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from Oran, and a Hungarian refugee by the name of Gustave Erdos.14 Via began to rebuild the banned Algerian Communist Party (Parti Communiste Algérien, PCA), which again would produce underground publications such as Lutte Sociale and provide assistance to political prisoners, POWs and refugees in the camps and prisons of Algeria.15 The PCA was from the outset composed of various nationalities – French, Spaniards, Italians, Germans and Jews. Cooperation was not always easy to achieve, however, because Via himself only spoke Spanish. Lisette Vincent translated in
This work demonstrates that resistance to occupation by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy during the Second World War has to be seen through a transnational, not a national, lens. It explores how people often resisted outside their country of origin because they were migrants, refugees or exiles who were already on the move. It traces their trajectories and encounters with other resisters and explores their experiences, including changes of beliefs, practices and identities. The book is a powerful, subtle and thought-provoking alternative to works on the Second World War that focus on single countries or on grand strategy. It is a ‘bottom up’ story of extraordinary individuals and groups who resisted oppression from Spain to the Soviet Union and the Balkans. It challenges the standard chronology of the war, beginning with the formation of the International Brigades in Spain and following through to the onset of the Cold War and the foundation of the state of Israel. This is a collective project by a team of international historians led by Robert Gildea, author of Fighters in the Shadows: A New History of the French Resistance (Faber & Faber, 2015). These have explored archives across Europe, the USA, Russia and Israel in order to unearth scores of fascinating individual stories which are woven together into themed chapters and a powerful new interpretation. The book is aimed at undergraduates and graduates working on twentieth-century Europe and the Second World War or interested in the possibilities of transnational history.
socialism. To counter such threats, proscription offered a simple expedience. For example, in the midst of growing popular unrest, France’s colonial authorities banned the Étoile Nord-Africaine, Parti Communiste Algérien, Front de Libération Nationale (FLN), the Organisation Speciale in French Algeria and Le Ressemblement Democratique Africain in French West Africa. Likewise, to head off insurgency in its colonial territories, British authorities banned the Kikuyu Central Association and the Kenya Africa Union and many other organisations including in Rhodesia, India