Book Reviews
A growing list of reviews of books related to labor and labor history:
Click the book cover to be taken to the accompanying review
2024
American Anarchy, by Michael Willrich
Reviewed by Mike Matejka
Wall Street’s War on Workers: How Mass Layoffs and Greed Are Destroying the Working Class and What to Do About It, by Les Leopold
Reviewed by Steve Lawton
All-American Rebels: The American Left from the Wobblies to Today by Robert C. Cottrell
Reviewed by Robert D. Parmet
What Work Is by Robert Bruno
Reviewed by Mike Matejka
Hillbilly Highway: The Transappalachian Migration and the Making of a White Working Class by Max Fraser
Reviewed by Steven Davis
Produced by Higher Ground, Directed by George C. Wolfe
2023
Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class by Blair LM Kelley
Reviewed by Steven Davis
Alone in a Crowd: Women in the Trades Tell Their Stories by Jean Reith Schroedel
Reviewed by Jane LaTour
In the Company of Radical Women Writers by Rosemary Hennessy
Reviewed by John Lepley
The Bund: A Graphic History of Jewish Labour Resistance by Sharon Rudahl, writer, Paul Buhle, editor, and Michael Kluckner, artist
Reviewed by Robert D. Parmet
Never Ask ‘Why’: Football Players’ Fight for Freedom in the NFL by Ed Garvey
Reviewed by Ken Germanson
Harry Bridges: Labor Radical, Labor Legend by Robert W. Cherny
Reviewed by Robert D. Parmet
I’m Gonna Paint! Ralph Fasanella, Artist of the People by Anne Broyles
Reviewed by Keith Danish
Working-Class Utopias: A History of Cooperative Housing in New York City by Robert M. Fogelson
Reviewed by John Lepley
Undelivered: The Great Postal Strike of 1970 to the Manufactured Crisis of the U.S. Postal Service by Philip F. Rubio
Reviewed by Maynard Seider
One Day Stronger: How One Union Local Saved a Mill and Changed an Industry — and What It Means for American Manufacturing by Thomas M. Nelson
Reviewed by Bob Bussel
Gilded Mountain by Kate Manning
Reviewed by Mike Matejka
Labor Power and Strategy by John Womack Jr.
Edited by Peter Olney and Glenn Perušek
Reviewed by Robert D. Parmet
The Disney Revolt: The Great Labor War of Animation’s Golden Age by Jake S. Friedman
Reviewed by Joshua Barnett
Blood Money: The Story of Life, Death and Profit Inside America’s Blood Industry by Kathleen McLaughlin
Reviewed by Mike Matejka
The Last Great Strike: Little Steel, the CIO, and the Struggle for Labor Rights in New Deal America by Ahmed White
Reviewed by Prof. Thomas Mackaman
Under the Iron Heel: The Wobblies and the Capitalist War on Radical Workers by Ahmed White
Reviewed by Prof. Thomas Mackaman
Putin’s Labor Dilemma: Russian Politics Between Stability and Stagnation by Stephen Crowley
Reviewed by John Lepley
Thick Skin: Field Notes from a Sister in the Brotherhood by Hilary Peach
Reviewed by Molly Martin
2022
Fraying Fabric: How Trade Policy and Industrial Decline Transformed America by James C. Benton
Reviewed by Robert D. Parmet
Women Who Invented the Sixties by Steve Golin
Reviewed by Robert D. Parmet
Labor Under Siege: An Oral History by Harvey Schwartz with Ronald E. Magden
Reviewed by William J. Mello
Working 9 to 5: A Women’s Movement, A Labor Union, and the Iconic Movie by Ellen Cassedy
Reviewed by Jane LaTour
Talking to the Girls: Intimate and Political Essays on the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire by Edvige Giunta and Mary Anne Trasciatti
Reviewed by Jane LaTour
Wire Women: Lighting It Up by Sharon Szymanski
Reviewed by Jane LaTour
Left in the Center: The Liberal Party of New York and the Rise and Fall of American Social Democracy by Daniel Soyer
Reviewed by Prof. Robert D. Parmet
The Great Stewardess Rebellion: How Women Launched a Workplace Revolution at 30,000 Feet by Nell McShane
Reviewed by Jane LaTour
Historic Black Brooklyn: 400 Years of Struggle and Hope by Brian Merlis and Clarence Taylor
Reviewed by Kelsey Harrison
The Fire She Fights: A Novel by Tracey Moore
Reviewed by Jane LaTour
Workers’ Inquiry and Global Class Struggle: Strategies, Tactics, Objectives edited by Robert Ovetz
Building Global Labor Solidarity: Lessons from the Philippines, South Africa, Northwestern Europe and the United States by Kim Scipes
Reviewed together by Steve Early
Smelter Wars: A Rebellious Trade Union Fights for Its Life in Wartime Western Canada by Ron Verzuh
Reviewed by Robert D. Parmet
The South: Jim Crow and Its Afterlives by Adolph L. Reed Jr.
