David M. Emmons

The Quest for "Just and Pure Law": Rocky Mountain Workers and American Social Democracy, 1870-1924 (review)

the book, a “Russian nickname for a Chinese coolie”: the garbled transliteration, found in another English-language source, must refer to khodia, a term with a rich and interesting history. It is regrettable to have to count numerous errors and misspellings, above all in Russian words and titles, and to notice an uncertain use of transcription from the Chinese. Had the author been able or willing to use some of the Russian-language publications on Harbin and Manchuria that have been coming out in a steady stream since the 1990s, he would have found out more about the failed revolution in Harbin in 1917 (on which he touches in chap. 3), or the history of Harbin education (the subject of chap. 8). Chinese studies of Harbin history are also underused in this work and it is, finally, unacceptable for a book published in 2010 to contain no references to research dating after 2002.