778 SEER, 88, 4, OCTOBER 2OIO transcripts ofPolitburo meetings alike.I wouldhaveappreciated an essayby the authorreflecting on his experiencein delvinginto complexcase files and inworking withofficial archivists whopublishcollections ofselected files whilekeepingfinding aids and massesofmaterialout ofthehandsofmost researchers. Lastly,the usefulness of the volumeforstudents would have been enhancedby the inclusionof suggestions forfurther reading.Many of Gregory'stales deal withserioustopicsthathave been the subjectof academicstudies, yetfewlongerworksare citedin hisnotes. Georgetown University Kathleen E. Smith Lewis, Ben. Hammer and Tickle: A History ofCommunism Told Through Communist Jokes. Weidenfeld & Nicolson,London,2008.xiii+ 354pp. Illustrations. Tables. Figures.Bibliography. Index.£14.99. As histitlepromises, Ben Lewis'sinsightful and highly readablebook offers a history of EasternBloc Communismthrough the prismof underground political jokes,examplesofwhichpepperthepages:'Whatis thedefinition of a Russianstring quartet? A Sovietorchestra backfroma U.S. tour'(p. 212); 'What is the stage that comes betweenSocialismand the arrivalof full Communism?Alcoholism'(p. 166); 'Why did electionsin East Germany alwayslast two days?So everycitizencould decide forhimself or herself whethertheywantedto vote on Fridayor Saturday'(p. 7); '[a Pole asks anotherPole]: Are the Russiansour brothers or our friends? Answer:our brothers, becauseyoucan chooseyourfriends' (p. 115). Hammer and Tickle is also, however,a travelnarrative, and one thatis as muchchronological as itis geographical; Lewis,a British filmmaker and journalist who came ofage towards theend oftheCold War,chronicles his twenty-first-century journeythrough alien cultures - theSovietUnion and itsso-calledsatellite states- and a lostera - 1917-91.In thisrespectthe bookis a latter-day additionto a subgenre thatemergedout ofthecollapse oftheSecondWorldnearlytwodecadesago: booksbyWestern writers who jumpedatthenew-found opportunity tovisit theregionand speakfreely with thepeople who livethere.The trendis traceableto beforethegeopolitical watershed, at leastback to HedrickSmith'sTheRussians (Londonand New York,1975)and, arguably, muchfurther, to accountsoftheRussianEmpire written by Europeanand otherforeign visitors as farback as thesixteenth century. A clearadvantageLewis'sprojecthasovermostofthoseother works is in itswell-defined and limitedscope. He does notmakegrandclaimsto have understood the essenceof the 'mysterious soul' of the Russian or of any othernationality. Rather,he setshimself specific tasksand approaches themas botha journalist and a scholar:'to definethedistinctive humorous properties oftheCommunist joke' and to find'theproofthattiedthetelling of thejokes to the tumbling of the system' (p. 21).Alongtheway he also examinesaspectsof Communist humourthathave scarcely been addressed before, at leastin English:thesymbiotic relationship betweenunderground reviews 779 and 'official' satire intheEastern Bloc;thesimilarities anddifferences between jokestoldunderStalinism andthosetoldunderNazism;and thephenomenon of Communist leaderswho themselves wereavid tellers ofanti-Communist jokes.The result is a highly original approachto a topicthathas had itsfair shareofattention overtheyears(theworks ofEmilDraitser and BruceAdams cometomind,and evenpartsofMartinAmis'sKobathe Dread: Laughter andthe Twenty Million, London,2002),butwhichhas notbeen attempted on sucha scale,or in suchan engaging narrative style. Lewis'ssourcesintesting hishypotheses aremanyand varied,and include a collection of40+ jokebookspublished from the1930son,mostly byémigrés, numerous'official'periodicalpublicationsfromthe Communistperiod, interviews withjoke-tellers, joke scholars,and even history-makers such as Lech Walesa,and eventhedreamshe himself had whileworking on the projectand recalledconversations withhis East German girlfriend, who helped sparkhis enthusiasm forthe project.The introspective natureof Lewis'sdescription ofhisworkadds a dimension tothebookthatwillappeal specifically toan audienceofBritish and American readerswhoalso grewup during whatnowseemslikea faraway dream,theCold War. Despite the relatively modesttitleand focuson anonymousoral jokes, Hammer andTickle alsooffers analyses (andmanyexamples) ofsatirical cartoons and publishedhumour,as well as interviews withprofessional cartoonists and comedians.Mostoriginally, thebookalso givesdetailedaccountsofcircumstances surrounding specific arrests for joke-telling during theCommunist period,includingofficial reports,interviews with those arrestedor their relatives, and (ofcourse)theoffending jokes themselves. The book is a follow-up to Lewis's 2006 documentary filmHammer and Tickle, broadcast on BBC 4, and an excellent idea itwasindeedtosupplement thefilm witha written account.The decisionallowedtheauthornotonlyto includemanymorejokesthanhe was able to do in a feature-length film, but also to devoteenoughwordstowhatis,after all,a verbalphenomenon. UCL SSEES Seth Graham Nethercott,Frances. RussianLegal Culture Before andAfter Communism: Criminal Justicei Politics, andthe PublicSphere. BASEES /Routledge Series on Russian andEastEuropeanStudies, 39. Routledge, LondonandNewYork,2007. xiii+ 199pp. Notes.Selectbibliography. Index.£85.00. The bookunderreviewis an unusualcombination ofthehistory ofRussian criminal justiceand theories ofcrimeand punishment, thelatterexamined mostly through thewritings ofV. S. Solov'ev,V. Spasovich,K. Kavelin,A. F. Koni, K. Arsen 'ev, N. Tagantsev,and otherleadingRussianswho wrote mostly between1864and 1917.These materials are treated primarily as intellectualhistory rather thanlegalhistory, and theauthoris morecomfortable and fluent withthatdimension thansheis withthelaw. ...