A. B. Chitty and Priscilla Murolo have done an excellent job here distilling a long and winding history into a useful crash course on Labor within the United States. Especially in contrast to Erik Loomis's book A History of America in Ten Strikes, Murolo / Chitty go into much needed, although often ...more

Very informative, learned a lot of things I knew nothing about. ...more

Excellent read for all, especially those who are anti-union and clueless about labor history and the struggles to get to where we are today. ...more

Not as good as Steven Greenhouse’s book on labor – and I had thought that book was disappointing. No longer. Yet, glad I read it.
These authors started the history of the American labor movement in the 1400’s, sharing about slavery and indentured servants. They point out that between 1607 and 1776, o ...more

Great overview of labor history and a good jumping off point before diving deeper into particular areas of the labor movement. My biggest concern is the lack of footnotes and citations -- I would have loved to have a direct reference to the source materials for further reading. However, I will be ta ...more

This is a thorough and highly detailed account of the labor movement of the United States. While there can be a tendency to represent the U.S. labor movement as beginning in the 1800s, this book digs into colonization and the enslavement and genocides of Indigenous people and Africans in the U.S., a ...more

Expected more

This is old fashioned labor history. A litany of strikes, membership drives, victories and defeats, in chronological order no less. You truly do need a scorecard to follow all the different players and the acronyms. I did learn a few things but I wanted more people and less organization ...more

Super informative but a little dry in some places. Lots of acronyms and lists of various strikes becomes slightly hard to keep up with. Overall, I learned a lot and would recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about the progression of labor unions. ...more

I had to read this book for class, and found myself enjoying it. Loved all the small facts given. ...more

An important look into American labor, many today do not realize how hard people had to fight to get the standards we have now have, a must read for anyone entering the workforce. ...more

This is a HARD book to read through, not going to lie. It reads like a text book. But I’m glad I read it. I had to keep pushing myself to get through it lol. ...more

Pretty excellent history of labor, very detailed. The obvious comparison would be Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. ...more

Not all that short or illustrated, but may be a decent overview. My biggest complaint? No footnotes or cites means no easy way to check the source material or even get a clear sense of where different arguments are coming from. ...more

This is a great introduction to the history of the US labor movement. It's very short and sometimes reads a bit like a list of names and dates, but nonetheless, this is a great first source for anyone who is interested in reading more about US Labor, its history, and its internal politics. ...more

Outstanding history of labor in this country, up to about 2000. The range of this history is broad, including bonded servants, Native Americans, slaves, and undocumented workers along with native-born laborers. Joe Sacco's illustrations add flavor to an informative text. ...more

It was fairly even handed, but it got less so as it got closer to the present day, ie it was pointedly anti-NAFTA. Though I suppose it's not all that hard to be anti slavery, what with the fact that the entire world has decided that that was wrong. ...more