Reviewed by Mike Matejka
On Dark and Bloody Ground: An Oral History of the West Virginia Mine Wars by Anne T. Lawrence
Reviewed by Mike Matejka
American Made: What Happens to People When Work Disappears by Farah Stockman
Reviewed by William Mello
Bridging the Divide: Working-Class Culture in a Middle-Class Society by Jack Metzgar
Reviewed by Robert D. Parmet
Jimmy’s Carwash Adventure (La Aventura de Jaime en el Autolavado) by Victor Narro
Reviewed by Keith Danish
Standing Up: Tales of Struggle by Ellen Bravo and Larry Miller
Reviewed by Jane Latour
Blood Runs Coal: The Yablonski Murders and the Battle for the United Mine Workers of America by Mark A. Bradley
Reviewed by Maynard Seider
2021
A Matter of Moral Justice: Black Women Laundry Workers and the Fight for Justice by Jenny Carson
Reviewed by Karen Pastorello
Mill Town: Reckoning with What Remains by Kerri Arsenault
Reviewed by Molly Charboneau
The Next Shift: The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt America, by Gabriel Winant
Reviewed by Prof. Melvyn Dubofsky
Song, Struggle, and Solidarity: The New York City Labor Chorus in Its Twenty-Fifth Year (illustrated edition), by Mark Abendroth
Reviewed by Joe Doyle
Fighting Union Busters in a Carolina Carpet Mill: An Organizers’ Memoir by Phil Cohen
Reviewed by Steve Early
Waste: One Woman’s Fight Against America’s Dirty Secret by Catherine Coleman Flowers
Reviewed by Denise Shavers
When Workers Shot Back: Class Conflict from 1877 to 1921, by Robert Ovetz
Reviewed by Robert D. Parmet
Soul Full of Coal Dust: The True Story of an Epic Battle for Justice by Chris Hamby
Reviewed by Janet Wells Greene
Midnight in Vehicle City: General Motors, Flint, and the Strike that Created the Middle Class by Edward McClelland
Reviewed by Kyle Friend
December, 2020
Boss of the Grips: The James H. Williams and the Red Caps of Grand Central Terminal by Eric K. Washington
Reviewed by Janet Wells Greene
The Cold Millions: A Novel, by Jess Walter
Reviewed by Prof. Melvyn Dubofsky
Media and Culture in the U.S. Jewish Labor Movement: Sweating for Democracy in the Interwar Era, by Brian Dolber
Reviewed by Brian Greenberg
Republished with permission from the Johns Hopkins University Press (Originally published in American Jewish History)
The Hardhat Riot: Nixon, New York City, and the Dawn of the White Working-Class Revolution, by David Paul Kuhn
Reviewed by Michael Koncewicz
November, 2020
Labor’s Mind: A History of Working-Class Intellectual Life by Tobias Higbie
Reviewed by Prof. Paul C. Mishler
Trotsky in New York 1917: A Radical on the Eve of Revolution by Kenneth D. Ackerman
Reviewed by Keith Danish
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold
Reviewed by Joshua Barnett
October, 2020
Audacity by Melanie Crowder
Reviewed by Joshua Barnett
From Red-Baiting to Blacklisting: The Labor Plays of Manny Fried, by Barry B. Witham
Reviewed by Prof. Robert D. Parmet
September, 2020
Radical Seattle: The General Strike of 1919, by Cal Winslow
Reviewed by Prof. Steve Golin
August, 2020
Tread the City’s Streets Again: Frances Perkins Shares Her Theology, by Donn Mitchell
Reviewed by Joe Doyle
They Said No to Nixon: Republicans Who Stood Up to the President’s Abuses of Power, by Michael Koncewicz
Reviewed by Prof. Chris Rhomberg
July, 2020
Murder in the Garment District: The Grip of Organized Crime and the Decline of Labor in the United States by David Witwer and Catherine Rios
Reviewed by Prof. Robert D. Parmet
June, 2020
Blue-Collar Conservatism: Frank Rizzo’s Philadelphia and Populist Politics by Timothy J. Lombardo
Reviewed by Maynard Seider
Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State by Samuel Stein
Reviewed by Joshua Barnett
May, 2020
Rust: A Memoir of Steel and Grit by Eliese Colette Goldbach
Reviewed by Susan E. Wilson
The Southern Key: Class, Race, & Radicalism in the 1930s & 1940s by Michael Goldfield
Reviewed by Janet Wells Greene
April, 2020
Rebel Cinderella: From Rags to Riches to Radical, The Epic Journey of Rose Pastor Stokes by Adam Hochschild
Reviewed by Prof. Steve Golin
March, 2020
