REVIEWS 79I Part three examines impact in different policy areas. These range from tripartism in Bulgaria to minority rights of Hungarians in neighbouring countries; to intellectual property rights in the Czech republic;to EU social and employment legislation in Poland and Hungary; Czech regional policy, and political business cycles in EU accession countries. The choice of policy areas is subjective, and readers will probably wish to make a selective coverage. What is said about tripartismin Bulgariaseems atvariancewith the reference to this in Poland and Hungary. Some of the detail on particular policies may be excessive, but there is always something new to learn from these separatestudies forexample, the newly created Czech regionalpolicy and the choice of fourteen regions but it would have been useful to see some comparisonswith regionalpolicies in other CEECs. While some readers might prefer to see more emphasis given to different countries or differentpolicy areas, the overall theme is coherent in showing how, why and to what degree the norms of the IOs have become entrenched in the CEECs. Bradford Centrefor International Development J. HARROP University ofBradford Kurti, Laszlo. Youth andtheStatein Hungagy: Capitalism, Communism andClass. Anthropology, Culture and Society. Pluto Press, London and Sterling, VA, 2002. Xiii + 296 pp. Illustrations. Tables. Notes. Glossary. Bibliography .Index. ?5o.oo;,I6.99. THIS volume is based on anthropological research among Hungarian young people in the I98os and I99os,but the more narrowlyanthropologicalsections of the book (Chapters 5-7) are set in the context of historical, political and economic developments in Hungary. Laszlo Kurti is an American-trained anthropologistwho is currentlyChair of the Department of Political Science at the University of Miskolc, Hungary. Most of the book is a case study of Csepel, the heavily industrializedisland districtof southernBudapestwhich, in the Communist era, was a byword for highindustrialoutputandworking-classcommitmentto socialistideals.Leonid Brezhnev and even Mikhail Gorbachev were visitors to the showcase town. This is an intriguing subject, in view of the fact that Hungarian workersare rarelyportrayedas devout Marxists,but arebetterknownin the Westfortheir part in the I956 uprisingand subsequentlyfor their role in undermining the officialeconomy by theirenthusiasticpursuitof secondaryemployment. Does this image need to be modified? Where the regime invested in creating a 'workers'paradise',could the Soviet-type systemenjoy real legitimacy among workers? Kurti points out that his initial interest in the districtwas stimulated by a well-known song about 'Red Csepel' and a romantic quest, in the early i 980s, for the 'ideal factory town bursting with the appropriate organizations, heritage, locality and working-classlifestyles'(p. viii). In otherwords, he went to Csepel hoping to find a measure of truthin the officialimage. Naturally, reality was more complex. On the one hand, some Csepel workers did support the Communists in the inter-war period; the island 792 SEER, 8 i, 4, 2003 produced Hungarian Stakhanovsin the Stalinistera;and in the early I96os it enjoyed a period of genuine prosperity, relative to other working-class Budapest districts. On the other hand, the New Economic Mechanism brought hardship, as the workforce was slimmed down, the housing programme contracted, etc. Moreover, Kurti suggeststhat the image of intense local commitment to Communist ideology rested largely on 'invented communist tradition and a constructed mythology of leftist working-class radicalism since the interwar period' (p. 172). Certainly, by the time Kurti arrived,in I985, the workforcewas disenchantedwith the Communist regime and 'in the case of the Communist Youth League, statements proffered by members themselves [. . .] suggestthat the events takingplace after I988 were a direct resultof the abandonment of the party and its ideology by the masses since the early I980s'(p. 249).In thefirstpost-Communistelections, Csepelers voted, like most of their fellow citizens, for non-socialist parties. (No informationis given about later elections.) The Csepel factorieswere not able to function as viable enterprises in the I990S, despite (and, Kurti seems to argue, partlybecause of) the intervention of Westerncompanies. Some local politicians dreamed that Csepel might become 'Hungary's Manhattan', but in fact it also earned the soubriquet'Islandof the Thousand Unemployed'. Kurti points out that young people played an important part in Csepel's revolutionary image and that the Communist regime had a stake in making sure that young workers wished to continue the heroic tradition of their Stakhanovitepredecessors.However...