From the Knights of Labor to the New World Order: Essays on Labor and Culture

by Paul Buhle

Overview

This collection brings together the labor and cultural studies of the author over the past 20 years, during which time the fields of social history, women's history, ethnic studies, public history, and oral history have all been transformed. The essays, some rewritten or newly available and the rest original to this volume, offer important examples of historical analysis, comment on changing scholarly perceptions, and the public uses of history. By drawing upon his own research in popular culture, Yiddish periodicals, interracial unionism, oral history and a variety of other sources, the author demonstrates how the field of labor specialists has become the domain of social historians exploring a rich American past.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780815322252
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	03/01/1997
Series:	Labor in America , #3
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	276
Product dimensions:	5.44(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

Images of History: The Iconography of American Labor * IWW as Radical Americanism * Pessimists' Heresy: Anarchism and American Labor * Labor Humor * Between Mass and Class: C.L.R. James and the Critique of Culture * Republic of Labor: The Knights in a Small State * World of Daniel DeLeon: Germans, Jews, and Labor Culture * Black Labor and the Scholar: The Work of Robin D.G. Kelley * End of the Kirkland Era: Labor Faces Tomorrow * Oral Histories of Mexican, Cuban, and Portuguese Immigrant Labor in the 1920s-1940s * Hollywood Unionism in the 1940s-1950s * Lost Struggles of the 1970s

Editorial Reviews

A collection of Buhle's essays bringing together his labor and cultural studies into one narrative. Buhle's retrospective commentary ranges across the history of the US labor movement's struggles and ultimate failures, and documents the author's own evolving interests in cultural consideration not defined simply by "class," such as the impact of gender and race on labor trends. The former editor of "Radical America" provides an important and often neglected perspective of American politics with both intelligence and humor, proving that class conflict "does" resonate with Mark Twain. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Booknews

"In these thoughtful, stimulating essays, Buhle moves effortlessly across time and space, exploring dimensions of working-class culture and radicalism that most historians have missed or misunderstood. Whether he's giving working-class republicanism a new twist, musing about the anarchist presence in American labor politics, or examining ethnic themes in working-class humor, Buhle proves over and over again that culture 'matters' and that class conflict is as American as grits and gravy. The book should be required reading for anyone interested in labor history, cultural studies, or social movements." — Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class

From the Publisher