A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing, and the Fight for Democracy by Jane McAlevey
Reviewed by Prof. Robert D. Parmet
Los Alamos Revisited: A Workers’ History by Peter Malmgren and Kay Matthews
Reviewed by Les Leopold
February, 2020
Black Firefighters and the FDNY: The Struggle for Jobs, Justice and Equity in New York City by David Goldberg
Review by Prof. Clarence Taylor
Republican Populist: Spiro Agnew and the Origins of Donald Trump’s America by Charles J. Holden, Zach Messitte, and Jerald Podair
Review by Jon Bloom
January, 2020
Red State Revolt: The Teachers’ Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics by Eric Blanc
Review by Prof. Steve Golin
December, 2019
Beaten Down, Worked Up: The Past, Present, and Future of American Labor by Steven Greenhouse
Review by Prof. Melyvn Dubofsky
Fight the Power: African Americans and the Long History of Police Brutality in New York City by Clarence Taylor
Review by Brian Greenberg
November, 2019
High Voltage Women: Breaking Barriers at Seattle City Light by Ellie Belew
Review by Francine Moccio
October, 2019
Jazz and Music: Racism and the Political Economy of the Music by Gerald Horne
Review by Gregory N. Heires
When Baseball Met Big Bill Haywood: The Battle for Manchester, New Hampshire, 1912-1916, by Scott C. Roper and Stephanie Abbot Roper
Review by Lee Lovenfish
May, 2019
The Job: Work and Its Future in a Time of Radical Change. By Ellen Ruppel Shell.
Review by Prof. Robert D. Parmet
April, 2019
The Heritage: Black Athletes, A Divided America, and the Politics of Patriotism. By Howard Bryant.
Review by Prof. Mark Altschuler
March, 2019
You Say You Want a Revolution: SDS, PL, and Adventures in Building a Worker-Student Alliance
Edited by John F. Levin and Earl Silbar
Review by Kelsey Harrison
February, 2019
Class Matters: The Strange Career of an American Delusion
by Steve Fraser
Review by Steve Leberstein
The Edge of Anarchy: The Railroad Barons, the Gilded Age, and the Greatest Labor Uprising in America
by Jack Kelly
Review by Robert D. Parmet
January, 2019
A History of America in Ten Strikes
by Eric Loomis
Review by Marc Kagan
November, 2018
Unfit to Be a Slave: A Guide to Adult Education
for Liberation
by David Greene
Review by Steve Leberstein
The Dawning of American Labor: The New Republic in the Industrial Age
by Brian Greenberg
Review by Melvyn Dubofsky
April, 2018
Fannie Never Flinched
by Mary Cronk Farrell
Review by Shanika Carlies
March, 2018
House of Earth
by Woody Guthrie
Review by Joshua Barnett
February, 2018
The Great Baseball Revolt: The Rise and Fall of the 1890 Players League
by Robert B. Ross
Review by Edward G. Mahoney
January, 2018
The Best Labor History Movies of All Time
Reviews by John M. Becker
Review by Keith Danish
Teacher Strike! Public Education and the Making of a New American Political Order
by Jon Shelton
Review by Professor Robert D. Parmet
December, 2017
The Last Ballad
by Wiley Cash
Review by Jane Latour
October, 2017
Are Players’ Unions Good for Professional Sports?
edited by Thomas Riggs
Review by Mark Altschuler
September, 2017
Because of Sex: One Law, Ten Cases, and Fifty Years That Changed American Women’s Lives at Work
by Gillian Thomas
Review by Jane Latour
June, 2017
Jews in the American Labor Movement:
Past, Present & Future
by Bennett Muraskin
Review by Keith Danish
May, 2017
We Are One: Stories of Work, Life and Love
edited by Elizabeth Gottlieb (Hardball Press, 2015)
Review by Marcia Newfield
Joelito’s Big Decision, La Gran Decisión de Joelito
by Ann Berlak, illustrated by Daniel Camacho (Hardball Press, 2015)
Review by Marcia Newfield
City of Dreams: Dodger Stadium and the Birth of Modern Los Angeles
by Jerald Podair (Princeton University Press, 2017)
Review by Kelsey Harrison
February, 2017
White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America
by Nancy Isenberg (New York: Viking, 2016)
Review by Laura Hapke
January, 2017
The Scholar Denied: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Birth of Modern Sociology
by Aldon D. Morris (Oakland: University of California Press, 2015), 282 pages
Review by Maynard Seider