se desplegó semejante empresa política. Este estudio no sólo pretende aportar un mayor conocimiento de la actuación del comunismo en el área gremial sino también a iluminar la relación que esta fuerza tuvo con las otras corrientes del movimiento obrero con las que intentaba coalicionarse o confrontar, como el sindicalismo y el socialismo. Hubo una bibliografía que refirió a esta presencia comunista en el movimiento sindical, aunque en escasa medida sobre estos recortes temporales y temáticos específicos. Aún es necesario profundizar el trabajo de reconstrucción de este proceso, en especial, de las caracterizaciones y posiciones del PC en función de su objetivo de alcanzar la dirección del movimiento obrero.

Confederate Generals in the Trans-Mississippi. Volume 3: Essays on America’s Civil War by Lawrence Lee Hewitt and Thomas E. Schott

Reviewed by: Confederate Generals in the Trans-Mississippi. Volume 3: Essays on America’s Civil War by Lawrence Lee Hewitt and Thomas E. Schott Matthew M. Stith Confederate Generals in the Trans-Mississippi. Volume 3: Essays on America’s Civil War. Edited by Lawrence Lee Hewitt and Thomas E. Schott. Foreword by Daniel E. Sutherland. The Western Theater in the Civil War. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2019. Pp. xxiv, 374. $64.95, ISBN 978-1-62190-454-0.) Lawrence Lee Hewitt and Thomas E. Schott have produced a third and final volume in their excellent series on Confederate generalship in the trans-Mississippi theater. The first two volumes—published in 2013 and 2015 and spearheaded by the late Arthur W. Bergeron—explore the lives of a host of Confederate generals who have collectively attracted as much criticism from some modern historians as they did from their contemporaries. Some of this critique was quite warranted indeed, but at the heart of these volumes lies a more nuanced and careful appraisal. Among the greatest strengths of all three volumes of Confederate Generals in the Trans-Mississippi is how rebel commanders on the western edge of the Confederate South are carefully placed in proper situational and political contexts. This latest installment reflects the strengths of the first two volumes splendidly by bringing eight fine essays about both well-known and obscure generals who plied their trade west of the Mississippi River. Taken as a whole, these volumes serve as yet more evidence that underscores the reality that the trans-Mississippi West, though on the geographical edge of the Confederacy, fits squarely and deservedly in the center of Civil War historiography. The volume’s first contributions examine the motivations and careers of two examples of inept Confederate leadership west of the Mississippi River. First, General Earl Van Dorn was among the most maligned commanders of the war, [End Page 485] especially in the trans-Mississippi theater. His wartime career path from capable administrator and effective cavalry commander in 1861 to dismal performer as army commander in 1862 reflects the complexity inherent in even the most troubled commands. Ultimately, however, Joseph G. Dawson III shows that Van Dorn’s loss at the battle of Pea Ridge in March 1862, coupled by other failures, relegates the commander into the “lower one-quarter” of Confederate generals in the Confederate South (p. 25). Much like Van Dorn, General Hamilton Prioleau Bee earned an exceedingly poor reputation due to command ineptitude, albeit on a less publicized stage. As Richard H. Holloway makes clear, Bee’s poor performance in the Red River campaign—namely, his panic and retreat at Monett’s Ferry—stained his wartime career and sentenced him to years of postwar fighting to mend his status. In sharp contrast to Van Dorn and Bee, General James Fleming Fagan, as Stuart W. Sanders contends, was among the finest Confederate generals in the trans-Mississippi. Sanders’s essay helps clarify and revive Fagan’s leadership ability. Sanders places Fagan’s missteps at Pilot Knob, Missouri, and Marks’ Mills, Arkansas, during the war—and his Republican scalawagery after it—in context of his otherwise solid leadership. Jeffery S. Prushankin similarly gives General Edmund Kirby Smith his proper due. Prushankin illuminates the corrosive nature of command politics in the trans-Mississippi by the second half of the war by examining the high hopes and ultimate despondency of one of the more promising Confederate generals. Kirby Smith’s Trans-Mississippi Department was falling to pieces by 1863. Indeed, Prushankin makes clear, the “constant demands of politicians and the carping of his subordinates,” atop gloomy prospects against the enemy, proved too much for Kirby Smith to handle and reflected the complications inherent in the Confederate command structure west of the Mississippi (p. 116). Holloway’s second essay provides a look into the stymied career of William Robertson Boggs and his actions in Louisiana. Boggs had a great deal of potential and an impressive resume before 1861, but, as Holloway shows, the general was attached to Kirby Smith’s staff and never saw significant direct leadership until the very end of the war in Louisiana. Thomas Green had a quite different career. Curtis Milbourn...