American Labor

Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker and Esquire This revelatory and inclusive book “unearths the stories of the people—farm laborers, domestic workers, factory employees—behind some of the labor movement’s biggest successes” (The New York Times) from independent journalist...

The world is filled with mixed messages about pregnancy. Popular books and well-meaning family and friends offer you unsolicited advice about what to expect and how to stay healthy - sometimes resulting in joy and excitement but other times leading to discouragement and fear. The Bible, too, has a lot to say about childbirth - offering real hope that nothing in this world can match.

Weaving together over 100 years of history with scenes from the contemporary landscape, Labor of Love offers a fresh feminist perspective on how we came to date the ways we do. This isn't a guide to "getting the guy". There are no ridiculous "rules" to follow. Instead Weigel helps us understand how looking for love shapes who we are and hopefully leads us closer to the happy ending that dating promises.

“Joyce Maynard is in top-notch form with Labor Day. Simply a novel you cannot miss.” —Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author of My Sister’s Keeper and Keeping Faith “Maynard has created an ensemble of characters that will sneak into your heart, and warm it while it breaks.”...

Jack London was born a working class, fatherless Californian in 1876. In his youth, he was a boundlessly energetic adventurer on the bustling West Coast - an oyster pirate, a hobo, a sailor, and a prospector by turns. He spent his brief life rapidly accumulating the experiences that would inform his acclaimed best-selling books The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and The Sea-Wolf.

“. . . a human and historical document of compelling interest.” — The Atlantic Powerful and inspirational, With God in Russia captures the heroic patience, endurance, and religious conviction of a man whose life embodied the Christian ideals that sustained him. While ministering in Eastern...

France, 1918. In the final days of the First World War, Pauline Deng runs away from her uncle’s home in Paris to evade a marriage being arranged for her in Shanghai. To prevent the union, she needs the help of her cousin Theo, who is working in the French countryside as a translator for the...

In this classic account, historian Philip Foner traces the radical history of black workers’ contribution to the American labor movement.

“A page-turning book that spans a century of worker strikes.... Engrossing, character-driven, panoramic.” —The New York Times Book Review We live in an era of soaring corporate profits and anemic wage gains, one in which low-paid jobs and blighted blue-collar communities have become a...

From the acclaimed author of Like a Mother comes a reflection on the state of caregiving in America, and an exploration of mothering as a means of social change. The Covid-19 pandemic shed fresh light on a long-overlooked truth: mothering is among the only essential work humans do. In response...

A young girl forced to work in a Queens sweatshop calls child services on her mother in this powerful debut memoir about labor and self-worth that traces a Chinese immigrant’s journey to an American future. As a teen, Anna Qu is sent by her mother to work in her family’s garment factory in...

Crisis and Leviathan is Higgs’s masterwork on how government grows in size, scope, and power in response to real or imagined “crises.” From war to economic upheavals, government overreach endures long after each crisis has passed, impinging on civil liberties and fostering extensive...

From a prize-winning historian, a new portrait of an extraordinary activist and the turbulent age in which she lived Goddess of Anarchy recounts the formidable life of the militant writer, orator, and agitator Lucy Parsons. Born to an enslaved woman in Virginia in 1851 and raised in Texas-where...

Labor unions and courts have rarely been allies. From their earliest efforts to organize, unions have been confronted with hostile judges and antiunion doctrines. In this book, Julius G. Getman argues that while the role of the Supreme Court has become more central in shaping labor law, its opinions betray a profound ignorance of labor relations along with a persisting bias against unions.

The struggles and victories of the UAW form an important chapter in the story of American democracy. American Vanguard is the first and only history of the union available for both general and academic audiences.

There is an old world fading out with a new world coming in. This story represents where the two worlds meet. Steelworker, Geronimo 'Mo" Fields, is unexpectedly placed into leadership as a union steward and questions his future in the steel industry as he tries to deescalate tension between a supervisor and angry co-workers that want to strike while contract negotiations with the company are about to expire.

A feat of narrative reporting that grapples with familial understanding and conflict, and a parable for understanding the country’s current division, and how we got here—a gripping and powerfully relevant story for our moment. Meet the Joyners: a Southern family that reflects the schism at...

A moving and eye-opening look at the story of manufacturing in America, whether it can ever successfully return to our shores, and why our nation depends on it, told through the experience of one young couple in Maine as they attempt to rebuild a lost industry, ethically. From the...

A comprehensive history of school choice in the US, from its birth in the 1950s as the most effective weapon to oppose integration to its lasting impact in reshaping the public education system today. Most Americans today see school choice as their inalienable right. In The Choice We Face...

What We Mean by the American Dream investigates how we think about whether an individual deserves an opportunity, job, termination, paycheck, or fortune. Taussig looks into the fabric of American life to explore how various people, including dairy farmers, police officers, dancers, teachers, computer technicians, students, store clerks, the unemployed, homemakers, and even drug dealers got to where they are today and whether they earned it or not.