Labor in America: a history. - book reviews

Labor in America: A History, Fourth Edition

Prof. Melvyn Dubofsky of the State University of New York at Binghamton, has performed a noble service in bringing up-to-date the history of labor originally written by Foster Rhea Dulles.

As a result, this volume is the only comprehensive history of the labor movement that covers developments through 1982. The revision, therefore, enables the reader to relate the pressures of the current decade with the many crises faced previously by labor through its long history in America.

The strength of the Dulles-Dubofsky volume is its accessibility. Relatively short for such a comprehensive subject, the book is easily read and well-organized.

Everything is here from the earliest development of workers' attitudes in colonial days, through the different efforts to form national unions, the Knights of Labor and International Workers of the World, and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations.

Everything is told with sympathy and understanding for the struggle and conflict American workers have endured to build their democratic union structure.

COPYRIGHT 1984 AFL-CIO
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group